Hour 2 Naturalist BERNIE KRAUSE has spent forty years listening to and recording the natural world. He’s traveled the world, capturing the sounds of over fifteen thousand species and making four thousand hours of wild music – insect larvae, snapping shrimp, Algonquin wolves, coral reefs, baby vultures and crying beavers. And many of the animals [...]

Filed under: animals, author, environment, science, world |

Hour 2 What is in your chicken?  A new study found that chickens were eating feed containing a banned antibiotic and the active ingredients for pain relievers, antihistamines, and antidepressants. There’s been growing concern over the use antibiotics in animal farming. Close to three-fourths of all antibiotics are used for farm animals and this overuse, [...]

Filed under: business, economy, food, health, journalism, politics, science, technology |

Hour 1 In hundreds of U.S. neighborhoods, including several in Philadelphia and the surrounding area, the soil that children play in is contaminated by lead and other toxic metal particles once spewed into the air by factories that smelted lead. A 14-month investigation by USA TODAY’s investigative reporters, including our guest ALISON YOUNG, titled “Ghost [...]

Filed under: Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, environment, family issues, health, journalism, science |

Hour 2 When you think about tattoos, what comes to mind — snakes, hearts, flowers, Celtic knots, mermaids, or the name of a true love? Well, what if that true love is science?  It turns out a lot of scientists have inked their life’s passion on their bodies – a double helix on a leg, [...]

Filed under: arts, author, science |

Hour 2 In his controversial new book, “The Social Conquest of Earth,” which the acclaimed biologist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author presents as the capstone to his legendary career, EDWARD O. WILSON firmly and fundamentally breaks with a theory of evolution that he championed and helped establish as dominant. Wilson’s research leads him to argue that [...]

Filed under: animals, arts, author, culture, history, science, social issues |

Hour 2 Who hasn’t looked up at the dark, night sky and marveled at the enormity of the universe and wondered about those very first moments when it was all began. Astronomer CHRIS IMPEY has spent his career thinking about these kinds of questions. In his new book “How it Began: A Time Traveler’s Guide [...]

Filed under: Uncategorized, author, science |

Philadelphia’s Academy of Natural Sciences is celebrating its 200th birthday this year.  The renowned Academy is the oldest natural history museum in the Western Hemisphere. Its renowned collection of 18 million plants and animals includes dinosaur fossils collected by Thomas Jefferson, bird specimens and drawings from John James Audubon, herbs brought back by a Lewis [...]

Filed under: Philadelphia, animals, arts, author, culture, environment, history, science |

Hour 1 [REBROADCAST] Just over a hundred years ago, Roald Amundsen and four companions were the first human beings to stand at the South Pole. Using skis and dog sleds they beat Robert Falcon Scott’s British expedition by just a few weeks. Scott and his men reached the South Pole only to find Amundsen’s Norwegian [...]

Filed under: animals, author, environment, history, science, world |

Hour 2 The science and stories of premature babies, viable ever-earlier thanks to advances in medicine and technology but with medical challenges testing the limits of neonatology. Dr. ADAM WOLFBERG knows about these challenges intimately – he’s the father of a daughter born three months prematurely. He’s also a Tufts Medical Center obstetrician. In his [...]

Filed under: Philadelphia, author, family issues, health, medicine, parenting, science |

Hour 1 A new estimate the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests the rates for autism in American children is rising ever faster. Now, about one in 88 children in the United States has autism or a related disorder, with the rate for U.S. boys one in 54, almost five times the one-in-252 rate [...]

Filed under: Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, family issues, health, medicine, parenting, psychology, science, social issues |