David Marchese

After the break, I call Ed back, and we talk about how hummingbirds aren't as sweet as they seem.

Ed. Hello. Hi. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me again. Yeah, of course. You know, as I'm sure you're well aware, we're obviously in an era of increased skepticism toward scientific authority. And does the reality of that affect how you think about communicating scientific information with the public? Yeah.

Ed. Hello. Hi. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me again. Yeah, of course. You know, as I'm sure you're well aware, we're obviously in an era of increased skepticism toward scientific authority. And does the reality of that affect how you think about communicating scientific information with the public? Yeah.

Yeah. Do you think there's any way in which writing or doing journalism from almost what you could say is an explicitly moral place has any drawbacks? Like, do you think it's harder to be persuasive for those who might disagree with your ideas if your ideas are presented as sort of like morally correct or other ideas are morally incorrect?

Yeah. Do you think there's any way in which writing or doing journalism from almost what you could say is an explicitly moral place has any drawbacks? Like, do you think it's harder to be persuasive for those who might disagree with your ideas if your ideas are presented as sort of like morally correct or other ideas are morally incorrect?

Or implicating them somehow.

Or implicating them somehow.

Yeah. So, putting work aside, I think... one could very reasonably feel a sense of moral injury just as a result of living in the world right now. We can change our work situation, or at least try to, but changing the bigger problems is kind of beyond our scope.

Yeah. So, putting work aside, I think... one could very reasonably feel a sense of moral injury just as a result of living in the world right now. We can change our work situation, or at least try to, but changing the bigger problems is kind of beyond our scope.

Yeah. Now I would like to sort of wrench the conversation away from heavier topics. I just want you to tell me a really cool scientific fact that you learned about life on Earth while you were researching your next book. Something that gave you some delight.

Yeah. Now I would like to sort of wrench the conversation away from heavier topics. I just want you to tell me a really cool scientific fact that you learned about life on Earth while you were researching your next book. Something that gave you some delight.

That's Ed Yong. His most recent book is An Immense World. A version of that book for young readers will be published on May 13th. And he also has a newsletter called The Ed's Up, which features a lot of his photos of birds. This conversation was produced by Wyatt Orme with help from Seth Kelly. It was edited by Annabelle Bacon, mixing by Sophia Landman.

That's Ed Yong. His most recent book is An Immense World. A version of that book for young readers will be published on May 13th. And he also has a newsletter called The Ed's Up, which features a lot of his photos of birds. This conversation was produced by Wyatt Orme with help from Seth Kelly. It was edited by Annabelle Bacon, mixing by Sophia Landman.

Original music by Diane Wong and Marian Lozano. Photography by Devin Yelkin. Our senior booker is Priya Matthew, and our executive producer is Allison Benedict. Special thanks to Rory Walsh, Renan Barelli, Jeffrey Miranda, Nick Pittman, Matty Maciello, Jake Silverstein, Paula Schumann, and Sam Dolnik.

Original music by Diane Wong and Marian Lozano. Photography by Devin Yelkin. Our senior booker is Priya Matthew, and our executive producer is Allison Benedict. Special thanks to Rory Walsh, Renan Barelli, Jeffrey Miranda, Nick Pittman, Matty Maciello, Jake Silverstein, Paula Schumann, and Sam Dolnik.

If you like what you're hearing, follow or subscribe to The Interview wherever you get your podcasts. To read or listen to any of our conversations, you can always go to nytimes.com slash theinterview. And you can email us anytime at theinterview at nytimes.com. Next week, Lulu talks with Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey. I'm David Marchese, and this is The Interview from The New York Times.

If you like what you're hearing, follow or subscribe to The Interview wherever you get your podcasts. To read or listen to any of our conversations, you can always go to nytimes.com slash theinterview. And you can email us anytime at theinterview at nytimes.com. Next week, Lulu talks with Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey. I'm David Marchese, and this is The Interview from The New York Times.

That was the plan, but you changed location since we... Oh, that was two days ago with Vice President Vance, yeah.

That was the plan, but you changed location since we... Oh, that was two days ago with Vice President Vance, yeah.

Yeah, I'd never seen anything like it covering five presidents. And I would have to say that two things really jumped out at me. The first was that I think one of the reasons that Trump let this go on was that he thought that having the world's richest man talk about this cost-cutting move gave him some credibility. Huh. Musk or Trump? Who got the credibility?