Constant Wonder
Episodes
Sheer Delight in Indestructible Microscopic Worms
08 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Explore the hidden world of nematodes. These tiny—less than one millimeter long—organisms are everywhere in the soil, some as plant parasites, oth...
FEED DROP: Curator's Choice at Luray Caverns
17 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
While we're busy working on Season 8 of the Constant Wonder podcast, we're pleased to bring you an episode from a podcast we think you'll love. In Cur...
Glimmers of Awe: The Fascinating World of Fireflies
03 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Facing the loss of her Elkmont cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains—a family treasure for five generations—Lynn Faust began to pay more attention to...
Love and Loss and Elephants
27 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Businesswoman Françoise Malby traveled the world for work, until a chance encounter in a London tube station changed her life. Within a year, she'd q...
One Man's Quest to Restore A Beloved American Tree
20 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Emmett Hoops was seven when he determined to help save the nearly extinct American chestnut tree. He's 64 now, but his hope and passion are unabated. ...
Shared Solitude: The Life-Changing Epiphanies of a Children's Writer
13 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Though his life looked calm from the outside, Douglas Wood's undiagnosed ADHD and dyslexia dragged him down—until he received a personal letter from...
Freediver Welcomes All to a World of Wonder
06 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Raised in landlocked Soweto, Zandile Ndhlovu didn't have easy access to a pool or the ocean, and she grew up hearing tales of monsters lurking in rive...
From Emancipation to the Great Migration: A Family Journey
28 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Born just after Emancipation, Anna Maria Threewitts and CG Garrett grow up to become pillars of their Black community. Their ten children must decide ...
Divine Discontent and the Unyielding Pursuit of Justice
21 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Freeman Hrabowski III first heard Martin Luther King speak in church, he was a 12-year-old math nerd trying to avoid getting hazed by the older k...
A Cartoonist Uses AI and a Pencil to Rediscover Lost Grandparents
14 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
New Yorker cartoonist Amy Kurzweil's efforts to connect to people in her own past led her to write and illustrate two graphic family histories. The fi...
Fleeing Iran and Finding His Way in America
07 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When the secret police discover that a well-off Iranian doctor has converted to Christianity, she must flee the country with her two children, taking ...
Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell
31 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Turtles have amazing recuperative powers; when an injured turtle is given the right care and time to heal, it can often outlive its human rescuers—a...
Owls and Awe
24 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A foundling newborn owl on the brink of death was rescued by a passionate conservationist. After a couple years, she was released to the wild, where's...
A Normal Childhood with Down Syndrome
17 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When his daughter is diagnosed with Down Syndrome, an anthropology professor must test his commitment to the lesson that his field had long taught: th...
Best of Constant Wonder 2023
27 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Constant Wonder shares excerpts of three of our favorite episodes from 2023. We meet a family who discovered that their Nazi grandfather had actually ...
BONUS: Eat the Invaders
15 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When invasive plants and animals crowd out native species—and you just can't beat 'em—you might as well eat 'em! That's Joe Roman's argument. It's...
Eat, Poop, Die
08 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sixty years ago, the island of Surtsey was born of a volcanic eruption. It would've remained a bleak, barren place were it not for bird droppings whic...
Compassion in the Aftermath: Recovering from Horrific Hallucinations
01 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As a biology professor and a published writer, Steven Peck spent his entire life closely observing everything around him. But then his world was overt...
Book of Delights
25 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Poet and essayist Ross Gay talks about finding moments of wonder in everyday life. Wandering, finger painting, laundromats, bike riding, gardening, li...
Who Deserves to Be on Stage?
18 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Steven Melendez was introduced to ballet as a child living in a homeless shelter. After an international ballet career—during which he tried to down...
Going Blind With Vigor and Aplomb
11 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Leland figured out he was going blind when he began stumbling in the dark as a teenager. Using the then-nascent internet, he diagnosed himself ...
Working Through Profound Loss with Hope and Purpose
04 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When the two teenage children of a close-knit family are killed by a drunk driver, the grief-stricken parents turn to their Jewish community for suppo...
A Chinese-American Family's Quest for Inclusion
27 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When Ava Chin went looking for the father who had abandoned her family, she discovered the rich and complicated legacy of her Chinese immigrant relati...
Death-Defying Botanists Brave the Colorado
20 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1938, the raging rapids of the Colorado were still untamed and undammed when a pair of botanists from the University of Michigan captured the count...
TRAILER: Season 6 of Constant Wonder
06 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Join us for conversations that invite you to discover, explore, and engage with the wonders of the world around you. New episodes available Wednesdays...
More Love for a Big Lake That's Often Belittled
23 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Utah Lake has long had a poor reputation for being murky and prone to algal blooms, but efforts to save the once-endangered June sucker fish are bring...
The Never-bored Naturalist Who Plumbed the Ocean Depths
16 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Exploring deeper in the ocean than anyone before him—into the dark depths of the sea where no ray of sunlight reached—William Beebe saw shocking l...
Family Discovers That Nazi Grandfather Aided French Villagers
09 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Karl Gönner was a Nazi, and his family didn't ask a lot of questions about that time in his life. But after his death, they came to find out, in a mo...
Dreams and the Deep Mysteries of the Unconscious Mind
02 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Barely 20 years ago, there was little scientific consensus on the purpose of sleep. Now, there is broad agreement that sleep and dreams are where the ...
The Search for a Lost Jewish Community
26 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Stella Levi, age 100, grew up on the island of Rhodes in a community of Sephardic Jews who had lived there for over 500 years. She survived the Italia...
The Batman of Mexico (and the World!)
19 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ever since "Dracula," bats have been seen as terrifying threats that carry disease. They're actually essential to our agriculture and industry. In thi...
Discovering Both Reverence and Humor in Dying
12 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Christopher Clark always had a sharp sense of humor. But when he was diagnosed with ALS and gradually became paralyzed, he also refined and shared a s...
Finding a Personal Place in the Wild World
05 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A young field biologist, whose peripatetic childhood left her feeling rootless, searches for a sense of home in some of the world's wildest places. Sh...
Fear and Wonder in the Natural World
31 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Lyanda Lynn Haupt's mission is to connect people with nature in their everyday lives. In her own life, that's led to sitting in the dark alongside a m...
In Uganda, Healthy Communities Make for Healthy Wildlife
24 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
People living on the edge of African nature preserves can pass their diseases to gorillas living there. In this episode of Constant Wonder, a wildlife...
Making Peace in the Wolf Wars
17 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel Curry had had recurring dreams about wolves, long before he chose to devote his career to helping them. After working with captive wolves for s...
Rough Sleepers: A Doctor's Quest to Help the Homeless
10 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, meet Dr. Jim O'Connell, a tireless physician who has spent nearly four decades caring for the unhoused population of Boston. We'll al...
A Family Crosses the Color Line
03 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As a young White girl in Ohio, Rachel Jamison had imagined what life was like for her pioneer ancestors, and she peppered her grandparents with questi...
My Father's Brain: A Doctor Reckons With Alzheimer's
26 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Prem Jauhar was a world-class agricultural scientist—an inspiration to his son Sandeep, our guest, who became a cardiologist. When the elderly fathe...
Getting Giddy in the Quiet World of Plants
19 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Get to know BBC personality and naturalist Mike Dilger, from his passion for birds and wildlife, to his adventures in the cloud forests of Ecuador. In...
The Funky, Fragile World Beneath Your Feet
22 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As a young woman from the East Coast, Sasha Reed had never been camping before when she was introduced to the Arizona desert by her future husband. Sh...
The Dust Within Us
15 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1863 on the South Dakota frontier, a Lakota Indian elder and a US army colonel had a tense and deadly encounter. They could not have known that the...
Dreams Before Dying
08 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dying patients often profess to see deceased loved ones around them in the days and weeks before they pass. So often that hospice care doctor Chris Ke...
A Real-Life Indiana Jones Discovers Shackleton's Lost Ship
01 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The apex of marine archaeologist Mensun Bound's stellar career happened a year ago this week, when the expedition he spearheaded found Ernest Shacklet...
Blue Mind: Finding Emotional Healing in Water
22 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Being in and around water heals us emotionally. Water "evangelist" J Nichols shares his insight and his personal "water stories," when water has inspi...
Experiencing Awe in Tragedy
15 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dacher Keltner has been a leading researcher on the subject of awe for nearly 20 years. It’s hard to improve upon his description of the phenomenon:...
Anxiously Ever After: A Father Faces Mental Illness With Humor
08 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Meet Clint Edwards, a man whose hilarious honesty has brought hope and laughter to his readers in the New York Times, Washington Post, and on his popu...
Elephants Hear With Their Feet – Infrasound, Part II
03 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Constant Wonder presents the second of a two-part episode on "infrasound," or sound that lies below the threshold of human hearing. Infrasound can exp...
When Volcanoes Whisper – Infrasound, Part I
01 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This is the first of a two-part episode on "infrasound," or sound that lies below the threshold of human hearing. Infrasound can warn of impending dan...
Snorkeling Right in Your Own Backyard (Practically)
25 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
If snorkeling seems like something you can only do on a tropical vacation, think again. In this podcast episode, we meet a river snorkeling guide who ...
Storyteller Kevin Kling, A Life of Humor and Humility
11 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Storyteller Kevin Kling has overcome trauma and learned to live with disability, without ever losing sight of the hilarious–even in the horrible. We...
Saving Wild Sounds
04 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
If you've never stopped by the side of the trail to listen to a beetle larvae chewing on a pine tree, or to the sound of the woodpecker looking for th...
Magic In Neglected Spaces: Reaching People with Bookmobiles, Micro-museums and Street Mosaics
30 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What good is a library or a museum if you can't get to it? In this episode of the podcast, Constant Wonder introduces innovators who bring inspiration...
Can Iceland's Elves Save the Planet?
23 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Meet an Icelandic woman who speaks to (and for) elves. Her efforts led to a famous compromise over a highway construction project in Iceland that woul...
Uncovering Archaeology's Hidden Treasures . . . Out of Desert and Ice
16 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In three decades at National Geographic, Ann Williams has been an eyewitness to some of the greatest archaeological treasures of the last century. She...
Advocating for Sharks and Other "Scary" Creatures
09 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From a young age, Rachel Graham was interested in all kinds of marginalized animals, from snakes to bats. But when she went on a dive trip and experie...
ARCHIVE BONUS: Life As an Astronaut
02 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Astronaut Terry Virts experienced a juxtaposition of the sublime and the mundane, sensing God while floating weightless, fixing cables outside his spa...
Mysterious Tattoo Reunites Korean Adoptee With Birth Family
26 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Korean adoptee Sara Jones went looking for her birth family, she wondered if a strange tattoo given to her in childhood could unlock any secrets....
A Pediatric Neurosurgeon Shares Stories of Triumph and Resilience
19 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Neurosurgeon Jay Wellons performs the most delicate surgeries on the traumatized brains of children, where every cut and stitch has life-changing cons...
From the Streets to Symphony Hall: The Improbable Backstory of a World-Class Tuba Player
12 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A story of human triumph: A young child is rescued from life on the streets, fostered, and mentored. He chases a dream to play classical music, and no...
ARCHIVE BONUS: The Hidden Life of the Deep Ocean
05 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The abyss of the deep sea is anything but lifeless!
Black Paramedics Find an Ally in a Young White Female Doctor – Freedom House, Part II
28 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Part 2 of our Freedom House story involves the racial politics of saving lives in the late '60s and early '70s, a norm-shattering young White female d...
America's First Paramedics Were Black Pioneers in Pittsburgh – Freedom House, Part I
21 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Paramedics haven't always raced to the scene of an emergency. Before 1966, if you called for help to get to the hospital, you might get a police car, ...
A Humble Farmer Walks the Globe and Meets the World's Elite
14 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
One day in 1901, a young farmer from Croatia set out on a walk. Decades later, he was still walking, had traversed six continents, and had stood face-...
BONUS: Fabric: History Hidden in Plain Sight
07 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The history of fabric is the history of life and death on this planet.
This Party's Dead
31 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In some cultures, the dead are regularly exhumed and carried about in celebration. Why, in the West, are we so much more somber about death and dead b...
How Can You Reforest the Desert Without Planting a Single Tree?
24 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Tony Rinaudo arrived in Africa optimistic that his tree-planting efforts would reverse the damages of deforestation and drought. His efforts failed ab...
Have You Heard the Buzz? Why We Need Pollinators
17 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Have you heard the buzz about pollinators? Bees, butterflies, wasps, and even some flies live fascinating lives and play critical roles in our ecosyst...
ARCHIVE BONUS: Pho-nomenal!
10 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An exploration of delectable foods and the people who make them: Pho is delicious and nutritious, one of the best comfort foods. Learn some tips for m...
Where Is Hope? Towns Rebuild Their "Lifescapes" After Disaster Strikes
03 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When widespread disaster strikes, survivors lose not just their homes and belongings, they also can lose their "lifescape": their relationships with t...
Summer Shorts: Adventure Stories
27 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Travel with us to otherworldly places, both beautiful and strange. You may never get to see these places in person, but we'll take you there: volcanoe...
The Sun Can Heal the Planet
20 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Brilliant Planet, founded by an enthusiastic dreamer who has always believed in the power of photosynthesis, borrows a simple process from nature to p...
What Makes a City Great? Featuring: Top of Mind
13 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Constant Wonder is giving listeners a sneak peak of another BYUradio show, Top of Mind. Millions of Americans move each year in search of a better h...
Power Struggles in the Peaceable Kingdom, Part II
08 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Adam Nicolson went looking for tranquility and reflection when he built tide pools along Scotland's harsh coastline. He found plenty to reflect on, bu...
Power Struggles in the Peaceable Kingdom, Part I
06 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
There's plenty of warfare in animal kingdom, even within a species: battalions of mongooses square off against each other, hermit crabs evict each oth...
The Unfinished Story of America's Anthem
29 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A true national anthem isn't set by law: it's chosen by the people, often emerges out of conflict, and its meaning shifts over time. All of that and m...
Tomatoes That Leave Earth Behind
22 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This greenhouse in the Utah desert seems to be right out of science fiction, where yummy tomatoes grow without soil and produce for nearly an entire y...
A Passion for the Past
15 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"The past is never dead," wrote William Faulkner. "It's not even past." Ron Coddington was a young boy at a flea market one Saturday, when he stumbled...
Body, Soul & Memory: What would you do with a lock of George Washington's hair?
08 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An old friend of Benjamin Franklin always regretted not having asked the founding father if he could taxidermize his body. He thought Franklin might h...
Downton Shabby
01 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Meet the improbable rescuer of a dilapidated English manor house: Hopwood DePree, a Hollywood producer having a mid-life crisis. He'd heard rumors abo...
ARCHIVE BONUS: The Dressmakers of Auschwitz
25 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Auschwitz, twenty-five Jewish slaves used their sewing skills to survive the Holocaust. The Upper Tailoring Studio, run by the commandant's wife, H...
It's Complicated: Our Fraught Relationships with Animals
18 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why do some cultures object to dogs the way that we object to rats? And why do we object to rats? Simon Barnes says they're our brothers. We explore w...
Superplants vs. Superbugs
11 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
After losing a leg as a toddler and struggling with repeated infections, Cassandra Quave became obsessed, even as a young child, with preventing infec...
Animal Duets
04 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Clarinet duets with laughing thrushes, nightingales, whales and cicadas. Philosopher and ornithologist David Rothenberg poses the question: do birds m...
Roots of Belief Featuring: The Apple Seed
27 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Constant Wonder is giving listeners a sneak peak of another BYUradio show, The Apple Seed. In this episode, a musician and a couple of actors take unl...
BONUS: Our Animal Superpowers (Extended Version)
22 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Extended version of our conversation with Jackie Higgins.
Our Animal Superpowers
22 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Meet the crustacean that packs the biggest punch in the animal kingdom and the river-dweller that could be called a "swimming tongue." We investigate ...
Street Vet
20 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
He walked the streets in secret, a veterinarian in his off-hours, looking to help the pets of the homeless. Now his work in the subject of the tv show...
Mockingbirds
13 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Darwin hated peacocks because he couldn't explain their excess beauty. He likely would have hated mockingbirds for the excessive complexity of their s...
Sprouting a Seed That Survived the Roman Siege
06 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This seed could symbolize the resilience of an entire people. Atop a lonely desert fortress near the Dead Sea, a Judean date seed lay inert for over 2...
To Rescue an Animal, You've Got to Think Like One
30 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Giraffes don't like to swim, so how do you get them off an island that's flooding? How do keepers feed a violent, orphaned baby elephant that's been t...
Living Boldly with Blindness
25 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Daniel Kish was a toddler, he got around. One night he climbed out of his window and made his way over multiple chain link fences, but the neighb...
The Real Batman
23 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel Kish is blind and he navigates the world kind of like a bat—making clicking sounds with his mouth and, from the echoes he gets back, building...
Our Team
16 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Larry Doby, Sr., became the second Black player in the MLB, and his home run during the '48 World Series turned the series around for the Indians. Beh...
Flavor: More Than a Matter of Taste
09 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We examine why flavor is our "most neglected sense" and we meet a restaurant owner who, in the spirit of the fictional "Babette's Feast," is spreading...
The Inside Story of How an Orphaned Baby Orca Got Home
02 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When a two-year-old baby orca lost her mother, rescuers in Washington State and Canada rallied to get her home to her grandmother and extended family....
Egyptomania and the Rosetta Stone
23 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
With a hint of magic and the lure of buried wisdom, Ancient Egypt has, like a mysterious and powerful magnet, for millennia pulled on the collective i...
Sea Connections Everywhere, with Craig Foster, Sy Montgomery, Helen Scales, and Luke Harris
16 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mollusks cultivate underwater gardens, cuttlefish become invisible, and tiny fish run spas for predators. Meanwhile, some ingenious humans work to pro...
When the Sky Dances
09 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When a comet crashes into Jupiter, the first to see it are amateurs at the Vatican Observatory in Rome, who can't restrain themselves from shouting an...
Cancer Survivorship
02 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A cancer survivor dispels the myths and stigmas of cancer survivorship. Nancy Frates, co-creator of the ALS ice bucket challenge, explains how the mov...