Overheard at National Geographic
Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episodes
Trapped in the icy waters of the Northwest Passage
11 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For centuries, the Northwest Passage, the long-sought sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through northern Canada, was a holy grail o...
Playback: Modern Lives, Ancient Caves
04 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
There’s a lost continent waiting to be explored, and it’s right below our feet. We’ll dig into the deep human relationship to the underground—...
Playback: This Indigenous Practice Fights Fire with Fire
27 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, the U.S. government evangelized fire suppression, most famously through Smokey Bear’s wildfire prevention campaign. But as climate chan...
Playback: Rooting, from Into the Depths
20 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
National Geographic Explorer Tara Roberts is inspired by the stories of the Clotilda, a ship that illegally arrived in Mobile, Alabama, in 1860, and o...
Playback: Ancient Orchestra
13 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sound on! From conch shells to bone flutes, humans have been making musical instruments for tens of thousands of years. What did prehistoric music sou...
Playback: A Skeptic's Guide to Loving Bats
06 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Blood-sucking villains. Spooky specters of the night. Our views of bats are often based more on fiction than fact. Enter National Geographic Explorer ...
How queer identity shapes Nat Geo Explorers
30 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why would a scientist brave the stench of a car full of rotting meat on a 120-degree day? What can a unique whistling language teach us about humans’...
A Mexican Wolf Pup’s Journey into the Wild
23 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For centuries, Mexican gray wolves roamed the Southwest. But as cattle ranches spread, wolves became enemy number one, and by the 1970s the subspecies...
Playback: Deep Inside the First Wilderness
16 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On assignment in the canyons of the Gila Wilderness, Nat Geo photographer Katie Orlinsky has a fireside chat with Overheard host Peter Gwin about tel...
She Sails the Seas Without Maps or Compasses
09 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For nearly 50 years, a group of Hawaiians have been sailing on traditional voyaging canoes using the methods that early Polynesian explorers relied on...
How Anne Frank’s Diary Survived
02 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Most people have heard the name Anne Frank, and many have read her diary, which details her and her family’s time spent in hiding during the German ...
The Dark Reality Behind India’s Festival Elephants
25 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Asian elephants have been captured and tamed by people in Southern Asia for thousands of years as war machines, beasts of burden, and part of religiou...
What Will it Take to Save the Savanna Elephant?
18 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As the CEO of WildlifeDirect, Paula Kahumbu has dedicated her life to saving space for wildlife to thrive in Africa and building healthy relationships...
The Woman Who Knows What Elephants Are Saying
11 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For almost 50 years, National Geographic Explorer Joyce Poole has been carefully watching the elephants of Kenya’s Amboseli National Park. Over that...
Exploring Ramadan and Earthlike Exoplanets
04 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Follow a day in the life of an astronomer searching for planets beyond our solar system as she explains how she observes Ramadan and celebrates her fa...
From the Frontlines to the Shorelines
28 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
National Geographic photographer David Guttenfelder is no stranger to dangerous situations. After graduating from college, he left his life in rural I...
Can You Picture That? This Photographer Can and Does
21 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Photographer Mark Thiessen, who’s worked on staff at National Geographic for over 30 years, likens his job to a Swiss army knife—versatile enough ...
Scenes from Nigeria's Baby Boom
14 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
With 224 million people, Nigeria is Africa's most populous country. By 2050, it could crack the global top three with some 375 million people. In the ...
What Women in China Want
07 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
There are more than 8 billion humans on Earth, according to the United Nations. And for decades, China has had more people than any other country. But...
The Soul of Music: Meklit Hadero tells stories of migration
28 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is part four of The Soul of Music—Overheard’s four-part series focusing on music, exploration, and Black history. Our guest this week...
The Soul of Music: Exploring Chief Xian's ancestral memory
21 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is part three of The Soul of Music—Overheard’s four-part series focusing on music, exploration, and Black history. Our guest this wee...
The Soul of Music: Sampa The Great returns to her roots
14 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is part two of The Soul of Music—Overheard’s four-part series focusing on music, exploration, and Black history. Our guest this week ...
The Soul of Music: Rhiannon Giddens excavates the past
07 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is part one of The Soul of Music—Overheard’s four-part series focusing on music, exploration, and Black history. Our guest this week ...
Introducing: The Soul of Music
02 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
National Geographic turns 135 in 2023. In February 2023, to celebrate exploration and commemorate Black History Month, National Geographic’s flagshi...
Unfolding the Future of Origami
31 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The future is bright for origami, the centuries-old art of paper folding. In recent decades, scientists, engineers, and designers have pushed origami ...
What Happens After You Uncover Buried History?
24 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The 1619 Project was a New York Times Magazine endeavor that explored the ways the legacy of slavery still shapes American society. The story exploded...
The People and Tech That Power Nat Geo
17 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Cameras that drop miles beneath the ocean surface. Handmade art that reveals the secrets of archeological sites and extinct animals. For 135 years, Na...
Meet an Imagineer Who Built a Wish
10 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Last summer, Disney Cruise Line released its fifth and most technologically advanced cruise ship yet: Disney Wish. We’ll meet Laura Cabo, a creative...
How Sharks Devoured My Career
03 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When Nat Geo Explorer Gibbs Kuguru was in college, he found himself trying to choose between two terrifying futures: going free diving with sharks off...
The Nurse Keeping Explorers Alive
27 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For 17 years, nurse Karen Barry’s office at National Geographic headquarters has served as an important stop for journalists, photographers, and exp...
What Science Tells Us About Living Longer
20 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Scientists are hard at work trying to understand what causes aging and how to help people stay healthy for longer. Biologist Matt Kaeberlein breaks do...
Presenting: ESPN's "Pink Card"
13 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today we bring you a high-stakes story from ESPN’s 30 for 30 Podcasts—a tale of women’s rights, history, and soccer. As Iranian women took to th...
The People Behind the Photography
06 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
National Geographic photographers seldom do their work alone, especially those who journey out to far-flung places. This week, we’re shining a light...
There’s a Bear in My Backyard
29 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sure, we love bears when they show up in books or cartoons. But what if one is outside our window? Human-bear encounters are becoming far more frequen...
Playback: The Real-Life MacGyver in Nat Geo's Basement
22 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the basement of National Geographic’s headquarters, there’s a lab holding a secret tech weapon: Tom O’Brien. As Nat Geo’s photo engineer, O...
Pictures of the Year
15 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Every year, National Geographic rolls the year into a collection of photos for its “Pictures of the Year” issue. It’s a mysterious process, and ...
Who Inspired Wakanda's Warrior Women?
08 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The fictional, fearsome, and all-female Dora Milaje in the movie Black Panther: Wakanda Forever were inspired by a real group of African warriors: the...
Wayfinding Through the Human Genome
01 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
National Geographic Explorer Keolu Fox grew up hearing stories about his ancestors, Polynesian navigators, and the men who in the late 1970s led the f...
Presenting: Greeking Out by National Geographic Kids
25 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
National Geographic Kids' Greeking Out is a kid-friendly retelling of some of the best stories from Greek mythology. This episode, "Akhenaten The Here...
The Hole Where King Tut’s Heart Used to Be
18 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
One hundred years since the discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb, archaeologists are still puzzling over the mysteries of his mummy. Why was he cove...
Exploring Pristine Seas
11 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
National Geographic Explorer in Residence Enric Sala quit academia to explore and protect the sea. On his journey to keep the ocean pristine, he has s...
What the Ice Gets, the Ice Keeps
04 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1915 Ernest Shackleton’s ship, Endurance, sank off the coast of Antarctica, stranding the crew on drifting sea ice. Shackleton’s desperate resc...
What You Do Counts
27 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Some of the most crucial countries in the global fight against climate change are in Latin America, and yet there are few resources on the crisis for ...
Searching for a Butterfly in a Conflict Zone
20 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Photographer Rena Effendi’s father, a Soviet entomologist, collected 90,000 butterflies in his lifetime. But there was one species he couldn’t cap...
A Man of the World
13 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Go behind the yellow border to meet the family that made National Geographic an American institution. Gilbert M. Grosvenor’s 60-year career followed...
Inside the Epic World of Bertie Gregory
06 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In a collaboration with National Geographic television, we follow 29-year-old adventurer and filmmaker Bertie Gregory on a nail-biting journey to some...
Playback: Why War Zones Need Science Too
30 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It’s a jewel of biodiversity, the so-called Galápagos of the Indian Ocean, and might also hold traces of the earliest humans to leave Africa. No wo...
The Problem With Superchickens
23 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Scientists recently discovered a fascinating paradox: when they bred together superproductive, egg-laying hens, they found the chickens produced fewer...
What It Takes to Keep America Beautiful
16 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The U.S. is home to some of the most beautiful, incomparable places on the planet, from the pristine Shi Shi Beach at the Makah Reservation in Washing...
The Triumph and Tragedy of Indian Independence
09 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When India and Pakistan gained their independence from Britain, a border was drawn between the two new countries. The split started a chain reaction o...
Frank Drake’s Cosmic Road Map
02 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Are we alone in the universe? It’s a question we’ve been asking for millennia. Now we’re on the cusp of learning the answer. Frank Drake—one o...
Playback: Amelia Earhart Part II: The Lady’s Legacy
28 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Amelia Earhart’s statue was recently unveiled at the U.S. Capitol, and for good reason: Her adventurous spirit had implications for women around the...
Harnessing the Power of Yellowstone’s Supervolcano
26 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
If a major eruption ever were to occur at Yellowstone’s “supervolcano,” the event could destroy huge swaths of North America. But in recent year...
Stonehenge Has a Traffic Problem
19 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The 4,500-year-old Stonehenge attracts hordes of tourists—and massive congestion. To alleviate traffic, the British government is considering a plan...
Do Shark Stories Help Sharks?
12 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Our obsession with sharks has generated folklore around the world for thousands of years. But a series of attacks at the Jersey shore in 1916 would fo...
How Black Climbers Are Closing the Adventure Gap
05 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ever since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Mount Everest, there has been a long list of firsts: the first ascent without suppl...
Playback: The Tree At the End of the World
28 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Deadly seas. Hurricane-force winds. A punishing journey to the tip of South America is all in a day’s work for Nat Geo Explorer Brian Buma. But Crai...
She Shoots, She Scores: Title IX Turns 50
21 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Meet Kari. Now meet the other Kari. One played college lacrosse in the 1980s; the other currently plays at the same school for the same coach. College...
This Indigenous Practice Fights Fire with Fire
14 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, the U.S. government evangelized fire suppression, most famously through Smokey Bear’s wildfire prevention campaign. But as climate chan...
Sonic Postcards From the Appian Way
07 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“All roads lead to Rome” was once more than a saying; it was a fact. The first of the great roads of ancient Rome, the Appian Way was the most im...
Restoring a Lost Sense of Touch
31 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Brandon Prestwood’s left hand was caught in an industrial conveyor belt 10 years ago, he lost his hand and forearm. Scientists are unraveling t...
Where in the World Is Jessica Nabongo?
24 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 2019 Jessica Nabongo, author of the popular travel blog The Catch Me If You Can, became the first documented Black woman to travel to every country...
Bringing the Dead to Life
17 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Thousand-year-old Peruvian queens and medieval murder victims may seem lost to time, but history “detectives” are on a mission to solve a mystery:...
The Greening of Pittsburgh
10 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When it comes to examples of cities that have successfully emerged from the industrial age into the information age, look no further than Pittsburgh. ...
Going Undercover to Save Manta Rays
03 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
After wildlife filmmaker Malaika Vaz stumbled upon manta ray poaching near her home in India, she disguised herself as a fish trader to find out who w...
Farming for the Planet
26 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How do you turn barren land into a complex working farm that reflects the planet’s biodiversity? Just ask John and Molly Chester, who traded city li...
The Secret Life of Plants
19 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How do you capture the image of a 150-foot-tall tree in the middle of a dense rainforest? If you’re National Geographic Explorer Nirupa Rao, you pul...
Solving the Mystery of the Boiling River
12 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As a boy growing up in Peru, Andrés Ruzo recalls his grandfather’s stories about the horrors Spanish conquistadores encountered in the Amazon, incl...
Turning Old Cell Phones into Forest Guardians
05 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when a tree falls in a forest and no one is listening? The sound starts with truck engines and chainsaws and ends with a small piece of f...
Queens of the High Seas
29 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Yo-ho, a pirate’s life for she! Legends of Blackbeard and movie buccaneers like Captain Jack Sparrow give us the impression that piracy was a man’...
First Ascent of a Sky Island
22 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the most remote part of Guyana, plateaus called tepuis—also known as sky islands for poking through the clouds—rise up from the jungle. They’...
Nowruz and the Night Sky
15 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Not everyone celebrates the New Year in the middle of winter; for 300 million people around the world, their New Year begins at the moment of the vern...
Amelia Earhart Part II: The Lady’s Legacy
08 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Behind her modest smile and windblown charm, Amelia Earhart was a rarity in the 1930s: a fiercely confident woman with a dream to fly. Her adventurous...
Amelia Earhart Part I: The Lady Vanishes
01 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ever since Amelia Earhart made her last radio transmission somewhere over the Pacific, theories about her disappearance have proliferated; more than 8...
Playback: The Battle for the Soul of Artificial Intelligence
22 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
With every breakthrough, computer scientists are pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence (AI). We see it in everything from predictive text ...
Summiting the World’s Most Dangerous Mountain
15 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
K2, a mountain in the Kashmir region of Asia, is the second highest peak on Earth and yet more dangerous than Mount Everest, especially in the winter....
The Wonders of Urban Wildlife
08 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
National Geographic Explorer Danielle Lee takes us on a tour of potential research sites around her home in the St. Louis area, sharing her passion fo...
The Price of Adventure
01 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Renowned mountaineer Alex Lowe had reached the summit of his career by 1999, scaling some of the planet’s most challenging peaks. Just a few months ...
The Arctic Story Hunter
25 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What’s it like to grow up underneath the aurora borealis, on the shores of the Arctic Ocean? Photographer Evgenia Arbugaeva describes leaving—and ...
Resurrecting Notre-Dame de Paris
18 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
National Geographic photographer Tomas van Houtryve documents the layered history and revival of one of the world’s most enduring landmarks, Notre-D...
Capturing the Year in an Instant
14 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We’ll sift through 2021 with Whitney Johnson, National Geographic’s director of visuals and immersive experiences, as she works on the “Year in ...
Descendants of Cahokia
07 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How did people create Cahokia, an ancient American Indian metropolis near present-day St. Louis? And why did they abandon it? Archaeologists are pieci...
Kenya's Wildlife Warriors
30 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the heart of the Serengeti, hippos bathe and hyenas snatch food from hungry lions. National Geographic Explorer of the Year Paula Kahumbu brings th...
The Gateway to Secret Underwater Worlds
23 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When Jacques Cousteau was young, an accident sent him on a path that led him to invent scuba, opening up the underwater world to humans. Today, explor...
Ancient Orchestra
16 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Sound on! From conch shells to bone flutes, humans have been making musical instruments for tens of thousands of years. What did prehistoric music sou...
When Family Secrets (And Soap Operas) Fuel Creativity
09 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
National Geographic photographer Diana Markosian tells us about her remarkable childhood and how her career as a photographer led her into the war in ...
Modern Lives, Ancient Caves
02 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
There's a lost continent waiting to be explored, and it’s right below our feet. We’ll dig into the deep, human relationship to the underground, an...
A Skeptic's Guide to Loving Bats
26 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Blood-sucking villains. Spooky specters of the night. Our views of bats are often based more on fiction than fact. Enter National Geographic Explorer ...
Playback: If These Walls Could Talk
05 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Social media is not just for modern folk. In this episode from the Overheard archives, we’ll look at how in ancient Pompeii, people also shared what...
Playback: The Frozen Zoo
28 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
San Diego is home to the world’s first frozen zoo—a genetic library where scientists are racing to bank the tissues and stem cells of disappearing...
The Guerrilla Cyclists of Mexico City
21 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Tired of waiting for the local government to build more bike lanes, a group of cyclists in Mexico City, the largest city in North America, took matter...
Venturing into the Heart of Manila
14 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
While growing up, Hannah Reyes Morales wasn’t allowed to venture out into the rough streets of Manila, but later her work as a photographer would ta...
Joel Sartore Wants to Save the Creepy-Crawlies
07 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Joel Sartore has been called a modern Noah for his work on the Photo Ark, a photography project with a simple mission: Get people to care that we cou...
Portraits of Afghanistan Before the Fall
30 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Twenty years since the 9/11 attacks and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban have once again seized power of the country. In the months leadi...
Lucy in the Sky With Asteroids
24 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How did the planets form? How did life happen? Where did Earth’s water come from? To answer questions like these, scientists used to go big—lookin...
Cracking Down on Cheetah Traffickers
17 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Cheetahs are in trouble. With just 7,000 left in the wild in Africa, populations have been in a continuous decline due to trophy hunting, habitat loss...
The Aztec: From Empire to AI
10 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
August 1521: Spain’s victory over the Aztec launches colonization of Mexico, but Aztec culture will survive for centuries through preservation and p...
Cooling Cities By Throwing Shade
03 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Trees provide much-needed shade for urban Americans on a hot day, but not everyone gets to enjoy it. New research illuminates how decades of U.S. hous...
Dive Deeper: Season 7 of Overheard
27 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Exploring the superpowers of sharks. Building shade for warming cities. Remapping the solar system. Investigating illegal cheetah trafficking. Join us...
Playback: The Glass Stratosphere
20 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson lead the charge for a new commercial space race, we revisit an episode from our archives: What if women...