The Natural Curiosity Project

The world is currently gaga over AI—artificial intelligence. It is a remarkable technology, with the potential to create remarkable opportunities in many fields in the coming years. It is, however, enormously powerful, and in my opinion, requires rigorous oversight and strong regulation. As I was thinking about the topic—something I find myself doing a lot—I began to think about the movie Jurassic Park, especially three quotes uttered by Ian Malcolm, the Chaos Theorist played by the inimitable Jeff Goldblum. I hope this episode makes you think. The quotes from Jurassic Park are used exclusively for education purposes and generate no revenue for the producer of this program. Jurassic Park is owned exclusively by the estate of Michael Crichton and by Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment.

This is part two of my series on soil ecosystem health. In this episode I’m in the Mad River Valley in central Vermont with ecologist Curt Lindberg, listening to the sounds of the soil in areas with and without invasive species present. The results are fascinating.

In 1942, Simon & Schuster, in partnership with Western Publishing, released a new book series for kids. The initial print run of one-and-a-half million books sold out in five months, including one of the initial twelve titles that became and continues to be the number one bestselling children’s book of all time in the United States. In this episode, we talk about that book series, and about the magic of books and reading.

I just finished reading my 83rd book of the year, Bernd Heinrich’s “The Common Uncommon.” Bernd is the author of many books about the natural world, including Mind of the Raven, Winter World, The Geese at Beaver Bog, A Year in the Maine Woods, and many, many others. Oh—he’s also a world record holder for ultra-marathon running: In 1983, he set an American record for a 24-hour run of 156 miles, 1388 yards in a race in Maine. A year later, he set an American record for running 100 miles in a little over 12 hours. And a year after that, he set the American track record of 7:00:12 for running 100 kilometers, in the process becoming the only American man to hold both the road and track American records for the same event. In fact, he wrote a book about running called Why We Run, which is fascinating. “The Common Uncommon,” the book I just finished, is all about curiosity, and it takes place in the woods surrounding his cabin in Maine, where much of his field research takes place. But as I was reading Bernd Heinrich’s book, I was also re-reading Karen Bakker’s book, “The Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology is Bringing Us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and Plants.” The two books together hit me hard.

A lot has been written about the ages of human existence, beginning with the Stone and Iron and Bronze Ages, then going all the way through to the Information Age. But I believe that there are actually more identifiable periods that aren’t talked about—13 of them in fact. In this episode, I’m going to talk about them and why I think they’re important. I’m also going to discuss how they relate to one another and what their contributions and liabilities have been.