Perhaps no other plant is as entwined with pain and pleasure as the chile pepper. But why does it burn—and why on earth do we crave that uncomfortable sensation? How did capsaicin's fungus-fighting, digestion-enhancing, and adrenaline-triggering powers convince early hunter gathe ...Show more
Salad Days: A Story of Science, Sexism, and Jell-O
If leafy greens and a little vinaigrette is salad, and chicken with mayo is salad, and vegetables in Jello-O are ALSO salad… What exactly is salad?! That's the big question we're tackling this episode—and it takes us down some unexpected rabbit holes. Listen in now to hear how ‘s ...Show more
Food is also what connects farming to human health and our natural environment. In this episode of The Science Behind Your Salad, we ask you to close your eyes and listen: the steady hum of bees, the deep boom of a rare bittern, and the people creating the future of the food on y ...Show more
In Machines We Trust: Real-Time Farming (Audio Postcard)
Who wants to take a walk around a California vineyard to explore how it’s deploying sensors and other forms of AI? Join us for a field trip as we do something a little bit different this week. We meet: Dirk Heuvel, vice president of vineyard operations, McManis Family Vineyards C ...Show more
Here is our next installment of a new pop-up podcast miniseries that takes your ears into the deep sound of nature. Host Jacob Job, an ecologist and audiophile, brings you inches away from a multitude of creatures, great and small, amid the sonic grandeur of nature. You may not b ...Show more