How to Read a Tree

Courage is one of our most prized and celebrated virtues. But once you really start exploring it, the nature of courage is surprisingly hard to pin down.Here to help us explore the fascinating complications of courage is William Ian Miller, a historian, professor of law, and the ...  Show more

We tend to think of genius as something you’re born with — a rare trait possessed by the Einsteins and Teslas of the world. But what if many of the abilities we associate with genius — a great memory, quick problem-solving, mental math, creative insight — are actually trainable s ...  Show more

A talk to go with Episode 4, when Pan sees her first ever tree. Forest canopy cameraman and expert tree-climber James Aldred explains how trees can stay alive for centuries. Produced by Eliza Lomas and Becky Ripley. Don’t forget to take part in our Forest 404 Experiment to see ho ...  Show more

For much of history, tree canopies were pretty much completely ignored by science. It was as if researchers said collectively, "It's just going to be empty up there, and we've got our hands full studying the trees down here! So why bother?!"

But then, around the mid-198 ...

Trees have the remarkable ability to pass knowledge down to succeeding generations and to survive the ravages of climate change, if only we’d let them alone, according to the German forester Peter Wohlleben. In The Power of Trees (translated by Jane Billinghurst) he explains t ...

We love listener mail! You've sent us some amazing notes. Some made us laugh, some made us cry, and some made us say—hey, that’s a great question! We should answer it. So that’s what we did. This week, we dig into some of your questions about trees. What’s up with that tree-plant ...  Show more