All Episodes

Ep. 75: Perched between the ocean and the sound in Nags Head, completely dominating the narrow sliver of land that makes up part of North Carolina’s Outer Banks, is a monumental sand dune, a mountain of lush golden sand. This dune system, known as Jockey’s Ridge, is somewhere around 4,000 years old and can reach heights of over 100 feet. It’s majestic, it’s miraculous, the tallest living sand dune on the east coast, a unique ecosystem home to a myriad of coastal creatures, a

Ep. 74: Polio has been around since ancient times. A 3,500 year old ancient Egyptian stele depicts a priest with the telltale paralysis, withering of his right leg and foot. Reports of polio dot the pages of medical journals here and there starting in the 18th century. But really, it was a very quiet disease for most of history, affecting few people and raising little alarm. It wasn’t until the 20th century that polio began to appear among the masses, terrifying epidemics, a

Ep. 74: Dr. William Poole was travel weary. He had journeyed most of the day, over land and water and land again, all the way from Elizabeth City. As he approached the ramshackle Nags Head fishing cottage his spirits sank further, all hope of payment whipped away in a salty gust that rattled the windows and sent a rusty weathervane spinning with a squeal. He paused when they reached the shack and sighed. His daughter, Anna, shot him a look that clearly said “payment or no pay

Ep. 72: “I was fifteen years old when the Khmer Rouge came to power in April 1975. I can still remember how overwhelmed with joy I was that the war had finally ended. It did not matter who won. I and many Cambodians wanted peace at any price. The civil war had tired us out, and we could not make much sense out of killing our own brothers and sisters for a cause that was not ours. We were ready to support our new government to rebuild our country. We wanted to bring back that

Ep. 71: When you think of someone being poisoned, it’s not pretty. You’re likely picturing someone gagging, retching, they are violently ill, their eyes bloodshot perhaps, maybe they fall to the floor, begin to convulse. In a matter of minutes, they are dead, foamy spittle trickling from the corners of their mouth while horrified dinner guests look on in shock. That’s being poisoned, right? But what if there was a poison that could be ingested discreetly, without all the dram

Ep. 70: There is a plant that grows in the tropics. Broad, shiny green leaves, clusters of bright red berries. It’s fairly unassuming. But inside those berries there is a seed, a seed that most refer to as a bean. And when that bean is roasted and crushed and steeped in hot water, something extraordinary is created - coffee. And if it sounds like I’m being overly dramatic, I’m not. Coffee may seem like an innocent breakfast beverage to accompany your bacon and eggs, a mid aft

Ep. 69: George Washington - most of you know him as America’s first president, Revolutionary War hero, founding father, face of the one dollar bill, chopped down a cherry tree, wooden teeth, real man’s man if you know what I mean. I think that’s all most people know or think they know about him. But the cherry tree thing, that never happened. The wooden teeth? They weren’t made of wood. I don’t think many people actually know George Washington’s story - who he was, what he di

Ep. 68: Elias Stadiatis broke through the surface of the clear turquoise water, his heavy copper and brass helmet and canvas diving suit challenging the natural buoyancy of the salty Mediterranean Sea, threatening to pull him back down. Adrenaline pumping, he fought his way to the boat where his fellow divers helped pull him aboard. The year was 1900 and these men were searching for natural sponges near the tiny island of Antikythera, between Crete and mainland Greece. But th

Ep. 67: This episode is about science and that probably seems like a pretty tame topic. Scientists aren’t typically dramatic characters. They certainly aren’t action heroes or depraved villains. They’re nerds, right? Nerds holed up in laboratories examining things with magnifying glasses and microscopes. Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope were paleontologists, scientists, nerds. Together they discovered over 130 new dinosaur species, including Allosaurus, Stegosaur

Ep. 66: In November of 1867 Jefferson Davis, former president of the Confederate States of America, staggered into the courthouse in Richmond, Virginia. He knew this room well. Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy and this very courthouse had served as its headquarters. The courtroom he now stood in was their old war room. He could still see the walls plastered with maps in his mind. His men huddled as they strategized, planning their next attack. Davis himself had use

Ep. 65: I feel like I spend half my life doing laundry. I’ll sit down to fold a basket of clothes, it doesn’t look too bad, it’s barely even full. But then I start folding, and folding, and folding, and I realize this is actually like five baskets of clothes, they’re all just miniature. Tiny toddler sized shirts take up hardly any room in the laundry basket but they’re just as hard to fold as an adult sized shirt, harder even. I complain “ugh, I don’t wanna.” My husband reall

Ep. 64: “She is certainly one of the proudest and cruelest women on the face of the earth, and her whole history is a record of bloodshed and deeds of horror,” wrote explorer Ida Pfeiffer in reference to Ranavalona I, Queen of Madagascar, in 1857. Ranavalona is one of the least known and yet most notorious female rulers in history. She’s been called “Ranavalona the Cruel” and the “Mad Queen of Madagascar.” Limited reports of her reign, coming mostly from the Christian mission

Ep. 63: The Nazca valley stretches between the southern coast of Peru and the Andes mountains in South America. It’s one of the driest places on Earth with an incredibly unique landscape. These desert plains, called pampas, go on for miles with very little vegetation. Here, the lighter colored desert floor is covered with loose, darker colored rocks and sediment. It truly looks like a different planet. But this unique landscape - darker colored rocks on top of a lighter color

Ep. 62: Say you have strep throat. It hurts, it sucks, but it’s no big deal really. You go to the doctor, they prescribe you an antibiotic, you take it, good to go in like 24 hours. But what if I told you strep throat, now easily curable with antibiotics, may have been a death sentence less than 100 years ago? Before the discovery of antibiotics in the first part of the 20th century, extremely common bacterial diseases and infections were a leading cause of death, restraining

Ep. 61: When I was probably 14 years old, some close friends of mine found a litter of kittens in the woods. They had been feeding the mother who, though technically feral, was tame enough to stop in for a daily meal. Roxy, that’s what they named her, would come by to eat and then stalk back into the woods behind the empty lot next door. They began to think of her as their cat, their pet, and they became curious about where she kept disappearing to. She always seemed to head

Ep. 60: March 28, 1841, Boston, Massachusetts, Dorthea Dix clutches a bible in one hand and a travel worn briefcase in the other. She glances up at the intimidating brick facade of the East Cambridge Jail as she approaches. A former teacher, now retired thanks to some timely inheritance money, Dorthea has agreed to teach Sunday School to the female convicts housed within. This is a jail so she’s expecting, of course, to find criminals serving sentences for breaking the law. W

Ep. 59: Hawaii sits 2,400 miles away from the United States mainland, its nearest major landmass. 2,400 miles, making it the most isolated population center on Earth. With beautiful beaches, lush vegetation, and comfortable year round temperatures, Hawaii is the quintessential island paradise. Just hearing the word paradise is enough to evoke visions of palm trees, hula dancers, and hibiscus flowers. Its earliest inhabitants had discovered a true utopia when they pulled their

Ep. 58: From crusty French baguettes to Mexican corn tortillas, Indian naan to Greek pitas, bread is one of the most universal foods. Every country in the world enjoys some form of bread. But bread is so much more than a tasty international food staple. Its significance throughout history is profound. Often thought of as a gift from the gods across cultures, it’s a measure of one’s value as a human, one’s ability to eat, to survive. This importance can be seen in a myriad of

Ep. 57: Marilyn Monroe is an iconic figure across time and space. Few celebrities have captured the public’s attention spanning as many generations as Marilyn. Mention her name to a 90 year old or a 9 year old and they will likely both be familiar, immediately evoking images of platinum blonde curls, beauty marks, and that white dress, flapping in the updraft of a New York City subway grate. But did you know, despite this familiarity, despite being almost universally known, n

Ep. 56: The word cannibal probably first brings to mind an island of savage tribesmen ripping men limb from limb to roast and consume in some sort of barbaric tribal ritual. Maybe your mind goes instead to the depraved serial killer sort of Cannibal, the Hanibal Lecters. Or legions of undead Zombies, arms outstretched, jaws unhinged, desperate to sink their rotting teeth into the living. Whatever comes to mind, it’s dark. Cannibalism, or more specifically, anthropophagy, the