Animal Health

Brown bears lead deeply cyclical lives. They need to gain sometimes hundreds of pounds during the warmer months to prepare for winter hibernation, a lifestyle that brings them into frequent contact with many other species’ cycles. In this episode, we meander through the Alaska peninsula with a bear and her cubs as she teaches them to hunt salmon at the falls, dig for clams along the coastal mudflats, and use the regional rubbing tree.

Humpback whales are among the most intelligent animals on Earth. Some scientists believe they might even surpass humans in self-awareness, empathy, and communication skills. In this episode, we swim with a whale as he teams up with other humpbacks to use bubbles to catch fish, rescues a sea lion, and puts his own spin on melodies sung by whales across the Pacific Ocean. This is the world in its natural state, defined by seasons, routines, and cycles. By the time this whale is ready to close one eye and go to sleep, you will be too.

The sun sinks over the Rio Grande, the mountains around it glow orange, and the world slows down. The Mexican free-tailed bats inside the Jornada Cave are just starting to stretch and murmur. In this episode, we visit the nursery where all the baby bats stay together, and we accompany a new mother as she journeys into the sky with the rest of her crew for a night of hunting bugs via echolocation.

Sloths are the slowest mammals on earth. They can hardly see. They live in rainforests among jaguars, pumas, and countless other predators. Yet they survive. And they do it by being so incredibly slow, and living a life covered in algae. In this episode, we hang with a sloth in the jungle of Costa Rica as he spends a month digesting one single leaf, and we see the symbiosis and collaboration that surrounds him.

Dung beetles might sound dirty, but the ancient Egyptians believed their god took the form of a dung beetle to roll the morning sun across the sky every day. In this episode, we roll with dung beetles around the world as they push their precious dung—often in balls many times larger than they are—over Florida pastures, Armenian highlands, and the vast South African savanna.

Crows have long been the subject of folklore, likely because they’re strikingly similar to humans, leading lives rich in personality, intelligence, and relationships. In this episode, we fly the streets of Seattle with a crow as she grooms her mate, delivers what appears to be a gift, and finally commutes miles away from her territory to gather and chat with thousands of other crows before it’s time to roost for the night.

Dogs are a familiar and comforting part of many of our lives. In this episode, we take a walk with a pet xoloitzcuintli, or Mexican hairless dog, as he greets his blocks by smell. Along the way, we learn the backstory of squirrels in U.S. cities and observe the very smart and clean neighborhood raccoon.

Elephants are the largest land animals in the world. They are also intensely social and have advanced long-term memories. In this episode, a parade of Asian elephants makes its way through the Sri Lankan forest to a lake for drinks and mud baths, stopping periodically for group naps. The female leading the parade uses infrasonic rumbles—inaudible to humans, but traveling as far as two miles along the surface of the Earth as seismic waves—to invite friends and family around the forest to join her at the reservoir.

Parlez-vous Doggish? At long last, dogs will know just how smart their owners can be. By unlocking the secrets of the hidden language of dogs, psychologist Stanley Coren allows us into the doggy dialogue, or "Doggish", and makes effective communication a reality. Drawing on substantial research in animal behavior, evolutionary biology, and years of personal experience, Coren demonstrates that the average house dog can understand language at about the level of a two-year-old human.

Fennec foxes’ ears can be up to half as long as their bodies. They use them to track movement across the Sahara Desert, including under the sand. In this episode, we follow a fox as he meanders home to his family through the sand dunes as they slowly shift with the wind.

De Waal reviews the rise and fall of the mechanistic view of animals and opens our minds to the idea that animal minds are far more intricate and complex than we have assumed. De Waal's landmark work will convince you to rethink everything you thought you knew about animal - and human - intelligence.

Since the 1987 publication of Diet for a New America, beef consumption in the United States has fallen a remarkable 19 percent. While many forces are contributing to this dramatic shift in our habits, Diet for a New America is considered to be one of the most important. Diet for a New America is a startling examination of the food we currently buy and eat in the United States and the astounding moral, economic, and emotional price we pay for it.

Are men literally born to cheat? Does monogamy actually serve women's interests? These are among the questions that have made The Moral Animal one of the most provocative science books in recent years. Wright unveils the genetic strategies behind everything from our sexual preferences to our office politics - as well as their implications for our moral codes and public policies.

Platypuses are mammals unlike any other on earth. They lay eggs, ooze milk through their skin, and can sense electricity. In this episode, we travel with a platypus as he moves through his nightly routine on the island of Tasmania. He uses electroreceptors to hunt underwater and does a synchronized swimming courtship ritual with his mate, who then digs a burrow 40 feet deep into the riverbank to nest.

With unequaled insight and brio, David Brooks, the New York Times columnist and bestselling author of Bobos in Paradise, has long explored and explained the way we live. Now, with the intellectual curiosity and emotional wisdom that make his columns among the most read in the nation, Brooks turns to the building blocks of human flourishing in a multilayered, profoundly illuminating work grounded in everyday life.

Here is a guide to understanding the profound connection in animal/human relationships and its potential for mutual healing. Providing tools to identify our animals’ messages more quickly, the author shows how our pets’ higher purpose is to help people understand themselves.

This charming little tale, with a gigantic heart, was written by E.B. White, best-known for the perennial favorite Charlotte's Web.

In this landmark book of popular science, Daniel E. Lieberman—chair of the department of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University and a leader in the field—gives us a lucid and engaging account of how the human body evolved over millions of years, even as it shows how the increasing disparity between the jumble of adaptations in our Stone Age bodies and advancements in the modern world is occasioning this paradox: greater longevity but increased chronic disease.

A quarter of a century after her memoir, Thinking in Pictures, forever changed how the world understood autism, Temple Grandin—the “anthropologist from Mars,” as Oliver Sacks dubbed her—transforms our awareness of the different ways our brains are wired. Do you have a keen sense of direction, a love of puzzles, the ability to assemble IKEA furniture without crying? You are likely a visual thinker.

Renowned social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson take a compelling look into how the brain is wired for self-justification. When we make mistakes, we must calm the cognitive dissonance that jars our feelings of self-worth. And so we create fictions that absolve us of responsibility, restoring our belief that we are smart, moral, and right - a belief that often keeps us on a course that is dumb, immoral, and wrong. Backed by years of research and delivered in energetic prose, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) offers a fascinating explanation of self-deception.