Wonder Cabinet
Wisconsin Public Radio
Wonder Cabinet is an independent podcast from Anne Strainchamps and Steve Paulson, Peabody Award-winning creators of public radio's To The Best Of Our Knowledge. For 35 years, that show brought long-form conversations to 200+ stations nationwide; its interviews are now archived in the Library of Congress.
Episodes feature intimate, long-form conversations with scientists, philosophers, writers, and artists who are re-imagining our relationship with the planet. Some study black holes or quantum entanglement; others map mycelial networks or count ancient tree rings. And some explore dream worlds, myths, and fairy tales to revive ways of knowing that challenge what we think we understand about the nature of reality.
The name references Enlightenment-era cabinets of curiosities—private collections of shells, fossils, astronomical instruments, and saints' relics that existed at a moment when the scientific revolution was still in conversation with older ways of knowing the world. Today, another shift is taking place, as mechanistic models give way to more holistic, relational understandings of life on a sentient planet. Wonder Cabinet lives at that threshold.
About the hosts
Anne Strainchamps and Steve Paulson co-founded To The Best Of Our Knowledge. Steve hosts Luminous, a podcast about the science and philosophy of psychedelics, and is the author of Atoms and Eden.
Learn more at wondercabinetproductions.com.
Location:
Madison, WI
Description:
Wonder Cabinet is an independent podcast from Anne Strainchamps and Steve Paulson, Peabody Award-winning creators of public radio's To The Best Of Our Knowledge. For 35 years, that show brought long-form conversations to 200+ stations nationwide; its interviews are now archived in the Library of Congress. Episodes feature intimate, long-form conversations with scientists, philosophers, writers, and artists who are re-imagining our relationship with the planet. Some study black holes or quantum entanglement; others map mycelial networks or count ancient tree rings. And some explore dream worlds, myths, and fairy tales to revive ways of knowing that challenge what we think we understand about the nature of reality. The name references Enlightenment-era cabinets of curiosities—private collections of shells, fossils, astronomical instruments, and saints' relics that existed at a moment when the scientific revolution was still in conversation with older ways of knowing the world. Today, another shift is taking place, as mechanistic models give way to more holistic, relational understandings of life on a sentient planet. Wonder Cabinet lives at that threshold. About the hosts Anne Strainchamps and Steve Paulson co-founded To The Best Of Our Knowledge. Steve hosts Luminous, a podcast about the science and philosophy of psychedelics, and is the author of Atoms and Eden. Learn more at wondercabinetproductions.com.
Twitter:
@TTBOOK
Language:
English
Contact:
6082625263
Website:
https://www.ttbook.org/
Email:
jim.fleming@wpr.org
Episodes
Farewell from TTBOOK
9/27/2025
You listened on car trips and overnight flights, in tents and canoes, kitchens and living rooms. You shared our love of ideas, our search for wonder, our curiosity and our belief in the future. Now, after 35 years, it’s time for us to say goodbye. In this hour, Anne talks with TTBOOK’s producers about some of their favorite interviews and why public radio is such a powerful medium.
Music in this hour was provided by the Aurora Principle, AurbanniAudio, Kai Engel, and Tom Blain.
Original Air Date: September 27, 2025
Interviews In This Hour:
Anne says goodbye and Steve reflects on Jane Goodall — Shannon Henry Kleiber on the poetry of the human voice — Angelo Bautista on going beyond skin deep — Charles Monroe Kane on intelligent optimism
Guests:
Anne Strainchamps, Steve Paulson, Shannon Henry Kleiber, Angelo Bautista, Charles Monroe-Kane
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Duration:00:52:02
Retreat from the Day-to-Day Life
9/20/2025
Sometimes the world is just too much. Too much awful news, too many things to worry about, too much to do. When you can’t take another headline, can’t handle another email, when you know inside you need something deeper than a vacation — maybe it’s time for a retreat.
Original Air Date: January 18, 2025
Interviews In This Hour:
Pico Iyer’s second home — A plant scientist explores her interior wilderness
Guests:
Pico Iyer, Monica Gagliano
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Categories: retreat, silence, darkness, meditation, quiet
Duration:00:51:55
Giving Up
9/13/2025
We get the message before we’re out of training pants – when the going gets tough, look on the bright side, make lemonade out of lemons and just do it. We’re going to consider the exact opposite – the wisdom of giving up and letting go. Because sometimes, the strongest and most courageous thing you can do is walk away.
Original Air Date: April 27, 2024
Interviews In This Hour:
The boundary-breaking power of fasting — How do we know when to call it quits? — Escaping the tyranny of certainty
Guests:
John Oakes, Adam Phillips, Maggie Jackson
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Duration:00:52:02
Deep Time: Reclaim the Night
9/6/2025
The longest nights of the year are here, but how many of us will see them? The global spread of light pollution is making it harder to experience dark skies and natural darkness. Learning how to reconnect with the planet’s ancient nocturnal rhythms can be profoundly restorative. Nature writers and darkness activists tell us what we’re missing.
Deep Time is a series all about the natural ecologies of time from To The Best Of Our Knowledge and the Center for Humans and Nature. We'll explore life beyond the clock, develop habits of "timefulness" and learn how to live with greater awareness of the many types of time in our lives.
Original Air Date: December 21, 2024
Interviews In This Hour:
Listening to the song of the night — Adjusting our eyes to wonders of the nocturnal world
Guests:
Sam Lee, Leigh Ann Henion
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Duration:00:51:44
Island of Knowledge: Human Flourishing
8/30/2025
Can we scale up human flourishing? We know meditation can reduce stress and ease symptoms of depression, but the benefits don’t have to stop there. Some scientists believe just a few minutes of mindfulness practice every day could make entire cities healthier and happier.
Original Air Date: August 30, 2025
Interviews In This Hour:
Can we boost happiness on a city-wide scale? — How music becomes our collective medicine — Healing trauma takes time. Can we speed up psychotherapy?
Guests:
Richard Davidson, Dalal Abu Amneh, Diana Fosha
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Duration:00:51:42
The Sum of Our Data
8/23/2025
Every click on your computer, every swipe on your smartphone, leaves a data trail. Information about who you are, what you do, who you love, the state of your mind and body… so much data about you, expanding day by day in the digital clouds. The question is—do you care? Would owning your data, or having more digital privacy, make life better? And what happens to all that data when you die?
Original Air Date: November 22, 2024
Interviews In This Hour:
A former child test subject seeks the data that shaped her life — In an age of surveillance, do you still care about your privacy? — When you die, what will happen to your data?
Guests:
Susannah Breslin, Lowry Pressly, Carl Öhman
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Duration:00:51:48
To All The Dogs We've Loved
8/16/2025
The bond we share with dogs runs deep. The satisfaction of gentle head scratches or a round of playing fetch is simple and pure, but in other ways, the connection we have is truly unknowable. How do dogs make our lives better? How do they think? And how do we give them the lives they deserve?
Original Air Date: February 05, 2022
Interviews In This Hour:
Adventure, goofiness and trail snacks: Stories from the dog musher's journal — Getting inside the mind of a dog — Nothing makes losing a dog easy. But a bridge dog can help. — Joy and peace, high up on Dog Mountain
Guests:
Blair Braverman, Quince Mountain, Donna Haraway, Sarah Miller
Further Reading:
Pet Loss Resource Center: Resources for animal loss and grief
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Duration:00:51:54
In Search of 'Real' Food
8/9/2025
What makes food "authentic"? Do we need to feel close to where it's made? Know the complete history of where it comes from? Be able to diagram the chemistry of how it dances along our taste buds? How can we quantify the romance between eaters and the food they love?
In this hour, we talk about what it means to truly love what you eat and drink — and we ask why it matters.
Original Air Date: June 30, 2018
Interviews In This Hour:
The Frightening Sameness Beneath Hundreds of Flavors — A Little Grammy, A Little Bubbe: A Writer Embodies Family History Through Food — Anyone Can Cook—With the Right Elements — Does 'Selling Out' Make a Difference You Can Taste? — Two Dishes, Two Tastings: A Dinner Party with Simran, Michael, Samin and Josh
Guests:
Simran Sethi, Samin Nosrat, Michael Twitty, Josh Noel
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Duration:00:52:11
Playing with Words
8/2/2025
Sometime in the last couple of years, America’s collective morning routine shifted. We used to start the day with coffee. Now it’s coffee and Wordle. Or Spelling Bee. Or both, plus the crossword. We’re living in a golden age of word games – which is fun, and one way to get just a tiny bit of relief when the world feels out of control.
Original Air Date: November 09, 2024
Interviews In This Hour:
Getting into the puzzle mindset — Welcome to my crossworld
Guests:
A. J. Jacobs, Anna Shechtman
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Duration:00:51:54
Writing the Climate Change Story
7/26/2025
One of the toughest things about trying to understand climate change – arguably the most important story of our time — is wrapping our minds around it. To even imagine something so enormous, so life-changing, we need a story. Some characters, a metaphor, and even some lessons learned. For that, we turn to the novelists and journalists telling the story of climate change – as we – and our children – live it.
Original Air Date: August 14, 2021
Interviews In This Hour:
The Climate Change Stories We Need To Hear — The Climate Crisis Gets Biblical — Lidia Yuknavitch’s Dream World: How Dreams Shaped Her Dazzling Speculative Novel — A Climate Dystopia Of Cold, Concrete, Wind and a Wall
Guests:
Alice Bell, Lydia Millet, Lidia Yuknavitch, John Lanchester
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Duration:00:52:02
Deep Time: The Tyranny of Time
7/19/2025
When you’re on the clock, you’re always running out of time – because in our culture, time is money. The relentless countdown is making us and the planet sick. But clock time isn’t the only kind. There are older, deeper rhythms of time that sustain life. What would it be like to live more in tune with nature’s clocks?
Deep Time is a series all about the natural ecologies of time from To The Best Of Our Knowledge and the Center for Humans and Nature. We'll explore life beyond the clock, develop habits of "timefulness" and learn how to live with greater awareness of the many types of time in our lives.
Original Air Date: June 03, 2023
Interviews In This Hour:
How time came to rule our lives — and how we might free ourselves — The past and future of keeping time
Guests:
Jenny Odell, David Rooney
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Duration:00:52:02
Island of Knowledge: What is Life?
7/12/2025
Life is the sum total of the time between birth and death. But have you ever really wondered, what is life? It’s mysterious - and even science doesn’t quite have an answer. But there’s a new biology of life that’s overturning decades of assumptions. We report from a gathering of biologists, geologists and artists at the Island of Knowledge in Tuscany.
Original Air Date: July 12, 2025
Interviews In This Hour:
Why we need a new theory of life — Beyond the genome: A new science of life — How humans can learn to be animal
Guests:
Marcelo Gleiser, Bob Hazen, Phil Ball, Melanie Challenger
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Duration:00:51:54
Everyday Magic
7/5/2025
What would it be like to live in a world where magic is still alive? Not weird, not woo-woo, just ordinary. 400 years ago, consulting a magician in downtown London was as unremarkable as calling a plumber today. Even now, there are places where magic never died – like Iceland, where 54 percent of the population believes in elves, or thinks they might exist.
Original Air Date: October 12, 2024
Interviews In This Hour:
Why do Icelanders believe in elves? — Deborah Harkness uncovers the real history of witches — Practical magic and the 'cunning folk' of Tudor England
Guests:
Nancy Marie Brown, Deborah Harkness, Tabitha Stanmore
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Duration:00:51:55
Cultivating Wonder
6/28/2025
Do you ever feel like there’s something missing in your life? You don’t know exactly what it is. And there’s never enough time to really think about it. You might get a glimpse of it if you slow down, or look deeply at something (or someone), or remember some childhood joy. What if that thing you’re missing is a sense of wonder?
Original Air Date: March 18, 2023
Interviews In This Hour:
A sense of wonder through the eyes — and ears — of a child — What goosebumps, tears and grief can teach us about being awestruck — Finding sacred meaning through poetry
Guests:
Lulu Miller, Dacher Keltner, Jennifer Michael Hecht
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Duration:00:52:01
How Should We Tell Our History?
6/21/2025
America is in the midst of a new debate over how we tell our history. You can see it everywhere – in arguments over critical race theory and AP history classes, in museums and state capitals, in the news and on talk radio. It’s fueled in part by an emerging generation of public historians who are re-shaping our national narratives.
Original Air Date: February 25, 2023
Interviews In This Hour:
Uncovering The Blind Spots In Historical Narratives — Columnist Jamelle Bouie on dispelling 'civic myths' with American history — How 'Praise Houses' Reclaim A Lost Piece of Black History
Guests:
Rund Abdelfatah, Ramtin Arablouei, Jamelle Bouie, Charmaine Minniefield
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Duration:00:51:52
Cult of the Self
6/14/2025
In the world of internet influencers and YouTube stars, it’s not enough to be ordinary anymore. You need to be special. But where did this craze for personal branding come from? Why are we so obsessed with ourselves? To understand this cult of the self, we need to go back to 19th century spiritual movements and the rise of the huckster — and also the myth of rugged individualism. But if we’re always shouting “Me me me,” what are we losing? What has it cost us?
Original Air Date: February 03, 2024
Interviews In This Hour:
If nobody sees you online, do you exist? — How personal branding became an American religion — Why rugged individualism is a dangerous myth — The philosophers who invented the modern self
Guests:
Angelo Bautista, Tara Isabella Burton, Alissa Quart, Andrea Wulf
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Duration:00:51:46
Deep Time: Infinity is Forever
6/7/2025
Contemplating the infinite is a time-tested way to shrink the present down to size. But if you think about it for very long, infinity can really mess with your mind. There’s something fundamentally paradoxical about it, and beautiful.
Deep Time is a series all about the natural ecologies of time from To The Best Of Our Knowledge and the Center for Humans and Nature. We'll explore life beyond the clock, develop habits of "timefulness" and learn how to live with greater awareness of the many types of time in our lives.
Original Air Date: June 07, 2025
Interviews In This Hour:
The glorious mathematics of infinity — Checking into the infinity hotel — Finding solace in the nature of space-time — The math and mysticism of Albert Einstein
Guests:
Jordan Ellenberg, Jon Halperin, Michelle Thaller, Kieran Fox
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Duration:00:52:04
Avian Obsessions
5/31/2025
It’s summer, and you might be pulling out your binoculars, filling your bird feeders, and looking up as you hear a melodious song. But for many birdwatchers, it's not just a simple pastime. Identifying bird calls, tracking rare breeds through marshes and waters, and watching our feathered friends as they watch you has turned into true love of birds — an avian obsession.
Original Air Date: June 17, 2023
Interviews In This Hour:
'Utterly unlike other birds': The inscrutable brilliance of owls — Mark Obmascik on Competitive Bird Watching — The Indelible Myth and Meaning of Ravens — Christopher Benfey on 'A Summer of Hummingbirds'
Guests:
Jennifer Ackerman, Mark Obmascik, Charles Monroe-Kane, Christopher Benfey
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Duration:00:51:53
In Your Dreams
5/24/2025
What’s the last dream you remember having? Some of us dream every night. But we’re in too much of a hurry to remember our dreams or think about them the next day. Others of us are dream-deprived. What if we embrace our dreams — and our night selves — as a way to understand ourselves better, to connect to each other, even to lead a better life?
Original Air Date: February 24, 2024
Interviews In This Hour:
The perils of a 'wake-centric' world — The lives we live inside our dreams — A dreaming mind, illustrated — Embracing your night self
Guests:
Rubin Naiman, Kelly Bulkeley, Roz Chast, Annabel Abbs-Streets
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Duration:00:51:58
Beyond Death
5/17/2025
Most of us have no idea what will happen when we die. But some do — people who actually started the process of dying and then came back with remarkable stories — like meeting dead relatives. Science is not only extending the lives of patients who’ve been declared clinically dead; it’s also beginning to tell us what happens in near-death experiences.
Original Air Date: September 21, 2024
Interviews In This Hour:
Sebastian Junger reckons with the possibility of an afterlife — How science is revolutionizing our ideas about life and death
Guests:
Sebastian Junger, Sam Parnia
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Duration:00:51:45