Constant Wonder
Stay in tune with our phenomenal world. Join us for explorations of science, art, history, and more. We're on a quest to find awe and wonder in all nature—human or wild, vast or small. Encounters that move us beyond words. Hosted by Marcus Smith, Constant Wonder is a production of BYUradio.
- Update frequency
- every 7 days
- Average duration
- 50 minutes
- Episodes
- 190
- Years Active
- 2021 - 2025
The Fine Art of Laid-Back Hard-Core Fasting
Amidst the annus horribilis that was 2020, New York-based writer John Oakes sought to exorcise some of his own inner noise and "automaticity" by doing a week-long liquid-only fast. He liked it so wel…
00:51:52 |
Wed 12 Jun 2024
A Hopeful Marriage, Despite Incurable Cancer
When Christian Wiman and Danielle Chapman met and married, life seemed charmed and the horizon calm. But within a year, Christian was diagnosed with a rare, incurable blood cancer, and their life vee…
00:53:59 |
Wed 05 Jun 2024
Stories of Adventure from the Bear Man of India
He's known as the "Bear Man of India" for his work rescuing sloth bears from inhumane conditions "dancing" on the streets. His obsession with helping animals began early in his life, when he'd spend …
01:01:34 |
Wed 29 May 2024
Finding God in the Movies
This week we bring you a very special feed drop. Our host, Marcus Smith, appears as a guest on the podcast "The[ART]ology: Finding God in the Movies." In this episode, Marcus describes how the Consta…
00:33:55 |
Wed 22 May 2024
Family Embraces "Dad 2.0" After Traumatic Brain Injury
After Tod O'Donnell suffers a traumatic brain injury, his filmmaker son, Tim, documents his recovery and his advocacy for others. The family embraces "Tod 2.0," a more fearless, more open version of …
00:54:12 |
Wed 15 May 2024
Sheer Delight in Indestructible Microscopic Worms
Explore the hidden world of nematodes. These tiny—less than one millimeter long—organisms are everywhere in the soil, some as plant parasites, others as pest predators. With 57 billion nematodes in t…
00:54:14 |
Wed 08 May 2024
FEED DROP: Curator's Choice at Luray Caverns
While we're busy working on Season 8 of the Constant Wonder podcast, we're pleased to bring you an episode from a podcast we think you'll love. In Curator's Choice, Ayla Sparks goes behind the scenes…
00:44:07 |
Wed 17 Apr 2024
Glimmers of Awe: The Fascinating World of Fireflies
Facing the loss of her Elkmont cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains—a family treasure for five generations—Lynn Faust began to pay more attention to the fireflies there, the "light show," as the family…
00:54:30 |
Wed 03 Apr 2024
Love and Loss and Elephants
Businesswoman Françoise Malby traveled the world for work, until a chance encounter in a London tube station changed her life. Within a year, she'd quit Paris for South Africa, where she and her part…
01:01:28 |
Wed 27 Mar 2024
One Man's Quest to Restore A Beloved American Tree
Emmett Hoops was seven when he determined to help save the nearly extinct American chestnut tree. He's 64 now, but his hope and passion are unabated. In this episode of Constant Wonder, you'll meet E…
00:53:38 |
Wed 20 Mar 2024
Shared Solitude: The Life-Changing Epiphanies of a Children's Writer
Though his life looked calm from the outside, Douglas Wood's undiagnosed ADHD and dyslexia dragged him down—until he received a personal letter from the famed wilderness writer Sig Olson. Olson's enc…
00:53:53 |
Wed 13 Mar 2024
Freediver Welcomes All to a World of Wonder
Raised in landlocked Soweto, Zandile Ndhlovu didn't have easy access to a pool or the ocean, and she grew up hearing tales of monsters lurking in rivers and the sea. When she was nearly 30, she went …
00:52:50 |
Wed 06 Mar 2024
From Emancipation to the Great Migration: A Family Journey
Born just after Emancipation, Anna Maria Threewitts and CG Garrett grow up to become pillars of their Black community. Their ten children must decide if they'll embrace their parents' high expectatio…
01:03:47 |
Wed 28 Feb 2024
Divine Discontent and the Unyielding Pursuit of Justice
When Freeman Hrabowski III first heard Martin Luther King speak in church, he was a 12-year-old math nerd trying to avoid getting hazed by the older kids. A week later, he, along with hundreds of oth…
00:49:05 |
Wed 21 Feb 2024
A Cartoonist Uses AI and a Pencil to Rediscover Lost Grandparents
New Yorker cartoonist Amy Kurzweil's efforts to connect to people in her own past led her to write and illustrate two graphic family histories. The first tells the story of her mother's mother, who e…
00:59:37 |
Wed 14 Feb 2024
Fleeing Iran and Finding His Way in America
When the secret police discover that a well-off Iranian doctor has converted to Christianity, she must flee the country with her two children, taking only what they can fit in a suitcase. Witness her…
01:03:24 |
Wed 07 Feb 2024
Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell
Turtles have amazing recuperative powers; when an injured turtle is given the right care and time to heal, it can often outlive its human rescuers—and possibly its rescuers' children as well. Acclaim…
00:51:28 |
Wed 31 Jan 2024
Owls and Awe
A foundling newborn owl on the brink of death was rescued by a passionate conservationist. After a couple years, she was released to the wild, where's she's lived a healthy life—she's even raised two…
00:53:27 |
Wed 24 Jan 2024
A Normal Childhood with Down Syndrome
When his daughter is diagnosed with Down Syndrome, an anthropology professor must test his commitment to the lesson that his field had long taught: that someone is different doesn't mean something is…
00:51:07 |
Wed 17 Jan 2024
Best of Constant Wonder 2023
Constant Wonder shares excerpts of three of our favorite episodes from 2023. We meet a family who discovered that their Nazi grandfather had actually aided the French resistance in WWII; we follow tw…
00:55:27 |
Wed 27 Dec 2023
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are the property of BYUradio. This content is not affiliated with or endorsed by eachpod.com.