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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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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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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