I’ve been a runner for as long as I can remember. And there’s always been a peaceful element to that sacred loneliness of the long distance runner. I’ve run tens of thousands of miles in the last three decades of training for everything from 1500m up to slow trudgery of the 100 miles. Regardless of the event, training is geared towards developing both the mental and physical strength to overcome the challenges of endurance events. Here we tackle the physical side, looking at how humans and animals cope with stresses like heat exhaustion, lactic acid build up, water loss, salt buildup, and more ..read more

Hey there fellow naturalists and runners. Teage O’Connor here, co-host of The Single Acorn. I’ve been training to break the 100 mile world record. During the hundreds of hours and thousands of miles I’ve been put in to reach this goal, I’ve had plenty of time to think about what it takes on the mental side to compete in endurance events. In this episode, Glenn guides us through the world of trance and meditation and we try to find some overlap between our two worlds. We also talk about the endurance of nesting small-mouth bass and migrating geese. This will be the last episode before my race a ..read more

I’ve been a runner for as long as I can remember. And there’s always been a peaceful element to that sacred loneliness of the long distance runner. In the last three decades I’ve run tens of thousands of miles while training for everything from the zippy 1500m up to slow trudgery of the 100 miles. Regardless of the event, training is geared towards developing both the mental and physical strength to overcome the challenges of endurance events. Here we tackle the physical side, looking at how humans and animals cope with stresses like heat exhaustion, lactic acid build up, water loss, salt buil ..read more

Hey there fellow naturalists. This is Professor Eweagey, co-host of The Single Acorn. I wanted to extend a very special and warm welcome to you all as this season is near and dear to my heart. The following episodes live at the cross section between my two greatest passions: natural history and running. In previous season, we’ve joked that it’s a fool who seeks to learn how to live by looking at the secret lives of wild creatures. But for this season we’re doing just that. We’re diving into the world of endurance. We’ll look at the challenges - both mental and physical - of prolonged physical ..read more

In a world where science has predicted 8.7 million eukaryotic species currently roam, humans have catalogued a mere 1.6 million. That leaves nearly 7 million sneaky little croutons hiding in the shadows... In the last year alone we’ve identified both the strange and the cuddly: an iridescent underground snake Achalinus zugorum; a parasitic, spider-eating wasp Actrotaphus, and the world’s tiniest and most criminally adorable raccoon, the olinguito. Seriously. You have to look it up. At least 14 new species have been named after a popular boy wizard and one luc ..read more

The ground thaws, the grass greens, and soon after a riotous flush of delightful yellows infuse our urban and suburban lawns with a warm and radiant joy. As much as many of us may try and fight the onslaught, the dandelion will forever be synonymous with our lawns. So why not sit back, grab a snack of dandelion fritters, take a sip of dandelion wine, and enjoy the show. This is the Single Acorn Podcast ..read more

It lurks in the darkest corners of your basement, lying in wait for an unsuspecting centipede or a wayward fruit fly to become entangled in its messy cobweb. The struggling pulses a telltale vibration and the nearly blind cellar spider pounces, quickly throwing a net of webbing and lashing down the most unfortunate guest. But the spider isn’t always one to wait - for dinner, perhaps, the long-legged spider sets out in search of an arachnid stalking its prey, taking down a black widow spider on its own turf. Their bio looks much like a Shakespearean tragedy: infanticide, aggressive mimicry, par ..read more

Gray squirrels: Cute as beans, clever as crows. These ubiquitous furry little denizens of urban parks are easy to overlook. And to misunderstand. In our latest profile of urban wildlife species, we look here at the eastern gray squirrel (and yes, that’s gray with “A”). It’s squirrel parasols, shrinking testicles, color vision, devious deception, swimming squirrels, and mass migrations. Welcome to the Single Acorn Podcast ..read more

Behold the humble opossum. Snout of a pig, tail of a rat, feet of a creepy baby. It’s hard to know what to make of the opossum at first blush. But on further inspection, well, it’s even harder. It’s the only marsupial representative that we have north of Mexico and I’m not sure it’s done much to endear people to these primitive mammals. On this episode we look at what makes this enigmatic beast tick and how the urbanization of America has allowed the lumbering ‘possum to expand its range, Welcome to the Single Acorn Podcast ..read more

“Wherever he goes, this winter, I will follow him. I will share the fear, and the exaltation, and the boredom, of the hunting life. I will follow him till my predatory human shape no longer darkens in terror the shaken kaleidoscope of colour that stains the deep fovea of his brilliant eye. My pagan head shall sink into the winter land, and there be purified.” So writes John Baker in his 1967 masterpiece The Peregrine. Here we pay homage to the fierce, enigmatic, and alluring predator from on high, Falco peregrinus. This is the Single Acorn Podcast ..read more