How AI is unearthing hidden scientific knowledge | Sara Beery
Ecologist and AI researcher Sarah Beery explains how vast ecological databases like iNaturalist contain far more information than simple species sightings, including individual identification, species interactions, vegetation, and food webs. She describes how her team at MIT built an AI-powered system called Inquire that lets scientists search millions of images using natural language queries to rapidly extract research-ready datasets, dramatically accelerating ecological discovery. The talk closes with a call for widespread citizen participation in data collection to help build a more complete, actionable picture of life on Earth and support conservation in the face of the biodiversity crisis.
The army of autonomous robots restoring nature | Tom Chi
Impact investor Tom Chi challenges the popular belief that economic growth must come at the expense of nature, arguing instead that the economy is physically a subset of the ecology because everything is ultimately mined or grown. He quantifies the scale of current extraction and describes how outdated industrial processes damage ecosystems, then presents three key shifts: closing material loops through advanced recycling, transforming agriculture with regenerative practices and AI-guided breeding, and using robotics for large-scale restoration on land and underwater. Through concrete examples-from battery recycling and adaptive crops to mangrove-planting drones and a low-cost coral and seagrass-planting robot-he illustrates how modern technology can actively repair ecosystems while supporting a resilient future economy.
How to see (and stop) deforestation from space | Tasso Azevedo
Land reformer Tasso Azevedo describes how the MapBiomas Network turns decades of satellite imagery into detailed, legally robust land-use maps to expose and curb deforestation in Brazil and other tropical regions. By integrating high-resolution imagery, property registries, and protected area data, the project has dramatically increased enforcement against illegal deforestation, redirected finance away from destructive operations, and supported a wide range of environmental and social applications. The talk also highlights successful action against illegal gold mining and outlines plans to expand this collaborative mapping approach to cover most of the world's tropical forests.
These AI devices protect nature in real time | Juan M. Lavista Ferres
Host Elise Hugh introduces a TED talk by Juan M. Lavista Ferres about how a new AI-enabled device network called Sparrow can transform conservation work. Lavista Ferres explains how conservationists currently rely on slow, labor-intensive data collection and shows how Sparrow uses solar power, edge computing, and satellite connectivity to process images and sounds in real time. He describes how this system can automatically identify individual animals, analyze acoustic biodiversity, detect wildfires early, and drastically shorten the time between data collection and action, potentially making the difference between species survival and extinction.
3 tips to make your world beautifully wild | Isabella Tree
Host Elise Hu introduces environmentalist and conservationist Isabella Tree, who shares how rewilding-allowing nature and animals to restore ecosystems-can be done not only on large estates but also in ordinary gardens and urban spaces. Tree describes the transformation of her family's debt-ridden, intensively farmed land into a thriving, biodiverse rewilding project through free-roaming animals and habitat change. She then offers three practical tips for rewilding any green space and concludes with examples of urban rewilding and the mindset shift required to embrace messier, less controlled landscapes.
Selects: How Extinction Works
Josh and Chuck explain how extinction works, distinguishing between slow background extinctions and rare but catastrophic mass extinction events. They walk through the history of scientific ideas about extinction, the Big Five mass extinctions in Earth's history, and evidence that we are likely entering a human-driven sixth mass extinction. The episode also touches on de-extinction efforts, ecological cascades from species loss, and a listener letter about how interrogation settings can make innocent people appear guilty.