Hi everyone, this is Allie. Today we are rebroadcasting our mega plastic episode.

Our plastic episode is both the episode that we're most proud of and the episode that took the longest to make, even longer than the Redwoods.

We're replaying this episode now because we just found out that one of the people we interviewed for this episode, Dr. Jenna Jambach, was named as one of the 25 MacArthur

Genius Grant recipients for 2022. The MacArthur Fellowship honors people who meet three things. First,

they have to be exceptionally creative. Two, they have to have a track record of significant

accomplishments that shows promise that they're going to do something really great

in the future. And three, the money they receive from the fellowship has to have the potential

to make more creative work in the future. We think Dr. Jambeck meets all of these requirements,

and we're so excited that she was one of the recipients this year. Her work on plastic pollution

in the oceans is both

really important and has the potential to make really great change. And, you know, who knows,

maybe one day one of you listeners at home will be a MacArthur Foundation winner too. We have a

lot planned for the podcast in the next few weeks. Do you ever read those weird but true books? They're

really interesting. The kids and I both really enjoyed them. We spoke to one of the authors of those

books, Julie Beer, about her new book that's coming out and all sorts of animal trivia that's found

in there. It's sort of like a weird but true, but just about animals. It's really cool. We'll be

releasing that episode in the next few days,

and then we have an episode coming out before the end of the month, just in time for Halloween,

about rats. For that episode, we'll be telling you some cool and creepy rat facts, and we spoke

with Dr. Monica Green. She is a historian who studies The Plague. We talk about rats' role

in spreading one of the most deadly contagions of all time. And just to keep it creepy,

that is also called the Black Death. But for now, we hope you learn a lot and get lots of

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