Overheard at National Geographic

In the basement of National Geographic’s headquarters, there’s a lab holding a secret tech weapon: Tom O’Brien. As Nat Geo’s photo engineer, O’Brien adapts new technologies to capture sights and sounds previously never seen or heard before. In this episode, originally published in June 2021, O’Brien leads us on a tour of his lab as he designs and builds an underwater camera and shows us some of his favorite gadgets—including a camera lens that flew over Machu Picchu in a blimp, a remote camera he designed for the film Free Solo, and a piece of gear known simply as the “funky bird train.”

For more information on this episode, visit natgeo.com/overheard.

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See National Geographic's Pictures of the Year and our five picks for Photographers of the Year. To capture one of the year's best pictures—an encounter with elephants in Gabon—O'Brien outfitted a photographer with 1,100 pounds of custom gear.

Our photographers capture millions of individual frames per year. In a previous episode of Overheard, Nat Geo's deputy director of photography breaks down the process to select only the best images.

See photographs mentioned in this episode, including wolves captured by a gnaw-proof camera, sage grouse as seen by the funky bird train, and a cheetah running in super slow motion. Want to see what goes on in Nat Geo’s photo engineering lab? Follow Tom O’Brien on Instagram @mechanicalphoto. And learn more about Tom’s predecessor, Kenji Yamaguchi, who held the job for more than 30 years.

Also explore:

Learn more about Jacques Cousteau, who pioneered scuba gear, brought the oceans to life, and jolted people into environmental activism.

And hear more about beavers and how they shape the world on a previous Overheard episode, “March of the Beaver.”

If you like what you hear and want to support more content like this, please consider a National Geographic subscription. Go to natgeo.com/exploremore to subscribe today.

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Bringers of plague, schleppers of pizza slices, garbage gobblers. Rats have adapted over the millennia to survive and thrive in human company, much to our amazement and (often) disgust. But love them or hate them, our past and our future is bound up with these little hustlers. For more information on this episode visit nationalgeographic.com/overheard

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Read Emma Marris's magazine story on how rats have become a global, inescapable part of city life.

Yes, rats really can wriggle up toilets. Learn more about their "ninja" skills.

Rats can remember who's nice to them, and return the favor, reports a study on their surprisingly complex social behavior.

Also explore:

Are rats really to blame for the Medieval "black death" plagues? These scientists have a different theory.

Rats remain a popular food in Vietnam. Learn why.

If you like what you hear and want to support more content like this, please consider a National Geographic subscription. Go to natgeo.com/exploremore to subscribe today.

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One of National Geographic's writers was hard to pin down for a while. That's because she was in Sudan, scuba diving underneath a pyramid. We had so many questions for her-especially once she shared with us that the contents of the pyramid could fundamentally change what we understand about ancient Egypt's 25th dynasty. For more information on this episode visit nationalgeographic.com/overheard

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Read Kristin Romey's piece, and watch a video of what it's like to go scuba diving under a pyramid at Nuri.

Learn more about the Kingdom of Kush in what is now Sudan, a rival to ancient Egypt awash in gold and power.

Also explore:

Read about the mysterious void discovered in Egypt's Great Pyramid.

Learn how illegal tomb raiders are stealing the world's history.

Watch: Ancient Egypt 101

If you like what you hear and want to support more content like this, please consider a National Geographic subscription. Go to natgeo.com/exploremore to subscribe today.

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There's a humpback whale song sensation that's sweeping the South Pacific. We'll learn about the burgeoning study of "whale culture"-and why these super smart cetaceans may have a lot more in common with us than we'd ever imagined. For more information on this episode visit nationalgeographic.com/overheard.

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Meet National Geographic Photographer Brian Skerry, and see examples of his work beneath the waves.

Read Ellen Garland's original paper on whale song transmission, and listen to the humpback audio recordings that helped her piece this phenomenon together.

Here's the backstory behind those whale songs you heard at the top of the show, from Roger Payne's Songs of the Humpback Whale.

Also explore:

Sperm whales in the Caribbean form clans that have their own unique dialects-and thus culture.

Video: Off the coast of Argentina, seasoned killer whales hunt sea lion pups.

Whale song recordings off Hawaii have revealed a strange series of deep beats almost inaudible to humans.

An unusual number of humpback whales are dying along the U.S. East Coast, and scientists are racing to figure out why.

If you like what you hear and want to support more content like this, please consider a National Geographic subscription. Go to natgeo.com/exploremore to subscribe today.

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The 4,500-year-old Stonehenge attracts hordes of tourists—and massive congestion. To alleviate traffic, the British government is considering a plan to build a tunnel near the monument, but historians and modern Druids alike are concerned that the development could damage artifacts critical to understanding the ancient stone circle.

For more information on this episode, visit natgeo.com/overheard.

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Did you know that some pieces of Stonehenge may have come from even older artifacts? Take a look at our article on the subject.

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Now that you’ve heard about Alice Zoo’s and Reuben Wu’s photography, want to see it for yourself? Check out Alicezoo.com and ReubenWu.com.

For subscribers

We only scraped the surface when it comes to Stonehenge. Roff Smith wrote a piece for the August issue of the magazine that digs into the ancient past of the site as well as its modern issues, and you can read more about how Reuben captured the spirit of the world heritage site using a drone. Also, through this interactive graphic, visit Stonehenge in 2500 B.C. to learn more about how and why the mysterious circle was built.

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