With the ongoing East African drought crisis, the persisting threat of global climate change, and the world population now estimated at 7 billion, global concerns about food insecurity are again in the news. Little mentioned, however, is the continuing loss of genetic diversity of the foods we eat today—a trend that has rapidly accelerated since the twentieth century and that raises troubling questions about the vulnerability of the world’s food supply. One attempt to maintain plant biodiversity has been the establishment of gene banks—giant vaults to store seeds collected from around the globe.

Poor Will's Almanack for the Second Week of Early Winter.

Several years ago, I took our two bulldogs out for a walk in the woods. It had snowed a few more inches over night, for a total of several feet in some places, and we were the first to navigate the path.

In this episode, host John Corker sits down with current first-year medical student and Radio Rounds staff member, Sam Roberto, as well as second-year medical student and students admissions committee member, Nick Hountras, to discuss the secrets to success in medical school admissions interviews.

Poor Will’s Almanack for the First Week of Early Winter.

My diaries have become timetables, lists of annual events in nature. The obsession with detail is sufficient in itself; it is a peaceful neurosis of record taking. But I often think the notebooks ought to be useful for something other than tracking the seasons.

Physicians have long been compared with detectives, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, was himself a physician. This episode features Dr. Jonathan Edlow from Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, author of "The Deadly Dinner Party" -- a collection of medical detective stories.

This is Bill Felker with Poor Will’s Almanack for the Final Week of Late Fall.

I always feel an excitement, a suspense in the last days of Late Autumn. What sometimes seems simply a graying or browning of the landscape is a shell or framework on which to weave new tapestries and textures.