Megan Cattel

Former Staff

Megan Cattel was a freelance digital producer for WBUR Podcasts.

Megan is a radio and print journalist currently based in New York City. She has written for Teen Vogue, SupChina, the Center for Public Integrity and more. Most recently, Megan produced podcasts for Foreign Policy.

Recently published

Ria Ibrahim Taylor, food-to-table manager of Soul Fire Farm, has been foraging her whole life. Recently, she's gained a social media following for posting her foraging finds online. She shows the Endless Thread team the do's and don'ts of foraging, which has exploded in popularity since the pandemic. She is kneeling by a bear tooth mushroom near her home in Albany, NY (Courtesy Megan Cattel)

Lessons learned while foraging: Take some, leave some for the next time around

Since the pandemic, foraging has exploded in popularity. Younger generations are embracing (or romanticizing) the great outdoors with trends like #cottagecore and #vanlife. But our Endless Thread team decided to...

Endless Thread

25:57Jun 16, 2023

A movie still from the 2007 film "The Bucket List" starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. (Courtesy Unsplash)

Oranges and Bucket Lists: What language can teach us about our world

This week on Endless Thread, we have two stories about etymology: the histories of the word “orange” and the term “bucket list.”

Endless Thread

27:50May 5, 2023

Evan Kail, the owner of SLP Gold and Silver, became the center of an international media frenzy last fall. After he was sent a book of photos from WWII, Evan claimed on TikTok that the photographs were original images taken at the site of the Nanjing Massacre. The TikTok instantly went viral, even capturing the attention of the Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C. Here is Evan with Endless Thread co-host, Amory Sivertson, who interviewed Evan at his shop last September. (Courtesy Evan Kail)

Pawn Man: How a WWII photo album created a 'perfect storm' on social media

Evan Kail is a wise-cracking antique dealer and TikToker. Last September, his world turned upside down when one of his TikToks ignited an international media frenzy.

Endless Thread

39:56Mar 17, 2023

Russian YouTubers Natasha and Zack attending an anti-war rally with a friend in Tbilisi, Georgia. They are holding Russian white-blue-white flags which symbolize resistance to the country's war in Ukraine. The flag's design replaces the red stripe on Russia's national flag with a white one. The colors represent peace, truth, and justice; they are also a nod to the Novgorod Republic, a proto-democratic state that existed during Russia's medieval period. (Courtesy Natasha Kurnaeva)

Russian anti-war YouTubers: What happens when your government doesn't allow dissent?

Natasha and Zack initially gained traction on YouTube for their videos about Russian food, culture, and daily life. Their slice-of-life vlogs were a huge hit, getting millions of views with...

Endless Thread

28:59Feb 17, 2023

James Vlahos, CEO of HereafterAI, holds a photograph of his parents, John and Martha Vlahos, outside his home on November 11, 2022 in El Cerrito, California. James created a chatbot or Dadbot as he calls it which allowed him to reconnect with his deceased father, the original motivation for starting HereafterAI. (Getty Images)

'Good Bot, Bad Bot': Episode III

In the third episode of Endless Thread's series "Good Bot, Bad Bot," co-hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson explore a growing field of AI: immortalizing the dead.

Short Run

35:07Jan 18, 2023

Good Bot, Bad Bot | Part III: Life, death and AI

Next up in our bots series, we explore a growing field of AI: immortalizing the dead through predictive AI text.

Endless Thread

34:39Nov 18, 2022

Tales from the Crypto | Part II: How Bitcoin became legal tender in El Salvador

One year ago, El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender — the first nation in the world to do so. But how did Bitcoin make its way into this Latin American...

Endless Thread

38:49Sep 23, 2022

Sex work, 'normal work,' and men — as told by Alyssa

When a Reddit post about constant “locker room talk” in a male-dominated office gained traction in the r/TwoXChromosomes subreddit, Ben and Amory invite the OP to talk about the story...

Endless Thread

37:29Jul 29, 2022

Egg-cellent if true: How a viral Reddit post fooled thousands online

When a colleague sent us a viral Reddit post from WallStreetBets, we set out to investigate.

Endless Thread

26:09Apr 29, 2022

One pixel at a time: Diplomacy and domination in Reddit's artistic masterpiece, r/place

After its first successful iteration in 2017, r/place returned on April 1, 2022 for four days of battling fandoms vying for space inside a pixelated canvas. We talk to two...

Endless Thread

23:08Apr 15, 2022