Alle afleveringen
675 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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The Wubi Effect
7 november 2025 · 57 min
When we think of China today, we think of a technological superpower. From Huawei and 5G to TikTok and viral social media, China is stride for stride with the United States in the world of computing. However, China’s technological renaissance almost didn’t happen. And for one very basic reason: the Chinese language, with its 70,000 plus characters, couldn’t fit on a keyboard. Lees meer
Today, we tell the story of Professor Wang Yongmin, a hard-headed computer programmer who solved this puzzle and laid the foundation for the China we know today.
Special thanks to Martin Howard. You can view his renowned collection of typewriters at: antiquetypewriters.com.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Simon Adler
Produced by - Simon Adler
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Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
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The Glow Below
31 oktober 2025 · 29 min
A call to oceanographer Edie Widder about a fish with a very odd immune system quickly becomes something else: a dive into the deep sea, into a world of brilliant light. But down there, the light doesn’t behave like light -- it sparkles and glows, but also drips, squirts, and dribbles. Today, find out how creatures make the light and how they use it, from hunting and hiding to maybe even … talking. And hear about a series of mysterious moments where Edie goes from studying the creatures to becoming one of them. Lees meer
EPISODE CREDITS:
Hosted by - Molly Webster
Reported by - Molly Webster
Produced by - Maria Paz Gutierrez
with help from - Molly Webster
Fact-checking by - Diane A. KellyLATERAL CUTS (Other Radiolab episodes you may like):
Octomom - https://radiolab.org/podcast/octomom
The Darkest Dark - https://radiolab.org/podcast/the-darkest-darkEPISODE CITATIONS:
Documentary -
Coming soon, there’ll be a new doc about Edie’s life and work studying bioluminescence in deep sea creatures. According to Edie, “A Life Illuminated”, contains some of the best deep sea bioluminescence footage ever recorded. It’s from our friends at Sandbox Films, and director Tasha Van Zandt.
https://www.sandboxfilms.org/films/a-life-illuminated/Books -
Edie Widder wrote a memoir! Go read, “Below the Edge of Darkness: A Memoir of Exploring Light and Life in the Deep Sea”.https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/564185/below-the-edge-of-darkness-by-edith-widder-phd/Videos -
It’s not in the episode, but a few years back, Edie’s fame reached new heights when she captured footage of a never-before-seen Giant Squid … here’s the story, and video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krDdv9KLmuMArticles -
A look at some glowing shrimps.
https://zpr.io/3jyHWi7VFBw5A photo gallery of different types of deep sea glow, from different types of deep sea creatures, including one of counterillumination, which Edie talks about in the episode.
https://zpr.io/hdFFsArGjhauSign up for our newsletter!! It inc…
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What Up Holmes?
24 oktober 2025 · 35 min
Love it or hate it, the freedom to say obnoxious and subversive things is the quintessence of what makes America America. But our say-almost-anything approach to free speech is actually relatively recent, and you can trace it back to one guy: a Supreme Court justice named Oliver Wendell Holmes. Even weirder, you can trace it back to one seemingly ordinary eight-month period in Holmes’s life when he seems to have done a logical U-turn on what should be say-able. Why he changed his mind during those eight months is one of the greatest mysteries in the history of the Supreme Court. (Spoiler: the answer involves anarchists, a house of truth, and a cry for help from a dear friend.) Join us in an episode we originally released in 2021, as we investigate why he changed his mind, how that made the country change its mind, and whether it’s now time to change our minds again. Lees meer
Special thanks to Jenny Lawton, Soren Shade, Kelsey Padgett, Mahyad Tousi and Soroush Vosughi.
LATERAL CUTS:
Content Warning
Facebook Supreme Court
The Trust EngineersEPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Latif Nasser
Produced by - Sarah Qari
with help from - Anisa VietzeSignup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Content Warning
17 oktober 2025 · 29 min
Over the past five years TikTok has radically changed the online world. But trust us when we say, it’s not how you’d expect. Lees meer
Today we continue our yearslong exploration of what you can and can’t post online. We look at how Facebook’s approach to free speech has evolved since Trump’s victory. How TikTok upended everything we see. And what all this means for the future of our political and digital lives.
Special thanks to Kate Klonick
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Simon Adler
Produced by - Simon AdlerOriginal music from - Simon Adler
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloome
Fact-checking by - Anna Pujol-Mazzini
Lateral Cuts:
The Trust Engineers
Facebook’s Supreme CourtSignup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Creation Story
10 oktober 2025 · 35 min
Ella al-Shamahi is one part Charles Darwin, one part Indiana Jones. She braves war zones and pirate-infested waters to collect fossils from prehistoric caves, fossils that help us understand the origin of our species. Her recent hit BBC / PBS series Human follows her around the globe trying to piece together the unlikely story of how early humans conquered the world. But Ella’s own origins as an evolutionary biologist are equally unlikely. She sits down with us and tells us a story she has rarely shared publicly, about how she came to believe in evolution, and how much that belief cost her. Lees meer
Special thanks to Misha Euceph, Khalil Andani, and Hamza Syed.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Latif Nasser
Produced by - Jessica Yung and Pat Walters
with help from - Sarah Qari
Fact-checking by - Diane Kelly
and Edited by - Pat WaltersEPISODE CITATIONS:
Videos -
“Human” (https://www.bbcearth.com/shows/human), Ella’s show on the BBC and PBS
Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
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Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl
3 oktober 2025 · 45 min
This is the story of a three-year-old girl and the highest court in the land. The Supreme Court case Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl is a legal battle that has entangled a biological father, a heart-broken couple, and the tragic history of Native American children taken from their families. We originally released this story back in 2013, when that girl’s fate was still in the balance of various legal decisions. We thought now was a good time to bring the story back, because the Act at the center of the story is still being questioned. Lees meer
When then-producer Tim Howard first read about this case, it struck him as a sad but seemingly straightforward custody dispute. But, as he started talking to lawyers and historians and the families involved in the case, it became clear that it was much more than that. Because Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl challenges parts of the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, this case puts one little girl at the center of a storm of legal intricacies, Native American tribal culture, and heart-wrenching personal stakes.
LATERAL CUTS:
What Up Holmes?
The GatekeeperEPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Tim Howard
Produced by - Tim HowardEPISODE CITATIONS (so many):
Background and Reporting from a range of different perspectives
"Couple forced to give up daughter"
An introductory article by Allyson Bird, for the Charleston, SC Post and Courier"Supreme Court Takes on Indian Child Welfare Act in Baby Veronica Case"
A report for Indian Country Today by Suzette Brewer, who has also written a two-part series on the case."Supreme Court hears Indian child custody case"
Tulsa World article by Michael Overall which includes Dusten Brown's account of his break-up with Veronica's mother, and his understanding about his custodial rights. Plus photos of Dusten, Veronica, and Dusten's wife Robin in their Oklahoma home_._Randi Kaye's report for CNN on the background of the case, and interviews with Melanie and Matt Capobianco: "Video: Adoption custody battle for Ver…
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Voice
26 september 2025 · 1 uur 7 min
Over the course of millions of years, human voices have evolved to hold startling power. These clouds of vibrating air carry crucial information about who we are–and we rely on them to push ourselves up and out into the physical world. Lees meer
This week, we’re on a journey to understand how we got our unique sonic fingerprint, the power it affords us, and what happens when it’s taken away.
Special thanks to Alice Wong, Wren Farrell, Hector Espinal and his parents, Crisaly and Hector Espinal, Mary Croke, Nancy Kielty, Beth McEwen, Robin Feuer Miller, Roomful of Teeth, Amanda Crider, Caroline Shaw, Judd Greenstein, Leilihua Lanzilotti, Rebekka Karijord, and Michael Harrison.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by -Annie McEwen and Matt Kielty
Produced by - Annie McEwen and Matt Kielty
Original music and sound design contributed by - Jeremy Bloom and Matt Kielty
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Anna Pujol-Mazzini
and Edited by - Alex NeasonEPISODE CITATIONS:
Books -
Disability Intimacy by Alice Wong
Year of the Tiger by Alice Wong
This is the Voice by John Colapinto
Websites -
DisabilityVisibilityProject.com
Audio/Artists -
Roomful of Teeth (https://www.roomfulofteeth.org/)
Partita for 8 Voices written by Caroline Shaw
AEIOU composed by Judd Greenstein
On Stochastic Wave behavior by Leilehua Lanzilotti
Fugue by Rebekka Karijord, taken from the record “The Bell Tower", featuring Roomful of Teeth.
Just Constellations, composed by Michael Harrison
Sign up for our newsletter! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gord…
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The Spark of Life
19 september 2025 · 36 min
In the 1920s, a Russian biologist studying onion roots made a surprising discovery: underground, down in the darkness, it seemed like the cells inside the onion roots were making their own … light. Lees meer
The “onion root experiment” went on to become something of a cult classic in science, and eventually the biologically-made light was dubbed “biophotons.” In the ensuing century, biophoton discoveries moved from onion roots to bacteria, frog embryos, and humans. Today, scientist Nirosha Murugan is on a career-defining journey to learn more about the light. As she and her colleagues study this mysterious phenomenon, they find themselves racing from question to question, wondering what gives off light, where it might be coming from, and what, if anything, it could tell us about life, disease, and even death.
Correction: In this episode, when Nirosha spoke about her melanoma study, she misstated the lab animal involved in the study. It was mice.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Hosted by - Molly Webster
Reported by - Molly Webster
Produced by - Sarah Qari
with help from - Molly Webster
Fact-checking by - Natalie MiddletonEPISODE CITATIONS:
Videos -
The “Life Flash” video! Note that fluorescent dye was added to the experiment, by the researchers, to enhance the zinc sparks (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9tmOyrIlYM)Articles -
The Onion Root Experiment (https://www.brmi.online/gurwitsch)
Enjoy this Wikipedia rabbit-hole about Fritz Albert Popp (https://zpr.io/nxJFcAMvZkBz)
Original Paper on zinc sparks (https://zpr.io/GfbazBqU3e3y) at the time of fertilization, a moment referred to as the “life flash”
Read more about the “death flash,” (https://zpr.io/TqG3mcCGYEgQ) and other end-of-life phenomenon, as reported by medical caregivers
Research from Nirosha’s lab on photon emissions (https://zpr.io/mtpbwSeY4iEp) and brain activity
Research from Nirosha’s lab on biophoton emission (https://zpr.io/3in9LSmzW6m5) and cancer diagnosis
Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essay…
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Los Frikis
12 september 2025 · 33 min
How a group of 80’s Cuban misfits found rock-and-roll and created a revolution within a revolution, going into exile without ever leaving home. Reporter Luis Trelles brings us the story of punk rock’s arrival in Cuba and a small band of outsiders who sentenced themselves to death and set themselves free. We originally released this episode back in 2015 in a collaboration with Radio Ambulante, but the story is so fascinating (and, in many ways, still relevant) that we haven’t stopped thinking about it. Lees meer
Special thanks to the bands VIH, Eskoria, Metamorfosis and Alio Die & Mariolina Zitta for the use of their music.
Radio Ambulante launches their 15th season on September 30th!!
Check it out, here!! (https://radioambulante.org/en)EPISODE CITATIONS:
Find some of Radio Ambulante’s other stories about the Frikis here -
The Survivors (https://zpr.io/Kh8KWWi6SqaF)
When Havana was Friki (https://zpr.io/HrXsgibzvbJj)Please put any supporting materials you think our audience would find interesting or useful below in the appropriate broad categories.
Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Screaming Into the Void
5 september 2025 · 57 min
In August we performed a live taping of the show from a theater perched on the edge of Manhattan, overlooking the Hudson River, overshadowed by the wide open night sky. Three stories about voids. One about a fish that screams into the night – and the mystery of its counterpart that doesn’t. Another about a group of women who gazed at the night sky and taught us just how vast the universe is, and a third about a man who talk to aliens – and the people who tell him he’s putting human civilization at risk by doing so. Finally, we turn back to Earth with the help of a reading from Samantha Harvey’s hit novel Orbital (https://zpr.io/RNi4sY2JVKxK) performed by the artist, actor and podcast host Helga Davis (https://zpr.io/TKGuzzDFnVjN). What does it mean to stand on the edge of a void, and what happens when you scream into it, or choose not to? Lees meer
This episode was originally produced and developed in front of a live audience by Little Island, Producing Artistic Director Zack Winokur, Executive Director Laura Clement. Special thanks to our voice actors Davidé Borella, Jim Pirri, Armando Riesco, and Brian Wiles with casting by Dann Fink. And Anna von Mertens, author of Attention Is Discovery: The Life and Legacy of Astronomer Henrietta Leavitt (https://zpr.io/j7ZYKX8wSCYL).
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Lulu Miller, Matt Kielty and Latif Nasser
Produced by - Pat Walters and Matt Kielty
with help from - Jessica Yung, Maria Paz Gutierrez and Rebecca Rand
Original music from - Mantra Percussion
Sound design contributed by - Matt Kielty and Jeremy Bloom
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Diane Kelly and Natalie Middleton
and Edited by - Pat WaltersEPISODE CITATIONS:
Books -
Attention Is Discovery: The Life and Legacy of Astronomer Henrietta Leavitt (https://zpr.io/j7ZYKX8wSCYL) by Anna von Mertens
Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org…
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Music Hat
29 augustus 2025 · 31 min
With this episode, we’re putting on our music hat. For a program that relies so much on scoring and sound, it’s not often we talk about the musicians and the music they make that inspire us. Today, that changes. Today, we bring you two stories. Each about musicians that our former host and creator of Radiolab, Jad Abumrad, loves. Lees meer
We originally released these stories many years ago, and both start deep in music itself. Then quickly, they dig deeper — into our relationships with technology, and ourselves.
We start with the band Dawn of Midi, who straddle the intersection between acoustic and electronic sounds. Jad talks to the band about their album, Dysnomia, and how it's filled with heavily-layered rhythms that feel both mechanistic and deeply human, at the same time.
Then, Jad talks with Juana Molina, an Argentine singer who accidentally became a famous actress, when all along all she really wanted was to be a musician.
Special thanks to Dawn of Midi and Juana Molina.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - JAD ABUMRAD
EPISODE CITATIONS:
Check out Dawn of Midi at dawnofmidi.com and Juana Molina at juanamolina.com
Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
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The Medical Matchmaking Machine
22 augustus 2025 · 1 uur 2 min
As he finished his medical school exam, David Fajgenbaum felt off. He walked down to the ER and checked himself in. Soon he was in the ICU with multiple organ failure. The only drug for his condition didn’t work. He had months to live, if that. If he was going to survive, he was going to have to find his own cure. Miraculously, he pulled it off in the nick of time. From that ordeal, he realized that our system of discovering and approving drugs is far from perfect, and that he might be able to use AI to find dozens, hundreds, even thousands of cures, hidden in plain sight, for as-yet untreatable diseases. Lees meer
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Latif Nasser
Produced by - Maria Paz Gutiérrez
with mixing help from - Jeremy S. Bloom
Fact-checking by - Natalie A. MiddletonVISIT:
Everycure.org (https://www.everycure.org)EPISODE CITATIONS:
Books -
Blair Bigham - Death Interrupted: How Modern Medicine is Complicating the Way We DieDavid Fajgenbaum - Chasing My Cure, (https://davidfajgenbaum.com/)
Radiolab | Lateral Cuts:
Check out Death Interrupted (https://radiolab.org/podcast/death-interrupted), a conversation with Blair Bigham about a worldview shifting change of heart.The Dirty Drug and the Ice Cream Tub (https://radiolab.org/podcast/dirty-drug-and-ice-cream-tub) to hear the crazy story about how Rapamycin was discovered.
Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Hosted by Simple…
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Weighing Good Intentions
15 augustus 2025 · 24 min
In an episode first released in 2010, then-producer Lulu Miller drives to Michigan to track down the endangered Kirtland’s warbler. Efforts to protect the bird have lead to the killing of cowbirds (a species that commandeers warbler nests), and a prescribed burn aimed at creating a new habitat. Tragically, this burn led to the death of a 29-year-old wildlife technician who was dedicated to warbler restoration. Forest Service employee Rita Halbeisen, local Michiganders skeptical of the resources put toward protecting the warbler, and the family of James Swiderski (the man killed in the fire), weigh in on how far we should go to protect one species. Lees meer
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Lulu MillerSignup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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The Menopause Mystery
8 augustus 2025 · 39 min
Until recently, scientists assumed humans were the only species in which females went through menopause, and lived a substantial part of their lives after they were no longer able to reproduce. And they had no idea why that happens, and why evolution wouldn’t push females to keep reproducing right up to the end of their lives. But after a close look at some whale poop, and a deep dive into chimp life, we find several new ways of thinking about menopause and the real purpose of this all too often overlooked second act of life. Lees meer
Special thanks to Danielle Friedman, Rachel Gross, and Kate Radke.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Heather Radke and Becca Bressler
Produced by - Sarah Qari and Becca Bressler
Fact-checking by - Emily Krieger
and Edited by - Becca BresslerEPISODE CITATIONS:
Books -
Check out everything Heather Radke writes, including Butts: A Backstory, cause it’s all that good, here: Heather Radke (www.heatherradke.com).Find any one of Lucy Cooke’s book, including Bitch:On the Female of the Species, here: Lucy Cooke (http://www.lucycooke.tv/)
And check out everything Caroline Paul has on offer, including Tough Broad, here: Caroline Paul (https://www.carolinepaul.com/)
Socials -
Heather Radke: https://www.instagram.com/radhradke
Lucy Cooke: https://www.instagram.com/luckycooke/Audio:
Becca Bressler’s greatest hits-
Bloc Party
Our Stupid Little Bodies
GigaverseRadiolab | Lateral cuts -
Butt StuffSignup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Founda…
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Galaxy Quenching
1 augustus 2025 · 40 min
This week: the story of astrophysicist Charity Woodrum. Charity is an extragalactic astronomer who studies the life and death of galaxies, why some galaxies burn bright and others dim and sputter out. And in the midst of an unthinkable grief in her personal life, she discovers something in the sky – a new kind of light that would guide her path forward. Lees meer
Special thanks to Megan Stielstra, Jad Abumrad, Michael Woodrum, Gina Vivona, and Clair Reilly-Roe.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Lulu Miller
Produced by - Jessica Yung
Fact-checking by - Diane KellyRadiolab | Lateral Cuts:
Our episode The Darkest Dark (https://radiolab.org/podcast/the-darkest-dark) could be of interest to those seeking the deepest unknowns.EPISODE CITATIONS:
Music -
Clair Reilly-Roe’s song “Sky Full of Ghosts” (https://zpr.io/JgauhRnj7qpX)Articles -
A new documentary on Charity Woodrum’s story: Space, Hope and Charity (https://www.spacehopecharityfilm.com/)Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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The Nothing Behind Everything
25 juli 2025 · 33 min
This week, two conversations from the archives about parts of the world that are imperceptible to us, verging on almost unthinkable. We start with a moment of uncertainty in physics. Inspired by an essay written by physicist and novelist Alan Lightman, called The Accidental Universe (https://zpr.io/4965dUdNqtpQ), taken from a book of the same name. Former Radiolab co-host Robert Krulwich pays a visit to Brian Greene to ask if the latest developments in theoretical physics spell a crisis for science. He finds that we've reached the limit of what we can see and test, and we’re left with mathematical equations that can't be verified by experiments or observation. Lees meer
Then, come along as we kick rocks. And end up tumbling down a philosophical rabbit hole where the solid things around us might not be solid at all. We talk to Jim Holt, author of Why Does the World Exist? (https://zpr.io/UqHpLnDx2QNx) who points out that when you start slicing and sleuthing in subatomic particle land, trying to get to the bottom of what makes matter, you mostly find empty space. Your hand, your chair, the floor, it's all made up of mostly nothing. Robert and Jim go toe-to-toe over whether the universe is made up of solid bits and pieces of stuff, or a cloudy foundation that more closely resembles thoughts and ideas.
Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
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More Perfect: The Hate Debate
18 juli 2025 · 37 min
Back in 2017 our colleagues at More Perfect gathered a room full of people together to debate a straight forward question: Can free speech go too far? Today, eight years have passed and plenty has changed, but this question feels alive as ever. Lees meer
And so we’re re-airing More Perfect’s The Hate Debate. Taped live at WNYC's Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, Elie Mystal, Ken White and Corynne McSherry duke it out over whether the first amendment needs an update in our digital world.
Special thanks to Elaine Chen, Jennifer Keeney Sendrow, and the entire Greene Space team. Additional engineering for this episode by Chase Culpon, Louis Mitchell, and Alex Overington.
EPISODE CITATIONS:
Videos -
If watching is more your speed, you can see the event, in its entirety, here:
https://www.youtube.com/live/azcIcVDyVTM?si=ZqpQHQfvTKr2jS0zThere’s other Radiolabs for that -
Further recommended listening What Up Holmes and Post No Evil.Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
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Desperately Seeking Symmetry
11 juli 2025 · 57 min
This hour of Radiolab, former co-hosts Jad and Robert set out in search of order and balance in the world around us, and ask how symmetry shapes our very existence -- from the origins of the universe, to what we see when we look in the mirror. Lees meer
Along the way, we look for love in ancient Greece, head to modern-day Princeton to peer inside our brains, and turn up an unlikely headline from the Oval Office circa 1979.
EPISODE CITATIONS:
Videos -
Back in the day, when we first aired this episode, the film collective Everynone, filmmakers Will Hoffman, Daniel Mercadante and Julius Metoyer III were inspired with our yearning for balance, and aimed to visually reveal how beautiful imperfect matches can be.
Radiolab Presents: Symmetry (https://youtu.be/zEQskIsHKT8)
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Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter/X and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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On [The Divided Dial]: Fishing In The Night
4 juli 2025 · 39 min
Have you heard On the Media’s Peabody-winning series The Divided Dial? Lees meer
It’s awesome and you should, and now you will. In this episode they tell the story of shortwave radio: the way-less-listened to but way-farther-reaching cousin of AM and FM radio. The medium was once heralded as a utopian, international, and instantaneous mass communication tool — a sort of internet-before-the-internet.
But, like the internet, many people quickly saw the power of this new technology and found ways to harness it. State leaders turned it into a propaganda machine, weaponizing the airwaves to try and shape politics around the world. And as shortwave continued to evolve, like the internet, it became fragmented, easily accessible, and right-wing extremists, conspiracy theorists and cult leaders found homes on the different shortwave frequencies.
And even today - again, like the internet - people with money are looking to buy up this mass-communication tool in the hopes of … making more money.
This is episode one from the second season of The Divided Dial a limited series from On The Media.
Listen on Spotify (https://zpr.io/hKCcFEGTLb5a)
Listen on Apple Podcasts (https://zpr.io/tQ86YmEmiivR)
Listen on the WNYC App (iTunes, Android)
Listen to the full Divided Dial series (https://www.onthemedia.org/dial)
Follow On The Media on Instagram @onthemedia
The Divided Dial was supported in part by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.
Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/)…
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Sex, Ducks and the Founding Feud
27 juni 2025 · 25 min
Jilted lovers and disrupted duck hunts provide a very odd look into the soul of the US Constitution. Lees meer
What does a betrayed lover’s revenge have to do with an international chemical weapons treaty? More than you’d think. From poison and duck hunts to our feuding fathers, we step into a very odd tug of war between local and federal law.
When Carol Anne Bond found out her husband had impregnated her best friend, she took revenge. Carol's particular flavor of revenge led to a US Supreme Court case that puts into question a part of the US treaty power.
Producer Kelsey Padgett drags Jad and Robert into Carol's poisonous web, which starts them on a journey from the birth of the US Constitution, to a duck hunt in 1918, and back to the present day. It’s all about an ongoing argument that might actually be the very heart and soul of our system of government.
Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
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Baby Shark
20 juni 2025 · 28 min
This is episode five of Swimming with Shadows: A Radiolab Week of Sharks. Lees meer
Today, the strange, squirmy magic behind how sharks make more sharks. Drills. Drama. Death. Even a coliseum of baby sharks duking it out inside mom’s womb. And a man on a small island in the Mediterranean trying, against all odds, to give baby sharks a chance in a little plastic aquarium in his living room. Can a human raise a shark? And if so, what good is that for sharks? And for us? Doo doo doo doo doo doo.
Special thanks to Jaime Penadés Suay and la Fundación Azul Marino.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Rachael Cusick
Produced by - Rachael Cusick
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Diane Kelly
and Edited by - Pat WaltersEPISODE CITATIONS:
Articles -
Claudia’s original reporting that inspired the episodeSignup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Mystery Bay
19 juni 2025 · 21 min
This is episode four of Swimming with Shadows: A Radiolab Week of Sharks. Lees meer
Alison Kock was working at a car wash in Cape Town when she made a discovery that completely changed the course of her life. Inside a customer’s trunk, she found photographs of white sharks flying so high above the water they looked like airplanes. She followed those photographs to False Bay, “the Great White Capital of the World.” These sharks, in this place, are the apex of apex predators. Or they were. Until they mysteriously began to disappear.
Special thanks to Kathryn Ayres.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Rachael Cusick
Produced by - Simon Adler and Maria Paz Gutierrez
with help from - Rebecca Laks
Original music from - Simon Adler and Maria Paz Gutierrez
Sound design contributed by - Jeremy Bloom
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Diane A. Kelly
and Edited by - Pat WaltersSignup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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The Shark Inside You
18 juni 2025 · 29 min
This is episode three of Swimming with Shadows: A Radiolab Week of Sharks. Lees meer
Today, we take a trip across the world, from the south coast of Australia to … Wisconsin. Here, scientists are scouring shark blood to find one of nature’s hidden keys, a molecular superhero that might unlock our ability to cure cancer: shark antibodies. They’re small. They’re flexible. And they can fit into nooks and crannies on tumors that our antibodies can’t.
We journey back 500 million years to the moment sharks got these special powers and head to the underground labs transforming these monsters into healers. Can these animals we fear so much actually save us?
Special thanks to Mike Criscitiello, David Schatz, Mary Rose Madden, Ryan Ogilvie, Margot Wohl, Sofi LaLonde, and Isabelle Bérubé.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Becca Bressler
Produced by - Becca Bressler and Matt Kielty
Original music from - Matt Kielty and Jeremy Bloom
Sound design contributed by - Matt Kielty, Jeremy Bloom, and Becca Bressler
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Diane Kelly
and Edited by - Pat WaltersSignup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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The Cage
17 juni 2025 · 18 min
This is episode two of Swimming with Shadows: A Radiolab Week of Sharks. Lees meer
Jaws spawned a thousand imitators: sharks in tornados, sharks in avalanches, sharks that battle giant octopuses. Hollywood has officially turned sharks into monsters of every shape and size. And yet, somehow, there will always be more.
But drop below the surface, into the cold, quiet blue, and another creature appears. One that has survived mass extinctions, outlasted ancient predators and pre-dates Mount Everest, the existence of trees, even the rings of Saturn. A shark that is somehow even more remarkable than sharks in tornadoes.
Today, we go visit that shark.
Special thanks to Andrew Fox, the entire team at Rodney Fox Shark Expeditions, John Long whose book The Secret History of Sharks inspired our obsession with sharks, and Greg Skomal, whose wonderful new book on his life studying white sharks is Chasing Shadows: My Life Tracking the Great White Shark.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Rachael Cusick
with help from - Pat Walters
Produced by - Rachael Cusick and Simon Adler
with help from - Pat Walters
Sound design contributed by - Jeremy Bloom
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Natalie Middleton
and Edited by - Pat WaltersEPISODE CITATIONS:
Videos -
Loved learning about all the different kinds of sharks there are? Check out even more Jaida Elcock’s videos on sharks.Book -
The Secret History of Sharks by John LongChasing Shadows: My Life Tracking the Great White Shark by Greg Skomal
Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
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Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming i… -
Making a Monster
16 juni 2025 · 27 min
Episode one of Swimming with Shadows: A Radiolab Week of Sharks. Lees meer
Rodney Fox went into the ocean one summer day in 1963. He came out barely alive, his body torn apart by a great white shark. At the time, it was one of the worst shark attacks ever survived.
After he recovered, he was pulled back into the shadowy world he feared most. Again and again and again. That shark attack left behind a question that still lingers, for Rodney, and for all of us: When you can’t see the thing that scares you, what kind of monster does your mind create? And how do you fight past it?
Special thanks to Surekha Davies, Asa Mittman, Scott Poole, and Maria Tatar.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Rachael Cusick
with help from - Pat Walters
Produced by - Rachael Cusick and Pat Walters
Sound design contributed by - Jeremy Bloom
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Diane Kelly
and Edited by - Pat WaltersSignup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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It's Like ... Radiolab
14 juni 2025 · 1 min
Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser. Lees meer
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Swimming with Shadows: A Radiolab Week of Sharks
13 juni 2025 · 2 min
In the summer of 1975, Jaws scared an entire generation out of the water. The film burned an idea into our cultural memory: they are mindless, man-eating monsters. We set out to tell a different story about sharks. Five stories over five days. We tear down deep-seated myths about sharks, plunge into the water with them, and find sharks that explode our sense of what they are – flying sharks, glowing sharks, baby sharks, sharks under attack, and sharks that may save millions of human lives. Lees meer
Look out for brand-new episodes in your podcast feed starting June 16th through June 20th.
Visit our YouTube channel to check out the video trailer for the series and make sure to subscribe for more behind the scenes content throughout the week.
For more details about the series, visit radiolab.org/sharks
Follow us on Instagram @radiolab
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Double-Blasted
13 juni 2025 · 21 min
We first aired this episode in 2012, but at the show we’ve been thinking a lot about resilience and repair so we wanted to play it for you again today. It’s about a man who experienced maybe one of the most chilling traumas… twice. But then, it leads us to a story of generational repair. Lees meer
On the morning of August 6th, 1945, Tsutomu Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a work trip. He was walking to the office when the first atomic bomb was dropped about a mile away. He survived, and eventually managed to get himself onto a train back to his hometown... Nagasaki. The very next morning, as he tried to convince his boss that a single bomb could destroy a whole city, the second bomb dropped. Author Sam Kean tells Jad and Robert the incredible story of what happened to Tsutomu, explains how gamma rays shred DNA, and helps us understand how Tsutomu sidestepped a thousand year curse.
Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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The Elixir of Life
6 juni 2025 · 51 min
Doctor and special correspondent, Avir Mitra takes Lulu on an epic journey live on stage at a little basement club called Caveat, here in New York. Starting with an ingredient in breastmilk that babies can’t digest, a global hunt that takes us from Bangladesh to the Mennonite communities here in the US, we discover an ancient symbiotic relationship that might be on the verge of disappearing. So sip a vicarious cocktail, settle in, and explore the surprising ways our bodies forge deep, invisible connections that shape our lives. Lees meer
This live show is part of a series we are doing with Avir that we are calling “Viscera.” Each event is conversation that takes the audience on journey into a quirk or question or mystery inside of us, and gives them a visceral experience with the viscera of us. The previous installment of the series, was called “How to Save a Life.”
Special thanks to Tim Brown, David Mills, Carlito Lebrilla, Bethany Henrik, Danielle Lemay, Katie Hinde, Jennifer Smilowitz, Angela Zivkovic, Daniela Barile, Mark Underwood
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by -Avir Mitra
with help from - Anisa Vietze
Original music from - Dylan Keefe
Sound design contributed by - Dylan Keefe, Iván Barenboim
Fact-checking by -Natalie Middleton.Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of pers…
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A Flock of Two
30 mei 2025 · 20 min
Animals rescue people all the time, but not like this. In this episode, first aired more than a decade ago, Jim Eggers is a 44-year-old man who suffers from a problem that not only puts his life at risk—it jeopardizes the safety of everybody around him. But with the help of Sadie, his pet African Grey Parrot, Jim found an unlikely way to manage his anger. African Grey Parrot expert Irene Pepperberg helps us understand how this could work, and shares some insights from her work with a parrot named Alex. Lees meer
And one quick note from our producer Pat Walters: Jim considers Sadie to be a “service animal,” a designation under the Americans with Disabilities Act that protects the rights of individuals with disabilities to bring certain animals into public places. The term service animal sometimes is legally limited to include only dogs and miniature horses.
Jim disagrees with those limitations, but the local bus company, regardless of definitions, said they’ll make an exception for Sadie.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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The Echo in the Machine
23 mei 2025 · 33 min
Today you can convert speech to text with the click of a button. Youtube does it for all our videos. Our phones will do it in real time. It’s frictionless. And yet, if it weren’t for an unlikely crew of protesters and office workers, it might still be impossible. Lees meer
This week, the story of our attempts to make the spoken visible. The magicians who tried. And the crazy spell that finally did it.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Simon Adler
Produced by - Simon Adler
Original music from - Simon Adler
Sound design contributed by - Simon Adler
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Anna Pujol-MazziniSignup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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How to Cure What Ails You
16 mei 2025 · 25 min
Now that we have the ability to see inside the brain without opening anyone's skull, we'll be able to map and define brain activity and peg it to behavior and feelings. Right? Well, maybe not, or maybe not just yet. It seems the workings of our brains are rather too complex and diverse across individuals to really say for certain what a brain scan says about a person. But Nobel prize winner Eric Kandel and researcher Cynthia Fu tell us about groundbreaking work in the field of depression that just may help us toward better diagnosis and treatment. Lees meer
Anything that helps us treat a disease better is welcome. Doctors have been led astray before by misunderstanding a disease and what makes it better. Neurologist Robert Sapolsky tells us about the turn of the last century, when doctors discovered that babies who died inexplicably in their sleep had thymus glands that seemed far too large. Blasting them with radiation shrank them effectively, and so was administered to perfectly healthy children to prevent this sudden infant death syndrome...
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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The First Known Earthly Voice
9 mei 2025 · 38 min
What happens when a voice emerges? What happens when one is lost? Is something gained? A couple months ago, Lulu guest edited an issue of the nature magazine Orion. She called the issue “Queer Planet: A Celebration of Biodiversity,” and it was a wide-ranging celebration of queerness in nature. It featured work by amazing writers like Ocean Vuong, Kristen Arnett, Carmen Maria Machado and adrienne maree brown, among many others. But one piece in particular struck Lulu as something that was really meant to be made into audio, an essay called “Key Changes,” by the writer Sabrina Imbler. If their name sounds familiar, it might be because they’ve been on the show before. In this episode, we bring you Sabrina’s essay – which takes us from the beginning of time, to a field of crickets, to a karaoke bar – read by the phenomenal actor Becca Blackwell, and scored by our director of sound design Dylan Keefe. Stay to the end for a special surprise … from Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls! Lees meer
Special thanks to Jay Gallagher from UC Davis.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Sabrina Imbler
Produced by - Annie McEwen and Pat Walters
with help from - Maria Paz Gutiérrez
Original music from - Dylan Keefe
Fact-checking by - Kim Schmidt
and Edited by - Tajja Isen and Pat WaltersEPISODE CITATIONS:
Articles -
Check out Queer Planet: A Celebration of Biodiversity, Orion Magazine (Spring 2025)
Read Sabrina Imbler’s original essay, “Key Changes,” Orion Magazine (Spring 2025)
Read Lulu Miller’s mini-essay, “Astonishing Immobility,” Orion Magazine (Spring 2025)
Check out Sabrina Imbler’s Defector column Creaturefector all about animalsAudio -
Listen to Amy Ray’s song “Chuck Will’s Widow” from her solo album If It All Goes SouthBooks -
How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures, by Sabrina ImblerSignup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supporte…
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Terrestrials: The Snow Beast
2 mei 2025 · 31 min
Today we bring you a story stranger than fiction. In 2006, paleobiologist Natalia Rybczynski took a helicopter to a remote Arctic island near the North Pole, spending her afternoons scavenging for ancient treasures on the ground. One day, she found something the size of a potato chip. Turns out, it was a three and half million year old chunk of bone. Lees meer
Keep reading if you’re okay with us spoiling the surprise.
It’s a camel! Yes, the one we thought only hung out in deserts. Originally from North America, the camel trotted around the globe and went from snow monster to desert superstar. We go on an evolutionary tour of the camel’s body and learn how the same adaptations that help a camel in a desert also helped it in the snow. Plus, Lulu even meets one in the flesh.
Special thanks to Latif Nasser for telling us this story. It was originally a TED Talk where he brought out a live camel on stage. Thank you also to Carly Mensch, Juliet Blake, Anna Bechtol, Stone Dow, Natalia Rybczynski and our camel man, Shayne Rigden. If you are in Wisconsin, you can go meet his camels at Rigden Ranch. And follow his delightful TikTok @rigdenranch to see camels in the snow!
Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC Studios. This episode was produced by Ana González, Alan Goffinski, Mira Burt-Wintonick, Joe Plourde, Lulu Miller, and Sarah Sandbach, with help from Tanya Chawla and Natalia Ramirez. Fact checking by Anna Pujol-Mazzini.
Our advisors this season are Ana Luz Porzecanski, Anil Lewis, Dominique Shabazz, and Liza Demby.
Support for Terrestrials also comes from the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and the John Templeton Foundation.
Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our sh…
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The Age of Aquaticus
25 april 2025 · 43 min
For years, scientists thought nothing could live above 73℃/163℉. At that temperature, everything boiled to death. But scientists Tom Brock and Hudson Freeze weren’t convinced. What began as their simple quest to trawl for life in some of the hottest natural springs on Earth would, decades later, change the trajectory of biological science forever, saving millions of lives—possibly even yours. Lees meer
This seismic, totally unpredictable discovery, was funded by the U.S. government. This week, as the Trump administration slashes scientific research budgets en masse, we tell one story, a parable about the unforeseeable miracles that basic research can yield. After that, a familiar voice raises some essential questions: what are we risking with these cuts? And can we recover?
Special thanks to Joanne Padrón Carney, Erin Heath, Valeria Sabate, Gwendolyn Bogard, Meredith Asbury and Megan Cantwell at AAAS. Thank you as well to Gregor Čavlović and Derek Muller and the rest of the Veritasium team.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Latif Nasser
with help from - Maria Paz Gutiérrez
Produced by - Sarah Qari and Maria Paz Gutiérrez
Original music and sound design and mixing from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Emily Kreiger
and Edited by - Alex Neason with help from Sarah QariEPISODE CITATIONS:
Videos -
Latif also helped make a version of this story with the YouTube channel Veritasium.Articles -
Hudson Freeze NYT OPED: Undercutting the Progress of American ScienceBooks -
Thomas Brock, A Scientist in Yellowstone National Park
Paul Rabinow’s Making PCR: A Story of BiotechnologyPodcasts Episodes:
If you haven’t heard, listen to our first episode about the Golden Goose awards.Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
F…
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Ghosts in the Green Machine
18 april 2025 · 33 min
In honor of our Earth, on her day, we have two stories about the overlooked, ignored, and neglected parts of nature. In the first half, we learn about an epic battle that is raging across the globe every day, every moment. It's happening in the ocean, and your very life depends on it. In the second half, we make an earnest, possibly foolhardy, attempt to figure out the dollar value of the work of bats and bees as we try to keep our careful calculations from falling apart in the face of the realities of life, and love, and loss. Lees meer
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Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
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Signal Hill: Caterpillar Roadshow
11 april 2025 · 51 min
A couple years ago, an entomologist named Martha Weiss got a letter from a little boy in Japan saying he wanted to replicate a famous study of hers. We covered that original study on Radiolab more than a decade ago in an episode called Goo and You – check it out here – and in addition to revealing some fascinating secrets of insect life, it also raises big questions about memory, permanence and transformation. The letter Martha received about building on this study set in motion a series of spectacular events that advance her original science and show how science works when a 12-year-old boy is the one doing it. Martha’s daughter, reporter Annie Rosenthal, captured all of it and turned it into a beautiful audio story called “Caterpillar Roadshow.” It was originally published in a brand new independent audio magazine called Signal Hill, which happens to have been created in part by two former Radiolab interns (Liza Yeager and Jackson Roach, both of whom worked on this piece), and we loved it, so we’re presenting an excerpt for you here. Lees meer
Special thanks to Annie Rosenthal, Liza Yeager, Jackson Roach, Leo Wong, Omar Etman, the whole team at Signal Hill, Carlos Morales, John Lill, Marfa Public Radio and Emma Garschagen.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Annie Rosenthal
Produced by - Annie Rosenthal
with help from - Leo Wong and Omar Etman
Sound design contributed by - Liza Yeager and Jackson Roach
Fact-checking by - Alan Dean
and Edited by - Liza Yeager and Jackson RoachEPISODE CITATIONS:
Audio -
Listen to the original Radiolab episode, Goo and You, here (https://zpr.io/qh9xqpkXzk7j).Or the Signal Hill podcast here (https://zpr.io/CDfwyK7Zkrva).
Guests -
And if you want to learn more about Martha Weiss, and her work, head over here (https://zpr.io/aBw2YsqWB6NZ).Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners…
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Killer Empathy
4 april 2025 · 26 min
In an episode first aired in 2012, Lulu Miller introduces us to Jeff Lockwood, a professor at the University of Wyoming, who spent a part of his career studying a particularly ferocious set of insects: Gryllacrididae. Or, as Jeff describes them, "crickets on steroids." They have crushingly strong, serrated jaws, and they launch all-out attacks on anyone who gets in their way--whether it's another cricket, or the guy trying to take them out of their cages. Lees meer
In order to work with the gryllacridids, Jeff had to figure out how to out-maneuver them. And as he devised ways to keep from getting slashed and bitten, he felt like he was getting to know them. Maybe they weren't just mindless brutes ... but their own creatures, each with their own sense of self. And that got him wondering: what could their fierceness tell him about the nature of violence? How well could he understand the minds of these insects, and what drove them to be so bloody?
That's when the alarm bells went off. Jeff would picture his mentor, Dr. LaFage, lecturing him back in college--warning him not to slip into a muddled, empathic mood ... not to let his emotions sideswipe his objectivity. And that would usually do the trick--Jeff would think of LaFage, and rein himself back in.
But then one night, something happened that gave Dr. LaFage's advice a terrible new kind of significance. Tamra Carboni tells us this part of the story, and challenges Jeff's belief that there's a way to understand it.
Hey, one other thing, if you live, or are planning to be, in NYC on April 22nd, come check out our NEW LIVE SHOW!!
Radiolab Presents: Viscera - The Elixir of Life
Where: Caveat Theater on the Lower East Side, NY NY
When: April 22nd Doors @ 7 pm
GET YOUR TICKETS, HERE!!
(https://www.caveat.nyc/events/radiolab-presents-viscera-%E2%80%93-the-elixir-of-life-4-22-2025)Sign up for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://r…
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Malthusian Swerve
28 maart 2025 · 39 min
Earth can sustain life for another 100 million years, but can we? Lees meer
In this episode, we partnered with the team at Planet Money to take stock of the essential raw materials that enable us to live as we do here on Earth—everything from sand to copper to oil— and tally up how much we have left. Are we living with reckless abandon? And if so, is there even a way to stop? This week, we bring you a conversation that’s equal parts terrifying and fascinating, featuring bird poop, daredevil drivers, and some staggering back-of-the-envelope math.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Jeff Guo and Latif Nasser
Produced by - Pat Walters and Soren Wheeler
with production help from - Sindhu Gnanasambandan
and editing help from - Alex Goldmark and Jess Jiang
Fact-checking by - Natalie MiddletonSignup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Everybody's Got One
21 maart 2025 · 28 min
We all think we know the story of pregnancy. Sperm meets egg, followed by nine months of nurturing, nesting, and quiet incubation. this story isn’t the nursery rhyme we think it is. In a way, it’s a struggle, almost like a tiny war. And right on the front lines of that battle is another major player on the stage of pregnancy that not a single person on the planet would be here without. An entirely new organ: the placenta. Lees meer
In this episode, which we originally released in 2021, we take you on a journey through the 270-day life of this weird, squishy, gelatinous orb, and discover that it is so much more than an organ. It’s a foreign invader. A piece of meat. A friend and parent. And it’s perhaps the most essential piece in the survival of our kind.
Special thanks to Diana Bianchi, Julia Katz, Sam Behjati, Celia Bardwell-Jones, Mathilde Cohen, Hannah Ingraham, Pip Lipkin, and Molly Fassler.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Heather Radke and Becca Bressler
with help from - Molly Webster
Produced by - Becca Bressler
with help from - Pat Walters, Maria Paz GutierrezEPISODE CITATIONS:
Articles:
Check out Harvey’s latest paper published with Julia Katz.
Sam Behjati's latest paper on the placenta as a "genetic dumping ground".Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.a…
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Growth
14 maart 2025 · 59 min
It’s easy to take growth for granted, for it to seem expected, inevitable even. Every person starts out as a baby and grows up. Plants grow from seeds into food. The economy grows. That stack of mail on your table grows. But why does anything grow the way that it does? In this hour, we go from the Alaska State Fair, to a kitchen in Berkeley, to the deep sea, to ancient India, to South Korea, and lots of places in between, to investigate this question, and uncover the many forces that drive growth, sometimes wondrous, sometimes terrifying, and sometimes surprisingly, unnervingly fragile. Lees meer
Special thanks to Elie Tanaka, Keith Devlin, Deven Patel, Chris Gole, James Raymo and Jessica Savage
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Matt Kielty, Becca Bressler, Pat Walters, Sindhu Gnanasambandun, Annie McEwen, Simon Adler
with help from - Rae Mondo
Produced by - Matt Kielty, Becca Bressler, Pat Walters, Sindhu Gnanasambandun, Annie McEwen, Simon Adler
Sound design contributed by - Jeremy Bloom
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Emily Krieger and Natalie Middleton
and Edited by - Pat WaltersEPISODE CITATIONS:
Audio:
“The Joy of Why,” (https://www.quantamagazine.org/tag/the-joy-of-why/) Steve Strogatz’s podcast.Articles:
“The End of Children,”(https://zpr.io/WBdg6bi8xwnr) The New Yorker, by Gideon Lewis-KrausBooks:
Finding Fibonacci (https://zpr.io/3EjviAttUFke) by Keith Devlin
Do Plants Know Math (https://zpr.io/bfbTZDJ8ehx5) by Chris GoleSingup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Mo…
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More Perfect: Sex Appeal
7 maart 2025 · 1 uur 5 min
In 2017 our sister show, More Perfect aired an episode all about RBG, In September of 2020, we lost Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the annals of history. She was 87. Given the atmosphere around reproductive rights, gender and law, we decided to re-air this More Perfect episode dedicated to one of her cases. Because it offers a unique portrait of how one person can make change in the world. Lees meer
This is the story of how Ginsburg, as a young lawyer at the ACLU, convinced an all-male Supreme Court to take discrimination against women seriously - using a case on discrimination against men.
Special thanks to Stephen Wiesenfeld, Alison Keith, and Bob Darcy.
Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project in collaboration with the Legal Information Institute at Cornell.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Julia Longoria
Produced by - Julia Longoria
Original music and sound design contributed by - Alex OveringtonOur newsletter comes out every Wednesday. It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Revenge of the Miasma
28 februari 2025 · 36 min
Today we uncover an invisible killer hidden, for over a hundred years, by reasonable disbelief. Science journalist extraordinaire Carl Zimmer tells us the story of a centuries-long battle of ideas that came to a head, with tragic consequences, in the very recent past. His latest book, called Airborne, details a largely forgotten history of science that never quite managed to get off the ground. Along the way, Carl helps us understand how we can fail, over and over again, to see a truth right in front of our faces. And how we finally came around thanks to scientific evidence hidden inside a song. Lees meer
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Carl Zimmer
Produced by - Sarah Qari
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Natalie MiddletonEPISODE CITATIONS:
Books - Check out Carl Zimmer’s new book, Airborne (https://zpr.io/Q5bdYrubcwE4).Articles - Read about the study on the Skagit Valley Chorale COVID superspreading event (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32979298/).
Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
21 februari 2025 · 35 min
Today, a story that starts small and private, with one woman alone in her bathroom, as she makes a quiet, startling discovery about her own body. But that small, private moment grows and grows, and pretty soon it becomes something so big that it has impacted the life of every person reading this right now… and all that without the woman ever even knowing the impact she had. We originally aired this story back in 2010, but we thought we’d bring it back today, as questions about bodily autonomy circle with renewed force. Lees meer
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Rebecca SklootSignup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Quantum Birds
14 februari 2025 · 35 min
Annie McEwen went to a mountain in Pennsylvania to help catch some migratory owls. Then Scott Weidensaul peeled back the owl’s feathery face disc, so that she could look at the back of its eyeball. No owls were harmed in the process, but this brief glimpse into the inner workings of a bird sent her off on a journey to a place where fleshy animal business bumps into the mathematics of subatomic particles. With help from Henrik Mouristen, we hear how one of the biggest mysteries in biology might finally find an answer in the weird world of quantum mechanics, where the classical rules of space and time are upended, and electrons dance to the beat of an enormous invisible force field that surrounds our planet. Lees meer
A very special thanks to Rosy Tucker, Eric Snyder, Holly Merker, and Seth Benz at the Hog Island Audubon Camp. Thank you to the owl-tagging volunteers Chris Bortz, Cassie Bortz, and Cheryl Faust at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. Thank you to Jeremy Bloom and Jim McEwen for helping with the owls. Thank you to Isabelle Andreesen at the University of Oldenburg and thank you to Andrew Farnsworth at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, as well as Nick Halmagyi and Andrew Otto. Thank you everyone!
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Annie McEwen
Produced by - Annie McEwen
Original music and sound design contributed by - Annie McEwen
with field recording and reporting help by - Jeremy S. Bloom
Fact-checking by - Natalie Middleton
and Edited by - Becca BresslerEPISODE CITATIONS:
Places -
Check out Hog Island Audubon Camp at https://hogisland.audubon.org/. If you like birds, this is the place for you. The people, the food (my god the food), the views, the hiking, and especially the BIRDS are incredible.And if it’s raptors you’re specifically interested in, I highly recommend visiting Hawk Mountain Sanctuary www.hawkmountain.org. You can watch these amazing birds wheeling high above a stunning forested valley, if you’re into that sort of thing… and maybe if you’re lucky you’ll eve…
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Vertigogo
7 februari 2025 · 26 min
In this episode, first aired in 2012, we have two stories of brains pushed off-course. We relive a surreal day in the life of a young researcher hijacked by her own brain, and hear from a librarian experiencing a bizarre and mysterious set of symptoms that she called “gravitational anarchy.” Lees meer
Special thanks to Sarah Montague and Ellen Horn, as well as actress Hope Davis, who read Rosemary Morton’s story. And the late Berton Roueché, who wrote that story down.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Produced by - Brenna Farrell
Original music and sound design contributed by - Tim Howard and Douglas SmithEPISODE CITATIONS:
Books -
Berton Roueché’s story about Rosemary Morton,”Essentially Normal” first appeared in the New Yorker in 1958 and was later published by Dutton in a book called "The Medical Detectives."
Signup for our newsletter. It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Forever Fresh
31 januari 2025 · 29 min
We eat apples in the summer and enjoy bananas in the winter. When we do this, we go against the natural order of life which is towards death and decay. What gives? This week, Latif Nasser spoke with Nicola Twilley, the author of Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves. Twilley spent over a decade reporting about how we keep food alive as it makes its way from the farm to our table. This conversation explores the science of cold, how fruits hold a secret to eternal youth, and how the salad bag, of all things, is our local grocery store’s unsung hero. Lees meer
Special thanks to Jim Lugg and Jeff Wooster
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by Latif Nasser and Nicola Twilley
with help from Maria Paz Gutierrez
Produced by Maria Paz Gutierrez
Original music from Jeremy Bloom
Sound design contributed by Jeremy Bloom
with mixing help from Arianne Wack
Fact-checking by Emily Krieger
and Edited by Alex NeasonEPISODE CITATIONS:
Articles
New Yorker Article - How the Fridge Changed Flavor (https://zpr.io/32TuSmAc2HbQ)by Nicola Twilley
New Yorker Article - Africa’s Cold Rush and the Promise of Refrigeration (https://zpr.io/3g9VdgKMAiHf) by Nicola TwilleyBooks
Frostbite (https://zpr.io/Mg3Q7JCBvcAg) by Nicola TwilleyPodcasts
Gastropod (https://link.chtbl.com/ndCzgCHU)Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundat…
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Nukes
24 januari 2025 · 52 min
In an episode first reported in 2017, we bring you a look up and down the US nuclear chain of command to find out who gets to authorize their use and who can stand in the way of Armageddon. Lees meer
President Richard Nixon once boasted that at any moment he could pick up a telephone and - in 20 minutes - kill 60 million people. Such is the power of the US President over the nation’s nuclear arsenal. But what if you were the military officer on the receiving end of that phone call? Could you refuse the order?
In this episode, we profile one Air Force Major who asked that question back in the 1970s and learn how the very act of asking it was so dangerous it derailed his career. We also pick up the question ourselves and pose it to veterans both high and low on the nuclear chain of command. Their responses reveal once and for all whether there are any legal checks and balances between us and a phone call for Armageddon.
Special thanks to Elaine Scarry, Sam Kean, Ron Rosenbaum, Lisa Perry, Ryan Furtkamp, Robin Perry, Thom Woodroofe, Doreen de Brum, Jackie Conley, Sean Malloy, Ray Peter, Jack D’Annibale, Ryan Pettigrew at the Nixon Presidential Library and Samuel Rushay at the Truman Presidential Library.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Latiff Nasser
Produced by - Annie McEwen and Simon Adler
with help from - Arianne WackSignup for our newsletter! It comes out every Wednesday. It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational …
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The Darkest Dark
17 januari 2025 · 26 min
We fall down the looking glass with Sönke Johnsen, a biologist who finds himself staring at one of the darkest things on the planet. So dark, it’s almost like he’s holding a blackhole in his hands. On his quest to understand how something could possibly be that black, we enter worlds of towering microscopic forests, where gold becomes black, the deep sea meets the moon, and places that are empty suddenly become full. Lees meer
Corrections/Clarifications:
In this episode, dragonfish are described as having teeth that slide back into their skull; that is the fangtooth fish, not the dragonfish. Though both can be ultra-black.The fishes described are the darkest things on the planet, but there are some other animals that are equally as dark, including butterflies, wasps, and birds.
Vantablack is no longer the blackest man-made material
EPISODE CREDITS:
Hosted by - Molly Webster
Reported by - Molly Webster
Produced by - Rebecca Laks, Pat Walters, Molly Webster
with help from - Becca Bressler
Original music from - Vetle Nærø
with mixing help from -Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Natalie A. Middleton
and Edited by - Pat Walters
Guest - Sönke JohnsenEPISODE CITATIONS:
Articles -
Sönke Johnsen’s research paper on ultra-black in the wings of butterfliesA paper by Sönke Johnsen that describes how structure can change color, by showing how clear quartz balls can — when in a random pile — go from clear, to very blue, to white, depending on the size of the individual balls.
Music -
This episode kicked-off with some music by Norwegian pianist Vetle Nærø, check him out onlineVideos -
Vantablack, a video about the look and design of the world’s OG darkest man-made substance (get ready to be wowed), and a new material saying it’s darker than Vanta.Signup for our newsletter. It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by…
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Smarty Plants
10 januari 2025 · 35 min
In an episode we first aired in 2018, we asked the question, do you really need a brain to sense the world around you? To remember? Or even learn? Well, it depends on who you ask. Jad and Robert, they are split on this one. Today, Robert drags Jad along on a parade for the surprising feats of brainless plants. Along with a home-inspection duo, a science writer, and some enterprising scientists at Princeton University, we dig into the work of evolutionary ecologist Monica Gagliano, who turns our brain-centered worldview on its head through a series of clever experiments that show plants doing things we never would've imagined. Can Robert get Jad to join the march? Lees meer
We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named one of Venus's quasi-moons. Then, Radiolab teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons, so that you, our listeners, could help us name another, and we now have a winner!! Early next week, head over to https://radiolab.org/moon, to check out the new name for the heavenly body you all helped make happen.
Sign-up for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.