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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. 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? EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Latif Nasser with help from - Maria Paz Guitierrez Produced by - Sarah Qari and Maria Paz Guitierrez Original music and sound design and mixing from - Jeremy Bloom Fact-checking by - Emily Kreiger and Edited by - Alex Neason with help from Sarah Qari EPISODE CITATIONS: VIDEOS - Latif also helped make a version of this story with the YouTube channel Veritasium https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaXKQ70q4KQ. ARTICLES - Hudson Freeze NYT OPED: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/20/opinion/trump-science-cuts.html BOOKS - Thomas Brock, https://uwmadison.app.box.com/s/h9def9ehidlu7n51s2ls3tfrqber4ij8 Paul Rabinow’s https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3614928.html Podcasts Episodes: If you haven’t heard, listen to our first episode about the Golden Goose https://radiolab.org/podcast/golden-goose awards. https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
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. https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
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 https://radiolab.org/podcast/goo-and-you – 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 https://open.spotify.com/show/1k8e1cqpzsCX6NS54KXzPE, 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. 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 Roach EPISODE CITATIONS: Audio - Listen to the original Radiolab episode, , here https://radiolab.org/podcast/goo-and-you (https://zpr.io/qh9xqpkXzk7j). Or the Signal Hill podcast here https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1E4wGzJ61vBCUp (https://zpr.io/CDfwyK7Zkrva). Guests - And if you want to learn more about Martha Weiss, and her work, head over here https://www.weisslab.org/ (https://zpr.io/aBw2YsqWB6NZ). https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
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. 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. https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
Earth can sustain life for another 100 million years, but can we? In this episode, we partnered with the team at Planet Money https://www.npr.org/sections/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 Middleton https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
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. 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. This episode was reported by Heather Radke and Becca Bressler, and produced by Becca Bressler and Pat Walters, with help from Matt Kielty and Maria Paz Gutierrez. Additional reporting by Molly Webster. 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 Gutierrez EPISODE CITATIONS: ARTICLES: Check out Harvey’s latest paper https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0143400421001284 published with Julia Katz. Sam Behjati's latest paper https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210310122521.htm on the placenta as a "genetic dumping ground". https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
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 Brooklyn, 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. 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 Walters EPISODE CITATIONS: AUDIO: “The Joy of Why,” https://www.quantamagazine.org/tag/the-joy-of-why/(https://www.quantamagazine.org/tag/the-joy-of-why/) Steve Strogatz’s podcast. ARTICLES: “The End of Children,” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/03/03/the-population-implosion(https://zpr.io/WBdg6bi8xwnr) The New Yorker, by Gideon Lewis-Kraus BOOKS: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691174860/finding-fibonacci?srsltid=AfmBOoq8DfnbYChokefLzGKNwBBkkfFJWlsKJP5DfDsXbL0ZqKMeiLXL (https://zpr.io/3EjviAttUFke) by Keith Devlin https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691158655/do-plants-know-math (https://zpr.io/bfbTZDJ8ehx5) by Chris Gole https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
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. 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. 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 Overington https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
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. EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Carl Zimmer Produced by - Sarah Qari with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom Fact-checking by - Natalie Middleton EPISODE CITATIONS: Books - Check out Carl Zimmer’s new book, https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/724793/air-borne-by-carl-zimmer/ (https://zpr.io/Q5bdYrubcwE4). Articles - Read about the study on the Skagit Valley Chorale COVID superspreading event https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32979298/(https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32979298/). https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
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. EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Rebecca Skloot https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
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. 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 Bressler EPISODE 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 http://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 even catch sight of some teeny weeny owls. BOOKS Scott Weidensaul will make you love birds if you don’t already. Check out his books and go see him talk! http://www.scottweidensaul.com/ WEBSITE If you want to learn more about the fascinating and wildly interdisciplinary field of magnetoreception in birds, you can dig into the work of Henrick Mouritsen at the University of Oldenburg and his colleagues at the University of Oxford here: https://www.quantumbirds.eu/ https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
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.” EPISODE CREDITS: Produced by - Brenna Farrell Original music and sound design contributed by - Tim Howard and Douglas Smith EPISODE 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 https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/327356/the-medical-detectives-by-berton-roueche/." https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
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 . 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. 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 Neason EPISODE CITATIONS: ARTICLES New Yorker Article - How the Fridge Changed Flavor https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/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://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/22/africas-cold-rush-and-the-promise-of-refrigeration (https://zpr.io/3g9VdgKMAiHf) by Nicola Twilley BOOKS Frostbite https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/551601/frostbite-by-nicola-twilley/ (https://zpr.io/Mg3Q7JCBvcAg) by Nicola Twilley https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
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.
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. 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. EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Latiff Nasser Produced by - Annie McEwen and Simon Adler with help from - Arianne Wack https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
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. https://www.mbari.org/animal/dragonfish/ https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/fish/fangtooth-fish#:~:text=This%20aptly%20named%20fish%20(Anoplogaster,when%20its%20mouth%20is%20closed. https://www.nature.com/articles/news040126-4 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/17/science/ultrablack-velvet-ant-brazil.html https://www.sciencenews.org/article/why-some-birds-paradise-have-ultrablack-feathers https://news.mit.edu/2019/blackest-black-material-cnt-0913 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 Johnsen https://scholars.duke.edu/person/sjohnsen EPISODE CITATIONS: Articles - Sönke Johnsen’s research paper on ultra-black https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15033-1in the wings of butterflies A paper by Sönke Johnsen that describes how can change by showing how clear quartz balls can https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2019.0383 — 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 online https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhArwubp6QE Videos - Vantablack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP0rH8IR22c&t=71s, 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. https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-just-set-a-new-record-for-the-blackest-material-ever-created https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
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? We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve https://radiolab.org/podcast/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. https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
In an episode first reported in 2017, we bring you what may be, maybe the greatest gift one person could give to another. You never know what might happen when you sign up to donate bone marrow. You might save a life… or you might be magically transported across a cultural chasm and find yourself starring in a modern adaptation of the greatest story ever told. One day, without thinking much of it, Jennell Jenney swabbed her cheek and signed up to be a donor. Across the country, Jim Munroe desperately needed a miracle, a one-in-eight-million connection that would save him. It proved to be a match made in marrow, a bit of magic in the world that hadn’t been there before. But when Jennell and Jim had a heart-to-heart in his suburban Dallas backyard, they realized they had contradictory ideas about where that magic came from. Today, an allegory for how to walk through the world in a way that lets you be deeply different, but totally together. This piece was reported by Latif Nasser. It was produced by Annie McEwen, with help from Bethel Habte and Alex Overington. Join Be The Match's bone marrow registry here: https://join.bethematch.org EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Latif Nasser Produced by - Annie McEwen with help from - Bethel Habte, and Alex Overington https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
This holiday season, in a special holiday drop, we want to take you on a trip around the heavens. First, Latif, with the help of Nour Raouafi, of NASA, and an edge-cutting piece of equipment, will explain how we may finally be making good on Icarus’s promise. Then, Lulu and Ada Limón talk about how a poet laureate goes about writing an ode to one of Jupiter’s moons. We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Vote on your favorites here: https://radiolab.org/moon EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Latif Nasser, Lulu Miller Produced by - Matt Kielty, Ana Gonzalez Fact-checking by - Diane Kelly https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
The early bird gets the worm. What goes around, comes around. It’s always darkest just before dawn. We carry these little nuggets of wisdom—these adages—with us, deep in our psyche. But recently we started wondering: are they true? Like, objectively, scientifically, provably true? So we picked a few and set out to fact check them. We talked to psychologists, neuroscientists, runners, a real estate agent, skateboarders, an ornithologist, a sociologist and an astrophysicist, among others, and we learned that these seemingly simple, clear-cut statements about us and our world, contain whole universes of beautiful, vexing complexity and deeper, stranger bits of wisdom than we ever imagined. We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve https://radiolab.org/podcast/zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites here: https://radiolab.org/moon EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Alex Neason, Simon Adler, Sindhu Gnanasambandan, Annie McEwen, Maria Paz Gutierrez, and W. Harry Fortuna Produced by - Simon Adler, Matt Kielty, Annie McEwen, Maria Paz Gutierrez, and Sindhu Gnanasambandan Original music and sound design contributed by - Jeremy Bloom Fact-checking by - Emily Krieger and Diane A. Kelly and Edited by - Pat Walters and Alex Neason https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
Back in 2012, when we were putting together our live show In the Dark, Jad and Robert called up Dave Wolf to ask him if he had any stories about darkness. And boy, did he. Dave told us two stories that became the finale of our show. Back in late 1997, Dave Wolf was on his first spacewalk, to perform work on the Mir (the photo to the right was taken during that mission, courtesy of NASA.). Dave wasn't alone -- with him was veteran Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyev. (That's a picture of Dave giving Anatoly a hug on board the Mir, also courtesy of NASA). Out in blackness of space, the contrast between light and dark is almost unimaginably extreme -- every 45 minutes, you plunge between absolute darkness on the night-side of Earth, and blazing light as the sun screams into view. Dave and Anatoly were tethered to the spacecraft, traveling 5 miles per second. That's 16 times faster than we travel on Earth's surface as it rotates -- so as they orbited, they experienced 16 nights and 16 days for every Earth day. Dave's description of his first spacewalk was all we could've asked for, and more. But what happened next ... well, it's just one of those stories that you always hope an astronaut will tell. Dave and Anatoly were ready to call it a job and head back into the Mir when something went wrong with the airlock. They couldn't get it to re-pressurize. In other words, they were locked out. After hours of trying to fix the airlock, they were running out of the resources that kept them alive in their space suits and facing a grisly death. So, they unhooked their tethers, and tried one last desperate move. In the end, they made it through, and Dave went on to perform dozens more spacewalks in the years to come, but he never again experienced anything like those harrowing minutes trying to improvise his way back into the Mir. After that terrifying tale, Dave told us about another moment he and Anatoly shared, floating high above Earth, staring out into the universe ... a moment so beautiful, and peaceful, we decided to use the audience recreate it, as best we could, for the final act of our live show. We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve https://radiolab.org/podcast/zoozve?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAire5BhCNARIsAM53K1iZtz0n6r4Wr4eK8HCR5ah1iz9n_BdsPbj09uApQ6XRHUw_OOfU9qEaApXXEALw_wcB” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Vote on your favorites, here: https://radiolab.org/moon https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
In August of 1973, Jan-Erik Olsson walked into the lobby of a bank in central Stockholm. He fired his submachine gun at the ceiling and yelled “The party starts now!” Then he started taking hostages. For the next six days, Swedish police and international media would tie themselves in knots trying to understand what seemed to them a sordid attachment between captor and captives. And this fixation, later pathologized as “Stockholm Syndrome,” would soon spread across the globe, becoming an easy, often flippant explanation for why people—especially women—in crisis behave in ways outsiders can’t understand. But what if we got the origin story wrong? Today on Radiolab, we reexamine that week in 1973 and the earworm heard ‘round the world. Is “Stockholm Syndrome” just pop psychology built on a pile of lies? Or does it hold some kernel of truth that could help all of us better understand inexplicable trauma? "We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve https://radiolab.org/podcast/zoozve?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAire5BhCNARIsAM53K1iZtz0n6r4Wr4eK8HCR5ah1iz9n_BdsPbj09uApQ6XRHUw_OOfU9qEaApXXEALw_wcB” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. Now is you chance to make your mark on the heavens. You can now vote on your favorites, here: https://radiolab.org/moon" EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Sarah Qari with help from - Alice Edwards (also contributed research and translation) Produced by - Sarah Qari with help from - Rebecca Laks Original music and sound design contributed by - Jeremy Bloom Additional Field Recording by - Albert Murillo (CC-BY) with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom Fact-checking by - Natalie Middleton and Edited by - Alex Neason EPISODE CITATIONS: VIDEOS/DOCUMENTARIES: Bad Hostage https://www.badhostage.com/ by Mimi Wilcox Stolen Youth: Inside The Cult at Sarah Lawrence https://www.hulu.com/series/stolen-youth-inside-the-cult-at-sarah-lawrence-0336ebcf-9f28-4a55-993b-012aedd47325 PODCASTS: The Memory Motel Episode #13: The Ideal Hostage https://memorymotel.podbean.com/e/13-the-ideal-hostage/, hosted by Terrence Mickey Why She Stayed https://tr.ee/QrEH4OI5sW, hosted by Grace Stuart Talk to Me, The True Story of The World’s First Hostage Negotiation Team https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talk-to-me/id1650466269, hosted by Edward Conlon SOCIAL MEDIA: Grace Stuart https://www.tiktok.com/@gracestuart on Tiktok BOOKS: Six Days in August: The Story of Stockholm Syndrome https://bookshop.org/p/books/six-days-in-august-the-story-of-stockholm-syndrome-david-king/15252712?ean=9780393867541 by David King See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control, and Domestic Abuse https://www.jesshill.net/home/see-what-you-made-me-do/ by Jess Hill Slonim Woods 9 https://bookshop.org/p/books/slonim-woods-9-a-memoir-daniel-barban-levin/15004953?ean=9780593138854, a memoir by Daniel Barban Levin https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
In today’s story, which originally aired in 2014, we meet a very special cylinder. It's the gold standard (or, in this case, the platinum-iridium standard) for measuring mass. For decades it's been coddled and cared for and treated like a tiny king. But, as we learn from writer Andrew Marantz, things change—even things that were specifically designed to stay the same. We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Vote on your favorites soon, check here for details: https://radiolab.org/moon https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
When he rounded them up, he had a 100. A few months ago, Wendy Zuckerman invited our own Latif Nasser to come on her show, and, of course, he jumped at the chance. Laughter ensued, as they set off to find the "The Funniest Joke in the World." When you just Google something like that, the internet might serve you, "What has many keys but can't open a single lock??” (Answer: A piano). So they had to dig deeper. According to science. And for this quest they interviewed a bunch of amazing comics including Tig Notaro, Adam Conover, Dr Jason Leong, Loni Love, and, of course, some scientists: Neuroscientist Professor Sophie Scott and Psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman. Which Joke Will Win??? We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Vote on your favorites soon, check here for details: https://radiolab.org/moon Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab today. 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)! https://members.radiolab.org/
It's hard to start a conversation with a stranger—especially when that stranger is, well, different. He doesn't share your customs, celebrate your holidays, watch your TV shows, or even speak your language. Plus he has a blowhole. In this episode, which originally aired in the summer of 2014, we try to make contact with some of the strangest strangers on our little planet: dolphins. Producer Lynn Levy eavesdrops on some human-dolphin conversations, from a studio apartment in the Virgin Islands to a research vessel in the Bermuda Triangle. We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve https://radiolab.org/podcast/zoozve?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAire5BhCNARIsAM53K1iZtz0n6r4Wr4eK8HCR5ah1iz9n_BdsPbj09uApQ6XRHUw_OOfU9qEaApXXEALw_wcB” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab today. https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
As we grow up, there are little windows of time when we can learn very, very fast, and very, very deeply. Scientists call these moments, critical periods. Real, neurological, biological states when our brain can soak up information like a sponge. Then, these windows of learning close. Locking us in to certain behaviors and skills for the rest of our lives. But … what if we could reopen them? Today, we consider a series of discoveries that are reshaping our understanding of when and how we can learn. And what that could mean for things like PTSD, brain disease, or strokes. And cuddle puddles. It’s a mind-bending discussion. Literally and figuratively. We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve https://radiolab.org/podcast/zoozve?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAire5BhCNARIsAM53K1iZtz0n6r4Wr4eK8HCR5ah1iz9n_BdsPbj09uApQ6XRHUw_OOfU9qEaApXXEALw_wcB” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon EPISODE CREDITS: Hosted by - Molly Webster Reported by - Molly Webster Produced by -Sindhu Gnanasambandan with help from - Timmy Broderick and Molly Webster Original music and sound design contributed by - Dylan Keefe with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom Fact-checking by - Emily Krieger and Edited by - Soren Wheeler EPISODE CITATIONS: Science Articles - Gul’s 2019 paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1075-9 (https://zpr.io/wfQjeA6PGCBv) on the feel-good brain chemical oxytocin, and how it reopens social reward learning when combined with MDMA. Gul’s 2023 paper https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06204-3: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06204-3(https://zpr.io/TKDKEwiLwGRN) on the role of psychedelics in social reward learning. https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
In an episode we first aired in 2014, we meet a man named Dennis Conrow, who was stuck. After a brief stint at college, he’d spent most of his 20’s back home with his parents, sleeping in his childhood room. And just when he finally struck out on his own, fate intervened. He lost both his parents to cancer. So Dennis was left, back in the house, alone. Until one night when a group of paranormal investigators showed up at his door and made him realize what it really means for a house, or a man, to be haunted. We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by Matt Kielty with help from Andy Mills Produced by Matt Kielty with help from - Maria Paz Gutiérrez Original music and sound design contributed by - Matt Kielty https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
As the US Presidential Election nears, Radiolab covers the closest we ever came to abolishing the Electoral College. In the 1960s, then-President Lyndon Johnson approached an ambitious young Senator known as the Kennedy of the Midwest to tweak the way Americans elect their President. The more Senator Birch Bayh looked into the electoral college the more he believed it was a ticking time bomb hidden in the constitution, that someone needed to defuse. With overwhelming support in Congress, the endorsement of multiple Presidents, and polling showing that over 80% of the American public supported abolishing it, it looked like he might just pull it off. So why do we still have the electoral college? And will we actually ever get rid of it? We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Latif Nasser and Matt Kielty Produced by - Matt Kielty and Simon Adler Original music and sound design contributed by - Matt Kielty, Simon Adler, and Jeremy Bloom Mixed by - Jeremy Bloom Fact-checking by - Diane Kelley and Edited by - Becca Bressler and Pat Walters EPISODE CITATIONS: Articles - Harry Roth, “ https://saveourstates.com/blog/civil-rights-icon-defended-the-electoral-college-forty-years-ago” (https://zpr.io/jmS5buEGxBzU) Frederick Williams, “ https://thewriterfred.com/2019/03/18/the-late-senator-birch-bayh-best-friend-of-black-america/,” (https://zpr.io/NDiAgcK5UPhX) Christopher DeMuth, “ https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-man-who-saved-the-electoral-college” (https://zpr.io/PgneafdmWBVA) Books - Jill Lepore, https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393357424 (https://zpr.io/FyzMJAY8G7qe) Robert Blaemire, https://www.blaemire.us/ (https://www.blaemire.us/) Alex Keyssar, https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674278592 (https://zpr.io/kSf9uBQ7FHwa) https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250260352/letthepeoplepickthepresident (https://zpr.io/mug4xcMqeZCw) by Jesse Wegman Videos: CGP Grey series on The Electoral College https://www.cgpgrey.com/the-electoral-college (https://www.cgpgrey.com/the-electoral-college) Birch Bayh speech about the Electoral College (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrAZVx7tekU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrAZVx7tekU(from Ball State University Library which has many more Birch Bayh archival clips) Birch Bayh’s campaign jingle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcvnS5zaxC4 https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
Back in 2018, when this episode first aired, there was a feeling that democracy was on the ropes. In the United States and abroad, citizens of democracies are feeling increasingly alienated, disaffected, and powerless. Some are even asking themselves a question that feels almost too dangerous to say out loud: is democracy fundamentally broken? Today on Radiolab, we ask a different question: how do we fix it? We scrutinize one proposed tweak to the way we vote that could make politics in this country more representative, more moderate, and most shocking of all, more civil. Could this one surprisingly do-able mathematical fix really turn political campaigning from a rude bloodsport to a campfire singalong? And even if we could do that, would we want to? And a very special thanks to Rick Pickren, for allowing us to use his rendition of State of Maine, Maine’s state anthem. Check that out, and all his other state anthems on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/artist/4ocyfLkkyrQMnLsvY3OAnY?si=3NI90BynRfODQnhMpymQ-Q or Youtube https://youtube.com/channel/UCz6CzJqe_co_f1Eh1ZWdJkg?feature=shared. EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Latif Nasser, Simon Adler, Sarah Qari, Suzie Lechtenberg and Tracie Hunte Produced by - Simon Adler, Matt Kielty, Sarah Qari, and Suzie Lechtenberg Original music and sound design contributed by - Simon Adler https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
In 1987, Gary Hart was a young charismatic Democrat, poised to win his party’s nomination and possibly the presidency. Many of us know the story of what happened next, and even if you don’t, it’s a familiar tale. Back in 2016, we examined how, when this happened, politicians and political reporters found themselves in uncharted territory. And with help from author Matt Bai, we looked at how the events of that May shaped the way we cover politics, and expanded our sense of what's appropriate when it comes to judging a candidate. In the wake of the 2016 election, and in the throes of our current political moment, it would seem we’ve come full circle in the weirdest way. So we sat down with Brooke Gladstone, co-host of our sister show here at WNYC, https://link.chtbl.com/onthemedia?sid=radiolab to talk about why sex scandals don’t matter anymore. We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve https://radiolab.org/podcast/zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Simon Adler with help from - Jamie York Produced by - Simon Adler Update produced by Rebecca Laks https://radiolab.org/newsletter http://members.radiolab.org http://instagram.com/radiolab http://twitter.com/radiolab http://facebook.com/radiolab
