FFFFFF

Bridges
Race

Former MCAS El Toro, Irvine, California, USA

Two short pieces on sperm that hint at the new ideas and amazing stories we came across once we started following the trail of this wriggly little cell.

Semifinals

Richard Boulton

Čvorović, Nikola

Garnett

1971 in Soviet football leagues

BYU–Hawaii

Malpas, Cheshire, UK

Famous Tumors

Pitbull

Andrés Alejandro Vilches Araneda

Straight Outta Chevy Chase
A search of order and balance in the world, asking how symmetry shapes everything from the origins of the universe, to what one sees in the mirror.
A showdown between a zookeeper and an orangutan named Fu Manchu raises a question: can an animal know what's in your head well enough to manipulate and deceive you?

Richard Brinsley Peake

This week on the podcast, football! No, it's not a Super Bowl recap. Jad and Robert present a piece from across the pond--a piece about soccer they fell in love with when they heard it at the Third Coast festival in Chicago.

Serbian basketball player

In this short, Jad presents the electrifying sounds of three mind-bending musical acts: Brooklyn duo Buke & Gass, drummer Glenn Kotche of Wilco, and the one-and-only Reggie Watts. Their performances were recorded live at our Curious Sounds concert earlier this month in NYC.

Alabama–Huntsville

Monorail: Hemming Plaza Station

German general and Knight's Cross recipient

Nathan Young

DVBBS, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Thomas Gold

Abilene Christian at Fresno State

British writer

Happy Birthday, Good Dr. Sacks
In this short, costumed scientists create a carefully choreographed childhood for a flock of whooping cranes to save them from extinction. It's the ultimate feel-good story, but it also raises some troubling questions about what it takes to get a species back to being wild.
Bible Salesmen, Snake Handlers and Deadly Decisions

Alaska Anchorage

Đumić

Auvergne Clermont

British doctor and writer

poet

Kevin Parsons Sr.

The Sports Network FCS Poll released prior to game

An Unusual Look at the Middle East

Haitian footballer

Philip

Ryan

Jeff Louis

National Guard of the United States

US CD single

State/Territory

Lions

1764 paintings

AV Smackdown . . . The Podcast

Serbian

The Turing Problem
Galapagos
An Hour With George Avakian

Bearkats

bronzew

Harry Turpin Stadium

Humans love to solve problems. This hour, Diagnosis -- our attempt to find out what's wrong, and give it a label.

Purple and Gold

Things

lightgrey

Midlakes High School

N-bromosuccinimide; NBS

Mega Leks

Ergonom Niš

Remember the first time you ever saw an ant hill? That parade of black insects pouring in and out of a small sand mound...most of us stopped, looked, and then moved on to other parts of the playground. E. O. Wilson is the kid who never took his eyes off the mound.

Greatest Hits

Partizan NIS Belgrade

Special bonus of the week! A video inspired by the mathematician, Steve Strogatz. At the age of thirteen, Steve was astonished to find that pendulums and water fountains had a strange relationship that had previously been completely hidden from him.

Augusta State

The Distance of the Moon

Baêa

Pre-Disaster, the Aftermath and Spiritual Fallout

Manning, John

Arkansas Tech

France

Los Angeles

Stochasticity

Freeman, Ralph

Returning series

yes

Seattle Pacific
Clark Atlanta

Sometimes on the podcast, we like to talk about musicians and the music they make. Today we introduce you to Juana Molina. Last season we used some of her of music in the breaks for the Sperm show.

Bloomfield

Diane Van Deren is one of the best ultra-runners in the world, and it all started with a seizure. In this short, Diane tells us how her disability gave rise to an extraordinary ability.
Rwanda Maps
Retrospection

British dramatist

Rodd, James Rennell

GL13

Communicating across species -- from bringing pets to church, to a rescued whale that may have found a way to say thanks.

Wheelhouse plated

Jad plays one of his favorite pieces of all time, 'IF' by Sherre DeLys.

changed

Portrait of Freda Betti.

Andy Armstrong

Italian historian and philosopher

British songwriter

Reginald

Bagot

Patient Zero
The Perfect Picture
The Septendecennial Sing-Along

"Lady Marmalade"

* Ottawa Renegades
* Toronto Argonauts
* Saskatchewan Roughriders
* University of Mississippi
* Cornell University
* Hamilton Tiger-Cats

Dogs Gone Wild

"Celebrate"

1970 in Soviet football leagues

American football coach
Natick, Massachusetts, U.S.

KOR

United States

Semester

The Walls of Jericho
The Power of Music

Texas A&M Int'l.

Musical Language

Tarleton State

Tanacross

In this episode, strange stories of brains that lead their owners astray, knock them off balance, and, sometimes, propel them to do amazing things. Comprised from the Radiolab Shorts "Damn It, Basal Ganglia" , "Gravitational Anarchy" , "Slow" , and "In The Running" .

HMNZS Kahu I P-3571.JPG

Reginald Hill

Indianapolis

Making the Hippo Dance

1972 in Soviet football leagues

Ireland

Seeing in the Dark
Wanderers, Rwanda Maps and Rhythm n Blues
Word Musicians

Frowde, Philip

Paisley Park Studios, 2005

Sometimes being a good scientist requires putting aside your emotions. But what happens when objectivity isn't enough to make sense of a seemingly senseless act of violence? In this short, Jad and Robert talk to an entomologist about the risks, and the rewards, of trying to see the world through someone else's eyes.
Can you make your own universe? We usually think of the universe as 'everything that exists,' so how could you make another one?

Guillaume Cizeron

"Sing Na Na Na" by Spin-Up

Matt Willis

James Rennell Rodd

Stochasticity Bonus Video!

First Round

Louis playing for Standard Liège in 2014

Pass the Science

Borgeous

Mihajlo Andrić

Desperately Seeking Symmetry
Tell Me A Story

Canadian politician

In this new short, we explore luck and fate, both good and bad, with an author and a cartoon character.

Bojan Radulović

Sex, Ducks, and The Founding Feud

KK Partizan

In the wake of public tragedy there is a space between the official narrative and the stories of the people who experienced it. Today, we crawl inside that space and question the role of journalists in helping us move on from a traumatic event.
NPR's East Africa correspondent Gregory Warner takes us back to the 2013 terrorist attacks on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya. Warner reported on the attack as it happened, listening to eyewitness accounts, sorting out the facts, establishing the truth. But he's been wrestling with it ever since as his friends and neighbors try not only to put their lives back together, but also try to piece together what really happened that day.

Prince

Regional Finals

_bahia1415a

Northern Kentucky

Bath, New York

Music duo Buke and Gase talk to Jad about coaxing delightfully twangy sounds from their homemade instruments.

Berkeley

For meditation number fifteen we have a reading from David Eagleman's book Sum. It's a vision of the after life that's both playful and... horrifying. Sum is read by actor Jeffrey Tambor.
How a group of paranormal investigators made one man realize what it really means for a house, or a man, to be haunted.

American businessman

Psychologist Walter Mischel explains how one little test involving a marshmallow might tell you a frightening amount about what kind of person you are.
From a duel with the world's deadliest disease to a surprising peek into the way doctors think about death, in this hour Radiolab tries to reckon with the grim reaper. And, in the end, we confront the question at the heart of it all — when the time comes to finally leave, how do we want to go? Compiled from Radiolab Shorts "Rodney Vs. Death" , "Stayin' Alive" , and "The Bitter End" .
Lucy

Richard Argall

Nenad

Marsden, Philip

Near the end of the 19th century, a mysterious young woman with a beguiling smile turned up in Paris. She became a huge sensation. She also happened to be dead. You'd probably recognize her face yourself. You might have even touched it.

Vanja

Blood
In Defense of Darwin?

Nottingham Stadium

Bojan

Paul Borofsky

Radiolab Presents: TJ & Dave

Schmidt, Erich-Otto

Mystery, intrigue, and a goat standing on top of a cow.

Harding

What's Up, Doc?

Member of Parliament for St Marylebone

prod website

Ferris State

Member of Parliament for Leith Burghs

Barnfield

Major James Rennell Rodd

Andric, Mihajlo

What Does Technology Want?
From a suburban sidewalk in southern California, Jad and Robert witness the carnage of a gruesome turf war. Though the tiny warriors doing battle clock in at just a fraction of an inch, they have evolved a surprising, successful, and rather unsettling strategy of ironclad loyalty, absolute intolerance, and brutal violence.
Mutant Rights
Sleepless in South Sudan

American politician

South Africa
For the Love of Numbers

2015 Abilene Christian Wildcats football team

For The Birds
This hour, we question what decides the trajectory of our lives -- individual force of will, or fate? If destiny isn't written in the stars, could it be written in our genes? Kids struggle to resist marshmallows, and their ability to holdout at age 4 turns out to predict how successful they're likely to be the rest of their lives. And an unexpected find in a convent archive uncovers early warning signs for dementia in the writings of 18-year-olds.

Nice, France

Marston

In spring of 2006, Jad and Robert took the stage at the SoHo Apple Store to talk about the making of Radiolab. Jad geeks out on digital sound editing, and Robert raises editorial questions. And film editor joins them to Walter Murch weigh in on storytelling.

Overview page

Ghost Stories

Radulović

Grumpy Old Terrorists

W. Craig Bledsoe

Salic, Djoko

Barbara clare foley

Richard

tcb

Patient Zero - Updated
We wrestle with the dark side of human nature, and ask whether it's something we can ever really understand, or fully escape.

Dixie State

Ever wonder how Jad and Robert met? They tell their tale on stage at Oberlin College, and talk about how they started tinkering around with tape to come up with the Radiolab you know today

Philip Bourke

Radiolab Remixed

Tech Center Assistant Principal

Barnfield,+Richard

The "mind" and "self" were formerly the domain of philosophers & priests. But this hour, neurologists lead the charge.

Philip Owens

N-Bromosuccinimide

EducationUSA

Escape!

Morgan, the Pirate

Central Oklahoma

They buzz. They bite. And they have killed more people than cancer, war, or heart disease. Here’s the question: If you could wipe mosquitoes off the face of the planet, would you?
Alan Turing's mental leaps about machines and computers were some of the most innovative ideas of the 20th century. But the world wasn't kind to him. In this short, Robert wonders how Turing's personal life shaped his understanding of mechanical minds and human emotions.
Dog Tales
Religion in America
What's Left When You're Right?
There are few musical moments more well-worn than the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. But in this short, we find out that Beethoven might have made a last-ditch effort to keep his music from ever feeling familiar, to keep pushing his listeners to a kind of psychological limit.
Speedy Beet
We examine our beginnings, take a tour of the animal kingdom, and ponder a world where frozen sperm can last for all eternity.
Memories

Minn. State-Mankato

Shades of Gray

Bellarmine

KTES*

Embryologist

Bargain Buys

Shotwell Stadium

Poop Train
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, 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.
Bonus Video: Words

Greeley, CO

This hour of Radiolab centers around a chilling question: how well can you ever really know the people around you?

tana1290

Peake, Richard Brinsley

"Follow Me" by Uncle Cracker

Jilted lovers and disrupted duck hunts provide a very odd look into the soul of the US Constitution.
Needlework
The Times They Are a-Changin'
Birds do it, bees do it...yet science still can't answer the basic question: why do we sleep?

Lipscomb University

Undercover in Zimbabwe
We follow up on our Stochasticity show with an exploration pf whether the little choices we make every day are predictable or not.
The 'Stans'
Helicopter Boy

WIAV-LP

March

Noise Pollution vs Silence
In this short, Jonathan Schooler tells us about a discovery that launched his career and led to a puzzle that has haunted him ever since.
The Ring and I

Bahiaço

Translation
Curious Sounds from the Solid Sound Festival

"Elevation" by U2

"Screaming Eagles"

Hello
You've heard of the tortured artist. The tortured poet. Did you ever think about the tortured zoo director? It's tough work being the steward of animals while at the same time being their captor. David Hancocks, a former zoo director, tells us about the paradoxes he encounters in the zoo world and his dream for a future zoo.

Marinković, Vanja

Muriel Boucher-Zazoui, Catherine Papadakis

West Liberty

A story about a boy, a mom, and a homemade helicopter--and how radio can move you to feel a little bit different about the world.

General Frank J. Grass

After hearing our show about moments of death, filmmaker Will Hoffman went out in search of moments of life. What follows is what he found.
The basal ganglia is a core part of the brain, deep inside your skull, that helps control movement. Unless something upsets the chain of command. In this short, Jad and Robert meet a young researcher who was studying what happens when the basal ganglia gets short-circuited in mice...until one fateful day, when things got really, really weird.

Centennial Ice Arena

Parabolas
What's the soundtrack for the end of the world? We go looking for an answer. When Jad started to compose music for our live show Apocalyptical, he immediately thought of John Luther Adams. Adams' symphony “Become Ocean,” rooted in the sounds of nature, is elemental, tectonic, and unstoppable. It seemed a natural fit for our consideration of the extinction of the dinosaurs. In this piece, Jad introduces Robert to a special on Adams from a podcast called Meet the Composer. Through interviews and snippets of his music, it captures all the forces at play in Adam's work and reveals the dark majesty of Adams' take on the apocalypse.

Luigi

Radiolab Presents: The Loneliness of the Goalkeeper

Bisons

"Fame", diminutive

Lilias Georgina Guthrie

KK Crvena Zvezda

It’s almost impossible to imagine a world without words. But in this hour, we try to do just that.

Christopher W. Collier

Luigi Ferri

Pitbull featuring John Ryan

Nikola Jokić

John and Zoltan are both blind, but they deal with the world in completely different ways -- one paints vivid pictures in his mind, while the other refuses to picture anything at all. In this short, they argue about the truth of a world they can't see.
Today, a lady with a bird in her backyard upends our whole sense of what we may have to give up to keep a wild creature wild.
Laughter

Alaska

Wild Talk
Are new ideas and new inventions inevitable? Are they driven by us or by a larger force of nature?
Stories of unlikely answers to seemingly unsolvable problems. Compiled from various Radiolab Shorts: "A Flock of Two" , "Strangers in the Mirror" , and "The Bus Stop" .

Never Forget - The Ultimate Collection

National Championship

goldwNation

fisherman, police officer, firefighter

The Fact of the Matter
Argentine Invasion

Houston Baptist at Abilene Christian

State militia, reserve forces

greatest

momarch

We have a special bonus this week to accompany our Stochasticity episode. We asked our friends, Higher Mammals to produce a song and video for our Stochasticity show. We hope you find it completely Random!
Falling

Kandahar, Bagram, Camp Bastion

Syrian units of measurement

Look out...Martians!
Are You Sure?
It’s Robert’s birthday! So today we celebrate with some classic Krulwich radio and a backwards peek into the spirit and sensibility that, in many ways, drives our show.
Beyond Time
Solid as a Rock

Chaminade

Unraveling Bolero
Mel Blanc was known as "the man of 1,000 voices," but the actual number may have been closer to 1,500. Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Tweety, Barney Rubble -- all Mel. His characters made him one of the most beloved men in America. And in 1961, when a car crash left him in a coma, these characters may have saved him.

Petar Aranitović

Abilene Christian Wildcats

Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Betti, Frédérique Thérèse Augusta

Baloch Republican Party

Edmund Gosse

Mortality
Death Penalty and the Prison Economy

Skeletal formula of N-chlorosuccinimide

Crème Ninon

Mischel’s Marshmallows
A rare and haunting disorder called Capgras turns loved ones into imposters--and reveals that recognizing people, even the people we know the best, is more about how they make us feel than what we see in front of our eyes.
Jorge Luis Borges wrote, "Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire." And it’s still as close a definition as we have. This hour of Radiolab, we try our hand at unlocking the mysteries of time. We stretch and bend it, wrestle with its subjective nature, and wrap our minds around strategies to standardize it...stopping along the way at a 19th-century railroad station in Ohio, a track meet, and a Beethoven concert.

Town hall

Abilene Christian at Northwestern State

North Carolina

The Return of the Vampire

"Daddy DJ" by Daddy DJ

Beovuk 72

Hodgson

Scottish judge

Ga. Southwestern

VIDEO: Radiolab Live Apocalyptical Sneak Peek

coach

Top Gear Korea

Ferri, Luigi

Gold

A Flock of Two

Alexandra Feodorovna

McNeese State at Abilene Christian

What do you do in the face of a monstrous disease with a 100% fatality rate? In this short, a Milwaukee doctor tries to knock death incarnate off its throne.

Rogers, Sion

This episode makes three attempts to put a price on the priceless. One story figures out the dollar value for an accidental death, another one day of life, and the third assesses the work of bats and bees and tries to keep careful calculations from falling apart in the face of the realities of life, love, and loss.

Ryan, Phil

"Follow Me" by Uncle Kracker

The Shy Baboon

true

Dené-Yeniseian

Fort Lewis

A look at four unconventional ways to stay alive.

Patrick Russo

Tiruchirappalli, India

France and English-speaking countries

1554 Route 488

NY Screamers, Turkish Youth and Improv Comedians

English poet

Politician

Mo. Southern State
Colorado Mines

The National WWII Museum

Top Gear

Tricolor

Nee'aandeg'

Highland Park, Illinois

The Good Show
Topics explored: function of hippocampus, developmental topographical disorientation, the pigeon G.I. Joe, how carrier pigeons navigate and a piece on Emilie Gossiaux and Alan Lundgard.

Phill Hodgson

LaRhonda F. Mason

Do I Know You?

British poet and songwriter

Brian K. Hall

N/A

Mesa State

Nenad Šulović

Ally's Choice

Louis, Jeff

Words have the power to shape the way we think and feel. In this stunning video , filmmakers Will Hoffman and Daniel Mercadante bandy visual wordplay into a moving exploration of the power of language.

→ Barnechea

Worldwide

TBA

Betti, Freda

We explore the line between music and language, and turn to physics and biochemistry to ask how sound becomes feeling.

Free agent

e18

Slippery Rock

Arena Fonte Nova

Brown Box
Remembering is a tricky, unstable business. This hour: a look behind the curtain of how memories are made...and forgotten.

Mayor of Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove, NL

Unionist Member of Parliament for St Marylebone

W.Va. Wesleyan

Commander of 352. Volksgrenadier Division

Chlorosuccinimide

Montevallo

Estes Stadium

BRP Flag.jpg

"All for You" by Janet Jackson

British

Skokie Valley Skating Club

St. Louis Cardinals

Crossroads

Dave Woods (rugby league, born 1970)

March, Kevin

Place of burial

silverw

Attariya

Robert ambushes Jad with a question we've all been dying to ask him since he became a father. And we revisit some other ideas from our Morality show to think about a few really big modern-day problems .

Serbian professional basketball player

Marston, Philip Bourke

John Luther Adams

Never Forget: The Ultimate Collection

Slovenian/Serbian

An Ice-Cold Case
After Life
Haunted
Quicksaaaand!

Ben Silverman and Vage Dickinson

A journey to the edge of human limits -- from a bike race that makes the Tour de France look like child’s play, to a mind-stretching memory competition.
In this new short, a tree full of blood-sucking bats lends a startling twist to our understanding of altruism and natural selection.
Terrorism and Fundamentalism
When Kelley Benham and her husband Tom French finally got pregnant, after many attempts and a good deal of technological help, everything was perfect. Until it wasn't. Their story raises questions that, until recently, no parent had to face… and that are still nearly impossible to answer.

UNC Pembroke

present

Former Radiolab producer Lulu Miller and NPR reporter Alix Spiegel come to the studio to give us a sneak peak of their new show, Invisibilia from their upcoming episode on categories.

BERKELEY

Emergence

Record producer, songwriter, musician, remixer, engineer

*Part 1- "Are You My Brain Double?" - Host Robert Krulwich re-tells a 2400-year old love story from Aristophanes.
For most of human history, flight was an impossible dream. In this short, the dizzying rise and fall of a pilot whose aeronautic feats changed aviation forever and turned chancy stunts into acrobatic mastery.

Branch, Lawrence Obryan

EducationUSA Logo.png

Neither Confirm Nor Deny
Inner Voices
Two stories about very different boundaries and how we patrol them. From policing the borders of 'real' hip hop to how the Founding Fathers started a fight about where local law ends and federal law begins that still reverberates today.

album

Shaw

Tricolor de aço

IRL

City X

Head coach

Selling
Loops

Best graduate of the Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies at the University of Guayaquil, 1981

except Canadian built at or

Assistant Principals

Robbin, Robine, Robyne, Robynne, Robynn, Robyn, Robbyn, Robben and Robene.

Football is the most popular sport in the US. At the end of the 19th century, football was a nascent and nasty sport. The sons of the most powerful men in the country are literally knocking themselves out to win these gladiatorial battles. But then the Carlisle Indian School, formed in 1879 to assimilate the children and grandchildren of the Native American men who fought the final Plains Wars, fields the most American team of all. The kids at Carlisle took the field to face off against a new world that was destroying theirs, and along the way, they changed the fundamentals of football forever.

by Christina Aguilera, Mýa, Lil' Kim and Pink

American Int'l.

1974 in Soviet football leagues

Family Feuds Over the Lord

Brathwait

PAR

Aranitovic, Petar

Guests Thomas Cronin, Jules Davidoff, Guy Deutscher, Victoria Finlay, James Gleick, Jonah Lehrer and Jay Neitz share stories about how our world is saturated in color and examine how something so intangible packs such a visceral punch.

Ecuadorian Air Force general

Hodgson, Ralph

Vanja Marinković

December 2000

Rollins

KK Mega Basket

Eleven meditations on how, when, and even if we die.
For thousands of years philosophers have debated the essence of morality. Now, neuroscientists may have answers.
Guests John Cryan, Frederick Kaufman, Jonah Lehrer, Jon Reiner, Mary Roach, Arlene Shaner and Carl Zimmer share stories about reaching into cow and human stomachs, the connection between the intestines and the brain, and a story about a man rendered temporarily gutless.

Jason Brown

Platinum

Bentley

Erich-Otto Schmidt

Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville

Fresno, CA

* Basketball League of Serbia champion

Dawn of Midi

Bristol

For many of us, quicksand was once a real fear -- it held a vise-grip on our imaginations, from childish sandbox games to grown-up anxieties about venturing into unknown lands. But these days, quicksand can't even scare an 8-year-old. In this short, we try to find out why.

Zemun

"Always Ready, Always There"

Dubai, United Arab Emirates Ras Al khaima Airport

Radiolab examines the connection between your brain and your body -- and what happens when it breaks.

"Black Sweat"

"We Are One (Ole Ola)"

Networks & Neighborhoods
A War We Need
Wake Up and Dream

1-Bromo-2,5-pyrrolidinedione

Uinta chipmunk

Dolby Digital 5.1

silverwNation

Raymond Holmes Souster

Bliss

Jokić, Nikola

This week, a look at the different ways that people connect to each other, and how they act once they’re together. NOTE: This episode contains EXPLICIT language about sex.
When Brains Attack

Freda Betti

"Savings Every Day"

Ireland at the 2007 UCI Road World Championships

Of Men and Myths
Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl
It Might Be Science

Jack Byrne

Lu the Bison

MHA for Cape St. Francis

Marsden

Frowde

Hall, Brian K.

Stress

Shaggy featuring Rayvon

English musician, writer and entrepreneur

MW1

Jacksonville, FL 32202

Đumić, Božo

In this podcast short, a strange twist of legal taxonomy causes a dispute over whether X-MEN action figures are toys or dolls and sparks a court case about what it means to be human.

by DJ Pied Piper and the Masters of Ceremonies

Where Am I?

Novelist

CDT

Barnfield, Richard

n/a

Southern Indiana

Božo Đumić

Hamilton Tiger-Cats

Lost at Sea

Eastern SkyJets

An unlikely escape story begins in a supermarket, and ends in a boat off the coast of Maine.
Making Radiolab

silvermNation

Fighting the inevitable march of time -- or at least the common sense view of it.
≤kg

Bishop of Calcutta

El Loco (The Crazy)

Cornell

Cowboys

We plunge into a black hole, take a trip over Niagara Falls, and upend some myths about falling cats.
Rodney Versus Death

United States of America

Stacy M. Palkovics

Vargas Pazzos, Frank

Pitbull - Fireball .png

UMass Lowell

Teniente General Frank Vargas Pazzos

You order some stuff on the Internet and it shows up three hours later. How could all the things that need to happen to make that happen happen so fast?

on loan from Grêmio

Cryptosporangium aurantiacum

We play some never-released tape from the vault, and reveal a bit about what techniques we used to try and make it sing.
Jad turns to science to help strangers fall in love...or at least exchange a few phone numbers...as the host of a Singles Night. And he gets some advice from a few experts on the chemistry of a 'brain on love.'
Tales of lethargic farmers, zombie cockroaches, and even mind-controlled humans .
Contact

Miami, Florida, USA

Wordless Music

Anthony, Karl

VIDEO: Radiolab Behind the Scenes

Flag of the U.S. Department of State

Heber

Stories of nature and nurture slamming into each other, & shaping our biological blueprints.

Midwestern State
Indiana, PA

Apocalyptical - Live from the Paramount in Seattle
Educating Esme
The desire to trace your way back to the very beginning, to understand everything -- whether it's the mysteries of love or the mechanics of the universe -- is deeply human. It might also be deeply flawed.

All 50 U.S. states, as well as organized U.S. territories, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia

Teen Diaries, Whose Line Is It Anyway and Rhythm N Blues

Federal

At the start of this new year we crack open some fossils, peer back into ancient seas, and look up at lunar skies to find that a year is not quite as fixed as we thought it was.
Stories of unintended consequences -- from a psychologist who may have helped create a terrorist, to a toxic lake that spawned new life.

FF0000

Horror, fashion, and the end of the world … things get weird as we explore the undercurrents of thought that link nihilists, beard-stroking philosophers, Jay-Z, and True Detective. Today on Radiolab, a puzzle. Jad’s brother-in-law wrote a book called 'In The Dust of This Planet'.
Strangers in the Mirror

Angel

Vanishing Words

Hermitage High School

In this podcast, Jad talks to Charles Fernyhough about the connection between thought and the voice in your head. How did it get there? And what's happening when people hear someone else's voice in their head?
Inheritance

Argall, Richard

Kevin March

Lieutenant General Frank Vargas Pazzos in 1986

The Soul Patch

Boulton, Richard

John Borger

Panthers

Fate and Fortune

Bagot, Richard

Вања Маринковић

Voices in Your Head

Phil Ryan

Radio Diaries

Frank Vargas Pazzos

Native vs. Tourist

Lourival

Today, the story of one little thing that has radically changed what we know about humanity’s humble beginnings and the kinds of creatures that were out to get us way back when.
Chimps. Bonobos. Humans. We're all great apes, but that doesn’t mean we’re one happy family.
Is the world full of deep symmetries and ordered pairs? Or do we live in a lopsided universe? This striking video by Everynone plays with our yearning for balance, and reveals how beautiful imperfect matches can be. The video was inspired by our episode Desperately Seeking Symmetry.
*Part 2- "Mirror, Mirror" - Lewis Carroll and the questions he posed about mirrors.

on loan from Palmeiras

Florida Southern

bronzem

Souster, Raymond

French ice dancer

Earworms
Loop the Loop

Commander-in-chief of Joint Command of the Armed Forces of Ecuador, 1983–1986

Heber, Reginald

WZJY 1480

near Kendal, Cumberland

Byrne, Jack

Te Amo Corazón

Norman, Wayne

"Air Guard", "Army Guard", "Nasty Girls"

Damn It, Basal Ganglia

Winston-Salem

Jad and cellist Zoe Keating discuss the physics of looping sound, and how to use a 17th century instrument to make avant-garde electronic music.
We turn to doctors to save our lives -- to heal us, repair us, and keep us healthy. But when it comes to the critical question of what to do when death is at hand, there seems to be a gap between what we want doctors to do for us, and what doctors want done for themselves.
Darwinvaganza

BYU-Hawaii

Abilene, TX

Hills of India

The Listening Room

El Loco

Andrés Vilches

Radiolab throws a birthday party for Charles Darwin! Robert Krulwich invites three experts to toast the birthday boy.

Abilene Christian at Northern Colorado

Memory 2

English colonial government militias: from 1636

Philip Frowde

Anderson, SC

Tracie Harris-Mason

Stories of love and loss in the name of science.

Amelia

Sokolac, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Richard Holmes went to Cambridge University intending to study the lives of poets. Until a dueling mathematician, and a dinner conversation composed entirely of gestures, changed his mind.

List of Top Gear episodes

Kennedy-Cox, Reginald

Knevet, Ralph

Brown in 2011

Real-life people try to pin down, and make peace with, mysterious figures that haunt them, prod them, and fade out of existence. Featured guests include Jeremy Grange, Elizabeth King, Tore Laerdal, Latif Nasser, Mary Roach, Carlene Stephens and Steve Volk. Comprises Radiolab Shorts "12: Proof" , "Death Mask" , "Wake Up and Dream" and "A Clockwork Miracle" .

Mezzo-sopranoopera singer,singing teacher

Pitbull feat. John Ryan

We turn up the volume on the voices in our heads, and try to get to the bottom of what really steers our decisions.

UK English , American English

Chris Edwards Sr.

Take That

Who Are You?
Fu-Go

Union Army officer

Erich-Otto

Diagnosis
Worth

Lord Rennell

* 4× Grey Cup champion

In this short, Jad puts on his music hat and shares his love of Dawn of Midi, a band that he recently started using on the show.
What do you do when your own worst enemy is...you?

Minister of Government of Ecuador, 1997

May-Nov 1834

Brasileirão, 18th

Richard Barnfield

Kentucky Wesleyan

Food Therapy

Brown, Jason

Courchevel

Marinković

We all laugh. This hour of Radiolab asks why.
Secrets of Success
Remember
First, we asked you to tell us what song gets stuck in your head. Then, we asked you how you got it out. Finally, we made a podcast. Thank you to everyone who called in, shared their secret techniques, and sang without shame.
Colors

Course Catalog, 1896-97

Help!

Astra Banka Beograd

In 1903, the Wilbur and Orville Wright managed to coax their spruce biplane off the North Carolina sand for twelve seconds, and those twelve seconds started a revolution in flight. We commemorate the 104th year since that event, examining the human desire to fly, and how getting flight changed us.

Reginald Heber

Hall

Talking to Machines
A plum-sized lump of metal takes us from the French Revolution to an underground bunker in Maryland as we try to weigh the way we weigh the world around us.
The uneasy marriage of biology and engineering raises big questions about the nature of life.
Roman Mars loves to spotlight the seams and joints that make up the world around us. He's the host of an irresistible podcast called 99% Invisible--a series of tiny radio stories that provoke enormous questions. Roman joins Jad and Robert to play a few favorites, and to chat about the hidden language of design that shapes our lives--from sound effects to stuff that’s more ... concrete.

Fort Hays State

Robin Lu

Boulton

A study that finds a link between President Obama's election and the test scores of African Americans gets Jad and Robert thinking about an earlier study on a psychological effect called "stereotype threat."

Minn. State–Mankato

Darian Dulin

Graduation and Memorial Day

KK Kozuv
Bozovic, Slobodan

Đoko Šalić

Marcelo Sant'Ana

NED

Super Cool

Bullen

This week on the podcast, we continue our meditations on death . We'll throw a new one at you each day, all week long, culminating in a very special treat at the end of the week.

goldw

Improv comedy puts uncertainty on center stage -- performers usually start by asking the audience for a prompt, then they make up the details as they go. But two actors in Chicago are taking this idea to its absolute limit, and finding ways to navigate the unknown.
We open up an age old can of worms at WNYC's Jerome L. Greene Performance Space: which medium is superior -- television or radio? Jad and Robert face off, with This American Life's Ira Glass as referee.

U.S. Congressman

Salle Des Departs

→ D. Valdivia

The Loudest Miniature Fuzz

Surviving Fairmile B, RML497 at Brixham in England, prior to restoration to her wartime appearance

Sperm Tales

Kent Austin

goldmNation

How much do most of us really know about Africa?
More often than not, a fight is just a fight... Someone wins, someone loses. But this hour, we have a series of face-offs that shine a light on the human condition, the benefit of coming at something from a different side, and the price of being right.
La Mancha Screwjob

English clergyman

Nancy Haywood Blount

Murray, John Archibald

Chilean footballer

Quantum Cello

October 2010

Lumberjacks

Spain

*Part 1- "It's Alive?" - Professor Robert V. Levine talks about how population size affects the pace of life , physicists Geoffrey West and Luis Bettencourt argue that the pace of a city has an underlying logic, and Jonah Lehrer explain what statistics can reveal about cities.
Race Relations, The Power of Pop and the History of Rhythm n Blues
Inside "Ouch!"

Gabriella Papadakis / Guillaume Cizeron

Esporte Clube Bahia

Bailey, Philip James

1973 in Soviet football leagues

Every day, every moment, an epic battle is raging across the globe. It's happening in the ocean. And the evidence is both highly visible and totally hidden, depending on your perspective. In this short, the tale of an arms race involving trillions of sea creatures--and why their struggle is vital to our survival.

C.W. Post

What if the moon were just a jump away? In this short, a beautiful answer to that question from Italo Calvino, read live by Liev Schreiber.

Berea, Kentucky

Travelers Logs, Soundscapes and the History of Rhythm n Blues

Nikola Čvorović

Music producer

Is reality an ethereal, mathematical poem... or is it made up of solid, physical stuff? In this short, we kick rocks, slap tables, and argue about the nature of the universe with Jim Holt.

* Bosnian League champion
* Bosnian Cup champion

Nightmarish stories of musical hallucinations, songs with the power to transcend language, & the triumphant return of the Elvis of Afghanistan.
Legions of athletes, sports gurus, and scientists have tried to figure out why Kenyans dominate long-distance running. In this short, we stumble across a surprising, and sort of terrifying, explanation.

Massinger,+Philip

Therapy/Therapeutic Resistance
We continue our meditations on death with a reading from poet and writer, Mark Doty. This is an excerpt from Doty's 1996 memoir Heaven's Coast.
Placebo

"Te Amo Corazón"

Biopsychologist Barbara Smuts takes us to a remote area of Kenya, where she tried to gain the trust of a troop of baboons in the 1970s.

We purpose to present in the way of a liberal education as extensive a curriculum as can be found in any school, college, or university in the land, and at the same time to thoroughly drill its students in the Bible, the divine source of wisdom and goodness. It was not our design to make professional preachers, but to train males and females, young and old, all who might become members of the school, for the greatest usefulness in life. Each student is left to choose his own calling.

Canada

Frédérique Thérèse Augusta Betti

Washington, D.C.

Stayin' Alive

Radulović, Bojan

Some things are simply unknowable, from the pain another person feels to the reasons why they commit horrible acts. In this hour, we meet people who are trying to measure and make sense of things they can’t quite grasp—from the quest to pin down a standard measurement for pain, to a pair of performers who, night after night, step on stage with absolutely no plan. Compiled from Radiolab Shorts from the program's archive: "Inside 'Ouch!'" , "Killer Empathy" , and "Radiolab Presents: TJ & Dave" .

Owens, Philip

The Luckiest Lobster

American figure skater

* Primo Zeglio
* André de Toth

Drunken Barnaby's Four Journeys

OKK Beograd

Space-filling model of the N-bromosuccinimide molecule

Adventures in the Other America
Blink

Clermont-Ferrand

Lipscomb Seal.svg

We hunt for Patient Zeroes from all over the map.

The Lord Rennell

The Man Behind the Maneuver

MV The Fairmile at her mooring in Brixham in 2009.jpg

While working on The Bad Show, producer Pat Walters ran across some recordings that spooked him--partly because they seemed like they had to be a big joke ... and partly because, at the same time, they sounded so deadly serious. In this short, Jad & Robert try to decide how to feel.

Richard Brathwait

Buttons are usually small and unimportant. But not always. Sometimes they are a portal to power, freedom, and destruction. Today we thread together tales of taking charge of the little things in life, of fortunes made and lost, and of the ease with which the world can end.

English judge

Seal of the Air National Guard

Knevet

Peacenik baboons, a man in a dress, and cuddly tame foxes. Stories of adaptation, and reframing ideas about normalcy.

Sam Houston State at Abilene Christian

* Primo Zeglio
* André De Toth
* Filippo Sanjust

Just before the curtain went up on our live show in Los Angeles, Jad and Robert carved out a little stage time for a sneak peek at next week's Colors episode.

assume Newcastle upon Tyne

In the Running
Fu Manchu
Animal Minds

Kevin Parsons, Jr., 4 others

Mapping Tic Tac Toe-dom

Great Cross of the Venezuelan Air Force, 1984

From boom bap to EDM, we look at the line between hip-hop and not, and meet a defender of the genre that makes you question... who's in and who's out.

Kevin

In C

St. Rose

Bezbradica, Nemanja

Cal. St. Dom. Hills.

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.
War
In this podcast, Jad and Robert throw some physics at a bible story. We find out just how many trumpeters you'd actually need to blow down the walls of Jericho.
The Many Faces of Glenn Gould

Crvena zvezda Telekom Belgrade

Blood Buddies

Barbara Foley

CST

We've all felt it, that irresistible urge to point the finger. But new technologies are complicating age-old moral conundrums about accountability. This hour, we ask what blame does for us -- why do we need it, when isn't it enough, and what happens when we try to push past it with forgiveness and mercy?

Freeman

Skeletal formula of N-bromosuccinimide

Peake

Migrants and Wanderers

Wayne Norman

Brookesiinae

Mark Bamford

Markus Dravs

Therapy, Martian Invasion and More Rhythm n Blues

Athabaskan–Eyak

"Do You Really Like It?"

Dead Reckoning

Frank

Edmund

Memory and Forgetting

Kozuv

England

President

French operatic mezzo-soprano, singing teacher

Chasing Bugs

* 2x Basketball League of Serbia champion

Producer Lu Olkowski brings us the story of a tightly-knit family caught on opposite sides of a very big divide. If you ask Ally Manning's mom and sister, they'll tell you there's no question: they're black. But as a teenager, Ally decided that what was true for them didn't make sense for her.
Parasites

non_performing_personnel

From medicine to the movies, the horrifying to the holy, and history to the present day -- we're kinda obsessed with blood. This hour, we consider the power and magic of the red liquid that runs through our veins.

SC6

Stories about walking the tightrope between doubt and certainty.
Open Outcry
Revolt

Seal of the Army National Guard

Strip Club USA

Civil War

Robert Krulwich joins Jad Abumrad for stories about humans taking inspiration from birds: A look back at the Wright brothers, a study of a crow who makes and uses tools, and an ornithological obsession about a rare New Zealand bird.
Happy Birthday Bobby K
How close can words get you to the truth and feel and force of life? That's the question poking at our ribs this hour, as we wonder how it is that the right words can have the wrong meanings, and why sometimes the best translations lead us to an understanding that's way deeper than language. This episode, 8 stories that play out in the middle space between one reality and another — where poetry, insult comedy, 911 calls, and even our own bodies work to close the gap.

8301 Hungary Spring Road

Ralph Freeman

Philosopher

Southland Conference

Atonement, Quilting and Knitting and the History of Rhythm 'n Blues
Choice

Bulldog Stadium
Wildcats

Sulovic, Nenad

prev. Lutheran

Ralph Knevet

Known Unknowns
The modern search for the fountain of youth, and personal stories of witnessing death.

Dual state-federal reserve forces: from 1933

Deweese, John T.

DJ / Music producer

Natchitoches, LA

Sulovic

SE7

In Silence

IPA

Winnipeg Blue Bombers

Official Website

Stephen F. Austin at Abilene Christian

Learn a new language faster than ever! Leave doubt in the dust! Be a better sniper! Could you do all that and more with just a zap to the noggin? Maybe.

'''BYU-Hawaii

Shaggy singles

Zoo Keeper's Dilemma

Unisex

Japan

Conway, AR
Cardinals

Detective Stories
In this short, a neurologist issues a dare to a ragtime piano player and a famous conductor. When the two men face off in an fMRI machine, the challenge is so unimaginably difficult that one man instantly gives up. But the other achieves a musical feat that ought to be impossible.
Kohn Ashmore’s voice is arresting. It stopped his friend Andy Mills in his tracks the first time they met. But in this short about the power of friendship and familiarity, Andy explains that Kohn’s voice isn't the most striking thing about him at all.
Life
Robert challenges Richard Dawkins on a number of sticky spots on the subject of biological evolution.

Ralph

If you've ever wondered how the podcast comes together, or what it's like to work at Radiolab, here's a peek into our process.

Rennell Rodd

on loan at Ponte Preta

Scenes from a Transplant

Europe

Jad presents a piece by one of his favorite producers: Ben Rubin. This audio portrait, called 'Open Outcry,' visits the trading floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange, with its hundreds of traders shouting unintelligible phonic abbreviations and numbers back and forth.

Allier, France

Vilches, Andrés

Chris Edwards Sr. ,

Argall

Oliver Sacks, the famous neuroscientist and author, can't recognize faces. Neither can Chuck Close--the great artist known for his enormous paintings of ... that's right, faces.

GO, part of the U.S. Department of State

Fireball

Univ. of Mary

Who Am I?
Stories of striving, grasping, tripping, and falling for happiness, perfection, and Bliss.

Australia

Richard Brome

Hodgson Phil; Primrose

Red and Blue

Stonehill

Lulu Miller talks to a nursing home in Düsseldorf, Germany that came up with a novel approach to caring for Alzheimer's and Dementia patients.

Nenad Sulovic

Remix

Hodgson, Phill

What do frozen horses and a scorching universe have in common? That's what we wanted to know.
Chris And Lisa

Fairmile B motor launch

Sperm
Morality

Bulldogs

Božo

Metro State

Space
Cities

Chris Edwards Jr. ,

What a Slinky Knows
Winners, losers, underdogs -- what can games tell us about who we really are?

* Adriatic League MVP

Top Gear (2002 TV series)

When scientists treat words like data, clues to the real-life mysteries of human aging are found in the writings of Agatha Christie and 678 nuns.

on loan from Internacional

Jokić with Mega against MZT in 2014.

DIY Universe

Washburn

Buffalo Grove, Illinois

Veteran's Day Special

Italy

Another meditation on what happens after the moment of death, this time as Shakespeare envisions it.
Time

D.D. M.A. B.D.

Robert and Brian Greene discuss what's beyond the horizon of our universe, what you might wear in infinite universes with finite pairs of designer shoes, and why the Universe and swiss cheese have more in common than you think.

Quarterfinals

Games
Killer Empathy

A/AustKe20

Robert Krulwich's commencement speech at California Institute of Technology gets at the heart of what we do here at Radiolab. It's a treat to hear his passion. We enjoyed it. And we thought you might too.

Lincoln Memorial

Philip Massinger

Hill

Awo Ommama

BYU Hawaii

Owens

The Bad Show

South West England

Kill 'Em All
This week, a piece from one of our favorite radio-makers, Jonathan Mitchell. 'City X' is a history of the modern shopping mall through perspectives of people living in a real, yet unnamed, city.
The Obama Effect, Perhaps.

Pitbull singles

Pain is a fundamental part of life, and often a very lonely part. Doctors want to understand their patients' pain, and we all want to understand the suffering of our friends, relatives, or spouses. But pinning down another person's hurt is a slippery business.

Kori Ade

Yellow Fluff and Other Curious Encounters

Drury

American Football

Benedict

Released on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, "Trenches" compiled three archival stories about Americans at war: The first takes a listen to tape recordings from 1966 made by an American soldier who was killed in action in Vietnam; The second excerpts 1989 interviews with African American soldiers who dealt with racism, both in Vietnam and at home in the United States; The third story strings together audio clips from the Pacific Northwest in 1991 during first U.S. Gulf War with Iraq.

Tech Center Principal

Demons

Subotica, Yugoslavia

Cosmic Habituation

Empress consort of Russia

silverm

ARG

Bowie State

Dalhousie University

The Universe

Dravs, Markus

Gabriella Papadakis

United Kingdom

Main Entrance

Napredak Kruševac

Hill, Reginald

Philip Marsden

English

Southeastern Louisiana at Abilene Christian

Mansfield

The Trouble with Everything

AnomieBOT

right

We tackle a question we thought was a no-brainer: why do we blink?

Philip James Bailey

Montbrison, France

1761 paintings

Ralph Nicholas Chubb

This fall, we're hitting the road with our brand-new live show. We're stopping in 20 cities across the US , and we have some exciting news about the special musical guests who are joining us for the tour.

Campeonato Baiano

Fanesca

Gravitational Anarchy

Ralph Hodgson

Humboldt State

Šalić with Spars at the 2013 NIJT

Wayne

Parker, South Carolina

Lawrence O'Bryan Branch

Queens, NC

Love 'em or hate 'em, you rely on numbers every day. We ask how they confuse us, connect us, & even reveal secrets about us.
The Bitter End

Sloga Kraljevo

Say hello to the growth that killed Ulysses S. Grant, & get to know the woman whose cancer cells changed modern medicine.

Ferri

Winona State

Slobodan Božović

Live Streaming - Big Red Sports Network

Judson, South Carolina

Cataclysmic destruction. Surprising survival. In this new live stage performance, Radiolab turns its gaze to the topic of endings, both blazingly fast and agonizingly slow.

This hour we celebrate the one thing that all things do: end. From the stage in Seattle, with an all-star cast of comedians and musical guests, we bring you stories that end with a bang, with a whimper, and with astonishing bravery and resilience in the face of one's own demise.

Oops

N-Chlorosuccinimide

Scientists' obsession with one particular man - and with the tiny scraps of evidence left in the wake of his death - gives us a surprisingly intimate peek into the life of someone who should've been lost to the ages.

Generalmajor Richard Bazing

Limits

Michael Dobbs

Carl Zimmer is one of our go-to guys when we need help untangling a complicated scientific idea. But in this short, he unravels something much more personal.
The inhumanly fast world of high-speed trading, an excruciatingly slow experiment, and a physicist plays Zeus.

Bus: Riverside Trolly

Flight

London, England

Huskies

Radiolab Presents: 99% Invisible

BRA

The Wright Brothers

Commander-in-chief of Ecuadorian Air Force, 1983-1986

A Clockwork Miracle

Marcelle Polednik

CHN

English writer

Urban,

Pop Songs, Strip Clubs, and Commercials
*Part 3- "Nothing's the Antimatter" - Scientists discuss the primordial soup after the Big Bang and a law of physics that theoretically makes human existence possible.

Brome, Richard

In 1562, King Philip II needed a miracle. So he commissioned one from a highly-skilled clockmaker. In this short, a king's deal with God leads to an intricate mechanical creation, and Jad heads to the Smithsonian to investigate.

Abilene Christian at Incarnate Word

A hat that goes viral, an idea that gives birth to computer science, and a life-saving maneuver. In this episode of Radiolab, we look at the men behind some of the most famous inventions of our time and wonder what they really created, and what legacy they will leave behind them. Compiled from Radiolab Shorts from the program's archive: "The Turing Problem" and "The Man Behind the Maneuver" , as well as the "Contagious Ideas" segment of the "Patient Zero" episode .
The surprising ways that loops steer…and sometimes derail…our lives.
Robert Epstein talks about how he, without realizing it for two months, had an e-mail conversation with a bot calling itself "Svetlana". Sherry Turkle tells the story of Joseph Weizenbaum's program ELIZA and Brian Christian talks about the Loebner Prize, the Turing test, and Rollo Carpenter's Cleverbot. Also: Furby, Martine Rothblatt, David Hanson and Bina48.

Adelphi

Šulović in January 2013, with Igokea against MZT in Skopje

Bears

What's so Funny?

Stillman

From the silent words of a child forming her first thought, to the inner heckler that taunts you when the pressure's on, a look at how the voices in our heads shape us—for better and for worse. Compiled from Radiolab Shorts from the program's archive: "Voices in Your Head" , "The Obama Effect, Perhaps" , "What's Up Doc?" and "A 4-Track Mind" .

Bernard S. Davis III

Regional Semifinals

Vojvodina Srbijagas

"Hey kids," said physicist Tadashi Tokieda, "Wanna see a magic trick?" He pulled out a Slinky and did something that amazed the kids, & their dad Steve Strogatz. Steve, along with Neil deGrasse Tyson, explains what the gravity-defying Slinky trick reveals about the nature of all things great and small .

Entire Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe

Smith, William Alexander

Black Box

Provost Umphrey Stadium

Alain Gruttadoria, Diana Ribas, Catherine Papadakis

San Antonio, TX

Brian K.

Numbers
Radiolab asks what race is, and whether it's fixed or fluid, genes or culture?
Blood-thirsty Romans, frozen carcasses, wild jaguars, and a question: how do you build a better cage?
Writer Ian Frazier made a startling discovery several years ago in eastern Siberia: no one he met there had ever heard of tic tac toe. In this short, Jad and Robert wonder how a game that seems carved into childhood DNA could be completely unknown in some parts of the world.

Southland

Death Mask

Desmoxytes

Richard Bagot

* Ole Miss
* St. Louis Cardinals
* Saskatchewan Roughriders
* BC Lions
* Toronto Argonauts
* Winnipeg Blue Bombers

Imagine that you're a composer. Imagine getting the commission to write a song that will allow family members to face the death of a loved one.
New Normal?
Mother's day is nigh. Sort of. Anyway, without knowing it, you might have already given your mom a pretty lasting gift. But whether it helps or hurts her, or both, is still an open question. In this Radiolab short, Robert updates us on the science of fetal cells -- one of the first topics he covered as an NPR science correspondent.

Dubai International Airport and Ras Al Khaima Airport ,

bronzemNation

Two 650 bhp Hall-Scott Defender petrol engines

The Bus Stop
There are some questions that just don't give in to experiments and data. We take on one of those questions.

(Alix of Hesse)

Gamboa

Cizeron, Guillaume

How would you describe life on Earth to an alien? In 1977, the Voyager spacecraft launched into space. And with it, went the Golden Record-- a sort of time capsule, a collection of sounds and images that would describe life on Earth to whomever or whatever might find it.

Adams State

Killing Babies, Saving the World
Lies, liars, and lie catchers. This hour of Radiolab asks if it's possible for anyone to lead a life without deception.
Space Capsules
Guts

BORGEOUS

It might seem hyperbole to claim, as many Wagnerites do, that The Ring Cycle is 'The Greatest Work of Art Ever.' But it's permeated our culture from Star Wars to Bugs Bunny to J.R.R. Tolkien. On this Radiolab/WNYC Special, we explore the impact and influence of Wagner's Ring Cycle on the Metropolitan Opera's 2004 Presentation.
From a piece of the Wright brother's plane to a child’s sugar egg, today: Things! Important things, little things, personal things, things you can hold and things that can take hold of you. This hour, we investigate the objects around us, their power to move us, and whether it's better to look back or move on, hold on tight or just let go.
This hour, we examine three very different kinds of black boxes—those peculiar spaces where it’s clear what’s going in, we know what’s coming out, but what happens in-between is a mystery. From the darkest parts of metamorphosis, to a sixty year-old secret among magicians, to the nature of consciousness itself, we confront the stubborn gaps in our understanding.
Curious Sounds: A Radiolab Concert
Blame

"Whole Again" by Atomic Kitten

Normanton, England

Robin

Mayor

single

Sleep
In this podcast, a story about obsession, creativity, and a strange symmetry between a biologist and a composer that revolves around one famously repetitive piece of music.
Jay's Kids and Kids on Spirituality
Jurisdiction

"S.S.T."

Campylobacter laridis

EASTERN SKYJETS

Esquadrão de aço

WZJY

Alexandra Feodorovna, c. 1908

Central Jacksonville

We ponder our insignificant place in the universe, and boldly go after stories of romance & cynicism in Outer Space.
Are We Coins?
In early August of 1945, Tsutomu Yamaguchi had a run of the worst luck imaginable. A double blast of radiation left his future, and the future of his descendants, in doubt. In this short: an utterly amazing survival story that spans ... well, 4 billion years when you get down to it.
Nike, Nature's Revenge and Gunrunners

Space-filling model of the N-chlorosuccinimide molecule

West Texas A&M

Outside Westgate

GWB Presidential Center

Massinger, Philip

goldm

Dark Side of the Earth
In this short, a family dog disappears into the woods...and the mystery of what happened to him raises a big question about what it means to be wild.

Gayle and Tom Benson Stadium

They Might Be Giants celebrate at our season launch party with a live concert, and a conversation about the tricky business of combining science and entertainment.
The Universe Knows My Name

U.S higher education

The healing powers of belief, from the symbolic power of the doctor coat, to the very real stash of opium in your brain.
What happens when there is no leader? We look at the bottom-up logic of cities, Google, and even our brains.

Commandant of Second Air Zone, 1980–1983

Morgan the Pirate

Limestone

Chris had a crush on Lisa. But how to woo her? He met her on a park bench in Chicago, handed her a stack of CD's, and sent her off on an extremely specific mission. Did it work? Find out on this week's podcast.

"Played-a-Live " by Safri Duo
"Tele-Romeo / Blub, ik ben een vis!" by K3

French

Physician

Beaumont, TX

Home, Fast Food and Screamologists
Our Podcast comes in all shapes and sizes

on loan at Coritiba

Radiolab Presents: Invisibilia
You may not give a second thought to what the toilet whisks away after you do your business. But we got wondering -- where would we wind up if we thought of flushing as the start, and not the end, of a journey? In this short, we head out to trace the trail of sludge...from Manhattan, to wherever poop leads us.
The World in Sound

David Scobey

"Butterfly" by Crazy Town

Top Gear Russia

A 4-Track Mind

Phill

Zubin Garg

dramatist

Deception

vertical

Cheryl K. Montgomery

Generalmajor Eberhard von Schuckmann

American DJ and music producer

A mysterious case of the topsy turvies and a return to the question of what felines feel when they fall.
Jad talks to musicians Michael Lowenstern and Zoe Keating about their remixes of Terry Riley's In C.

Top Gear title card from season 2

Neural Crest as a Fourth Germ Layer

Speed

"Angel"

Confederate Army officer

Austin, Kent

War of the Worlds

Blue, Green and Red

A preview of Radiolab's live show Apocalyptical: dinosaurs, death, destruction... plus cinematic live scoring and comedic mayhem from Reggie Watts and Kurt Braunohler.

Ottawa Renegades

Norman

If natural selection boils down to survival of the fittest, how do you explain why one creature might stick its neck out for another?
Trenches
After Birth
Margins of the Musical Spectrum
Jad and Robert: The Early Years
It’s hard to think of anything more rational, more logical and impersonal than a number. But what if we’re all, universally, also deeply attuned to how numbers … feel? Why 2 is warm, 7 is strong and 11 is downright mystical.
Why does the Arab world hate us?

Bahia

The Skull
Pop Music

Beautiful World

Abilene Christian at Central Arkansas

In today's short, we get to know a man who struggles, and mostly fails, to contain his violent outbursts...until he meets a bird who can keep him in check.

Romain Haguenauer, Marie-France Dubreuil

The Radio Lab Fundraising Special
Lost & Found

Arthur Henry

eng

Top Gear Australia

Double Blasted

Philip Bourke Marston

Schmidt

Apple soup

Food for Thought

Grenadier-Regiment 679

As "National Guard": from 1824 in New York, from 1903 nationwide

The Folk Arts And Crafts Capital Of Kentucky

Representative in National Congress of Ecuador, 1996

Stories of stress -- from a singer who loses her voice, to an author caught in a body that never grew up.

"It Wasn't Me"

"Fireball"

अत्तरिया नगरपालिका

Lieutenant General

Juicervose

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Rodd,+Rennell

Turning ideas into radio is one of the most exciting, frustrating, rewarding, and insanely fun things there is. Which got us thinking--why not ask you to join in on the fun? So we teamed up with Indaba for our first-ever remix competition. And now we get to play the winners.
Zoos

Kennedy-Cox

Central Washington

Baianão, 1st

ESJ

One of our favorite human beings turns 80 this week. To celebrate, Robert asks Oliver Sacks to look back on his career, and explain how thousands of worms and a motorbike accident led to a brilliant writing career.
Fetal Consequences

Abilene Christian at Lamar

Robert and Malcolm Gladwell duke it out over questions of luck, talent, passion, and success.
In today's podcast, we get a tantalizing taste of words in the wild, from the jungles to the prairie.

Gosse

Stories about Christopher Daniel Gay, Isaac Newton's explaining why the moon does not fall down, how the Voyager probe is about to leave the solar system and about Joe Engressia Jr. and phone phreaking.

British politician

Getting a firm hold on the truth is never as simple as nailing down the facts of a situation. This hour, we go after a series of seemingly simple facts -- facts that offer surprising insight, facts that inspire deeply different stories, and facts that, in the end, might not matter at all.

Chubb, Ralph

ITA

"It's Raining Men" by Geri Halliwell
"Luv Me, Luv Me"

US$60 million

football

Words
This is Your Brain On Love

Richard Brinsley

Thomas B. Daniels

Wayne State, Mich.

bronzewNation

Never Forget – The Ultimate Collection

Reginald Kennedy-Cox

Radiolab Video: Symmetry

Phil

Jad--a brand new father--wonders what's going on inside the head of his baby Amil. Is it just chaos? Or is there something more, some understanding from the very beginning?
During World War II, something happened that nobody ever talks about. This is a tale of mysterious balloons, cowboy sheriffs, and young children caught up in the winds of war. And silence, the terror of silence.
An excerpt from Wordless Music on WNYC, a 4-part music program hosted by Jad, exploring the boundaries between classical and pop music. Jad waxes googly-eyed fan when he gets to talk about one of his favorite bands, Stars of the Lid.

Nemanja Bezbradica

In today's short, a man confronts a bully, and frees himself from a recurring nightmare that's terrorized him for more than 20 years.

sourceURL

Carmen

UPDATE: Famous Tumors

The greatest mysteries have a shadowy figure at the center—someone who sets things in motion and holds the key to how the story unfolds—Patient Zero. This hour, Radiolab hunts for Patient Zeroes of all kinds and considers the course of an ongoing outbreak.
We start with the story of perhaps the most iconic Patient Zero of all time: Typhoid Mary. Then, we dive into a molecular detective story to pinpoint the beginning of the AIDS, and we re-imagine the moment the virus that caused the global pandemic sprang to life. After that, we update the show with a quick look at the very current Ebola outbreak in west Africa. In the end, we're left wondering if you can trace the spread of an idea the way you can trace the spread of a disease and find ourselves faced with competing claims about the origin of the high five.

Raising Crane

Vargas Pazzos

UCI Road World Championships

Colors Sneak Peek
In this short, we go looking for the devil, and find ourselves tangled in a web of details surrounding one of the most haunting figures in music--a legendary guitarist whose shadowy life spawned a legend so powerful, it's still being repeated...even by fans who don't believe a word of it.
How stochasticity -- a wonderfully smarty-pants word for randomness -- drives our lives, and the patterns we see around us.
We explore some of the outer edges of the power of music by gathering up a band of biblical horn-blowers, paying a midnight visit to a corner of Mississippi where the devil is rumored to grant wishes, and by helping an angsty 18th century composer push some classical musicians to their physical and psychological limits. Compiled from Radiolab Shorts from the program's archive: "Stayin' Alive" , "The Walls of Jericho" , "Speedy Beet" , and "Crossroads" .
Cut and Run

Twin Rinks Ice Pavilion

Slow
In the Dust of this Planet
Buttons Not Buttons

Scott Davenport

T–6th