Radiolab

4.6 (42K)
NATURAL SCIENCES
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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.

1D AGO · BONUS • RADIOLAB+ ONLY

Subscriber Sneak Peek! Swimming with Shadows: A Radiolab Week of Sharks

Hey Radiolab + Members! Today, we’re excited to share an exclusive sneak peek of our new 5-part series called “Swimming with Shadows” launching next Monday, June 16th! In the summer of 1975, Jaws scared an entire generation out of the water. The film burned an idea into our cultural memory: they are mindless, man-eating monsters. We set out to tell a different story about sharks. Five stories over five days. We tear down deep-seated myths about sharks, plunge into the water with them, and find sharks that explode our sense of what they are – flying sharks, glowing sharks, baby sharks, sharks under attack, and sharks that may save millions of human lives. Look out for brand-new episodes in your podcast feed starting June 16th through June 20th.

3 min
6D AGO

The Elixir of Life

Doctor and special correspondent, Avir Mitra takes Lulu on an epic journey live on stage at a little basement club called Caveat, here in New York. Starting with an ingredient in breastmilk that babies can’t digest, a global hunt that takes us from Bangladesh to the Mennonite communities here in the US, we discover an ancient symbiotic relationship that might be on the verge of disappearing. So sip a vicarious cocktail, settle in, and explore the surprising ways our bodies forge deep, invisible connections that shape our lives. This live show is part of a series we are doing with Avir that we are calling “Viscera.” Each event is conversation that takes the audience on journey into a quirk or question or mystery inside of us, and gives them a visceral experience with the viscera of us. The previous installment of the series, was called “How to Save a Life.” Special thanks to Tim Brown, David Mills, Carlito Lebrilla, Bethany Henrik, Danielle Lemay, Katie Hinde, Jennifer Smilowitz, Angela Zivkovic, Daniela Barile, Mark Underwood EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by -Avir Mitra with help from - Anisa Vietze Original music from - Dylan Keefe Sound design contributed by - Dylan Keefe, Ivan Baren Fact-checking by -Natalie Middleton. Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org. Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

51 min
MAY 30

A Flock of Two

Animals rescue people all the time, but not like this. In this episode, first aired more than a decade ago, Jim Eggers is a 44-year-old man who suffers from a problem that not only puts his life at risk—it jeopardizes the safety of everybody around him. But with the help of Sadie, his pet African Grey Parrot, Jim found an unlikely way to manage his anger. African Grey Parrot expert Irene Pepperberg helps us understand how this could work, and shares some insights from her work with a parrot named Alex. And one quick note from our producer Pat Walters: Jim considers Sadie to be a “service animal,” a designation under the Americans with Disabilities Act that protects the rights of individuals with disabilities to bring certain animals into public places. The term service animal sometimes is legally limited to include only dogs and miniature horses. Jim disagrees with those limitations, but the local bus company, regardless of definitions, said they’ll make an exception for Sadie.

20 min
MAY 23

The Echo in the Machine

Today you can convert speech to text with the click of a button. Youtube does it for all our videos. Our phones will do it in real time. It’s frictionless. And yet, if it weren’t for an unlikely crew of protesters and office workers, it might still be impossible. This week, the story of our attempts to make the spoken visible. The magicians who tried. And the crazy spell that finally did it. EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Simon Adler Produced by - Simon Adler Original music from - Simon Adler Sound design contributed by - Simon Adler with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom Fact-checking by - Anna Pujol-Mazzini Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org. Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

33 min
MAY 16

How to Cure What Ails You

Now that we have the ability to see inside the brain without opening anyone's skull, we'll be able to map and define brain activity and peg it to behavior and feelings. Right? Well, maybe not, or maybe not just yet. It seems the workings of our brains are rather too complex and diverse across individuals to really say for certain what a brain scan says about a person. But Nobel prize winner Eric Kandel and researcher Cynthia Fu tell us about groundbreaking work in the field of depression that just may help us toward better diagnosis and treatment. Anything that helps us treat a disease better is welcome. Doctors have been led astray before by misunderstanding a disease and what makes it better. Neurologist Robert Sapolsky tells us about the turn of the last century, when doctors discovered that babies who died inexplicably in their sleep had thymus glands that seemed far too large. Blasting them with radiation shrank them effectively, and so was administered to perfectly healthy children to prevent this sudden infant death syndrome... Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

25 min
MAY 9

The First Known Earthly Voice

What happens when a voice emerges? What happens when one is lost? Is something gained? A couple months ago, Lulu guest edited an issue of the nature magazine Orion. She called the issue “Queer Planet: A Celebration of Biodiversity,” and it was a wide-ranging celebration of queerness in nature. It featured work by amazing writers like Ocean Vuong, Kristen Arnett, Carmen Maria Machado and adrienne maree brown, among many others. But one piece in particular struck Lulu as something that was really meant to be made into audio, an essay called “Key Changes,” by the writer Sabrina Imbler. If their name sounds familiar, it might be because they’ve been on the show before. In this episode, we bring you Sabrina’s essay – which takes us from the beginning of time, to a field of crickets, to a karaoke bar – read by the phenomenal actor Becca Blackwell, and scored by our director of sound design Dylan Keefe. Stay to the end for a special surprise … from Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls! Special thanks to Jay Gallagher from UC Davis. EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Sabrina Imbler Produced by - Annie McEwen and Pat Walters with help from - Maria Paz Gutiérrez Original music from - Dylan Keefe Fact-checking by - Kim Schmidt and Edited by - Tajja Isen and Pat Walters EPISODE CITATIONS: Articles - Check out Queer Planet: A Celebration of Biodiversity, Orion Magazine (Spring 2025) Read Sabrina Imbler’s original essay, “Key Changes,” Orion Magazine (Spring 2025) Read Lulu Miller’s mini-essay, “Astonishing Immobility,” Orion Magazine (Spring 2025) Check out Sabrina Imbler’s Defector column Creaturefector all about animals Audio - Listen to Amy Ray’s song “Chuck Will’s Widow” from her solo album If It All Goes South Books - How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures, by Sabrina Imbler Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org. Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

38 min
MAY 2

Terrestrials: The Snow Beast

Today we bring you a story stranger than fiction. In 2006, paleobiologist Natalia Rybczynski took a helicopter to a remote Arctic island near the North Pole, spending her afternoons scavenging for ancient treasures on the ground. One day, she found something the size of a potato chip. Turns out, it was a three and half million year old chunk of bone. Keep reading if you’re okay with us spoiling the surprise. It’s a camel! Yes, the one we thought only hung out in deserts. Originally from North America, the camel trotted around the globe and went from snow monster to desert superstar. We go on an evolutionary tour of the camel’s body and learn how the same adaptations that help a camel in a desert also helped it in the snow. Plus, Lulu even meets one in the flesh. Special thanks to Latif Nasser for telling us this story. It was originally a TED Talk where he brought out a live camel on stage. Thank you also to Carly Mensch, Juliet Blake, Anna Bechtol, Stone Dow, Natalia Rybczynski and our camel man, Shayne Rigden. If you are in Wisconsin, you can go meet his camels at Rigden Ranch. And follow his delightful TikTok @rigdenranch to see camels in the snow! Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC Studios. This episode was produced by Ana González, Alan Goffinski, Mira Burt-Wintonick, Joe Plourde, Lulu Miller, and Sarah Sandbach, with help from Tanya Chawla and Natalia Ramirez. Fact checking by Anna Pujol-Mazzini. Our advisors this season are Ana Luz Porzecanski, Anil Lewis, Dominique Shabazz, and Liza Demby. Support for Terrestrials also comes from the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and the John Templeton Foundation. Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org. Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

31 min
APR 25

The Age of Aquaticus

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? Special thanks to Joanne Padrón Carney, Erin Heath, Valeria Sabate, Gwendolyn Bogard, Meredith Asbury and Megan Cantwell at AAAS. Thank you as well to Gregor Čavlović and Derek Muller and the rest of the Veritasium team. EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Latif Nasser with help from - Maria Paz Gutiérrez Produced by - Sarah Qari and Maria Paz Gutiérrez Original music and sound design and mixing from - Jeremy Bloom Fact-checking by - Emily Kreiger and Edited by - Alex Neason with help from Sarah Qari EPISODE CITATIONS: Videos - Latif also helped make a version of this story with the YouTube channel Veritasium. Articles - Hudson Freeze NYT OPED: Undercutting the Progress of American Science Books - Thomas Brock, A Scientist in Yellowstone National Park Paul Rabinow’s Making PCR: A Story of Biotechnology Podcasts Episodes: If you haven’t heard, listen to our first episode about the Golden Goose awards. Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org. Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

43 min

See All (492)

Welcome, nature lovers, to the home of the Terrestrials podcast and family-friendly Radiolab episodes about nature. Every other week, host Lulu Miller will take you on a nature walk to encounter a plant or animal behaving in ways that will surprise you. Squirrels that can regrow their brains, octopuses that can outsmart their human captors, honeybees that can predict the future. You don’t have to be a kid to listen, just someone who likes to see the world anew. You’ll hear a range of nature stories on this podcast. Sometimes these will be brand new Terrestrials episodes, full of original songs (by “The Songbud” Alan Goffinski) that tell a fantastical-sounding story about nature that is 100% true. Sometimes these will be our very best, shiniest, furriest, leafiest Radiolab episodes about animals or plants or nature. The stories that drop here will always be family-friendly and safe for kids. They will always be sound-rich and full of the vivid, gripping storytelling you’ve come to expect from Radiolab. They will always transport you to the beyond-human world: into the depths of the ocean, into jungles, prairies, forests, space, snow, wildflower fields and beyond. Sometimes we’ll encounter something so wild we just have to break out into song about it! Don’t worry, good voices not required. Join us on this adventure!

4.4 (993)

EDUCATION FOR KIDS
In this intensely divided moment, one of the few things everyone still seems to agree on is Dolly Parton—but why? That simple question leads to a deeply personal, historical, and musical rethinking of one of America’s great icons. Join us for a 9-episode journey into the Dollyverse. Hosted by Jad Abumrad. Produced and reported by Shima Oliaee. Dolly Parton’s America is a production from OSM Audio and WNYC Studios.

4.7 (16338)

MUSIC HISTORY
The episodes from this mini-series can be accessed in the Radiolab podcast feed and radiolab.org for free, or access the ad-free versions here when you become a Radiolab+ subscriber. Before there was the podcast and the smartphone, there was the cassette tape and the Walkman — two devices that although not considered much today, were revolutionary. They were recordable, rewritable, spliceable, compact, mobile. For the first time they allowed you to move through the world and listen to a voice speaking only to you. These cassette tapes brought us together, pulled us apart and forever changed how we say those three simple words, "I love you." In five episodes from around the world, Mixtape explores the impact the cassette had and continues to have today.

4.4 (50)

SOCIETY & CULTURE
Radiolab reporter Latif Nasser always believed his name was uniquely his own. Until he makes a shocking discovery that he shares his name with another man: Detainee 244 at Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. government paints a terrifying picture of The Other Latif as Al-Qaeda’s top explosives expert, and an advisor to Osama bin Laden. Nasser’s lawyer claims that he was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and that he was never even in Al-Qaeda. This clash leads Radiolab’s Latif into a years-long investigation, trying to uncover what this man actually did or didn’t do. Along the way, Radiolab’s Latif reflects on American values and his own religious past, and wonders how his namesake, a fellow nerdy, suburban Muslim kid, traveled such a strikingly different path.

4.6 (469)

DOCUMENTARY
The episodes from this mini-series can be accessed in the Radiolab podcast feed and radiolab.org for free, or access the ad-free versions here when you become a Radiolab+ subscriber. Radiolab Presents: G is a multi-episode exploration of one of the most dangerous ideas of the past century: the concept of intelligence. In six episodes, the series unearths the fraught history (and present-day use) of IQ tests, digs into the bizarre tale of one man’s obsessive quest to find the secret to genius in Einstein’s brain, reveals the ways the dark history of eugenics have crept up into the present, looks to the future with a controversial geneticist who has created a prenatal test for intelligence, and stages a raucous game-show throwdown to crown the smartest animal in the world.

4.3 (41)

SCIENCE
The episodes from this mini-series can be accessed in the Radiolab podcast feed and radiolab.org for free, or access the ad-free versions here when you become a Radiolab+ subscriber. It was Motown before Motown, FUBU before FUBU: Black Swan Records. The label founded 100 years ago by Harry Pace. Pace launched the career of Ethel Waters, inadvertently invented the term rock 'n' roll, played an important role in W.C. Handy becoming "Father of the Blues," inspired Ebony and Jet magazines, and helped desegregate the South Side of Chicago in an epic Supreme Court battle. Then, he disappeared. The Vanishing of Harry Pace is a series about the phenomenal but forgotten man who changed America. It's a story about betrayal, family, hidden identities, and a time like no other. From the creators of Dolly Parton's America, Jad Abumrad and Shima Oliaee, comes a new series produced in collaboration with author Kiese Laymon, scholar Imani Perry, writer Cord Jefferson, WQXR’s Terrance McKnight, and WNYC's Jami Floyd. Based on the book "Black Swan Blues: the Hard Rise and Brutal Fall of America’s First Black Owned Record Label" by Paul Slade.

4.3 (76)

HISTORY

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4.6

out of 5

41,889 Ratings

It's hard to estimate the value of this podcast

06/01/2006

ADDaD

This podcast stands out as pretty much constantly astounding. As someone who writes about science for a living, the 'scientific' concepts here are rendered in an enviably fascinating and pretty much idiot-proof way. It's a testament to the skills of the hosts in their use of the audio format that they can cruise through really complex stuff and give the ordinary listener entertainment and learning in a single scoop. This is the best. Now if they would only get season one on itunes....
Loved ‘A flock of two’❤️

Jun 4

Newsqn D

Loved ‘A flock of two’❤️
Let the interviewee talk

3d ago

History#Fan

Tremendously interesting subject. Unfortunately, the host kept speaking over the interviewee telling the listener what the interview is saying. Would much have preferred to hear the man talk himself.
Once upon a time, consistently insightful and fascinating. No longer.

4d ago

jampotinlaw

The current hosts are no match for the originators. They don’t seem like serious people.. They can’t speak the language without sounding like uneducated teenagers. They compromise their credibility with up-talk, and verbal ticks… ‘like’ seems to be every other word. Also, it seems the focus has turned from science to social issues. It’s just plain boring now. If it weren’t for the rehashing of old shows, which are like revisiting, old friends, I have to say the new version doesn’t deserve to be called radio lab. i’m sorry to write this negative review. Because this truly was a seminal podcast.. But it’s become so mediocre. I’m sure the hosts mean well, but they’re just not prepared to fill the shoes they’re trying to fill.