Radiolab

Dispatch 2: Every Day is Ignaz Semmelweis Day

01 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

It began with a tweet: “EVERY DAY IS IGNAZ SEMMELWEIS DAY.” Carl Zimmer — tweet author, acclaimed science writer and friend of the show — tell...

Dispatch 1: Numbers

27 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In a recent Radiolab group huddle, with coronavirus unraveling around us, the team found themselves grappling with all the numbers connected to COVID-...

The Other Latif: Episode 6

17 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Other Latif Radiolab’s Latif Nasser always believed his name was unique, singular, completely his own. Until one day when he makes a bizarre and...

The Other Latif: Episode 5

06 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Other Latif Radiolab’s Latif Nasser always believed his name was unique, singular, completely his own. Until one day when he makes a bizarre and...

The Other Latif: Bonus Episode!

03 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Other Latif Radiolab’s Latif Nasser always believed his name was unique, singular, completely his own. Until one day when he makes a bizarre and...

The Other Latif: Episode 4

25 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Other Latif Radiolab’s Latif Nasser always believed his name was unique, singular, completely his own. Until one day when he makes a bizarre and...

The Other Latif: Episode 3

18 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Other Latif Radiolab’s Latif Nasser always believed his name was unique, singular, completely his own. Until one day when he makes a bizarre and...

The Other Latif: Episode 2

11 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Other Latif Radiolab’s Latif Nasser always believed his name was unique, singular, completely his own. Until one day when he makes a bizarre and...

The Other Latif: Episode 1

04 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Other Latif Radiolab’s Latif Nasser always believed his name was unique, singular, completely his own. Until one day when he makes a bizarre an...

The Bobbys

31 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

On the occasion of his retirement as cohost of Radiolab, Robert sat down with Jad to reflect on his long and storied career in radio and television, a...

Body Count

24 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Right now, at this very moment, all across the planet, there are 7.6 billion human beings eating, breathing, sleeping, brushing their teeth, walking t...

60 Words

07 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This hour we pull apart one sentence, written in the hours after September 11th, 2001, that has led to the longest war in U.S. history. We examine how...

Man Against Horse

28 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This is a story about your butt. It’s a story about how you got your butt, why you have your butt, and how your butt might be one of the most import...

There and Back Again

18 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Here's a simple question: When an animal disappears in the winter, where does it go? Oddly enough, this question completely stumped European scientis...

Things

12 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 h...

Breaking Bongo

27 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Deep fake videos have the potential to make it impossible to sort fact from fiction. And some have argued that this blackhole of doubt will eventu...

Breaking News

19 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Today, two new technological tricks that together could invade our most deeply held beliefs and rewrite the rules of credibility. Also, we release ...

Dolly Parton's America: Neon Moss

08 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Today on Radiolab, we're bringing you the fourth episode of Jad's special series, Dolly Parton's America. In this episode, Jad goes back up the mou...

Songs that Cross Borders

30 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Coming off our adventures with Square Dancing, and Jad's dive into the world of Dolly Parton, we look back at one our favorites. About a decade ago,...

Birdie in the Cage

23 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

People have been doing the square dance since before the Declaration of Independence. But does that mean it should be THE American folk dance? That qu...

Radiolab Presents: Dolly Parton's America

16 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Radiolab creator and host Jad Abumrad spent the last two years following around music legend Dolly Parton, and we're here to say you should tune in! I...

Silky Love

27 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

We eat eels in sushi, stews, and pasta. Eels eat anything. Also they can survive outside of water for hours and live for up to 80 years. But this slip...

Tit for Tat

17 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the early 60s, Robert Axelrod was a math major messing around with refrigerator-sized computers. Then a dramatic global crisis made him wonder abou...

What's Left When You're Right?

05 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

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 hu...

The Memory Palace

28 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Nate DiMeo was preoccupied with the past, and how we relate to it, from a very young age. For the last decade or so he's been scratching this itch w...

Right to be Forgotten

23 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In an online world, that story about you lives forever. The tipsy photograph of you at the college football game? It’s up there. That news article a...

More Perfect: Cruel and Unusual

09 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On the inaugural episode of More Perfect, we explore three little words embedded in the 8th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: “cruel and unusual....

G: The World's Smartest Animal

30 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This episode begins with a rant. This rant, in particular, comes from Dan Engber - a science writer who loves animals but despises animal intelligence...

G: Unnatural Selection

26 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This past fall, a scientist named Steve Hsu made headlines with a provocative announcement. He would start selling a genetic intelligence test to cou...

G: Relative Genius

28 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Albert Einstein asked that when he died, his body be cremated and his ashes be scattered in a secret location. He didn’t want his grave, or his body...

G: Problem Space

14 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the first episode of G, Radiolab’s miniseries on intelligence, we went back to the 1970s to meet a group of Black parents who put the IQ test on ...

G: The Miseducation of Larry P

07 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Are some ideas so dangerous we shouldn’t even talk about them? That question brought Radiolab’s senior editor, Pat Walters, to a subject that at f...

Neither Confirm Nor Deny

04 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

 How a sunken nuclear submarine, a crazy billionaire, and a mechanical claw gave birth to a phrase that has hounded journalists and lawyers for 40 ye...

The Good Samaritan

24 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On a Tuesday afternoon back in the summer of 2017, Scotty Hatton and Scottie Wightman both made a decision to help someone in need. They both paid a p...

Bit Flip

08 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Back in 2003 Belgium was holding a national election. One of their first where the votes would be cast and counted on computers. Thousands of hours of...

Dinopocalypse Redux

03 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Using high-powered ballistics experiments, fancy computer algorithms, and good old-fashioned ancient geology, scientists have woven together a theory ...

Fu-Go

25 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This week we’re going back to a favorite episode from 2015. During World War II, something happened that nobody ever talks about. This is a tale of ...

Americanish

19 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 1903 the US Supreme Court refused to say that Isabel González was a citizen of the United States. Then again, they said, she wasn’t a exactl...

For Whom the Cowbell Tolls

29 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

When Nancy Holten was 8 years old her mom put her in a moving van. She fell asleep, woke up in Switzerland, and she's been there ever since. Nancy is...

Bliss

21 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This week Jad and Radiolab alum Tim Howard revisit a favorite episode from 2012. Because moments of total, world-shaking bliss are not easy to come by...

Asking for Another Friend

08 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Part 2: Last year, we ran a pair of episodes that explored the greatest mysteries in our listeners’ lives - the big ones, little ones, and the ones ...

Asking for a Friend

01 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Last year, we ran a pair of episodes that explored the greatest mysteries in our listeners’ lives - the big ones, little ones, and the ones in betwe...

Loops

22 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Our lives are filled with loops that hurt us, heal us, make us laugh, and, sometimes, leave us wanting more. This hour, Radiolab revisits the strange ...

The Beauty Puzzle

08 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

When a female animal is checking out her prospects, natural selection would dictate that she pay attention to how healthy, or strong, or fit he ...

The Punchline

16 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

John Scott was the professional hockey player that every fan loved to hate.  A tough guy. A brawler. A goon. But when an impish pundit named Puck Dad...

BONUS: Radiolab Scavenger Hunt

28 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The question we get more than any other here at Radiolab is “Where do all those stories come from?”  Today, for the first time ever, we divulge o...

A Clockwork Miracle

27 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

As legend goes, 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 G...

Apologetical

21 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

How do you fix a word that’s broken? A word we need when we bump into someone on the street, or break someone’s heart. In our increasingly disconn...

UnErased: Smid

28 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Today on Radiolab, we're playing the fourth and final episode of a series Jad worked on called UnErased: The history of conversion therapy in Americ...

UnErased: Dr. Davison and the Gay Cure

22 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Today on Radiolab, we're playing part of a series that Jad worked on called UnErased: The history of conversion therapy in America. The episode we're ...

The Front Runner

13 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

So, a cool thing happened for the show recently. A couple years ago, our episode "I Don't Have to Answer That" made it to the ears of director Jason ...

Tweak the Vote

05 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Democracy is on the ropes.  In the United States and abroad, citizens of democracies are feeling increasingly alienated, disaffected, and powerless. ...

War of the Worlds

30 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

It's been 80 years to the day since Orson Welles' infamous radio drama "The War of the Worlds" echoed far and wide over the airwaves. So we want to b...

In the No Part 3

26 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In the final episode of our “In The No” series, we sat down with several different groups of college-age women to talk about their sexual experie...

In the No Part 2

19 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In the year since accusations of sexual assault were first brought against Harvey Weinstein, our news has been flooded with stories of sexual miscondu...

In the No Part 1

11 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In 2017, radio-maker Kaitlin Prest released a mini-series called "No" about her personal struggle to understand and communicate about sexual consent. ...

Breaking Bad News Bears

28 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Today, a challenge: bear with us. We decided to shake things up at the show so we threw our staff a curveball, Walter Matthau-style. In two weeks tim...

Infective Heredity

21 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Today, a fast moving, sidestepping, gene-swapping free-for-all that would’ve made Darwin’s head spin. David Quammen tells us about a shocking way ...

27: The Most Perfect Album

19 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

More Perfect is back with something totally new and exciting. They just dropped an ALBUM. 27: The Most Perfect Album is like a Constitutional mix-t...

Post No Evil

17 Aug 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Back in 2008 Facebook began writing a document. It was a constitution of sorts, laying out what could and what couldn’t be posted on the site. Back ...

The Bad Show

28 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

With all of the black-and-white moralizing in our world today, we decided to bring back an old show about the little bit of bad that's in all of us......

Gonads: Sex Ed

27 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, an edited down version of a Radiolab Presents: Gonads Live show, host Molly Webster brings together a cast of storytellers, educato...

Gonads: Dana

22 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

When Dana Zzyym applied for their first passport back in 2014, they were handed a pretty straightforward application. Name, place of birth, photo ID -...

Gonads: X & Y

30 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

A lot of us understand biological sex with a pretty fateful underpinning: if you’re born with XX chromosomes, you’re female; if you’re born with...

Gonads: Fronads

23 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

At 28 years old, Annie Dauer was living a full life. She had a job she loved as a highschool PE teacher, a big family who lived nearby, and a serious ...

Gonads: The Primordial Journey

15 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

At two weeks old, the human embryo has only just begun its months-long journey to become a baby. The embryo is tiny, still invisible to the naked eye....

Birthstory

08 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

We originally posted this episode in 2015, and it inspired producer Molly Webster to take a deep dive into the wild and mysterious world of human repr...

Poison Control

01 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

When reporter Brenna Farrell was a new mom, her son gave her and her husband a scare -- prompting them to call Poison Control. For Brenna, the experie...

Unraveling Bolero

22 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we're throwing it back to an old favorite: a story about obsession, creativity, and a strange symmetry between a biologist and a composer ...

More or Less Human

18 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Seven years ago chatbots - those robotic texting machines - were a mere curiosity. They were noticeably robotic and at their most malicious seemed onl...

Dark Side of the Earth

26 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Astronauts at the International Space Station can make one request to talk to an earthling of their choice. For some reason, Astronaut Mark Vande Hei ...

Border Trilogy Part 3: What Remains

20 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Border Trilogy While scouring the Sonoran Desert for objects left behind by migrants crossing into the United States, anthropologist Jason De León ha...

Border Trilogy Part 2: Hold the Line

06 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Border Trilogy  While scouring the Sonoran Desert for objects left behind by migrants crossing into the United States, anthropologist Jason De León ...

Border Trilogy Part 1: Hole in the Fence

23 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Border Trilogy While scouring the Sonoran Desert for objects left behind by migrants crossing into the United States, anthropologist Jason De León ha...

Rippin’ the Rainbow an Even Newer One

15 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

One of our most popular episodes of all time was our Colors episode, where we introduced you to a sea creature that could see a rainbow far beyond wh...

Radiolab Presents: More Perfect - The Gun Show

23 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The shooting in Parkland, Florida on February 14, 2018, reignited an increasingly familiar debate about guns in this country. Today, we’re re-releas...

The Curious Case of the Russian Flash Mob at the West Palm Beach Cheesecake Factory

20 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

We don’t do breaking news. But when Robert Mueller released his indictment a few days ago, alleging that 13 Russian nationals colluded to disrupt th...

Smarty Plants

14 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

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 spli...

Ghosts of Football Past

04 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In anticipation of Super Bowl LII (Go Eagles), we're revisiting an old episode about the surprising history of how the game came to be. It's the end ...

Radiolab Presents: More Perfect - One Nation, Under Money

31 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

An unassuming string of 16 words tucked into the Constitution grants Congress extensive power to make laws that impact the entire nation. The Commerce...

The Voice in Your Head - A Tribute to Joe Frank

23 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

How do you pay proper tribute to a legend that many people haven’t heard of? We began asking ourselves this question last week when the visionary ra...

How to Be a Hero

09 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

What are people thinking when they risk their lives for someone else? Are they making complicated calculations of risk or diving in without a second...

Bigger Little Questions

22 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

We're back with Part 2! When we dumped out our bucket of questions, there was a lot of spillover. Like, A LOT of spillover. So today, we’re chasing...

Big Little Questions

20 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Here at the show, we get a lot of questions. Like, A LOT of questions. Tiny questions, big questions, short questions, long questions. Weird questions...

Super Cool

05 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

When we started reporting a fantastic, surreal story about one very cold night, more than 70 years ago, in northern Russia, we had no idea we'd end up...

Radiolab Presents: More Perfect - Mr. Graham and the Reasonable Man

30 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

This story comes from the second season of Radiolab's spin-off podcast, More Perfect. To hear more, subscribe here. On a fall afternoon in 1984, Deth...

Stereothreat

23 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Back in 1995, Claude Steele published a study that showed that negative stereotypes could have a detrimental effect on students' academic performance....

Match Made in Marrow

10 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

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 cultu...

Oliver Sacks: A Journey From Where to Where

27 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

There’s nothing quite like the sound of someone thinking out loud, struggling to find words and ideas to match what’s in their head. Today, we are...

Father K

13 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Today, while the divisions between different groups in this country feel more and more insurmountable, we zero in on a particular neighborhood to see...

Radiolab Presents: More Perfect - American Pendulum I

02 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

This story comes from the second season of Radiolab's spin-off podcast, More Perfect. To hear more, subscribe here. What happens when the Supreme Cou...

Driverless Dilemma

26 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Most of us would sacrifice one person to save five. It’s a pretty straightforward bit of moral math. But if we have to actually kill that person our...

Oliver Sipple

22 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

One morning, Oliver Sipple went out for a walk. A couple hours later, to his own surprise, he saved the life of the President of the United States. B...

Radiolab Presents: Anna in Somalia

12 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we are presenting a story from NPR foreign correspondent Gregory Warner and his new globe-trotting podcast Rough Translation. Mohammed was...

Where the Sun Don't Shine

23 Aug 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Today we take a quick look up at a hole in the sky and follow an old story as it travels beyond the reach of the sun.

Revising the Fault Line

27 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

A new tussle over an old story, and some long-held beliefs, with neurologist and author Robert Sapolsky. Four years ago, we did a story about a man w...

The Gondolier

15 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when doing what you want to do means giving up who you really are?  We travel to Venice, Italy with reporters Kristen Clark and David Co...

The Radio Lab

26 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

15 years ago the very first episode of Radiolab, fittingly called "Firsts," hit the airwaves. It was a 3-hour long collection of documentar...

Null and Void

12 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Today, a hidden power that is either the cornerstone of our democracy or a trapdoor to anarchy.   Should a juror be able to ignore the law? From a Qu...

Funky Hand Jive

26 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Back when Robert was kid, he had a chance encounter with then President John F. Kennedy. The interaction began with a hello and ended with a handshak...