Radiolab
Episodes
Nukes
07 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
President Richard Nixon once boasted that at any moment he could pick up a telephone and - in 20 minutes - kill 60 million people. Such is the power...
Shots Fired: Part 2
24 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
A couple years ago, Ben Montgomery, reporter at the Tampa Bay Times, started emailing every police station in Florida. He was asking for any documents...
Shots Fired: Part 1
17 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
A couple years ago, Ben Montgomery, reporter at the Tampa Bay Times, started emailing every police station in Florida. He was asking for any documents...
Update: CRISPR
24 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
It's been almost two years since we learned about CRISPR, a ninja-assassin-meets-DNA-editing-tool that has been billed as one of the most powerful, an...
Radiolab Presents: Ponzi Supernova
10 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
We thought we knew the story of Bernie Madoff. How he masterminded the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, leaving behind scores of distraught investor...
Man vs Machine
07 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Are new ideas and new inventions inevitable? Are they driven by us or by a larger force of nature? In this episode, we look at the things we make—fr...
Stranger in Paradise
27 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Back in 1911, a box with a dead raccoon in it showed up in Washington D.C., at the office of Gerrit S. Miller. After pulling it out and inspecting it,...
Radiolab Presents: On the Media: Busted, America's Poverty Myths
18 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
We love to share great radio, even if we didn’t make it. Today, On the Media’s Brooke Gladstone tells Jad and Robert about a mammoth project they ...
Lose Lose
30 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
No matter what sport you play, the object of the game is to win. And that’s hard enough to do. But we found a match where four top athletes had to d...
It's Not Us, It's You
16 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
It’s the end of the year, and the entire Radiolab team is starting to take stock and come up for air. We're excited about how much ground we've cove...
Radiolab Presents: More Perfect - Object Anyway
22 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
At the trial of James Batson in 1982, the prosecution eliminated all the black jurors from the jury pool. Batson objected, setting off a complicate...
One Vote
07 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Come election season, it's easy to get cynical. Why cast a ballot if your single measly vote can't possibly change anything? In our first-ever electio...
Alpha Gal
27 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Tuck your napkin under your chin. We’re about to serve up a tale of love, loss, and lamb chops. For as long as she can remember, Amy Pearl has l...
Seneca, Nebraska
12 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Back in 2014 the town of Seneca, Nebraska was deeply divided. How divided? They were so fed up with each other that some citizens began circulating ...
The Primitive Streak
23 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Last May, two research groups announced a breakthrough: they each grew human embryos, in the lab, longer than ever before. In doing so, they witnessed...
Update: Eye In the Sky
13 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
An update on Ross McNutt and his superpower — he can zoom in on everyday life, then rewind and fast-forward to solve crimes in a shutter-flash. But ...
The Girl Who Doesn't Exist
29 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In today’s episode, we meet a young woman from Texas, born and raised, who can’t prove that she exists. Alecia Faith Pennington was born at home, ...
Playing God
22 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
When people are dying and you can only save some, how do you choose? Maybe you save the youngest. Or the sickest. Maybe you even just put all the name...
From Tree to Shining Tree
30 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
A forest can feel like a place of great stillness and quiet. But if you dig a little deeper, there’s a hidden world beneath your feet as busy and co...
David and the Wire
12 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
David Weinberg was stuck. He had been kicked out of college, was cleaning toilets by day, delivering pizzas by night and spending his weekends in jail...
Radiolab Presents: More Perfect - The Imperfect Plaintiffs
28 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode, we visit Edward Blum, a 64-year-old “legal entrepreneur” and former stockbroker who has become something of a Supreme Court match...
Radiolab Presents: More Perfect - The Political Thicket
10 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The question of how much power the Supreme Court should possess has divided justices over time. But the issue was perhaps never more hotly debated tha...
The Buried Bodies Case
03 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In 1973, a massive manhunt in New York's Adirondack Mountains ended when police captured a man named Robert Garrow. And that’s when this story r...
Bigger Than Bacon
10 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Today's story is a mystery, shockingly hot, and vanishingly tiny. It starts with a sound, rising like a mist from the marsh, around a dock in South C...
On the Edge
22 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
At the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan, one athlete pulled a move that, so far as we know, no one else had ever done in all of human history. Surya Bo...
Cellmates
06 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
There’s a black hole in the middle of the history of life: how did we go from tiny bags of chemicals to the vast menagerie of creatures we see aroun...
Update: 23 Weeks 6 Days
23 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
An update on Juniper French, a tiny baby, born at 23 Weeks and 6 days -- roughly halfway to full term. And a whole universe of medical and moral ques...
Debatable
11 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Unclasp your briefcase. It’s time for a showdown. In competitive debate future presidents, supreme court justices, and titans of industry pummel ea...
K-poparazzi
24 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In the U.S., paparazzi are pretty much synonymous with invasion of privacy. But today we travel to a place where the prying press create something mor...
Hard Knock Life
12 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
This Valentine's Day, a mysterious tap tap tapping leads us into a world of sex, death, and head-banging. Biologist Dave Goulson introduces us to the...
I Don't Have To Answer That
30 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Roosevelt, Kennedy, Eisenhower … they all got a pass. But today we peer back at the moment when poking into the private lives of political figures b...
The Cathedral
28 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Ryan and Amy Green were facing the unfaceable: their youngest son, Joel was diagnosed with terminal cancer after his first birthday. Producer Sruthi ...
The Fix
18 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
This episode we take a sober look at the throbbing, aching, craving desire states that return people (again and again) to the object of their addictio...
Staph Retreat
03 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when you combine an axe-wielding microbiologist and a disease-obsessed historian? A strange brew that's hard to resist, even for a modern...
Update: New Normal?
19 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
An update: Peacenik baboons, a man in a dress and cuddly tame foxes. Stories of adaptation, and reframing ideas about normalcy. 3 stories where choi...
Darkode
22 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
It would seem that hackers today can do just about anything they want - from turning on the cellphone in your pocket to holding your life's work hosta...
Remembering Oliver Sacks
30 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In memory of one of our dear friends, a re-release of our last conversation with Dr. Oliver Sacks.
From the Archives: Oliver Sacks' Table of Elements
06 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
As we're busy working on our next episode, with stories inspired by the Periodic Table of Elements, we thought we'd bring you one of its chief inspir...
Shrink
31 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The definition of life is in flux, complexity is overrated, and humans are shrinking. Viruses are supposed to be sleek, pared-down, dead-eyed machines...
Gray's Donation
16 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
A donation leads Sarah and Ross Gray to places we rarely get a chance to see. In this surprising journey, they gain a view of science that is redempti...
Mau Mau
03 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
This is the story of a few documents that tumbled out of the secret archives of the biggest empire the world has ever known, offering a glimpse of hi...
Eye in the Sky
18 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Ross McNutt has a superpower — he can zoom in on everyday life, then rewind and fast-forward to solve crimes in a shutter-flash. But should he? In 2...
Antibodies Part 1: CRISPR
06 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Hidden inside some of the world’s smallest organisms is one of the most powerful tools scientists have ever stumbled across. It's a defense system t...
Nazi Summer Camp
22 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Reporter Karen Duffin and her father were talking one day when, just as an aside, he mentioned the Nazi prisoners of war that worked on his Idaho farm...
Radiolab Live: Tell-Tale Hearts featuring Oliver Sacks
12 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
A few days ago Radiolab performed a live show and this episode we're bringing you a few of the highlights. They were stories of what motivates us, our...
The Living Room
09 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
We're thrilled to present a piece from one of our favorite podcasts, Love + Radio (Nick van der Kolk and Brendan Baker). Producer Briana Breen brin...
Los Frikis
24 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
How a group of 80’s Cuban misfits found rock-and-roll and created a revolution within a revolution, going into exile without ever leaving home. In a...
La Mancha Screwjob
24 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
All the world’s a stage. So we push through the fourth wall, pierce the spandex-ed heart of professional wrestling, and travel 400 years into the pa...
The Trust Engineers
10 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
When we talk online, things can go south fast. But they don’t have to. Today, we meet a group of social engineers who are convinced that tiny change...
American Football
29 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we tackle football. It’s the most popular sport in the US, shining a sometimes harsh light on so much of what we have been, what we are, and ...
Radiolab Presents: Invisibilia
09 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Producers' Note: A correction has been made to this audio to reflect the wishes of the subject of this story, Paige Abendroth. NPR's Invisibilia's ori...
Worth
23 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
This episode, we make three earnest, possibly foolhardy, attempts to put a price on the priceless. We figure out the dollar value for an accidental de...
Buttons Not Buttons
12 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Buttons are usually small and unimportant. But not always. Sometimes they are a portal to power, freedom, and destruction. Today we thread together t...
Outside Westgate
29 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Patient Zero - Updated
13 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
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 Ze...
Haunted
30 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Dennis Conrow was stuck. After a brief stint at college, he’d passed most of his 20’s back home with his parents, sleeping in his childhood room. ...
John Luther Adams
03 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
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 imm...
Juicervose
18 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Ron and Cornelia Suskind had two healthy young sons, promising careers, and a brand new home when their youngest son Owen started to disappear. 3 mo...
In The Dust Of This Planet
08 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Horror, fashion, and the end of the world … things get weird as we explore the undercurrents of thought that link nihilists, beard-stroking philoso...
Hello
21 Aug 2014
Contributed by Lukas
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 h...
Happy Birthday Bobby K
07 Aug 2014
Contributed by Lukas
It’s Robert’s birthday! (Or it was, anyway, a couple days back.) So today we celebrate with some classic Krulwich radio and a backwards peek into ...
For the Birds
24 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
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.
Galapagos
17 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Today, the strange story of a small group of islands that raise a big question: is it inevitable that even our most sacred natural landscapes will eve...
9-Volt Nirvana
26 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
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? May...
≤ kg
13 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
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 arou...
The Skull
15 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
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 w...
For the Love of Numbers
02 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
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 t...
Straight Outta Chevy Chase
01 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
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....
KILL 'EM ALL
25 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Black Box
17 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
The Times They Are a-Changin'
30 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Sex, Ducks, and The Founding Feud
19 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Jilted lovers and disrupted duck hunts provide a very odd look into the soul of the US Constitution.
It's Like ... Radiolab
10 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Apocalyptical
09 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Cataclysmic destruction. Surprising survival. In this new live stage performance, Radiolab turns its gaze to the topic of endings, both blazingly fast...
An Ice-Cold Case
19 Nov 2013
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Cut and Run
01 Nov 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Legions of athletes, sports gurus, and scientists have tried to figure out why Kenyans dominate long-distance running. In this short, we stumble acros...
UPDATE: Famous Tumors
22 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
When we first released Famous Tumors, Rebecca Skloot's book about the life and legacy of Henrietta Lacks (and her famous cells) had just hit the shelv...
Quicksaaaand!
10 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
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 ven...
Poop Train
24 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
You may not give a second thought (or backward glance) to what the toilet whisks away after you do your business. But we got wondering -- where would ...
Blame
12 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
We've all felt it, that irresistible urge to point the finger. But new technologies are complicating age-old moral conundrums about accountability. Th...
Dawn of Midi
29 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
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.
Rodney Versus Death
13 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Blood
31 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Happy Birthday, Good Dr. Sacks
09 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
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 w...
Ally's Choice
02 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
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 sis...
Curious Sounds from the Solid Sound Festival
27 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
This fall, we're hitting the road with our brand-new live show. We're stopping in 20 cities across the US (plus 1 stop in Canada), and we have some ex...
The Trouble with Everything
13 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
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 univer...
Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl
30 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
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 th...
The Distance of the Moon
16 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
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.
Radiolab Presents: TJ & Dave
02 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Are You Sure?
26 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
This hour, we walk the tightrope between doubt and certainty, and wonder if there's a way to make yourself at home on that razor's edge between defini...
REBROADCAST: Emergence
19 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
This spring, parts of the East Coast will turn squishy and crunchy -- the return of the 17-year cicadas means surfaces in certain locations (in patche...
The Man Behind the Maneuver
05 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1970s, choking became national news: thousands were choking to death, leading to more accidental deaths than guns. Nobody knew what to do. Unti...
Speed
05 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
We live our lives at human speed, we experience and interact with the world on a human time scale. But this hour, we put ourselves through the paces, ...
The Bitter End
15 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
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 deat...
Solid as a Rock
31 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
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 th...
Bliss
17 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Moments of total, world-shaking bliss are not easy to come by. Maybe that's what makes them feel so life-altering when they strike. And so worth chasi...
Raising Crane
04 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In this short, costumed scientists create a carefully choreographed childhood for a flock of whooping cranes to save them from extinction. It's the ul...
Inheritance
19 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Once a kid is born, their genetic fate is pretty much sealed. Or is it? This hour, we put nature and nurture on a collision course and discover how ou...
What's Up, Doc?
06 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
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 --...