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 became
standard practice.
In 1987, Gary Hart was a young charismatic Democrat, poised to win his party’s
nomination and possibly the presidency. Many of us know the story of what
happened next, and even if you don’t, it’s a familiar tale. But at the time,
politicians and political reporters found themselves in uncharted territory.
With help from author Matt Bai, we look at how the events of that May shaped
the way we cover politics, and expanded our sense of what's appropriate when
it comes to judging a candidate.
Produced by Simon Adler
Special Thanks to Joe Trippi
8 years, 2 months ago - 23 plays
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 God
leads to an intricate mechanical creation, and Jad heads to the Smithsonian to
investigate.
When the 17-year-old crown prince of Spain, Don Carlos, fell down a set of
stairs in 1562, he threw his whole country into a state of uncertainty about
the future. Especially his father, King Philip II, who despite being the most
powerful man in the world, was helpless in the face of his heir's terrible
head wound. When none of the leading remedies of the day--bleeding,
blistering, purging, or drilling--helped, the king enlisted the help of a
relic...the corpse of a local holy man who had died 100 years earlier. Then,
Philip II promised that if God saved his son, he'd repay him with a miracle of
his own.
http://arts.vcu.edu/sculpture/portfolios/elizabeth-
king/" target="new">Elizabeth King, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, describes how--
according to legend--Philip II held up his end of the bargain with the help of
a renowned clockmaker and an intricate invention. Jad and Latif head to the
Smithsonian to meet curator Carlene E. Stephens, who shows them the inner
workings of a nearly 450-year-old monkbot.
This episode was reported by Latif Nasser.
_Support Radiolab today
athttps://pledge3.wnyc.org/donate/radiolab-
it/onestep/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=notes&utm_campaign=membership&utm_content=radiolab" target="new">Radiolab.org/donate._
5 years, 3 months ago - 5 plays
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 months later a specialist sat Ron and Cornelia down and said the word that
changed everything for them: Autism.
In this episode, the Suskind family finds an unlikely way to access their
silent son's world. We set off to figure out what their story can tell us
about Autism, a disorder with a wide spectrum of symptoms and severity. Along
the way, we speak to specialists, therapists, and advocates including Simon
Baron-Cohen, Barry and Raun Kaufmann, Dave Royko, Geraldine Dawson, Temple
Grandin, and Gil Tippy.
Produced by Kelsey Padgett.
9 years, 6 months ago - 3 plays
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
slippery snake of the sea harbors an even deeper mystery, one that has
tormented the minds of Aristotle and Sigmund Freud and apparently the entire
country of Italy: Where do they come from? We travel from the estuaries of New
York to the darkest part of the ocean in search of the limits of human
knowledge.
This episode was produced by Matt Kielty and Becca Bressler.
______Support Radiolab today
athttps://pledge3.wnyc.org/donate/radiolab-
it/onestep/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=notes&utm_campaign=membership&utm_content=radiolab" target="new">Radiolab.org/donate.
______
And check out Lucy Cooke's book https://www.amazon.com/Truth-About-Animals-Lovelorn-
Wildlife/dp/0465094643" target="new">The Truth about
Animals!
4 years, 6 months ago - 3 plays
Today, a startling new discovery: prodding the brain with light, a group of
scientists got an unexpected surprise -- they were able to turn back on a part
of the brain that had been shut down by Alzheimer’s disease. This new science
is not a cure, and is far from a treatment, but it’s a finding so … simple,
you won’t be able to shake it. Come join us for a lab visit, where we’ll meet
some mice, stare at some light, and come face-to-face with the mystery of
memory. We can promise you: by the end, you’ll never think the same way about
Christmas lights again.
This piece was reported by Molly Webster. It was produced by Annie McEwen,
Matt Kielty, and Molly Webster, with help from Simon Adler.
Special thanks to Ed Boyden, Cognito Therapeutics, Brad Dickerson, Karen
Duff, Zaven Khachaturian, Michael Lutz, Kevin M. Spencer, and Peter Uhlhaas.
Producer's note about the image:
Those neon green things in the image are microglia, the brain’s immune cells,
or, as we describe them in our episode, the janitor cells of the brain.
Straight from MIT’s research files, this image shows microglia who have gotten
light stimulation therapy (one can only hope in the flicker room). You can see
their many, super-long tentacles, which would be used to feel out anything
that didn’t belong in the brain. And then they’d eat it!
Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at
https://pledge3.wnyc.org/donate/radiolab-
it/onestep/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=radiolab-
redirect&utm_campaign=pledge&utm_content=show-notes "Pledge"" target="new">Radiolab.org/donate.
7 years, 3 months ago - 2 plays
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 first
he thought was long gone: the measuring of human intelligence with IQ tests.
Turns out, the tests are all around us. In the workplace. The criminal justice
system. Even the NFL. And they’re massive in schools. More than a million US
children are IQ tested every year.
We begin Radiolab Presents: “G” with a sentence that stopped us all in our
tracks: In the state of California, it is off-limits to administer an IQ test
to a child if he or she is Black. That’s because of a little-known case called
Larry P v Riles that in the 1970s … put the IQ test itself on trial. With the
help of reporter Lee Romney, we investigate how that lawsuit came to be, where
IQ tests came from, and what happened to one little boy who got caught in the
crossfire.
This episode was reported and produced by Lee Romney, Rachael Cusick and Pat
Walters.
Music by Alex Overington. _Fact-checking by Diane Kelly._
Special thanks to Elie Mistal, Chenjerai Kumanyika, Amanda Stern, Nora Lyons,
Ki Sung, Public Advocates, Michelle Wilson, Peter Fernandez, John Schaefer.
Lee Romney’s reporting was supported in part by USC’s Center for Health
Journalism.
Radiolab’s “G” is supported in part by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation
initiative dedicated to engaging everyone with the process of science.
__Support Radiolab today
athttps://pledge3.wnyc.org/donate/radiolab-
it/onestep/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=notes&utm_campaign=membership&utm_content=radiolab" target="new">Radiolab.org/donate.__
4 years, 9 months ago - 4 plays
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 of the
19th century -- the Civil War is over, and the frontier is dead. And young
college men are anxious. What great struggle will test their character? Then
along comes a new craze: football. A brutally violent game where young men can
show a stadium full of fans just what they're made of. Harvard, Yale,
Princeton, Penn -- the sons of the most powerful men in the country are
literally knocking themselves out to win these gladiatorial battles. And then
the most American team of all, with the most to prove, gets in the game and
owns it. The Carlisle Indian School, formed in 1879 to assimilate the children
and grandchildren of the men who fought the final Plains Wars against the
fathers and grandfathers of the Ivy Leaguers, starts challenging the best
teams in the country. On the football field, Carlisle had a chance for a fair
fight with high stakes -- a chance to earn respect, a chance to be winners,
and a chance to go forward in a changing world that was destroying theirs.
_Support Radiolab today athttps://pledge3.wnyc.org/donate/radiolab-
it/onestep/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=notes&utm_campaign=membership&utm_content=radiolab" target="new">
Radiolab.org/donate.
_
6 years, 1 month ago - 6 plays
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 what
we hope to be. Savage, creative, brutal and balletic, whether you love it or
loathe it … it’s a touchstone of the American identity.
Along with conflicted parents and players and coaches who aren’t sure if the
game will survive, we take a deep dive into the surprising history of how the
game came to be. At the end of the 19th century, football is 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.
Correction: An earlier version of this episode included a few errors that we
have corrected. We've also added one new piece of information.
The piece originally stated that British football had no referees. While
this was true in the earliest days of British football, they were eventually
added. We stated that referees were added to American football in response to
Pop Warner. American referees existed prior to Pop Warner, in order to address
brutality as well as the kind of rule-bending that Pop Warner specialized in.
Chuck Klosterman said that the three most popular sports in the US are
football, college football and major league baseball. In fact, baseball
actually ranks 2nd, college football is third.
Monet Edwards stated that 33 members of her family were players in the NFL.
That number is actually 13.
We also added one new fact: over 200 students at The Carlisle Indian School
died of malnutrition, poor health or distress from homesickness.
The audio has been adjusted to reflect these corrections.
9 years, 2 months ago - 1 plays
Border Trilogy
While scouring the Sonoran Desert for objects left behind by migrants crossing
into the United States, anthropologist Jason De León happened upon something
he didn't expect to get left behind: a human arm, stripped of flesh.
This macabre discovery sent him reeling, needing to know what exactly happened
to the body, and how many migrants die that way in the wilderness. In
researching border-crosser deaths in the Arizona desert, he noticed something
surprising. Sometime in the late-1990s, the number of migrant deaths shot up
dramatically and have stayed high since. Jason traced this increase to a
Border Patrol policy still in effect, called “Prevention Through Deterrence.”
Over three episodes, Radiolab will investigate this policy, its surprising
origins, and the people whose lives were changed forever because of it.
Part 1: Hole in the Fence:
We begin one afternoon in May 1992, when a student named Albert stumbled in
late for history class at Bowie High School in El Paso, Texas. His excuse:
Border Patrol. Soon more stories of students getting stopped and harassed by
Border Patrol started pouring in. So begins the unlikely story of how a
handful of Mexican-American high schoolers in one of the poorest neighborhoods
in the country stood up to what is today the country’s largest federal law
enforcement agency. They had no way of knowing at the time, but what would
follow was a chain of events that would drastically change the US-Mexico
border.
This episode was reported by Latif Nasser and Tracie Hunte and was produced
by Matt Kielty, Bethel Habte, Tracie Hunte and Latif Nasser.
Special thanks to Centro de Salud Familiar La Fe, Estela Reyes López, Barbara
Hines, Mallory Falk, Francesca Begos and Nancy Wiese from Hachette Book Group,
Professor Michael Olivas at the University of Houston Law Center, and Josiah
McC. Heyman, Ph.D, Director, Center for Interamerican and Border Studies and
Professor of Anthropology.
_Support Radiolab today
athttps://pledge3.wnyc.org/donate/radiolab-
it/onestep/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=notes&utm_campaign=membership&utm_content=radiolab" target="new">Radiolab.org/donate._
6 years ago - 2 plays
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 shocking
discovery. He shares his name with another man: Abdul Latif Nasser, 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 one of the most important
advisors 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, picking apart
evidence, attempting to separate fact from fiction, and 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, may have gone down such a
strikingly different path.
Episode 2: Morocco
Latif travels to Abdul Latif’s hometown of Casablanca, Morocco, to try and
find out: was he radicalized? And if so, how? Latif begins by visiting the
man’s family, but the family’s reaction to him gets complicated as Latif digs
for the truth. He finds out surprising information on a political group Abdul
Latif joined in his youth, his alleged onramp to extremism. Tensions escalate
when Latif realizes he’s being tailed.
Read more about Abdul Latif Nasser at the New York Times’https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/guantanamo/detainees/244
-abdul-latif-nasir" target="new"> Guantanamo
Docket.
This episode was produced by Sarah Qari, Suzie Lechtenberg, and Latif Nasser.
With help from Tarik El Barakah and Amira Karaoud. Fact checking by Diane
Kelly and Margot Williams. Editing by Jad Abumrad and Soren Wheeler. Original
music by Jad Abumrad, Alex Overington, and Amino Belyamani.
4 years, 1 month ago - 1 plays
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 more
like a prison break.
K-pop is a global juggernaut - with billions in sales and millions of fans
hanging on every note, watching K-pop idols synchronize and strut. And that
fame rests on a fantasy, K-pop stars have to be chaste and pure, but also …
available. Until recently, Korean music agencies and K-pop fans held their pop
stars to a strict set of rules designed to keep that fantasy alive. That is,
until Dispatch showed up.
Taking a cue from American and British paparazzi, a group of South Korean
reporters started hiding in their cars and snapping photos of stars on their
secret dates. The first-ever paparazzi photos turned the world of K-pop upside
down and introduced sort of a puzzle … how much do you want to know about the
people you idolize, and when is enough enough?
Produced by Matthew Kielty and Alexandra Young. Reported by Alexandra Young
with Brenna Farrell.
Special Thanks to Dispatch, Haeryun Kang, Joseph Kim, Charlie Cho, Hyena,
Crayon Pop, Jeremy Bloom, The Kirukkiruk Guesthouse, Choi Baekseol , Jiin
Choi, David Bevan, and The One Shots.
And if, like us, this story leaves you with an insatiable desire to listen to
K-pop here is a starter list of our recommendations:
8 years, 1 month ago - 1 plays
Horseshoe crabs are not much to look at. But beneath their unassuming
catcher’s-mitt shell, they harbor a half-billion-year-old secret: a superpower
that helped them outlive the dinosaurs and survive all the Earth’s mass
extinctions. And what is that secret superpower? Their blood. Their baby blue
blood. And it’s so miraculous that for decades, it hasn’t just been saving
their butts, it’s been saving ours too.
But that all might be about to change.
Follow us as we follow these ancient critters - from a raunchy beach orgy to a
marine blood drive to the most secluded waterslide - and learn a thing or two
from them about how much we depend on nature and how much it depends on us.
BONUS: If you want to know more about how miraculous horseshoe crabs are,
here's a bunch of our favorite reads:
Alexis Madrigal, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/02/the-blood-
harvest/284078/" target="new">"The Blood
Harvest" in The Atlantic, and Sarah Zhang's recent follow up in The
Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/05/blood-in-the-
water/559229/" target="new">"The Last Days of the Blue Blood Harvest"
Deborah Cramer, http://www.deborahcramer.com/books/the-
narrow-edge-red-knot/" target="new">The Narrow Edge
Richard Fortey, https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/54786/horseshoe-crabs-and-
velvet-worms-by-richard-fortey/9780307275530/" target="new">Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet
Worms
Ian Frazier, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/04/14
/blue-bloods" target="new">"Blue Bloods" in The New Yorker
Lulu Miller's short story, https://catapult.co/stories/me-
and-jane" target="new">"Me and Jane" in Catapult Magazine
Jerry Gault, http://eureka.criver.com
/the-most-noble-fishing-there-is/" target="new">"The Most Noble Fishing There Is" in Charles River's Eureka Magazine
This episode was reported by Latif Nasser with help from Damiano Marchetti
and was produced by Annie McEwen and Matt Kielty with help from Liza Yeager.
Special thanks to Arlene Shaner at the NY Academy of Medicine, Tim Wisniewski
at the Alan Mason Cheney Medical Archives at Johns Hopkins University, and
Jennifer Walton at the library of the Marine Biological Lab of the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution.
_Support Radiolab today
athttps://pledge3.wnyc.org/donate/radiolab-
it/onestep/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=notes&utm_campaign=membership&utm_content=radiolab" target="new">Radiolab.org/donate.
_
5 years, 7 months ago - 1 plays
Until now, the fastest vaccine ever made - for mumps - took four years. And
while our current effort to develop a covid-19 vaccine involves thousands of
people working around the clock, the mumps vaccine was developed almost
exclusively by one person: Maurice Hilleman. Hilleman cranked out more than 40
other vaccines over the course of his career, including 8 of the 14 routinely
given to children. He arguably saved more lives than any other single person.
And through his work, Hilleman embodied the instincts, drive, and guts it
takes to marshall the human body’s defenses against a disease. But through him
we also see the struggle and the costs of these monumental scientific efforts.
This episode was reported by Matt Kielty and Heather Radke, and produced by
Matt Kielty.
_______Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at
https://pledge3.wnyc.org/donate/radiolab-
it/onestep/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=radiolab-
redirect&utm_campaign=pledge&utm_content=show-notes "Pledge"" target="new">Radiolab.org/donate. _______
3 years, 3 months ago - 22 plays
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 big
into animal rights, crystals, and various forms of natural and holistic
healing. She’s also a viral sensation: the Dutch woman apparently so annoying,
her Swiss town denied her citizenship. In this episode we go to the little
village of Gipf-Oberfrick to meet Nancy, talk with the town, and ask the
question: what does it mean and what does it take to belong to a place?
This episode was reported by Kelly Prime and was produced by Kelly Prime and
Annie McEwen.
Special thanks to reporter Anna Mayumi Kerber, the tireless fixer and
translator for this story. Thanks also to Dominik Hangartner and to the very
talented yodelers Ai Dineen and Gregory Corbino.
_Support Radiolab today
athttps://pledge3.wnyc.org/donate/radiolab-
it/onestep/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=notes&utm_campaign=membership&utm_content=radiolab" target="new">Radiolab.org/donate.
_
5 years ago - 6 plays
Our Harlem Moon.
In this spin-off tale, Ethel Waters hijacks a degrading song and makes the
music her own.
The Vanishing of Harry Pace was created and produced by Shima Oliaee and
Jad Abumrad.
This series was 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 https://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-
Blues-Americas-black-owned-ebook/dp/B00NJ2BS4S" target="new">Black Swan Blues: the Hard Rise and Brutal Fall of
America’s First Black Owned Record Label by Paul Slade. Featuring
interviews with Pace's descendants and over forty musicians, historians,
writers, and musicologists, all of whom grapple with Pace’s enduring legacy.
Thank you to our podcast friends at
Throughline for featuring
our series on their show. Check out their feed for an exclusive behind-the-
scenes interview about the series with Rund, Ramtin, Jad and Shima.
2 years, 9 months ago - 1 plays
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.
Special thanks to Mark Dresser for the use ofhttp://www
.cleanfeed-records.com/disco2US.asp?intID=249" target="new">his music.
10 years, 1 month ago - 1 plays
Back in the 1950s, facing the threat of nuclear annihilation, federal
officials sat down and pondered what American life would actually look like
after an atomic attack. They faced a slew of practical questions like: Who
would count the dead and where would they build the refugee camps? But they
faced a more spiritual question as well. If Washington DC were hit, every
object in the the National Archives would be eviscerated in a moment.
Terrified by this reality, they set out to save some of America’s most
precious stuff.
Today, we look back at the items our Cold War era planners sought to save and
we ask the question: In the year 2020, what objects would we preserve now?
This episode was reported and produced by Simon Adler with editing from Pat
Walters and reporting assistance from Tad Davis.
_______Support Radiolab today
athttps://pledge3.wnyc.org/donate/radiolab-
it/onestep/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=notes&utm_campaign=membership&utm_content=radiolab" target="new">Radiolab.org/donate.
______ _
3 years, 11 months ago - 1 plays
One day in 1961, the famous physicist Richard Feynman stepped in front of a
Caltech lecture hall and posed this question to a group of undergraduate
students: “If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be
destroyed, and only one sentence was passed on to the next generation of
creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest
words?” Now, Feynman had an answer to his own question - a good one. But his
question got the entire team at Radiolab wondering, what did his sentence
leave out? So we posed Feynman’s cataclysm question to some of our favorite
writers, artists, historians, futurists - all kinds of great thinkers. We
asked them, “What’s the one sentence you would want to pass on to the next
generation that would contain the most information in the fewest words?” What
came back was an explosive collage of what it means to be alive right here and
now, and what we want to say before we go.
Featuring :
Richard Feynman, physicist ( The Pleasure of Finding Things
Out )
Caitlin Doughty, mortician ( Will My Cat Eat My
Eyeballs )
Esperanza Spalding, musician ( 12 Little
Spells )
Cord Jefferson, writer ( Watchmen )
Merrill Garbus, musician ([ I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life](https
://tune-yards.com/#album) )
Jenny Odell, writer ( How to do
Nothing )
Maria Popova, writer ( Brainpickings )
Alison Gopnik, developmental psychologist ( The Gardener and the
Carpenter )
Rebecca Sugar, animator ( Steven
Universe )
Nicholson Baker, writer (
Substitute )
James Gleick, writer ( Time
Travel )
Lady Pink, artist (too many amazing works to pick just
one)
Jenny Hollwell, writer ( Everything Lovely, Effortless,
Safe )
Jaron Lanier, futurist ( Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media
Accounts Right Now )
Missy Mazzoli, composer ( Proving Up )
This episode was produced by Matt Kielty and Rachael Cusick, with help from
Jeremy Bloom, Zakiya Gibbons, and the entire Radiolab staff. **
**
Special Thanks to:
Ella Frances Sanders, and her book,https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/567035/eating-the-sun-by-ella-
frances-sanders/" target="new">"Eating the
Sun", for inspiring this whole episode.
Caltech for letting us use original audio of The Feynman Lectures on Physics.
The entirety of the lectures are available to read for free online at
https://protect-
us.mimecast.com/s/6f_iCmZnD2SoJp0CB8FL-?domain=feynmanlectures.caltech.edu" target="new">www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu.
All the musicians who helped make the Primordial Chord, including:
Siavash Kamkar, from Iran
Koosha Pashangpour, from Iran
Curtis MacDonald, from Canada
Meade Bernard, from US
Barnaby Rea, from UK
Liav Kerbel, from Belgium
Sam Crittenden, from US
Saskia Lankhoorn, from Netherlands
Bryan Harris, from US
Amelia Watkins, from Canada
Claire James, from US
Ilario Maricano, from Italy
Matthias Kowalczyk, from
Germany
Solmaz Badri, from Iran
All the wonderful people we interviewed for sentences but weren’t able to fit
in this episode, including: Daniel Abrahm, Julia Alvarez, Aimee Bender, Sandra
Cisneros, Stanley Chen, Lewis Dartnell, Ann Druyan, Rose Eveleth, Ty Frank,
Julia Galef, Ross Gay, Gary Green, Cesar Harada, Dolores Huerta, Robin
Hunicke, Brittany Kamai, Priya Krishna, Ken Liu, Carmen Maria Machado, James
Martin, Judtih Matloff, Ryan McMahon, Hasan Minhaj, Lorrie Moore, Priya
Natarajan, Larry Owens, Sunni Patterson, Amy Pearl, Alison Roman, Domee Shi,
Will Shortz, Sam Stein, Sohaib Sultan, Kara Swisher, Jill Tarter, Olive
Watkins, Reggie Watts, Deborah Waxman, Alex Wellerstein, Caveh Zahedi.
3 years, 11 months ago - 2 plays
Six years ago, a new infection began popping up in four different hospitals on
three different continents, all around the same time. It wasn’t a bacteria, or
a virus. It was ... a killer fungus. No one knew where it came from, or why.
Today, the story of an ancient showdown between fungus and mammals that
started when dinosaurs disappeared from the earth. Back then, the battle swung
in our favor (spoiler alert!) and we’ve been hanging onto that win ever since.
But one scientist suggests that the rise of this new infectious fungus
indicates our edge is slipping, degree by increasing degree.
This episode was reported by Molly Webster, and produced by Molly and Bethel
Habte, with production help from Tad Davis. Special thanks to Julie Parsonnet
and Aviv Bergman.
____Support Radiolab today
athttps://pledge3.wnyc.org/donate/radiolab-
it/onestep/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=notes&utm_campaign=membership&utm_content=radiolab" target="new">Radiolab.org/donate.
___ _
Further Fungus Reading:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/health/drug-resistant-
candida-auris.html" target="new">NYTimes feature on the mysterious rise of Candida auris.
Arturo's
https://mbio.asm.org/content/10/4/e01397-19#:~:text=Candida%20auris%20is%20a%20new,exhibiting%20nonsusceptibility%20to%20antifungal%20agents." target="new">paper:
“On the emergence of Candida auris , Climate Change, Azoles, Swamps, and
Birds”, by Arturo Casadevall, et al.
“On the Origins of a Species: What Might Explain the Rise of Candida
auris?”, a report from the CDC.
#
3 years, 6 months ago - 12 plays
This episode begins with a rant. This rant, in particular, comes from Dan
Engber - a science writer who loves animals but despises animal intelligence
research. Dan told us that so much of the way we study animals involves tests
that we think show a human is smart ... not the animals we intend to study.
Dan’s rant got us thinking: What is the smartest animal in the world? And if
we threw out our human intelligence rubric, is there a fair way to figure it
out?
Obviously, there is. And it’s a live game show, judged by Jad, Robert … and a
dog.
For the last episode of G, Radiolab’s miniseries on intelligence, we’re
sharing that game show with you. It was recorded as a live show back in May
2019 at the Greene Space in New York City. We invited two science writers, Dan
Engber and Laurel Braitman, and two comedians, Tracy Clayton and Jordan
Mendoza, to compete against one another to find the world’s smartest animal.
What resulted were a series of funny, delightful stories about unexpectedly
smart animals and a shift in the way we think about intelligence across all
the animals - including us.
This episode was produced by Rachael Cusick and Pat Walters, with help from
Nora Keller and Suzie Lechtenberg. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Dorie
Chevlin.
Special thanks to Bill Berloni and Macy (the dog) and everyone at The Greene
Space.
Radiolab’s “G” is supported in part by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation
initiative dedicated to engaging everyone with the process of science.
4 years, 8 months ago - 14 plays
Jilted lovers and disrupted duck hunts provide a very odd look into the soul
of the US Constitution.
What does a jilted lover’s revenge have to do with an international chemical
weapons treaty? More than you’d think. From poison and duck hunts to our
feuding fathers, we step into a very odd tug of war between local and federal
law.
When Carol Anne Bond found out her husband had impregnated her best friend,
she took revenge. Carol's particular flavor of revenge led to a US Supreme
Court case that puts into question a part of the US treaty power.
Producer Kelsey Padgett drags Jad and Robert into Carol's poisonous web, which
starts them on a journey from the birth of the US Constitution, to a duck hunt
in 1918, and back to the present day … it’s all about an ongoing argument that
might actually be the very heart and soul of our system of government
UPDATE: The Supreme Court made a decision in the Carol Anne Bond case during
the summer of 2014. If you've listened to the piece (or don't mind a
spoiler)check out what our producer Kelsey Padgett had to say about the
verdict.
10 years, 3 months ago - 9 plays
What are the police for? Producer B.A. Parker started wondering this back in
June, as Black Lives Matter protests and calls to “defund the police” ramped
up. The question led her to a wild story of a stabbing on a New York City
subway train, and the realization that, according to the law, the police don’t
always have to protect us. Producer Sarah Qari joins Parker to dig into the
legal background, which takes her all the way up to the Supreme Court... and
then all the way back down to on-duty officers themselves.
This episode contains strong language and graphic violence.
Reported and produced by B.A. Parker and Sarah Qari, and produced by Matt
Kielty and Pat Walters.
Special thanks to April Hayes and Katia Maguire for their documentary Home
Truth about Jessica Gonzales,
Cracked.com
for sending us down this rabbit hole, Caroline Bettinger-López, Geoff
Grimwood, Christy Lopez, Anthony Herron, Mike Wells, and Keith Taylor.
___Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at
https://pledge3.wnyc.org/donate/radiolab-
it/onestep/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=radiolab-
redirect&utm_campaign=pledge&utm_content=show-notes "Pledge"" target="new">Radiolab.org/donate. ___
3 years, 5 months ago - 1 plays
Killer whales — orcas — eat all sorts of animals, including humpback calves.
But one day, biologists saw a group of humpback whales trying to stop some
killer whales from eating… a seal. And then it happened again. And again. It
turns out, all across the oceans, humpback whales are swimming around stopping
killer whales from hunting all kinds of animals — from seals to gray whales to
sunfish. And of course while many scientists explain this behavior as the
result of blind instincts that are ultimately selfish, much of the world
celebrates humpbacks as superhero vigilantes of the sea. But when Annie McEwen
dug into what was really going on between humpbacks and killer whales, she
found a set of stories that refused to fit in either of those two ways of
seeing the world.
_Special thanks to Eric J. Gleske and Brendan Brucker at Media Services,
Oregon State University as well as Colleen Talty at Monterey Bay Whale Watch
and California Killer Whale Project. Special thanks also to Doug McKnight and
Giuliana Mayo._
**Episode Credits:**
Reported and produced by Annie McEwen
Original music and sound design by Annie McEwen
Mixing help from Arianne Wack
Fact-checking by Diane Kelly
Edited by Becca Bressler
_Our newsletter comes out every Wednesday. 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/)
(https://members.radiolab.org/) today._
_Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your
thoughts with us by emailing [email protected]._
**CITATIONS:**
**Videos:**
Alisa Schulman-Janiger took **[this video](https://zpr.io/5mYNTWpxs5GV)**
(https://zpr.io/5mYNTWpxs5GV) of the humpbacks defending the gray whale calf’s
carcass from the killer whales.
**Articles:**
**[Read Robert Pitman’s (et al) paper](https://zpr.io/iU9shuNW9tAj)
**(https://zpr.io/iU9shuNW9tAj) about the humpbacks saving the seal and a
review of the 115 interactions they collected between humpbacks and killer
whales.
**Books:**
**[ _The World in the Whale_](https://zpr.io/2BHBermJJfKj)
**(
1 year, 8 months ago - 1 plays
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.
Over the past 40 years, hip-hop music has gone from underground phenomenon to
global commodity. But as The New Yorker's Andrew Marantz explains, massive
commercial success is a tightrope walk for any genre of popular music, and
especially one built on authenticity and “realness.” Hip-hop constantly runs
the risk of becoming a watered-down imitation of its former self - just, you
know, pop music.
Andrew introduces us to Peter Rosenberg, a guy who takes this doomsday
scenario very seriously. Peter is a DJ at Hot 97, New York City’s iconic hip-
hop station, and a vocal booster of what he calls “real” hip-hop. But as a
Jewish fellow from suburban Maryland, he's also the first to admit that he's
an unlikely arbiter for what is and what isn't hip-hop.
With the help of Ali Shaheed Muhammad of A Tribe Called Quest and NPR's
Frannie Kelley, we explore the strange ways that hip-hop deals with that age-
old question: are you in or are you out?
_Special thanks to The New Yorker who let us do a radiophonic version of their
piece. If you've got a New Yorker subscription check out Andrew Marantz's
stellar written
versionhere.
If you don't, well you should get one, but you can also watch Rosenberg crate
digging and spinning records
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2014/03/video-peter-
rosenbergs-45s.html" target="new">here. _
9 years, 12 months ago - 2 plays
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 Bonaly was not your typical figure skater. She was black. She was
athletic. And she didn’t seem to care about artistry. Her performances –
punctuated by triple-triple jumps and other power moves – thrilled audiences
around the world. Yet, commentators claimed she couldn’t skate, and judges
never gave her the high marks she felt she deserved. But Surya didn’t accept
that criticism. Unlike her competitors – ice princesses who hid behind demure
smiles – Surya made her feelings known. And, at her final Olympic
performance, she attempted one jump that flew in the face of the
establishment, and marked her for life as a rebel.
This week, we lace up our skates and tell a story about loving a sport that
doesn’t love you back, and being judged in front of the world according to
rules you don’t understand.
_Produced by Matt Kielty with help from Tracie Hunte. Reported by Latif Nasser
and Tracie Hunte_
_Special thanks to the Sky Rink at Chelsea Piers, the Schwan Super Rink,
Richmond Training Center, Simon Bowers of Bowers Audio Service, Vanessa
Gusmeroli, Phil Hersh, Allison Manley, Randy Harvey, Rob Bailey and Lynn
Plage, Michael Rosenberg, and Linda Lewis_
If you heard "On the Edge" and you're looking to fall in love with figure
skating all over again, start here:
7 years, 11 months ago - 2 plays
In memory of one of our dear friends and one of the truest inspirations for
Radiolab, a re-release of the last conversation we had with Dr. Oliver Sacks.
When Radiolab was just starting out, Robert asked Dr. Oliver
Sacks if he could help us, maybe send us a few
story ideas. Over the years he has shared with us stories of chemistry, music,
neurology, hallucinations and more, so much more. Because Oliver notices the
world and the people around him with scientific rigor, with insight, and most
importantly, with deep empathy. When he announced a few months ago that he
had terminal cancer and wasn't going to do any more interviews, we asked him
if he'd talk with us one last time. He said yes. So Robert went, as he has
done for 30 some years now, to his apartment with a microphone, this time to
ask him about the forces that have driven him in his work, in his unique
relationships with his patients, and in his own life.
This performance was scored live by the incomparable Sarah
Lipstate/Noveller.Her new album Fantastic Planet is out now.
The lullabies you hear in "Dr. Sacks Looks Back" are sung by Carrie Erving,
whose current project isPonyhof.
Though it probably goes without saying,http://www.oliversacks.com/books-by-oliver-
sacks/on-the-move/" target="new">we highly recommend Dr. Sacks' new
autobiorgraphy, On The Move.
8 years, 7 months ago - 7 plays
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 shocking
discovery. He shares his name with another man: Abdul Latif Nasser, 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 one of the most important
advisors 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, picking apart
evidence, attempting to separate fact from fiction, and 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, may have gone down such a strikingly
different path.
Episode 5: Cuba-ish
Latif heads to Guantanamo Bay to try to speak to his namesake. Before he gets
there, he attempts to answer a seemingly simple question: why Cuba? Why in the
world did the United States pick this sleepy military base in the Caribbean to
house “the worst of the worst”? He tours the “legal equivalent of outer
space,” and against all odds, manages to see his doppelgänger… maybe.
This episode was produced by Bethel Habte and Simon Adler, with Sarah Qari,
Suzie Lechtenberg, and Latif Nasser. Help from W. Harry Fortuna and Neel
Dhanesha. Fact checking by Diane Kelly and Margot Williams. Editing by Jad
Abumrad and Soren Wheeler. Original music by Jad Abumrad, Simon Adler, Alex
Overington, and Amino Belyamani.
___Support Radiolab today
athttps://pledge3.wnyc.org/donate/radiolab-
it/onestep/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=notes&utm_campaign=membership&utm_content=radiolab" target="new">Radiolab.org/donate.
___
4 years ago - 7 plays
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 radio
producer Joe Frank passed away, after a long struggle with colon cancer. Joe
Frank was the radio producer’s radio producer. He told stories that were
thrillingly weird, deeply mischievous (and sometimes head-spinningly
confusing!). He had a big impact on us at Radiolab. For Jad, his Joe Frank
moment happened in 2002, while sitting at a mixing console in an AM radio
studio waiting to read the weather. Joe Frank's Peabody Award-winning series
"Rent-A-Family” came on the air.
Time stood still.
We’ve since learned that many of our peers have had similar Joe Frank moments.
In this episode, we commemorate one of the greats with Brooke Gladstone from
On the Media and Ira Glass from This American Life.
This episode was produced by Jad Abumrad with help from Kelly Prime and Sarah
Qari.
A very special thanks to Michal Story.
_Support Radiolab today athttps://pledge3.wnyc.org/donate/radiolab-
it/onestep/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=notes&utm_campaign=membership&utm_content=radiolab" target="new">
Radiolab.org/donate._
6 years, 2 months ago - 6 plays
Should the U.S. Supreme Court be the court of the world? In the 18th century,
two feuding Frenchmen inspired a one-sentence law that helped launch American
human rights litigation into the 20th century. The Alien Tort Statute allowed
a Paraguayan woman to find justice for a terrible crime committed in her
homeland. But as America reached further and further out into the world, the
court was forced to confront the contradictions in our country’s ideology:
sympathy vs. sovereignty. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court heard
arguments in Jesner v. Arab Bank , a case that could reshape the way
America responds to human rights abuses abroad. Does the A.T.S. secure human
rights or is it a dangerous overreach?
Additional music for this episode by Nicolas
Carter.
Special thanks to William J. Aceves, William Baude, Diego Calles, Alana
Casanova-Burgess, William Dodge, Susan Farbstein, Jeffery Fisher, Joanne
Freeman, Julian Ku, Nicholas Rosenkranz, Susan Simpson, Emily Vinson, Benjamin
Wittes and Jamison York. Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr., who appears in this episode,
passed away in October 2016 _._
Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a
free law project in collaboration with the Legal Information Institute at
Cornell.
____Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at
https://pledge3.wnyc.org/donate/radiolab-
it/onestep/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=radiolab-
redirect&utm_campaign=pledge&utm_content=show-notes "Pledge"" target="new">Radiolab.org/donate. ____
3 years, 3 months ago - 4 plays
We thought we knew the story of Bernie Madoff. How he masterminded the
biggest Ponzi scheme in history, leaving behind scores of distraught investors
and a $65 billion black hole.
But we had never heard the story from Madoff himself.
This week, reporter Steve Fishman and former Radiolabber Ellen Horne visit our
studio to play us snippets from their extraordinary Audible series Ponzi
Supernova , which features exclusive footage of the man who bamboozled the
world. After years of investigative reporting – including interviews with
dozens of FBI and SEC agents, investors, traders, and attorneys – the pair
scrutinize Madoff’s account to understand exactly why he did it, how he
managed to pull it off, and how culpable he actually was. Was he a
puppetmaster or a puppet? And if the latter, who else is to blame for the
biggest financial fraud in history?
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast
/ponzi-supernova/id1232020925?mt=2" target="new">You can hear the entire series on iTunes or for free on
Audible
Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at
https://pledge3.wnyc.org/donate/radiolab-
it/onestep/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=radiolab-
redirect&utm_campaign=pledge&utm_content=show-notes "Pledge"" target="new">Radiolab.org/donate.
7 years, 1 month ago - 3 plays
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