Listen to Radio Lab on Michigan Radio 91.7 in Ann Arbor, MI

Numbers

Mon, Nov 30 Listen

Radiolab dedicates this hour to an exploration of numbers. Those pesky little things on the chalkboard. Where do they come from and what do they really do for us? We bring you stories on how they confuse us, connect us, and reveal secrets about us. Read More . . . If you do not see flash audio player please install the latest flash player. Download MP3 Photo courtesy Flickr/stewf

Shorts: Killing Babies, Saving the World

Mon, Nov 16 Listen

To get this podcast started, Robert ambushes Jad with a question a question weve all been dying to ask him since June 10th, 2009, when Amil Abumrad came into the world. But fear not, we didnt do a whole podcast just to give the new dad a hard time. Robert talks to Josh Greene, the Harvard professor we had on our Morality show. They revisit some ideas from that show in the context of the big, complicated problems of today (think global warming and nuclear war). Josh argues that to deal with...

Shorts: Helicopter Boy

Tue, Nov 3 Listen

This week, a story about a mom, a boy, and a home-made helicopter. (And no! This has nothing to do with the Balloon Boy incident.) Instead, its about how public radio literally saved a boys life. Well, not quite. But sorta. Kinda. Its a story about why we do what we do: were trying to tell stories that move you and make you feel different about the world, even just a little bit. Please support us in that mission. If you do not see flash audio player please install the latest flash player....

New Normal?

Mon, Oct 19 Listen

How do you tell the difference between a sea change and a ripple in the water? Could a nonviolent baboon be sign of things to come? Or is it just a flukey outlier from the norm? What about a man in a dress? Or a fox without vicious urges? Is there ever really even a norm? In this hour of Radiolab, we examine three stories that re-frame our sense of normalcy. Read More If you do not see flash audio player please install the latest flash player. Download MP3 Photo courtesy Flickr/vin60

Shorts: Blink

Mon, Oct 5 Listen

This week, we ask a question that we thought was a no-brainer: why do we blink? Film editor Walter Murch tells us about a strange discovery he made years ago while working on The Conversation could something as small as a blink actually be the trick of his trade? We also talk to Japanese researchers Tamami Nakano and Shigeru Kitazawa about the experiment they conducted to understand how we see the world, when we choose not to, and why. If you do not see flash audio player please install the...

Shorts: It Might Be Science

Mon, Sep 21 Listen

They Might Be Giants just came out with a new album, Here Comes Science. So we invited them to come play with us at our season launch party last week at the Water Taxi Beach in Queens. And then we ambushed them with annoying little questions about science and about the tricky business of turning science into entertainment because of that whole, you know, getting the facts right thing. On this podcast, we decided to share this magical evening with those of you who werent able to join us live....

Parasites

Mon, Sep 7 Listen

In this hour of Radiolab, we explore natures moochers the good, the bad, and the hideous. We have stories of lethargic farmers, zombie cockroaches, and even mind-controlled humans (kinda, maybe). Could parasites be the shadowy hands that pull the strings of life? Read More If you do not see flash audio player please install the latest flash player. Download MP3

Shorts: After Birth

Mon, Aug 24 Listen

Pardon the graphic pun, but hey! For this podcast Jad, a brand new father, wonders whats going on inside the head of his baby, Amil. (And dont worry, you dont need kids to enjoy this podcast.) The questions here are big: what is it like to be so brand new to the world? None of us have memories from this time, so how could we possibly ever know? Is it just chaos? Or, is there something more, some understanding from the very beginning? Jad found a development psychologist named Charles...

Shorts: 15: Sum

Thu, Aug 13 Listen

For meditation number fifteen we have a reading from David Eaglemans book Sum. Its a vision of the after life thats both playful and horrifying. Sum is read by actor Jeffrey Tambor. If you do not see flash audio player please install the latest flash player. Download MP3 Photo by Flickr/fd

Shorts: 14: The Four Groans

Wed, Aug 12 Listen

Another meditation on what happens after the moment of death, this time as Shakespeare envisions it. Ron Rosenbaum, author of The Shakespeare Wars, tells us about a very small variation in the text of Hamlet that makes a huge difference about how Shakespeare envisioned Hamlet’s dying moment. Then we pay a visit to Tony Award-winning actor Mark Rylance to get his take on encountering the edge of consciousness. If you do not see flash audio player please install the latest flash player....

Shorts: 13: Gone

Tue, Aug 11 Listen

We continue our meditations on death with a reading from poet and writer, Mark Doty. This is an excerpt from Dotys 1996 memoir Heavens Coast. If you do not see flash audio player please install the latest flash player. Download MP3 Photo by Flickr/vardhana

Shorts: 12: Proof

Mon, Aug 10 Listen

This week on the podcast we are continuing our meditations on death. Our After Life episode had eleven mediations, and now we’re gonna throw a new one at you each day, all week long, culminating in a very special treat at the end of the week. To get things started, Jad talks to Mary Roach about a bold claim she made in an article for the New Scientist. By the way that beautiful song, Old Fashion Morphine is by Jolie Holland, off her album Escondida. Photo by Flickr/jmtimages If you do not...

After Life

Mon, Jul 27 Listen

In this hour of Radiolab, we take several different looks at that moment when we slip from life to the other side. Is it even a moment? If it is a moment, when is that moment? And what happens afterward? Its a show of questions that dont have easy answers. So, in a slight departure from our regular format, we bring you eleven meditations on how, when, and even if we die. Read more. If you do not see flash audio player please install the latest flash player. Download MP3 Photo Credit:...

In Defense of Darwin?

Mon, Jul 13 Listen

When evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins daughter was six years old, he told her that flowers are not here for beauty, not here for the bees, but instead merely to copy their own DNA. Sigh, what a Dad. So is Richard Dawkins always so gloomy and reductionist about the world? Well yes, but he would say that his vision of the world is anything but gloomy, he even calls it romantic. In this conversation from the 92nd St Y, Robert challenges Dawkins on this and a number of other sticky spots...

Are We Coins?

Mon, Jun 29 Listen

After we released our show about Stochasticity, we received a lot of comments about the idea humans can be just as predictable as coins. In that show, Jonah Lehrer was telling us about a study on the 82-83 76ers, and he was saying that even when a basketball player is supposedly hot – really on a streak – he is no more likely to make his next shot that any other time. Basketball players are slaves to their averages. Well, it turns out this isnt the whole story. In fact, right before we...

Stochasticity

Mon, Jun 15 Listen

photo credit: flickr/Calyon Radiolab is doing something new in our podcasts. Starting with this podcast, we will be releasing our hour-long episodes on a regular, rhythmic schedule. Between each episode, you will get two podcasts that follow some detour or left turn, explore music we love, take you to live events, and generally try to shake up your universe. This hour, Radiolab examines Stochasticity, which is just a wonderfully slippery and smarty-pants word for randomness. How big a role...

Stayin’ Alive

Tue, Jun 2 Listen

Photo credit: Flickr/Ramen Junkie This week on the podcast we take a look at four unconventional ways to stay alive. We talk to geneticist George Church, who originally appeared in our So Called Life Show, biologist Bernd Heinrich, neuroscientist David Eagleman, and finally, we visit a CPR class. If you do not see flash audio player please install the latest flash player. Download MP3 You can also check out Bernd Heinrichs most recent book, Summer World

AV Smackdown . . . The Podcast

Mon, May 18 Listen

[] On May 6th, at WNYCs new Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, we opened up an age old can of worms. Jad and Robert faced off over which medium is superior television or radio. This American Lifes Ira Glass was the referee. There were stunning jabs, wicked uppercuts, and even the occasional low blow. In TV’s corner, Robert The Krusher Krulwich hit hard with stunning video images, but audio-savant Jad Boom Boom Abumrad pounded his opponent with the power of sound. The bout went five hard...

Juana Molina

Mon, May 4 Listen

Sometimes on the podcast we like to talk about musicians and the music they make. This podcast we want to introduce you to Juana Molina. Last season we used some of her of music in the breaks for the Sperm show. We received an outpouring of email asking about her music, so this podcast is for those curious listeners who wrote in and for those who havent heard about her until now. If you do not see flash audio player please install the latest flash player. Download MP3 Juana Molinas official...

Where Am I (Rebroadcast)

Mon, Apr 20 Listen

OK. Maybe youre in your desk chair. Youre in your office. Youre in New York, or Detroit, or Timbuktu. Youre on planet Earth. But where are you, really? Radio Lab tries to find out where you are. This hour: stories of people whose brains and bodies have lost each other. We ask how does your brain keep track of your body? Well examine the bond between brain and body and look at what happens when it breaks. We begin with a century-old mystery: why do many amputees still feel their missing...

In Silence

Tue, Apr 7 Listen

Here at Radiolab we explore big ideas and ask big questions to see how the world works. To do that, we often talk to scientists who are trying to answer those questions by doing experiments and gathering data. But there are some questions that dont give in to experiments and data. And with Easter and Passover around the corner, we decided to take on one of those questions, not through science, but through a story. If you do not see flash audio player please install the latest flash player....

DIY Universe

Wed, Mar 25 Listen

Can you make your own universe? We usually think of the universe as everything that exists, so how could you make another one? Well, physicists have been speculating about the existence of multiple universes for some time now. And for Robert, the obvious next question was: Can we make one? So he invited physicist Brian Greene to his kitchen to speculate about just that. And it turns out, its not such a far-fetched idea. There are scientists right now trying to figure out whether its possible...

Mischel’s Marshmallows

Sun, Mar 8 Listen

How are your New Years resolutions holding out? This might at least help you feel better about them. Psychologist Walter Mischel explains how one little test involving a marshmallow might tell you a frightening amount about what kind of person you are. And Radio Lab favorite Jonah Lehrer helps us make sense of the results. This ones all about our will power (or lack thereof). If you do not see flash audio player please install the latest flash player. Download MP3

Darwinvaganza

Mon, Feb 23 Listen

For this weeks podcast Radiolab is throwing a birthday party for Charles Darwin! Our Robert Krulwich invited three experts to toast the birthday boy. David Quammen tells us it takes a village to raise a theory of evolution; Deborah Heiligman shows why love delayed the Origin of Species more than two decades; and Adam Gopnik explains why most of the planet still has problems with Darwins idea. Listen below- its going to be a paaa-tay! If you do not see flash audio player please install the...

Morality (Rebroadcast)

Mon, Feb 9 Listen

In this hour on Morality, well explore where our sense of right and wrong come from. We peer inside the brains of people contemplating moral dilemmas, watch chimps at a primate research center share blackberries, observe a playgroup of 3 year-olds fighting over toys, and tour the countrys first penitentiary, Eastern State Prison. Also: the story of land grabbing, indentured servitude and slum lording in the fourth grade. If you do not see flash audio player please install the latest flash...

The Obama Effect, Perhaps.

Tue, Jan 27 Listen

photo by Jef Poskanzer When Jad and Robert saw this article it made them think about an earlier study by Claude Steele. If you do not see flash audio player please install the latest flash player. Download MP3 On this podcast, theyll tell us about that and answer some listener mail (in the aggregate) answering questions about Patient X and questionable Jads use of the term bitches in the Choice episode.

Chris And Lisa

Mon, Oct 20 2008 Listen

Chris had a crush on Lisa. But how to woo her? He met her on a park bench in Chicago, handed her a stack of CDs, and sent her off on an extremely specific mission. Did it work? Find out on this weeks podcast. And hey! Chicago peeps, get your tix to our LIVE EVENT Help us make more Radiolabs! By supporting WNYC, you support Radiolab. Or support the local station where you listen to Radiolab. And tell them thanks for playing a show like us! If you do not see flash audio player please install...

Sperm Tales

Mon, Oct 6 2008 Listen

Our new season is just a little over a month away, so we decided to give everyone a teaser of what’s to come. This season, we devote a whole hour to the topic of “Sperm” … And if you think you learned all there is to know about sperm from that junior high school filmstrip, think again. In today’s podcast, we give you two short pieces that hint at the new ideas and amazing stories we came across once we started following the trail of this wriggly little cell. First, in a twisted tale of...

Chasing Bugs

Tue, Sep 23 2008 Listen

Remember the first time you ever saw an ant hill? The parade of black insects pouring in and out of a small sand mound. Most of us stopped, looked and then moved on to other parts of the playground. E. O. Wilson is the kid who never took his eyes off the mound. He grew up to revolutionize the fields of entomology, sociobiology and conservationist thought. E. O. (E is for Edward, O is for Osborne) got a nod from Time Magazine on their list of the 25 Most Influential People in America and...

Making the Hippo Dance

Mon, Sep 8 2008 Listen

robdownunder Earlier this year, Jad and Robert visited the Koshland Center in Washington D.C. to give listeners a behind-the-scenes look at Radiolab. The question here is just how far can you go in the name of making an idea clear? Whats allowed? Is music allowed? Are sound effects allowed? What helps? What hurts? We play some never-released tape from the vault, and reveal a bit about what techniques we used to try and make it sing. Please weigh in on the blog. Also, if you enjoyed this...

Radio Lab (Eclectic)