Radiolab

Whether you love 'em or hate 'em, chances are you rely on numbers every day of your life. Where do they come from, and what do they really do for us? This hour: stories of how numbers confuse us, connect us, and even reveal secrets about us. Transcripts are on individual segment pages.

To get this podcast started, Robert ambushes Jad with a question...a question we've all been dying to ask him since June 10th, 2009, when Amil Abumrad came into the world.

In this podcast, a story about a mom, a boy, and a home-made helicopter.

In this hour of Radiolab: reframing our ideas about normalcy.

We ask a question we thought was a no-brainer in this podcast: why do we blink?

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.

What's gotten into you? In this hour, Radiolab uncovers a world full of parasites.

Pardon the graphic pun, but hey! For this podcast, Jad--a brand new father--wonders what's going on inside the head of his baby Amil.

For meditation number fifteen we have a reading from David Eagleman's book Sum. It's a vision of the after life that's both playful and... horrifying. Sum is read by actor Jeffrey Tambor.

Another meditation on what happens after the moment of death, this time as Shakespeare envisions it.

We continue our meditations on death with a reading from poet and writer, Mark Doty. This is an excerpt from Doty's 1996 memoir Heaven's Coast.

This week on the podcast, we continue our meditations on death. Our After Life episode had eleven meditations, 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.

This hour: Radiolab stares down the very moment of passing, and speculates about what may lie beyond.

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 on the topic of biological evolution.

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 isn't the whole story.

Stochasticity (a wonderfully slippery and smarty-pants word for randomness), may be at the very foundation of our lives. To understand how big a role it plays, we look at chance and patterns in sports, lottery tickets, and even the cells in our own body.

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.

On May 6th, at WNYC's 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 Life's Ira Glass was the referee. There were stunning jabs, wicked uppercuts, and even the occasional low blow.

Sometimes on the podcast, we like to talk about musicians and the music they make. Today we 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 haven't heard about her ... until now.

Here at Radiolab we explore big ideas and ask big questions to see how the world works.

Can you make your own universe? We usually think of the universe as 'everything that exists,' so how could you make another one?

How are your New Year's resolutions holding out? This might at least help you feel better about them.

For this week's podcast, Radiolab throws a birthday party for Charles Darwin!

When Jad and Robert saw this article about a study that found a link between President Obama's election, and the test scores of African Americans, it made them think about an earlier study by Claude Steele,about a psychological effect called "stereotype threat."

The quest for scientific knowledge is one of the great and noble pursuits of humankind. It's also one of the most dangerous, frustrating, ego-driven, transcendent, dirty, sublime, tedious, demoralizing, inspiring...you get the idea. This hour, stories of love and loss in the name of science.

Humans love to solve problems. In this hour of Radiolab, diagnosis--our attempt to find out what's wrong, and give it a label.

This hour of Radiolab, a look at race.

Sperm carry half the genes needed for human life. In this hour of Radiolab, some basic questions and profound thoughts about reproduction.

Logic and emotion aren't the only forces that guide our decisions. This hour of Radiolab, we turn up the volume on the voices in our heads, and try to make sense of the babble. Forget free will, some important decisions could come down to a steaming cup of coffee. UPDATE: The Williams & Bargh Yale coffee study "Experiencing Physical Warmth Promotes Interpersonal Warmth" was replicated in 2014 by researchers at three different universities, Kenyon College, Michigan State University, and University of Manchester. They did not observe the same results as in the original study. They conclude that the difference between the original and the replications may have been due to some issues with the methods of the original study ("The effect observed by Williams and Bargh may have been due, in part, to unconscious cues given by the researcher") or may simply have been due to chance. They are very careful in their language to not discredit the original study but they advise that future researchers be more cautious "when considering whether exposure to hot or cold temperatures impacts prosocial behavior." In sum: the original Yale study mostly still stands, but researchers now look the methods and results with slight skepticism (not outright disbelief though). You can check out the replications here: http://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/full/10.1027/1864-9335/a000187

Chris had a crush on Lisa. But how to woo her?

In today’s podcast, a teaser for our hour-long Sperm show. If you think you learned all there is to know from that junior high school filmstrip, think again.

Remember the first time you ever saw an ant hill? That 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.

We play some never-released tape from the vault, and reveal a bit about what techniques we used to try and make it sing.

Jad and cellist Zoe Keating discuss the physics (if not metaphysics) of looping sound and how to use a 17th century instrument to make avant-garde electronic music.

Robert and Brian Greene discuss what's beyond the horizon of our universe, what you might wear in infinite universes with finite pairs of designer shoes, and why the Universe and swiss cheese have more in common than you think.

Robert Krulwich's commencement speech at California Institute of Technology gets at the heart of what we do here at Radiolab.

This week, a piece from one of our favorite radio-makers, Jonathan Mitchell. 'City X' is a history of the modern shopping mall through perspectives of people living in a real, yet unnamed, city.

First, we asked you to tell us what song gets stuck in your head. Then, we asked you how you got it out. Finally, we made a podcast. Thank you to everyone who called in, shared their secret techniques, and sang without shame.

On this week's podcast, we share an excerpt from Wordless Music on WNYC, a 4-part music program hosted by Jad, exploring the boundaries between classical and pop music.

Jad presents a piece by one of his favorite producers: Ben Rubin. Rubin created this audio portrait called 'Open Outcry' as a part of a sound installation called Sonic Garden commissioned to celebrate the reopening of the Winter Garden, an atrium space within the World Financial Center, after 9/11.

Ever wonder how Jad and Robert met?

This hour of Radiolab: pop music's pull.

In a world where biology and engineering intersect, how do you decide what's "natural"?

We all laugh. This hour of Radiolab asks why.

Jad plays one of his favorite pieces of all time, 'IF' by Sherre DeLys.

Imagine that you're a composer. Imagine getting the commission to write a song that will allow family members to face the death of a loved one.

On this Radiolab/WNYC Special, we explore the impact and influence of Wagner's Ring Cycle on the Metropolitan Opera's 2004 Presentation.

104 years ago this week, Wilbur and Orville Wright managed to coax their spruce biplane off the North Carolina sand for twelve seconds, and those twelve seconds started a revolution in flight. We examine the human desire to fly, and how getting flight changed us.

This week, a look at the different ways that people connect to each other, and how they act once they’re together. NOTE: This episode contains EXPLICIT language about sex.

How would you describe life on Earth to an alien? In 1977, the Voyager spacecraft launched into space. And with it, went the Golden Record-- a sort time capsule, a collection of sounds and images that would describe life on Earth to whomever or whatever might find it.