In an episode we first aired in 2014, we meet a man named Dennis Conrow, who was stuck. After a brief stint at college, he’d spent most of his 20’s back home with his parents, sleeping in his childhood room. And just when he finally struck out on his own, fate intervened. He lost both his parents to cancer. So Dennis was left, back in the house, alone. Until one night when a group of paranormal investigators showed up at his door and made him realize what it really means for a house, or a man, to be haunted. 

We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon

EPISODE CREDITS: 

Reported by Matt Kielty

with help from  Andy Mills

Produced by Matt Kielty

with help from - Maria Paz Gutiérrez

Original music and sound design contributed by - Matt Kielty

Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show.Sign up(https://ift.tt/HTGQxmy)!

Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member ofThe Lab(https://ift.tt/h4ZGNXT) today.

Follow our show onInstagram,TwitterandFacebook@radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailingradiolab@wnyc.org.

Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Listen Here

My son is a total science podcast junkie! He has already listened to every episode of Terrestrials and Brains On. Tonight I played the Radiolab episode about Butterfly Goo and he was super into it, so I thought I’d try to find similar episodes that won’t go over his head

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. Back in 2016, we examined how, when this happened, politicians and political reporters found themselves in uncharted territory. And with help from author Matt Bai, we looked 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.

In the wake of the 2016 election, and in the throes of our current political moment, it would seem we’ve come full circle in the weirdest way. So we sat down with Brooke Gladstone, co-host of our sister show here at WNYC, On the Media(https://ift.tt/MPcJ0tU), to talk about why sex scandals don’t matter anymore. 

We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon

**EPISODE CREDITS: **

Reported by - Simon Adler

with help from - Jamie York

Produced by - Simon Adler

Update produced by Rebecca Laks

Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show.Sign up(https://ift.tt/jnP4mo2)!

Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member ofThe Lab(https://ift.tt/AeN7dkZ) today.

Follow our show onInstagram,TwitterandFacebook@radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailingradiolab@wnyc.org.

Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Listen Here

I want to suggest some episodes for a friend's upcoming 30 hour road trip, but just noticed that my favorites are no longer on Spotify!

Could you suggest some from the last 3 years? :)

Co-host Lulu Miller is back with another season of her hit spinoff show Terrestrials, and to celebrate, we’re sharing the first episode with you. From stumps to snags, dead wood provides habitat for rodents, falcons, insects, and even humans. Stumps hold together the forest floor, give hunting perches to birds of prey in flatlands, prevent erosion and the encroachment of invasive species, usher in sunlight, provide nutrients, store renewable fuel, and hold onto stories human beings might have forgotten. Without these ghosts of trees past, nothing would be the same. Scottish author, artist and lover of tree stumps, Dr. Amanda Thomson, leads Lulu on a “tour de stumps,” a journey across space and time to learn about some of the most magical stumps on the planet.

We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Vote on your favorite names starting in November at https://radiolab.org/moon

Visit the Terrestrials website (https://ift.tt/PTgiLIB) to learn more about the show, meet our team, listen to the songs and discover fun activities, drawing prompts, music how-tos and games that educators, parents and families might enjoy together.If you’d like to “badger” a future expert, suggest story ideas or feedback, email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org.

Listen to just the songs (https://ift.tt/uMocpCW) from Terrestrials.

EPISODE CREDITS: 

Reported by - Ana González and Lulu Miller

with help from - Alan Goffinski 

Produced by - Ana González

Original music from - Alan Goffinski

Sound design contributed by - Mira Burt-Wintonick

with mixing help from - Joe Plourde

Fact-checking by - Natalie Middleton

and Edited by  - Mira Burt-Wintonick

Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show.Sign up(https://ift.tt/kAtq0Pg)!

Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member ofThe Lab(https://ift.tt/sxUlEWt) today.

Follow our show onInstagram,TwitterandFacebook@radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailingradiolab@wnyc.org.

Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Listen Here

I really loved the patient zero episodes. I was wondering why they didn't follow up with covid-19 as a 3rd episode.

Maybe a future story?

Looking for an old episode. I forget what the episode was about but the final act was a short story. The story was a conversation between a girl and her grandfather. The girl was asking her grandfather all these questions about how life used to be and the grandfather was explaining. It was kind of silly, talking about "putting food into your mouths before being able to see each others genitals" (I believe). And the granddaughter was shocked that people weren't solely focused on the impending doom of environmental disaster. It ended very sweet about how people were just concerned about those that were around them that they loved instead of looming disaster.

Any help would be great!

PS it may have been from This American Life

A mile under the ocean, we get to watch an octopus perform a heroic act of heart and determination.

First aired back in 2020, this episode follows the story of an octopus living one mile under the ocean as she performs a heroic act of heart and determination.

In 2007, Bruce Robison’s robot submarine stumbled across an octopus settling in to brood her eggs. It seemed like a small moment. But as he went back to visit her, month after month, what began as a simple act of motherhood became a heroic feat that has never been equaled by any known species on Earth. 

This episode was reported and produced by Annie McEwen. 

Special thanks to Kim Fulton-Bennett and Rob Sherlock at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. 

Support Radiolab today at Radiolab.org/donate.  

If you need more ocean in your life, check out the incredible Monterey Bay Aquarium live cams (especially the jellies!): https://ift.tt/6iLDqVU

Here’s a pic of Octomom sitting on her eggs (© 2007 MBARI), Nov. 1, 2007. 

We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon

Sign-up for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show.Sign up(https://ift.tt/kD2inMF)!

Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member ofThe Lab(https://ift.tt/Fr4L5Pz) today.

Follow our show onInstagram,TwitterandFacebook@radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailingradiolab@wnyc.org.

Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Listen Here

Trying to find this one back. The girls meet with this guy during a trip and one night he opens up to them about sometimes being possessed by the holy Spirit or something. When this happens he can't remember what happened for a while before he comes back to himself and on one occasion he even woke up with blood on his hands. He thinks he is very lucky to be touched by God this way but one of the girls confronts him and tells him to seek professional help asap before he hurts someone again. I'm probably getting some details wrong.

This subreddit can be quite negative and I understand many of the complaints that I have read about reruns and recent episodes. I just wanted to say that I still get excited when a new episode comes out and I am thankful that the show exists. The new episodes coming out still challenge me to think of the world in new ways and make me excited about things I've never heard about before.

I understand the show isn't the same as it was with Jad and Robert, but I'm excited to see the current ensemble keep doing the great research and reporting they are doing. I hope that they can continue to thrive and find their footing despite budget cuts to WNYC and wavering loyalty with the some of the fan base.

Thank you Radiolab. I've only been listening for a little over a year but you've already changed my life for the better.

So Latif starts off the episode with a dire plea for more money, because It's expensive to produce RL. But this "brand new episode" that he was gushing over (because they make so few these days, I guess) - was basically taking a researcher's work on Pompeii survivors...and just rehashing it in an interview form. What kind of money does that exactly take to do? You interview the guy for 2 hours, then trim it down. What the heck?

The absurdity comes in when Latif says "And for today's episode, I was in LA traffic all day to buy sardines!" - what the f? You hiring a professional chef, driving in LA traffic, buying sardines, and then ending with "I have a huge jar of sardine fish sauce I don't know what to do with!" - did not in the LEAST add to my enjoyment of the episode. That is just wasteful and clueless. You spent donation dollars on that huge jar of sardine fish sauce in your home, bro. Bad move.

This show is so ridiculous. I keep coming back to listen to see if they take any of people's feedback seriously, if there's any hope for this wonderful thing that Jad and Robert created. Just end it. Just part ways and let it die man.

I was listening to the recent Pompeii episode and they were referencing the little bronze statue found on the bodies of people fleeing the city - does anyone have a link to an image or article about these statues? I can’t seem to find anything and I’m very curious what they look like. TIA!

Trying hard to remember an episode I heard years ago about a program (maybe a pilot program/research incentive or start up company) which was focused on matching people who had complimentary dispositions with interests. It was piloted at American universities but wasn't solely or exclusively focused on romantic or sexual connection. Just connection, strong sort of life long kind.

Been thinking of it a lot and trying to find it again any help is great!

"I had to spend all day driving back and forth through LA to find live sardines so I could make this sauce that didn't add anything to the new episode" 😂

The new episode was good though.

Today we follow a sleuth who has spent over a decade working to solve an epic mystery hiding in plain historical sight: did anyone survive the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD? 

Classicist Steven Tuck has spent his career parsing the 

Tired of hearing the conventional narrative that every Pompeiian perished without any evidence to back it up, Classicist Steven Tuck decides to look into it himself. Although he is nearly two millennia late to ground zero, he uses all the available evidence to reimagine the disaster from the perspective of the people on the ground. Could anyone have survived the volcano? If they did, could they have survived what came after that: earthquakes, tsunamis, pumice stones hurtling like missiles from the sky? If someone did survive, what happened to them after that??! To find out we have to think, feel and possibly even eat like Ancient Romans. 

An against-all-odds story of a disaster without warning, a mass disappearance without a trace, and oddly, a particularly stinky fish sauce, care of special guest Chef Samin Nosrat. 

We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon

**EPISODE CREDITS: **

Reported by - Latif Nasser

with help from - Annie McEwen and Ekedi Fausther-Keys

Produced by - Annie McEwen

Recording help from - Adam Howell

Voice acting by - Brandon Dalton

Original music and sound design contributed by - Jeremy Bloom and Annie McEwen

with mixing help from - Arianne Wack

and Hosting Helo from - Sarah Qari

Fact-checking by - Emily Krieger

and Edited by  - Pat Walters

EPISODE CITATIONS: 

Recipes -

Ancient Roman recipe for garum (https://zpr.io/gMNmXcNZUhZg).

Read more about garum here (https://zpr.io/4gh939TxCRpZ) or in Sally Grainger’s book The Story of Garum: Fermented Fish Sauce and Salted Fish in the Ancient World

Articles -

On Pliny's letters and the eruption including a reanalysis of the date of the eruption, Peter Foss, Pliny and the Eruption of Vesuvius (https://zpr.io/kQH49ttRawNZ) 

Documentaries - 

A recent PBS documentary, Pompeii: The New Dig (https://zpr.io/LV9sWKc4vbQ8) including segments on Steven Tuck’s work.

Photos and Maps - 

To trace building locations or names of home owners as well as photos of every square inch of Pompeii: https://pompeiiinpictures.com/pompeiiinpictures/

From Steven Tuck: “If someone has an otherwise unbeatable case of insomnia, my preliminary publication of findings is in Reflections: Harbour City Deathscapes in Roman Italy and Beyond” (https://zpr.io/3pETS53A9CtF)

Brief description of the casts and casting process of the remains found at Pompeii: https://pompeiisites.org/en/pompeii-map/analysis/the-casts/

Maps of the Ancient Roman world that you can use to trace some of the land and sea routes discussed in the episode: https://orbis.stanford.edu

Signup for our newsletter! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show.Sign up(https://ift.tt/YJWEawj)!

Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member ofThe Lab(https://ift.tt/UOWRa3r) today.

Follow our show onInstagram, X, formerlyTwitterandFacebook@radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailingradiolab@wnyc.org.

Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Listen Here

Hello kind Redditors,

I am in search of an episode that I absolutely loved when I heard it ~10 years ago, but had forgotten about until today.

(I think it’s a single episode, but it might be that these anecdotes are split across a couple different ones).

One of the items I am remembering is about the “wisdom of the crowd” - the idea that when many people make a guess about something, the average of their guesses will be more accurate than any single guess.

The other item is about sports and the percentage of the way through a particular game where the outcome becomes less random.

I’ve searched and searched, but I cannot seem to find this episode. I am sure someone here will point it out in .13 seconds and I will feel like an idiot.

Thanks in advance!

Morally questionable?

Has anyone listened to the latest guest episode, Shell Game? While, the host while using euphemisms of expressing discomfort, but I found the whole premise rather unsavory especially the opening section of using AI bot for therapy.

The spirit of “just see what happens” has revealed to be rooted in deception and more importantly highlights breach of good journalistic ethics. Mis-representation to mental helath profession is in my view belittled both Radio Lab and what it represents as well as Evan Ratliff.

I listened through the episode with a whole lot of discomfort but has gained very little useful knowledge beyond that AI still has a little way to go.

This episode first aired back in December of 2013, and at the start of that new year, the team was cracking open fossils, peering back into ancient seas, and looking up at lunar skies only to find that a year is not quite as fixed as we thought it was.

With the help of paleontologist Neil Shubin, reporter Emily Graslie and the Field Museum's Paul Mayer we discover that our world is full of ancient coral calendars. Each one of these sea skeletons reveals that once upon a very-long-time-ago, years were shorter by over forty days. And astrophysicist Chis Impey helps us comprehend how the change is all to be blamed on a celestial slow dance with the moon. 

Plus, Robert indulges his curiosity about stopping time and counteracting the spinning of the spheres by taking astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson on a (theoretical) trip to Venus with a rooster and sprinter Usain Bolt.

We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon

Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show.Sign up(https://ift.tt/JkWqBFG)!

Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member ofThe Lab(https://ift.tt/5znDLNJ) today.

Follow our show onInstagram,X (formerly Twitter)andFacebook

 @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailingradiolab@wnyc.org.

Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Listen Here

For the longest time now I haven't understood why the recent/latest Radiolab episodes are not matching up with what I hear on the radio, specifically WNYC which produces the show. I know they've been playing extremely old episodes with the previous hosts but if they have new ones (based on their website) why not play those? I don't catch every episode so some of the old ones are new to me but I'm just wondering in general. Is this perhaps related to the pandemic and the ripples are still there as far as getting new shows together?

One man secretly hands off more and more of his life to an AI voice clone.

Today, we feature veteran journalist Evan Ratliff who - for his new podcast Shell Game - decided to slowly replace himself bit by bit with an AI voice clone, to see how far he could actually take it. Could it do the mundane phone calls he’d prefer to skip? Could it get legal advice for him? Could it go to therapy for him? Could it parent his kids? Evan feeds his bot the most intimate details about his life, and lets the bot loose in high-stakes situations at home and at work. Which bizarro version of him will show up? The desperately-agreeable conversationalist, the crank-yanking prank caller, the glitched out stranger who sounds like he’s in the middle of a mental breakdown, or someone else entirely? Will people believe it’s really him? And how will they act if they don’t? A gonzo journalistic experiment for the age of AI, that’s funny and eerie all at the same time.

We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon

**EPISODE CREDITS: **

Reported by - Evan Ratliff

Produced by - Evan Ratliff and Simon Adler

Fact-checking by - Emily Krieger

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Audio:

If you want to listen to more of Evan’s Shell Game, you can do so here, https://ift.tt/oynCjYG 

Sign up for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show.Sign up(https://ift.tt/7kFseJ6)!

Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member ofThe Lab(https://ift.tt/6OxG3Rb) today.

Follow our show onInstagram,TwitterandFacebook@radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailingradiolab@wnyc.org.

Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Listen Here

Does anyone else remember an episode from a few years ago about how nature (possibly a jungle?) and the animals within make noise in conjunction with each other and when something interrupts it, like a plane or helicopter flying overhead, they have to reset?

First aired back in 2017, here’s a show of questions and, sometimes, answers. Cause, we get a lot of questions. Like, A LOT of questions. Tiny questions, big questions, short questions, long questions. Weird questions. Poop questions. We get them all.

And over the years, as more and more of these questions arrived in our inbox, what happened was, guiltily, we put them off to the side, in a bucket of sorts, where they just sat around, unanswered. But now, we’re dumping the bucket out.

Today, our producers pick up a few of the questions that spilled out of that bucket, and venture out into the great unknown to find answers to some of life's greatest mysteries: coincidences; miracles; life; death; fate; will; and, of course, poop.

We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon

Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show.Sign up(https://ift.tt/rZDpKvF)!

Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member ofThe Lab(https://ift.tt/ow2O6DL) today.

Follow our show onInstagram,TwitterandFacebook@radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailingradiolab@wnyc.org.

Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Listen Here

Great episode guys! Well done.

February 1976. A flight out of California turned catastrophic when it crashed into a farm in rural Nebraska. What happened that night at the local hospital, and crucially, what went wrong, would inspire a global sea-change in how emergency rooms operate and fundamentally alter the way doctors think in a crisis.

Special thanks to Jody and Jay Upright, Heather Talbott, Dr. Ron Simon, Dr. John Sutyak, Dr. Paul Collicott, Irvene Hughe, Maimonides Medical Center, Karl Sukhia and Vanya Zvonar.

We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon

**EPISODE CREDITS: **

Reported by -  Avir Mitra

with help from - Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sarah Qari, Becca Bressler, Suzie Lechtenberg, Heather Radke and Ana Gonzalez

Produced by - Maria Paz Gutierrez, Becca Bressler and Pat Walters

with help from - Ana Gonzalez

Original music and sound design contributed by - Maria Paz Gutierrez and Jeremy Bloom

with mixing help from - Jeremy bloom

Fact-checking by - Diane Kelly

and Edited by  - Becca Bressler and Pat Walters

Sign up for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show.Sign up(https://ift.tt/4hCO6PF)!

Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member ofThe Lab(https://ift.tt/EWO13el) today.

Follow our show onInstagram,TwitterandFacebook@radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailingradiolab@wnyc.org.

Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Listen Here

I'm trying to find an old episode, at least probably 4-5 years old. During the episode, I think it's Jad, the host is talking about how there's a hormone or gene that keeps the body thinking "I'm a boy. I'm a boy. I'm a...". And if it were not for this hormone, the person would consider themselves female. (I'm probably wording this terribly) I remember the "I'm a boy. I'm a boy..." thing specifically.

Does anyone remember this episode? I'd like to listen to it again. Thank you!

Title says it, but as they tease and mash up the Dick Heller recordings it seems to transition into an actual blues song. Anyone know it?