Radiolab

Latest Episodes:

Music Hat Aug 29, 2025

Show notes

With this episode, we’re putting on our music hat. For a program that relies so much on scoring and sound, it’s not often we talk about the musicians and the music they make that inspire us. Today, that changes. Today, we bring you two stories. Each about musicians that our former host and creator of Radiolab, Jad Abumrad, loves.
We originally released these stories many years ago, and both start deep in music itself. Then quickly, they dig deeper — into our relationships with technology, and ourselves.

We start with the band Dawn of Midi, who straddle the intersection between acoustic and electronic sounds. Jad talks to the band about their album, Dysnomia, and how it's filled with heavily-layered rhythms that feel both mechanistic and deeply human, at the same time.

Then, Jad talks with Juana Molina, an Argentine singer who accidentally became a famous actress, when all along all she really wanted was to be a musician.

Special thanks to Dawn of Midi and Juana Molina.

EPISODE CREDITS:

Reported by - JAD ABUMRAD

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Check out Dawn of Midi at dawnofmidi.com and Juana Molina at juanamolina.com

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Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

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The Medical Matchmaking Machine Aug 22, 2025

Show notes

As he finished his medical school exam, David Fajgenbaum felt off. He walked down to the ER and checked himself in. Soon he was in the ICU with multiple organ failure. The only drug for his condition didn’t work. He had months to live, if that. If he was going to survive, he was going to have to find his own cure. Miraculously, he pulled it off in the nick of time. From that ordeal, he realized that our system of discovering and approving drugs is far from perfect, and that he might be able to use AI to find dozens, hundreds, even thousands of cures, hidden in plain sight, for as-yet untreatable diseases.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Latif Nasser
Produced by - Maria Paz Gutiérrez
with mixing help from - Jeremy S. Bloom
Fact-checking by - Natalie A. Middleton
VISIT:
Everycure.org (https://www.everycure.org)
EPISODE CITATIONS:
Books -
Blair Bigham - Death Interrupted: How Modern Medicine is Complicating the Way We Die

David Fajgenbaum - Chasing My Cure, (https://davidfajgenbaum.com/)

Radiolab | Lateral Cuts:
Check out Death Interrupted (https://radiolab.org/podcast/death-interrupted), a conversation with Blair Bigham about a worldview shifting change of heart.
The Dirty Drug and the Ice Cream Tub (https://radiolab.org/podcast/dirty-drug-and-ice-cream-tub) to hear the crazy story about how Rapamycin was discovered.

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Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.

Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

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Weighing Good Intentions Aug 15, 2025

Show notes

In an episode first released in 2010, then-producer Lulu Miller drives to Michigan to track down the endangered Kirtland’s warbler. Efforts to protect the bird have lead to the killing of cowbirds (a species that commandeers warbler nests), and a prescribed burn aimed at creating a new habitat. Tragically, this burn led to the death of a 29-year-old wildlife technician who was dedicated to warbler restoration. Forest Service employee Rita Halbeisen, local Michiganders skeptical of the resources put toward protecting the warbler, and the family of James Swiderski (the man killed in the fire), weigh in on how far we should go to protect one species.

EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Lulu Miller
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The Menopause Mystery Aug 08, 2025

Show notes

Until recently, scientists assumed humans were the only species in which females went through menopause, and lived a substantial part of their lives after they were no longer able to reproduce. And they had no idea why that happens, and why evolution wouldn’t push females to keep reproducing right up to the end of their lives. But after a close look at some whale poop, and a deep dive into chimp life, we find several new ways of thinking about menopause and the real purpose of this all too often overlooked second act of life.

Special thanks to Danielle Friedman, Rachel Gross, and Kate Radke.

EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Heather Radke and Becca Bressler
Produced by - Sarah Qari and Becca Bressler
Fact-checking by - Emily Krieger
and Edited by - Becca Bressler

EPISODE CITATIONS:
Books -
Check out everything Heather Radke writes, including Butts: A Backstory, cause it’s all that good, here: Heather Radke (www.heatherradke.com).
Find any one of Lucy Cooke’s book, including Bitch:On the Female of the Species, here: Lucy Cooke (http://www.lucycooke.tv/)
And check out everything Caroline Paul has on offer, including Tough Broad, here: Caroline Paul (https://www.carolinepaul.com/)
Socials -
Heather Radke: https://www.instagram.com/radhradke
Lucy Cooke: https://www.instagram.com/luckycooke/

Audio:
Becca Bressler’s greatest hits-
Bloc Party
Our Stupid Little Bodies
Gigaverse

Radiolab | Lateral cuts -
Butt Stuff

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Galaxy Quenching Aug 01, 2025

Show notes

This week: the story of astrophysicist Charity Woodrum. Charity is an extragalactic astronomer who studies the life and death of galaxies, why some galaxies burn bright and others dim and sputter out. And in the midst of an unthinkable grief in her personal life, she discovers something in the sky – a new kind of light that would guide her path forward.
Special thanks to Megan Stielstra, Jad Abumrad, Michael Woodrum, Gina Vivona, and Clair Reilly-Roe.

EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Lulu Miller
Produced by - Jessica Yung
Fact-checking by - Diane Kelly

Radiolab | Lateral Cuts:
Our episode The Darkest Dark (https://radiolab.org/podcast/the-darkest-dark) could be of interest to those seeking the deepest unknowns.
EPISODE CITATIONS:
Music -
Clair Reilly-Roe’s song “Sky Full of Ghosts” (https://zpr.io/JgauhRnj7qpX)

Articles -
A new documentary on Charity Woodrum’s story: Space, Hope and Charity (https://www.spacehopecharityfilm.com/)

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Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.

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The Nothing Behind Everything Jul 25, 2025

Show notes

This week, two conversations from the archives about parts of the world that are imperceptible to us, verging on almost unthinkable. We start with a moment of uncertainty in physics. Inspired by an essay written by physicist and novelist Alan Lightman, called The Accidental Universe (https://zpr.io/4965dUdNqtpQ), taken from a book of the same name. Former Radiolab co-host Robert Krulwich pays a visit to Brian Greene to ask if the latest developments in theoretical physics spell a crisis for science. He finds that we've reached the limit of what we can see and test, and we’re left with mathematical equations that can't be verified by experiments or observation.

Then, come along as we kick rocks. And end up tumbling down a philosophical rabbit hole where the solid things around us might not be solid at all. We talk to Jim Holt, author of Why Does the World Exist? (https://zpr.io/UqHpLnDx2QNx) who points out that when you start slicing and sleuthing in subatomic particle land, trying to get to the bottom of what makes matter, you mostly find empty space. Your hand, your chair, the floor, it's all made up of mostly nothing. Robert and Jim go toe-to-toe over whether the universe is made up of solid bits and pieces of stuff, or a cloudy foundation that more closely resembles thoughts and ideas.

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More Perfect: The Hate Debate Jul 18, 2025

Show notes

Back in 2017 our colleagues at More Perfect gathered a room full of people together to debate a straight forward question: Can free speech go too far? Today, eight years have passed and plenty has changed, but this question feels alive as ever.

And so we’re re-airing More Perfect’s The Hate Debate. Taped live at WNYC's Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, Elie Mystal, Ken White and Corynne McSherry duke it out over whether the first amendment needs an update in our digital world.

Special thanks to Elaine Chen, Jennifer Keeney Sendrow, and the entire Greene Space team. Additional engineering for this episode by Chase Culpon, Louis Mitchell, and Alex Overington.

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Videos -
If watching is more your speed, you can see the event, in its entirety, here:
https://www.youtube.com/live/azcIcVDyVTM?si=ZqpQHQfvTKr2jS0z
There’s other Radiolabs for that -
Further recommended listening What Up Holmes and Post No Evil.

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Desperately Seeking Symmetry Jul 11, 2025

Show notes

This hour of Radiolab, former co-hosts Jad and Robert set out in search of order and balance in the world around us, and ask how symmetry shapes our very existence -- from the origins of the universe, to what we see when we look in the mirror.

Along the way, we look for love in ancient Greece, head to modern-day Princeton to peer inside our brains, and turn up an unlikely headline from the Oval Office circa 1979.

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Videos -

Back in the day, when we first aired this episode, the film collective Everynone, filmmakers Will Hoffman, Daniel Mercadante and Julius Metoyer III were inspired with our yearning for balance, and aimed to visually reveal how beautiful imperfect matches can be.
Radiolab Presents: Symmetry (https://youtu.be/zEQskIsHKT8)

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On [The Divided Dial]: Fishing In The Night Jul 04, 2025

Show notes

Have you heard On the Media’s Peabody-winning series The Divided Dial?
It’s awesome and you should, and now you will. In this episode they tell the story of shortwave radio: the way-less-listened to but way-farther-reaching cousin of AM and FM radio. The medium was once heralded as a utopian, international, and instantaneous mass communication tool — a sort of internet-before-the-internet.

But, like the internet, many people quickly saw the power of this new technology and found ways to harness it. State leaders turned it into a propaganda machine, weaponizing the airwaves to try and shape politics around the world. And as shortwave continued to evolve, like the internet, it became fragmented, easily accessible, and right-wing extremists, conspiracy theorists and cult leaders found homes on the different shortwave frequencies.

And even today - again, like the internet - people with money are looking to buy up this mass-communication tool in the hopes of … making more money.

This is episode one from the second season of The Divided Dial a limited series from On The Media.

Listen on Spotify (https://zpr.io/hKCcFEGTLb5a)
Listen on Apple Podcasts (https://zpr.io/tQ86YmEmiivR)
Listen on the WNYC App (iTunes, Android)
Listen to the full Divided Dial series (https://www.onthemedia.org/dial)
Follow On The Media on Instagram @onthemedia

The Divided Dial was supported in part by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

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Sex, Ducks and the Founding Feud Jun 27, 2025

Show notes

Jilted lovers and disrupted duck hunts provide a very odd look into the soul of the US Constitution.

What does a betrayed 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.

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