Radiolab

Latest Episodes:

Baby Shark Jun 20, 2025

Show notes

This is episode five of Swimming with Shadows: A Radiolab Week of Sharks.

Today, the strange, squirmy magic behind how sharks make more sharks. Drills. Drama. Death. Even a coliseum of baby sharks duking it out inside mom’s womb. And a man on a small island in the Mediterranean trying, against all odds, to give baby sharks a chance in a little plastic aquarium in his living room. Can a human raise a shark? And if so, what good is that for sharks? And for us? Doo doo doo doo doo doo.

Special thanks to Jaime Penadés Suay and la Fundación Azul Marino.

EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Rachael Cusick
Produced by - Rachael Cusick
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Diane Kelly
and Edited by - Pat Walters

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Articles -
Claudia’s original reporting that inspired the episode

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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 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.

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Mystery Bay Jun 19, 2025

Show notes

This is episode four of Swimming with Shadows: A Radiolab Week of Sharks.

Alison Kock was working at a car wash in Cape Town when she made a discovery that completely changed the course of her life. Inside a customer’s trunk, she found photographs of white sharks flying so high above the water they looked like airplanes. She followed those photographs to False Bay, “the Great White Capital of the World.” These sharks, in this place, are the apex of apex predators. Or they were. Until they mysteriously began to disappear.

Special thanks to Kathryn Ayres.

EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Rachael Cusick
Produced by - Simon Adler and Maria Paz Gutierrez
with help from - Rebecca Laks
Original music from - Simon Adler and Maria Paz Gutierrez
Sound design contributed by - Jeremy Bloom
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Diane A. Kelly
and Edited by - Pat Walters
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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.

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The Shark Inside You Jun 18, 2025

Show notes

This is episode three of Swimming with Shadows: A Radiolab Week of Sharks.

Today, we take a trip across the world, from the south coast of Australia to … Wisconsin. Here, scientists are scouring shark blood to find one of nature’s hidden keys, a molecular superhero that might unlock our ability to cure cancer: shark antibodies. They’re small. They’re flexible. And they can fit into nooks and crannies on tumors that our antibodies can’t.

We journey back 500 million years to the moment sharks got these special powers and head to the underground labs transforming these monsters into healers. Can these animals we fear so much actually save us?

Special thanks to Mike Criscitiello, David Schatz, Mary Rose Madden, Ryan Ogilvie, Margot Wohl, Sofi LaLonde, and Isabelle Bérubé.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Becca Bressler
Produced by - Becca Bressler and Matt Kielty
Original music from - Matt Kielty and Jeremy Bloom
Sound design contributed by - Matt Kielty, Jeremy Bloom, and Becca Bressler
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Diane Kelly
and Edited by - Pat Walters

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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 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.

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The Cage Jun 17, 2025

Show notes

This is episode two of Swimming with Shadows: A Radiolab Week of Sharks.

Jaws spawned a thousand imitators: sharks in tornados, sharks in avalanches, sharks that battle giant octopuses. Hollywood has officially turned sharks into monsters of every shape and size. And yet, somehow, there will always be more.

But drop below the surface, into the cold, quiet blue, and another creature appears. One that has survived mass extinctions, outlasted ancient predators and pre-dates Mount Everest, the existence of trees, even the rings of Saturn. A shark that is somehow even more remarkable than sharks in tornadoes.

Today, we go visit that shark.

Special thanks to Andrew Fox, the entire team at Rodney Fox Shark Expeditions, John Long whose book The Secret History of Sharks inspired our obsession with sharks, and Greg Skomal, whose wonderful new book on his life studying white sharks is Chasing Shadows: My Life Tracking the Great White Shark.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Rachael Cusick
with help from - Pat Walters
Produced by - Rachael Cusick and Simon Adler
with help from - Pat Walters
Sound design contributed by - Jeremy Bloom
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Natalie Middleton
and Edited by - Pat Walters

EPISODE CITATIONS:
Videos -
Loved learning about all the different kinds of sharks there are? Check out even more Jaida Elcock’s videos on sharks.

Book -
The Secret History of Sharks by John Long

Chasing Shadows: My Life Tracking the Great White Shark by Greg Skomal

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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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Making a Monster Jun 16, 2025

Show notes

Episode one of Swimming with Shadows: A Radiolab Week of Sharks.
Rodney Fox went into the ocean one summer day in 1963. He came out barely alive, his body torn apart by a great white shark. At the time, it was one of the worst shark attacks ever survived.

After he recovered, he was pulled back into the shadowy world he feared most. Again and again and again. That shark attack left behind a question that still lingers, for Rodney, and for all of us: When you can’t see the thing that scares you, what kind of monster does your mind create? And how do you fight past it?

Special thanks to Surekha Davies, Asa Mittman, Scott Poole, and Maria Tatar.

EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Rachael Cusick
with help from - Pat Walters
Produced by - Rachael Cusick and Pat Walters
Sound design contributed by - Jeremy Bloom
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Diane Kelly
and Edited by - Pat Walters

Signup for our newsletter!! 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/) today.

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

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It's Like ... Radiolab Jun 14, 2025

Show notes

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

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Swimming with Shadows: A Radiolab Week of Sharks Jun 13, 2025

Show notes

In the summer of 1975, Jaws scared an entire generation out of the water. The film burned an idea into our cultural memory: they are mindless, man-eating monsters. We set out to tell a different story about sharks. Five stories over five days. We tear down deep-seated myths about sharks, plunge into the water with them, and find sharks that explode our sense of what they are – flying sharks, glowing sharks, baby sharks, sharks under attack, and sharks that may save millions of human lives.

Look out for brand-new episodes in your podcast feed starting June 16th through June 20th.

Visit our YouTube channel to check out the video trailer for the series and make sure to subscribe for more behind the scenes content throughout the week.

For more details about the series, visit radiolab.org/sharks

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Double-Blasted Jun 13, 2025

Show notes

We first aired this episode in 2012, but at the show we’ve been thinking a lot about resilience and repair so we wanted to play it for you again today. It’s about a man who experienced maybe one of the most chilling traumas… twice. But then, it leads us to a story of generational repair.

On the morning of August 6th, 1945, Tsutomu Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a work trip. He was walking to the office when the first atomic bomb was dropped about a mile away. He survived, and eventually managed to get himself onto a train back to his hometown... Nagasaki. The very next morning, as he tried to convince his boss that a single bomb could destroy a whole city, the second bomb dropped. Author Sam Kean tells Jad and Robert the incredible story of what happened to Tsutomu, explains how gamma rays shred DNA, and helps us understand how Tsutomu sidestepped a thousand year curse.
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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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The Elixir of Life Jun 06, 2025

Show notes

Doctor and special correspondent, Avir Mitra takes Lulu on an epic journey live on stage at a little basement club called Caveat, here in New York. Starting with an ingredient in breastmilk that babies can’t digest, a global hunt that takes us from Bangladesh to the Mennonite communities here in the US, we discover an ancient symbiotic relationship that might be on the verge of disappearing. So sip a vicarious cocktail, settle in, and explore the surprising ways our bodies forge deep, invisible connections that shape our lives.

This live show is part of a series we are doing with Avir that we are calling “Viscera.” Each event is conversation that takes the audience on journey into a quirk or question or mystery inside of us, and gives them a visceral experience with the viscera of us. The previous installment of the series, was called “How to Save a Life.”

Special thanks to Tim Brown, David Mills, Carlito Lebrilla, Bethany Henrik, Danielle Lemay, Katie Hinde, Jennifer Smilowitz, Angela Zivkovic, Daniela Barile, Mark Underwood

EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by -Avir Mitra
with help from - Anisa Vietze
Original music from - Dylan Keefe
Sound design contributed by - Dylan Keefe, Iván Barenboim
Fact-checking by -Natalie Middleton.

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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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A Flock of Two May 30, 2025

Show notes

Animals rescue people all the time, but not like this. In this episode, first aired more than a decade ago, Jim Eggers is a 44-year-old man who suffers from a problem that not only puts his life at risk—it jeopardizes the safety of everybody around him. But with the help of Sadie, his pet African Grey Parrot, Jim found an unlikely way to manage his anger. African Grey Parrot expert Irene Pepperberg helps us understand how this could work, and shares some insights from her work with a parrot named Alex.

And one quick note from our producer Pat Walters: Jim considers Sadie to be a “service animal,” a designation under the Americans with Disabilities Act that protects the rights of individuals with disabilities to bring certain animals into public places. The term service animal sometimes is legally limited to include only dogs and miniature horses.
Jim disagrees with those limitations, but the local bus company, regardless of definitions, said they’ll make an exception for Sadie.

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