Who Are You?
This hour of Radiolab centers around a chilling question: how well can you ever really know the people around you?We talk to neuroscientists, primatologists, actors, zookeepers, and fathers who are all...
View ArticleThe Others... who are slipping away
What can we know about the mind of someone who is just glimpsing death? Ron Rosenbaum describes two alternate endings to Shakespeare's 'Hamlet,' and he and actor Mark Rylance explain the significance...
View ArticleWhy we fall into a good book
We tackle a question from a listener, this time about storytelling. To answer it, we turn to the brain of Jonathan Gottschall, a writer who has devoted much of his early career to understanding why...
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The Bitter End
We turn to doctors to save our lives -- to heal us, repair us, and keep us healthy. But when it comes to the critical question of what to do when death is at hand, there seems to be a gap between what...
View ArticleSpeed
We live our lives at human speed, we experience and interact with the world on a human time scale. But this hour, we put ourselves through the paces, peek inside a microsecond, and master the fastest...
View ArticleSpeedy Beet
There are few musical moments more well-worn than the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. But in this short, we find out that Beethoven might have made a last-ditch effort to keep his music...
View ArticleThe Man Behind the Maneuver
In the 1970s, choking became national news: thousands were choking to death, leading to more accidental deaths than guns. Nobody knew what to do. Until a man named Henry Heimlich came along with a big...
View ArticleREBROADCAST: Emergence
This spring, parts of the East Coast will turn squishy and crunchy -- the return of the 17-year cicadas means surfaces in certain locations (in patches from VA to CT) will once again be coated in bugs...
View ArticleAre You Sure?
This hour, we walk the tightrope between doubt and certainty, and wonder if there's a way to make yourself at home on that razor's edge between definitely...and not so sure.We meet a geologist whose...
View ArticleRadiolab Presents: TJ & Dave
Improv comedy puts uncertainty on center stage -- performers usually start by asking the audience for a prompt, then they make up the details as they go. But two actors in Chicago are taking this idea...
View ArticleThe Distance of the Moon
What if the moon were just a jump away? In this short, a beautiful answer to that question from Italo Calvino, read live by Liev Schreiber. According to one theory, the moon formed when a Mars-sized...
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The Septendecennial Sing-Along
Every 17 years, a deafening sex orchestra hits the East Coast -- billions and billions of cicadas crawl out of the ground, sing their hearts out, then mate and die. In this short, Jad and Robert talk...
View ArticleVIDEO: Radiolab Behind the Scenes
If you've ever wondered how the podcast comes together, or what it's like to work at Radiolab, here's a peek into our process.If you're a fan of the show, help us make more Radiolab by making a...
View ArticleAdoptive Couple v. Baby Girl
This is the story of a three-year-old girl and the highest court in the land. The Supreme Court case Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl is a legal battle that has entangled a biological father, a...
View ArticleThe Trouble with Everything
The desire to trace your way back to the very beginning, to understand everything -- whether it's the mysteries of love or the mechanics of the universe -- is deeply human. It might also be deeply...
View ArticleCurious Sounds from the Solid Sound Festival
This fall, we're hitting the road with our brand-new live show. We're stopping in 20 cities across the US (plus 1 stop in Canada), and we have some exciting news about the special musical guests who...
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Ally's Choice
Producer Lu Olkowski brings us the story of a tightly-knit family caught on opposite sides of a very big divide. If you ask Ally Manning's mom and sister, they'll tell you there's no question: they're...
View ArticleHappy Birthday, Good Dr. Sacks
One of our favorite human beings turns 80 this week. To celebrate, Robert asks Oliver Sacks to look back on his career, and explain how thousands of worms and a motorbike accident led to a brilliant...
View ArticleBlood
From medicine to the movies, the horrifying to the holy, and history to the present day -- we're kinda obsessed with blood. This hour, we consider the power and magic of the red liquid that runs...
View ArticleRodney Versus Death
What do you do in the face of a monstrous disease with a 100% fatality rate? In this short, a Milwaukee doctor tries to knock death incarnate off its throne.In the fall of 2004, Jeanna Giese checked...
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