Radiolab

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.

Generator: https://simplecast.com
Rights: © WNYC Studios
Public lists: Featured
Fetched: 22:36

Radiolab
16 Jan 2021 • WNYC Studios

Post Reports: Four Hours of Insurrection

39:26

We’re all still processing what happened on January 6th. Despite the hours and hours of video circulating online, we still didn’t feel like we had a visceral, on-the-ground sense of what happened that day. Until we heard the piece we’re featuring today. The Washington Post’s...

Radiolab
15 Jan 2021 • WNYC Studios

More Money Less Problems

28:17

Back in March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was just beginning and the shelter-in-place orders brought the economy to a screeching halt, a quirky-but-clever idea to save the economy made its way up to some of the highest levels of government. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib p...

Radiolab
13 Jan 2021 • WNYC Studios

Sight Unseen

36:59

As the attacks were unfolding on the Capitol, a steady stream of images poured onto our screens. Photo editor Kainaz Amaria tells us what she was looking for--and seeing--that afternoon. And she runs into a dilemma we've talked about before. In Decem...

Radiolab
23 Dec 2020 • WNYC Studios

A Terrible Covid Christmas Special

49:43

This year was the worst. And as our staff tried to figure out what to do for our last episode of 2020, co-host Latif Nasser thought, what if we stare straight into the darkness … and make a damn Christmas special about it. Latif begins with a story about Santa, and a back-ro...

Radiolab
18 Dec 2020 • WNYC Studios

The Ashes on the Lawn

52:07

A global pandemic. An afflicted, angry group. A seemingly indifferent government. Reporter Tracie Hunte wanted to understand this moment of pain and confusion by looking back 30 years, and she found a complicated answer to a simple question: When nothing seems to work, how do you make change?

This episode was reported by Tracie Hunte, and produced by Annie McEwen and Tobin Low. Fact-checking by Diane Kelly.

Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at Radiolab.org/donate.

Hi Radiolab listeners, we want to hear from you! Take this podcast survey and let us know how you feel about the show. It only takes about 20 minutes and your feedback will help us make our podcast better! There are no wrong answers, we want your honest takes. You can help out by taking the survey here (www.radiolab.org/survey).

Radiolab
10 Dec 2020 • WNYC Studios

Enemy of Mankind

56:41

Should the U.S. Supreme Court be the court of the world? In the 18th century, two feuding Frenchmen inspired a one-sentence law that helped launch American human rights litigation into the 20th century. The Alien Tort Statute allowed a Paraguayan woman to find justice for a ...

Radiolab
03 Dec 2020 • WNYC Studios

The Great Vaccinator

42:05

Until now, the fastest vaccine ever made - for mumps - took four years. And while our current effort to develop a covid-19 vaccine involves thousands of people working around the clock, the mumps vaccine was developed almost exclusively by one person: Maurice Hilleman. ...

Radiolab
25 Nov 2020 • WNYC Studios

Dispatch 13: Challenge Trials

26:36

What if someone asked you to get infected with the COVID-19 virus, deliberately, in order to speed up the development of a vaccine? Would you do it? Would you risk your life to save others? For months, dozens of companies have been racing to create coronavirus vaccines. Fina...

Radiolab
19 Nov 2020 • WNYC Studios

Deception

57:37

Lies, liars, and lie catchers. This hour of Radiolab asks if it's possible for anyone to lead a life without deception.

Hi Radiolab listeners, we want to hear from you! Take this podcast survey and let us know how you feel about the show. It only takes about 20 minutes and your feedback will help us make our podcast better! There are no wrong answers, we want your honest takes. You can help out by taking the survey here (www.radiolab.org/survey).

Radiolab
13 Nov 2020 • WNYC Studios

Breaking Benford

29:39

In the days after the US Presidential election was called for Joe Biden, many supporters of Donald Trump are crying foul. Voter fraud. And a key piece of evidence? A century-old quirk of math called Benford’s Law. We at Radiolab know Benford’s Law well, and ...

Radiolab
02 Nov 2020 • WNYC Studios

Bloc Party

50:44

In the 1996 election, Bill Clinton had a problem. The women who came out in droves for him in ‘92, split their vote in the ‘94 midterms, handing over control of the House and the Senate to the Republican Party. As his team stared ahead at his re-election bid, they knew they ...

Radiolab
31 Oct 2020 • WNYC Studios

How to Win Friends and Influence Baboons

29:23

Baboon troops. We all know they’re hierarchical. There’s the big brutish alpha male who rules with a hairy iron fist, and then there’s everybody else. Which is what Meg Crofoot thought too, before she used GPS collars to track the movements of a troop of baboons for a whole ...

Radiolab
23 Oct 2020 • WNYC Studios

What If?

41:29

There’s plenty of speculation about what Donald Trump might do in the wake of the election. Would he dispute the results if he loses? Would he simply refuse to leave office, or even try to use the military to maintain control? Last summer, Rosa Brooks got together a team of ...

Radiolab
08 Oct 2020 • WNYC Studios

Kittens Kick The Giggly Blue Robot All Summer

39:42

With the recent passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, there's been a lot of debate about how much power the Supreme Court should really have.

We think of the Supreme Court justices as all-powerful beings, issuing momentous rulings from on high. But they haven’t always been so, you know, supreme. On this episode, we go all the way back to the case that, in a lot of ways, started it all.

Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at Radiolab.org/donate.

Hi Radiolab listeners, we want to hear from you! Take this podcast survey and let us know how you feel about the show. It only takes about 20 minutes and your feedback will help us make our podcast better! There are no wrong answers, we want your honest takes. You can help out by taking the survey here (www.radiolab.org/survey).

Radiolab
02 Oct 2020 • WNYC Studios

No Special Duty

45:20

What are the police for? Producer B.A. Parker started wondering this back in June, as Black Lives Matter protests and calls to “defund the police” ramped up. The question led her to a wild story of a stabbing on a New York City subway train, and the realization that, accordi...

Radiolab
25 Sep 2020 • WNYC Studios

Insomnia Line

34:35

Coronasomnia is a not-so-surprising side-effect of the global pandemic. More and more of us are having trouble falling asleep. We wanted to find a way to get inside that nighttime world, to see why people are awake and what they are thinking about. So what’d Radiolab decide ...

Radiolab
19 Sep 2020 • WNYC Studios

More Perfect: Sex Appeal

53:25

We lost a legend. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on September 18th, 2020. She was 87. In honor of her passing we are re-airing the More Perfect episode dedicated to one of her cases, because it offers a unique portrait of how one person can make cha...

Radiolab
17 Sep 2020 • WNYC Studios

Falling

56:35

There are so many ways to fall—in love, asleep, even flat on your face. This hour, Radiolab dives into stories of great falls.

We jump into a black hole, take a trip over Niagara Falls, upend some myths about falling cats, and plunge into our favorite songs about falling.

Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at Radiolab.org/donate.

Hi Radiolab listeners, we want to hear from you! Take this podcast survey and let us know how you feel about the show. It only takes about 20 minutes and your feedback will help us make our podcast better! There are no wrong answers, we want your honest takes. You can help out by taking the survey here (www.radiolab.org/survey).

Radiolab
11 Sep 2020 • WNYC Studios

Bringing Gamma Back, Again

36:53

Today, we return to the lab of neuroscientist Li-Huei Tsai, which brought us one of our favorite stories from four years ago - about the power of flashing lights on an Alzheimer’s-addled (mouse) brain. In this update, Li-Huei tells us about her team’s latest research, which ...

Radiolab
04 Sep 2020 • WNYC Studios

Fungus Amungus

31:52

Six years ago, a new infection began popping up in four different hospitals on three different continents, all around the same time. It wasn’t a bacteria, or a virus. It was ... a killer fungus. No one knew where it came from, or why. Today, the story of an ancient showdown ...

Radiolab
27 Aug 2020 • WNYC Studios

Translation

01:05:18

How close can words get you to the truth and feel and force of life? That's the question poking at our ribs this hour, as we wonder how it is that the right words can have the wrong meanings, and why sometimes the best translations lead us to an understanding that's way...

Radiolab
21 Aug 2020 • WNYC Studios

Lebanon, USA

42:27

This is a story of a road trip. After a particularly traumatic Valentine's Day, Fadi Boukaram was surfing google maps and noticed that there was a town called Lebanon... in Oregon. Being Lebanese himself, he wondered, how many Lebanons exist in the US? The answer: 47. Thus b...

Radiolab
14 Aug 2020 • WNYC Studios

The Wubi Effect

55:10

When we think of China today, we think of a technological superpower. From Huawei and 5G to TikTok and viral social media, China is stride for stride with the United States in the world of computing. However, China’s technological renaissance almost didn’t happen. And f...

Radiolab
07 Aug 2020 • WNYC Studios

Uncounted

50:42

First things first: our very own Latif Nasser has an exciting new show on Netflix. He talks to Jad about the hidden forces of the world that connect us all. Then, with an eye on the upcoming election, we take a look back: at two pieces from More Perfect Season 3 about Consti...

Radiolab
31 Jul 2020 • WNYC Studios

Invisible Allies

42:05

As scientists have been scrambling to find new and better ways to treat covid-19, they’ve come across some unexpected allies. Invisible and primordial, these protectors have been with us all along. And they just might help us to better weather this viral storm. To kick ...

Radiolab
24 Jul 2020 • WNYC Studios

Baby Blue Blood Drive

01:06:54

Horseshoe crabs are not much to look at. But beneath their unassuming catcher’s-mitt shell, they harbor a half-billion-year-old secret: a superpower that helped them outlive the dinosaurs and survive all the Earth’s mass extinctions. And what is that secret super...

Radiolab
17 Jul 2020 • WNYC Studios

Dispatches from 1918

01:10:41

It’s hard to imagine what the world will look like when COVID-19 has passed. So in this episode, we look back to the years after 1918, at the political, artistic, and viral aftermath of the flu pandemic that killed between 50 and 100 million people and left our world pe...

Radiolab
12 Jul 2020 • WNYC Studios

The Flag and the Fury

01:13:35

How do you actually make change in the world? For 126 years, Mississippi has had the Confederate battle flag on their state flag, and they were the last state in the nation where that emblem remained “officially” flying. A few days ago, that flag came down. A few days ...

Radiolab
25 Jun 2020 • WNYC Studios

The Third. A TED Talk.

18:08

Jad gives a TED talk about his life as a journalist and how Radiolab has evolved over the years. Here's how TED described it:How do you end a story? Host of Radiolab Jad Abumrad tells how his search for an answer led him home to the mountains of Tennessee, where he met an un...

Radiolab
19 Jun 2020 • WNYC Studios

Post No Evil Redux

01:11:08

Today we revisit our story on Facebook and its rulebook, looking at what’s changed in the past two years and exploring how these rules will impact the 2020 Presidential Election. Back in 2008 Facebook began writing a document. It was a constitution of sorts, laying out...