Radiolab

WNYC Studios

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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664 episodes
Updated Friday

Episodes664

Newest first

Mar 7, 2025 · 1 hr 5 min
More Perfect: Sex Appeal
In 2017 our sister show, More Perfect aired an episode all about RBG, In September of 2020, we lost Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the annals of history. She was 87. Given the atmosphere around reproductive rights, gender and law, we decided to re-air this More Perfect episode dedicated to one of her cases. Because it offers a unique portrait of how one person can make change in the world. This is the story of how Ginsburg, as a young lawyer at the ACLU, convinced an all-male Sup
Feb 28, 2025 · 35 min
Revenge of the Miasma
Today we uncover an invisible killer hidden, for over a hundred years, by reasonable disbelief. Science journalist extraordinaire Carl Zimmer tells us the story of a centuries-long battle of ideas that came to a head, with tragic consequences, in the very recent past. His latest book, called Airborne, details a largely forgotten history of science that never quite managed to get off the ground. Along the way, Carl helps us understand how we can fail, over and over again, to see a truth right in
Feb 21, 2025 · 34 min
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Today, a story that starts small and private, with one woman alone in her bathroom, as she makes a quiet, startling discovery about her own body. But that small, private moment grows and grows, and pretty soon it becomes something so big that it has impacted the life of every person reading this right now… and all that without the woman ever even knowing the impact she had. We originally aired this story back in 2010, but we thought we’d bring it back today, as questions about bodily autonomy ci
Feb 14, 2025 · 34 min
Quantum Birds
Annie McEwen went to a mountain in Pennsylvania to help catch some migratory owls. Then Scott Weidensaul peeled back the owl’s feathery face disc, so that she could look at the back of its eyeball. No owls were harmed in the process, but this brief glimpse into the inner workings of a bird sent her off on a journey to a place where fleshy animal business bumps into the mathematics of subatomic particles. With help from Henrik Mouristen, we hear how one of the biggest mysteries in biology might f
Feb 7, 2025 · 25 min
Vertigogo
In this episode, first aired in 2012, we have two stories of brains pushed off-course. We relive a surreal day in the life of a young researcher hijacked by her own brain, and hear from a librarian experiencing a bizarre and mysterious set of symptoms that she called “gravitational anarchy.” Special thanks to Sarah Montague and Ellen Horn, as well as actress Hope Davis, who read Rosemary Morton’s story. And the late Berton Roueché, who wrote that story down. EPISODE CREDITS: Produced by - B
Jan 31, 2025 · 28 min
Forever Fresh
We eat apples in the summer and enjoy bananas in the winter. When we do this, we go against the natural order of life which is towards death and decay. What gives? This week, Latif Nasser spoke with Nicola Twilley, the author of Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves. Twilley spent over a decade reporting about how we keep food alive as it makes its way from the farm to our table. This conversation explores the science of cold, how fruits hold a secret to eterna
Jan 24, 2025 · 52 min
Nukes
In an episode first reported in 2017, we bring you a look up and down the US nuclear chain of command to find out who gets to authorize their use and who can stand in the way of Armageddon. President Richard Nixon once boasted that at any moment he could pick up a telephone and - in 20 minutes - kill 60 million people. Such is the power of the US President over the nation’s nuclear arsenal. But what if you were the military officer on the receiving end of that phone call? Could you refuse th
Jan 17, 2025 · 26 min
The Darkest Dark
We fall down the looking glass with Sönke Johnsen, a biologist who finds himself staring at one of the darkest things on the planet. So dark, it’s almost like he’s holding a blackhole in his hands. On his quest to understand how something could possibly be that black, we enter worlds of towering microscopic forests, where gold becomes black, the deep sea meets the moon, and places that are empty suddenly become full. Corrections/Clarifications:In this episode, dragonfish are described as havin
Jan 10, 2025 · 34 min
Smarty Plants
In an episode we first aired in 2018, we asked the question, do you really need a brain to sense the world around you? To remember? Or even learn? Well, it depends on who you ask. Jad and Robert, they are split on this one. Today, Robert drags Jad along on a parade for the surprising feats of brainless plants. Along with a home-inspection duo, a science writer, and some enterprising scientists at Princeton University, we dig into the work of evolutionary ecologist Monica Gagliano, who turns our
Jan 3, 2025 · 1 hr 1 min
Match Made in Marrow
In an episode first reported in 2017, we bring you what may be, maybe the greatest gift one person could give to another. You never know what might happen when you sign up to donate bone marrow. You might save a life… or you might be magically transported across a cultural chasm and find yourself starring in a modern adaptation of the greatest story ever told. One day, without thinking much of it, Jennell Jenney swabbed her cheek and signed up to be a donor. Across the country, Jim Munroe de
Dec 24, 2024 · 25 min
Probing Where the Sun Does Shine: A Holiday Special
This holiday season, we want to take you on a trip around the heavens.First, co-host Latif Nasser, with the help of Nour Raouafi, of NASA, and an edge-cutting piece of equipment, explain how we may finally be making good on Icarus’s promise. Then, co-host Lulu Miller and Ada Limón talk about how a poet laureate goes about writing an ode to one of Jupiter’s moons. And one more thing! It is almost your last chance to make your mark on the heavens. Radiolab and The International Astronomical Union
Dec 20, 2024 · 47 min
Curiosity Killed the Adage
The early bird gets the worm. What goes around, comes around. It’s always darkest just before dawn. We carry these little nuggets of wisdom—these adages—with us, deep in our psyche. But recently we started wondering: are they true? Like, objectively, scientifically, provably true? So we picked a few and set out to fact check them. We talked to psychologists, neuroscientists, runners, a real estate agent, skateboarders, an ornithologist, a sociologist and an astrophysicist, among others, and we
Dec 13, 2024 · 24 min
Dark Side of the Earth
Back in 2012, when we were putting together our live show In the Dark, Jad and Robert called up Dave Wolf to ask him if he had any stories about darkness. And boy, did he. Dave told us two stories that became the finale of our show. Back in late 1997, Dave Wolf was on his first spacewalk, to perform work on the Mir (the photo to the right was taken during that mission, courtesy of NASA.). Dave wasn't alone -- with him was veteran Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyev. (That's a picture of Dave giv
Dec 6, 2024 · 1 hr 4 min
How Stockholm Stuck
How an idea born in a Swedish bank wormed its way into all of our brains. In August of 1973, Jan-Erik Olsson walked into the lobby of a bank in central Stockholm. He fired his submachine gun at the ceiling and yelled “The party starts now!” Then he started taking hostages. For the next six days, Swedish police and international media would tie themselves in knots trying to understand what seemed to them a sordid attachment between captor and captives. And this fixation, later pathologized as “S
Nov 29, 2024 · 24 min
Less Than Kilogram
In today’s story, which originally aired in 2014, we meet a very special cylinder. It's the gold standard (or, in this case, the platinum-iridium standard) for measuring mass. For decades it's been coddled and cared for and treated like a tiny king. But, as we learn from writer Andrew Marantz, things change—even things that were specifically designed to stay the same. Special thanks to Ken Alder, Ari Adland, Eric Perlmutter, Terry Quinn and Richard Davis.And to the musical group, His Majestys S
Nov 22, 2024 · 42 min
Science Vs: The Funniest Joke in the World
When he rounded them up, he had a 100. A few months ago, Wendy Zukerman invited our own Latif Nasser to come on her show, and, of course, he jumped at the chance. Laughter ensued, as they set off to find the "The Funniest Joke in the World." When you just Google something like that, the internet might serve you, "What has many keys but can't open a single lock??” (Answer: A piano). So they had to dig deeper. According to science. And for this quest they interviewed a bunch of amazing comics i
Nov 15, 2024 · 46 min
Hello
It's tough to make small talk with a stranger—especially when that stranger doesn't speak your language. (And he has a blowhole.) It's hard to start a conversation with a stranger—especially when that stranger is, well, different. He doesn't share your customs, celebrate your holidays, watch your TV shows, or even speak your language. Plus he has a blowhole. In this episode, which originally aired in the summer of 2014, we try to make contact with some of the strangest strangers on our little
Nov 8, 2024 · 36 min
The Ecstasy of an Open Brain
As we grow up, there are little windows of time when we can learn very, very fast, and very, very deeply. Scientists call these moments, critical periods. Real, neurological, biological states when our brain can soak up information like a sponge. Then, these windows of learning close. Locking us in to certain behaviors and skills for the rest of our lives. But … what if we could reopen them? Today, we consider a series of discoveries that are reshaping our understanding of when and how we can le
Oct 31, 2024 · 30 min
Haunted
Do you believe in ghosts? 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 me
Oct 25, 2024 · 59 min
The Unpopular Vote
The closest we ever came to abolishing the electoral college and why we probably never will.As the US Presidential Election nears, Radiolab covers the closest we ever came to abolishing the Electoral College. In the 1960s, then-President Lyndon Johnson approached an ambitious young Senator known as the Kennedy of the Midwest to tweak the way Americans elect their President. The more Senator Birch Bayh looked into the electoral college the more he believed it was a ticking time bomb hidden in th

Radiolab

More Perfect: Sex Appeal

Revenge of the Miasma

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Quantum Birds

Vertigogo

Forever Fresh

Nukes

The Darkest Dark

Smarty Plants

Match Made in Marrow

Probing Where the Sun Does Shine: A Holiday Special

Curiosity Killed the Adage

Dark Side of the Earth

How Stockholm Stuck

Less Than Kilogram

Science Vs: The Funniest Joke in the World

Hello

The Ecstasy of an Open Brain

Haunted

The Unpopular Vote