Radiolab

Radiolab
  • 4.6 (41K)
  • NATURAL SCIENCES
  • UPDATED WEEKLY
Radiolab Podcast

Ad-free listening, full archive access & more!

$2.99/mo or $29.99/yr after trial

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.

  1. More Perfect: The Gun Show

    3 DAYS AGO

    More Perfect: The Gun Show

    In 2008, the Supreme Court stepped in to settle our fight over the Second Amendment’s meaning. They did. And they didn’t. Given that we’re all gearing up for the Presidential race, and how gun rights and regulations are almost always centerstage during these times. Today, we’re re-releasing a More Perfect episode that aired just after the October 2017 Las Vegas shooting. It is an episode that attempts to make sense of our country’s fraught relationship with the Second Amendment. For nearly 200 years of our nation’s history, the Second Amendment was an all-but-forgotten rule about the importance of militias. But in the 1960s and 70s, a movement emerged — led by Black Panthers and a recently-repositioned NRA — that insisted owning a firearm was the right of each and every American. So began a constitutional debate that only the Supreme Court could solve. That didn’t happen until 2008, when a Washington, D.C. security guard named Dick Heller made a compelling case. We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon Sign up 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 [email protected]. 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.

    1h 13m
  2. Up in Smoke

    AUG 9

    Up in Smoke

    Wildfires, a mysterious outbreak, and a question – is there something in the smoke? Two scenes. In the first, a doctor gets a call — the hospital she works at is having an outbreak of unknown origin, in the middle of the worst wildfire season on record. In the second, an ecologist stands in a forest, watching it burn. Through very different circumstances, they both find themselves asking the same question: is there something in the smoke? This question will bring them together, and reveal – to all of us – a world we never saw before. This is the first episode in an ongoing series hosted by Molly Webster, in conversation with scientists and science-y people, doing work at the furthest edges of what we know. More to come! Special thanks to Leda Kobziar, at the University of Idaho, and Naomi Hauser, at the University of California, Davis. Plus, James and Shelby Kaemmerer, and Paula and John Troche.We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moonEPISODE CREDITS: Hosted and Reported by - Molly WebsterProduced by - Sindhu GnanasambandanFact-checking by - Diane A. Kellyand Edited by  - Pat Walters EPISODE CITATIONS: Articles - And lastly, wanna learn more about bacteria in snow-making machines – check out this New York Times article (https://zpr.io/t6HKi7HMuHMZ), or this science-explainer (https://zpr.io/VygRVBb5vspq)! Scientific Papers - Read Leda’s paper on microbes in smoke (https://zpr.io/d3JVm7gEf2dc)!For more details on the outbreak at Naomi’s hospital, you can check out this abstract of her findings (https://zpr.io/DGgS9UCFicpJ). Leda was inspired to stick petri dishes into smoke after reading a science research paper written by a father-daughter team, as part of a high school science project in Texas. Go read it (https://zpr.io/D3LVMy2raLr9)! Audio - For further fungal listening, Radiolab and Molly have covered fungus and hospital outbreaks (https://radiolab.org/podcast/fungus-amungus) before (plus: dinosuars!), in our episode Fungus Amungus. You can also listen to Super Cool (https://radiolab.org/podcast/super-cool-2017), a Radiolab episode about wild horses, microbes, and things freezing instantaneously. (It’s seriously one of Molly’s favorite Radiolab episodes and it has a moment of such SPONTANEOUS joy, she re-plays it at least once a year to smile.) 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 [email protected]. 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.

    27 min
  3. Sleep

    AUG 2

    Sleep

    Birds do it, bees do it...yet science still can't answer the basic question: why do we sleep? We had a question back in 2007, about a thing every creature on the planet does--from giant humpback whales to teeny fruit flies. Why do we all sleep? What does it do for us, and what happens when we go without? We take a peek at iguanas sleeping with one eye open, get in bed with a pair of sleep-deprived new parents, and eavesdrop on the uneasy dreams of rats. We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon Sign up 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 [email protected]. 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.

    56 min
  4. Terrestrials: The Trio

    JUL 26

    Terrestrials: The Trio

    Look up in the sky! It is something that scientists thought could never happen. High above the banks of the Mississippi river, a nest holds the secret life of one of America’s most patriotic creatures. Their story puzzles scientists, reinforces indigenous wisdom, and wows audiences, all thanks to a park ranger named Ed, and a well-placed webcam. If you want to spoil the mystery, here ya go: it’s a bald eagle. Actually, it’s three bald eagles. A mama bird and daddies make a home together for over a decade and give new meaning to our national symbol. Learn about the storytellers, listen to music, and dig deeper into the stories you hear on Terrestrials with activities you can do at home or in the classroom on our website, Terrestrialspodcast.org. Watch “I Wanna Hear the Eagle” and find even MORE original Terrestrials fun on our Youtube. And badger us on Social Media: @radiolab and #TerrestrialsPodcast. Special thanks to Abigail Miller, Laurel Braitman, Stan Bousson, Molly Webster, and Maria Paz Gutierrez. We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Ana González and Lulu Millerwith help from - Alan GoffinskiProduced by - Ana González, Alan Goffinski, and Lulu Millerwith help from - Suzie Lechtenberg, Sarah Sandbach, Natalia Ramirez, and Sarita BhattOriginal music and sound design contributed by - Alan Goffinski and Mira Burt-Wintonickwith mixing help from - Joe Plourde and Jeremy BloomFact-checking by - Diane Kelleyand Edited by  - Mira Burt-Wintonick EPISODE CITATIONS: Videos -Check out The Trio Bald Eagle Nest Cam yourself! Did you know it’s illegal to keep a bald eagle feather? Learn more in this AWESOME short video about the National Eagle Repository. Articles - An interview with Nataanii Means in Native Maxx Magazine The funny history of how the bald eagle became America’s national symbol An article called “Dirty Birds” about what it’s actually like to live with America’s national symbol. Sign up 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 [email protected]. Draw:Journey up into the clouds like an eagle with a special drawing prompt made by artist Wendy Mac and the DrawTogether team that will get you thinking about the weather (both inside and out). Play 🎶:Learn how to play the chords to the song “I WANT TO HEAR THE EAGLE.” Do:Get crafty with a fun activity sheet!  This week’s storytellers are Ed Britton and Nataanii Means. Our advisors are Theanne Griffith, Aliyah Elijah, Dominique Shabazz, Liza Steinberg-Demby, and Tara Welty. 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.

    34 min
  5. Lose Lose

    JUL 19

    Lose Lose

    This episode we look at a high profile sporting event where, thanks to a quirk in the tournament rules, the best shot at winning was … to lose. To celebrate the imminent start of the Summer Olympic Games in Paris, France we have an episode originally reported in 2016. No matter what sport you play, the object of the game is to win. And that’s hard enough to do. But we found a match where four top athletes had to do the opposite in one of the most high profile matches of their careers. Thanks to a quirk in the tournament rules, their best shot at winning was … to lose. This week, in honor of the 2024 Summer Olympics, we are rerunning a story from 2016 in which we scrutinize the most paradoxical and upside down badminton match of all time. A match that dumbfounded spectators, officials, and even the players themselves. And it got us to wondering … what would sports look like if everyone played to lose? Special thanks to Aparna Nancherla, Mark Phelan, Yuni Kartika, Greysia Polii, Joy Le Li, Mikyoung Kim, Stan Bischof, Vincent Liew, Kota Morikowa, Christ de Roij and Haeryun Kang. We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon Our newsletter comes out every Wednesday. 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 [email protected]. 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.

    32 min
  6. How to Save a Life

    JUL 12

    How to Save a Life

    What would you do if someone’s heart stopped right in front of you? We get it… the world feels too bleak and too big for you to make a difference. But there is one thing - one simple tangible thing - you can do to make all the difference in the world to someone, possibly even a loved one, at arguably the worst moment of their life. Statistics show that 1 out of every 5 people on earth will die of heart failure. Cardiac arrests can happen anywhere, anytime - in your bed, on the street, on your honeymoon. And every minute that passes after your heart stops beating, your chances of surviving drop dramatically. For all the strides modern medicine has made in treating heart conditions, the ambulance still doesn’t always make it in time. The only person who can keep you alive during those crucial first few minutes is a stranger, a neighbor, your partner, anyone nearby willing to perform CPR. Yet most of us don’t do anything. Join Radiolab host Latif Nasser, ER doctor and Radiolab contributor Avir Mitra, and TikTok stars Dr. and Lady Glaucomflecken, as we discover the fascinating science of cardiac arrest, hear a true and harrowing story of a near-death experience, and hunt down the best place to die (hint… it’s not a hospital). Plus, with the help of the American Red Cross and the Bee Gees, you, yes you, will learn how to do hands-only CPR! Special thanks to Will and Kristin Flannery of course..Check out the Glaucomflekens own podcast “Knock Knock, Hi!” (LINK), the Greene Space here at WNYC’s home in NYC… first of all Jennifer Sendrow, who really made it happened and helped us make it work at basically every stage of the process .. and the rest of the Greene Space crew: Carlos Cruz Figueroa, Chase Culpon, Ricardo Fernández, Jessica Lowery, Skye Pallo Ross, Eric Weber, Ryan Andrew Wilde, and Andrew Yanchyshyn. Also, thank you to the Red Cross for helping us make this happen and providing the CPR dummies, and all the people we had there doing the training: Ashley London, Jeanette Nicosia, Charlene Yung, Jacob Stebel, Tye Morales, Anna Stacy.  Aditya Shekhar. We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Avir Mitrawith mixing help from - Jeremy BloomAnd Fact-checking by - Natalie Middleton CITATIONS: Please put any supporting materials you think our audience would find interesting or useful below in the appropriate broad categories. Videos: Check out the whole show in its full glory at the website for WNYC’s Greene Space: https://www.thegreenespace.org/ Will Flannery’s Youtube channel, Dr. Glaucomflecken: https://www.youtube.com/@DGlaucomflecken Classes:If you’d like to sign up to learn CPR, and get certified, the Red Cross provides classes all across the country and online, just go to https://www.redcross.org/take-a-class, to learn more Our newsletter comes out every Wednesday. 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 [email protected]. 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.

    48 min
  7. Happy Birthday, Good Dr. Sacks

    JUL 5

    Happy Birthday, Good Dr. Sacks

    Radiolab wishes Oliver Sacks a happy birthday. First aired back in 2013, we originally released this episode to celebrate the 80th birthday of one of our favorite human beings, Oliver Sacks. To celebrate, his good friend, and our former co-host Rober Krulwich, asks the good doctor to look back, and explain how thousands of worms and a motorbike accident led to a brilliant writing career. We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon

    24 min
  8. The Alford Plea

    JUN 28

    The Alford Plea

    A man finds himself forever caught between guilt and innocence. In 1995, a tragic fire in Pittsburgh set off a decades-long investigation that sent Greg Brown Jr. to prison. But, after a series of remarkable twists, Brown found himself contemplating a path to freedom that involved a paradoxical plea deal—one that peels back the curtain on the criminal justice system and reveals it doesn’t work the way we think it does.

    54 min
See All (448)

Shows with Subscription Benefits

  • Welcome, nature lovers, to the home of the Terrestrials podcast and family-friendly Radiolab episodes about nature. Every other week, host Lulu Miller will take you on a nature walk to encounter a plant or animal behaving in ways that will surprise you. Squirrels that can regrow their brains, octopuses that can outsmart their human captors, honeybees that can predict the future. You don’t have to be a kid to listen, just someone who likes to see the world anew. You’ll hear a range of nature stories on this podcast. Sometimes these will be brand new Terrestrials episodes, full of original songs (by “The Songbud” Alan Goffinski) that tell a fantastical-sounding story about nature that is 100% true. Sometimes these will be our very best, shiniest, furriest, leafiest Radiolab episodes about animals or plants or nature. The stories that drop here will always be family-friendly and safe for kids. They will always be sound-rich and full of the vivid, gripping storytelling you’ve come to expect from Radiolab. They will always transport you to the beyond-human world: into the depths of the ocean, into jungles, prairies, forests, space, snow, wildflower fields and beyond. Sometimes we’ll encounter something so wild we just have to break out into song about it! Don’t worry, good voices not required. Join us on this adventure!

    • 4.4 (871)
    • PARENTING

  • In this intensely divided moment, one of the few things everyone still seems to agree on is Dolly Parton—but why? That simple question leads to a deeply personal, historical, and musical rethinking of one of America’s great icons. Join us for a 9-episode journey into the Dollyverse. Hosted by Jad Abumrad. Produced and reported by Shima Oliaee. Dolly Parton’s America is a production from OSM Audio and WNYC Studios.

    • 4.7 (16279)
    • MUSIC HISTORY

  • The episodes from this mini-series can be accessed in the Radiolab podcast feed and radiolab.org for free, or access the ad-free versions here when you become a Radiolab+ subscriber. Radiolab Presents: Gonads is a multi-episode journey deep into the parts of us that let us make more of us. Longtime staff producer and host Molly Webster explores the primordial roots of our drive to reproduce, introduces a revolutionary fertility procedure that sounds like science fiction, reveals a profound secret about gender that lives inside all of us, and calls on writers, educators, musicians, artists and comedians to debate how we’re supposed to talk to kids about sex.

    • 4.8 (33)
    • SCIENCE

  • The episodes from this mini-series can be accessed in the Radiolab podcast feed and radiolab.org for free, or access the ad-free versions here when you become a Radiolab+ subscriber. Before there was the podcast and the smartphone, there was the cassette tape and the Walkman — two devices that although not considered much today, were revolutionary. They were recordable, rewritable, spliceable, compact, mobile. For the first time they allowed you to move through the world and listen to a voice speaking only to you. These cassette tapes brought us together, pulled us apart and forever changed how we say those three simple words, "I love you." In five episodes from around the world, Mixtape explores the impact the cassette had and continues to have today.

    • 4.3 (45)
    • SOCIETY & CULTURE

  • Radiolab reporter Latif Nasser always believed his name was uniquely his own. Until he makes a shocking discovery that he shares his name with another man: Detainee 244 at Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. government paints a terrifying picture of The Other Latif as Al-Qaeda’s top explosives expert, and an advisor to Osama bin Laden. Nasser’s lawyer claims that he was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and that he was never even in Al-Qaeda. This clash leads Radiolab’s Latif into a years-long investigation, trying to uncover what this man actually did or didn’t do. Along the way, Radiolab’s Latif reflects on American values and his own religious past, and wonders how his namesake, a fellow nerdy, suburban Muslim kid, traveled such a strikingly different path.

    • 4.6 (458)
    • DOCUMENTARY

  • The episodes from this mini-series can be accessed in the Radiolab podcast feed and radiolab.org for free, or access the ad-free versions here when you become a Radiolab+ subscriber. It was Motown before Motown, FUBU before FUBU: Black Swan Records. The label founded 100 years ago by Harry Pace. Pace launched the career of Ethel Waters, inadvertently invented the term rock 'n' roll, played an important role in W.C. Handy becoming "Father of the Blues," inspired Ebony and Jet magazines, and helped desegregate the South Side of Chicago in an epic Supreme Court battle. Then, he disappeared. The Vanishing of Harry Pace is a series about the phenomenal but forgotten man who changed America. It's a story about betrayal, family, hidden identities, and a time like no other. From the creators of Dolly Parton's America, Jad Abumrad and Shima Oliaee, comes a new series produced in collaboration with author Kiese Laymon, scholar Imani Perry, writer Cord Jefferson, WQXR’s Terrance McKnight, and WNYC's Jami Floyd. Based on the book "Black Swan Blues: the Hard Rise and Brutal Fall of America’s First Black Owned Record Label" by Paul Slade.

    • 4.3 (68)
    • HISTORY

Ad-free listening, full archive access & more!

$2.99/mo or $29.99/yr after trial

View Subscription FAQs

Hosts & Guests

4.6
out of 5
41,331 Ratings

About

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.

Information

More From Radiolab

You Might Also Like

To listen to explicit episodes, sign in.

Stay up to date with this show

Sign in or sign up to follow shows, save episodes, and get the latest updates.
Select a country or region

Africa, Middle East, and India

Asia Pacific

Europe

Latin America and the Caribbean

The United States and Canada