Episodes
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We're thrilled to present a piece from one of our favorite podcasts, Love + Radio (Nick van der Kolk and Brendan Baker).
Producer Briana Breen brings us the story: Dianeâs new neighbors across the way never shut their curtains, and that was the beginning of an intimate, but very one-sided relationship.
Please listen to as much of Love + Radio as you can (loveandradio.org).
And, if you are in Seattle Area, or plan to be on Feb 15th, 2024 come check out Radiolab Live! and in person (https://zpr.io/fCDUTEYju76h).
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 Radiolabâs 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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Sometimes a seemingly silly question gets stuck in your craw and you canât shake the feeling that something big lies behind it. We are constantly collecting these kinds of questions from our listeners, not to mention piling up a storehouse of our own âstupidâ questions, as we lovingly call them. And a little while back, we noticed a little cluster of questions that seemed to have a shared edgy energy, and all led us to the same place: Our own bodies. So, today on Radiolab, we go down our throats and get under our skin, we take on evolution and anatomy and molecular cosmetics, to discover some very not-stupid answers to our seemingly stupid questions.
Special thanks to Mark Krasnow, Sachi Mulkey, Kari Leibowitz, Andrea Evers, Dr. Mona Amin, Benjamin Ungar, Praby Singh, Brye and Rachel Adler
EPISODE CREDITS:Reported by - Molly Webster, Becca Bressler, Latif Nasser, and Alan Goffinski
with help from Ekedi Fausther-Keeys
Produced by - Sindhu Gnanasambandan, Becca Bressler, Alyssa Jeong Perry, Molly Webster
with help from - Matt Kielty
Original music and sound design contributed by - Jeremy Bloom
with mixing help from - Arianne Wack
Fact-checking by - Diane Kelley, Emily Krieger
and edited by - Pat Walters and Alex NeasonOur 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 Radiolabâs 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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Missing episodes?
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First aired way back in 2009, this episode is all about a wonderfully slippery and smarty-pants word for randomness, Stochasticity, and how it may be at the very foundation of our lives. Along the way, we talk to a woman suddenly consumed by a frenzied gambling addiction, hear from two friends whose meeting seems to defy pure chance, and take a close look at some very noisy bacteria.
EPISODE CITATIONS:
Videos - Stochasticity Music Video (https://zpr.io/uZiH9j9ZU6be)
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 Radiolabâs 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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Karim Ani dedicated his life to math. He studied it in school, got a degree in math education, even founded Citizen Math to teach it to kids in a whole new way. But, this whole time, his whole life, almost, he had this question nagging at him.
The question came in the form of a rule in math, NEVER divide by zero. But, why not?
Cornell mathematician, and friend of the show, Steve Strogatz, chimes in with the historical context, citing examples of previous provocateurs looking to break the rules of math. And he offers Karim a warning,
âIn math we have creative freedom, we can do anything we want, as long as itâs logical.â
Listen along as Karimâs thought exercise becomes an existential quest, taking us with him, as he delves deeper, and deeper, into Zeroworld.EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Lulu Miller
Produced by - Matthew Kielty
with help from - Ekedi Fausther-Keeys, Alyssa Jeong Perry
Original music and sound design contributed by - Matthew Kielty
with mixing help from - Arianne Wack
Fact-checking by - Diane Kelly
and Edited by - Pat WaltersOur newsletter comes out every Wednesday. It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].
Leadership support for Radiolabâs 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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First aired back in 2009, this episode is all about one thing, or rather a collection of things. Whether you love 'em or hate 'em, chances are you rely on numbers every day of your life. Where do they come from, and what do they really do for us? This hour: stories of how numbers confuse us, connect us, and even reveal secrets about us.
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As a lifeguard, a paramedic, and then an ER doctor, Blair Bigham found his calling: saving lives. But when he started to work in the ICU, he slowly realized that sometimes keeping people (and their hopes) alive just prolongs the suffering. He wrote a book arguing that a too-late death is just as bad as a too-early one, and that physicians and the public alike need to get better at accepting the inevitability of death sooner. As the book hit the bestseller list, Blairâs own father got diagnosed with a deadly case of pancreatic cancer. Blairâs every impulse was in direct contradiction of the book he just wrote. What should he do? And how can any of us know when to stop fighting death and when to start making peace with it?
Special thanks to Lucie Howell and Heather Haley.
EPISODE CREDITS:Reported by - Latif Nasser
Produced by - Simon Adler
with help from - Alyssa Jeong Perry
Original music and sound design contributed by - Simon Adler
with mixing help from - Arianne Wack
Fact-checking by - Natalie Middleton
and edited by - Pat WaltersEPISODE CITATIONS:
Books:
Blair Bigham, Death Interrupted: How Modern Medicine is Complicating the Way We Die (https://zpr.io/a33mEMW64X5h)
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, X and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].
Leadership support for Radiolabâs 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. -
In this short episode that first aired in 2011, a neurologist issues a dare to a ragtime piano player and a famous conductor. When the two men face off in an fMRI machine, the challenge is so unimaginably difficult that one man instantly gives up. But the other achieves a musical feat that ought to be impossible.
Reporter Jessica Benko went to Michigan to visit Bob Milne, one of the best ragtime piano players in the world, and a preternaturally talented musician. Usually, Bob sticks to playing piano for small groups of ragtime enthusiasts, but he recently caught the attention of Penn State neuroscientist Kerstin Bettermann, who had heard that Bob had a rare talent: He can play technically challenging pieces of music on demand while carrying on a conversation and cracking jokes. According to Kerstin, our brains just aren't wired for that. So she decided to investigate Bob's brain, and along the way she discovered that Bob has an even more amazing abilityâone that we could hardly believe and science can't explain.
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 Radiolabâs 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. -
Could puberty get any more awkward? Turns out, yes. Writer Patrick Burleigh started going through puberty as a toddler. He had pubic hair before he was two years old and a mustache by middle school. All of this was thanks to a rare genetic mutation that causes testotoxicosis, also known as precocious puberty. From the moment he was born, abnormally high levels of testosterone coursed through his body, just as it had in his fatherâs body, his grandfatherâs body, and his great-grandfatherâs body. On this weekâs episode, Patrickâs premature coming of age story helps us understand just why puberty is so awkward for all of us, and whether and how it helps forge us into the adults we all become.
Special thanks to Craig Cox, Nick Burleigh, and Alyssa Voss at the NIH.
EPISODE CREDITS:Reported by - Latif Nasser
with help from - Kelsey Padgett, Ekedi Fausther-Keeys, and Alyssa Jeong Perry
Produced by - Pat Walters, Alex Neason, and Alyssa Jeong Perry
with help from - Ekedi Fausther-Keyes and Matt Kielty
with mixing help from - Arianne Wack
Fact-checking by - Diane A. Kelly
and Edited by - Pat WaltersEPISODE CITATIONS:
Articles -To read Patrickâs own writing about his experience with precocious puberty and to see photos of him as a child, check out his article in The Cut, âA 4-Year-Old Trapped in a Teenagerâs Bodyâ (https://zpr.io/athKVQmtfzaN)
In her spare time, our fact checker Diane Kelly is also a comparative anatomist, and you can hear her TEDMED talk, âWhat We Didnât Know about Penis Anatomyâ (https://zpr.io/MWHFTYBdubHj)
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 Radiolabâs 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. -
The definition of life is in flux, complexity is overrated, and humans are shrinking.
Viruses are supposed to be sleek, pared-down, dead-eyed machines. But when one microbiologist stumbled upon a GIANT virus, hundreds of times bigger than any seen before, all that went out the window. The discovery opened the door not only to a new cast of microscopic characters with names like Mimivirus, Mamavirus, and Megavirus, but also to basic questions: How did we miss these until now? Have they been around since the beginning? What if evolution could go ⊠backwards?
In this episode from 2015, join former co-hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich as they grill Radiolab regular Carl Zimmer on these paradoxical viruses â theyâre so big that they can get their own viruses! - and what they can tell us about the nature of life.
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 Radiolabâs 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. -
In this episode we introduce you to a part of our bodies that was invisible to Western scientists until about five years ago; itâs called "the interstitium," a vast network of fluid channels inside the tissues around our organs that scientists have just begun to see, name, and understand. Along the way we look at how new technologies rub up against long-standing beliefs, and how millions of scientists and doctors failed to see what was right in front (and inside!) of their noses. We also find out how mapping the anatomy of this hidden infrastructure may help solve one of the fundamental mysteries of cancer, and perhaps provide a bridge between ancient and modern medicine.
Special thanks to Aaron Wickenden, Jessica Clark, Mara Zepeda, Darryl Holliday, Dr. Amy Chang, Kate Sassoon, Guy Huntley, John Jacobson, Scotty G, and the Village ZendoEPISODE CREDITS
Reported by - Lulu Miller and Jenn Brandel
Produced by - Matt Kielty
with help from - Ekedi Fausther-Keeys
with mixing help from - Arianne Wack
Fact-checking by - Natalie Middleton
and Edited by - Alex NeasonEPISODE CITATIONS -
Articles:
Check out reporter Jenn Brandelâs companion essay to this episode in Orion magazine, titled, Invisible Landscapes (https://zpr.io/NKuxvYY84RvH), which argues that the discovery of the interstitium could challenge established practices of compartmentalizing in science and society.
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 Radiolabâs 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. -
Back when Robert was kid, he had a chance encounter with then President John F. Kennedy. The interaction began with a hello and ended with a handshake. And like many of us who have touched greatness, 14 year old Robert was left wondering if maybe some of Kennedy would stay with him. Back in 2017, when this episode first aired, Robert found himself still pondering that encounter and question. And so with the help of what was brand new science back then, and a helping hand from Neil Degrasse Tyson, he set out to satisfy this curiosity once and for all.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Produced by - Simon Adler
with help from - Only Human: Amanda Aronczyk, Kenny Malone, Jillian Weinberger and Elaine Chen.EPISODE CITATIONS:
Videos:
The Handshake Experiment (https://zpr.io/buzgQeJJLqvY)
Books:
Neil deGrasse Tyson's newest book is called "Astrophysics for People in A Hurry." (https://zpr.io/idRcrMu3Kj8c)
Ed Yong, âI Contain Multitudes.â (https://zpr.io/ff5imFP3kA6s)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 Radiolabâs 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. -
Back in February of 2022, anyone who knew anything thought the War in Ukraine would be over in a few weeks. Russia simply had more bodies to fight with and more steel to kill with.
Fast-forward to today, however, and the war is anything but over. Ukraine has held and regained territory with shocking resilience. Stranger still, a small, cheap gadget that up until now was little more than a toy, has been central to their success.
Today on Radiolab, we track the deployment of this weapon and wonder what happens when you have to look your enemy in the eye before you pull the trigger.
Special thanks to Anna Kaliusna and her team for her footage from the frontline, Yulia Tarisuk for her help with all things Ukrainian language related. And Hanna Rose Shell for her helping us understand the history of camouflage.EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Simon Adler
Produced by - Simon Adler
Original music and sound design contributed by - Simon Adler and Jeremy Bloom
with mixing by - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Natalie Middleton
and Edited by - Becca BresslerEPISODE CITATIONS:
AUDIO:
On the Media, âThe Fog of Warâ (https://zpr.io/8NKDM2xHWzRp)
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 Radiolabâs 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. -
While scouring the Sonoran Desert for objects left behind by migrants crossing into the United States, anthropologist Jason De LeĂłn happened upon something he didn't expect to get left behind: a human arm, stripped of flesh.
This macabre discovery sent him reeling, needing to know what exactly happened to the body, and how many migrants die that way in the wilderness. In researching border-crosser deaths in the Arizona desert, he noticed something surprising. Sometime in the late-1990s, the number of migrant deaths shot up dramatically and have stayed high since. Jason traced this increase to a Border Patrol policy still in effect, called âPrevention Through Deterrence.â
First aired in 2018 and over three episodes, Radiolab investigates this policy, its surprising origins, and the people whose lives were changed forever because of it.
Part 3: What Remains
The third episode in our Border Trilogy follows anthropologist Jason De LeĂłn after he makes a grisly discovery in Arivaca, Arizona. In the middle of carrying out his pig experiments with his students, Jason finds the body of a 30-year-old female migrant. With the help of the medical examiner and some local humanitarian groups, Jason discovers her identity. Her name was Maricela. Jason then connects with her family, including her brother-in-law, who survived his own harrowing journey through Central America and the Arizona desert.
With the human cost of Prevention Through Deterrence weighing on our minds, we try to parse what drives migrants like Maricela to cross through such deadly terrain, and what, if anything, could deter them.
Special thanks to Carlo AlbĂĄn, Sandra Lopez-Monsalve, Chava Gourarie, Lynn M. Morgan, Mike Wells and Tom Barry.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this episode, when it originally aired, incorrectly stated that a person's gender can be identified from bone remains. We've adjusted the audio to say that a person's sex can be identified from bone remains.CITATIONS:
Books:
Jason De LĂ©onâs book The Land of Open Graves (https://zpr.io/vZbTarDzGQWK)
Timothy Dunnâs book Blockading the Border and Human Rights (https://zpr.io/VTPWNJPusaCn)
Joseph Nevin's book, Operation Gatekeeper (https://zpr.io/UTnHFzRstAEw)
Articles:
Rubio-Goldsmith, Raquel, Melissa McCormick, Daniel Martinez, and Inez Duarte. 2006. âThe âFunnel Effectâ & Recovered Bodies of Unauthorized Migrants Processed by the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, 1990-2005.â (https://zpr.io/R3wSpyVCXQhJ) SSRN Electronic Journal.
Check out more of Caitlin Dickerson's reporting for The Atlantic (https://zpr.io/GAfC2nfEaBeK).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 Radiolabâs 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. -
While scouring the Sonoran Desert for objects left behind by migrants crossing into the United States, anthropologist Jason De LeĂłn happened upon something he didn't expect to get left behind: a human arm, stripped of flesh.
This macabre discovery sent him reeling, needing to know what exactly happened to the body, and how many migrants die that way in the wilderness. In researching border-crosser deaths in the Arizona desert, he noticed something surprising. Sometime in the late-1990s, the number of migrant deaths shot up dramatically and have stayed high since. Jason traced this increase to a Border Patrol policy still in effect, called âPrevention Through Deterrence.â
First aired in 2018 and over three episodes, Radiolab investigates this policy, its surprising origins, and the people whose lives were changed forever because of it.
Part 2: Hold the Line
After the showdown in court with Bowie High School, Border Patrol brings in a fresh face to head its dysfunctional El Paso Sector: Silvestre Reyes. The first Mexican-American to ever hold the position, Reyes knows something needs to change and has an idea how to do it. One Saturday night at midnight, with the element of surprise on his side, Reyes unveils ... Operation Blockade. It wins widespread support for the Border Patrol in El Paso, but sparks major protests across the Rio Grande. Soon after, he gets a phone call that catapults his little experiment onto the national stage, where it works so well that it diverts migrant crossing patterns along the entire U.S.-Mexico Border.
Years later, in the Arizona desert, anthropologist Jason de LeĂłn realizes that in order to accurately gauge how many migrants die crossing the desert, he must first understand how human bodies decompose in such an extreme environment. He sets up a macabre experiment, and what he finds is more drastic than anything he could have expected.
Special thanks to Sherrie Kossoudji at the University of Michigan, Lynn M. Morgan, Cheryl Howard, Andrew Hansen, William Sabol, Donald B. White, Daniel Martinez, Michelle Mittelstadt at the Migration Policy Institute, Former Executive Assistant to the El Paso Mayor Mark Smith, Retired Assistant Border Patrol Sector Chief Clyde Benzenhoefer, Paul Anderson, Eric Robledo, Maggie Southard Gladstone and Kate Hall.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this piece, when the episode originally published in 2018, incorrectly stated that Silvestre Reyes's brother died in a car accident in 1968; it was actually his father who died in the accident. We also omitted a detail about the 1997 GAO report that we quote, namely that it predicted that as deaths in the mountains and deserts might rise, deaths in other areas might also fall. The audio was adjusted accordingly.EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Latif Nasser
with help from - Tracie Hunte
Produced by - Matt Kielty
with help from - Bethel Habte, Latif Nasser
EPISODE CITATIONS:
Art:
Jason de Leon's latest work is a global participatory art project called Hostile Terrain 94 (https://zpr.io/dNEyVpAiNXjv), which will be exhibited at over 70 different locations around the world in 2020. Read more about it here (https://zpr.io/uwDfu9bXFriv).
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 Radiolabâs 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. -
While scouring the Sonoran Desert for objects left behind by migrants crossing into the United States, anthropologist Jason De LeĂłn happened upon something he didn't expect to get left behind: a human arm, stripped of flesh.
This macabre discovery sent him reeling, needing to know what exactly happened to the body, and how many migrants die that way in the wilderness. In researching border-crosser deaths in the Arizona desert, he noticed something surprising. Sometime in the late-1990s, the number of migrant deaths shot up dramatically and have stayed high since. Jason traced this increase to a Border Patrol policy still in effect, called âPrevention Through Deterrence.â
In a series first aired back in 2018, over three episodes, Radiolab investigates this policy, its surprising origins, and the people whose lives were changed forever because of it.
Part 1: Hole in the Fence
We begin one afternoon in May 1992, when a student named Albert stumbled in late for history class at Bowie High School in El Paso, Texas. His excuse: Border Patrol. Soon more stories of students getting stopped and harassed by Border Patrol started pouring in. So begins the unlikely story of how a handful of Mexican-American high schoolers in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the country stood up to what is today the countryâs largest federal law enforcement agency. They had no way of knowing at the time, but what would follow was a chain of events that would drastically change the US-Mexico border.Special thanks to Centro de Salud Familiar La Fe, Estela Reyes LĂłpez, Barbara Hines, Lynn M. Morgan, Mallory Falk, Francesca Begos and Nancy Wiese from Hachette Book Group, Professor Michael Olivas at the University of Houston Law Center, and Josiah McC. Heyman at the Center for Interamerican and Border Studies.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Latif Nasser, Tracie Hunte
Produced by - Matt Kielty
with help from - Bethel Habte, Tracie Hunte, Latif Nasser
CITATIONS
Books:
Jason De LĂ©onâs book The Land of Open Graves (https://zpr.io/vZbTarDzGQWK)
Timothy Dunnâs book Blockading the Border and Human Rights (https://zpr.io/VTPWNJPusaCn)
Joseph Nevin's book, Operation Gatekeeper (https://zpr.io/UTnHFzRstAEw)
Articles:
Rubio-Goldsmith, Raquel, Melissa McCormick, Daniel Martinez, and Inez Duarte. 2006. âThe âFunnel Effectâ & Recovered Bodies of Unauthorized Migrants Processed by the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, 1990-2005.â SSRN Electronic Journal. (https://zpr.io/R3wSpyVCXQhJ)
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 Radiolabâs 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. -
Producer Sindhu Gnanasambandan wants to know how she can live the longest feeling life possible. The answer leads her on a journey to make one week feel like two. And the journey leads her to a whole new answer.
Special thanks to Jo Eidman, Nathan Peereboom, Kristin Lin, Stacey Reimann, Ash Sanders⊠and an extra special thanks to Jae Minard for editorial support
EPISODE CREDITS
Reported by - Sindhu Gnanasambandan
Produced by - Sindhu Gnanasambandan
Original music and sound design contributed by - Jeremy Bloom
with mixing help from - Arianne Wack
Fact-checking by - Emily Krieger
and edited by - Pat WaltersOur 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 Radiolabâs 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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Originally aired in 2018, this episode features reporter Brenna Farrell as a new mom. Her son gave her and her husband a scare, prompting them to call Poison Control. For Brenna, the experience was so oddâand oddly comfortingâthat she decided to dive into the birth story of this invisible network of poison experts, and try to understand the evolving relationship we humans have with our poisonous planet. As we learn about how poison control has changed over the years, we end up wondering what a place devoted to data and human connection can tell us about ourselves in this cultural moment of anxiety and information-overload.
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 Radiolabâs 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. -
Summer 2023 was a pretty scary one for the planet. Global temperatures in June and July reached record highs. And over in the North Atlantic Sea, the water temperature spiked to off-the-chart levels. Some people figured that meant we were about to go over the edgeâdoomsday. In the face of this, Hank Green (a long time environmentalist and science educator behind SciShow, Crash Course, and more), took to social media to put things in context andto keep people focused on what we can do about climate change.
In the process, he came across a couple studies that suggested a reduction in sulfurous smog from cargo ships may have accidentally warmed the waters. And while Hank saw a silver lining around those smog clouds, the story he toldâabout smog clouds and cooling waters and the problem of geoengineeringâtook us on a rollercoaster ride of hope and terror. Ultimately, we had to wrestle with the question of what we should be doing about climate change, or what we should even talk about.
Special thanks to Dr. Colin Carson and Avishay Artsy.EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Lulu Miller
with help from - Alyssa Jeong Perry
Production help from - Alyssa Jeong Perry
Original music and sound design contributed by - Jeremy Bloom
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Natalie Middleton
and Edited by - N/A
CITATIONS:Videos:
Sci Show (https://www.youtube.com/@SciShow)
Crash Course (https://www.youtube.com/crashcourse)
Articles:
The article Hank came across (https://zpr.io/zKYxWht3Nmy7)
Books:
Under a White Sky (https://zpr.io/zKYxWht3Nmy7): The Nature of the Future by Elizabeth Kolbert
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 Radiolabâs 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. -
Most of us would sacrifice one person to save five. Itâs a pretty straightforward bit of moral math. But if we have to actually kill that person ourselves, the math gets fuzzy.
Thatâs the lesson of the classic Trolley Problem, a moral puzzle that fried our brains in an episode we did almost 20 years ago, then updated again in 2017. Historically, the questions posed by The Trolley Problem are great for thought experimentation and conversations at a certain kind of cocktail party. Now, new technologies are forcing that moral quandary out of our philosophy departments and onto our streets.
So today, we revisit the Trolley Problem and wonder how a two-ton hunk of speeding metal will make moral calculations about life and death that still baffle its creators.
Special thanks to Iyad Rahwan, Edmond Awad and Sydney Levine from the Moral Machine group at MIT. Also thanks to Fiery Cushman, Matthew DeBord, Sertac Karaman, Martine Powers, Xin Xiang, and Roborace for all of their help. Thanks to the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism students who collected the vox: Chelsea Donohue, Ivan Flores, David Gentile, Maite Hernandez, Claudia Irizarry-Aponte, Comice Johnson, Richard Loria, Nivian Malik, Avery Miles, Alexandra Semenova, Kalah Siegel, Mark Suleymanov, Andee Tagle, Shaydanay Urbani, Isvett Verde and Reece Williams.
EPISODE CREDITS
Reported and produced by - Amanda Aronczyk and Bethel Habte
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 Radiolabâs 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. -
Today, the story of an idea. An idea that some people need, others reject, and one that will, ultimately, be hard to let go of.
Special Thanks to Carl Zimmer, Eric Turkheimer, Andrea Ganna, Chandler Burr, Jacques Balthazart, Sean Mckeithan, Joe Osmundson, Jennifer Brier, Daniel Levine-Spound, Maddie Sofia, Elie Mystal, Heather RadkeEPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Matt Kielty
Produced by - Matt Kielty
Original music and sound design contributed by - Matt Kielty
with mixing help from - Arianne Wack
Fact-checking by - Diane Kelly
EPISODE CITATIONS:Videos:
Lisa Diamond - Born This Way, TEDx (https://zpr.io/WJedDGLVkTNF)
Books:
Joanna Wuest - Born This Way: Science, Citizenship, and Inequality in the American LGBTQ+ Movement (https://zpr.io/rYPwyhNHtgXe)
Dean Hamer - The Science of Desire: The Search for the Gay Gene and the Biology of Behavior (https://zpr.io/3FuKZyu2bgwE)
Lisa Diamond - Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Womenâs Desire and Love (https://zpr.io/cj3ZSLC2xccJ)
Edward Stein - The Mismeasure of Desire: The Science, Theory, and Ethics of Sexual Orientation (https://zpr.io/UQfdNtyE3RtQ)
Chandler Burr - A Separate Creation: The Search for the Biological Origins of Sexual Orientation (https://zpr.io/GKUDhyfNacUf)
Jacques Balthazart - The Biology of Homosexuality (https://zpr.io/um6XMmpfkmQS)
Anne Fausto-Sterling - Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality (https://zpr.io/rWNrTYLeLZ3s)
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].
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