WNYC's Radio Lab
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| Last updated Tue, 07 Oct 2008 18:27
On Radio Lab, science meets culture and information sounds like music. Each episode of Radio Lab. is an investigation -- a patchwork of people, sounds, stories and experiences centered around One Big Idea. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, Radio Lab is produced by WNYC public radio. Support the adventure with a donation by pasting the following URL into your browser: http://www.wnyc.org/epledge/radiolab/
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Download Now · | Tue, 07 Oct 2008 05:54
Our new season is just a little over a month away, so we decided to give everyone a teaser of what’s to come. This season, we devote a whole hour to the topic of “Sperm” … And if you think you learned all there is to know about sperm from that junior high school filmstrip, think again. In today’s podcast, we give you two short pieces that hint at the new ideas and amazing stories we came across once we started following the trail of this wriggly little cell. First, in a twisted tale of twisted tails, fertility specialist Joanna Ellington, cofounder of ING Fertility, gives Robert a guided...
Download Now · | Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:17
Remember the first time you ever saw an ant hill? That parade of black insects pouring in and out of a small sand mound…most of us stopped, looked and then moved on to other parts of the playground. E. O. Wilson is the kid who never took his eyes off the mound. He grew up to revolutionize the fields of entomology, sociobiology and conservationist thought. E. O. (E is for Edward, O is for Osborne) got a nod from Time Magazine on their list of the 25 Most Influential People in America and picked up a few Pulitzers along the way. But before all that he was just an eight-year-old boy in the South...
Download Now · | Tue, 09 Sep 2008 05:10
robdownunder Earlier this year, Jad and Robert visited the Koshland Center in Washington D.C. to give listeners a behind-the-scenes look at Radiolab. The question here is just how far can you go in the name of making an idea clear? What’s allowed? Is music allowed? Are sound effects allowed? What helps? What hurts? We play some never-released tape from the vault, and reveal a bit about what techniques we used to try and make it sing. Please weigh in on the blog. Also, if you enjoyed this conversation, you may want to check out the other Radiolab process talks, like this one at Oberlin College...
Download Now · | Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:00
Photo by Lane Hartwell Zoe Keating is the cellist from our live show, War of the Worlds. She used to play with the band Rasputina and now solos and records music for films, such as horror flick, “The Devil’s Chair” (coming out September 30th) and a PBS documentary on Lincoln’s assassination. Her music process reminded us a bit of ours (looping and layering sound) so she and Jad sat down together in San Francisco to talk shop and listen to some unreleased stuff off her new album (as of yet untitled). In this podcast, you’ll hear Jad and Zoe discuss the physics (if not...
Download Now · | Tue, 12 Aug 2008 05:03
Flickr/cayusa Have you wondered if there is another you out there? Somewhere? Sitting in the same chair, reading the same blog post, wearing the same clothes and thinking the same thoughts? Well, Brian Greene says there must be one. Or two. Or lots and lots and lots and lots and… Why? You ask, well listen to Greene’s argument in this week’s podcast. We are still furiously working on Season 5, so while you wait we bring you today’s podcast of a conversation between Robert Krulwich and Brian Greene, physics and mathematics professor and director of the Institute of Strings,...
Download Now · | Tue, 29 Jul 2008 05:06
This spring, Robert Krulwich gave the commencement speech at California Institute of Technology. He called it “Tell Me a Story.” And commencement speech it may be, it gets at the heart of what we do here at Radiolab. It’s a treat to hear his passion. We enjoyed it. And we thought you might too. If you do not see flash audio player please install the latest flash player. Download MP3
Download Now · | Tue, 15 Jul 2008 05:00
What happens when there is no leader? Starlings, bees, and ants manage just fine. In fact, they form staggeringly complicated societies, all without a Toscanini to conduct them into harmony. How? That’s our question this hour. We gaze down at the bottom-up logic of cities, Google, even our very own brains. Featured: author Steven Johnson, fire-flyologists John and Elizabeth Buck, biologist E.O. Wilson, Ant expert Debra Gordon, mathematician Steve Strogatz, economist James Surowiecki, and neurologists Oliver Sacks and Christof Koch. If you do not see flash audio player please install the latest...
Download Now · | Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:04
This week, a piece from one of our favorite radio-makers, Jonathan Mitchell. “City X” is a history of the modern shopping mall through perspectives of people living in a real, yet unnamed, city. Using a sound rich audio mosaic of observations and ruminations, all scored to Muzak, the universal mall experience comes to life, for better or for worse. City X was commissioned by Hearing Voices with funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. If you do not see flash audio player please install the latest flash player. Download MP3
Download Now · | Tue, 17 Jun 2008 05:01
First, we asked you to tell us what song gets stuck in your head. Then, we asked you how you got it out. Finally, we made a podcast. Thank you to everyone who called in, shared their secret techniques, and sang without shame. Your suggestions ranged from the hilarious (Darth Vader breathing) to the malicious (give it to some one else) to the oddly-aligned (multiple people called in suggesting “Girl from Ipanema” as a cure-all earworm). And now, we release your wisdom to the masses. We hope that this will be of help to earworm-sufferers, but be forewarned, it might just plague you with...
Download Now · | Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:00
On this week’s podcast, we share an excerpt from Wordless Music on WNYC, a 4-part music program hosted by Jad, exploring the boundaries between classical and pop music. The series pairs rock and electronic musicians with more traditional chamber and new music performers, to create an entirely new concert experience. On this week’s selection, Jad waxes googly-eyed fan when he gets to talk about one of his favorite bands, Stars of the Lid. If you do not see flash audio player please install the latest flash player. Download MP3
Download Now · | Tue, 20 May 2008 05:21
On this week’s podcast, Jad presents a piece by one of his favorite producers: Ben Rubin. Rubin created this audio portrait called “Open Outcry” as a part of a sound installation called Sonic Garden commissioned to celebrate the reopening of the Winter Garden, an atrium space within the World Financial Center, after 9/11. The trading floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange may look and sound chaotic to the uninitiated, with circles of hundreds of traders shouting unintelligible phonic abbreviations and numbers back and forth. But it’s a complex and sophisticated human...
Jad and Robert: The Early Years
Download Now · | Tue, 06 May 2008 06:43
Ever wonder how Jad and Robert met? Well it all began with an everyday encounter where they discovered they both went to the same small liberal arts college in Ohio. For this week’s podcast, the guys go on stage at Oberlin College to tell the tale of their meeting and how they started tinkering around with tape to come up with the Radiolab you know today. Vintage Radiolab alert! You’ll hear the very first piece Jad and Robert made together. It’s an audio-experiment called “Flag Day” that they submitted to This American Life. TAL’s Ira Glass and Julie Snyder...
Download Now · | Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:46
Why do some songs mercilessly stick in our heads and repeat themselves over and over? What makes these hooks so hooky? And how does a songwriter will a song forth from the ether? In this episode, nightmarish stories of musical hallucinations, songs that transcend language, and the triumphant return of the Elvis of Afghanistan. If you do not see flash audio player please install the latest flash player. Download MP3
Download Now · | Tue, 08 Apr 2008 06:32
What are the consequences when humans start playing with life? The human imagination has always dreamed up fantastic creatures, but now biotechnology is making it easier and easier for us to actually create forms of life that have never existed before. In this episode Radio Lab looks at the uneasy marriage between biology and engineering, and asks what counts as “natural?” If you do not see flash audio player please install the latest flash player. Download MP3
