Radiolab

There’s a common problem faced by Alzheimer's and Dementia patients all over the world: lost in their memories, they sometimes get disoriented, and wander off. In this podcast, Lulu Miller talks to a nursing home in Düsseldorf, Germany that came up with a novel solution.

How do you know your mother is really your mother? It's simple, right? You look at her, you recognize her, enough said. Well, in this podcast...it may not be that simple.

Chimps. Bonobos. Humans. We're all great apes, but that doesn’t mean we’re one happy family. This hour of Radiolab: stories of trying to live together.

In this podcast, a biopsychologist attempts to find an elusive bit of shared space across species lines.

In our episode Animal Minds, we asked whether it was possible for one animal to know what was going on in another animal's mind. For us, it was a really about whether we, as humans, can really share a meaningful moment with an animal. In this podcast, we take that question another step further.

In this hour of Radiolab, stories of cross-species communication.

Ok, so last podcast you heard counting babies. Here’s a new spin...

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.   Transcripts are on individual segment pages.

To get this podcast started, Robert ambushes Jad with a question...a question we've all been dying to ask him since June 10th, 2009, when Amil Abumrad came into the world.

In this podcast, a story about a mom, a boy, and a home-made helicopter.

In this hour of Radiolab: reframing our ideas about normalcy.    

We ask a question we thought was a no-brainer in this podcast: why do we blink?

They Might Be Giants just came out with a new album, 'Here Comes Science.' So we invited them to come play with us at our season launch party last week at the Water Taxi Beach in Queens. And then we ambushed them with annoying little questions about science and about the tricky business of turning science into entertainment ... because of that whole, you know, 'getting the facts right' thing.

What's gotten into you? In this hour, Radiolab uncovers a world full of parasites.

Pardon the graphic pun, but hey! For this podcast, Jad--a brand new father--wonders what's going on inside the head of his baby Amil.

For meditation number fifteen we have a reading from David Eagleman's book Sum. It's a vision of the after life that's both playful and... horrifying. Sum is read by actor Jeffrey Tambor.

Another meditation on what happens after the moment of death, this time as Shakespeare envisions it. 

We continue our meditations on death with a reading from poet and writer, Mark Doty. This is an excerpt from Doty's 1996 memoir Heaven's Coast.

This week on the podcast, we continue our meditations on death. Our After Life episode had eleven meditations, and now we’re gonna throw a new one at you each day, all week long, culminating in a very special treat at the end of the week. 

This hour: Radiolab stares down the very moment of passing, and speculates about what may lie beyond.