Radiolab

When evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins' daughter was six years old, he told her that flowers are not here for beauty, not here for the bees, but instead merely to copy their own DNA. Sigh, what a Dad. So is Richard Dawkins always so gloomy and reductionist about the world? Well yes, but he would say that his vision of the world is anything but gloomy, he even calls it romantic. In this conversation from the 92nd St Y, Robert challenges Dawkins on this and a number of other sticky spots on the topic of biological evolution.

After we released our show about Stochasticity, we received a lot of comments about the idea humans can be just as predictable as coins. In that show, Jonah Lehrer was telling us about a study on the 82-83 76ers, and he was saying that even when a basketball player is supposedly hot – really on a streak – he is no more likely to make his next shot that any other time. Basketball players are slaves to their averages. Well, it turns out this isn't the whole story.

Stochasticity (a wonderfully slippery and smarty-pants word for randomness), may be at the very foundation of our lives. To understand how big a role it plays, we look at chance and patterns in sports, lottery tickets, and even the cells in our own body.

This week on the podcast we take a look at four unconventional ways to stay alive. We talk to geneticist George Church, who originally appeared in our So Called Life Show, biologist Bernd Heinrich, neuroscientist David Eagleman, and finally, we visit a CPR class.

On May 6th, at WNYC's new Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, we opened up an age old can of worms. Jad and Robert faced off over which medium is superior -- television or radio. This American Life's Ira Glass was the referee. There were stunning jabs, wicked uppercuts, and even the occasional low blow.

Sometimes on the podcast, we like to talk about musicians and the music they make. Today we introduce you to Juana Molina. Last season we used some of her of music in the breaks for the Sperm show. We received an outpouring of email asking about her music, so this podcast is for those curious listeners who wrote in and for those who haven't heard about her ... until now.

Here at Radiolab we explore big ideas and ask big questions to see how the world works.

Can you make your own universe? We usually think of the universe as 'everything that exists,' so how could you make another one?

How are your New Year's resolutions holding out? This might at least help you feel better about them.

For this week's podcast, Radiolab throws a birthday party for Charles Darwin!

When Jad and Robert saw this article about a study that found a link between President Obama's election, and the test scores of African Americans, it made them think about an earlier study by Claude Steele,about a psychological effect called "stereotype threat."

The quest for scientific knowledge is one of the great and noble pursuits of humankind. It's also one of the most dangerous, frustrating, ego-driven, transcendent, dirty, sublime, tedious, demoralizing, inspiring...you get the idea. This hour, stories of love and loss in the name of science.

Humans love to solve problems. In this hour of Radiolab, diagnosis--our attempt to find out what's wrong, and give it a label.

This hour of Radiolab, a look at race. 

Sperm carry half the genes needed for human life. In this hour of Radiolab, some basic questions and profound thoughts about reproduction.

Logic and emotion aren't the only forces that guide our decisions. This hour of Radiolab, we turn up the volume on the voices in our heads, and try to make sense of the babble. Forget free will, some important decisions could come down to a steaming cup of coffee.   UPDATE: The Williams & Bargh Yale coffee study "Experiencing Physical Warmth Promotes Interpersonal Warmth" was replicated in 2014 by researchers at three different universities, Kenyon College, Michigan State University, and University of Manchester. They did not observe the same results as in the original study. They conclude that the difference between the original and the replications may have been due to some issues with the methods of the original study ("The effect observed by Williams and Bargh may have been due, in part, to unconscious cues given by the researcher") or may simply have been due to chance. They are very careful in their language to not discredit the original study but they advise that future researchers be more cautious

Chris had a crush on Lisa. But how to woo her?

In today’s podcast, a teaser for our hour-long Sperm show. If you think you learned all there is to know from that junior high school filmstrip, think again.  

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.

We play some never-released tape from the vault, and reveal a bit about what techniques we used to try and make it sing.