Radio Lab isan experiential investigation that explores themes and ideas through a patchwork of people, sounds, and stories. In each episode, Radio Lab experiments with sound and style allowing science to fuse with culture and information to sound like music.
Hosted by Jad Abumrad with co-host Robert Krulwich, Radio Lab is designed for listeners who demand skepticism but appreciate wonder; who are curious about the world, but also want to be moved and surprised.
November 23: Race No one ever questioned that Wayne Joseph was a black man. But one day he took a DNA test and found out that he has no African ancestry. What happens when the biological and social realities of race collide? This program assesses the science behind racial differences and uncovers the surprising effects of stereotypes. Also, writer Malcolm Gladwell talks about growing up as a half English, half Jamaican runner, and Jad offers up some DNA to test his race.
November 30: Diagnosis When Emmanuel was growing up in the Bronx, everyone in his family knew something wasn't quite right. His parents schooled him at home, apart from other kids, and he spent his childhood feeling different and alone. Then, a visit to a doctor 18 years later changes everything. This show explores what happens when a problem is diagnosed. What counts as wrong in the first place? What does it feel like to deliver news that no one wants to hear? And, how do people react when they finally find a label for what they have or what they are?
December 7: The Decision Every day, you make a million decisions -- what pants to wear, what to eat, who to trust. While these decisions seem to make perfect sense to you at the time, most of these decisions may not actually be rational, consistent, or really even conscious. On this program, we share the story of a perfectly rational man, investigate how a hot cup of coffee can make us trust someone we just met, and uncover the hidden life of our everyday decisions.
December 14: Sperm In this program, hosts Jad and Robert delight in the discovery of sperm, become hysterical about the possibility of a world without men (now that science has reproduced life without men), and empathize with a wife contemplating inseminating herself with her dead husband's sperm.
December 21: Stochasticity Stochasticity is how scientists refer to the game of chance that nature plays. It's a game that affects our day-to-day experiences, the thoughts in our heads, and the basic processes that go on deep inside living things. In this show, delve into the chaotic and the haphazard, and explore the human desire to see patterns and purpose in the noisy disorder of life. Through lotteries and coin flips and the firing of neurons, Jad and Robert explore how randomness shapes the world around us.
