Animals rescue people all the time, but not like this. In this episode, first aired more than a decade ago, Jim Eggers is a 44-year-old man who suffers from a problem that not only puts his life at risk—it jeopardizes the safety of everybody around him. But with the help of Sadie, his pet African Grey Parrot, Jim found an unlikely way to manage his anger. African Grey Parrot expert Irene Pepperberg helps us understand how this could work, and shares some insights from her work with a parrot named Alex.And one quick note from our producer Pat Walters: Jim considers Sadie to be a “service animal,” a designation under the Americans with Disabilities Act that protects the rights of individuals with disabilities to bring certain animals into public places. The term service animal sometimes is legally limited to include only dogs and miniature horses. Jim disagrees with those limitations, but the local bus company, regardless of definitions, said they’ll make an exception for Sadie.

Today you can convert speech to text with the click of a button. Youtube does it for all our videos. Our phones will do it in real time. It’s frictionless. And yet, if it weren’t for an unlikely crew of protesters and office workers, it might still be impossible. This week, the story of our attempts to make the spoken visible. The magicians who tried. And the crazy spell that finally did it. EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Simon AdlerProduced by - Simon AdlerOriginal music from - Simon AdlerSound design contributed by - Simon Adler with mixing help from - Jeremy BloomFact-checking by - Anna Pujol-MazziniSignup for our newsletter!! 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 radiolab@wnyc.org.Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

What happens when a voice emerges? What happens when one is lost? Is something gained? A couple months ago, Lulu guest edited an issue of the nature magazine Orion. She called the issue “Queer Planet: A Celebration of Biodiversity,” and it was a wide-ranging celebration of queerness in nature. It featured work by amazing writers like Ocean Vuong, Kristen Arnett, Carmen Maria Machado and adrienne maree brown, among many others. But one piece in particular struck Lulu as something that was really meant to be made into audio, an essay called “Key Changes,” by the writer Sabrina Imbler. If their name sounds familiar, it might be because they’ve been on the show before. In this episode, we bring you Sabrina’s essay – which takes us from the beginning of time, to a field of crickets, to a karaoke bar – read by the phenomenal actor Becca Blackwell, and scored by our director of sound design Dylan Keefe. Stay to the end for a special surprise … from Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls!Special thanks to Jay Gallagher from UC Davis.EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Sabrina ImblerProduced by - Annie McEwen and Pat Walterswith help from - Maria Paz GutiérrezOriginal music from - Dylan KeefeFact-checking by - Kim Schmidtand Edited by  - Tajja Isen and Pat WaltersEPISODE CITATIONS:Articles - Check out Queer Planet: A Celebration of Biodiversity, Orion Magazine (Spring 2025)Read Sabrina Imbler’s original essay, “Key Changes,” Orion Magazine (Spring 2025)Read Lulu Miller’s mini-essay, “Astonishing Immobility,” Orion Magazine (Spring 2025)Check out Sabrina Imbler’s Defector column Creaturefector all about animalsAudio - Listen to Amy Ray’s song “Chuck Will’s Widow” from her solo album If It All Goes SouthBooks - How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures, by Sabrina ImblerSignup for our newsletter!! 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 radiolab@wnyc.org.Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Today we bring you a story stranger than fiction. In 2006, paleobiologist Natalia Rybczynski took a helicopter to a remote Arctic island near the North Pole, spending her afternoons scavenging for ancient treasures on the ground. One day, she found something the size of a potato chip. Turns out, it was a three and half million year old chunk of bone. Keep reading if you’re okay with us spoiling the surprise.It’s a camel! Yes, the one we thought only hung out in deserts. Originally from North America, the camel trotted around the globe and went from snow monster to desert superstar. We go on an evolutionary tour of the camel’s body and learn how the same adaptations that help a camel in a desert also helped it in the snow. Plus, Lulu even meets one in the flesh. Special thanks to Latif Nasser for telling us this story. It was originally a TED Talk where he brought out a live camel on stage. Thank you also to Carly Mensch, Juliet Blake, Anna Bechtol, Stone Dow, Natalia Rybczynski and our camel man, Shayne Rigden. If you are in Wisconsin, you can go meet his camels at Rigden Ranch. And follow his delightful TikTok @rigdenranch to see camels in the snow!  Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC Studios. This episode was produced by Ana González, Alan Goffinski, Mira Burt-Wintonick, Joe Plourde, Lulu Miller, and Sarah Sandbach, with help from Tanya Chawla and Natalia Ramirez. Fact checking by Anna Pujol-Mazzini. Our advisors this season are Ana Luz Porzecanski, Anil Lewis, Dominique Shabazz, and Liza Demby.Support for Terrestrials also comes from the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and the John Templeton Foundation.Signup for our newsletter!! 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 radiolab@wnyc.org.Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

For years, scientists thought nothing could live above 73℃/163℉.  At that temperature, everything boiled to death. But scientists Tom Brock and Hudson Freeze weren’t convinced. What began as their simple quest to trawl for life in some of the hottest natural springs on Earth would, decades later, change the trajectory of biological science forever, saving millions of lives—possibly even yours.This seismic, totally unpredictable discovery, was funded by the U.S. government. This week, as the Trump administration slashes scientific research budgets en masse, we tell one story, a parable about the unforeseeable miracles that basic research can yield. After that, a familiar voice raises some essential questions: what are we risking with these cuts? And can we recover?Special thanks to Joanne Padrón Carney, Erin Heath, Valeria Sabate, Gwendolyn Bogard, Meredith Asbury and Megan Cantwell at AAAS. Thank you as well to Gregor Čavlović and Derek Muller and the rest of the Veritasium team.EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Latif Nasserwith help from - Maria Paz GutiérrezProduced by - Sarah Qari and Maria Paz GutiérrezOriginal music and sound design and mixing from - Jeremy BloomFact-checking by - Emily Kreigerand Edited by  - Alex Neason with help from Sarah QariEPISODE CITATIONS:Videos - Latif also helped make a version of this story with the YouTube channel Veritasium. Articles - Hudson Freeze NYT OPED: Undercutting the Progress of American ScienceBooks -Thomas Brock, A Scientist in Yellowstone National ParkPaul Rabinow’s Making PCR: A Story of BiotechnologyPodcasts Episodes:If you haven’t heard, listen to our first episode about the Golden Goose awards. Signup for our newsletter!! 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 radiolab@wnyc.org.Leadership support for Radiolab’s 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 an episode first aired in 2012, Lulu Miller introduces us to Jeff Lockwood, a professor at the University of Wyoming, who spent a part of his career studying a particularly ferocious set of insects: Gryllacrididae. Or, as Jeff describes them, "crickets on steroids." They have crushingly strong, serrated jaws, and they launch all-out attacks on anyone who gets in their way--whether it's another cricket, or the guy trying to take them out of their cages.In order to work with the gryllacridids, Jeff had to figure out how to out-maneuver them. And as he devised ways to keep from getting slashed and bitten, he felt like he was getting to know them. Maybe they weren't just mindless brutes ... but their own creatures, each with their own sense of self. And that got him wondering: what could their fierceness tell him about the nature of violence? How well could he understand the minds of these insects, and what drove them to be so bloody?That's when the alarm bells went off. Jeff would picture his mentor, Dr. LaFage, lecturing him back in college--warning him not to slip into a muddled, empathic mood ... not to let his emotions sideswipe his objectivity. And that would usually do the trick--Jeff would think of LaFage, and rein himself back in.But then one night, something happened that gave Dr. LaFage's advice a terrible new kind of significance. Tamra Carboni tells us this part of the story, and challenges Jeff's belief that there's a way to understand it.Hey, one other thing, if you live, or are planning to be, in NYC on April 22nd, come check out our NEW LIVE SHOW!!Radiolab Presents: Viscera - The Elixir of LifeWhere: Caveat Theater on the Lower East Side, NY NY When: April 22nd Doors @ 7 pmGET YOUR TICKETS, HERE!! (https://www.caveat.nyc/events/radiolab-presents-viscera-%E2%80%93-the-elixir-of-life-4-22-2025)Sign up for our newsletter!! 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 radiolab@wnyc.org.Leadership support for Radiolab’s 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 2017 our sister show, More Perfect aired an episode all about RBG, In September of 2020, we lost Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the annals of history. She was 87. Given the atmosphere around reproductive rights, gender and law, we decided to re-air this More Perfect episode dedicated to one of her cases. Because it offers a unique portrait of how one person can make change in the world. This is the story of how Ginsburg, as a young lawyer at the ACLU, convinced an all-male Supreme Court to take discrimination against women seriously - using a case on discrimination against men. Special thanks to Stephen Wiesenfeld, Alison Keith, and Bob Darcy.Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project in collaboration with the Legal Information Institute at Cornell.EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Julia LongoriaProduced by - Julia LongoriaOriginal music and sound design contributed by - Alex OveringtonOur 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 radiolab@wnyc.org.Leadership support for Radiolab’s 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 we uncover an invisible killer hidden, for over a hundred years, by reasonable disbelief. Science journalist extraordinaire Carl Zimmer tells us the story of a centuries-long battle of ideas that came to a head, with tragic consequences, in the very recent past. His latest book, called Airborne, details a  largely forgotten history of science that never quite managed to get off the ground. Along the way, Carl helps us understand how we can fail, over and over again, to see a truth right in front of our faces. And how we finally came around thanks to scientific evidence hidden inside a song.EPISODE CREDITS:Reported by - Carl ZimmerProduced by - Sarah Qariwith mixing help from - Jeremy BloomFact-checking by - Natalie MiddletonEPISODE CITATIONS:Books -  Check out Carl Zimmer’s new book, Airborne (https://zpr.io/Q5bdYrubcwE4).Articles -  Read about the study on the Skagit Valley Chorale COVID superspreading event (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32979298/).Signup for our newsletter!! 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 radiolab@wnyc.org.Leadership support for Radiolab’s 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, a story that starts small and private, with one woman alone in her bathroom, as she makes a quiet, startling discovery about her own body. But that small, private moment grows and grows, and pretty soon it becomes something so big that it has impacted the life of every person reading this right now… and all that without the woman ever even knowing the impact she had. We originally aired this story back in 2010, but we thought we’d bring it back today, as questions about bodily autonomy circle with renewed force.EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Rebecca SklootSignup for our newsletter!! 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 radiolab@wnyc.org.Leadership support for Radiolab’s 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.

Annie McEwen went to a mountain in Pennsylvania to help catch some migratory owls. Then Scott Weidensaul peeled back the owl’s feathery face disc, so that she could look at the back of its eyeball. No owls were harmed in the process, but this brief glimpse into the inner workings of a bird sent her off on a journey to a place where fleshy animal business bumps into the mathematics of subatomic particles. With help from Henrik Mouristen, we hear how one of the biggest mysteries in biology might finally find an answer in the weird world of quantum mechanics, where the classical rules of space and time are upended, and electrons dance to the beat of an enormous invisible force field that surrounds our planet.A very special thanks to Rosy Tucker, Eric Snyder, Holly Merker, and Seth Benz at the Hog Island Audubon Camp. Thank you to the owl-tagging volunteers Chris Bortz, Cassie Bortz, and Cheryl Faust at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. Thank you to Jeremy Bloom and Jim McEwen for helping with the owls. Thank you to Isabelle Andreesen at the University of Oldenburg and thank you to Andrew Farnsworth at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, as well as Nick Halmagyi and Andrew Otto. Thank you everyone!EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by -  Annie McEwenProduced by -  Annie McEwenOriginal music and sound design contributed by -  Annie McEwenwith field recording and reporting help by - Jeremy S. BloomFact-checking by -  Natalie Middletonand Edited by  -  Becca BresslerEPISODE CITATIONS:Places -  Check out Hog Island Audubon Camp at https://hogisland.audubon.org/. If you like birds, this is the place for you. The people, the food (my god the food), the views, the hiking, and especially the BIRDS are incredible. And if it’s raptors you’re specifically interested in, I highly recommend visiting Hawk Mountain Sanctuary www.hawkmountain.org. You can watch these amazing birds wheeling high above a stunning forested valley, if you’re into that sort of thing… and maybe if you’re lucky you’ll even catch sight of some teeny weeny owls.Books  Scott Weidensaul will make you love birds if you don’t already. Check out his books and go see him talk! http://www.scottweidensaul.com/Website If you want to learn more about the fascinating and wildly interdisciplinary field of magnetoreception in birds, you can dig into the work of Henrick Mouritsen at the University of Oldenburg and his colleagues at the University of Oxford here: https://www.quantumbirds.eu/  Signup for our newsletter! 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 radiolab@wnyc.org.Leadership support for Radiolab’s 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, first aired in 2012, we have two stories of brains pushed off-course. We relive a surreal day in the life of a young researcher hijacked by her own brain, and hear from a librarian experiencing a bizarre and mysterious set of symptoms that she called “gravitational anarchy.”Special thanks to Sarah Montague and Ellen Horn, as well as actress Hope Davis, who read Rosemary Morton’s story. And the late Berton Roueché, who wrote that story down. EPISODE CREDITS: Produced by - Brenna FarrellOriginal music and sound design contributed by - Tim Howard and Douglas Smith EPISODE CITATIONS:Books - Berton Roueché’s story about Rosemary Morton,”Essentially Normal” first appeared in the New Yorker in 1958 and was later published by Dutton in a book called "The Medical Detectives."Signup for our newsletter. 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 radiolab@wnyc.org.Leadership support for Radiolab’s 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.

We eat apples in the summer and enjoy bananas in the winter. When we do this, we go against the natural order of life which is towards death and decay. What gives? This week, Latif Nasser spoke with Nicola Twilley, the author of Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves. Twilley spent over a decade reporting about how we keep food alive as it makes its way from the farm to our table. This conversation explores the science of cold, how fruits hold a secret to eternal youth, and how the salad bag, of all things, is our local grocery store’s unsung hero.Special thanks to Jim Lugg and Jeff WoosterEPISODE CREDITS: Reported by Latif Nasser and Nicola Twilleywith help from Maria Paz GutierrezProduced by Maria Paz GutierrezOriginal music from Jeremy BloomSound design contributed by Jeremy Bloomwith mixing help from Arianne WackFact-checking by Emily Krieger and Edited by Alex NeasonEPISODE CITATIONS:Articles  New Yorker Article - How the Fridge Changed Flavor (https://zpr.io/32TuSmAc2HbQ)by Nicola TwilleyNew Yorker Article - Africa’s Cold Rush and the Promise of Refrigeration (https://zpr.io/3g9VdgKMAiHf) by Nicola TwilleyBooks Frostbite (https://zpr.io/Mg3Q7JCBvcAg) by Nicola TwilleyPodcastsGastropod (https://link.chtbl.com/ndCzgCHU)Signup for our newsletter!! 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 radiolab@wnyc.org.Leadership support for Radiolab’s 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.