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Radiolab

Radiolab

Radiolab's 2012 season is on WMRA with a 13 weeks series, Beginning Saturday, May 5th at 4pm.

Radiolab, created by WNYC, is unlike any other program you have encountered. It is truly "must hear" radio. Each episode is an experiential investigation in sound and style... allowing science to fuse with culture and information to sound like music.

Radiolab believes your ears are a portal to another world. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and human experience. Big questions are investigated, tinkered with, and encouraged to grow. Bring your curiosity, and we'll feed it with possibility.

This is one of the most exciting special series in Public Radio!

 

Radiolab 2012 Season - Episode Descriptions:

Talking to Machines (Sat, May 5th 4pm)
What can machines tell us about being human? This hour of Radiolab, Jad and Robert meet humans and robots who are trying to connect, and blur the line. We talk to the world's most advanced robot, meet a man who fell in love with a chatbot, and argue with the inventor of Furby over whether a toy can ever really be "alive."

Games (Sat, May 12th 4pm)
A good game--whether it's a pro football playoff, or a family showdown on the kitchen table--can make you feel, at least for a little while, like your whole life hangs in the balance. This hour of Radiolab, Jad and Robert wonder why we get so invested in something so trivial. What is it about games that make them feel so pivotal?

Loops (Sat, May 19th 4pm)
So much of life is organized by cycles-seasons, biological rhythms, even our ideas of consciousness. In this episode, Radiolab looks at some of the surprising ways that loops steer our lives, and asks what happens when we disturb them.

Patient Zero (Sat, May 26th 4pm)
The greatest mysteries all have a shadowy figure at the center-someone who sets things in motion and holds the key to how the rest of the story unfolds. In epidemiology, this central character is known as Patient Zero-the case at the heart of an outbreak. This hour, Radiolab hunts for Patient Zeroes from all over the map-from the origins of a blues legend, to the history of the high five, to a race to halt the spread of a deadly disease.

The Bad Show (Sat, June 2nd 4pm)
Cruelty, violence, badness... This episode of Radiolab, we wrestle with the dark side of human nature, and ask whether it's something we can ever really understand, or fully escape. We encounter a man who scrambles our notions of good and evil, turn to one of the most famous (and misunderstood) psychology experiments ever, talk to  a man who chased one of the most prolific serial killers in US history. then got a chance to ask him the question that had haunted him for years: why?
 
Escape (Sat, June 9th 4pm)
The walls are closing in, you've got no way out...and then, suddenly, you escape! This hour, stories about traps, getaways, perpetual cycles, and staggering breakthroughs. We meet a man who's broken out of jail more times than anyone alive, travel to the edge of the solar system ... to a boundary beyond which we know nothing, and we hear the story of a blind kid who freed himself from an unhappy childhood by climbing into the telephone system, and bending it to his will.

Guts (Sat, June 16th 4pm)
This hour, we dive into the messy mystery in the middle of us. What's going on down there? We stick our hand in a cow stomach, get a window into our core through the story of a human science experiment, listen in on the surprising back-and-forth between our gut and our brain, and talk to a man who kind of went out of his mind when a medical procedure left him (for a little while) gutless.

When Brains Attack! (Sat, June 23rd 4pm)
In this episode of Radiolab, strange stories of brains that lead their owners astray, knock them off balance, and, sometimes, propel them to do amazing things. We hear from a kid whose voice was disguised from himself, relive a surreal day in the life of a young researcher who was hijacked by her own brain, and try to keep up with an ultra-athlete who, after suffering terrible seizures, gained extraordinary abilities through removing a chunk of her brain.

Ghost Stories (Sat, June 30th 4pm)
Ghosts, ghouls, shades from the past ... in this episode of Radiolab, real-life people try to pin down, and make peace with, mysterious figures that haunt them, prod them, and fade out of existence. One man finds a way to put the beatdown on his personal bogey man, a dead monk spurs a king to build a perfect prayer machine, an unknown face launches a thousand dummies (actually, a whole lot more than that), and a skeptic goes on a one-way to journey to find out whether spirits exist.

Radiolab will continue up to Saturday, July 28th.  Future show descriptions yet to come.

 

Radiolab is hosted by:

Jad Abumrad

The son of a scientist and a doctor, Jad Abumrad did most of his growing up in Tennessee, before studying creative writing and music composition at Oberlin College in Ohio. Following graduation, Abumrad wrote music for films, and reported and produced documentaries for a variety of local and national public radio programs, including On the Media, PRI's Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen, Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and WNYC's "24 Hours at the Edge of Ground Zero".

Robert Krulwich

NPR Science Correspondent, Robert Krulwich, joins Jad Abumrad in studio as co-host of Radiolab. Robert Krulwich has been called "the most inventive network reporter in television" by TV Guide. His specialty is explaining complex subjects - science, technology, economics - in a style that is clear, compelling and entertaining. He has explored the structure of DNA with a banana, explained arbitrage by wearing Groucho glasses and illustrated the Texaco-Pennzoil battle with Barbie and Ken dolls. A Special Correspondent for ABC News, Krulwich appears regularly on Nightline and other news programs, including ABC News Tonight and Good Morning America.

  • Coming Up Saturday, June 30th at 4p.Ghosts, ghouls, shades from the past ... in this episode of Radiolab, real-life people try to pin down, and make peace…
  • In this episode of Radiolab, strange stories of brains that lead their owners astray, knock them off balance, and, sometimes, propel them to do amazing…
  • This hour of Radiolab dives into the messy mystery in the middle of us. What's going on down there? We stick our hand in a cow stomach, get a window into…
  • The walls are closing in, you've got no way out...and then, suddenly, you escape!During this hour of Radiolab, stories about traps, getaways, perpetual…
  • Cruelty, violence, badness...During this episode of Radiolab, we wrestle with the dark side of human nature, and ask whether it's something we can ever…
  • The greatest mysteries all have a shadowy figure at the center-someone who sets things in motion and holds the key to how the rest of the story unfolds.In…
  • So much of life is organized by cycles-seasons, biological rhythms, even our ideas of consciousness.In this episode, Radiolab looks at some of the…
  • A good game... whether it's a pro football playoff, or a family showdown on the kitchen table... can make you feel, at least for a little while, like your…
  • Radiolab attempts to figure out what machines can tell us about being human.This hour of Radiolab, Jad and Robert meet humans and robots who are trying to…