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. When this happens, they can end up far from home and frightened, or even hurt. So what are you supposed to do if your loved ...
In this episode, stories of unlikely (and surprisingly simple) answers to seemingly unsolvable problems.
In this episode, Radiolab steers its way through a series of stories about getting lost, and asks how our brains, and our hearts, help us find our way back home.
This adaptation of our "Goat on a Cow" story is so beautiful it made Robert cry--he broke into tears at his desk, as he describes to the New York Times. The dance was directed and choreographed by Andrew Palermo, with additional choreography by Taye Diggs, as a ...
In the early 60s, Robert Axelrod was a math major messing around with refrigerator-sized computers. Then a dramatic global crisis made him wonder about the space between a rock and a hard place, and whether being good may be a good strategy. With help from Andrew Zolli and Steve Strogatz, ...
Is there such a thing as a purely selfless deed--one with no hidden motives whatsoever? Walter F. Rutkowski from the Carnegie Hero Fund spends his days measuring good deeds by some very stringent criteria--such as risking your life "to an extraordinary degree while saving or attempting to save ...
Agatha Christie's clever detective novels may reveal more about the inner workings of the human mind than she intended: according to Dr. Ian Lancashire at the University of Toronto, the Queen of Crime left behind hidden clues to the real-life mysteries of human aging. Dr. Kelvin Lim and Dr. Serguei ...
This hour, Radiolab rollicks through stories of falling. We plunge into a black hole, take a trip over Niagara Falls, and upend some myths about falling cats.
In the late 1970s, a new language was born. And Ann Senghas, Associate Professor of Psychology at Barnard, has spent the last 30 years helping to decode it. In 1978, 50 deaf children entered a newly formed school--a school in which the teachers (who didn't sign) taught in Spanish. No ...
Susan Schaller believes that the best idea she ever had in her life had to do with an isolated young man she met one day at a community college. He was 27-years-old at the time, and though he had been born deaf, no one had ever taught him to sign. ...
One morning, neurologist Jill Bolte Taylor woke up with a headache. A blood vessel then burst inside her left hemisphere, and silenced all the brain chatter in her head. She was left with no language. No memories. Just sensory intake, and an all-encompassing feeling of joy.
An unlikely escape story begins in a supermarket, and ends in a boat off the coast of Maine.
Producer Lulu Miller drives to Michigan to track down the endangered Kirtland’s warbler. Efforts to protect the bird have lead to the killing of cowbirds (a species that commandeers warbler nests), and a prescribed burn aimed at creating a new habitat. Tragically, this burn led to the death of a ...
Knowing what's going on in the minds of other humans is a leap of faith, but it's a pretty safe leap. Knowing what's going on in the minds of animals, however...that's another story. Reporter Ben Calhoun introduces us to Jerry Stones, a zookeeper who was duped by an orangutan named ...
Can you ever really know those most beloved to you? Are you sure? Jad wonders how his tiny son experiences the world. Developmental psychologist Dr. Charles Fernyhough explains what science conjectures about what the world is like for a newborn...and shatters Jad's warm fuzzies. But how can ...
Lulu Miller talks to a nursing home in Düsseldorf, Germany that came up with a novel approach to caring for Alzheimer's and Dementia patients.
Though the Lucy experiment would largely be called a failure, could there be a way to re-do it... but better? Producer Soren Wheeler visits The Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa, to meet Kanzi the bonobo. Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh uses lessons learned from her time with Lucy in ...
Biopsychologist Barbara Smuts takes us to a remote area of Kenya, where she tried to gain the trust of a troop of baboons in the 1970s.
This hour of Radiolab: communicating across species. We get the story of a rescued whale that may have found a way to say thanks, ask whether dogs feel guilt, and wonder if a successful predator may have fallen in love with a photographer.
During the annual Blessing of the Animals at St. John the Divine Cathedral, the congregation might include any animal from Noah's ark. Why do these pet owners bring their furry, feathery and scaly companions to church? (Oh yeah, and view our slideshow of our day at the Cathedral).
