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. ...

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 ...

In "25 Minutes to Go," Johnny Cash counts down the minutes to his hanging. This precipitates an argument between Robert and Jad about whether you could live without numbers. Jad introduces his newborn son, Amil, and insists that he has no concept of numbers whatsoever. Like father, like son? Producer ...

A story about a boy, a mom, and a homemade helicopter--and how radio can move you to feel a little bit different about the world.

When executive producer Ellen Horne was expecting a baby, she really had no particular intention of becoming a self-made expert on a parasite named Toxoplasma Gondii. Robert Sapolsky explains to us why Ellen had reason to worry when she was scratched by her cat, and he traces the unlikely ...

Jad--a brand new father--wonders what's going on inside the head of his baby Amil. Is it just chaos? Or is there something more, some understanding from the very beginning?

Laura Buxton, an English girl just shy of ten years old, didn't realize the strange course her life would take after her red balloon was swept away into the sky. It drifted south over England, bearing a small label that said, "Please send back to Laura Buxton." What happened next ...

We'll kick off the chase with Diana Deutsch, a professor specializing in the Psychology of Music, who could extract song out even the most monotonous of drones. (Think Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller. Bueller.)

For those of us who have trouble staying in tune when we sing, Deutsch ...

How do we develop our sense of morality? Even toddlers know there is a right and wrong beyond the rules in a classroom. While host Jad Abumrad attends playgroup, Robert Krulwich concludes that children are sociopaths. Dr. Judi Smetana refutes that claim while guiding us through her research ...

First up, Radio Lab hits the streets. Join us in Times Square as we poll dozens of people waiting in line to buy discount Broadway tickets. Share in the outrage and mental grunt-work as these thrifty theatre-goers try to answer tough moral quandaries. The questions--which force you to ...

Wanted: Meat. Preferably alive. That is, if you're a carnivore. But most carnivores in zoos find themselves being fed something more along the lines of a hamburger... or in zoo lingo "a meatsicle." And like in the movie "Supersize Me," the result of this diet is a bunch of overweight, ...