Radiolab
Narrative across science and the humanities, dense with experiments and first-hand material
21:07He can hold four symphonies in mind at once; professional conductors can't manage two
Neuroscientists using fMRI verified: a professional conductor fails trying to hold two pieces simultaneously, while this ragtime pianist reports the exact note of each of four symphonies in real time
22:05Wheat, rice, and upright walking were probably all 'domesticated' by grass
Biologist David Haskell argues that grass is a 'co-creator' of human evolution—it determined not just what we eat, but possibly why we stand upright on two legs.
31:02The Sweetest Thing Might Not Be Sugar, but a Beam of Light Shone Into the Brain
Ranked by sweetness potency, sugar is not the sweetest; but by the sweetness you actually taste, sugar is almost impossible to surpass. More radically, using lasers to directly light up sweet neurons could theoretically create a sweetness humans have never tasted.
1:03:27Born at 23 Weeks 6 Days: What Decides the Baby's Fate Isn't the Doctor, It's the Baby
In the gray zone between 22 and 25 weeks, medicine has no answer, so parents read "I want to live" into a single grasp, a single opened eye — when the movement is really just a reflex.
51:33Patient zero is not the source, it is the scapegoat society needs
From Typhoid Mary to HIV to the high five, every so-called origin is a narrative humans need; the truth is a jigsaw, and all we want is the focal point.