HEY NYC! We’ve got a live show coming up next month! We’re cooking up TWO stories for it: One about what might possibly be the sweetest thing anyone has ever tasted. Another, about that feeling of euphoria you get when you come close to the abyss… and how goosebumps might have a lot more to tell us than we previously thought. Plus we have some guest appearances for this show in the works that we’re PRETTY DARN EXCITED about, but can’t quite reveal yet. The show is part of the 2026 Tribeca Festival. Come join us and grab tickets at the link in our bio. It’ll be the SWEETEST live show you’ve ever seen — we promise.
This week: quite possibly the closest Radiolab has ever come to making a true crime episode. It’s a show about cruelty, violence, badness. We begin with a chilling statistic: 91% of men, and 84% of women, have fantasized about killing someone. We take a look at what this shadow world might tell us about ourselves and our neighbors. Then, we reconsider what Stanley Milgram’s famous experiment really revealed about human nature (it’s both better and worse than we thought). Next, we meet a man who scrambles our notions of good and evil: chemist Fritz Haber, who won a Nobel Prize in 1918...around the same time officials in the US were calling him a war criminal. And we end with the story of a man who chased one of the most prolific serial killers in US history.
Listen to “The Bad Show” at the link in our bio.
Episode art by @cadamole
In the depths of the ocean, a tiny male anglerfish catches a scent and follows it through the darkness. Eventually he finds a glowing, toothy female with a bacterial lightbulb on her head. He kisses her… and never lets go. Their bodies permanently fuse, merging bloodstreams, flesh, and digestive tracts.
Radiolab correspondent Molly Webster brings us the wild story of this eternal kiss (also some cool specimen photos from @amnh ). We dive deeper into glowing lures, bioluminescent bacteria, and the biology of two creatures becoming one.
Plus, Alan tells us about the time he broke a world record, and marine biologist Dr. Kory Evans answers our questions about some of the weirdest fish in the sea.
🎧 Listen to “The Wicked Smoocha: Anglerfish Break A World Record” at the link in bio.
🎶 You can listen to our new songs, “Anglerfish” and “Esca Disco” on Spotify, Apple Music, and wherever you get your music.
Art by @taraanandart ❤️
We’re super excited to be doing a live show next month at the 2026 Tribeca Festival in NYC. It will be SWEET (in more ways than one: part of the show is about SWEETNESS itself. 🍭) We’ve also got something that might just send a shiver down your spine... As always, we’ll have stories, sounds, and science – and live musical accompaniment! If you’d like to join us, you can get tickets at the link in our bio.
If an animal is worthless, can it be stolen?
Wayne Hsiung and a crew of animal rights activists broke into a Utah pig farm. They were there to capture video of what they say were thousands of mistreated and abused animals. As they were leaving, they took two sick piglets out with them.
Prosecutors in Utah charged Wayne with burglary and theft. What came next was the court battle that he wanted all along. During his trial, Wayne made a truly bizarre argument that forced the jury, and all of us, to stare straight at our complicated, sometimes uncomfortable relationship with animals. This week on the show, we grapple with the impossible question at the center of it: What is the value of a piglet?
Listen to “What is a Pig Worth?” at the link in our bio.
Episode art by @alexandra_bey
For much of history, tree canopies were pretty much completely ignored by science. It was as if researchers said collectively, “It’s just going to be empty up there, and we’ve got our hands full studying the trees down here! So why bother?”
But then around the mid-1980s, a few ecologists around the world got curious and started making their way up into the treetops using any means necessary (ropes, cranes, hot air dirigibles) to document all they could find. It didn’t take long for them to realize not only was the forest canopy not empty, it was absolutely filled to the brim with life. You’ve heard of treehouses? How about tree gardens?!
This week, we journey up into the sky and discover forests above the forest.
Listen to “Forests on Forests” at the link in our bio, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Episode art by @lilypadula
“Harmony” featuring Amy Ray of Indigo Girls! On this week’s episode of @terrestrialspodcast , Amy tells us a story about aphids that completely transformed our understanding of the forest. Listen to original music by @alangoffinski from this and all our episodes—streaming everywhere!
This week on @terrestrialspodcast from Radiolab, we are joined by none other than Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls! She tells us a story about aphids that completely turned our understanding of the forest upside down. With Amy’s storytelling, joined by @drsammygrams scientific expertise, and appearances by Amy’s kid Ozie and a new original song by @alangoffinski that Amy harmonizes on (!!) this ep is a total bop!!! Take a listen on Terrestrials wherever you get your pods.
There’s something rotten in the cows of Denmark. And Minnesota. And Wisconsin. And Idaho. What could cause a previously thriving herd of majestic dairy cattle to stop drinking water and start drinking… urine? This week, an episode about a decades-old dairy farm controversy, rooted in a fundamental suspicion of the invisible streams of electrons that keep our world humming.
Listen to “The Resistance of a Cow” at the link in our bio, or wherever you get your podcasts. Episode art by @lilypadula
I found out about an 800-year old mystery and I made an enamel pin about it. 🐌 Lmk in the comments how you’d wear this.
If you want one, you can go to the link in our bio to join our membership program, the Lab. Joining supports our public radio show, and gets you a snail pin!
Our new Radiolab game show will be LIVE in NYC next week! Our co-host, Latif Nasser, has been tinkering with this idea for years and we’re so excited that we get to bring it to you in collaboration with the American Museum of Natural History. Latif will be hosting the show — it’s part-improv, part-museum exhibit live on stage, part-some goofy new thing that we think we just might have invented. We’re bringing together a bunch of mysterious objects, some extraordinary stories behind them, and a trio of epic guest players.
And after the game show, we’ll have a Climate Solutions dance party hosted by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, author of What If We Get It Right, with music by DJ Mamoudou.
It’s on April 21st at 7 p.m. at the AMNH. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at the link in our bio.
And if you’re a Lab member, check your email to sign up for a meet-and-greet with Latif!
See ya there, NYC!! 😘
We’re trying out something new this month: an Ask Me Anything about our Snail Sex Tape episode. It’ll be virtual and you can come and ask Producer Mona and Senior Correspondent Molly anything you want about our new favorite topic — snails! — as well as the behind-the-scenes of making episodes. It’s on April 16, at 7 p.m. Eastern, and it’s for Lab members only. To become a Lab member, and come to the event, click the link in our bio. And if you join this month, we’ll also send you our brand new snail enamel pin! While you’re at it, use the promo code SNAIL when you sign up for an annual membership and get two months FREE.
Thanks for listening and supporting Radiolab!
