Radiolab

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 bring you a story we first released in 2022. We journey up into the sky and discover forests above the forest. We learn about the secret powers of these sky gardens from ecologist Korena Mafune, and we follow Nalini Nadkarni as she makes a ground-breaking discovery that changes how we understand what trees are capable of. 

P.S. This episode is a layer cake of arboreal surprises (including the reappearance of a certain retired host. 

LATERAL CUTS:
From Tree to Shining Tree (https://zpr.io/4cHtDdYTuNxT): The episode that started this journey, where we look down instead of up.

EPISODE CREDITS: 

Reported by - Annie McEwen

Produced by - Annie McEwen

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Videos - 

Inside the Fight to Save an Ancient Forest (and the Secrets it Holds) (https://zpr.io/XKipP2z4NFiM), by Michael Werner, Joe Hanson, and the PBS Overview team. We first learned about the magical world of the canopy from this beautiful video. It features Korena Mafune’s research up in the treetops, as well as the people who have dedicated their lives to saving what’s left of the old growth forests. We highly recommend checking it out! 

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Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

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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? A Danish farmer calls a special investigator, who takes one look at his farm and nopes the heck out of there, refusing to return, citing “bad energy” coming from something nearby … a big building covered in Viking runes. 

It’s not magic. It’s an invisible force that’s far more common. And yet deeply mysterious.

This episode plunges producers Matt Kielty and Simon Adler knee-deep in a decades-old dairy farm controversy, rooted in a fundamental suspicion of the invisible streams of electrons that keep our world humming.

Special thanks to Dr. Liz Brock

EPISODE CREDITS: 

Reported by - Matt Kielty and Simon Adler

with help from - Clara Grunnet and Rebecca Rand

Produced by - Matt Kielty

with help from - Maria Paz Gutierrez

Original music from - Jeremy Bloom and Matt Kielty

Sound design contributed by - Jeremy Bloom

Mixed by - Jeremy Bloom

Fact-checking by - Angely Mercado and Sophie Samiee

and Edited by  - Pat Walters

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Books -

The Great Energy Transition: America from 1876 to 1929 (https://zpr.io/3PStsDgidpj5), by David Nye

Powering American Farms: The Overlooked Origins of Rural Electrification (https://zpr.io/GdQ4pMCy4DAV), by Richard Hirsch

Beyond the Barn – Dodging Cow Patties for 50 Years by a Country Vet (https://zpr.io/S8qS9HLEQBJe), by Don Sanders a memoir about his long career.

Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!

Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.

Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].

Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Hi Radiolab listeners, we want to hear from you! Take this podcast survey and let us know how you feel about the show. It only takes about 20 minutes and your feedback will help us make our podcast better! There are no wrong answers, we want your honest takes. You can help out by taking the survey here (www.radiolab.org/survey).

In an episode first aired back in 2025 on our sister show, Terrestrials, we take you on a musical journey all about beavers. Few mammals have a bigger positive impact on the planet than the beaver. With its bright orange buck teeth, the creature is an expert engineer that brings life wherever it waddles and even fights fires. Our story begins in the Bronx river, once known as the  “open sewer” of New York City. After some humans decide to clean it up, we meet one of the river’s residents - José the beaver. We learn about the US government parachuting beavers out of planes into the mountains. And finally head to California where we discover how one beaver family saved acres of land from burning. 

Special thanks to author Ben Goldfarb, Christian Murphy from the Bronx River Alliance and Dr. Emily Fairfax. 

Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC Studios. This episode was produced by Ana González and sound-designed by Mira Burt-Wintonick. Our team includes Alan Goffinski, Joe Plourde and Tanya Chawla. Fact checking was by Diane Kelly. 

Our advisors for this show were Ana Luz Porzecanski, Nicole Depalma, Liza Demby and Tovah Barocas.

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Books - 

Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter (https://zpr.io/4QLuhrSMfurk), by Ben Goldfarb

Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America (https://zpr.io/3BbaViJK8Hk3), by Leila Philip’s

Videos - 

Watch the US government drop beavers out of planes (https://zpr.io/y2JJPwwyr3Bp). 

Watch Leave It to Beavers (https://zpr.io/JVGZYmNCTy6h), a documentary about beavers restoring rivers and wetlands.

Articles - 

How reintroducing beavers can enhance ecological health (https://zpr.io/KNxz3MtKL9sV), by Madison Pobis, Stanford Report.

Beaver Dams Help Wildfire-Ravaged Ecosystems Recover Long after Flames Subside (https://zpr.io/kAnjEUPvPUeJ), by Isobel Sandcomb, Scientific American 

HEY GROWN-UPS!

Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us!

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Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at [email protected] or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form!

Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining Radiolab’s membership program, The Lab—and we’ll send you a special thank-you gift from our team!

Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Hi Radiolab listeners, we want to hear from you! Take this podcast survey and let us know how you feel about the show. It only takes about 20 minutes and your feedback will help us make our podcast better! There are no wrong answers, we want your honest takes. You can help out by taking the survey here (www.radiolab.org/survey).

This week, in an episode we first aired in 2022, we flip the Disney story of life on its head thanks to a barrel of seawater, a 1970s era computer, and underwater geysers. It’s the chaos of life.

Latif, Lulu, and our Senior Producer Matt Kielty were all sitting on their own little stories until they got thrown into the studio, and had their cherished beliefs about the shape of life put on a collision course. From an accidental study of sea creatures, to the ambitions of Stephen J Gould, to an undercooked theory that captured the world’s imagination, we undo the seeming order of the living world and try to make some music out of the wreckage. (Bonus: Learn how Francis Crick really thought life got started on this planet).

EPISODE CREDITS: 

Reported by - Latif Nasser, Matt Kielty, Heather Radke, Lulu Miller and Candice Wang

Produced by - Matt Kielty and Simon Adler

with help from - Arianne Wack

Original music and sound design contributed by - Matt Kilety, Simon Adler, Alan Goffinski, and Jeremy Bloom

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Articles - 

Chaos in a long-term experiment with a plankton community (https://zpr.io/j6sYXKfDzPCG), by Benincà, E., Huisman, J., Heerkloss, R. et al. Nature 

Chaos theory discloses triggers and drivers of plankton dynamics in stable environment (https://zpr.io/qHKENA3SJ8ML), by Telesh IV, Schubert H, Joehnk KD, Heerkloss R, Schumann R, Feike M, Schoor A, Skarlato SO. Sci Rep.

Books -

Full House (https://zpr.io/pMQZfyPcRzD4), by Stephen Jay Gould

Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck? (https://zpr.io/pPVNugUKWpi4), by David M. Raup

Rereading the Fossil Record: The Growth of Paleobiology as an Evolutionary Discipline (https://zpr.io/YBjJxuXjydPN), by David Sepkoski

The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life (https://zpr.io/LzfueEqUWNHb), by Nick Lane
Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature (https://zpr.io/KPZf57eEVMBX), by Francis Crick

Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!

Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.

Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].

Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Hi Radiolab listeners, we want to hear from you! Take this podcast survey and let us know how you feel about the show. It only takes about 20 minutes and your feedback will help us make our podcast better! There are no wrong answers, we want your honest takes. You can help out by taking the survey here (www.radiolab.org/survey).

Doctor and special correspondent Avir Mitra takes Executive Editor Soren Wheeler, plus a live studio audience, on a journey from the operating room to inside the body to the farm to the sewers and back again—searching for answers to an alarming threat to humanity’s existence as we know it: antibiotic resistance in bacteria. 

This live show, performed in New York City and also in Little Rock, Arkansas, is part of a series we’re doing with Avir that we are calling “Viscera.” Each event is a conversation that takes the audience on a journey into a quirk or question or mystery inside of us, and gives them a visceral experience of the viscera within us. The previous installment of the series was called “The Elixir of Life.” (https://radiolab.org/podcast/the-elixir-of-life)

Special thanks to all of Little Rock Public Radio (especially Grace Zafasi and Jonathan Seaborn), Thomas Patterson, The Greene Space staff, CALS Ron Robinson Theater, Tom Philpott, Stephen Roach, Kate Shaw, Alex Wong, Maryn McKenna, and Kerri McClimen.

If you are a patients or a doctor, and you are interested in phage therapy, please contact [email protected] 

EPISODE CREDITS: 

Reported by - Avir Mitra

Produced by - Jessica Yung

Sound design contributed by - Jeremy Bloom and Jessica Yung

Fact-checking by -Natalie Middleton

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Videos -

Check out the video from the Viscera live show (and a bonus Q&A with Bruce Stewart-Brown and Steffanie Strathdee) on Radiolab’s YouTube (https://zpr.io/3BK9MqJYVKQA).

A deep dive (https://zpr.io/WNQNfgiNvKeZ) on bacteriophages with Avir Mitra and Steffanie Strathdee, also on Radiolab’s Youtube..

Books -

The Perfect Predator (https://theperfectpredator.com/) by Dr. Steffanie Strathdee’s telling of her battle against a killer superbug.

Plucked (https://zpr.io/PudGMEuzgU9X) by Maryn Mckenna a detailed accounting of chicken farming’s practice of using antibiotics.

Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!

Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.

Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].

Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Hi Radiolab listeners, we want to hear from you! Take this podcast survey and let us know how you feel about the show. It only takes about 20 minutes and your feedback will help us make our podcast better! There are no wrong answers, we want your honest takes. You can help out by taking the survey here (www.radiolab.org/survey).