The Flight Before Christmas

The world lost a legend recently, and we wanted in some small way to pay tribute to the great Dolly Parton. So we’re playing you an episode from a series we had a small part in back in 2017, Dolly Parton’s America. The series kicked off with a simple question: How did the queen o ...  Show more

The greatest mysteries have a shadowy figure at the center—someone who sets things in motion and holds the key to how the story unfolds. In epidemiology, this central character is known as Patient Zero—the case at the heart of an outbreak. This hour, Radiolab digs up an episode w ...  Show more

It’s an unnatural activity that has become normal. You’re stuck in a metal tube with hundreds of strangers (and strange smells), defying gravity and racing through the sky.  But oh, the places you’ll go! We visit the world’s busiest airport to see how it all comes together. (P ...

Up in the Air: How long can a bird stay in the air? How about an airplane? From human flight to the future of laser-powered drone aircraft, the answers may surprise you in this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. And be sure to click here for a mini-gallery of birds and planes ...

The strange story of an unlikely crew of people who band together to take on one of our largest problems using nothing but whale sounds, machine learning, and a willingness to think outside the box. Even stranger, several of the world's most accomplished scientists seem to think ...  Show more

I’m at the airport and there are hundreds of brain scientists everywhere. So I swallowed my dignity/anxiety and approached strangers about the neuroscience they do. The result is a bushel of info on cravings, sleep, consciousness, addiction, dopamine, monogamy, Ozempic, toxins ...