Podcasts by Radiolab for Kids

Octomom from 2020-05-15T11:31:59

In 2007, Bruce Robison’s robot submarine stumbled across an octopus settling in to brood her eggs. It seemed like a small moment. But as he went back to visit her, month after month, what began ...

Behaves So Strangely from 2020-03-27T12:42:37

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 ...

Never Quite Now from 2020-03-27T12:39:47

We kick things off with one of the longest-running experiments in the world. As Joshua Foer explai...

The Distance of the Moon from 2020-03-27T12:04:18

According to one theory, the moon formed when a Mars-sized chunk of rock collided with Earth. After the moon coalesced out of the debris from that impact, it was much closer to Earth than it is ...

Dark Side of the Earth from 2020-03-27T11:56:50

Back in 2012, when we were putting together our live show In the Dark, Jad and Robert called up Dave Wolf to ask him if he had any stories about darkness. And bo...

Poop Train from 2020-03-27T11:52:33

This all started back when we were working on our Guts show, and author Frederick Kaufman told us about getting...

The Septendecennial Sing-Along from 2020-03-27T11:44:52

While most of us hear a wall of white noise, squeaks, and squawks....David Rothenberg hears a symphony. He's trained his ear to listen for the music of animals, and he's always looking for chanc...

For the Love of Numbers from 2020-03-27T11:40:29

In this short, writer Alex Bellos tells Robert how, from the very first time humans ever used numbers, we couldn’t help but give them human-like qualities. From favorite numbers to numbers...

For the Birds from 2020-03-27T11:33:23

When the conservationists showed up at Clarice Gibbs’ door and asked her to take down her bird feeders down for the sake of an endangered bird, she said no. Everybody just figured she was ...

Goo And You from 2020-03-26T12:27:34

On a quiet, warm summer day, somewhere in the soil beneath your feet, tucked into a nearby plant, or at the edges of a pond, a tiny little cataclysm is happening: an insect is transforming, unde...

Space from 2020-03-24T19:31:20

We begin with Ann Druyan, widow of Carl Sagan, with a story about the Voyager expedition, true love, and a golden record that travels through space. And astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Tyson...

Zoos from 2020-03-24T19:23:23

What's with our need to get close to "wildness"? We examine where we stand in this paradox--starting with the Romans, and ending in the wilds of Belize, staring into the eyes of a wild jag...

Mapping Tic Tac Toe-dom from 2020-03-24T19:18:56

When Ian Frazier was a kid, he (like most 6-year-olds) mastered the art of tic tac toe. Pretty soon, every match was a draw, and the game lost its magic.

Then one day, many years later, he...

The Times They Are a-Changin' from 2020-03-24T18:29:18

With the help of paleontologist Neil Shubin, reporter Emily Graslie and the Field Museum's Paul Mayer we discover that our world is full of ancient coral calendars. Each one of these sea skeleto...

A War We Need from 2020-03-24T18:24:37

Reporter Ari Daniel visits with Willie Wilson, who studies phytoplankton--aka micros...

Super Cool from 2020-03-24T18:18:34

When we started reporting a fantastic, surreal story about one very cold night, more than 70 years ago, in northern Russia, we had no idea we'd end up thinking about cosmology. Or dropping...

Bite the Dust from 2020-03-24T17:46:35

Whatever your feelings on Disco, it's hard not to root for the resurgence of one particular track that started taking CPR classes by storm. Producer Ellen Horne explains how one aptly named 70s ...

Parasites from 2020-03-24T17:13:50

Could parasites be the shadowy hands that pull the strings of life? We explore nature's moochers, with tales of lethargic farmers, zombie cockroaches, and even mind-controlled humans (kind...

Mischel’s Marshmallows from 2020-03-24T16:47:26

Psychologist Walter Mischel explains how one little test involving a marshmallow might tell...

Everything and Nothing from 2020-03-24T16:30:23

Math can get pretty loopy, at least when we try to explain it. But according to author Alex Bellos, the most straightforward mathematical concept might be the loopi...

Loop the Loop from 2020-03-24T15:59:13

For most of human history, flight was an impossible dream. In this short, the dizzying rise and fall of a pilot whose aeronautic feats changed aviation forever and turned chancy stunts into acro...

KILL EM' ALL from 2020-03-24T15:53:33

They buzz. They bite. And they have killed more people than cancer, war, or heart disease. Here’s the question: If you could wipe mosquitoes off the face of the planet, would you?

Ever sin...

Is Laughter Just A Human Thing? from 2020-03-24T15:44:06

Aristotle thought that laughter is what separates us from the beasts, and that a baby does not have a SOUL, until the moment it laughs for the first time. Historian  Listen

Holey Cow from 2020-03-24T13:52:32

Not long ago, writer Mary Roach got a real hands-on lesson on the gut: she got to stick her hand inside a real live cow stomach, and...

Ghosts of Football Past from 2020-03-24T13:42:38

It's the end of the 19th century -- the Civil War is over, and the frontier is dead. And young college men are anxious. What great struggle will test their character? Then along comes a new craz...

Colors from 2020-03-24T13:24:19

To what extent is color a physical thing in the physical world, and to what extent is it created in our minds? We start with Sir Isaac Newton, who was so eager to solve this very mystery, ...