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 LaneLife 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 radiolab@wnyc.org.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.
Is it tradition … or protectionism? And what happens when the bourbon boom turns into a glut?
SOURCES:
Andrew Muhammad, agricultural economist at the University of Tennessee.
Brad Patrick, executive in residence and lecturer at the University of Kentucky Gatton College of Business and Economics, bourbon fellow at the James B. Beam Institute for Kentucky Spirits.
Danny Kahn, master distiller and distillation and aging operations director at Sazerac.
Ken Troske, labor economist and chair of the economics department at the University of Kentucky.
RESOURCES:
"America's Bourbon Boom Is Over. Now the Hangover Is Here," by Aaron Tilley and Sadie Gurman (The Wall Street Journal, 2024).
Bourbon Empire: The Past and Future of America's Whiskey, by Reid Mitenbuler (2015).
"Code of Federal Regulations: Standards of Identity for Distilled Spirits," (Electronic Code of Federal Regulations).
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
First up on the podcast, a new path to calculating the Hubble constant. This value for the universe’s speed of expansion is typically determined in one of two ways, one favored by cosmologists, the other by astronomers. But the resulting values from these methods are consistently different. Staff Writer Daniel Clery joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss how reappearing bursts from deep space, lensed by gravity, could resolve the dispute over the speed of the expanding universe.
Next on the show, freelance producer Elah Feder talks with Mauro Costa-Mattioli, principal investigator at Altos Labs’ Institutes of Science, about tuning the “integrated stress response” (ISR) in mouse brains. The ISR pathway turns off much of protein synthesis in cells as a response to stressors such as viral infections or oxygen deprivation. The ISR is overactive in some models of cognitive dysfunction—suggesting the downregulated protein synthesis may hamper brain functions such as memory formation. In his paper, Costa-Mattioli and colleagues show turning on the ISR pathway causes memory problems in mice and turning off the ISR can restore function in mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease and Down syndrome. Although this research was in mice, it suggests cognitive dysfunction associated with many different disorders may involve the ISR—making it a good therapeutic target.
This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.
About the Science Podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Should you tell a harsh truth if it will only cause pain? Or is it sometimes kinder to keep someone in the dark? Psychologist Emma Levine explores the unwritten rules that guide when people feel it’s acceptable to lie — and what those choices reveal about trust, harm, and our deepest moral values.
In our companion Hidden Brain+ episode, we explore ways to bridge the gap between the many lies we condone in practice, and the lying we claim to hate. If you're a subscriber, that episode is called “Telling The Truth About Lies.” If you're not yet a Hidden Brain+ subscriber, please visit support.hiddenbrain.org or apple.co/hidden brain for a free seven-day trial.
Illustration by Masantocreative for Unsplash+ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Cross Country Spotlight - highlights from Checkup on Sunday. A month into the US–Israel war in Iran, civilian deaths rise, tensions spread across the region, and allies like Canada face tough choices. Here's a digest of Checkup's Q&A with experts on what’s happening now...and what could come next.
Avi Lewis was elected as the new leader of the federal NDP party, earlier on March 29, 2026. We are revisiting another memorable moment for many in that party, August 2011. Former NDP leader Jack Layton died of cancer, just months after leading the NDP to its best ever election result.
It’s been just over a month since the United States and Israel launched their military campaign against Iran. The fallout is global, oil prices have spiked, pushing up the cost of living, and what happens next is far from clear. What questions do you have about the war in the Middle East?
It wasn’t that long ago that the federal NDP held 103 seats. Since then, it’s been a steady slide. Just seven MPs were elected last time, and one has since crossed the floor to the Liberals. NDP members are hoping that the rebuild begins, with their new leader Avi Lewis, and a new direction. What does the NDP need to do to be relevant? Does Canada need 3 major political parties?
