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)
Watch a video of this performance at the WNYC Greene Space here! 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.The video version of this performance will be available soon on our Youtube Channel, playlist Radiolab Presents: Viscera. Till then, check out our other episodes in the Viscera series, here.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:
If you are a patients or a doctor, and you are interested in phage therapy, reach out to Dr. Steffanie Strathdee at IPATH@ucsd.edu
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.
A deep dive (https://zpr.io/3iAj47RyzFRY) 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.
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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.
As one researcher told us: “We’ve engineered a world where the most distracting device ever made is also the one we use to listen to music in the car." A new study tries to measure the cost.
SOURCES:
Bapu Jena, economist, physician, and professor at Harvard Medical School.
Chris Worsham, pulmonary and critical-care physician at Mass General Hospital, health-policy and public-health researcher at Harvard Medical School.
Vishal Patel, surgery resident at Brigham and Women's Hospital, researcher at Harvard Medical School.
RESOURCES:
"Smartphones, Online Music Streaming, and Traffic Fatalities," by Vishal Patel, Christopher Worsham, Michael Liu, and Bapu Jena (NBER, 2026).
Random Acts of Medicine: The Hidden Forces That Sway Doctors, Impact Patients, and Shape Our Health, by Anupam Jena and Christopher Worsham (2023).
"Mortality and treatment patterns among patients hospitalized with acute cardiovascular conditions during dates of national cardiology meetings," by Bapu Jena, Vinay Prasad, Dana Goldman, and John Romley (JAMA Internal Medicine, 2015).
"Road Crash Fatalities on US Income Tax Days," by Donald Redelmeier and Christopher Yarnell (JAMA, 2012).
"Memories of colonoscopy: a randomized trial," by Donald Redelmeier, Joel Katz, and Daniel Kahneman (PAIN, 2003).
EXTRAS:
"Why Is There So Much Fraud in Academia?" by Freakonomics Radio (2024).
"Why Is Flying Safer Than Driving?" by Freakonomics Radio (2023).
"Why Is the U.S. So Good at Killing Pedestrians?" by Freakonomics Radio (2023).
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First up on the podcast, Deputy News Editor Martin Enserink talks about so-called resurrection plants. These specialized plants can survive up to 95% water loss, whereas most plants struggle when their water levels dip below 60%. We also hear from Jill Farrant, a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of Cape Town, about her work dissecting the desiccation survival pathways in resurrection plants and how they might be repurposed to protect crop plants from drought.
Next on the show, we’ve all heard of chatbots praising their users for asking the most basic of questions. This bias toward sycophancy extends beyond pleasantries into relationship advice the artificial intelligence (AI) doles out to users. Myra Cheng, a Ph.D. candidate in computer science at Stanford University, joins the show to talk about how this tendency for AIs to be agreeable can lead users to have more confidence in their opinions, to the detriment of their relationships with others.
Warning, this last segment contains spoilers for the movie and book Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. If you’ve seen the movie or don’t mind a bit of extra context, you will hear an analysis of planetary science in the film with astrophysicist and associate curator at the American Museum of Natural History, Jacqueline Faherty. Read the full film review.
This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.
About the Science Podcast
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In blue cities across the country, unions and politicians want to ban self-driving cars. In this episode from the Search Engine podcast, PJ Vogt visits Boston to sort the facts from the propaganda. (Part two of a two-part series.)
SOURCES:
Carl Richardson, ADA coordinator for the Massachusetts State House, president of the Guide Dog Users of Massachusetts.
Gabriela Coletta Zapata, Boston City councilor from District 1.
Julia Mejia, Boston City councilor at-large.
Timothy B. Lee, author of Understanding AI newsletter.
RESOURCES:
"Waymo Hits a Rough Patch in Washington, DC," by Aarian Marshall (WIRED, 2026).
"New York drops plan to legalize robotaxis in setback for Waymo," by Andrew J. Hawkins (The Verge, 2026).
"Waymo’s next five cities are all in red states," by Timothy B. Lee and Kai Williams (Understanding AI, 2025).
"What Waymo could mean for Bostonians with disabilities: independence at their fingertips," by Carl Richardson (Boston Globe, 2025).
"Planning, Development and Transportation on July 24, 2025," (Boston City Council, 2025).
"Ride-Hailing Drivers in Massachusetts Win Right to Unionize," by Eli Tan (The New York Times, 2024).
"East Coast Longshore Workers May Soon Strike," by Joe Demanuelle-Hall (Jacobin, 2024).
EXTRAS:
"The Fascinatingly Mundane Secrets of the World’s Most Exclusive Nightclub," by Freakonomics Radio (2024).
Search Engine, podcast by PJ Vogt.
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How do the groups you identify with shape your sense of self? Do they influence the beer you buy? The way you vote? In this favorite episode from 2021, psychologist Jay Van Bavel explains how our group loyalties affect us more than we realize, and can even shape our basic senses of sight, taste and smell. Then, look out! There's a g-g-g-ghost! Psychologist Coltan Scrivner answers listener questions about the surprising benefits of scary entertainment.
New Yorkers, there's still time to join us for Hidden Brain's live show on March 25! Click here for more info and tickets. And listeners elsewhere, stay tuned for an announcement about more tour dates later this year. You can be among the first to hear about upcoming shows and other Hidden Brain projects by signing up for our newsletter at news.hiddenbrain.org.
Episode illustration by Eva Wahyuni for Unsplash+. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
With graduation season looming, Grade 12 students are feeling the heat. University admission averages have climbed for 15 straight years—a trend experts call "grade inflation." As the race for top marks intensifies, what's it doing to student stress levels, and their future opportunities?
Spiking gas prices will have a ripple effect across the Canadian economy, leading to higher prices for groceries, heating and holiday travel. So how are you adapting? What habits have you changed to stay afloat?
