A strange brew that's hard to resist, even for a modern day microbe.
In the war on devilish microbes, our weapons are starting to fail us. The antibiotics we once wielded like miraculous flaming swords seem more like lukewarm butter knives. But in this episode, originally released in 2015, we follow an odd couple, of a sort, to a storied land of elves and dragons. There, they uncover a 1,000-year-old secret that makes us reconsider our most basic assumptions about human progress and wonder: what if the only way forward is backward?
Special thanks to Steve Diggle, Professor Roberta Frank, Alexandra Reider and Justin Park (our Old English readers), Gene Murrow from Gotham Early Music Scene, Marcia Young for her performance on the medieval harp and Collin Monro of Tadcaster and the rest of the Barony of Iron Bog.
Can’t get enough of that sweet, sweet antibiotic resistance content? Then you’ll be over the moon about next week’s release. It’s the podcast cut of our most recent installment of our live show series called Viscera. This one features executive editor Soren Wheeler and Avir Mitra, and it’s all about how our millenia's-long war against bacteria came to a tipping point in this modern age.
Subscribe or follow our show on your favorite streaming platform and you’ll be the first to know when it drops.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Latif Nasser
Produced by - Matt Kielty and Soren Wheeler
EPISODE CITATIONS:
Articles - Uncovering the multifaceted mechanism of action of a historical antimicrobial (https://zpr.io/mucw6Td6LBxT) by Harrison, F et al, 2026 bioRxv (PREPRINT). In this article Freya and her team describe the mechanisms under which Bald’s Remedy actually works.
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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.
How a secret project at Google led to driverless cars on American roads.
Freakonomics Radio shares a story from our friends at Search Engine. (Part one of a two-part series.)
SOURCES:
Alex Davies, author of Driven: The Race To Create the Autonomous Car.
Chris Urmson, co-founder and C.E.O. of Aurora.
Don Burnette, founder and C.E.O. of Kodiak AI.
PJ Vogt, reporter, writer, and host of the Search Engine podcast.
Sebastian Thrun, roboticist, C.E.O. of Sage AI Labs, adjunct faculty at Stanford University.
Timothy B. Lee, author of Understanding AI newsletter.
RESOURCES:
"Very few of Waymo’s most serious crashes were Waymo’s fault," by Kai Williams (Understand AI, 2025).
Driven: The Race to Create the Autonomous Car, by Alex Davies (2021).
"An Oral History of the Darpa Grand Challenge, the Grueling Robot Race That Launched the Self-Driving Car," by Alex Davies (WIRED, 2017).
Understanding AI, newsletter on Substack.
Waymo Safety Dashboard.
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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First up on the podcast, we discuss a finding that’s likely to reignite debate over how humans first spread through the Americas. In the late 1990s, a site in southern Chile called Monte Verde forced archaeologists to adjust their views of the peopling of South America because it dated to about 14,500 years before present, which challenged the prevailing idea of when human inhabitants appeared on the continent. Contributing Correspondent Lizzie Wade joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss new results published in Science that suggest Monte Verde is nowhere near that old.
See the paper and related commentary.
Next on the show, we talk about groundwater, a vital source of water for both drinking and agriculture that’s often overused and depleted. Producer Meagan Cantwell talks with Scott Jasechko, a professor of water resources with the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, about the many different approaches to improving groundwater supplies and what has worked where, which he reviews in this week’s issue of Science.
This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.
About the Science Podcast
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We tend to see depression as an illness to eliminate, evidence that something has gone wrong in the brain. But what if low mood serves a purpose? Psychologist Jonathan Rottenberg examines the evolutionary roots of depression and reflects on his own painful experience with suicidal despair. He explores how depression can narrow our focus, and sometimes open the door to change.
A note that this story includes a discussion of suicide. If you or someone you love is struggling with thoughts of suicide, there are people who can help. If you're inside the U.S., call or text 988, or visit the 988 Helpline online. If you’re outside the U.S., you can search for resources in your country on this site.
Episode illustration by Runend Art for Unsplash Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Canada's healthcare system is buckling. Doctors in Quebec are leaving the public system. Alberta is opening the door to more private care.Meanwhile millions of patients are waiting for surgery, or a family doctor.Are private clinics and physicians the solution to Canada’s healthcare crisis?
If a species is horrible enough, do we have the right to kill it forever?
Seventy years ago, a nightmare parasite feasted on the live flesh of warm-blooded creatures in North America: the screwworm. That is, until a young scientist named Edward F. Knipling discovered a crucial screwworm weakness and hatched a sweeping project to wipe them out. Knipling’s seemingly zany plan to spray screwworms out of planes all over the continent— with US taxpayer money— succeeded, becoming one of humanity’s biggest environmental interventions ever.
Today, screwworms have been gone so long that none of us in North America even remember them. But now, they’re coming back. And they’re forcing us to ask: in an era of climate change and rapid mass extinction— should we kill off a species on purpose?
Special thanks to James P. Collins, Max Scott, Amy Murillo, Daniel Griffin, Phil Kaufman, Katie Barnhill, Arthur Caplan, Ron Sandler, Yasha Rohwer, Aaron Keefe, Gwendolyn Bogard, Maria Sabate, Meredith Asbury, and Joanne Padrón CarneyEPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Sarah Qari
with help from - Latif Nasser
Produced by - Sarah Qari
Sound design contributed by - Sarah Qari
Fact-checking by - Emily Krieger
EPISODE CITATIONS:
**The latest information on screwworm outbreaks and precautions: screwworm.gov
Videos:
Oral history interviews of Edward F. Knipling: here (https://zpr.io/njhMedFN5jsZ) and here (https://zpr.io/VQReQbfznCrq)
Podcasts:
Here’s a Spotify playlist (https://zpr.io/PNMEM274G7vh) of all of our Golden Goose-inspired episodes!
Sam Kean’s podcast The Disappearing Spoon – his episode about screwworms is called The Screwiest and Perhaps Most Original Idea of the 20th Century (https://zpr.io/UYf6dR2yG3eN)
Our episode on CRISPR & gene drives (https://zpr.io/UYf6dR2yG3eN)
New to Radiolab? Check out our Radiolab Starter Kit (https://zpr.io/QpPnrHAZVQLR) playlist of all-time favorite episodes!
Articles:
Sarah Zhang’s latest piece in The Atlantic: American Milk Has Changed (https://zpr.io/xebbdq2MWV4L)
Her most recent piece on screwworms: The ‘Man-Eater’ Screwworm Is Coming (https://zpr.io/ECmjCs7ScbS4)
Her initial reporting on screwworms: America’s Never-Ending Battle Against Flesh-Eating Worms (https://zpr.io/PNMEM274G7vh)
Gregory Kaebnick’s paper (https://zpr.io/yqNC3q5FbCcq) about screwworm eradication in Science
Archival materials:
The USDA’s Screwworm Eradication Records (https://zpr.io/dY7zuVdGYKjf) contain lots of cool images and letters
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.
