Do Yourself a Favor, Listen to Radiolab
Posted by Wisdom Lion on December 6th, 2009 at 08:58am
A little while ago, I was driving somewhat late in the evening and had NPR on (WHYY in these parts). I listen to NPR very often while I am in the car, but I usually don’t end up hearing much outside of AM and PM rush hours. In this rare case, I was driving around 9PM and ended up catching what would quickly become one of my favorite shows on NPR. This new show, new to me anyways, is called Radiolab. I later came to find out that I showed up in the middle of an episode called “Beyond Time” which immediately struck me as a radio version of the Science Channel.
The style of this show is reminiscent of This American Life in that the story telling is very layered in with music and narration of the hosts, etc. The show is probably what would result if you replaced Ira Glass with Dr. Michio Kaku and Malcolm Gladwell. Actually, to be quite literal, it is exactly like what would happen if you replaced Ira Glass with Robert Krulwich and Jad Abumrad and had Malcolm Gladwell (Choice, Race) and Michio Kaku (Beyond Time) show up in a few episodes.
Within about a month of first hearing the show, I had listened to everything available on their website (linked above). There are currently 30 episodes that you can stream, each an hour long. I strongly suggest giving it a listen if you haven’t already. You will definitely learn some interesting things, your mind will be blown a handful of times, and you might even get a few good laughs. Somewhere in there, you will find a good story about a goat standing on a cow’s back.
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Tags: Malcolm Gladwell, Michio Kaku, NPR, Radiolab, Science, WHYY
Under The Science Corner
2 Comments for Do Yourself a Favor, Listen to Radiolab
1. Alexander | December 7th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Radiolab is one of the best radio show out there for sure. I saw Ira Glass speak in Boulder and he said that it’s even better than his show, but that it’s OK since This American Life is on everyweek, and Radiolab is monthly, hah. You need to check out the Dirtbag Diaries, it’s definitely on the same playing field as those guys. I actually wrote a little ditty about them – http://alexanderkayne.blogspot.com/2009/07/dirtbag-diaries.html
2. Whitney | December 13th, 2009 at 8:41 am
Yes! I love RadioLab! I did the same thing; I happened to tune into NPR when it was playing and promptly went to the RadioLab site to listen to more. I’ll always be a huge This American Life listener, but RadioLab is a worthy competitor. I wish they made episodes more frequently.
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