Paul’s favorite podcasts

This hour of Radiolab, a look behind the curtain of how memories are made...and forgotten.

Remembering is an unstable and profoundly unreliable process--it’s easy come, easy go as we learn how true memories can be obliterated, and false ones added. And Oliver Sacks joins us to tell the story of an amnesiac whose love for his wife and music transcend his 7-second memory.

***Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Rat

***Adding Memory

***Clive

[June 7, 2007]

We've all felt it, that irresistible urge to point the finger. But new technologies are complicating age-old moral conundrums about accountability. This hour, we ask what blame does for us -- why do we need it, when isn't it enough, and what happens when we try to push past it with forgiveness and mercy?

***Fault Line

***Forget about Blame?

***Dear Hector

[September 12, 2013]

Radiolab rarely takes on politics, and when it does the stories are more behavioral than partisan. This is one of the best examples of that, where the hosts analyze a sentence that was written shortly after September 11th, 2001 and became the legal foundation for the “war on terror.” In collaboration with Buzzfeed reporter Gregory Johnsen, the story looks word by word at the confusing yet incredibly important sixty-world Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) and what it meant for U.S. politics.

During the episode, interviews with journalists, legal experts and politicians help understand how the sentence was interpreted, why it is so impactful, and how it will affect the future of war and peace.

[April 18, 2014]

Oops. In this hour of Radiolab, stories of unintended consequences.

You come up with a great idea. You devise a plan. You control for every imaginable variable. And once everything’s in place, the train hops your carefully laid tracks. In this episode, one psychologist's zeal to safeguard national security may have created a terrorist, while one community's efforts to protect an endangered bird had deadly consequences. And against all odds, a toxic lake spawns new life.

***Be Careful What You Plan For

***Weighing Good Intentions

***Even the Worst Laid Plans?

[June 28, 2010]

This hour of Radiolab centers around a chilling question: how well can you ever really know the people around you?

We talk to neuroscientists, primatologists, actors, zookeepers, and fathers who are all trying to get inside another’s mind--from how a newborn sees his dad, to a rare disorder that turns family members into impostors.

***The Beloved Others

***The Furry Others

***The Others... who are slipping away

[May 13, 2010]

What do you do when your own worst enemy is...you? This hour, Radiolab looks for ways to gain the upper hand over those forces inside us--from unhealthy urges, to creative insights--that seem to have a mind of their own.

We meet a Cold War negotiator who, in order to quit smoking, backs himself into a tactical corner, and we visit a clinic in Russia where patients turn to a radical treatment to help fight their demons. Plus, Elizabeth Gilbert lays out strategies for doing battle with your muse.

***You v. You

***Me, Myself, and Muse

***The Fear in Me?

[March 7, 2011]

There are so many ways to fall—in love, asleep, even flat on your face. This hour, Radiolab dives into stories of great falls. 

We jump into a black hole, take a trip over Niagara Falls, upend some myths about falling cats, and plunge into our favorite songs about falling.

***Letting Go

***Taking the Plunge. Three stories that upend our pre-conceived notions about falling.

***Still Hanging On

[September 19, 2010]

This hour, stories of unlikely (and surprisingly simple) answers to seemingly unsolvable problems.

We get to know a man who struggles, and mostly fails, to contain his violent outbursts...until he meets a bird who can keep him in check. Then, Oliver Sacks and Chuck Close, who are both face-blind, share workarounds that help them figure out who they’re talking to. And a senior center stumbles upon an unexpected way to help Alzheimer’s patients -- by building a bus stop.

***A Form of Hope

***About Face

***A Bus to Nowhere

[March 31, 2011]

In this hour of Radiolab, we take to the street to ask what makes cities tick.

There's no scientific metric for measuring a city's personality. But step out on the sidewalk, and you can see and feel it. Two physicists explain one tidy mathematical formula that they believe holds the key to what drives a city. Yet math can't explain most of the human-scale details that make urban life unique. So we head out in search of what the numbers miss, and meet a reluctant city dweller, a man who's walked 700 feet below Manhattan, and a once-thriving community that's slipping away.

***It's Alive? There's no scientific metric for measuring a city's personality. But hit the streets, and you can see and feel it.

***The Belly of the Beast

***Dying Embers. An underground fire sweeps through a town, and changes everything.

[October 7, 2010]

This hour, we question what decides the trajectory of our lives -- individual force of will, or fate?

If destiny isn't written in the stars, could it be written in our genes? Kids struggle to resist marshmallows, and their ability to holdout at age 4 turns out to predict how successful they're likely to be the rest of their lives. And an unexpected find in a convent archive uncovers early warning signs for dementia in the writings of 18-year-olds.

***Your Future in a Marshmallow

***Singled Out

***Searching for Clues

[October 14, 2010]