The moon has disappeared. Ok, just kidding. Happy April Fool’s Day. But what if the moon actually vanished?

After songbud Alan saw a movie about stealing the moon, he wondered what would actually happen if the moon disappeared. He found the perfect person to talk to – Mika McKinnon who has a masters in disasters. We learn about eerie silences, ocean stench, hurricanes, and ecosystems in total flux. 

Also a whole new season of Terrestrials is coming out soon! New stories, new songs and new wild beasts. Watch out for it on April 17th. 

Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co-hosts. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes: Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gebel, Maria Paz Gutiérrez, Sindhu Gnanasambandan, Matt Kielty, Annie McEwen, Alex Neason, Valentina Powers, Sarah Qari, Sarah Sandbach, Arianne Wack, Pat Walters and Molly Webster. Our fact-checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger and Natalie Middleton. Production help from Tanya Chawla. Sound mixing by Joe Plourde.

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Support for Terrestrials is provided by the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Kalliopeia Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation.

If someone calls you crabby, it’s not a compliment – they’re calling you grumpy, grouchy or snappy. But let’s reconsider this stain on the humble crab’s reputation. Look closely at a crab’s gnarled shell and you’ll see an incredible creature. Today, we bring you two very different crab stories. The first comes from former Radiolab producer Rachael Cusick about a woman who replicated the ocean to breed hermit crabs. Next, how crabs may hold a secret to surviving the chaos of the universe.

Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co-hosts. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes: Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gebel, Maria Paz Gutiérrez, Sindhu Gnanasambandan, Matt Kielty, Annie McEwen, Alex Neason, Valentina Powers, Sarah Qari, Sarah Sandbach, Arianne Wack, Pat Walters and Molly Webster. Our fact-checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger and Natalie Middleton. Production help from Tanya Chawla. Sound mixing by Joe Plourde.

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Support for Terrestrials is provided by the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Kalliopeia Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation.

St. Patricks day is coming up. People worldwide will wear leprechaun hats and celebrate the luck of the Irish. But what about the luck of lobsters? Today we have a story about the biggest, luckiest lobster we have ever heard of — Nick. As lobsters age, they keep growing bigger and bigger. They don’t wear out or get sick like most other creatures do. The most common way they die is through accidents.

One day a woman named Bonnie went to her nearby grocery store and saw behemoth Nick cramped in a small lobster tank. She asked the guy behind the seafood counter why Nick was there. After some back and forth with upper management, the store manager made her a deal. She could have Nick if she could get him back to Maine. 

This is the story of Nick’s escape from the grocery store to the ocean, in first class. 

For more on lobsters, read Trevor Corson’s The Secret life of Lobsters.

Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co-hosts. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes: Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gebel, Maria Paz Gutiérrez, Sindhu Gnanasambandan, Matt Kielty, Annie McEwen, Alex Neason, Valentina Powers, Sarah Qari, Sarah Sandbach, Arianne Wack, Pat Walters and Molly Webster. Our fact-checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger and Natalie Middleton. Production help from Tanya Chawla. Sound mixing by Joe Plourde.

We're on the hunt for listener feedback. Let us know how you liked Terrestrials here!

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Support for Terrestrials is provided by the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Kalliopeia Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation.

When wildlife conservationist Alan Rabinowitz was a boy, he had a stutter. Strangely, his stutter vanished when he spoke to animals. One day, when his father took him to the Bronx Zoo, Alan saw a majestic jaguar and made a promise to it. He spent the rest of his life fulfilling that promise.

Read Alan Rabinowitz’s picture book: “A Boy and a Jaguar.”

Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co-hosts. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes: Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gebel, Maria Paz Gutiérrez, Sindhu Gnanasambandan, Matt Kielty, Annie McEwen, Alex Neason, Valentina Powers, Sarah Qari, Sarah Sandbach, Arianne Wack, Pat Walters and Molly Webster. Our fact-checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger and Natalie Middleton. Production help from Tanya Chawla. Sound mixing by Joe Plourde.

We're on the hunt for listener feedback. Let us know how you liked Terrestrials here!

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Support for Terrestrials is provided by the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Kalliopeia Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation.

Next week is Valentine’s Day, but instead of talking about falling in love, we’re going to talk about falling cats and barrels. First, writer David Quammen tells us about a strange observation: cats are falling out of buildings in New York City. When a cat falls from less than five stories or more than nine stories, it usually survives. But when it falls from between five and nine stories, it suffers serious injury. Why? Physics has the answer. 

Then we meet Annie Taylor, the first person who went over Niagara falls in a barrel. 

For more, check out Garret Soden’s “Falling: How Our Greatest Fear Became Our Greatest Thrill.”

Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co-hosts. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes: Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gebel, Maria Paz Gutiérrez, Sindhu Gnanasambandan, Matt Kielty, Annie McEwen, Alex Neason, Valentina Powers, Sarah Qari, Sarah Sandbach, Arianne Wack, Pat Walters and Molly Webster. Our fact-checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger and Natalie Middleton. Production help from Tanya Chawla. Sound mixing by Joe Plourde.

We're on the hunt for listener feedback. Let us know how you liked Terrestrials here!

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Radiolab for Kids and Terrestrials are supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab today.

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Support for Terrestrials is provided by the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Kalliopeia Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation.

On January 29, in places like China, Malaysia, Korea and Chinatowns across the globe, dragons will rise in the form of massive puppets. Today we bring you a special Terrestrials episode on dragons to understand what they have to do with the New Year, what the dragon myth means, and explore the tiny chance that dragons could have ever been real. 

First, we meet Mr. Lu Dajie, one of China's most renowned dragon dancers, who tells us about the significance of dragons in China. Then producer bud Ana and song bud Alan ask whether there’s any chance that dragons were ever real. And if not, could we make  a dragon out of the things already evolved on Earth? Were there any reptiles as large as and shaped like dragons? Any large reptiles that flew? Any that spat fire? The answers may surprise you.

Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC studios. This episode was produced by Brenna Farrel, Mira Burt-Wintonick, Alan Goffinski, Ana González, Tanya Chawla, Joe Plourde, Sarah Sandbach, Valentina Powers and Lulu Miller. Fact-checking by Diane Kelly. 

Learn more about storytellers, listen to music, and dig deeper into the stories you hear on Terrestrials with activities you can do at home or in the classroom on our website, Terrestrialspodcast.org.

Badger us on social media: @radiolab and #TerrestrialsPodcast or by emailing us at [email protected].

We're on the hunt for listener feedback. Let us know how you liked Terrestrials here!

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Support for Terrestrials is provided by the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Kalliopeia Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation.

Today we bring you an episode from our friends over at The Big Fib. In the era of fake news, kids need to learn to be able to tell what’s true from what’s false. And what better way to do that than a game show that puts kids in the driver’s seat, adults in the hot seat, and a sound-effects robot strapped to the roof?

Each week, a kid interviews one fake and one real expert on a particular topic and they have to figure out who’s the true expert and who’s a liar. In this episode, they interview two star experts on exoplanets, star nurseries, how stars turn into supernovas, shooting stars, white dwarf stars, telescopes, and much more. Can you figure out who’s lying about stars?

For more shows, visit GZMshows.com. To hear all episodes of The Big Fib ad-free subscribe now.

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Support for Terrestrials is provided by the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Kalliopeia Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation.

For centuries, the stomach was a black box to humans. We didn’t understand the mystery of what happened to food after it went inside us. That is, until the early 1800s, when Dr. William Beaumont found a boy, Alexis St. Martin, with a hole in his stomach. 

Writer Mary Roach brings us that story. She first sticks her hand inside the stomach of a live cow and then tells us how Beaumont conducted experiments on St. Martin to understand how the stomach breaks down food. This strange relationship between doctor and patient changed the way we understand digestion. 

Also, we have a brand new Terrestrials coming up just in advance of the Lunar New Year. We will be diving into the history and science of one of the animals associated with the festival. Check back in two weeks to hear that story. 

For more on guts, read:

Mary Roach, “Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal”

Fred Kaufman, “A Short History of the American Stomach”

Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co-hosts. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes: Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gebel, Maria Paz Gutiérrez, Sindhu Gnanasambandan, Matt Kielty, Annie McEwen, Alex Neason, Valentina Powers, Sarah Qari, Sarah Sandbach, Arianne Wack, Pat Walters and Molly Webster. Our fact-checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger and Natalie Middleton. Production help from Tanya Chawla. Sound mixing by Joe Plourde.

We're on the hunt for listener feedback. Let us know how you liked Terrestrials here!

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Support for Terrestrials is provided by the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Kalliopeia Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation.

To celebrate New Year’s Day, there are all kinds of traditions. Some people eat black eyed peas for good luck, some list out resolutions. But here at Terrestrials, we are taking a cue from the wisdom of pets, who are so, so, so good at sleeping. After a short preamble from Lulu, we’ll turn the microphone over to listeners’ furry friends snoring and snoozing in various positions, places, and locations. The piece will be largely wordless, with some narration from listeners describing their pets, and sound designed as a sort of meditation to rest.

We're on the hunt for listener feedback. Let us know how you liked Terrestrials here!

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Support for Terrestrials is provided by the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Kalliopeia Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation.

The year’s best celestial event was, without a doubt, April’s solar eclipse. The moon went in front of the sun to cast a 115 mile wide shadow on Earth. A swathe of North America was showered in sudden darkness. In honor of the eclipse, the Radiolab team made a show about the star of the show: the moon. 

We think we know the moon — we know that humanity visited it, that it’s a shiny white rotating rock in the sky. But what else really? In today’s episode, the team tells us about the moon’s formation, moon dust, moon-quakes, moon volcanoes, how the moon causes the tides on the Earth, and what the temperature up there is like. Turns out, we’ve barely scratched the surface.

For more, check out Rebecca Boyle’s book, ‘Our Moon: How the Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution and Made Us Who We Are’

Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co-hosts. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes: Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gebel, Maria Paz Gutiérrez, Sindhu Gnanasambandan, Matt Kielty, Annie McEwen, Alex Neason, Valentina Powers, Sarah Qari, Sarah Sandbach, Arianne Wack, Pat Walters and Molly Webster. Our fact-checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger and Natalie Middleton. Production help from Tanya Chawla. Sound mixing by Joe Plourde.

We're on the hunt for listener feedback. Let us know how you liked Terrestrials here!

Sign up for Radiolab for Kids’s newsletter! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up here.

Radiolab for Kids and Terrestrials are supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab today.

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Support for Terrestrials is provided by the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Kalliopeia Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation.