This episode, first aired in 2019, brings you the story of John Scott, the professional hockey player that every fan loved to hate.  A tough guy. A brawler. A goon. But when an impish pundit named Puck Daddy called on fans to vote for Scott to play alongside the world’s greatest players in the NHL All-Star Game, Scott found himself facing off against fans, commentators, and the powers that be.  Was this the realization of Scott’s childhood dreams? Or a nightmarish prank gone too far? Today on Radiolab, a goof on a goon turns into a parable of the agony and the ecstasy of the internet, and democracy in the age of Boaty McBoatface.

Special thanks to Larry Lynch and Morgan Springer. 

Check out John Scott's "Dropping the Gloves" podcast (https://www.droppingthegloves.com/) and his book (https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/A-Guy-Like-Me/John-Scott/9781501159657) "A Guy Like Me". 

EPISODE CREDITS: 
Reported by - Latif Nasser
Produced by - Matt Kielty

Original music and sound design contributed by -
John Dryden, Thee Oh Sees, Weedeater and Bongzilla.

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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.

When neuroscientist Madeline Lancaster was a brand new postdoc, she accidentally used an expired protein gel in a lab experiment and noticed something weird. The stem cells she was trying to grow in a dish were self-assembling. The result? Madeline was the first person ever to grow what she called a “cerebral organoid,” a tiny, 3D version of a human brain the size of a peppercorn.

In about a decade, these mini human brain balls were everywhere. They were revealing bombshell secrets about how our brains develop in the womb, helping treat advanced cancer patients, being implanted into animals, even playing the video game Pong. But what are they? Are these brain balls capable of sensing, feeling, learning, being? Are they tiny, trapped humans? And if they were, how would we know?

Special thanks to Lynn Levy, Jason Yamada-Hanff, David Fajgenbaum, Andrew Verstein, Anne Hamilton, Christopher Mason, Madeline Mason-Mariarty, the team at the Boston Museum of Science, and Howard Fine, Stefano Cirigliano, and the team at Weill-Cornell. 

EPISODE CREDITS: 
Reported by - Latif Nasser
with help from - Mona Madgavkar
Produced by - Annie McEwen, Mona Madgavkar, and Pat Walters
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Natalie Middleton and Rebecca Rand
and Edited by  - Alex Neason and Pat Walters

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Videos - 

• “Growing Mini Brains to Discover What Makes Us Human,” Madeline Lancaster’s TEDxCERN Talk, Nov 2015 (https://zpr.io/6WP7xfA27auR)
• Brain cells playing Pong (https://zpr.io/pqgSqguJeAPK)
• Reuters report on CL1 computer launch in March 2025 (https://zpr.io/cdMf8Yjvayyd) 

Articles - 

• Madeline Lancaster: The accidental organoid – mini-brains as models for human brain development (https://zpr.io/nnwFwUwnm2p6), MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology 
• What We Can Learn From Brain Organoids (https://zpr.io/frUfsg4pxKsb), by Carl Zimmer. NYT, November 6, 2025
• Ethical Issues Related to Brain Organoid Research (https://zpr.io/qyiATHEhdnSa), by Insoo Hyun et al, Brain Research, 2020 
• Brain organoids get cancer, too, opening a new frontier in personalized medicine (https://zpr.io/nqMCQ) STAT Profile of Howard Fine and his lab’s glioblastoma research at Weill Cornell Medical Center: 
• By re-creating neural pathway in dish, Stanford Medicine research may speed pain treatment (https://zpr.io/UnegZeQZfqn2) Stanford Medicine profile of Sergiu Pasca’s research on pain in organoids 
• A brief history of organoids (https://zpr.io/waSbUCSrL9va) by Corrò et al, American Journal of Physiology - Cell Physiology, 

Books - 
Carl Zimmer Life’s Edge: The Search for What it Means to be Alive (https://carlzimmer.com/books/lifes-edge/)

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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.

In 1971, a red-headed, tree-loving astronaut named Stu ‘Smokey’ Roosa was asked to take something to the moon with him. Of all things, he chose to take a canister of 500 tree seeds. After orbiting the moon 34 times, the seeds made it back to Earth. NASA decided to plant the seeds all across the country and then… everyone forgot about them. Until one day, a third grader from Indiana stumbled on a tree with a strange plaque: "Moon Tree." This discovery set off a cascading search for all the trees that visited the moon across the United States. Science writer, and our very own factchecker, Natalie Middleton (https://www.nataliemiddleton.org/) tells us the tale.

Read Lulu’s remembrance of Alice Wong for Transom.org: 13 questions I’ll never get to ask Alice Wong (https://transom.org/2026/13-questions-ill-never-get-to-ask-alice-wong/). 

Check out Natalie’s map to find your nearest moon tree on our show page (https://radiolab.org/podcast/moon-trees)!

Help us hunt for more moon trees. If you know of an undocumented moon tree, contact Natalie at nataliemiddleton.org. Check out Natalie’s essay on Moon Trees (https://orionmagazine.org/article/moon-tree/) and Space Zinnias (https://orionmagazine.org/article/astronaut-scott-kelly-flower-experiment-space/) in Orion Magazine (https://orionmagazine.org/).

Visit NASA’s official Moon Tree Page (https://science.nasa.gov/resource/apollo-moon-trees/) for a list of all the Apollo 14 Moon Trees in the world. 

To learn more about Stu Roosa or to learn more about acquiring your own half Moon Tree, check out the Moon Tree Foundation (https://www.moontreefoundation.com/), spearheaded by Stu’s daughter, Rosemary Roosa. 

A reminder that Terrestrials also makes original music! You can find ‘Tangled in the Roots’ and all other music from the show here (https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab-kids/just-the-songs).

EPISODE CREDITS: 

Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC Studios. This episode was produced by Tanya Chawla and sound-designed by Joe Plourde. Our Executive Producer is Sarah Sandbach. Our team includes Alan Goffinski, Ana González and Mira Burt-Wintonick. Fact checking was by Diane Kelly. 

Special thanks to Sumanth Prabhaker from Orion magazine, retired NASA Scientist Dr. Dave Williams, Joan Goble, Tre Corely and NASA scientist Dr. Marie Henderson.

Our advisors for this show were Ana Luz Porzecanski, Nicole Depalma, Liza Demby and Carly Ciarrocchi.

Support for Terrestrials also comes from the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and the John Templeton Foundation.

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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 she -- and her friends — approached the age of 35, senior correspondent Molly Webster kept hearing a phrase over and over: “fertility cliff.” It was a short-hand term to describe what she was told would happen to her fertility after she turned 35 — that is, it would drop off. Suddenly, sharply, dramatically. And this was well before she was supposed to hit menopause. Intrigued, Molly decided to look into it — what was the truth behind this so-called cliff, and when, if so, would she topple? 

This story first premiered in “Thirty Something,” a 2018 Radiolab live show that was part of, Gonads, (https://radiolab.org/series/radiolab-presents-gonads)a six-episode audio and live event series all about reproduction and the parts of us that make more of us. The live event was produced by Rachael Cusick and edited by Pat Walters.

Special thanks to epidemiologist Lauren Wise, at Boston University. Plus, Emily, Chloe, and Bianca. And of course, Jad Abumrad.

If you’re more of a visual person, here are the graphs we explain in the episode, we also include links to the corresponding papers in our Episode Citations Section, below!

LINK TO GRAPHS:
https://media.wnyc.org/i/1860/1046/c/80/2025/12/FERTILITY_AGE_GRAPHS_1-4.jpg

EPISODE CREDITS: 
Reported by - Molly Webster
Produced by - Arianne Wack
Fact-checking by - Diane A. Kelly

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Audio:

• Gonads (https://radiolab.org/series/radiolab-presents-gonads/)
  A six-part audio series on reproduction and the parts of us that make more of us
• The Menopause Mystery (https://radiolab.org/podcast/the-menopause-mystery)
  One of Radiolab’s most listened-to episodes of 2025!
   

Videos:

“Radiolab Presents: Thirty Something”
https://youtu.be/LOJVAaSwags?si=czCBraHf1JEqmAQi

Research Articles:

• Graph 1: Can assisted reproduction technology compensate for the natural decline in fertility with age? A model assessment (https://zpr.io/ft6dqdbkJnTd)
   
• Graph 2: Ovarian aging: mechanisms and clinical consequences (https://zpr.io/GrPLebynpvxV) , Brookmans, et al.
  • BUT, the graph was borrowed and actually comes from this 1991 paper, Delaying childbearing: effect of age on fecundity and outcome of pregnancy” (https://zpr.io/whWg2UAZsb6h) 
     
• Graph 3 and 4: Age and fecundability in a North American preconception cohort study, (https://zpr.io/Rmqry4Kd67hY) Wise et al; Dutch fertility research

Further reading: 
Predicting Fertility, (https://zpr.io/YEdfiYT29rUh): Magazine article on Lauren Wise’s research,
 

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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.

The standard view of evolution is that living things are shaped by cold-hearted competition. And there is no doubt that today's plants and animals carry the genetic legacy of ancestors who fought fiercely to survive and reproduce. But in this hour that we first broadcast back in 2010, we wonder whether there might also be a logic behind sharing, niceness, kindness ... or even, self-sacrifice. Is altruism an aberration, or just an elaborate guise for sneaky self-interest? Do we really live in a selfish, dog-eat-dog world? Or has evolution carved out a hidden code that rewards genuine cooperation?

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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.

It’s faster than a speeding bullet. It’s smarter than a polymath genius. It’s everywhere but it’s invisible. It’s artificial intelligence. But what actually is it?

Today we ask this simple question and explore why it’s so damn hard to answer.

Special thanks to Stephanie Yin and the New York Institute of Go for teaching us the game. Mark, Daria and Levon Hoover Brauner for helping bring NETtalk to life. 

And a huge thank you to Grant Sanderson for his unending patience explaining the math of neural nets to us. To learn more about how these 'thinking machines' actually think, we highly recommend his wonderful youtube channel 3Blue1Brown (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aircAruvnKk).

EPISODE CREDITS: 
Reported by - Simon Adler
Produced by - Simon Adler
Original music from - Simon Adler
Sound design contributed by - Simon Adler
Fact-checking by - Anna Pujol-Mazzini 

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Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty

A year ago we brought you a show called Shell Game where a journalist named Evan Ratliff made an AI copy of himself. Now on season 2 of the show, Evan’s using AI to do more than just mimic himself — he’s starting a company staffed entirely by AI agents, and making a podcast about the experience. The show is a smart, funny, and truly bizarre look at what AI can do—and what it can’t. 

This week we bring you the first episode of Shell Game Season Two, Minimum Viable Company. You can sign up to get the rest of the Shell Game ad-free, and the Shell Game newsletter, at shellgame.co .

EPISODE CREDITS: 

Shell Game 
Hosted by Evan Ratliff, 
Produced and edited by Sophie Bridges. 
Shell Game’s Technical Advisor Matty Bohacek 
Executive Produced by Samantha Henig, Kate Osborn and Mangesh Hattikudur at Kaleidoscope
and Katrina Norvell at IHeart Podcasts.

Radiolab portions 
Hosted by Simon Adler 
Produced by Mona Madgavkar.

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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.

Our original host Jad Abumrad returns to share a new podcast series he’s just released. It’s all about Fela Kuti, a Nigerian musician who created a genre, then a movement, then tried to use his hypnotic beats to topple a military dictatorship. Jad tells us about the series and why he made it, and we play the episode that, for us at least, gets to the heart of the matter: How exactly does his music work? What actually happens to the people who hear it and how does it move them to action?

You can find Jad’s entire nine-part series, Fela Kuti: Fear No Man, on Apple or Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

EPISODE CREDITS: 
Reported by - Jad Abumrad
Radiolab portions produced by - Sindhu Gnanasambandan

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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.

Today on the show, we’re bringing you an episode from Our Common Nature (https://link.podtrac.com/v7mx144d), a new podcast series where cellist Yo-Yo Ma and host Ana González travel around the United States to meet people, make music and better understand how culture binds us to nature. The series features a few familiar voices, including Ana González (host) and Alan Goffinski (producer), from our kids podcast, Terrestrials (https://link.podtrac.com/vysacqn1). 

About the episode: 
West Virginia is defined by its beauty and its coal, two things that can work against each other. Yo-Yo Ma felt this as soon as stepped foot in its hills.This episode explores how music and poetry help process the emotions of a community besieged with disaster and held together by pride and duty. We travel down the Coal River with third-generation coal miner Chris Saunders, who tells us how coal has saved and threatened his life. Poet Crystal Good shares her poetry, which channels her rage and love. And musician and granddaughter of West Virginia coal miners, Kathy Mattea, explains the beauty of belting out your home state in a chorus. The end of the episode finds host Ana floating down the New River with help from a group of high schoolers and Yo-Yo Ma. 

Listen to the full series Our Common Nature (https://link.podtrac.com/v7mx144d). 

Featuring music by Yo-Yo Ma, Dom Flemons, and Kathy Mattea and poetry by Crystal Good.

EPISODE CREDITS: 
Radiolab Bits Produced - Anisa Vietze (Radiolab bits)

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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.

Qasem Waleed is a 28-year-old physicist who has lived in Gaza his whole life. In 2024, he joined a chorus of Palestinians sharing videos and pictures and writing about the chaos and violence they were living through, as Israel’s military bombardment devastated their lives. But Qasem was trying to describe his reality through the lens of the most notoriously confusing and inscrutable field of science ever, quantum mechanics. We talked to him, from a cafe near the Al-Mawasi section of Gaza, to find out why. And over the course of several conversations, he told us how this reality-breaking corner of science has helped him survive. And how such unspeakable violence actually let him understand, in a visceral way, quantum mechanics’ most counter-intuitive ideas. 

Special thanks to Katya Rogers, Karim Kattan, Allan Adams, Sarah Qari, Soren Wheeler, and Pat Walters

EPISODE CREDITS: 
Reported by - Lulu Miller
Produced by - Jessica Yung
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Emily Krieger
and Edited by  - Alex Neason

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Videos - 

• A Brief History of Quantum Mechanics with Sean Carroll, The Royal Institution (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hVmeOCJjOU)
• Introduction to Superposition, with MIT’s Allan Adams (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ3bPUKo5zc)
• The Quantum Wavefunction, Explained (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOI4DlWQ_1w)

Articles - 
Read a selection of Qasem’s published essays about his life in Gaza and the quantum world: 

• I am stuck in a box like Schrodinger’s in Gaza (https://zpr.io/ALDVi9E5bRt8) 
• Israel has turned Gaza’s summer into a weapon (https://zpr.io/YS4WK4hVQC5T)
• The Physics of Death in Gaza (https://zpr.io/hxsgxicVqPAd) 

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Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.

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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.