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 Carney

EPISODE CREDITS: 

EPISODE CITATIONS:

**The latest information on screwworm outbreaks and precautions: 
screwworm.gov

Videos:

Podcasts:

Articles:

Archival materials: 

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In this episode, we consider a creature we often don’t think much about—the snail. And not just snails, but their sex lives. Which, as it turns out, is epic. There is persuasion and subterfuge, spaghetti penises and co-copulation. And this very surprising habit—erm kink—of making tiny arrows (actually!) and stabbing each other with them. Known as a “love dart,” these limestone daggers aren’t just a strange trick of nature—they have a deep evolutionary purpose. 

Special thanks to Menno Schilthuizen and Aaron Chase.

EPISODE CREDITS: 

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Books - 

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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 this episode, first aired in 2014, we examine three very different kinds of black boxes—spaces where we know what’s going in, we know what’s coming out, but can’t see what happens in-between.

From the darkest parts of metamorphosis to a sixty-year-old secret among magicians, and the nature of consciousness itself, we shine some light on three questions. But for each, we contend with an answerless space, leaving just enough room for the mystery and magic, always wondering what’s inside the Black Box.

EPISODE CREDITS: 

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Martha’s daughter Annie Rosenthal captured the whole adventure on tape and produced a gorgeous audio feature, “Caterpillar Roadshow,” which was first published in the audio magazine Signal Hill. 

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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.

Before he was even born, Sarah and Ross Gray knew that their son Thomas wouldn’t live long. But as they let go of him, they made a decision that reverberated through a world that they never bothered to think about. Years later, after a couple of awkward phone calls, they go on a quest and manage to meet the people and places for whom Thomas’ short life was an altogether different kind of gift. We originally made this story back in 2015, but we wanted to play it again because we love that it brings a view of science that is redemptive, tender, and unexpected.

Since we first released this episode, Sarah Gray wrote a book called A Life Everlasting (https://zpr.io/GVYisRaqe9d6), it’s a memoir about Thomas that dives into the world of organ donation and medical science. She’s also written a beautiful short story about shame called The Lacemaker Fairy Tale (https://zpr.io/Li5BMtfHmf92). And, right now she’s working on a script for a movie called Raincheck.

EPISODE CREDITS:

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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.

In the early 2000s, Sunil Nakrani felt stuck. 

Back then, websites crashed all the time. When Sunil noticed this, he decided he was going to fix the internet. But after nearly a year of studying the architecture of the web, he was no closer to an answer. In desperation, Sunil sent out a raft of cold emails to engineering professors. He hoped someone, anyone, could help him figure this out. Eventually, he learned that the internet could only be fixed if he paid attention to the humble honeybee. 

This is the story of the Honeybee Algorithm: How tech used honeybees to build the internet as we know it.

Special thanks to John Bartholdi, John Vande Vate, Sammy Ramsey, James Marshall, Steve Strogatz, Duc Pham, and Heiko Hamann.

We found out about this story thanks to our friends at AAAS, who run the one and only Golden Goose Awards. The award goes to government funded science that sounds trivial or bizarre, but goes on to change the world. The Honeybee Algorithm won a Golden Goose Award back in 2016 (https://zpr.io/ePxaaYja6YF4). Thank you to our friends there: Erin Heath, Gwendolyn Bogard, Valeria Sabate, Joanne Padron Carney, and Meredith Asbury. 

EPISODE CREDITS: 
Reported by - Latif Nasser
with help from - Maria Paz Gutiérrez
Produced by - Maria Paz Gutiérrez, Annie McEwen and Pat Walters
and Edited by  - Pat Walters

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Videos - 

• Golden Goose Award video about 2016 winners (https://zpr.io/eXwTJKGL6F8S)

Books -

• The Wisdom of the Hive: The Social Physiology of Honeybee Colonies (https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674953765) by Thomas D. Seeley (1995, Harvard University Press)
• Piping Hot Bees & Boisterous Buzz-Runners: 20 Mysteries of Honey Bee Behavior Solved (https://zpr.io/tNDqkw372Rhr) by Thomas D. Seeley
• And, Paths of Pollen (https://zpr.io/cqRPpAdGRwMi) by Stephen Humphrey. One of our former transcribers who we recently learned had hidden talents far beyond the invaluable work they did for us. This book is only tangentially related to the content in the episode, but super cool in its own right.
   

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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.

Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].

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 this episode, we break the thermometer and watch the mercury spill out as we discover that temperature is far stranger than it seems. We first ran this episode in 2021: Five stories that run the gamut from snakes to stars. We start out underwater, with a species of snake that has evolved a devious trick for keeping warm. Then we hear the tale of a young man whose seemingly simple method of warming up might be the very thing making him cold. And Senior Correspondent Molly Webster blows the lid off the idea that 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit is a sound marker of health. 

EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Lulu Miller and Molly Webster
Produced by - Becca Bressler, Lulu Miller and Molly Webster
with help from - Carin Leong
Fact-checking by - Emily Krieger

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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.

One spring evening in 2024, a science journalist named Rachel Gross bombed at karaoke. The culprit was a bleed in a fist-sized clump of neurons tucked down in the back of her brain called the cerebellum. A couple weeks later, her doctors took a bit of it out, assuring her it was just helping her with motor coordination — she might be a bit clumsy for a while, but she’d still be herself. But afterwards, she didn't feel like herself. So she dove into the dusty basement of the brain (and brain science) to figure out why. What Rachel found was a burgeoning new frontier in neuroscience. We learn what singing Shakira on stage has to do with reaching for a cup of coffee — and how the surprising relationship between the two is making us rethink what we think about thinking.

Special thanks to Warzone Karaoke at Branded Saloon, Dr. Joanne Loewy and the Singing Together, Measure by Measure choir at the Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine  (http://musicandmedicine.org/) at Mount Sinai Union Square, Dag Spicer and the Computer History Museum, Désirée Lie, Mark Gross, Daniel A. Gross, Brittany Aguilar, and, of course, Shakira.

EPISODE CREDITS: 
Reported by - Rachel Gross
Produced by - Sindhu Gnanasambandan

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Articles -

• “Ignoring the cerebellum is hindering progress in neuroscience.” (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39934082/), by Wang et al, 2025
• “The cerebellum and cognition.” (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29997061/), by Schmahmann JD. Neurosci Lett. 2019
• “How did brains evolve?” (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11805823/), by Barton RA., Nature. 2002

Books - 

• Vagina Obscura (https://www.rachelegross.com/book), by Rachel E. Gross

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Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].

Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Most of us spend some part of our lives feeling bad about ourselves and wanting to feel better. But this preoccupation is a surprisingly new one in the history of the world, and can largely be traced back to one man: a rumpled, convertible-driving California state representative named John Vasconcellos who helped spark a movement that took over schools, board rooms, and social-service offices across America in the 1990s. This week, we look at the rise and fall of the self-esteem movement and ask: is it possible to raise your self-esteem? And is trying to do so even a good idea?

Special thanks to big thank you to the University of California, Santa Barbara Library for use of audio material from their Humanistic Psychology Archives and to their staff for helping located so many audio recordings. 

EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Heather Radke and Matt Kielty 
Produced by - Matt Kietly
Original music and sound design by - Jeremy S. Bloom and Matt Kielty
Flute performance and compositions by -  Ben Batchelder
Voiceover work by - Dann Fink and David Gebel
Mixing help by - Jeremy S. Bloom
Fact-checking by - Anna Pujol-Mazzini and Angely Mercado
and Edited by  - Pat Walters

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Articles - 

• UCSB Humanistic Psychology Archive (https://zpr.io/HfVjUmvcVevE)

Books - 

• Selfie: How We Became So Self-Obsessed and What It's Doing to Us (https://zpr.io/eGRyqz9zNQHu) by Will Storr. Counterpoint, 2018.
• A Liberating Vision (https://zpr.io/tJn7BR5m84fv) by Vasconcellos, John. Impact Publishers, Inc., 1979
• The Therapeutic State (https://zpr.io/tJn7BR5m84fv) by Nolan, James, Jr. NYU Press, 1998

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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.

Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].

Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

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.

Sign up for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Signup (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.

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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-Moriarty, 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.