So… cicadas. Get ready!

Let’s document these bugs, people.

(from the fine folks at RadioLab)

Good morning! How about story to start today off right. From friends Lulu Miller at RadioLab and Darren Hoyt:

We found something else — a turtle, exhausted and barely able to stay afloat any longer, supporting a frog on its back while a spider clung to the frog’s head to avoid drowning. … Did the tortoise rock the heavy frog cargo from his back? No. Did the frog eat the spider? No. … Did the spider attack the frog out of fear, biting its slimy steed in desperation or in hopes of a meal? No, it did not. All anybody did was cling to each other.

The media is biased. Not in the way that people think it is, but it’s certainly biased towards tension, it’s biased towards surprise. And so, there might be some kind of bias that leads us all towards a result that is counterintuitive and exciting.

— Radiolab host Jad Abumrad, who dropped by last week to talk about the Decline effect, which is when results from scientific experiments become less and less replicable over time. (via onthemedia)

Radio Lab: The Turing Problem

What’s different about Radiolab (and what I think is changing about the web) is that it *is* a production, just one of a very new kind. Radiolab is actually post-blog and post-livestream. It’s not aping the oratory of old or the raggedness of the new. It’s a hybrid that takes lessons from the past, recent and deep. That’s where I think web journalism is headed, too. “No one wants to read a 9,000-word treatise online,” reads a telling line from Sullivan piece. “On the Web, one-sentence links are as legitimate as thousand-word diatribes—in fact, they are often valued more.

— How ‘Radiolab’ Is Changing the Sound of the Radio - Alexis Madrigal - Technology - The Atlantic (via thisistheverge)

jasonandrewphotography:

Last week, I had the pleasure of being asked to photograph Jad Abumrad, Radio host and Producer of RADIO LAB on WNYC in NYC. Jad was chosen as one of this years fellows of the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation genius award. Below is a selection of some of my favorite images from the shoot.

(All photos copyright John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)

j.a.d.

Holy Genius, Abumrad Congrats to Jad Abumrad who just won a GENIUS GRANT.

iamcharlotteaddams:

In honor of National Radio Day: the list of my top 10 Public Radio Programs that was in my short-lived (read: two issue) high school zine. Still pretty accurate. (Note: ranking is basically random past #3)

1. Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me (DUH)
2. This American Life (close second)
3. A Prairie Home Companion (Garrison Keillor, you complete me)
4. Says You!
5. [American] Radio Works
6. Studio 360
7. Selected Shorts
8. Fresh Air
9. Anything Jay Allison does (kind of a cop out, but the man is a public radio producin’ genius and hotwired into my soul)
10. City Arts and Lectures

Also Radiolab (don’t know how that got left off the original list. Oops), and let’s just go ahead and say every single program on KQED’s schedule.

Public radio is the business, y’all.

I totally forgot about National Radio Day. (It was Saturday.) We are honored to be #8 on your list. (Very nice penmanship.) 

Someone on Twitter said that today’s show reminded him of the Lucy episode of Radiolab. Which is quite good. Enjoy.

newzed:

The Obsessive Pleasures of ‘Radiolab’

Public Media Peabody Recipients 2011

Almost every link goes to the full performance. Enjoy!

Radiolab (their tumblr)

Great Performances: Macbeth (PBS)

Sherlock: A Study in Pink (David Bianculli review)

Lucia’s Letter (WGCU)

LennonNYC (Cynthia Lennon on Fresh Air)

Trafficked: A Youth Radio Investigation

Independent Lens: Reel Injun: On the Trail of the Hollywood Indians

The Promised Land (APM)

Covering Pakistan: War, Flood and Social Issues (NPR)

Seeking Justice for Campus Rape (NPR)

My Lai (PBS)

The Moth Radio Hour (PRX)

Behind the Bail Bond System (NPR)

Elia Kazan: A Letter to Elia (PBS) 

William Kentridge: Anything is Possible (PBS)

POV: The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (Bud Krogh on Fresh Air)

The Wounded Patrol (PBS)

Zimbabwe’s Forgotten Children (BBC4)

Wonders of the Solar System (BBC Science Channel)

Jad: It’ll dill your pickle, is what it’ll do. Brenna: Dill your pickle? Is the FCC going to come after us? Jad: It’s not dirty, is it? Brenna: I don’t know, I’ve never heard it before. Jad: Huh. I guess it’s a Southern thing.

— 

Radiolab: While recording a promo for our live show… RADIOLAB IS ON TUMBLR

stickshiftlife:

“This has convinced me to turn off the radio and just listen to the world today.”

Any suggestions?

One of our Twitter followers (@courtneybolton) asked if we had a favorite episodes list on our website, like the way This American Life has a favorite episodes list on their website or the way that RadioLab tags their episodes with categories like gut-wrenching or knee-slapping.

The answer is no, we don’t.

But that seems like a good idea and a good way to help people sifting through the 20+ year archive. So if you have a favorite, please let us know and we’ll start to get a (categorized?) list together….