I got introduced to RadioLab via expanding my horizons on Stitcher– a great little app for Iphone, Ipad, and Android devices that permits entire shows to stream to conclusion without an internet connection. Lately I’ve been checking out some other podcasts and discovered “BrainFoodDude” who summarizes content from other podcasts on economics, mathematics, science, ethics and politics. It’s a good “listen”. From BrainFoodDude’s annual list of top ten podcasts, I discovered RADIO LAB. This is an NPR-style commentary show told in storytelling format. Production values are superior (although at times a little kitschy) and the content, at least for the show I just finished, was outstanding.
The “Bad Show” was about the nature of evil, and though it approaches the subject in a rambling way, it is a great listen.
We begin with a chilling statistic: 91% of men, and 84% of women, have fantasized about killing someone. We take a look at one particular fantasy lurking behind these numbers, and wonder what this shadow world might tell us about ourselves and our neighbors. Then, we reconsider what Stanley Milgrim‘s famous experiment really revealed about human nature (it’s both better and worse than we thought). Next, we meet a man who scrambles our notions of good and evil: chemist Fritz Haber (above), who won a Nobel Prize in 1918…around the same time officials in the US were calling him a war criminal. And we end with the story of a man who chased one of the most prolific serial killers in US history, then got a chance to ask him the question that had haunted him for years: why?
(Stanley Milgram)
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- Podcasts and Me Are Like This… (knowledgefunction.wordpress.com)
- Radiolab – Talking to Machines | Logicamp (logicamp.wordpress.com)
- Radiolab: science show that turns to art over science (lostateminor.com)
- Radiolab, full of genius compositions (blogs.scientificamerican.com)
- RadioLab Finally Gets It’s Recognition: Host Jad Abumrad Named MacArthur ‘Genius’ (mediaite.com)
- SFist Tonight, 11/4: Radiolab Live, Lawrence Ferlinghetti Reading, ‘Urbanized’ (sfist.com)
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