Music Hat
Radiolab
08/29/25
•31m
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With this episode, we’re putting on our music hat. For a program that relies so much on scoring and sound, it’s not often we talk about the musicians and the music they make that inspire us. Today, that changes. Today, we bring you two stories. Each about musicians that our former host and creator of Radiolab, Jad Abumrad, loves.
We originally released these stories many years ago, and both start deep in music itself. Then quickly, they dig deeper — into our relationships with technology, and ourselves.
We start with the band Dawn of Midi, who straddle the intersection between acoustic and electronic sounds. Jad talks to the band about their album, Dysnomia, and how it's filled with heavily-layered rhythms that feel both mechanistic and deeply human, at the same time.
Then, Jad talks with Juana Molina, an Argentine singer who accidentally became a famous actress, when all along all she really wanted was to be a musician.
Special thanks to Dawn of Midi and Juana Molina.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - JAD ABUMRAD
EPISODE CITATIONS:
Check out Dawn of Midi at dawnofmidi.com and Juana Molina at juanamolina.com
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Previous Episode
The Medical Matchmaking Machine
August 22, 2025
•61m
As he finished his medical school exam, David Fajgenbaum felt off. He walked down to the ER and checked himself in. Soon he was in the ICU with multiple organ failure. The only drug for his condition didn’t work. He had months to live, if that. If he was going to survive, he was going to have to find his own cure. Miraculously, he pulled it off in the nick of time. From that ordeal, he realized that our system of discovering and approving drugs is far from perfect, and that he might be able to use AI to find dozens, hundreds, even thousands of cures, hidden in plain sight, for as-yet untreatable diseases.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Latif Nasser
Produced by - Maria Paz Gutiérrez
with mixing help from - Jeremy S. Bloom
Fact-checking by - Natalie A. Middleton
VISIT:
Everycure.org (https://www.everycure.org)
EPISODE CITATIONS:
Books -
Blair Bigham - Death Interrupted: How Modern Medicine is Complicating the Way We Die
David Fajgenbaum - Chasing My Cure, (https://davidfajgenbaum.com/)
Radiolab | Lateral Cuts:
Check out Death Interrupted (https://radiolab.org/podcast/death-interrupted), a conversation with Blair Bigham about a worldview shifting change of heart.
The Dirty Drug and the Ice Cream Tub (https://radiolab.org/podcast/dirty-drug-and-ice-cream-tub) to hear the crazy story about how Rapamycin was discovered.
Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (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.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
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.
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Next Episode
Screaming Into the Void
September 5, 2025
•57m
In August we performed a live taping of the show from a theater perched on the edge of Manhattan, overlooking the Hudson River, overshadowed by the wide open night sky. Three stories about voids. One about a fish that screams into the night – and the mystery of its counterpart that doesn’t. Another about a group of women who gazed at the night sky and taught us just how vast the universe is, and a third about a man who talk to aliens – and the people who tell him he’s putting human civilization at risk by doing so. Finally, we turn back to Earth with the help of a reading from Samantha Harvey’s hit novel Orbital (https://zpr.io/RNi4sY2JVKxK) performed by the artist, actor and podcast host Helga Davis (https://zpr.io/TKGuzzDFnVjN). What does it mean to stand on the edge of a void, and what happens when you scream into it, or choose not to?
This episode was originally produced and developed in front of a live audience by Little Island, Producing Artistic Director Zack Winokur, Executive Director Laura Clement. Special thanks to our voice actors Davidé Borella, Jim Pirri, Armando Riesco, and Brian Wiles with casting by Dann Fink. And Anna von Mertens, author of Attention Is Discovery: The Life and Legacy of Astronomer Henrietta Leavitt (https://zpr.io/j7ZYKX8wSCYL).
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Lulu Miller, Matt Kielty and Latif Nasser
Produced by - Pat Walters and Matt Kielty
with help from - Jessica Yung, Maria Paz Gutierrez and Rebecca Rand
Original music from - Mantra Percussion
Sound design contributed by - Matt Kielty and Jeremy Bloom
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Diane Kelly and Natalie Middleton
and Edited by - Pat Walters
EPISODE CITATIONS:
Books -
Attention Is Discovery: The Life and Legacy of Astronomer Henrietta Leavitt (https://zpr.io/j7ZYKX8wSCYL) by Anna von Mertens
Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (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.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
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.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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