Big Little Questions

Today we follow a sleuth who has spent over a decade working to solve an epic mystery hiding in plain historical sight: did anyone survive the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD? Classicist Steven Tuck has spent his career parsing the Tired of hearing the conventional narrative that every Pompeiian perished without any evidence to back it up, Classicist Steven Tuck decides to look into it himself. Although he is nearly two millennia late to ground zero, he uses all the available evidence to reimagine the disaster from the perspective of the people on the ground. Could anyone have survived the volcano? If they did, could they have survived what came after that: earthquakes, tsunamis, pumice stones hurtling like missiles from the sky? If someone did survive, what happened to them after that??! To find out we have to think, feel and possibly even eat like Ancient Romans. An against-all-odds story of a disaster without warning, a mass disappearance without a trace, and oddly, a particularly stinky fish sauce, care of special guest Chef Samin Nosrat. We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Latif Nasserwith help from - Annie McEwen and Ekedi Fausther-KeysProduced by - Annie McEwenRecording help from - Adam HowellVoice acting by - Brandon DaltonOriginal music and sound design contributed by - Jeremy Bloom and Annie McEwenwith mixing help from - Arianne Wackand Hosting Helo from - Sarah QariFact-checking by - Emily Kriegerand Edited by  - Pat Walters EPISODE CITATIONS: Recipes - Ancient Roman recipe for garum (https://zpr.io/gMNmXcNZUhZg). Read more about garum here (https://zpr.io/4gh939TxCRpZ) or in Sally Grainger’s book The Story of Garum: Fermented Fish Sauce and Salted Fish in the Ancient World Articles - On Pliny's letters and the eruption including a reanalysis of the date of the eruption, Peter Foss, Pliny and the Eruption of Vesuvius (https://zpr.io/kQH49ttRawNZ) Documentaries - A recent PBS documentary, Pompeii: The New Dig (https://zpr.io/LV9sWKc4vbQ8) including segments on Steven Tuck’s work. Photos and Maps - To trace building locations or names of home owners as well as photos of every square inch of Pompeii: https://pompeiiinpictures.com/pompeiiinpictures/ From Steven Tuck: “If someone has an otherwise unbeatable case of insomnia, my preliminary publication of findings is in Reflections: Harbour City Deathscapes in Roman Italy and Beyond” (https://zpr.io/3pETS53A9CtF) Brief description of the casts and casting process of the remains found at Pompeii: https://pompeiisites.org/en/pompeii-map/analysis/the-casts/ Maps of the Ancient Roman world that you can use to trace some of the land and sea routes discussed in the episode: https://orbis.stanford.edu 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, X, formerly 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.

With the help of paleontologist Neil Shubin, reporter Emily Graslie and the Field Museum's Paul Mayer we discover that our world is full of ancient coral calendars. This episode first aired back in December of 2013, and at the start of that new year, the team was cracking open fossils, peering back into ancient seas, and looking up at lunar skies only to find that a year is not quite as fixed as we thought it was. With the help of paleontologist Neil Shubin, reporter Emily Graslie and the Field Museum's Paul Mayer we discover that our world is full of ancient coral calendars. Each one of these sea skeletons reveals that once upon a very-long-time-ago, years were shorter by over forty days. And astrophysicist Chis Impey helps us comprehend how the change is all to be blamed on a celestial slow dance with the moon. Plus, Robert indulges his curiosity about stopping time and counteracting the spinning of the spheres by taking astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson on a (theoretical) trip to Venus with a rooster and sprinter Usain Bolt. We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon 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.

One man secretly hands off more and more of his life to an AI voice clone. Today, we feature veteran journalist Evan Ratliff who - for his new podcast Shell Game - decided to slowly replace himself bit by bit with an AI voice clone, to see how far he could actually take it. Could it do the mundane phone calls he’d prefer to skip? Could it get legal advice for him? Could it go to therapy for him? Could it parent his kids? Evan feeds his bot the most intimate details about his life, and lets the bot loose in high-stakes situations at home and at work. Which bizarro version of him will show up? The desperately-agreeable conversationalist, the crank-yanking prank caller, the glitched out stranger who sounds like he’s in the middle of a mental breakdown, or someone else entirely? Will people believe it’s really him? And how will they act if they don’t? A gonzo journalistic experiment for the age of AI, that’s funny and eerie all at the same time. We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Evan Ratliff Produced by - Sophie Bridges and Simon Adler With help from - Evan Ratliff Fact-checking by - Emily Krieger EPISODE CITATIONS: Audio: If you want to listen to more of Evan’s Shell Game, you can do so here, https://www.shellgame.co/ Sign up 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.

How a plane crash in Nebraska gave us the modern ER. February 1976. A flight out of California turned catastrophic when it crashed into a farm in rural Nebraska. What happened that night at the local hospital, and crucially, what went wrong, would inspire a global sea-change in how emergency rooms operate and fundamentally alter the way doctors think in a crisis. Special thanks to Jody and Jay Upright, Heather Talbott, Dr. Ron Simon, Dr. John Sutyak, Dr. Paul Collicott, Irvene Hughe, Maimonides Medical Center, Karl Sukhia and Vanya Zvonar.We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by -  Avir Mitra with help from - Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sarah Qari, Becca Bressler, Suzie Lechtenberg, Heather Radke and Ana Gonzalez Produced by - Maria Paz Gutierrez, Becca Bressler and Pat Walters with help from - Ana Gonzalez Original music and sound design contributed by - Maria Paz Gutierrez and Jeremy Bloom with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom Fact-checking by - Diane Kelly and Edited by  - Becca Bressler and Pat Walters Sign up 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.

In 2008, the Supreme Court stepped in to settle our fight over the Second Amendment’s meaning. They did. And they didn’t. Given that we’re all gearing up for the Presidential race, and how gun rights and regulations are almost always centerstage during these times. Today, we’re re-releasing a More Perfect episode that aired just after the October 2017 Las Vegas shooting. It is an episode that attempts to make sense of our country’s fraught relationship with the Second Amendment. For nearly 200 years of our nation’s history, the Second Amendment was an all-but-forgotten rule about the importance of militias. But in the 1960s and 70s, a movement emerged — led by Black Panthers and a recently-repositioned NRA — that insisted owning a firearm was the right of each and every American. So began a constitutional debate that only the Supreme Court could solve. That didn’t happen until 2008, when a Washington, D.C. security guard named Dick Heller made a compelling case. We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites starting in November: https://radiolab.org/moon Sign up 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.