# included[].attributes.body
Terrestrials is Radiolab's spin-off nature show for families and  for people of all ages that explores the strangeness that exists right here on Earth. Each episode feels like a fairytale that is 100% true. Host Lulu Miller (co-host of Radiolab) leads you on a nature walk to encounter incredible creatures, wild storytellers, and original songs from "The Songbud" Alan Goffinski. That's right! We sing on this show; don't worry, good voices not required. Listen in with your whole family. Or all alone.

This season, we are tackling the overlooked – the treasures, secrets, and wildness waiting right underneath our noses. From tree stumps, to lichen, to humble squirrels that fade into the background so easily. When you look close at the creatures we usually ignore, you’ll find all kinds of secrets hidden inside.

Terrestrials welcomes entomologist Dr. Sammy Ramsey  as the show’s official “Bug Correspondent.” The show’s “Songbud,” composer Alan Goffinski, returns with new songs featuring guest performances from Laura Jane Grace, Tasha, Timbre and Mike Kinsella of American Football. Over the course of the season, Lulu Miller talks to poets, painters, NASA scientists, Indigenous bee hunters, 11-year old skaters, arctic biologists, and “The Badgers” — a panel of kids who badger experts with their pressing questions.

The seven-episode season begins on Sept. 19 in the Radiolab for Kids podcast feed. Episodes come out every Thursday.

Visit the Terrestrials website to learn more about the show, meet our team, listen to the songs and discover fun activities, drawing prompts, music how-tos and games that educators, parents and families might enjoy together.

If you’d like to “badger” a future expert, suggest story ideas or feedback, email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org.

Listen to just the songs from Terrestrials.

Sign up for Radiolab’s newsletter! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up here.

Radiolab for Kids and Terrestrials are supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab today.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, X and Facebook @radiolab.

Support for Terrestrials is provided by the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Kalliopeia Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation.

# included[].attributes.headers.brand.logo-image.alt-text
Radiolab for Kids Presents Terrestrials Logo

# included[].attributes.headers.links[].title
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.npr-analytics-dimensions[]
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.show-tease
A show where we uncover the strangeness right here on Earth

# included[].attributes.show-title
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.series[].about.body
Terrestrials is a show for people of all ages that explores the strangeness that exists right here on Earth. In each episode, host Lulu Miller (co-host of Radiolab) will introduce you to a creature or earthly phenomenon that will defy your expectations of how nature is supposed to work. Along the way, you'll encounter a chorus of experts, including scientists, surfers, hip hop artists and…a "Songbud" named Alan (indie punk musician Alan Goffinski) who creates original songs for key moments of confusion, discovery or awe. New episodes drop Thursdays. Listen in with your whole family. Or all alone.

Support for Terrestrials is provided by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation.

LISTEN TO TERRESTRIALS  | SUPPORT TERRESTRIALS | TERRESTRIALS WANTS YOUR FEEDBACK! | PRESS INQUIRIES  | BECOME A SPONSOR | CONTACT US

# included[].attributes.series[].tease
A show where we uncover the strangeness right here on Earth

# included[].attributes.series[].logo-image.alt-text
Radiolab for Kids Presents Terrestrials Logo

# included[].attributes.tease
Terrestrials is Radiolab's spin-off nature show for families and  for people of all ages that explores the strangeness that exists right here on Earth. Each episode feels like a fairy...

# included[].attributes.title
New Episodes of Terrestrials Coming in September!

# included[].attributes.transcript
LULU MILLER: Did you know Radiolab has a new podcast all about nature? Well, now you do! It's called Terrestrials. It's family friendly, occasionally musical. And for our brand new season, we scoured the globe.

MAN: Underwater.

WOMAN: In the desert.

LULU: Braving wild beasts.

WOMAN: It bit me several times.

LULU: And our own confusion.

LULU: So honey doesn't come out of bees?

MAN: No!

LULU: To uncover ...

MAN: Look at them!

LULU: ... overlooked creatures.

MAN: They're beautiful.

LULU: And overlooked storytellers.

WOMAN: I didn't really speak much—or really at all.

LULU: Who have life-changing secrets to share.

LULU: Join us for a nature walk that just might get you to fall in love with this planet again.

SONGBUD: Woo!

LULU: Come hang out with us.

SONGBUD: [singing] Oh, oh! Grow together better than alone.

LULU: Terrestrials, out now in the Radiolab for Kids feed wherever you listen to podcasts.

SONGBUD: [singing] Together better than alone!

-30-

Copyright © 2024 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of programming is the audio record.

# included[].attributes.twitter-headline
New Episodes of Terrestrials Coming in September!

# included[].attributes.body
The Terrestrials team is delighted to announce we’re coming back to the Radiolab for Kids feed! We’ve been traveling the globe in search of the strangeness right here on Earth. And we’ll be sharing a whole new batch of stories – and songs – in September.

In the meantime:

-catch up on past episodes!

-bop your head to songbud Alan’s songs!

-check out our brand new teaching resources!

Support for Terrestrials is provided by the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and the Kalliopeia Foundation.

# included[].attributes.headers.brand.logo-image.alt-text
Radiolab for Kids Presents Terrestrials Logo

# included[].attributes.headers.links[].title
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.npr-analytics-dimensions[]
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.show-tease
A show where we uncover the strangeness right here on Earth

# included[].attributes.show-title
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.series[].about.body
Terrestrials is a show for people of all ages that explores the strangeness that exists right here on Earth. In each episode, host Lulu Miller (co-host of Radiolab) will introduce you to a creature or earthly phenomenon that will defy your expectations of how nature is supposed to work. Along the way, you'll encounter a chorus of experts, including scientists, surfers, hip hop artists and…a "Songbud" named Alan (indie punk musician Alan Goffinski) who creates original songs for key moments of confusion, discovery or awe. New episodes drop Thursdays. Listen in with your whole family. Or all alone.

Support for Terrestrials is provided by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation.

LISTEN TO TERRESTRIALS  | SUPPORT TERRESTRIALS | TERRESTRIALS WANTS YOUR FEEDBACK! | PRESS INQUIRIES  | BECOME A SPONSOR | CONTACT US

# included[].attributes.series[].tease
A show where we uncover the strangeness right here on Earth

# included[].attributes.series[].logo-image.alt-text
Radiolab for Kids Presents Terrestrials Logo

# included[].attributes.tease
The Terrestrials team is delighted to announce we’re coming back to the Radiolab for Kids feed! We’ve been traveling the globe in search of the strangeness right here on Earth. 

# included[].attributes.appearances.producers[].bio
Ana is an audio producer and host who came to WNYC in 2021 to work on Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials. Before that, she produced and hosted Mosaic, a show about immigration experiences from Rhode Island Public Radio. In a former life, she played jazz bass and thinks about everything in terms of rhythm, conversation, and harmony.

# included[].attributes.appearances.producers[].bio
Alan Goffinski (he/him), is an arts administrator, songwriter, and producer from Charlottesville VA. He is the former Executive Director of The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative and the Charlottesville Mural Project—two city-wide organizations that utilize art and culture as a way for people to better understand themselves, each other, and the world around them. He is also a founding member of the Indianapolis-based whimsical performing arts collective Know No Stranger which has been described as “Sesame Street but for adults... but also for kids.” He produced the experimental music radio program Telemetry in partnership with the University of Virginia. Early in his career, Alan spent years making music in a nationally touring indie-punk band (signed to Victory Records) prior to becoming a social worker specializing in early childhood development. He began making kid’s music under the moniker Little Skunks as a fun way to be a part of the day-to-day lives of his nieces and nephew.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].bio
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

Her book, Why Fish Don’t Exist, is an international bestseller, translated into 11 languages. It was chosen as a Best Book by The Smithsonian, NPR, The Chicago Tribune, Brainpickings, The Washington Post and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and the American Association for the Advancement of Science Book Prize. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She has also won honors from The National Academy of Sciences, the Associated Press, the National Center on Disability and Journalism, and most recently an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Swarthmore College.

She reports on a range of scientific topics with a special interest in disability, mental illness, and ecology. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She serves as a Contributing Advisor to nature magazine Orion and she was the co-founder of NPR’s Invisibilia—a radio show about psychology, emotion, and human behavior. She recently published her debut children’s book, Trucky Roads, about trucks and, you’ll never guess this… roads. She lives in the Chicago area with her wife and two sons.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].lede
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].about.body
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].about.people[].image.alt-text
Producer Sarah Qari, smiling and standing proudly in the foreground of a field of sunflowers.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].description
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].tease
Investigating a strange world.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].bio
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

Her book, Why Fish Don’t Exist, is an international bestseller, translated into 11 languages. It was chosen as a Best Book by The Smithsonian, NPR, The Chicago Tribune, Brainpickings, The Washington Post and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and the American Association for the Advancement of Science Book Prize. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She has also won honors from The National Academy of Sciences, the Associated Press, the National Center on Disability and Journalism, and most recently an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Swarthmore College.

She reports on a range of scientific topics with a special interest in disability, mental illness, and ecology. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She serves as a Contributing Advisor to nature magazine Orion and she was the co-founder of NPR’s Invisibilia—a radio show about psychology, emotion, and human behavior. She recently published her debut children’s book, Trucky Roads, about trucks and, you’ll never guess this… roads. She lives in the Chicago area with her wife and two sons.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].lede
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].about.body
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].about.people[].image.alt-text
Producer Sarah Qari, smiling and standing proudly in the foreground of a field of sunflowers.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].description
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].tease
Investigating a strange world.

# included[].attributes.body
In the game of life, every species is like an action figure. You got your dogs and your dung beetles, your bald eagles and your blueberries. And for a long time scientists believed it was pretty much impossible for those action figures to mix and make a new kind of action figure that was able to have its own babies (dog beetles? Baldberries? Nah). But, today we tell the story of a four-legged beast in Kentucky whose existence is upending scientific beliefs. If you want a big fat SPOILER, here it is: the creature in question is a mule! After almost 20 years of living her life as a hybrid (a mix between a horse and a donkey), believed to be incapable of having babies, Peanut the mule shocked the world by doing the impossible. Peanut’s owners, Teresa and Jerry Smothers, tell us the story of her life. Evolutionary biologist Dr. Molly Schumer explains how scientists’ understanding of hybrids has changed dramatically over the course of Peanut’s lifetime. And no mule episode would be complete without a cowboy-hatted mule packer leading us deep into the rocky trails of the American West on muleback to explain why mules are the best of both worlds of their parents.

Learn about the storytellers, listen to music, and dig deeper into the stories you hear on Terrestrials with activities you can do at home or in the classroom on our website, Terrestrialspodcast.org.

Watch a hybrid gameshow and find even MORE original Terrestrials fun on our Youtube.

Badger us on Social Media: @radiolab and #TerrestrialsPodcast

Support for Terrestrials is provided by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.

More from Terrestrials

The Shovels: Dig Deeper

For each episode of Terrestrials, we provide a selection of activity sheets, drawing prompts, musical lessons, and more. We call them “shovels” because we hope they will help you (and your friends, family, students, neighbors, etc) dig more deeply into the world! You can do them at home, in the classroom, outside, or in the privacy of your own mind. We hope you enjoy!

If you want to share what you’ve made, ask an adult share it on social media using #TerrestrialsPodcast and make sure to tag @Radiolab

Draw -  Get creative with a special listen from our friends from DrawTogether

Do - We've put a bunch of concrete - and even kinda fun - things we can all do to help protect the nonhuman life on this planet IN BINGO form!

This week’s storytellers are Jerry and Teresa Smothers, Dr. Molly Schumer and mule packer James Reeves.

Want to keep learning? Check out these resources to learn about the sure-footed, stubborn hybrid helper that is the MULE:

Watch a TV news report about Peanut and Miracle
Ligers and Zonkeys and Narlugas, Oh my! Read an article about hybrids in nature and whether being a hybrid helps or hurts your genetic success.
Learn the story of the first narluga (narwhal and beluga) spotting.
Learn more about James Reeves, Mule Packer to the stars! Or, rather, to the mountains.
Follow Mule Packer James Reeves’ instagram, full of videos of him and mules!
Is breeding hybrids (like Ligers) unethical?
Did you know mules are STILL used in the military? Check out Susan Orlean’s wonderful article about that.
A video about the myth of Pegasus vs. The Chimera
“Mules and More” Magazine
Detailed list of reports of fertile mules over history

Terrestrials is a production of WNYC Studios, created by Lulu Miller. This episode is produced by Ana González, Alan Goffinski and Lulu Miller. Original Music by Alan Goffinski. Help from Suzie Lechtenberg, Sarah Sandbach, Natalia Ramirez, and Sarita Bhatt. Fact-check by Natalie Meade. Sound design by Phoebe Wang with additional engineering by Joe Plourde and Andrew Dunn. Our storytellers this week are Jerry and Teresa Smothers, Dr. Molly Schumer, and mulepacker James Reeves. Special thanks to the punks at the Music Resource Center in Charlottesville, Virginia: Riles, Susie, Jack, Tate, Tiny, Cheyenne, Zina, Bray, Jordan and Orion

Our advisors are Theanne Griffith, Aliyah Elijah, Dominique Shabazz, Liza Steinberg-Demby, and Tara Welty.

Terrestrials is supported in part by Science Sandbox, an initiative of the Simons Foundation.

Have questions for us, badgers? Badger us away! Your parent/guardian should write to us along with you, so we know you have their permission, and for maybe even having your ideas mentioned on the show. Email terrestrials@wnyc.org

# included[].attributes.headers.brand.logo-image.alt-text
Radiolab for Kids Presents Terrestrials Logo

# included[].attributes.headers.links[].title
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.image-main.alt-text
A track of hoofprints snakes through a vast, lush meadow. At the horizon the silhouette of a mule rears triumphantly against the blazing sunset.   

# included[].attributes.npr-analytics-dimensions[]
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.show-tease
A show where we uncover the strangeness right here on Earth

# included[].attributes.show-title
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.series[].about.body
Terrestrials is a show for people of all ages that explores the strangeness that exists right here on Earth. In each episode, host Lulu Miller (co-host of Radiolab) will introduce you to a creature or earthly phenomenon that will defy your expectations of how nature is supposed to work. Along the way, you'll encounter a chorus of experts, including scientists, surfers, hip hop artists and…a "Songbud" named Alan (indie punk musician Alan Goffinski) who creates original songs for key moments of confusion, discovery or awe. New episodes drop Thursdays. Listen in with your whole family. Or all alone.

Support for Terrestrials is provided by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation.

LISTEN TO TERRESTRIALS  | SUPPORT TERRESTRIALS | TERRESTRIALS WANTS YOUR FEEDBACK! | PRESS INQUIRIES  | BECOME A SPONSOR | CONTACT US

# included[].attributes.series[].tease
A show where we uncover the strangeness right here on Earth

# included[].attributes.series[].logo-image.alt-text
Radiolab for Kids Presents Terrestrials Logo

# included[].attributes.tease
A fantastical mix of two beasts comes together, thrives, and does something scientists thought it could never do

# included[].attributes.title
Terrestrials 06. The Hybrid: A Miracle Mule

# included[].attributes.transcript
LULU MILLER: [whispers] Three, two one!

MOLLY SCHUMER: Imagine your parents, they're like aliens to each other.

LULU: Your mom is ...

MOLLY SCHUMER: ... super, super strong.

LULU: She's over six feet tall with long, flowing hair that ruffles in the wind. Tra la la! And your dad is, uh ...

MOLLY SCHUMER: Very, very cute.

LULU: Hoo hoo! He's got short, stumpy legs, huge ears, buck teeth, and some say a kind of jerky personality. And as these two different species of animals come together to form you, the genes inside your cells ...

MOLLY SCHUMER: They're basically speaking two different languages. So you have two separate sets of directions of how to make you, how you're going to operate in the world.

LULU: Your legs bulge long and strong like your mom's. And your feet scrunch into tiny hooves like your dad's. And when you finally come out into the world, you open your eyes and see ...

MOLLY SCHUMER: How you don't really fit into either species or either world.

LULU: Some people say a mashup of species like you is ...

TERESA SMOTHERS: Impossible.

LULU: And yet here you are.

MOLLY SCHUMER: You're a mule.

LULU: All right. Now is the part where I make you sing the theme song with me.

MOLLY SCHUMER: [laughs] Okay.

LULU: [singing] "Terrestrials. Terrestrials. We are not the worst, we are the ..."

MOLLY SCHUMER: Best?

LULU: "-rials." Yup! Correct!

MOLLY SCHUMER: Okay!

LULU: Terrestrials is a show where we uncover the strangeness waiting right here on Earth, and sometimes break out into song.

[Theme song: There's so much to discover if you're super cool. Terrestrials. Terrestrials. This last episode is about a mule. Terrestrials. Terrestrials.]

LULU: Good voices not required. I'm your host Lulu Miller joined as always by my Songbud ...

ALAN GOFFINSKI: Howdy, partner!

LULU: Alan.

ALAN: Giddy up!

LULU: Today, we are telling the story of a humble mule named Peanut, who one summer day did something so rare that it shattered one of the most sacred laws of nature.

LULU: What was that blasphemous thing you were saying?

ALAN: What, about carrots?

LULU: Yeah.

ALAN: No thanks!

LULU: Don't like 'em?

ALAN: Don't like carrots.

LULU: So to understand this story, the Songbud and I grabbed a bunch of carrots, hopped in a car and headed down to Kentucky ...

LULU: Ooh, horses!

LULU: ... to hear how it happened straight from the horse's—or, uh, mule's—mouth.

LULU: Pulling up to a gorgeous farm with purple balloons. I don't know if those are for the guest of honor or somebody else.

LULU: So first, we met Peanut's owners, Jerry and Teresa Smothers.

JERRY SMOTHERS: I'm Jerry.

ALAN: Great to see ya.

TERESA SMOTHERS: I'm Teresa.

LULU: I'm Lulu!

LULU: Then we met their mothers.

TERESA SMOTHERS: This is my mother-in-law, Lily.

LULU: The Smothers mothers.

TERESA SMOTHERS: This is my mother, Susie.

LULU: That there sniffing the mic is their dog Ginger.

LULU: Hi!

ALAN: Hi, Ginger!

LULU: Next, we met their cat, Tony, their son, Justin, their grand niece ...

TERESA SMOTHERS: Carly Ann.

LULU: And finally ...

LULU: So this is Peanut?

TERESA SMOTHERS: That's Peanut.

LULU: ... Peanut herself.

LULU: You have anything to say, Peanut?

[crunching sound]

LULU: [laughs] Yeah, that's not a carrot.

LULU: [whispers] That was my microphone she was trying to eat.

LULU: It's a really expensive carrot. [laughs]

LULU: So our story starts when Peanut starts. She was born in 1999, and she came out with chocolatey-brown fur and a punk rock blonde mohawk of a mane.

TERESA SMOTHERS: And we fell in love with her.

LULU: Teresa and Jerry had been in the market for a new farm animal, and so they brought little Peanut back to their farm, and thought they knew what they were getting themselves into. Things started off nor-mule-y enough. They made a home for her in their stable, they introduced her to their little three-year-old niece, Hannah.

TERESA SMOTHERS: So we would set Hannah on her, and Jerry would hold Hannah and I would lead Peanut. Well, Peanut would do that for a little while ...

LULU: Walking peacefully. Until suddenly ...

TERESA SMOTHERS: She'd start bucking! Well, the more she bucked, the more Hannah loved it.

LULU: No!

TERESA SMOTHERS: Yes.

LULU: [laughs]

LULU: As time went on, the Smothers added more and more animals to their farm.

JERRY SMOTHERS: Cows and ...

TERESA SMOTHERS: ... big horses.

LULU: And little Peanut ...

JERRY SMOTHERS: She would try to manipulate the horses to do what she wanted them to do. She'd turn her back end and kick ...

LULU: And buck and nudge her way to the front of the line.

JERRY SMOTHERS: ... and get in there where she can eat or get a treat or whatever it is.

LULU: It turned out Peanut was ...

JERRY SMOTHERS: Bossy.

TERESA SMOTHERS: Bossy.

LULU: Bossy?

JERRY SMOTHERS: That's a good word, "Bossy."

LULU: And that part didn't surprise the Smothers.

TERESA SMOTHERS: You know, mules are stubborn.

LULU: This stubbornness is probably what mules are most famous for. Ever heard the expression "stubborn as a mule?" If someone's calling you "muleish," they mean you should probably give up on the thing that you won't stop trying to do. It's a diss. And this obstinance is why mules don't have the greatest reputation. On a recent poll of over a thousand farm-y type people, mules came in dead last for favorite of the horse-like creatures: horses, donkeys and mules.

JAMES REEVES: All right. I'm down in the Pate Valley with five loaded mules.

LULU: But for the small subset of people who do love mules, like James Reeves here, a mule packer who spends spends his days riding mules over massive mountains to bring food and supplies to remote trail workers, he says mules are not the worst but literally the best parts of both of their parents. He says they've got the strength of a horse in the compact size of a donkey, meaning they can lug heavy gear just as long and far as a horse while eating way less food.

JAMES REEVES: The t rail is really rugged going down here. Lotta rocks.

LULU: Plus, their little hooves make them far better at navigating treacherous, narrow mountain trails than horses. They're also less prone to injury and illness, they're less likely to spook and run off if something surprises them. And they can withstand the blazing sun for hours longer than horses or donkeys.

JAMES REEVES: We're at about 4,000 feet elevation, which here in California can get pretty hot in the summer.

LULU: And their superpowers do not stop when the sun goes down.

[coyote howling]

TERESA SMOTHERS: They keep coyotes out of the field.

LULU: No, really?

TERESA SMOTHERS: So farmers use them for their cattle. That way these coyotes can't, you know, get the babies. So they will kill a coyote.

LULU: Okay, I'm picturing, like, a pack of coyotes, fangs, and then, like, a sweet little mule? The mule's gonna win?

TERESA SMOTHERS: Yeah, every time.

LULU: How? How?

TERESA SMOTHERS: Kicking.

JAMES REEVES: Yeah. Probably the single biggest benefit is their stubbornness.

LULU: Yup. That muleish stubbornness that so many people love to hate? James over the years has come to see as mules' very best feature. He told me about one time he was riding a mule, and it suddenly stopped. And no matter how much he kicked or pulled at it, it would not move. And finally, James saw why.

JAMES REEVES: There was a rattlesnake there on the trail.

LULU: [gasps]

JAMES REEVES: And the mule had heard the snake, I think, and I hadn't. And it was trying to tell me, "No, I'm not gonna do that because it's dangerous." And that's kind of a typical thing that happens with people a lot, they mistake higher intelligence for stubbornness.

LULU: James is not alone in this interpretation. A 2008 study found that mules perform better than horses and donkeys on tests for visual awareness and learning, suggesting they might be quantifiably the smartest of all the equids.

JAMES REEVES: Yeah.

LULU: And this trifecta of strength: fuel, efficiency and intelligence, is why mules are more deeply a part of human history than you may realize. Humans have been breeding mules since ancient times. They've carried turquoise and gold and silver out of mines, they've carried the supplies that have allowed us to build train tracks all over the globe. They're gentle enough to safely carry schoolchildren over treacherous peaks, and tough enough to lug cannon-like weapons into battle. They've even changed the flow of the ocean by helping to dig canals, and helped us to build temples so high they sometimes touch the clouds. But these ultra-strong, cognitively-supercharged, coyote-kicking animorph superheroes do have one glitch ...

TERESA SMOTHERS: Mules don't have babies.

MOLLY SCHUMER: Yep. They're not going to have children of their own, which we call "infertile."

LULU: This is evolutionary biologist Dr. Molly Schumer. We heard her voice at the very beginning describing what it's like to be a mule.

MOLLY SCHUMER: Your parents, they're like aliens to each other.

LULU: And she says the reason mules can't have babies all goes back to their parents. Quick refresher: a mule's parents are two different species: a horse and a donkey. And for a long time, scientists thought that a mashup of creatures like this was not supposed to happen in nature. Hybrid beasts like a horse with eagle wings or a human with a fishtail were thought to belong in the realm of fantasy or myths or fairy tales or, you know, lies. And while you might be able to "artificially" engineer a mashup like a mule or a liger—a lion and a tiger—or a zonkey—a zebra and a donkey—all those things can exist by forcing their parents to breed, nature had barriers in place that should never allow a man-made creation like that to carry on. And those rules, those hard-and-fast barriers between species became visible—or so scientists thought—when they first glimpsed these structures inside the cell called ...

MOLLY SCHUMER: Chromosomes.

LULU: All right. Now before you shut off this here program, we are gonna explain chromosomes as a line dance with sub par country accents. Yee haw!

ALAN: [singing] Well now, DNA makes up your genes, genes make up your chromosomes. Chromosomes are inside your cells and cells make up your body.

LULU: Now hold your horses, Songbud! What did you just say?

ALAN: Come on, Lulu, keep up! I said, [singing] DNA makes up your genes and genes make up your chromosomes.

LULU: All right.

ALAN: Chromosomes are inside your cells, and cells make up your body.

LULU: Huh.

ALAN: "Genetic code" is a fancy way to say the DNA inside your genes.

LULU: So it's the reason why my eyes are blue and maybe yours are brown or green.

ALAN: Yup! Critters, plants and all things alive have chromosomes with genes inside. But here's where things start getting strange. Tell us, Lulu, what'd Molly say?

LULU: Well, Dr. Molly let us know how every species has its own special number of chromosomes that hold their cell's genetic code. Corn on the cob, what's the number again?

ALAN: 20, my friend. Two sets of 10.

LULU: What about dolphins?

ALAN: 44!

LULU: Red foxies?

ALAN: They have 34.

LULU: Duck-billed platypus, how about them?

ALAN: 52 for our duck-billed friend.

LULU: And purty little donkeys, how do they do?

ALAN: Hee haw, they have 62!

LULU: But now tell me: horsies, they have more?

ALAN: They got exactly 64! In order to make a baby, the chromosomes inside each parent have to do a little line dance. It's just got two parts. First you gotta split your chromosomes in half—half on the right, half on the left.

LULU: Well, the next part, that's a little bit harder.

ALAN: What do they have to do, Dr. Molly?

MOLLY SCHUMER: All the chromosomes have to line up with their partner.

ALAN and LULU: [singing] Partner, partner, partner, partner! It's the chromosome do-si-do. How to make an embryo: get into a nice, straight line and swing your partner to recombine.

ALAN: When parents are the same species, the dance is smooth, but when the numbers don't match,things can get confused. And most of time, that just can't be, but a horse and a donkey found a way to agree. They found the sweet spot right between 62 and 64—63! So a mule's got 63 inside. When it grows up and tries to make more life, it lines right up with that same line dance, its chromosomes all ready to prance.

ALAN and LULU: The chromosome do-si-do, how to make an embryo: get into a nice, straight line and swing your partner to recombine.

ALAN: So 63 chromosomes split in half—half on the right ...

LULU: ... half on the left. Uh, wait. Half of 63 is—uh oh!

MOLLY SCHUMER: What happens in the case of a mule that has 63 chromosomes is it ends up with this sort of problem where not all the chromosomes are matched to a partner and it can't split in half properly.

LULU: Wait. So it's just as simple as, like, you have to have an even number so it can be divided by two?

MOLLY SCHUMER: Yeah.

LULU: And so since 63 divided by two is 31 and a half ...

MOLLY SCHUMER: Exactly. That's the problem.

LULU: Does that—what's so bad about having 31 and a half chromosomes? What makes that such a problem?

MOLLY SCHUMER: So in a lot of cases, what happens is the cell is lining up the chromosomes to divide, and it's, like, checking. Is everything ready? Is it okay to divide? And then it can see that things aren't lined up properly.

LULU: [singing] It's the chromosome do-si-do, how to make an embryo. If you can't divide in two, well, there's nothing left to do. Head on home, folks. Show's over. No babies being made tonight.

LULU: Who knew, like, life was such a stickler for clean math?

MOLLY SCHUMER: Yeah, I know. Right? [laughs]

LULU: And this scientific certainty has clomped its way out to farm country. Jerry and Teresa said that growing up, this was just a thing you knew about mules.

TERESA SMOTHERS: They have odd chromosomes. And so if you have odd chromosomes, you can't have a baby.

JERRY SMOTHERS: Yep. That's what we've always heard.

LULU: There's even an expression, "When a mule has a baby." It's like, "When pigs fly." Never gonna happen.

JERRY SMOTHERS: Hey, Peanut! Hey, Peanut!

LULU: And so, back to Peanut.

LULU: Is nose petting cool?

TERESA SMOTHERS: Yes.

LULU: Hi!

LULU: For years, she roamed the fields of the Smothers' farm.

LULU: [laughs]

LULU: Live-laugh-hoofin' it up, her chocolatey brown fur slowly starting to gray.

JERRY SMOTHERS: You can kinda see the white and the gray around her eyes and nose.

LULU: That spunky spirit starting to slow down.

JERRY SMOTHERS: We kind of noticed that, you know, she's—she's starting to show her age a little bit.

LULU: And as she nears 20 years old, Jerry and Teresa are sure that because those 63 chromosomes inside her will never be able to divide neatly in half, that'll be it for Peanut in their lives. No babies coming to carry on her memories or spirit.

JERRY SMOTHERS: You always think about that.

TERESA SMOTHERS: Of course, yes.

LULU: And that should be how the story ends. But it's not. More in a moment.

***

LULU: You're listening to Terrestrials. We are telling the story of a mule named ...

JERRY SMOTHERS: Peanut!

LULU: ... whose life was pretty uneventful for 17 years.

TERESA SMOTHERS: Yeah, it was just here on the farm, eating, bossing the other animals around.

LULU: [laughs]

LULU: Until one morning in July of 2018, Jerry gets a call from his neighbor Sam, a guy who has a bunch of donkeys that Peanut sometimes goes over to boss around.

JERRY SMOTHERS: Sam called and he said, "Well, your mule's had a baby." And I said, "Sam, you're mistaken and getting old, because mules can't have babies." And he said, "Well, you should have told her that before she got pregnant."

LULU: Jerry says there's no way. But Sam insists.

JERRY SMOTHERS: "Jerry, it's here. I'm here looking at it." [laughs]

LULU: Jerry tells Teresa what Sam has just told him.

TERESA SMOTHERS: And I said, "Oh, he don't know what he's talking about."

JERRY SMOTHERS: He's old and senile. [laughs]

TERESA SMOTHERS: I said, "There's no way."

LULU: But they head on over to Sam's farm just to check it out.

TERESA SMOTHERS: And I'll never forget it.

LULU: There was their Peanut ...

TERESA SMOTHERS: In the corner of the field, in a fenceline with the baby.

LULU: This light gray mule-looking thing with a funny puff of blonde hair on top of its head.

TERESA SMOTHERS: Everybody was running, and she just tumbled over because she had this big head up here, you know, and this little bitty body.

LULU: Like the weight was all off balance?

TERESA SMOTHERS: Yes!

LULU: And even though no one saw the birth ...

JERRY SMOTHERS: You just knew.

TERESA SMOTHERS: You just knew because when Peanut moved, that baby moved.

JERRY SMOTHERS: Mm-hmm.

LULU: And stranger still, while Peanut couldn't make any milk, because, you know, not a thing mules should ever need to do.

TERESA SMOTHERS: She had clear liquid coming from her teets.

LULU: [gasps]

DESTINY: I mean, it was a shock.

LULU: Hmm.

DESTINY: Like, "Wow, this isn't supposed to happen."

LULU: This is the Smothers' neighbor, Destiny, who was 14 years old when the little filly was born.

DESTINY: Yes.

TERESA SMOTHERS: And we did say—we said, "Oh my gosh. This is a miracle." And I'm like, "Well, that's a perfect name."

LULU: Miracle. That's what they named her.

DESTINY: It just fit so perfectly. So ...

LULU: And the Smothers asked Destiny to help them keep little Miracle fed.

DESTINY: I got to bottle-feed her, I think, three times a day.

LULU: What?

DESTINY: Yes. It was amazing.

LULU: What was bottle feeding like? Like, what milk were you using, and would you go sit down with her? Would you stand?

DESTINY: Well, we either put it between our legs.

LULU: A plastic bottle full of a baby formula made from cow's milk.

DESTINY: So it was kind of like a real thing of what she would actually do with her mom.

LULU: Oh yeah.

DESTINY: Or you'd put it in the armpit so that she could nuzzle a little bit.

LULU: Oh! Was that like the coziest thing in the planet?

DESTINY: It was. I loved it. It was—it was hard not to smile the whole time and just laugh 'cause it was just so cute.

LULU: I interrupt the cutest scene in Kentucky to ask a very pressing question: what about the chromosomes? How did this mule have a baby? Molly, what the hoof is going on?

MOLLY SCHUMER: Yeah. So it's really uncomfortable as a scientist to speculate. One thing to know about evolution is that the mistakes are important.

LULU: Molly says if you'd asked her about 15 years ago when she was in college, she would have told us what her professors were telling her, which is that this baby was a mistake. Somehow, nature let a little bad math slide through. And indeed, over the centuries there have been a tiny number of confirmed cases of mules giving birth. But according to the scientific rules, those quote-unquote "mistakes" with their mismatched chromosomes inside should have such serious problems trying to grow that they'd be ...

MOLLY SCHUMER: Unable to survive, which we call "inviable."

LULU: And sure enough ...

JERRY SMOTHERS: It was probably four—four or five days.

LULU: ... after Miracle was born ...

TERESA SMOTHERS: She stopped eating. And she just laid around and she couldn't walk.

LULU: Their neighbor Sam stopped by one day and found Miracle lying down, lifeless.

JERRY SMOTHERS: He thought she was dead.

LULU: And he slunked home to get a shovel to dig a hole for Miracle. To bury her. But when Teresa and Jerry came back later that day, they saw Miracle was still breathing, though she was struggling. So they rushed her to the animal hospital.

TERESA SMOTHERS: Yes. So they shaved her neck and they put IVs in her, and they gave her all of this medicine. And it was very costly. And each day we were like, "You know, what are we gonna do? We can't ..."

JERRY SMOTHERS: So here—here they are.

LULU: Jerry pulls out a photo on his phone from that time.

LULU: Wow. So it's like this little mule in hay, surrounded by all these surgeon-looking folks.

JERRY SMOTHERS: Yeah. And see, there they are working on her.

LULU: Yeah. Oh, there's Peanut. Did they bring Peanut in to, like, comfort her?

JERRY SMOTHERS: She stayed with her the whole time.

TERESA SMOTHERS: Mm-hmm.

DESTINY: We all prayed in the church.

LULU: They wait a fifth day.

JERRY SMOTHERS: The vet said that, you know, she wasn't gonna live.

LULU: A sixth day.

TERESA SMOTHERS: We were sitting up there in the hay, and sitting there and boohooing, and—and I said, "Let's just give her one more day." Remember that?

JERRY SMOTHERS: Mm-hmm.

TERESA SMOTHERS: I said, "Let's give her one more day."

LULU: And then one of the doctors had the idea of giving Peanut—sweet, old, graying Peanut—some medicine.

TERESA SMOTHERS: Called domperidone.

LULU: Okay.

TERESA SMOTHERS: And it made that liquid turn into milk for Miracle.

LULU: [gasps]

LULU: And little Miracle begins suckling milk from Peanut, and almost immediately gains weight, strength. She loses her cough.

TERESA SMOTHERS: She turned around just like that. And she came home on the seventh day.

LULU: And as for how long this fragile little mistake lasted after she came home? Well ...

LULU: Wow. Pulling up to a gorgeous farm with purple balloons. I don't know if those are for the guest of honor. [laughs]

LULU: ... that's why we went out there to Kentucky on that hot July day: to meet Miracle for her fourth birthday.

TERESA SMOTHERS: She'll be four. Yes.

JERRY SMOTHERS: Miracle will be four.

LULU: Wow. Well, can we—can we go meet the birthday girl?

TERESA SMOTHERS: Yes.

LULU: Teresa and Jerry and their moms and son and grand niece led us outside, trailed by their dog and cat into the hot July afternoon. We crossed a big field of grass, and then Jerry unlocked a gate and led out a hefty, gray creature with donkey ears and a horse tail—which I swear she was wagging.

SMOTHERS MOTHERS: [laughs] Look at her waggle her tail!

LULU: She was no longer wobbly ...

LULU: Hi, Miracle!

LULU: ... and in fact, was so strong, she let a fully-grown radio lady climb onto her back without flinching.

LULU: Okay, that might be—that might be [laughs]. Thank you!

LULU: And that wasn't all. When we busted out the piñata we were so proud to have brought to her birthday party—a piñata not in the shape of a mule like so many piñatas are, but in the shape of a human—true to her nature ...

LULU: She's wisely not trusting it.

LULU: She stubbornly ignored it.

LULU: Oh, we're seeing mule obstiance in—in action. She like, "There's wires sticking out of that thing. I don't want it."

MOLLY SCHUMER: The mistakes are important.

LULU: Molly said she'd love to get a peek at Miracle's blood to better understand what exactly is going on with her chromosomes. And the Smothers have sent samples out to labs, but she also said in the decade and a half since she's been in college, biologists have gotten new tools that have allowed them to see something inside species' secret genetic codes that they hadn't been able to see before.

MOLLY SCHUMER: What we learn, first in plants, but then later in animals, that actually hybrids were being formed all the time.

LULU: ... that's right. It turns out the wilderness is a fantasia of hybrids: butterflies and crocodiles and grasses and trees that on the inside have been revealed to be wild mixes of species.

MOLLY SCHUMER: There's been hybridization between grizzly bears and polar bears.

LULU: Pizzly bears!

MOLLY SCHUMER: Between coyotes and wolves.

LULU: Coy-wolves!

MOLLY SCHUMER: Rainbow trout and cutthroat trout. Those species hybridize.

LULU: Is a cut-rainbow called a Skittlefish?

MOLLY SCHUMER: Skittle! Love it!

LULU: Okay. Sorry.

MOLLY SCHUMER: I will propose that.

LULU: Tell all the scientists.

MOLLY SCHUMER: Yes. I will tell them. [laughs]

LULU: There are narlugas—narwhal-belugas. And camas—camel-llamas. And some people even guess that we are hybrids with a now-extinct creature called Neanderthals. And perhaps wildest of all is that these naturally-occurring mash-ups can have babies and carry on their beautifully blended chromosomes into the future.

MOLLY SCHUMER: This is why this has been kind of such a fun field to be in now is that it's an area where I think it has changed dramatically over the past 10 or 15 years.

LULU: Molly explained that these days, scientists no longer think of hybrids as mistakes, flukes or man-made anomalies. Instead, they seem to be one of the main ways that nature species.

LULU: Hey, Miracle. Could you say goodbye?

LULU: And so the existence of Miracle isn't necessarily a case of the rules getting broken, so much as it's us having had the rules wrong.

[ALAN: [singing] Heads up! Heads up! Mind open. We will never stop searching, 'cause the world keeps changing. Heads up! Heads up! Mind open. Ears open, keep your eyes open.]

[LULU: [singing] You don’t have to tell me how easy it is to stay stuck in a box with the things you believe.]

[ALAN: [singing] I wanna break it down, wake up and reach out beyond impossibility.]

[LULU: [singing] You don't have to tell me how hard it can be to find the magic when everything feels static.]

[ALAN: [singing] But there is so much to discover if you look real close. It can seem like a miracle.]

[ALAN and LULU: [singing] Heads up! Heads up! Mind open. We will never stop searching, 'cause the world keeps changing. Heads up! Heads up! Mind open. Ears open, keep your eyes open.]

[ALAN: [singing] No one better tell us they have all the answers when nobody even knows all the questions.]

[ANA GONZÁLEZ: And we're all still learning how we should ask them.]

[ALAN: [singing] We change the rules that need to change, embrace the way mistakes are made. We break away, we're not afraid. Won't hesitate to question everything.]

[ALAN, LULU, ANA and the kids from the Music Resource Center in Charlottesville, VA: [singing] Heads up! Heads up! Mind open. Ears open, keep your eyes open.]

LULU: Alan Goffinski!

LULU: Terrestrials was created by me, Lulu Miller, with WNYC Studios. It is produced by the a-mule-zing Ana González and Alan Goffinski plus me. With help from Suzie Lechtenberg, Sarah Sandbach, Natalia Ramirez, Natalie Meade, Miriam Bernard, David Gebel, Joe Plourde and Sarita Bhatt. Sound design and additional editorial guidance by Phoebe Wang. Clumpety-clump!

LULU: Our advisors are Theanne Griffith, Aliyah Elijah, Dominique Shabazz, Liza Steinberg-Demby and Tara Welty.

LULU: Terrestrials is supported in part by Science Sandbox, an initiative of the Simons Foundation.

LULU: Special thanks to Boomer Geis, Amy Pearl, Daniel Alarcón, The Szumylo Family, Julie Abodeely and the Wheeler School, Charlottesville's Music Resource Center, Canelo Joaquin, Briana Gutierrez and the Park Equine Hospital. And that'll do it. Nothing else cool about to ... what's that?

BADGER: Excuse me, I have a question.

BADGER: Me too.

BADGER: Me three.

BADGER: Me four.

LULU: The badgers! Listeners with badgering questions for the expert. Are you ready?

JAMES REEVES: Yeah.

MOLLY SCHUMER: Yeah.

ODESSA: Hee-haw! My name is Odessa. I'm eight. Do mules say "hee-haw," or only donkeys?

JAMES REEVES: It's actually called braying. So a horse neighs and a mule brays. They've all got their own voices, same as us.

LULU: Hmm. I would have thought it would have been "nee-haw," a little hybrid of "neigh" plus "hee-haw?" But I guess that's a neigh-gative.

ERIN: Hi. I'm Erin, and I'm 35. I hear that there are more pizzly bears due to climate change. Is this true? And is this new animal here to stay?

MOLLY SCHUMER: That is a fantastic question. So it is actually true, and we're seeing this a lot in a lot of different species. And this is because with climate change, species are having to move around to find the right environments for them. So for example, you might see grizzly bears moving further north because it's less harsh in the winter. And then you can get contact between species that previously didn't have contact, and new opportunities for hybridization.

LULU: Hmm. Do you think that these polar bear/grizzly bear hybrids are here to stay?

MOLLY SCHUMER: Yeah. I mean, I think humans have been changing the environment so much that I do think that we are gonna see a lot of new hybridization events, and some of those will stick around. I—I hope the pizzly bears make it.

LULU: Do you think humans are accelerating the rate of hybrids?

MOLLY SCHUMER: Yeah. I've seen a couple of papers start to come out saying that hybridization might be increasing in frequency right now.

LULU: Hmm.

MOLLY SCHUMER: Mainly because we're just changing everything really fast.

LULU: Hmm. Oh, interesting. That's cool! But I guess the sad note on that is like, one hand I'm like, "Ooh, more zonkeys and pizzlies and ligers and a world of blends!" But is it out of this kind of desperate necessity?

MOLLY SCHUMER: Yeah.

LULU: Are sort of species leaving their ranks and coming together to combine because humans are stealing so much habitat that they have to come together to just survive? Like, is there a bittersweetness in that beauty of novelty?

MOLLY SCHUMER: Yeah, I definitely think that's bittersweet. You know, it's a result of massive changes that—that humans have—have made.

LULU: So I'll leave it there. Two roads diverging, and you can walk either one. Do nothing, and let more and more animals hybridize, making wild beasts beyond the imagination! Or do your part to try to conserve what's here, and notice all the variety that already exists alongside you.

LULU: But the weight of the world is not on your shoulders alone. Our best hope of making change is by coming together, so we've put a bunch of concrete—and even kind of fun—things we can all do to help protect the non-human life on this planet. You can find that on our website, TerrestrialsPodcast.org. We also have a very silly animation of a game show we played with Dr. Molly called "Will They Hybridize?"

LULU: That'll do it for this season of Terrestrials. If you would like this series to continue, have your adult text TIGER to 70101 for details on how to become a Lab member and support Terrestrials. The number again is 70101. Just text the word TIGER!

LULU: I cannot shut down this dance party without saying the deepest thank you to Ana González and Alan Goffinski. This show, this little world, would not exist without your immense talents. Thank you also to Chuck Cheeseman, Latif Nasser, Ellen Horne, Jad Abumrad, Soren Wheeler and the whole Radiolab crew for your support of this thing in various flavors along the way. And finally, bedazzled in rhinestone hearts thanks to Alida Goffinski, Jeff "The Earther" Matayus and Grace Miller. Y'all helped make this too.

LULU: To all two of you left still listening, if anyone tells you that they've got it all figured out, I've got news for you ...

[ALAN: [singing] They don't. Your brain weighs just three pounds and the earth would weigh Thirteen Thousand One Hundred Seventy Billion Trillion Pounds, with too many surprises to wrap my little head around.]

[ALAN: [singing] I'll take my chances that there are still surprises. This world changes suddenly and clumsily/With every discovery, every discovery.]

[CHORUS: Thirteen Thousand One Hundred Seventy Billion Trillion Pounds. Heads up! Heads up! Minds open.]

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

# included[].attributes.twitter-headline
Terrestrials 06. The Hybrid: A Miracle Mule

# included[].attributes.appearances.producers[].bio
Ana is an audio producer and host who came to WNYC in 2021 to work on Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials. Before that, she produced and hosted Mosaic, a show about immigration experiences from Rhode Island Public Radio. In a former life, she played jazz bass and thinks about everything in terms of rhythm, conversation, and harmony.

# included[].attributes.appearances.producers[].bio
Alan Goffinski (he/him), is an arts administrator, songwriter, and producer from Charlottesville VA. He is the former Executive Director of The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative and the Charlottesville Mural Project—two city-wide organizations that utilize art and culture as a way for people to better understand themselves, each other, and the world around them. He is also a founding member of the Indianapolis-based whimsical performing arts collective Know No Stranger which has been described as “Sesame Street but for adults... but also for kids.” He produced the experimental music radio program Telemetry in partnership with the University of Virginia. Early in his career, Alan spent years making music in a nationally touring indie-punk band (signed to Victory Records) prior to becoming a social worker specializing in early childhood development. He began making kid’s music under the moniker Little Skunks as a fun way to be a part of the day-to-day lives of his nieces and nephew.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].bio
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

Her book, Why Fish Don’t Exist, is an international bestseller, translated into 11 languages. It was chosen as a Best Book by The Smithsonian, NPR, The Chicago Tribune, Brainpickings, The Washington Post and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and the American Association for the Advancement of Science Book Prize. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She has also won honors from The National Academy of Sciences, the Associated Press, the National Center on Disability and Journalism, and most recently an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Swarthmore College.

She reports on a range of scientific topics with a special interest in disability, mental illness, and ecology. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She serves as a Contributing Advisor to nature magazine Orion and she was the co-founder of NPR’s Invisibilia—a radio show about psychology, emotion, and human behavior. She recently published her debut children’s book, Trucky Roads, about trucks and, you’ll never guess this… roads. She lives in the Chicago area with her wife and two sons.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].lede
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].about.body
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].about.people[].image.alt-text
Producer Sarah Qari, smiling and standing proudly in the foreground of a field of sunflowers.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].description
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].tease
Investigating a strange world.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].bio
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

Her book, Why Fish Don’t Exist, is an international bestseller, translated into 11 languages. It was chosen as a Best Book by The Smithsonian, NPR, The Chicago Tribune, Brainpickings, The Washington Post and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and the American Association for the Advancement of Science Book Prize. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She has also won honors from The National Academy of Sciences, the Associated Press, the National Center on Disability and Journalism, and most recently an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Swarthmore College.

She reports on a range of scientific topics with a special interest in disability, mental illness, and ecology. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She serves as a Contributing Advisor to nature magazine Orion and she was the co-founder of NPR’s Invisibilia—a radio show about psychology, emotion, and human behavior. She recently published her debut children’s book, Trucky Roads, about trucks and, you’ll never guess this… roads. She lives in the Chicago area with her wife and two sons.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].lede
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].about.body
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].about.people[].image.alt-text
Producer Sarah Qari, smiling and standing proudly in the foreground of a field of sunflowers.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].description
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].tease
Investigating a strange world.

# included[].attributes.body
The ocean can be a scary place: the waves are so strong, the water so deep. But surfer and illustrator AJ Dungo tells the story of an earthling who figured out how to walk on water and literally defy the rules of gravity. If you want a big SPOILER, here it is: It’s only human for the season, the grandfather of modern-day surfing, Duke Kahanamoku. Duke’s great grandniece, Heather Kina’u Paoa tells us about what Duke’s life was really like. We learn about the physics of surfing, and how surfing is an escape, not just on a spiritual level, but a physical one too. Finally, we learn how Duke’s story of learning to conquer the waves while remaining true to his Hawaiian heritage inspired AJ to get through one of the hardest times of his life.

TW: this episode deals with the loss of a loved one and grief.

Learn about the storytellers, listen to music, and dig deeper into the stories you hear on Terrestrials with activities you can do at home or in the classroom on our website, Terrestrialspodcast.org.

Watch a music video for “It Comes in Waves” and find even MORE original Terrestrials fun on our Youtube.

Badger us on Social Media: @radiolab and #TerrestrialsPodcast

Support for Terrestrials is provided by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.

More from Terrestrials

The Shovels: Dig Deeper

For each episode of Terrestrials, we provide a selection of activity sheets, drawing prompts, musical lessons, and more. We call them “shovels” because we hope they will help you (and your friends, family, students, neighbors, etc) dig more deeply into the world! You can do them at home, in the classroom, outside, or in the privacy of your own mind. We hope you enjoy!

If you want to share what you’ve made, ask an adult share it on social media using #TerrestrialsPodcast and make sure to tag @Radiolab

Draw -  Got the big feelings? Drawing can help. This week's drawing prompt from Wendy Mac at the DrawTogether podcast is a three part series called Emotional Doodles all about how to translate feelings into art (and, in turn, maybe even help you move through the hard feelings).

Play 🎶 - Learn how to play the chords to the song “IT COMES IN WAVES”

Do - Get crafty with a fun activity sheet!

This week’s storytellers are AJ Dungo and Heather Kina’u Paoa.

Want to keep learning? Check out these resources to learn about the gravity-defying history-maker, Duke Kahanamoku:

Check out Makani Tabura's Culturised podcast (about Hawaiian culture and history!)
Check out AJ Dungo’s comic book (aka graphic novel), In Waves
Watch the new documentary about Duke, Waterman

Resources on Grief:

Guide to Helping Children Cope with Grief from the Child Mind Institute is a resource available for families navigating the loss of a loved one.
When a Loved One Dies: How to Help Your Child  (for Parents) - Nemours KidsHealth
I Cannot Heal My Children’s Grief, but I Can Help Them Name It
“Do Animals Experience Grief?” from Smithsonian Magazine
A Guide for Grown-Ups Helping Children Through the Toughest Times from Sesame Street in Communities

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, self-harm, or harm to others, please get help. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 988. If you’re outside the U.S., you can visit findahelpline.com to find resources for your country.

Terrestrials is a production of WNYC Studios, created by Lulu Miller. This episode is produced by Ana González, Alan Goffinski and Lulu Miller. Original Music by Alan Goffinski. Help from Suzie Lechtenberg, Sarah Sandbach, Natalia Ramirez, and Sarita Bhatt. Fact-check by Natalie Meade. Sound design by Mira Burt-Wintonick with additional engineering by Joe Plourde. Our storytellers this week are AJ Dungo and Heather Kina’u Paoa. Transcription by Russell Gragg.

Our advisors are Theanne Griffith, Aliyah Elijah, Dominique Shabazz, John Green, Liza Steinberg-Demby, and Tara Welty.

Terrestrials is supported in part by Science Sandbox, an initiative of the Simons Foundation.

Have questions for us, badgers? Badger us away! Your parent/guardian should write to us along with you, so we know you have their permission, and for maybe even having your ideas mentioned on the show. Email terrestrials@wnyc.org

# included[].attributes.headers.brand.logo-image.alt-text
Radiolab for Kids Presents Terrestrials Logo

# included[].attributes.headers.links[].title
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.image-main.alt-text
A framing of tropical plants give way to a view of a surfer with outstretched arms as if walking on water. Behind them, a golden sunrise becomes one with the waves, painting the ocean with brilliance.

# included[].attributes.npr-analytics-dimensions[]
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.show-tease
A show where we uncover the strangeness right here on Earth

# included[].attributes.show-title
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.series[].about.body
Terrestrials is a show for people of all ages that explores the strangeness that exists right here on Earth. In each episode, host Lulu Miller (co-host of Radiolab) will introduce you to a creature or earthly phenomenon that will defy your expectations of how nature is supposed to work. Along the way, you'll encounter a chorus of experts, including scientists, surfers, hip hop artists and…a "Songbud" named Alan (indie punk musician Alan Goffinski) who creates original songs for key moments of confusion, discovery or awe. New episodes drop Thursdays. Listen in with your whole family. Or all alone.

Support for Terrestrials is provided by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation.

LISTEN TO TERRESTRIALS  | SUPPORT TERRESTRIALS | TERRESTRIALS WANTS YOUR FEEDBACK! | PRESS INQUIRIES  | BECOME A SPONSOR | CONTACT US

# included[].attributes.series[].tease
A show where we uncover the strangeness right here on Earth

# included[].attributes.series[].logo-image.alt-text
Radiolab for Kids Presents Terrestrials Logo

# included[].attributes.tease
A muscly earthling figures out a way to stand on the waves.

# included[].attributes.title
Terrestrials 05. The Water Walker: One Surfer’s Epic Escape

# included[].attributes.transcript
LULU MILLER: Three, two, one!

AJ DUNGO: Imagine that you are surrounded by a tropical landscape.

LULU: And you're waist deep in the ocean.

AJ DUNGO: You dive, and you paddle through some extremely warm water.

LULU: And as you do, your biceps grow massive, and your legs start doing a kick that almost no one on the planet knows how to do. And when you come up for air ...

AJ DUNGO: In the distance, you start to see a lump form. It starts to grow bigger and bigger.

LULU: It's a huge wave!

AJ DUNGO: And you're not afraid. So you kick hard.

LULU: And you hoist yourself up onto a huge wooden board and begin paddling toward the massive wave. And at the right moment, you rise out of the water and stand.

AJ DUNGO: It's very surprising. Like, you're sort of harnessing this energy that's been sent out through a storm, like, hundreds of miles away, and you meet it at the perfect moment. And instantly you feel weightless.

LULU: There's wind in your face.

AJ DUNGO: You're just sort of flying.

LULU: You have become ...

AJ DUNGO: Duke Kahanamoku! The father of modern surfing.

LULU: Okay, now is the part where I make you sing the theme song with me.

AJ DUNGO: [laughs]

LULU: You ready?

AJ DUNGO: Okay.

LULU: [singing] "Terrestrials. Terrestrials. We are not the worst we are the ...

AJ DUNGO: Best?

LULU: "Bestrials." Yeah!

AJ DUNGO: [laughs] Perfect!

LULU: Terrestrials is a show where we uncover the strangeness waiting right here on Earth, and sometimes break out into song.

[Theme song: There's so much to discover when you listen close. Terrestrials. Terrestrials. So drop in and surf the crest-rials! Terrestrials. Terrestrials!]

LULU: Good voices not required. I am your host, Lulu Miller, joined as always by my Songbud ...

ALAN GOFFINSKI: What's up?

LULU: ... Alan.

ALAN: What is up?

LULU: [laughs] And today we are telling the story of our only human for this season, Duke Kahanamoku, the man who about a hundred years ago introduced surfing to the world, and in the process gave millions of people stuck on land a new way to escape.

LULU: And I do want to mention that there are parts of today's story that deal with something sad—including someone who died and the feelings of grief that come afterwards. If that isn't something you want to listen to today, just hang on 'til next week for our season finale. And if you are still here, let's meet today's storyteller: AJ Dungo!

AJ DUNGO: That's me.

LULU: He is a skateboarder.

AJ DUNGO: A surfer.

LULU: An illustrator. And he recently wrote a whole comic book.

AJ DUNGO: I did a ton of research.

LULU: A totally true comic book all about Duke.

LULU: Well, before we get going on Duke's story, can I just ask have you ever had any cool animal encounters while surfing?

AJ DUNGO: Oh my goodness. Every time I go out, we see something special. I've seen seals, stingrays, a baby whale.

LULU: Wow!

AJ DUNGO: Dolphins are a huge one. They will ride a wave.

LULU: Hmm.

AJ DUNGO: I've been in situations where I see a whole pod coming straight towards me. The times that it's happened I've ridden with them. And it's so cool ...

LULU: No!

AJ DUNGO: ... they, like ...

LULU: No. No. What?

AJ DUNGO: Yeah!

LULU: Wait. So, like, you're riding, and are they—I'm picturing you, like, in a posse and they're, like, on either side and you're all riding. Is it kind of like that?

AJ DUNGO: It's more like fear driven. Like, I'm trying to get away from them. Like, I don't—I'm just scared that I'll be attacked, or ...

LULU: Okay, I'll change the musical moment there. I was thinking it was like "Ahhhh," but it's like, "Uh, uh, uh, uh."

AJ DUNGO: Yeah.

LULU: Wait, and so—and are they—what do you mean they're riding?

AJ DUNGO: You see their shadow beneath the water, and they come towards you. They'll turn really quickly and exit through the back of the wave. You see them get air. And, you know, as a surfer we're thinking, like, you guys are missing the best part of the wave, and maybe they're thinking you guys are missing the best part of the wave!

LULU: [laughs] Did you grow up loving the water?

AJ DUNGO: No. No, no, not at all. I was terrified. I would just sort of sink. The feeling of starting to swallow water and trying to open your eyes in chlorinated water, and it just burns. It wasn't fun to get out of your comfort zone.

LULU: I mean, How did you finally get past that?

AJ DUNGO: That would be my late partner, Kristen.

LULU: "Late" meaning she got sick and passed away.

AJ DUNGO: We were high school sweethearts. And she was this fearless, confident, beautiful surfer.

LULU: And she didn't stop surfing, even after she had a surgery that made her lose her leg.

AJ DUNGO: I think it was seeing her pick up a board and go out and charge with a smile on her face, and ruin her prosthetic leg in the process. I was like, "Man!" When you're in the presence of someone like that you want to impress them, obviously.

LULU: So he finally put his fear of water aside, hopped onto a surfboard and wobbly tried to stand so that Kristen would think he was cool.

AJ DUNGO: Yeah! [laughs]

LULU: It worked. And when AJ thinks about how they were able to fall in love while standing on surfboards, and then later, how he was later able to get through the worst hurt of his life in losing her, he sees Duke.

AJ DUNGO: Despite time and space there is a connection.

LULU: To understand what he means, we need to go way back over a hundred years ago, to a time when there probably weren't any surfboards in Southern California. We're gonna zoom thousands of miles over the ocean to the island of Oahu in Hawaii. The year is 1890, and the island is a lot quieter than it is now. And a little baby named Duke is born into a big family.

HEATHER KINA'U' PAOA: In the morning through the windows, they'd say "Whooeee!"

LULU: [laughs]

HEATHER KINA'U' PAOA: "Anybody home? "Whooeeee!"

LULU: This ...

HEATHER KINA'U' PAOA: Let's go to the beach!

LULU: ... is Heather ...

HEATHER KINA'U' PAOA: Kin au'u Paoa. Duke Kahanamoku is a great grand uncle to me.

LULU: She grew up with a big framed portrait of Duke hanging on the wall, and hearing stories about him from people who knew him well.

LULU: Do you think Duke was ever afraid of the water?

HEATHER KINA'U' PAOA: [laughs, Ah, no!

LULU: She tells me that from the time Duke was tiny ...

HEATHER KINA'U' PAOA: They lived right on the beach.

LULU: ... his dad and uncle would paddle him out in a canoe and toss him into the waves.

HEATHER KINA'U' PAOA: You know, their playground was the ocean.

AJ DUNGO: I want to read you this passage.

LULU: AJ pulls out something that Duke himself had written.

MAKANI TABURA: "I hardly remember whether I learned how to walk or swim first."

LULU: Reading Duke's words for the rest of this episode is Hawaiian radio host, Makani Tabura.

MAKANI TABURA: "Out of the water, I am nothing."

AJ DUNGO: It's like someone who's so much more comfortable in water than land.

LULU: As a little boy, Duke would bodyboard on flattened kerosene cans.

HEATHER KINA'U' PAOA: Whooeeee! You're always gonna figure out something to do to ride the waves.

LULU: And as he got older, he started using tools to shape massive planks of wood that would help him harness the power of the wave to ride for even longer—and faster!

AJ DUNGO: He had to gather the wood and then he smoothed it out.

HEATHER KINA'U' PAOA: Whooeeee!

LULU: Now Duke by no means invented surfing—it had been around for hundreds of years in Hawaii and in other places.

AJ DUNGO: It could have originated in South America, where people would ride the waves on these little reed boats called caballitos.

LULU: Others say it started in Polynesia or Africa. It's impossible to know for sure when or where the first human realized that by slipping a board beneath them they could stand on water. But by the time Duke appeared, even though surfing was still unknown in most parts of the world, it had become a significant and even spiritual part of Hawaiian culture.

MAKANI TABURA: "Surfing is the greatest thrill of my life. Every day of the year, the water is 70 degrees, day and night. The waves roll high. I take my sled, coast down the face of the big waves that are rolled in at Waikiki."

LULU: But as Duke turned 11 and 12, this sacred part of his life came under threat. Around that time, more and more settlers and tourists were coming to the island, grabbing up land and building strange new hotels and schools. And with them came new laws and rules about how native Hawaiians should live their lives. Some of the people taking power looked down on surfing and tried to discourage it.

AJ DUNGO: They're being told their way of life is incorrect. There has to be an activity for someone to escape, and for him it was surfing and returning to the water.

MAKANI TABURA: "On a board I felt like the boss man."

LULU: Duke himself, put it this way ...

MAKANI TABURA: "I'm in charge when I make the big wave do what I want."

LULU: No one could take surfing from him. And the more he paddled away from life on the island, the bigger his muscles grew, 'til by the time he was 18 ...

AJ DUNGO: He is like six foot, super burly. Like, very athletic looking, muscular.

LULU: And one day he notices a swim race set up in Honolulu Harbor, and figures just for kicks [laughs] that he'll compete. So he hops in line next to a bunch of super burly swim team types, and ...

AJ DUNGO: He blows them away!

LULU: His time breaks a world record!

AJ DUNGO: He blew people away so much so that, like, the governing bodies on the mainland in the States wouldn't accept the record times.

LULU: Why not?

AJ DUNGO: I mean, there was a lot of racism.

HEATHER KINA'U' PAOA: Yes, they didn't believe him.

LULU: Heather and AJ explain that sports officials on the mainland doubted the ability of Hawaiian people to properly keep score. So Duke's friends and family rallied behind him and raised enough money to send him on a boat and on a train out to Pittsburgh where those sports officials could see with their own eyes what he could do.

AJ DUNGO: At first it was a disaster. They actually had to pull him out of the water. His legs cramped up and he almost drowned.

LULU: Oh my gosh!

AJ DUNGO: He was extremely jetlagged. And also, if you picture an indoor pool with everyone around smoking cigars so it's completely filled with smoke.

LULU: Eww!

AJ DUNGO: Duke said that he could taste the smoke in the water.

LULU: How gross! [laughs] What happens next?

AJ DUNGO: His friends, they started playing ukuleles that night and it sort of like lightened his spirits and sort of brought him back to a solid, stable mental state where he could sort of refocus.

LULU: So the next day, all rested up, he gives it another shot. And ...

AJ DUNGO: He wins!

LULU: He beats everyone in that pool. And then he does it in the next race and the next one and the next one, until he makes it all the way to the Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden, where ...

[Announcer: På ditt märke. Få så gå!]

LULU: He wins the gold.

[Announcer: Hurrah! Hurrah!]

LULU: It turned out that all the while he'd been surfing, escaping the crummy parts of life on the island, he had invented a new way of kicking.

AJ DUNGO: The Kahanamoku kick!

LULU: Michael Phelps uses it.

AJ DUNGO: It's like a burst.

LULU: And so he keeps swimming professionally. He goes to the next Olympics and the next one. He wins gold after gold after gold!

AJ DUNGO: Yup.

LULU: It feels to me like you don't super care about his Olympic swimming so much.

AJ DUNGO: Yeah, I mean ... [laughs]

LULU: So, like, we'll just know that's happening—splash, woo! Splash, woo! Splash, woo!

LULU: The thing that AJ cares about, the reason why Duke's story begins to have a direct effect on his life is because of what Duke does outside of that Olympic arena. What that was, after this short break.

***

LULU: Terrestrials is back. Duke Kahanamoku is starting to sound like a one-man percussion section. He's got so many gold medals hanging around his neck, clankety-clank—eh. Anyway, as he's competing as a professional swimmer, he's traveling to all these new places: San Francisco, Australia. Places with …

AJ DUNGO: Waves.

LULU: New waves. New watery hills to sled.

MAKANI TABURA: "I was fired up with a mania for improving my boards, getting the most out of the surf."

LULU: And so as soon as he was done competing, he'd run out into the ocean in front of beachgoers who'd never seen surfing.

AJ DUNGO: In Australia, I think a lot of people had seen surfing for the first time from him. There was like a story about him not having a surfboard, but someone brought him, like, an ironing board.

LULU: [laughs] Really?

AJ DUNGO: Yeah.

LULU: And word spread.

AJ DUNGO: You know, thousands of people would come to the beach to see him.

LULU: To watch this human disappear into the waves, and then suddenly start hovering above them.

AJ DUNGO: If you read the way that they describe what they're seeing, it's like seeing someone walk on the moon.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, spectator: What a picture he presented as he stood upright, the breakers curling beneath him, a smile on his face. So lightning-like was the movement that it might have been flying through space."]

LULU: Okay. And now I'm gonna turn to my scary page in my notebook where I've been scribbling things about the physics of surfing.

AJ DUNGO: Mm-hmm.

LULU: Because I'm trying to understand what's going on that allows humans to stand on water. Do you have any understanding of how the heck it is possible scientifically or how it works?

AJ DUNGO: There's a few important things to have a rideable wave. The first thing would be swell.

LULU: Swell!

AJ DUNGO: [laughs]

LULU: AJ explains there are so many factors at play: the swell of the wave, the speed of the wave, the slope of the ocean floor, the size of your surfboard.

AJ DUNGO: Your height, your weight, your body type.

LULU: How gravity is pushing down and buoyancy is pushing up and thrust is pushing forward and drag is going back.

AJ DUNGO: Another factor is wind. So if there's wind blowing out to sea, that's the sort of condition that you really hope for.

LULU: That's weird! Wouldn't wind coming from the sand slow the wave down and kill its mojo?

AJ DUNGO: Well that's kind of like what you want because if you have onshore winds, which is the wind blowing toward you, there's nothing to hold up the water to make it into that perfect curl, that crest.

LULU: And if you zoom into the crest, this is where things get really wild. Because it turns out in a wave, most of the water particles aren't really moving that much.

AJ DUNGO: The particles in the water are kind of staying in place, and this mysterious orb of energy is just passing through.

LULU: Hmm.

AJ DUNGO: Making it seem like it's undulating.

LULU: Except, AJ explains, at the crest.

AJ DUNGO: The little white part that you see, that's where the water particles are undergoing their greatest acceleration. And that makes them faster than the underlying wave. So they're shooting, like, they're flying off the top of the wave before falling under gravity's influence.

LULU: So they just get a momentary break from gravity?

AJ DUNGO: Yeah, they—they're sort of in their own moment.

LULU: That is thrilling to think that for a moment, that tip of the water, that crest, the white part where it's breaking, there is an escape—not just in a spiritual way. Not just in an emotional way but, like, physically.

AJ DUNGO: Yeah. You can see it. Like, you can visually see them rushing ahead of the rest of the wave.

LULU: So back to Duke, sea spray on his face, hurtling toward the Australian shore, looking like a wizard hovering over those waves, that knowledge, this complicated set of physics that scientists are just barely able to figure out but Duke had mastered, instead of hoarding it to himself and probably earning fame for looking like he had some magic trick, he shared it.

LULU: So many of the photos of Duke's later life show him teaching people how to surf, bringing others onto his board, sometimes onto his shoulders.

LULU: Do you have any mixed emotions about him sharing surfing?

AJ DUNGO: No, no!

HEATHER KINA'U' PAOA: Absolutely not! You can't help but to share it.

AJ DUNGO: If you can spread some happiness, that's so much more fun than trying to keep it all to yourself. So I really respect what Duke did, taking something that was sacred to his people and sharing with the world.

LULU: And fun wasn't the only thing he spread. One day at Newport Beach, Duke saw a ship go down in a storm, and he got on his surfboard, paddled out, and ended up saving eight people's lives who were drowning. He's the reason why lifeguards now use surfboards today. And AJ, even though they never walked the Earth at the same time, kind of knows what it feels like to be saved by Duke.

AJ DUNGO: He kind of changed my life, and it's all from surfing.

LULU: Without Duke, AJ may have never gotten over his fear of water, may have never been able to step on a surfboard and make Kristen fall in love with him. And then later, find a way through the pain after she died. AJ says that after losing Kristen, surfing was one of the only things he could do to feel okay.

AJ DUNGO: I think of Kristen often when I'm surfing. She's very much integrated and a part of the places that I visit.

LULU: Hmm.

AJ DUNGO: Memories sort of flood in and come bubbling up.

LULU: A song, he says, a special song that the two of them shared together, sometimes comes bubbling up too.

AJ DUNGO: It goes, "I love you for sentimental reasons. I hope you do believe me. I'll give you my heart." [laughs] It's a song that brings me a lot of comfort.

LULU: And out there, surrounded by the music of the waves, he says it's like he escapes for just an instant the world in which she isn't here.

AJ DUNGO: Yeah. It's sort of time spent together.

LULU: And he can imagine an alternate universe where Duke didn't share surfing, and he's stuck on the shore with no way to heal. But thankfully, that wasn't the choice Duke made. And today out at Waikiki Beach, there stands a larger-than-life bronze statue of Duke and his surfboard, welcoming people out into the water, out toward his true ...

MAKANI TABURA: "Home."

[ALAN: [singing] A deep breath, the swell begins to curl and crest. I am surrounded by the sunset but I'm alone in my own head. And churning like the ocean, there's an ache I can't let it go. 'Cause I've got sentimental reasons to hold on, oh.]

[ALAN: [singing] Hold on now. Sometimes I need this escape. I need this escape. Yeah, it comes in waves.]

[ALAN: [singing] A deep breath, the swell begins to curl and crest. I could sink just like a stone inside the ocean of my chest. And I'm floating in this moment, my mind swimming in the past. And I hold a deep connection to all that's lost and all that's left.]

[ALAN: [singing] For a moment I feel weightless like I'm walking on water, with the ocean there beneath me and the wind against my face. Every memory flows through me as the crest begins to break. I am plunged under the weight. Yeah, it comes in waves.]

[ALAN: [singing] Hold on now. Sometimes I need this escape, I need this escape. Yeah, it comes in waves. Hold on now. Sometimes I need this escape. Yeah it comes in waves.]

LULU: Alan "Making us feel the feels" Goffinski.

LULU: Terrestrials was created by me, Lulu Miller, with WNYC Studios. It is produced by the super gnar gnar excellent radical, Ana González and Alan Goffinski—plus me. With help from Suzie Lechtenberg, Sarah Sandbach, Natalia Ramirez, Miriam Bernard, Natalie Meade, Joe Plourde and Sarita Bhatt. With sound design and additional editorial guidance from Mira Burt-Wintonick.

LULU: Terrestrials is supported in part by Science Sandbox, an initiative of the Simons Foundation. Our advisors are: Theanne Griffith, Aliyah Elijah, Tara Welty, Liza Steinberg Demby and Dominique Shabazz.

LULU: Special thanks this episode to Siya Sharma-Gaines, Isabella Leonardo, Jacklyn Kim, Alex Neason, Makani Tabura, and the good folks at the Child Mind Institute, especially Amani Monsour and Joanna R. Stern.

LULU: And biggest cowabunga to AJ Dungo! His graphic novel about surfing and grief and Duke is one of the most gorgeous things I have ever read. It's called "In Waves." Run, don't walk, to get it. And that'll do it. Grab your boards, get outside, stop listening to radio, there's nothing else cool about to happen.

LULU: What's that?

BADGER: Excuse me, I have a question.

BADGER: Me too.

BADGER: Me three.

BADGER: Me four.

LULU: The badgers! They're listeners with badgering questions for the expert.

AJ DUNGO: Sounds excellent.

LULU: Okay, here we go.

FRANNY: My name is Franny. I'm six years old. Are the shark's teeth long?

AJ DUNGO: I think it depends on the shark. But the shark teeth that I've seen, they're pretty small. And I guess they replace them often, so ...

LULU: Really?

AJ DUNGO: You could find them in the water. Yeah, they sort of shed their teeth all the time.

LULU: Huh! I wonder if there's a shark tooth fairy.

AJ DUNGO: [laughs]

FIVEL: Hi, my name is Fivel. I'm five years old, and my question is: what's your weirdest thought you've had in the water by yourself?

AJ DUNGO: Kind of a gross side note, but ...

LULU: Yes, please. That's what we're here for.

AJ DUNGO: I would think—traveling when I was young, like, we'd go to Niagara Falls or we'd go to Yosemite and, like, I would just spit in the water and be like, it's traveling all over the world now. Like, I'm all over the world.

LULU: [laughs] Like, through the waterways because it's going out to the ocean, and then some waves will pull it over there to the continent of Africa, and some will go up to the Arctic, and AJ is now connected with everyone?

AJ DUNGO: [laughs] Yeah.

LULU: What a deep thought! You really thought that? You weren't just like "Hah! Here's a loogie!"

AJ DUNGO: No, I was an introspective four year old. I would think about where it would travel, and eventually maybe it'll come back to me after it's gone around the entire world.

LULU: You'll be taking a shower someday and you're like, "Four-year-old me is saying 'Hi!'"

AJ DUNGO: Yeah, exactly.

TERESA: Hi! My name is Teresa. Next month I will be 107 years old.

LULU: [gasps] That's over a hundred spins around the sun!

TERESA: Does the moon have an effect on surfing?

AJ DUNGO: Yeah, definitely. So the moon affects the tides, and people can go surf on a full moon out at night.

LULU: Oh!

AJ DUNGO: Like, there's enough light out there you can go surf in the moonlight, literally.

LULU: Oh, that sounds like so relaxing and surreal and incredible.

AJ DUNGO: People love it because there's no one else out. It's just you and the waves.

FYNN: Hi, my name is Fynn, and I'm 12. And I have a question: will my life be worse because I lost my dad?

AJ DUNGO: I'm really sorry to hear about that, Fynn. It'll be difficult. I think it's important to surround yourself with people that love you and you know that you can trust and share things with. So be sure to ask for help when you need it. Man, it's hard. I—I had a teacher that had lost his wife, and when I—when Kristen passed away, he said something that really—it stuck with me. He said that you may never experience closure. You just become familiar with the absence." There's gonna be a lot of good that will come in your life and, you know, you have memories you made with your father that stay with you forever. So you can kind of have some solace with that.

LULU: That'll do it for today. If you are struggling with sad feelings, don't forget to ask for help to the friends and family in your life. You can also call this 1-800-273-8255 to talk to a friendly voice at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline free of charge. Any time. We've put that number as well as some other resources for talking about and living with grief, as well as some fun stuff: drawing prompts and animations that can get you thinking more deeply about surfing and escape. All that is on our website: TerrestrialsPodcast.org.

LULU: Thank you so much for listening. Join us next week for the grand finale of this season of Terrestrials when the Songbud and I drive down to Kentucky to come face to snout with a creature that scientists thought belonged only in the realm of fantasy.

LULU: Catch you in a couple spins of this watery old planet of ours.

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

# included[].attributes.twitter-headline
Terrestrials 05. The Water Walker: One Surfer’s Epic Escape

# included[].attributes.appearances.producers[].bio
Ana is an audio producer and host who came to WNYC in 2021 to work on Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials. Before that, she produced and hosted Mosaic, a show about immigration experiences from Rhode Island Public Radio. In a former life, she played jazz bass and thinks about everything in terms of rhythm, conversation, and harmony.

# included[].attributes.appearances.producers[].bio
Alan Goffinski (he/him), is an arts administrator, songwriter, and producer from Charlottesville VA. He is the former Executive Director of The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative and the Charlottesville Mural Project—two city-wide organizations that utilize art and culture as a way for people to better understand themselves, each other, and the world around them. He is also a founding member of the Indianapolis-based whimsical performing arts collective Know No Stranger which has been described as “Sesame Street but for adults... but also for kids.” He produced the experimental music radio program Telemetry in partnership with the University of Virginia. Early in his career, Alan spent years making music in a nationally touring indie-punk band (signed to Victory Records) prior to becoming a social worker specializing in early childhood development. He began making kid’s music under the moniker Little Skunks as a fun way to be a part of the day-to-day lives of his nieces and nephew.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].bio
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

Her book, Why Fish Don’t Exist, is an international bestseller, translated into 11 languages. It was chosen as a Best Book by The Smithsonian, NPR, The Chicago Tribune, Brainpickings, The Washington Post and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and the American Association for the Advancement of Science Book Prize. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She has also won honors from The National Academy of Sciences, the Associated Press, the National Center on Disability and Journalism, and most recently an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Swarthmore College.

She reports on a range of scientific topics with a special interest in disability, mental illness, and ecology. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She serves as a Contributing Advisor to nature magazine Orion and she was the co-founder of NPR’s Invisibilia—a radio show about psychology, emotion, and human behavior. She recently published her debut children’s book, Trucky Roads, about trucks and, you’ll never guess this… roads. She lives in the Chicago area with her wife and two sons.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].lede
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].about.body
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].about.people[].image.alt-text
Producer Sarah Qari, smiling and standing proudly in the foreground of a field of sunflowers.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].description
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].tease
Investigating a strange world.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].bio
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

Her book, Why Fish Don’t Exist, is an international bestseller, translated into 11 languages. It was chosen as a Best Book by The Smithsonian, NPR, The Chicago Tribune, Brainpickings, The Washington Post and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and the American Association for the Advancement of Science Book Prize. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She has also won honors from The National Academy of Sciences, the Associated Press, the National Center on Disability and Journalism, and most recently an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Swarthmore College.

She reports on a range of scientific topics with a special interest in disability, mental illness, and ecology. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She serves as a Contributing Advisor to nature magazine Orion and she was the co-founder of NPR’s Invisibilia—a radio show about psychology, emotion, and human behavior. She recently published her debut children’s book, Trucky Roads, about trucks and, you’ll never guess this… roads. She lives in the Chicago area with her wife and two sons.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].lede
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].about.body
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].about.people[].image.alt-text
Producer Sarah Qari, smiling and standing proudly in the foreground of a field of sunflowers.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].description
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].tease
Investigating a strange world.

# included[].attributes.body
Over a billion lightyears ago, in the darkness of outer space, a collision of black holes sent out a fleet of invisible waves that were headed right toward planet Earth. The waves were so powerful they could ripple spacetime but most people on Earth didn't believe the waves were real. SPOILER ALERT: The waves are called gravitational waves and…they are real! Astrophysicist Dr. Wanda Díaz Merced tells the story of what happened when they hit Earth in 2015 and how scientists came to learn to use senses beyond eyesight to detect the waves. We also learn from Dr. Stavros Katsanevas about the building of a giant gravitational wave catcher called “The Interferometer.” This episode also explores how to persist in the face of doubt as we learn Wanda's tale of going blind and learning how to listen to the stars.

Learn about the storytellers, listen to music, and dig deeper into the stories you hear on Terrestrials with activities you can do at home or in the classroom on our website, Terrestrialspodcast.org.

Watch the interferometer come to life, disco style, and find even MORE original Terrestrials fun on our Youtube.

Badger us on Social Media: @radiolab and #TerrestrialsPodcast

Support for Terrestrials is provided by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.

More from Terrestrials

The Shovels: Dig Deeper

For each episode of Terrestrials, we provide a selection of activity sheets, drawing prompts, musical lessons, and more. We call them “shovels” because we hope they will help you (and your friends, family, students, neighbors, etc) dig more deeply into the world! You can do them at home, in the classroom, outside, or in the privacy of your own mind. We hope you enjoy!
If you want to share what you’ve made, ask an adult share it on social media using #TerrestrialsPodcast and make sure to tag @Radiolab

Draw -  Use your ears to draw! In this very special drawing prompt, Wendy Mac and the DrawTogether team pull in an actual rockstar to play you various favorite sounds to draw. It's a feast for the mind, ears, and hands. Grab a pencil, pen, crayon, marker, anything, and check it out here!

Play 🎶 - Learn how to play the chords to the song “UNIMAGINABLE”

Do - Get crafty with a fun activity sheet!

This week’s storyteller is Dr. Wanda Díaz Merced.

Want to keep learning? Check out these resources to learn about the time-bending power that is the gravitational wave:

Get to Wanda a little better; watch her TED talk!
Take a tour of the world’s first interferometer! (Free monthly tours in person in Richland, WA)
Train yourself to use sound for signal detection in astronomy.
Learn more about asteroseismology with the wonderful Hank Green!
Spooked by the idea of the infinite universe? Listen to John Green’s “Against Nihilism” (probably best for 13 and up)!

Terrestrials is a production of WNYC Studios, created by Lulu Miller. This episode is produced by Ana González, Alan Goffinski and Lulu Miller. Original Music by Alan Goffinski. Help from Suzie Lechtenberg, Sarah Sandbach, Natalia Ramirez, and Sarita Bhatt. Fact-check by Natalie Meade. Sound design by Phoebe Wang with additional engineering by Joe Plourde. Our storytellers this week are Dr. Wanda Díaz Merced and Dr. Stavros Katsanevas. Transcription by Caleb Codding.

Our advisors are Theanne Griffith, Aliyah Elijah, Dominique Shabazz, John Green, Liza Steinberg-Demby, Alice Wong, and Tara Welty.

Terrestrials is supported in part by Science Sandbox, an initiative of the Simons Foundation.

Have questions for us, badgers? Badger us away! Your parent/guardian should write to us along with you, so we know you have their permission, and for maybe even having your ideas mentioned on the show. Email terrestrials@wnyc.org

# included[].attributes.headers.brand.logo-image.alt-text
Radiolab for Kids Presents Terrestrials Logo

# included[].attributes.headers.links[].title
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.image-main.alt-text
As waves cascade upon the sand, a figure tows the line between land and sea. The brilliant night sky bleeds from the vast universe into the waves and onto their toes.

# included[].attributes.npr-analytics-dimensions[]
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.show-tease
A show where we uncover the strangeness right here on Earth

# included[].attributes.show-title
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.series[].about.body
Terrestrials is a show for people of all ages that explores the strangeness that exists right here on Earth. In each episode, host Lulu Miller (co-host of Radiolab) will introduce you to a creature or earthly phenomenon that will defy your expectations of how nature is supposed to work. Along the way, you'll encounter a chorus of experts, including scientists, surfers, hip hop artists and…a "Songbud" named Alan (indie punk musician Alan Goffinski) who creates original songs for key moments of confusion, discovery or awe. New episodes drop Thursdays. Listen in with your whole family. Or all alone.

Support for Terrestrials is provided by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation.

LISTEN TO TERRESTRIALS  | SUPPORT TERRESTRIALS | TERRESTRIALS WANTS YOUR FEEDBACK! | PRESS INQUIRIES  | BECOME A SPONSOR | CONTACT US

# included[].attributes.series[].tease
A show where we uncover the strangeness right here on Earth

# included[].attributes.series[].logo-image.alt-text
Radiolab for Kids Presents Terrestrials Logo

# included[].attributes.tease
An invisible entity journeys to Planet Earth and literally rocks our world.

# included[].attributes.title
Terrestrials 04. The Unimaginable: How Gravitational Waves (Literally) Rocked Our World

# included[].attributes.transcript
LULU MILLER: Three, two, one.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Let's imagine that you are invisible.

LULU: And you're soaring through outer space.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Moving at the speed of light.

LULU: And you fly, you dip up and down ...

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Bending ...

LULU: Up and down.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Like a—like a wave.

LULU: And you are ...

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Powerful!

LULU: When you hit nearby planets, you stretch and squeeze them like play-doh, sending ripples through space and even ...

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Having an effect on time. Mm-hmm.

LULU: And as rocks and stars and time itself apparently, tremble in your wake ...

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: You became a gravitational wave.

LULU: How do you say that in Spanish, by the way, gravitational wave?

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Onda gravitacional.

LULU: Onda. Onda gravitacional?

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Very good! Perfecto!

LULU: [laughs] Gracias! All right, well now is the time when I try to make you sing the theme song with me.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Sí, cómo es—how is the song?

LULU: Okay. "Terrestrials. Terrestrials. We are not the worst, we are the ..."

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: And what do I say?

LULU: [sings] "Bestrials!"

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: [laughs]

LULU: Terrestrials is a show where we uncover the strangeness waiting right here on Earth, and sometimes break out into song.

[Theme song: There's so much to discover when you listen close. Terrestrials. Terrestrials. This time we get celestial.]

ALAN GOFFINSKI: Meaning the stuff up there in the sky, like stars, moons, suns and, you know, outer space stuff.

[Theme song: Terrestrials. Terrestrials!]

LULU: Good voices not required. I am your host, Lulu Miller, joined as always by my Songbud ...

ALAN: Hello, hello!

LULU: Alan.

ALAN: Y hola a todos!

LULU: And ...

ANA GONZÁLEZ: Hola, Wanda. ¿Cómo estás?

LULU: Producer Ana, here to help me occasionally translate our very special guest, Dr. Wanda Díaz Merced.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Ciao!

LULU: Ciao!

LULU: Dr. Wanda is an astrophysicist, and she's joining us today from her high security space observatory to tell us this story about a pack of gravitational waves that were headed right for planet Earth, only very few people on Earth believed the waves were actually coming because we couldn't see them.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: So let's—let's do this. I'm ready.

LULU: Okay. So our story begins in the dark—the darkness of outer space, 1.3 billion light years ago, when suddenly ...

[crash sound]

LULU: ... there's a crash!

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Oof! It was very powerful.

LULU: Two giant black holes collided. And out of that collision came gravitational waves. Picture them like the ripples that come after you drop a pebble in a pond, only these waves can ripple space-time, meaning they stretch and squeeze anything in their path be it stars, planets or even time itself. And some of these incredibly powerful and fast waves were headed right for planet Earth.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Yes. Sorry.

LULU: [laughs] Uh oh!

LULU: Now no one on Earth knew the waves were coming for them because there was no one on Earth yet. But even once humans appeared, they still had no idea that even a single wave was headed our way because ...

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: It doesn't fall into what we can perceive with—como se dice—with the thing I have on my face. Como ...

ANA: Eye?

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: The eyes!

ANA: [laughs]

LULU: Thanks, Ana.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: The human eyes, sí. Forgive me!

LULU: And so we all walked around with our human eyes not seeing these waves headed our way, until one dude, instead of using his eyes to look for what was out there, used ...

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: His imagination.

ALAN: Hmm ...

LULU: This guy's name, by the way, was ...

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Albert Einstein.

LULU: Maybe you've heard of him? Big hair, a little bowtie. He conjured up this idea of spooky, invisible waves that could bend both space and time.

ALAN: [imitating Einstein] What should I call them?

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Gravitational waves!

LULU: But very few people believed the waves were actually real. And then his time on Earth ran out. But in his wake, every so often someone would read his work and believe.

STAVROS KATSANEVAS: Yes, yes.

LULU: Like this guy, Dr. Stavros Katsanevas ...

STAVROS KATSANEVAS: Because I've seen the equations.

LULU: ... a scientist from Greece who believed in Einstein's idea so deeply, he began standing up in front of meetings of fancy government officials ...

STAVROS KATSANEVAS: In front of the unbelievers.

LULU: ... saying that he could prove the waves were out there if they would just give him millions of dollars to build a machine that was the size of a shopping mall and filled with ...

STAVROS KATSANEVAS: Lasers.

LULU: And while Stavros joined the frontlines of scientists saying that with the right machine they could prove the waves were real ...

STAVROS KATSANEVAS: For 40 years, we were fighting.

LULU: ... a girl was born in Puerto Rico.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: I was born long, long after Albert Einstein.

LULU: [laughs]

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: In 1974.

LULU: In a little town called Gurabo, that was alive with things she couldn't see.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: During the nighttime, we would hear the coquís making the sound [coquí, coquí].

LULU: Little tree frogs.

[coquí, coquí]

LULU: And she began to wonder about the things that existed beyond the coquís.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: I do remember we went to the island of Culebra.

LULU: The things above the coquís.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: There is no light pollution at all.

LULU: And one night on the beach ...

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: I looked up, and I saw so many stars. So many! It was—it was like someone took a brush, dipped it in white paint, and then just splashed the brush on dark.

LULU: Huh.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: On a very black background.

LULU: Like, just a big splatter all across the night sky? Like, it was just more stars than you'd ever seen?

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Sí! And for some reason, I felt closer to them.

LULU: But as Wanda was looking at those bright stars, dark spots were closing in. She didn't tell anyone at first that she was going blind. And the less she could see the world around her, the more she felt ...

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Lost.

LULU: But she didn't want to give up on those stars and thinking about the questions they brought alive inside her, so when she got to college she took physics classes. And while she couldn't see the words in her textbooks anymore, she figured could record audio of her professors teaching. Only when she got home to play the tapes back and study, she just heard ...

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Today we are discussing ... [sound of chalk on a blackboard] ... Gauss's equation.

[sound of chalk on a blackboard]

LULU: She could hear the chalk writing on the blackboard, but had no way of knowing what the writing said.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Like, I'm thinking "What equation?" Because Gauss had a number of equations. And then you hear the chalk circling, "Shhhh."

LULU: Was there ever a moment where you started to worry you would not be able to do science?

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Sí. That feeling of impossibility really kept me—kept me searching and searching and searching and trying and trying and trying and repeating class after class after class, regardless how much my lecturers would laugh at me.

LULU: Hmm. They'd laugh?

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Yes, they did.

LULU: "You should change your major," they'd say. "You'll never be a blind astrophysicist."

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: But I remember that my mentor, Dr. Daisaku Ikeda, that he said, "Let them say what they will. Whatever they're saying, it tells more about them than about you."

LULU: So Wanda kept ...

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Searching and searching and searching. And searching and searching and searching. Trying and trying and trying.

LULU: And then one day, she meets up with her really good friend.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Emilio, who knew that I was losing my sight.

LULU: And he was holding in his hand this really old device that he wanted to give to her called a radio.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: It's a radio receiver that receives the waves that are emitted by an antenna, like the radio station.

LULU: Only this radio wasn't picking up the hottest Puerto Rican tracks of the '90s coming from radio stations. It was able to hear things beyond the Earth.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: It was capable of detecting things like, for example, emissions from the sun, and also the galactic background.

LULU: Wait. So like, you're hearing that in real time?

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Yes.

LULU: [gasps]

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: I was hearing it!

LULU: Wanda played us the sound of a bit of energy leaving Jupiter.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: And when I heard that, I thought there is a space for me in this science.

LULU: So Wanda keeps listening to the night sky. She learns that she can hear the swooshes of comets and bangs of faraway collisions and rumbles of star earthquakes.

LULU: Which are a thing, and I guess should be called starquakes?

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: [laughs] Sí!

LULU: And while other astronomers are straining through telescopes and computer screens to make out little pinpricks of light, Wanda is grooving out in her headphones, listening to the chorus of information coming from space, earning her PhD, landing at a lab at Harvard's Smithsonian Center.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Mm-hmm.

LULU: And at some point, she comes across the idea of gravitational waves. And the thought that there might be invisible ripples whooshing through space affecting reality even if we can't see them immediately made sense to her.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Yes!

LULU: Uh, speaking of which, those gravitational waves from the long ago collision were by this point—the year 2011—getting very—like, very, very, very, very, very close to our planet. What was going to happen when they hit? Find out after this short break!

***

LULU: Terrestrials is back. A fleet of invisible gravitational waves are headed toward our planet, where finally believers like Stavros and Wanda and a bunch of folks at MIT, Caltech and beyond, have convinced governments to let them build this massive machine with two arms that are each over a mile long and filled with ...

STAVROS KATSANEVAS: Lasers.

LULU: That should, using a complicated set of physics and mirrors, be able detect if a gravitational wave actually passes through.

STAVROS KATSANEVAS: That was my glory. [laughs]

LULU: And since the machine detects the presence of gravitational waves by picking up interference in space-time, the machine is obviously called the inf ...

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Interferometer.

LULU: Interferometer.

[ALAN: [singing] What's that new machine with those funky laser beams? (It's the interferometer.) Right on! And how will these astronomers detect data from the universe? (The interferometer.) That's right! Laser beams so strong, shoot three kilometers long, oh yeah! (Interferometer.) That's 1.86 miles, my friend. These beams of light are gonna expand our understanding of the universe. (We hope! We think!] It's a complicated machine, but nobody believes in it like Stavros. (And Wanda) Maybe everyone will believe something no one ever could see when an invisible wave riding through space hits the Earth.]

LULU: So ...

[ALAN: [singing] Let's fire this machine up, see if this thing works!]

LULU: ... one day in 2015, scientists set the interferometer in motion, and the lasers start searching.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Searching and searching and searching. And searching and searching and searching. Trying and trying and trying.]

LULU: And then early in the morning on September 14, 2015, suddenly ...

[blip]

LULU: Did you hear it? Okay, one more time.

[blip]

LULU: Interference!

LULU: And that little bloop is actually a gravitational wave hitting the Earth in real time?

STAVROS KATSANEVAS: Exactly. Exactly.

LULU: Oh!

STAVROS KATSANEVAS: That's how we've heard the universe.

LULU: You have a big smile on your face.

STAVROS KATSANEVAS: Yeah, of course.

LULU: Do you remember where you were that day?

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Sí claro. Of course I remember!

LULU: Wanda's working in the Harvard lab at the time.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: We heard the news. Everyone is in their office. Everyone is excited. But also everyone is—everybody's working.

LULU: So, like, you're whispering? Like, "A gravitational wave has been detected!"

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: [laughs] Oh, we've been waiting—[whispers] we've been waiting for decades for this to happen! Oh, my God! Finally! You get excited.

LULU: And as for those waves, they didn’t hurt anyone or anything, but they did knock things around a little bit. They jiggled buildings, they shook the lasers and mirrors of the interferometer, which is how we knew they hit. They changed the distance between cities. For just a moment, they messed with time.

[ALAN: [singing] Which I still don't really understand, but I gotta keep moving on with the story.]

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Even in our bodies we didn't notice, right? But our bodies may have vibrated.

LULU: Like a little ripple? Like, as it passed through, we all kind of jiggled ...

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Sí!

LULU: ... a tiny bit?

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Like a wiggle. Like a wiggle.

LULU: [laughs]

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: But we didn't—we didn't notice, right?

LULU: Wow!

LULU: We couldn't feel it. We couldn't see the waves, but the reason the scientists knew they had hit was again because of ...

[blip]

LULU: ... sound.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: There is much more than what the eye alone can perceive.

LULU: Space, Wanda says, is noisy with information that we can use our sense of hearing to understand.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: But we are trained not to use it. So what I want to bring is that we kind of detach ourselves from using all my senses in the process of learning.

LULU: She worries in particular about astronomers and astrophysicists.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Their training is strictly visual.

LULU: Hmm.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: They are fine men and women, right?

LULU: Mm-hmm.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Great researchers. But what is visible is just an itty bitty tiny region, tiny region of the electromagnetic—so limited.

LULU: Are you saying that by only focusing on the tiny region of light that we can see, astronomers ...

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: They may be—they may be missing discoveries.

LULU: Hmm.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Yes. That is what I'm saying.

STAVROS KATSANEVAS: We have passed all these years in light and shadow. We did not use sound as a discovery instrument. We did not use all the senses.

LULU: When Stavros heard about Wanda's work, he reached out to her. And now they work together at the interferometer in Pisa, Italy, where she's teaching him to recognize more and more sounds coming from space.

STAVROS KATSANEVAS: Each one of them is a cosmic piano.

LULU: Wanda is training him and other scientists how to recognize the rattling of space dust in the tail of a comet, and the sound of shooting stars and dying stars and stars being born, and even the sounds of things we'll never be able to see like Martian wind, interstellar turbulence, and the echoes from long ago explosions.

STAVROS KATSANEVAS: Each one of them has its own frequencies.

LULU: And the symphony of all those different frequencies raining down from space can give humanoid scientists new clues about the evolution of the universe, and even the potential for life on faraway planets.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: We did experiments simulating astronomy information. When professional astronomers used audio, their sensitivity to events that were hidden in the data increased.

LULU: Wait. Meaning they could understand more about what was happening in space when they used their ears?

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Uh-huh.

STAVROS KATSANEVAS: Exactly. That's the fantastic thing.

LULU: Wild!

LULU: Now as for the end of the story of what happened to those gravitational waves from those two black holes that collided long ago? Well, after they literally rocked our world—[laughs] because they, like, rocked the planet when they hit—well, they just kept rippling out into the universe, passing by stars and moons.

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: What I imagine is the amount of unimaginable—unimaginable things those ripples may find on their way as they are traveling to—into infinity, right? The wonderful things that they will find.

LULU: Like what? Like planets and comets and suns?

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Beyond! Unimaginable.

[ALAN: [singing] A collision sends a shockwave. I will shake anything that's in my way. And as I rattle space and time I leave it all behind. Everything we've ever known, unimaginable. Wandering the dark night sky, towards infinity I fly. Beyond the planets and the stars, the asteroids and meteors. Beyond the galaxies we've named and all the ones we've yet to tame, I go, I go and go and go. Unimaginable.]

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: They remain a mystery because we do not know about it. And the fact that we do not know about it, doesn't mean they do not exist. And the fact that we do not know about it, doesn't mean they do not exist. It does not mean that they do not exist.

[ALAN: [singing] And I don't care if I'm alone in this and nobody believes. I will swim this sky forever. I will always feel the breeze. When everything that is familiar fades to black and turns to cold, I will listen on in wonder, unimaginable.]

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Unimaginable.

LULU: Songbud! Bringing the ballad this week. Putting his heart on the line. Where's your heart? Is it on the line? Or is it in a cage? Terrestrials was created by me, Lulu Miller, with WNYC Studios. It is produced by the time- and mind-bendingly amazing Ana Gonzalez and Alan Goffinski—along with me. With help from Suzie Lechtenberg, Sarah Sandbach, Natalia Ramiez, Miriam Bernard, Natalie Meade, Joe Plourde and Sarita Bhatt. With sound design this episode by Phoebe Wang!

LULU: Our advisors are: Theanne Griffith, Aliyah Elijah, Tare Welty, Liza Steinberg Demby, Dominique Shabazz and Alice Wong.

LULU: Terrestrials is supported in part by Science Sandbox, an initiative of the Simons Foundation. Special thanks this episode to Bryn Bliska for original cosmic keyboard, and to J.D. Voyek, Sam Schultz, Vincenzo Napolitano, Emilio and Jeremy Bloom. Now you should stop listening to this wonky collection of sound waves because there is nothing else cool about to happen.

LULU: Huh. What's that?

BADGER: Excuse me, I have a question.

BADGER: Me too.

BADGER: Me three.

BADGER: Me four.

LULU: The badgers!

LULU: Listeners with badgering questions for the expert. Are you ready?

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Sí.

BERIT: Hi. My name is Berit, and I'm eight years old. I was wondering, would the gravitational pull of a black hole stretch you as thin as a piece of spaghetti if you got sucked into it?

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: [laughs] Sí! If I'm approaching the black hole head first, my head will be pulled towards the black hole.

LULU: Ow!

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: As my feet are being pulled away from me. I'm becoming a piece of spaghetti, yes. Yes.

LULU: Pasta luego!

REX: Hi, I'm Rex. I'm eight years old. My question is: once a star dies, can it come back to life?

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Ah, que pregunta. What a beautiful question. Hmm, as far as we know, once that object dies, elements that are vital for the generation of life as we know it here on Earth, are spreaded all over the universe.

LULU: Hmm, so the star doesn't come back to life, but we do?

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: Yes. The star corpses is the seeds of life.

EMILY: My name is Emily Silverman, and I'm 34 years old. My question is: could we ever use gravitational waves to propel ourselves through space at faster than the speed of light?

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: I do not believe in impossibles, right? Very, way unlikely. Way unlikely.

RUSE: Hello. My name is Ruse Nichols. I'm 10, and my question is: is there an end to the universe?

WANDA DÍAZ MERCED: I don't know. I don't think so. No.

LULU: All right. We'll leave it there. Infinite possibility ahead—and behind—and I definitely won't tell you the thing that Wanda told me that's still bothering me at night, which is that apparently we are all on our way to turning into black holes. I'm nice, so I won't curse you with that knowledge. Don't worry. It's not gonna happen for, like, millions of years. If you would like to badger an expert or suggest a topic for the show, head on over to our website, TerrestrialsPodcast.org. There, we also have special drawing prompts that were made for every episode by the incredible Wendy Mac of the DrawTogether podcast. For this one, she has you draw different sounds. And it's just this neat podcast that you can listen to, so she's like, encouraging you and coaching you in your ear while you draw. It's so much fun. You can find that again, along with other activities and videos on our website, TerrestrialsPodcast.org.

LULU: If you are liking the show, please rate and review us. It helps our chance of continuing on. Thanks much you for listening. Catch you in a couple spins of this star-dusted old planet of ours. Bye!

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

# included[].attributes.twitter-headline
Terrestrials 04. The Unimaginable: How Gravitational Waves (Literally) Rocked Our World

# included[].attributes.appearances.producers[].bio
Ana is an audio producer and host who came to WNYC in 2021 to work on Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials. Before that, she produced and hosted Mosaic, a show about immigration experiences from Rhode Island Public Radio. In a former life, she played jazz bass and thinks about everything in terms of rhythm, conversation, and harmony.

# included[].attributes.appearances.producers[].bio
Alan Goffinski (he/him), is an arts administrator, songwriter, and producer from Charlottesville VA. He is the former Executive Director of The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative and the Charlottesville Mural Project—two city-wide organizations that utilize art and culture as a way for people to better understand themselves, each other, and the world around them. He is also a founding member of the Indianapolis-based whimsical performing arts collective Know No Stranger which has been described as “Sesame Street but for adults... but also for kids.” He produced the experimental music radio program Telemetry in partnership with the University of Virginia. Early in his career, Alan spent years making music in a nationally touring indie-punk band (signed to Victory Records) prior to becoming a social worker specializing in early childhood development. He began making kid’s music under the moniker Little Skunks as a fun way to be a part of the day-to-day lives of his nieces and nephew.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].bio
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

Her book, Why Fish Don’t Exist, is an international bestseller, translated into 11 languages. It was chosen as a Best Book by The Smithsonian, NPR, The Chicago Tribune, Brainpickings, The Washington Post and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and the American Association for the Advancement of Science Book Prize. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She has also won honors from The National Academy of Sciences, the Associated Press, the National Center on Disability and Journalism, and most recently an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Swarthmore College.

She reports on a range of scientific topics with a special interest in disability, mental illness, and ecology. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She serves as a Contributing Advisor to nature magazine Orion and she was the co-founder of NPR’s Invisibilia—a radio show about psychology, emotion, and human behavior. She recently published her debut children’s book, Trucky Roads, about trucks and, you’ll never guess this… roads. She lives in the Chicago area with her wife and two sons.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].lede
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].about.body
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].about.people[].image.alt-text
Producer Sarah Qari, smiling and standing proudly in the foreground of a field of sunflowers.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].description
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].tease
Investigating a strange world.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].bio
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

Her book, Why Fish Don’t Exist, is an international bestseller, translated into 11 languages. It was chosen as a Best Book by The Smithsonian, NPR, The Chicago Tribune, Brainpickings, The Washington Post and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and the American Association for the Advancement of Science Book Prize. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She has also won honors from The National Academy of Sciences, the Associated Press, the National Center on Disability and Journalism, and most recently an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Swarthmore College.

She reports on a range of scientific topics with a special interest in disability, mental illness, and ecology. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She serves as a Contributing Advisor to nature magazine Orion and she was the co-founder of NPR’s Invisibilia—a radio show about psychology, emotion, and human behavior. She recently published her debut children’s book, Trucky Roads, about trucks and, you’ll never guess this… roads. She lives in the Chicago area with her wife and two sons.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].lede
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].about.body
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].about.people[].image.alt-text
Producer Sarah Qari, smiling and standing proudly in the foreground of a field of sunflowers.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].description
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].tease
Investigating a strange world.

# included[].attributes.body
High above the banks of the Mississippi river, a nest holds the secret life of one of America’s most patriotic creatures. Their story puzzles scientists, reinforces indigenous wisdom, and wows audiences, all thanks to a park ranger named Ed, and a well-placed webcam. If you want to spoil the mystery, here ya go: it’s a bald eagle. Actually, it’s three bald eagles. A mama bird and daddies make a home together for over a decade and give new meaning to our national symbol.

Learn about the storytellers, listen to music, and dig deeper into the stories you hear on Terrestrials with activities you can do at home or in the classroom on our website, Terrestrialspodcast.org.

Watch “I Wanna Hear the Eagle” and find even MORE original Terrestrials fun on our Youtube.

And badger us on Social Media: @radiolab and #TerrestrialsPodcast

Support for Terrestrials is provided by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.

More from Terrestrials

The Shovels: Dig Deeper

For each episode of Terrestrials, we provide a selection of activity sheets, drawing prompts, musical lessons, and more. We call them “shovels” because we hope they will help you (and your friends, family, students, neighbors, etc) dig more deeply into the world! You can do them at home, in the classroom, outside, or in the privacy of your own mind. We hope you enjoy!

If you want to share what you’ve made, ask an adult share it on social media using #TerrestrialsPodcast and make sure to tag @Radiolab

Draw -  Journey up into the clouds like an eagle with a special drawing prompt made by artist Wendy Mac and the DrawTogether team that will get you thinking about the weather (both inside and out).

Play 🎶 - Le arn how to play the chords to the song “I WANT TO HEAR THE EAGLE.”

Do - Get crafty with a fun activity sheet!

This week’s storytellers are Ed Britton and Nataanii Means.

Want to keep learning? Check out these resources to learn about the complex lives of the bald eagle:

Check out The Trio Bald Eagle Nest Cam yourself!
An interview with Nataanii Means in Native Maxx Magazine
The funny history of how the bald eagle became America’s national symbol
An article called “Dirty Birds” about what it’s actually like to live with America’s national symbol.
Did you know it’s illegal to keep a bald eagle feather? Learn more in this AWESOME short video about the National Eagle Repository.

Terrestrials is a production of WNYC Studios, created by Lulu Miller. This episode is produced by Ana González, Alan Goffinski and Lulu Miller. Original Music by Alan Goffinski. Help from Suzie Lechtenberg, Sarah Sandbach, Natalia Ramirez, and Sarita Bhatt. Fact-check by Diane Kelley. Sound design by Mira Burt-Wintonick with additional engineering by Joe Plourde. Our storytellers this week are Ed Britton and Nataanii Means. Transcription by Caleb Codding.

Our advisors are Theanne Griffith, Aliyah Elijah, Dominique Shabazz, Liza Steinberg-Demby, and Tara Welty.

Terrestrials is supported in part by Science Sandbox, an initiative of the Simons Foundation.

Have questions for us, badgers? Badger us away! Your parent/guardian should write to us along with you, so we know you have their permission, and for maybe even having your ideas mentioned on the show. Email terrestrials@wnyc.org

# included[].attributes.headers.brand.logo-image.alt-text
Radiolab for Kids Presents Terrestrials Logo

# included[].attributes.headers.links[].title
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.image-main.alt-text
With their back towards us, a human figure holds themselves on a giant tree branch. Their hair blows in the wild as they behold a trio of eagles flying through a sunburst sky. 

# included[].attributes.npr-analytics-dimensions[]
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.show-tease
A show where we uncover the strangeness right here on Earth

# included[].attributes.show-title
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.series[].about.body
Terrestrials is a show for people of all ages that explores the strangeness that exists right here on Earth. In each episode, host Lulu Miller (co-host of Radiolab) will introduce you to a creature or earthly phenomenon that will defy your expectations of how nature is supposed to work. Along the way, you'll encounter a chorus of experts, including scientists, surfers, hip hop artists and…a "Songbud" named Alan (indie punk musician Alan Goffinski) who creates original songs for key moments of confusion, discovery or awe. New episodes drop Thursdays. Listen in with your whole family. Or all alone.

Support for Terrestrials is provided by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation.

LISTEN TO TERRESTRIALS  | SUPPORT TERRESTRIALS | TERRESTRIALS WANTS YOUR FEEDBACK! | PRESS INQUIRIES  | BECOME A SPONSOR | CONTACT US

# included[].attributes.series[].tease
A show where we uncover the strangeness right here on Earth

# included[].attributes.series[].logo-image.alt-text
Radiolab for Kids Presents Terrestrials Logo

# included[].attributes.tease
Look up in the sky! It is something that scientists thought could never happen.

# included[].attributes.title
Terrestrials 03. The Trio: A Bald Eagle Love Story

# included[].attributes.transcript
Lulu Miller: 3, 2, 1!

(Individually plunked-out light little notes of music pogo-stick their way around a breathy wind instrument.)

Nataanii Means: Imagine your skin turned to feathers ...

(Fwoo!)

Lulu: Long, dark brown feathers ...

Crystal Slusher: Over 7,000 feathers!

(The wind begins to ripple through each individual feather.)

Lulu: And your arms stretch to over twice the size of your body and catch the wind

Nataanii: And you're higher than the airplanes.

Lulu: You're soaring through the clouds.

Nataanii: You feeling the cold go through your feathers.

Lulu: And now your eyes bulge to bigger than your brain—

(A bulging sound. Fwip!)

Lulu: —Letting you see tiny things from miles away.

Ed Britton: If a rabbit’s running along the shoreline, you can see that rabbit.

Lulu: Suddenly, a dark spot in the blue lake beneath you catches your eye and you start [A dive-bombing sound as the wind rushes around you.] dive-bombing down, down!

Nataanii: And you drag your wings along the water of the lake.

(Wind chimes shimmer around you now.)

Lulu: Your feet curl and grow talons. And you [Fwoop! A bubble on the water.] catch a fish, which you then devour with your …

Ed: … Very sharp beak.

Lulu: On your very white head.

Ed: You are a bald eagle now!

Nataanii: In our language, we say “wambli.”

(The music fades out.)

Lulu: Alright! Now is the time when I make you sing the theme song with me.

Ed: Now! Let’s do it!

(Lulu and Alan Goffinski sing together—“Terrestrials, Terrestrials! We are not the worst we’re the …”—before pausing for Ed to finish.)

Ed: Oh, the best!

Lulu: (Adding on.) —Best-rials! Yeah, you got it! (Lulu claps as Ed laughs.)

Lulu: Terrestrials is a show where we uncover the strangeness waiting right here and on Earth—and, sometimes, break out into song.

(A bird-infused version of the theme song begins to play up:

“There’s so much to discover when you fly real high!”

Lulu joins in: “Terrestrials, Terrestrials!

So, reach out your wings and ride the sky! Terrestrials, Terrestrials!”

As the song ends, an eagle cry chirps down and then out, further and further away.)

Lulu: Good voices not required!

I am your host, Lulu Miller, joined as always by my Songbud—

Alan Goffinski: (Autotuned.) Tweet tweet!

Lulu: —Alan!

Alan: (Still autotuned, of course!) Hello!

Lulu: And today we are talkin’ about the bald eagle!

(Electric guitar plays over a drumroll, a rock version of America The Beautiful that feels particularly patriotic.)

Lulu: That’s right! America’s national symbol. You’ll find on quarters [Clink.] and dollar bills [Cha-ching.] and presidential flags and military insignias!

This glowering bird of prey with an intimidating brow bone, razor-sharp beak, and terrifying talons meant to convey to the world a ferocious fight to the death: independence.

(One more moment of the national anthem, rock-style, before Lulu chimes back in and the music starts to go quiet.)

Lulu: But, uh, today we’ve got a story about a man who looked up into the trees and saw something that suggests …

(The rock guitar ends abruptly. Something is not as it seems.)

Lulu: We may have this big birdie [A breath.] kinda wrong.

Ed: Yeah! Well, glad to connect! (Laughs.)

Lulu: This is our guy in question, Ed.

Ed: Ed Britton!

(Outdoor sounds play up: Water, wind, rustling grass.)

Lulu: He is a wildlife biologist who works for the government, helping to protect a stretch of forest alongside the Mississippi River in Illinois. And one chilly day in January of 2013, he was patrolling the banks near this part of the river where the water rushes over huge dam.

(Waterfall. A drumbeat hits just as the music takes on a fantastical sound.)

Lulu: Almost like a waterfall.

Ed: That water is busting over that dam.

Lulu: And so are fish. [An imaginary fish says, “Wee!” as it jumps.] Which means, at the bottom of that waterfall … (Three splats follow in quick succession, closer and closer, until you can almost feel the smack of the fish against the rocks.)

Lulu: Uh …

Ed: All the fish—they’re either stunned or they're dead.

Lulu: Ugh!

Ed: And that attracts hundreds of bald eagles.

Lulu: Huh!

Ed: There’s so much food there. It's all-you-can-eat.

(A person whistles as they walk through nature.)

Lulu: And that January day, Ed looks up into the trees above the dam and sees something …

(The background noise becomes two whistled notes, fighting back and forth.)

Ed: Strange!

Lulu: It looks like there are three bald eagles sitting together near one nest.

Ed: Yes.

Lulu: And, to Ed’s eye, it appears to be one female and …

Ed: Two males!

Lulu: But he thought there was no way that could be, because everything he’d learned in his scientific training said that if you were to put two males nearby each other …

Ed: There’s gonna be trouble.

Lulu: They were said to squawk and claw so viciously, it sometimes resulted in death.

(One note, whistled, drops like a bomb—or maybe a bird hitting the ground.)

Ed: That’s how territorial they are.

Lulu: Wow!

Lulu: And this reputation for do-or-die aggression is one of the main reasons the Founding Fathers chose the bald eagle as America’s national symbol, back in 1782.

Nataanii: I think maybe the first Europeans that came here seen the power of eagles.

Lulu: That’s Nataanii Means, a hip-hop artist who’s Indigenous—native to this land. And he said that his ancestors from the Oglala Lakota and Dine tribes had admired the bald eagle long before the Founding Fathers showed up.

Nataanii: The eagle, to us, is very sacred.

(A wind instrument plays up, wistful, over soft music.)

Lulu: —Though for slightly different reasons.

Nataanii: It's the highest in the sky. It’s the closest to Creator.

Lulu: It was seen as a messenger between worlds—and a healer.

Nataanii: We carry eagle feathers that help in healing ceremonies. They take a lot of our illnesses away.

(A long beat of music as the wind instrument breathes life, history, mystery into the moment.)

Lulu: Now the Founding Fathers weren’t as focused on the potential healing in the feathers as they were in the potential fight in the talons. So they began carving images of the bird on [Sching, a sword!] swords and [A battleship fires a canon.] battleships to warn the world that they were not afraid to fight to the death to protect their (newly claimed) territory.

(Dramatic, triumphant music, like from the opening credits of a movie, plays—grandiose and a little bit overdramatic.)

Ed: So they were up in a tree about 100 feet high.

Lulu: So back to Ed, squinting up at what seemed to be two male bald eagles and a female cozying up together—he just couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.

Ed: It’s so difficult because that nest is so high up.

Lulu: And then the nesting season ends, the birds fly away, and he figures that's probably it.

Ed: Mhm.

Lulu: Except the next year, he swears he sees the trio again. And the next year?

Ed: Again!

Lulu: (Whispering.) Now, people didn’t always believe Ed when he told them what he was seeing. But then, in 2016, this trio of bald eagles happened to flutter down and begin nesting in a tree [A beat.] that was next to [Another beat. Suspense!] a webcam.

(Funky little guitar music twangs around with a little swing to it.)

Nell: I just thought that cam was so unique!

Lulu: This is Nell, a webcam watcher from Jacksonville, Florida.

Nell: You know, because eagles don't usually … Three’s company. (Lulu laughs.)

Lulu: And in an instant there was no more doubt. The three ferocious birds of prey were living peacefully as a trio!

Christine: I think people were just coming together over that fact that it was something different.

Lulu: Another cam watcher, Christine, from New Hampshire.

Christine: It was great to be able to look in on it and say, “Wow, what the heck's going on now?,” you know?

Lulu: It was quickly confirmed that it was, indeed, two males and a female.

Ed: The female’s bigger.

Lulu: Hmm.

Ed: You know, she’s several pounds bigger. Uh, I call her the Boss. (Chuckles.)

Lulu: Webcam viewers named her …

Nell: Hope.

Lulu: And they called the males:

Ed: Valor 1.

Lulu: And …

Ed: Valor 2.

Lulu: “Valor,” meaning, like, courage?

Ed: Yes. Uh-huh.

Lulu: How do you tell the males apart?

Ed: You know, we don't like to body shame ‘em, but they call Valor 1 “Skinny Legs.” And … (Lulu cracks up.)

Lulu: Okay! Does Valor II have any look?

Ed: He has a dark spot in his eye and it’s very unique.

Lulu: Ooh!

Lulu: Thousands of people started tuning in …

Nell: I had them on my computer from the time I turned the computer on to the time I turned the computer off.

Lulu: … Watching in crystal-clear detail this thing that scientists—and patriots!—thought could never happen.

Lulu: I mean, did you ever see it where all three of them were, like, snuggled into the nest together at the same time?

Ed: Oh, yes! Yes! Absolutely.

Lulu: Yeah?

Ed: Oh yes. Yep!

Lulu: Wow!

Lulu: By day they took turns tidying the nest, bringing one another food …

Ed: Mostly fish, but we also saw ducks.

Lulu: Whole ducks?

Ed: Yup! [A duck quacks.] We saw parts of deer.

Lulu: Mmm!

(The music winds down. Up comes a blustery winter wind.)

Lulu: And after many cold winter nights keeping each other warm in that nest …

(Gentle music starts, handbells circling in and out around a serious wind instrument.)

Lulu: Come February, three white eggs appeared. [Lulu softly says, “Doot, doot, doot,” counting each of the eggs.]

Would they hatch? Find out after this short break.

(The wind continues for a moment with a few solemn, solitary notes, before going to quiet and the break.)

Lulu: Terrestrials is back! It is now early spring in Illinois, and up about a hundred feet in a nest, three bald eagles parents have just welcomed [Eggs begin to hatch.]—on-camera, for all the world to see—[Crack! Crack! Crack!] three baby eaglets! (Tweet, tweet, tweet!)

Christine: You know, they were so tiny. Oh my. And so adorable!

Ed: Yes indeed! (Chuckling lightly.)

Lulu: And, as biologist Ed watches these three parents caring for their babies—two of them standing guard while one goes off to hunt, all six of the birds nuzzling down in the nest at night—

Ed: They were the happiest family.

(The gentlest music whirrs up, softly, to the stratosphere.)

Lulu: —He starts thinking about why this unusual trio actually makes sense. Because, see, Hope had been trying to make a family for years before she linked up with the two daddies. And, this is a little sad, but she had a hard time. Her babies sometimes got cold, or fell out of the nest when she was away hunting and they didn't always make it.

Ed: Yeah. It was awfully sad.

Lulu: And those losses were huge, because bald eagles had been endangered—almost extinct—so every birth mattered.

Ed: Where I grew up in Southern Illinois, we never saw bald eagles. That was back in the ‘40s and the ‘50s. I’m—I’m elderly. (Laughs.)

Lulu: Humans had almost wiped out bald eagles from hunting them, cutting down their forests, using chemicals. But, as Ed grew up, he was a part of the group of people who tried everything they could think of to save bald eagles: They protected forests and banned hunting of bald eagles and stopped using chemicals that harmed them. But, looking up at the trees, he realized it was like this trio of eagles had come up with a brilliant technique all of their own.

Christine: To be able to witness it, that's the miracle. You know, it doesn't have to be a traditional family for it to work!

Lulu: And by June, as the forest turned soft with green leaves, one by one, each of the three eaglets, with newly lanky wings, tested the air and leapt away.

(A new song begins to play, starting slow and building, with scritch-scratching of records and a rock guitar coming in over time:

“So long mom and dad and dad

I’ve had a blast now I’m leaving this nest.

So long mom and dad and dad!

It’s been real, it’s been fun, but now I gotta run!

And by run I mean fly!

So I’m saying goodbye!

Gonna start a new life full of wild and excitement and danger!”)

Lulu: (Echoing the song as it ends.) Danger!

Year after year, those three parents stay together, fledging more and more eaglets, and in the process challenging scientists’ notions about what a natural family looks like.

(The wind is back. It sounds weirdly quiet now—too quiet.)

Lulu: Until … [A beat.] One cold evening in March, Hope screams out.

(An eagle cry echoes out into the wind.)

Nell: Eagles, when they alert, they have a certain call to one another.

Lulu: That's webcam-watcher Nell again.

(Music begins, ominous and heavy.)

Nell: I saw Hope looking up into the sky and you could see she was tracking. And then she started doing her alert call to her partners to come, you know—to come see what's goin’ on.

Lulu: And what’s going on is that two stranger eagles were dive-bombing the nest, attacking Hope and her two newest babies.

(Thunder rumbles and a frantic flute line quivers up and down, beautiful but tense.)

Ed: Our phone lines light up …

Lulu: With people saying:

Ed: “Oh my gosh, something terrible has just happened! You've got to get out there and do something.”

Lulu: Ed flips on his live feed of the cam and sees …

Ed: A very large bird, which we believed to be a female, was on the back of Hope.

Lulu: Her talons were digging into Hope’s shoulders.

Christine: There's no dads on the nest.

Lulu: The dads are both down on the ground, fighting off the other invading eagle.

Christine: The two babies, they didn't look good.

Lulu: They looked scared—of this huge eagle attacking their mom.

Nell: I wanted to reach through the computer monitor and grab [Chuckling a little at how silly it sounds.] that other eagle, is what I wanted to do.

Ed: And they struggled for over an hour.

Nell: The last thing I saw was Hope and her going off the nest. They just—they basically dragged one another off one side of the nest and went down to the ground.

Lulu: Ed and his team rush out into the forest to search around on the ground for Hope. But, meanwhile, up in that nest, those babies are all alone.

Christine: It looked like they hadn't been fed for a while. They were ragged, they were weak.

Lulu: And then, suddenly …

(The music changes tone. It becomes a little more driven, a little more hopeful, a little lighter.)

Nell: I saw the dads taking over! Valor 1 and Valor 2, like little troopers!

Lulu: The dads fly back up into the nest to defend their babies.

Christine: It was such a relief that they were there.

Lulu: But right on their tails are the two invading eagles. They return and they keep attacking.

Ed: They wanted to kill everything up there and take the nest over.

(A peal of thunder.)

Lulu: The sun rises. And the attackers keep at it for days—weeks! But those dads?

Christine: They just defended that nest with their lives, not caring what happened to them, but caring for those little baby eaglets.

Lulu: Oh!

Ed: And the two dads, Valor I and Valor II, valiantly—very valiantly—fought off this pair of eagles.

Lulu: Wow!

Ed: And after about three weeks, the attacks finally ended.

(Silence.)

Lulu: Hope was never seen again.

Nobody’s sure exactly what happened to her, but those two dads stayed with their babies as the air grew warm …

(Warmth: Birds twitter in an open space, the sounds of spring.)

Lulu: … As yellow and purple flowers began poking their way up through the dirt, and kids began fishing on the Mississippi River.

The dads kept watch over their chicks, bringing them food and keeping them warm at night. Until finally, come June …

(Magical music blossoms, a harp playing the notes of hope and excitement at the love these two eagle dads showed for their chicks.)

Ed: The two chicks ended up, uh, growing and leaving the nest.

It was extremely happy. Yes, indeed. We gave them the Greatest Dads Award of the Year.

Lulu: Ed says he was totally shocked by how things unfolded—by how caring and collaborative the two dads were together.

Ed: And this is just one incredible survival story that, uh, I would've never fathomed in my career.

(With a few more strums of the harp, the song ends.)

Nataanii: There's a lot that people don't know about eagles.

Lulu: This is Nataanii again.

Nataanii: They’re very compassionate.

Lulu: And what Ed learned from watching the trio, Nataanii learned from his family and culture.

Nataanii: The first time I saw an eagle, he was huge, man, huge! I went home and I told my dad, you know, “Hey, I seen an eagle today.” And then he—he sat me down and he said, “When an eagle chooses a mate, they're together for life. They’re always taking care of the family.”

(Gradually, a soft, contemplative series of chords play in the background.)

Lulu: It was then that Nataanii first learned about the bald eagle’s softer side—how the creature isn’t only about fighting.

Nataanii: But it’s also a symbol of love and relationship.

Lulu: And that’s why, in the Lakota Tradition, you can earn a bald eagle feather if you do something particularly caring.

Nataanii: It could be a lot of things, you know, it could be, you know, being a social worker or—

Lulu: Hmm.

Nataanii: —Um, a nurse that saves lives. Just anything—anything you do that’s selfless, not for yourself, but for the people, so the people may live.

Lulu: Nataanii gets some eagle feathers out—

(Eagle feathers rustle their way out of a crinkly wrapping with Nataanii’s gentle guidance.)

Lulu: —that he got from different ceremonies and begins brushing them over his face.

Nataanii: (Laughing a little goofily, gently.) Feels good. Gives me ch-chills. (Lulu laughs sweetly.)

Lulu: And he tells me me about a really bad day a few years back when he just felt lonely, like no one cared about him.

Nataanii: I was sitting right here in this spot. There was a bunch of eagle feathers sitting right here. I was like, “I got eagle feathers protecting me. These eagle feathers, protecting me, protecting …”

Lulu: A song started coming to him.

Nataanii: So then I just started writing, and it just came out.

(The chorus of Nataanii’s song begins to play, a hip-hop beat winding around and up and down the call-and-response of the lyrics: “I got these eagle feathers!” “Protectin’ me.” The exchange continues—“Yeah, I got these eagle feathers,” “Protecting me!”—as the song fades out.)

Lulu: He said that when he thinks about how these creatures behave in myths and the wild …

Nataanii: When I fan myself off—when I—when I bring these over my face, you know, it's like, I feel a connection to these birds. And this might sound funny, it might sound off, but I feel a connection to my ancestors. I do!

Like I don't have to be lost because I feel love.

(Nataanii’s song picks right back up at the chorus’ call-and-response before fading back down.)

Lulu: When I tell him the story of how caring those dads in the trio were observed to be, he’s not surprised.

Nataanii: Oh no, yeah. Science—science is catching up to Indigenous philosophy for sure. (A gentle chuckle.)

(One last line of the song before a whirling string line marks the end of the song.)

Lulu: Now, as for the end of our eagle story: When a trio loses one of its members, that’s it for the trio, right?

Ed: Oh no! No. (Laughs.)

Lulu: Because it turned out that the next fall, the two dads returned … With a new female!

(Ethereal music, like clouds floating through a sunset sky, plays up in gentle bursts.)

Ed: And we—we were just going, “How did you do that?” (Both hold a tender laugh together.)

Lulu: So if I went right now, like, could I—could I peek?

Ed: You sure could. Yup.

Lulu: I pull up the live feed of the nest.

Lulu: So I'm looking at it right now. So I see this … It's winter, so it's a tree without leaves and there are all these … (Fades under.)

Lulu: And some 4 years later, that new trio is still together. As Ed and I talked, we could see them up there, in the nest together.

Lulu: (Fading back up.) And I see the white head and the yellow beak of an eagle.

Ed: She—she’s just laying eggs.

Lulu: Wow!

Lulu: All told, the two dads have lived together in a trio for about a decade, fledged about 20 eaglets, and been a part of the story that—along with some human help—brought the number of bald eagles back from near-extinction and got them off the endangered species list.

Ed: (Laughing.) Yeah. I look at this as probably one of the greatest wildlife success stories that we've ever had in the United States.

(A deep breath of a synthesizer shimmers up, like light reflecting off a pool of water, reaching back up to the heavens.)

Lulu: And as for that trio being an outlier? Is that the only trio of bald eagles there is?

Crystal Slusher: It is not.

Lulu: That’s Crystal Slusher. She works for the American Eagle Foundation. And, in her spare time, she’s an amateur birder.

Lulu: Do you have a pair of binoculars around your neck?

Crystal: I carry a pair of binoculars in my car!

(Water sloshes against the side of a boat. Softly, underneath, you might hear a fishing pole clicking as it reels in, maybe even birds cawing out in the distance.)

Lulu: Well, one day, about four years ago, Crystal was out fishing with her husband.

Crystal: In Dandridge, Tennessee.

Lulu: On a lake.

Crystal: I knew about a nest there prior to going fishing and I—I’ve checked it out a couple of times and I never really saw anything abnormal. But the day that I was out there, I saw three eagles perched together.

(The fishing sounds give way to one long, suspended chord—a held breath of music.)

Lulu: And they seemed calm, almost familiar with each other. And when she got a better look through her binocs, it looked to her like …

Crystal: Two males and one female.

Lulu: Another trio!

(Plucky strings bounce up and down, full of playfulness and hope, over castanets and a shaken percussion line as it moves back and forth.)

Lulu: And while Crystal says …

Crystal: They’re not really famous. You know, they're certainly not a Valor One, Valor Two—

Lulu: —Level of celebrity? (Laughing lightly at the idea of bird celebrity levels.)

Crystal: Right!

Lulu: She says they do have their own local fans who have photographed them and named the female “Bandit.” And she hopes one day they, too, can get a webcam!

Lulu: And so, those two trios—that’s it, though, right, that we know about?

Crystal: Oh, definitely not. There were some observed in Alaska in 1977, in Minnesota in 1983.

Ed: There is a trio in New York.

Crystal: And then California in 1992.

Ed: There’s one in Arkansas.

Lulu: Both Crystal and Ed, after first learning about their trios, started geeking out on research about bald eagle trios and found, buried in the footnotes of science books and history books, these occasional sightings of other bald eagle trios.

And they realized that maybe this quote-unquote ‘cooperative nesting,’ as the scientists call it, was not as uncommon as they thought.

Ed: I think we'd probably be amazed if we really knew all of the unique things that happened with wildlife, because we just don't know the secrets in their life.

(The music fades down and out.)

Lulu: Ed says this whole experience really flipped his understanding of bald eagles. Helped him to see that, in a certain way, he had been blinded by the eagle on the quarter—blinded by the story of the bird as a ferocious and independent being.

Lulu: Would you ever call what—what’s happening between these birds “love”?

Ed: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Lulu: Oh, you would?

Ed: Oh, absolutely.

Lulu: (Shocked.) You would?

Ed: Yes indeed.

Lulu: You don't shy away from that—[Stuttering a little in surprise.] that word?

Ed: Not whatsoever.

Lulu: Between animals?

Ed: No, no. It's family bonding and that happens … You know, love is family. I see nothing wrong with saying “loving animals.”

(Delicate music drifts down, cherry blossoms or maybe auburn leaves floating on a soft breeze.)

Lulu: Alright. Thanks so much, Ed.

(A new song begins. The tone is very … different.)

Lulu: Oh no. Songbud’s got a mohawk and an electric guitar.

(Alan’s next song plays, heavy electric guitar and a hard-rock attitude:

“I wanna hear the eagle!”

An eagle cries, a solitary cry.

“Now multiply that by three-gle!”

Another cry! This one comes three times.

“Yeah, I wanna hear the eagle!”

One more cry, more of a chirp.

“Now I wanna hear all three-gle!”

Several eagles chirp and chitter together.

“I know it’s not only me-gle!

I’m sure you agree-gle

Would be awesome to see-gle

All that up in a tree-gle,

Or in the sky flying free-gle.

So I’m down on my knee-gle

I’m begging them plea-gle.

I wanna hear the eagles

Not a hunting beagle

Not a manatee-gle!

Yeah, I wanna hear the eaglessssss!”

Back to the chorus:

“I wanna hear the eagle!”

A cry like the first!

“Now multiply that by three-gle.”

Three cries together!

“I wanna hear the eagle!”

An eagle chirp.

“And now I wanna hear all three-gle!”

One last collection of eagle cries as the song ends.)

Lulu: Alan Goffinski, everyone!

(New music here, bouncy and a little jazzy.)

Lulu: Terrestrials was created by me, Lulu Miller, with WNYC Studios. It is produced by the very talon-ted (Like talons? Talons?) Ana Gonzalez and Alan Goffinski (and me), with help from Suzie Lechtenberg, Sarah Sandbach, Natalia Ramirez, Miriam Barnard, Joe Plourde, Diane Kelley and Sarita Bhatt. Sound design and additional editorial guidance by—[Lulu tweets a few times here.]—Mira Burt-Wintonic.

Our advisors are: Theanne Griffith, Aliyah Elijah, Liza Steinberg-Demby, Tara Welty, and Dominique Shabazz.

Terrestrials is supported in part by Science Sandbox, an initiative of the Simons Foundation. Special thanks this episode to Abigail Miller, Laurel Braitman, Stan Bousson, Molly Webster, and Maria Poz Gutierrez.

(A beat.)

Lulu: And that’s it! You should stop listening. Why are you still listening? Who listens to …

(Interrupting Lulu, a big horn flair plays, then …)

Lulu: Oh! What’s that?

(The badgers are back! Speaking in silly voices, they overlap one another: “Excuse me! I have a question.” “Me too!” “Me three.” “Me four!” One last whispered word signals the start of the segment: “The badgerssss!” Then, jazzy music plays.)

Lulu: Listeners with badgering questions for the expert!

Lulu: Are you ready?

Ed: Yep!

Huxley: Hi! My name is Huxley and I’m seven years old. And my question is: Why don't bald eagles have butts?

Ed: Well, they—they do have butts. I've seen many bald eagle butts. (Laughs.)

Lulu: Okay.

Ed: I’m not proud of that, but I have seen many bald eagle butts.

Cyan: Hi! My name is Cyan, and I’m twelve. My question is: What is an average wingspan of an eagle?

Ed: Eight feet!

Lulu: Whew! That’s like a person and a half.

Ed: Yeah.

Woody: My name is Woody, and I am 6 years old. Can I have a pet bald eagle?

Ed: Only if it’s, uh, a stuffed animal! (Laughing at his own joke before Lulu joins.)

Jamie Lee Curtis: Hi, it’s Jamie Lee Curtis! What is the strangest thing you’ve ever seen on the webcam?

Ed: We got these little mice that run around.

Lulu: Okay?

Ed: And they just aggravate the heck out of the eagles. (Laughs.)

Lulu: Wait. [Ed punctuates Lulu’s shock with one last laugh.]There’s actual mice—are up there?

Ed: There's mice in the nest. Yes.

Lulu: But why don't the eagles eat them?

Ed: They're too fast!

Lulu: Why would a mouse live up there? Of all places, that feels so dangerous!

Ed: There's lots of food up there. It’s kinda like a hide-and-seek game, I think, for the mice.

Lulu: Man!

Ed: I think they enjoy it.

Lulu: You—You’ve buried the lede, maybe the story here to tell is about these mice!

(Dreamlike music plays, sparkling and spiraling a syncopated synthesizer melody that lands in pillows around Lulu as she narrates the end of the episode.)

Lulu: Gonna leave it there, with the world's most brazen mice that choose to live inside a bald eagle nest and not tell you the super gross thing that, because eagles don't have teeth, they [Slurping sound.] slurp down the creatures they eat whole and then [A hacking sound.] spit out the bones, hair, and scales in a lovely pellet. And some people even theorize they swallow rocks to use as gross rock teeth inside their gizzards.

Not gonna tell you that, [Whispered.] ’cause I’m nice!

If you wanna badger our next expert, visit our website at terrestrialspodcast.org! We also have activity sheets there and drawing prompts and funny videos of the Songbud and we’d love if you stopped by! Thanks so much for listening.

Catch you in a couple of spins of this lumpy ol’ planet of ours. [Whooshing, Lulu spins the world around a few times before saying …] Bye!

(The music keeps playing for just a little bit longer before it fades to nothing.)

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

# included[].attributes.twitter-headline
Terrestrials 03. The Trio: A Bald Eagle Love Story

# included[].attributes.appearances.producers[].bio
Ana is an audio producer and host who came to WNYC in 2021 to work on Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials. Before that, she produced and hosted Mosaic, a show about immigration experiences from Rhode Island Public Radio. In a former life, she played jazz bass and thinks about everything in terms of rhythm, conversation, and harmony.

# included[].attributes.appearances.producers[].bio
Alan Goffinski (he/him), is an arts administrator, songwriter, and producer from Charlottesville VA. He is the former Executive Director of The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative and the Charlottesville Mural Project—two city-wide organizations that utilize art and culture as a way for people to better understand themselves, each other, and the world around them. He is also a founding member of the Indianapolis-based whimsical performing arts collective Know No Stranger which has been described as “Sesame Street but for adults... but also for kids.” He produced the experimental music radio program Telemetry in partnership with the University of Virginia. Early in his career, Alan spent years making music in a nationally touring indie-punk band (signed to Victory Records) prior to becoming a social worker specializing in early childhood development. He began making kid’s music under the moniker Little Skunks as a fun way to be a part of the day-to-day lives of his nieces and nephew.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].bio
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

Her book, Why Fish Don’t Exist, is an international bestseller, translated into 11 languages. It was chosen as a Best Book by The Smithsonian, NPR, The Chicago Tribune, Brainpickings, The Washington Post and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and the American Association for the Advancement of Science Book Prize. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She has also won honors from The National Academy of Sciences, the Associated Press, the National Center on Disability and Journalism, and most recently an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Swarthmore College.

She reports on a range of scientific topics with a special interest in disability, mental illness, and ecology. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She serves as a Contributing Advisor to nature magazine Orion and she was the co-founder of NPR’s Invisibilia—a radio show about psychology, emotion, and human behavior. She recently published her debut children’s book, Trucky Roads, about trucks and, you’ll never guess this… roads. She lives in the Chicago area with her wife and two sons.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].lede
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].about.body
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].about.people[].image.alt-text
Producer Sarah Qari, smiling and standing proudly in the foreground of a field of sunflowers.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].description
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].tease
Investigating a strange world.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].bio
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

Her book, Why Fish Don’t Exist, is an international bestseller, translated into 11 languages. It was chosen as a Best Book by The Smithsonian, NPR, The Chicago Tribune, Brainpickings, The Washington Post and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and the American Association for the Advancement of Science Book Prize. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She has also won honors from The National Academy of Sciences, the Associated Press, the National Center on Disability and Journalism, and most recently an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Swarthmore College.

She reports on a range of scientific topics with a special interest in disability, mental illness, and ecology. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She serves as a Contributing Advisor to nature magazine Orion and she was the co-founder of NPR’s Invisibilia—a radio show about psychology, emotion, and human behavior. She recently published her debut children’s book, Trucky Roads, about trucks and, you’ll never guess this… roads. She lives in the Chicago area with her wife and two sons.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].lede
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].about.body
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].about.people[].image.alt-text
Producer Sarah Qari, smiling and standing proudly in the foreground of a field of sunflowers.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].description
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].tease
Investigating a strange world.

# included[].attributes.body
A singing entomologist, Dr. Sammy Ramsey, and a biologist with a knack for inventing things, Dr. Paul Mireji, tell us about one of the most fearsome animals on our planet. If you want a SPOILER of what it is, read on: It sucks our blood, spreads diseases; it's the tsetse fly. Both Sammy and Paul were afraid of this creature, but share the story of what can be gained by looking close at what scares you. In the case of the tsetse fly, we learn that these creatures give live birth, produce milk, protect entire ecosystems, and just might hold the solutions to some of our planet’s biggest problems

Learn about the storytellers, listen to music, and dig deeper into the stories you hear on Terrestrials with activities you can do at home or in the classroom on our website, Terrestrialspodcast.org.

Watch Lulu and Dr. Sammy drink roach milk (!!!!!) and find even MORE original Terrestrials fun on our Youtube.

Badger us on Social Media: @radiolab and #TerrestrialsPodcast

Support for Terrestrials is provided by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.

More from Terrestrials

The Shovels: Dig Deeper

For each episode of Terrestrials, we provide a selection of activity sheets, drawing prompts, musical lessons, and more. We call them “shovels” because we hope they will help you (and your friends, family, students, neighbors, etc) dig more deeply into the world! You can do them at home, in the classroom, outside, or in the privacy of your own mind. We hope you enjoy!
If you want to share what you’ve made, ask an adult share it on social media using #TerrestrialsPodcast and make sure to tag @Radiolab

Draw -  Listen to a very special drawing prompt created by artist Wendy Mac and the DrawTogether team to explore just that!
Play 🎶 - Learn how to play the chords to the song “Yum Your Yuck”
Do - Get crafty with a fun activity sheet!

This week’s storytellers are Dr. Sammy Ramsey and Dr. Paul Mireji.

Want to keep learning? Check out these resources to learn about the gnarly guardian that is the tsetse fly:

In The Fight Against Tsetse Flies, Blue Is The New Black
A Tsetse Fly Births One Enormous Milk-Fed Baby | KQED
New Tool to Fight Deadly Tsetse Fly - The New York Times
Cockroach Milk: Yes. You Read That Right : The Salt : NPR
Kenyan 'junk artist' recycles rubbish into artworks - CGTN

Terrestrials is a production of WNYC Studios, created by Lulu Miller. This episode is produced by Ana González, Alan Goffinski and Lulu Miller. Original Music by Alan Goffinski. Help from Suzie Lechtenberg, Sarah Sandbach, Natalia Ramirez, and Sarita Bhatt. Fact-check by Diane Kelley. Sound design by Mira Burt-Wintonick with additional engineering by Joe Plourde. Our storytellers this week are Dr. Sammy Ramsey and Dr. Paul Mireji. Transcription by Caleb Codding. Special Thanks to Phoebe Wang for the filming and production of "Lulu Tries Roach Milk."

Our advisors are Theanne Griffith, Aliyah Elijah, Dominique Shabazz, John Green, Liza Steinberg-Demby, and Tara Welty.

Terrestrials is supported in part by Science Sandbox, an initiative of the Simons Foundation.

Have questions for us, badgers? Badger us away! Your parent/guardian should write to us along with you, so we know you have their permission, and for maybe even having your ideas mentioned on the show. Email terrestrials@wnyc.org

# included[].attributes.headers.brand.logo-image.alt-text
Radiolab for Kids Presents Terrestrials Logo

# included[].attributes.headers.links[].title
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.image-main.alt-text
A person stands facing a deep tropical forest, dwarfed by massive plants of various greens. Sets of red eyes peek out from the darkness.

# included[].attributes.npr-analytics-dimensions[]
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.show-tease
A show where we uncover the strangeness right here on Earth

# included[].attributes.show-title
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.series[].about.body
Terrestrials is a show for people of all ages that explores the strangeness that exists right here on Earth. In each episode, host Lulu Miller (co-host of Radiolab) will introduce you to a creature or earthly phenomenon that will defy your expectations of how nature is supposed to work. Along the way, you'll encounter a chorus of experts, including scientists, surfers, hip hop artists and…a "Songbud" named Alan (indie punk musician Alan Goffinski) who creates original songs for key moments of confusion, discovery or awe. New episodes drop Thursdays. Listen in with your whole family. Or all alone.

Support for Terrestrials is provided by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation.

LISTEN TO TERRESTRIALS  | SUPPORT TERRESTRIALS | TERRESTRIALS WANTS YOUR FEEDBACK! | PRESS INQUIRIES  | BECOME A SPONSOR | CONTACT US

# included[].attributes.series[].tease
A show where we uncover the strangeness right here on Earth

# included[].attributes.series[].logo-image.alt-text
Radiolab for Kids Presents Terrestrials Logo

# included[].attributes.tease
A winged creature frightens countless villagers but may be a kind of protector.

# included[].attributes.title
Terrestrials 02. The Guardian: Tsetse Fly Defenders

# included[].attributes.transcript
(A jungle vibe begins to play: gently repeating percussion, crickets, the kind of echo you can hear at night.)

Lulu Miller: (Whispered.) 3, 2, 1!

Dr. Sammy Ramsey: Imagine that you've got these two big red eyes.

Lulu: And out of your back sprout — (Pop! Pop!)

Sammy: Two big wings. (A mechanical fluttering sound.)

Lulu: And out of your sides? (The metal fluttering again. Then: Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop!)

Sammy: Six legs.

Lulu: And your lips stretch forward into a straw. (Streeetch!)

Sammy: A pretty long one too. It's, like, longer than your whole head.

Lulu: It’s covered in spikes! (A buzz rings out.)

Lulu: And you use it to drink up …

Sammy: Well, a meal made out of another creature's blood. And that's where things get freaky.

You are a tsetse fly now.

(The music ends with four resonant hits to the drums. Then, a bug buzzes by, getting closer and closer until—bzz!—it sounds almost like it ran right into you.)

Lulu: So now is the part where I make you guess the words to our theme song.

(Sammy laughs just as the Terrestrials theme song launches in.)

Lulu: (Singing along.) “Terrestrials, terrestrials! We are not the worst—we are the:”

Sammy: Best-rials!

Lulu: Yeah, you got it! (Sammy bursts into a light laughter.)

Lulu: Terrestrials is a show where we uncover the strangeness right here on Earth—and sometimes break out into song.

Alan Goffinski: (Singing the tsetse-specific theme song, with Lulu occasionally joining in.) There’s theres so much to discover when you have the thirst!

Terrestrials, terrestrials

So stretch out your proboscis—which is a word for the insect’s mouthparts!—

And take a slurp

Terrestrials, Terrestrials!

(Another bug flies by, this one louder and maybe even grosser than the first one until it smacks into Alan, who says “Ow!”)

Lulu: Good voices not required. I am your host, Lulu Miller, joined, as always by my songbud:

Alan: (With a synthesized voice—one that sounds like a chorus of several voices.) Hey buds!

Lulu: Alan.

Alan: (Still synthesized.) What’s the buzz?

(A soft, quiet, but heavy background drone plays.)

Lulu: And today, as you can probably tell, things do get a little yuck as we look close at this horse-fly looking creature who can drink three times its weight—in YOUR blood. But, for the squeamish out there, I want to ask you to hold tight if you can, because what this story is really about is a magical technique for working through your fear, and the gifts—the beautiful, funny, and even life-saving surprises—that await when you do.

Sammy: (Laughingly.) Oh ho ho!

Lulu: All of which, I learned about [A pause.] from this guy.

Sammy: Yeah …

Lulu: Dr. Sammy Ramsey!

Sammy: I am an entomologist!

(A jazzy little beachside café guitar plays, light and airy and perfect for enjoying a cool glass of lemonade on a hot summer day.)

Lulu: That is fancy-speak for bug scientist, and to call him a bug lover doesn’t do justice to the amount of affection he has for these creatures. He’s got beetles hanging on his wall. He has been known to wear a giant millipede around his neck …

Sammy: Like a necklace! And he would just run around in circles around my neck very slowly.

Lulu: Hm!

Lulu: (Questioningly, like she doesn’t get the appeal.) He routinely sticks his hand into beehives …

(Over the music, the hum of a beehive.)

Sammy: They can get a little uh, rowdy because they've got a pretty important thing they need to protect. They need to protect their babies. They got to protect all this honey …

Lulu: And even that time …

Sammy: I forgot my smoker.

Lulu: (A quiet explanation.) A tool that blows smoke on the bees to distract them.

Sammy: And I thought, “Oh, these—this particular colony is just so cranky.”

(A little bee voice says a grumpy, “Buzz off!”)

Lulu: And cranky bees mean they might sting you, right?

Sammy: They might sting me!

(The same bee from before, menacing but also cute, threatens, “I’ll sting you!”)

Lulu: Instead of, you know, not sticking his hand into the beehive that day … ?

Sammy: I just started singing!

(The music hits a beat and stops.)

Lulu: ‘Kay. What song?

Sammy: I think it was a Beyonce song. [Singing. Really well.] “How you doing honey baby? I know I don’t ask for much but for a guy spending time alone …”

(The jazzy music bubbles back up.)

Lulu: And he says …

Sammy: (Singing with drama.) Hey, yeah!

Lulu: The bees?

Sammy: Really mellowed out!

Lulu: (Not bee-lieving.) No!

Sammy: (Excitedly.) Yeah, yeah, yeah! Not a single sting, no smoke, no nothing.

Lulu: Woah.

Lulu: (In a lawyer voice, quick and serious.) Listeners, do not try the Bee-yoncé technique at home!

(Once again, the bubbly jazzy music pops, and then goes quiet.)

Sammy: It was pretty cool!

Lulu: And Sammy has found a way to make this love his day job. He works in a special bug unit of the U.S. government.

Sammy: Mhm!

Lulu: Where he constantly handling bugs and photographing bugs.

Lulu: Have you ever eaten a bug?

Sammy: Oh yeah. Yeah, definitely. I have had silkworm caterpillars, dried and fried.

Lulu: (Groaning in disgust.) Why!? Oh, okay. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm so … I’m—I’m—[Sighing.] I’m trying to expand my mind.

Sammy: Me 15 years ago would have been just as judgmental of the whole thing—[Lulu laughs.]—but I've learned that so many cultures around the rest of the world do consume bugs. They're a great source of nutrition and they contribute a lot less to climate change than the organisms that we factory-farm all the time to feed people. So … just sayin’!

Lulu: Touché!

(Plucky string music bounces up and down.)

Lulu: Uh, please continue.

Sammy: I’ve had cookies with crickets in them

Lulu: Okay.

Sammy: Banana-nut muffins where the nuts were actually mealworms.

Lulu: Mhm.

Sammy: I had larvae of red ants!

Lulu: Oh!

Sammy: They have, like, this citrusy taste. [Fading under.] Uh, probably the formic acid in them …

Lulu: And while I would love to keep listening to Sammy talk—

Sammy: I’ve had cicadas as well.

Lulu: —In extensive culinary detail—

Sammy: They've got sort of like a shrimpy, nutty thing going on.

Lulu: —About all the bugs that we can eat …

Sammy: Oh, I’ve had giant waterbugs.

(Crunch!)

Lulu: … Sammy has come here to tell us about this bug that eats us!

(A bug buzzes and buzzes, gets caught, and is gone—and so is the music.)

Sammy: The tsetse fly, or “set-see flies” as some say. I don't think there's actually a right way to pronounce it. (Both chuckle lightly.)

Lulu: So, our story about the tsetse fly—this creature that today is only found in certain forested, swampy parts of Africa—begins over 34 million years ago, when an ancient fly crawled its way out of the dirt, brushed itself off and—

(An electronic buzzing plays alongside actual buzzing for just a moment.)

Lulu: —Took off. Tummy rumbling. Looking for food.

Sammy: We're not sure what the range of snacks was for the original tsetse fly.

Lulu: Sammy explains that, at first, the tsetse fly likely used its handy-dandy straw mouth to suck up nectar from flowers or juice from fruit. But, at a certain point, it figured out it could get way more nutrients, if it used that straw to suck blood from other creatures. Making tsetses—and other blood-feeding flies like it …

Sammy: Parasites.

(Twangy country-styled music plays before distant horns enter in, almost like they are playing out of an old radio in a car on the other side of a parking lot.)

Lulu: And particularly skilled parasites.

Sammy: They had these really sharp straw mouthparts that are actually made up of different [A chainsaw buzzes as Sammy continues to talk.] The needle-like parts they're able to use to ratchet through the skin, even of things like crocodiles, which have really, really tough skin.

Lulu: So throughout history these hungry flies sawed through the thick scales of crocs—grr!—and tortoises—rrr!—until eventually much easier meals started showing up.

(The music ends.)

Dr. Paul Mireji: And the bite from this tsetse fly is excruciatingly painful.

Lulu: This is Dr. Paul Mireji, a scientist who studies tsetse flies—and a human who grew up alongside them in Western Kenya.

Paul: What they have in their mouth is like, uh—like a saw.

(A light scratchy-scratch.)

Paul: So they’re—they're pool feeders.

Lulu: Wait, sorry. They're what—they’re what-feeders?

Paul: Pool feeders.

Lulu: (Shocked.) Pool feeders!? Wait. Okay. So you're saying instead of a—kind of like a needle that goes in, they have a saw that just scrapes it open and makes like a giant pool of blood that they just slurp up?

(A pause.)

Paul: Yes.

(The twangy parasite music reprises. It’s back!)

Lulu: Ow!

Lulu: And, unlike a mosquito that you can, you know. defend yourself against with a nice little—

(Smack!)

Sammy: So tsetse flies are pretty flat, and you pressing down on it is not gonna make it much flatter.

Lulu: Ugh!

Lulu: And as that hard-to-squash little body is filling up with three times its own body weight in your blood ...

(That cute, tiny, menacing voice from before says, “Glug, glug, glug.”)

Lulu: … To be light enough to fly away …

Sammy: The tsetse fly has to void some of its, um, digestive …

Lulu: (Starting to understand. It’s gross.) Uh …

Sammy: … System …

Lulu: And when you are using that lovely word, “void,” [Sammy laughs.] what do you mean?

Sammy: It poops on ya. [Lulu groans.] Yeah.

Lulu: But it’s shortly before that moment that the tsetse fly turns from gnarly to deadly. Because, as it bites thru your skin, it can pass along—

Sammy: —Parasites from the tsetse fly into the body of the host.

Lulu: Wait, so there can be parasites inside parasites?

(Soft, heavenly music plays. It sounds like a long empty hallway filled with just a little bit of water at the bottom. It would probably echo if you spoke.)

Sammy: Oh, yeah! And sometimes there are parasites that live in parasites that live in parasites that live in parasites.

Lulu: Woah!

Lulu: And the stowaway parasites inside the tsetse fly are really bad news, because they carry a disease known as …

Sammy: Sleeping sickness.

(The music gets darker. A solemn percussive melody begins to play.)

Sammy: It’s pretty debilitating and some people die from it.

Paul: It’s very terrifying, because they are—they are everywhere. They are surrounding.

Lulu: Paul explains that he spent a lot of his childhood trying to hide from the tsetse fly.

Paul: Just to avoid being bitten.

Lulu: So he’d never go down to the river in the morning, because that’s when the flies tended to be more active.

Paul: So that kept us away from the river in the morning.

Lulu: And if a wave of flies rolled in when he was driving in the car with his family, he’d have to …

(A needly little sound spirals down into a cascading crystal-clear synthesizer.)

Paul: … Close the windows. And so you are inside the car, it’s extremely hot, you can’t open the windows because the swarms of tsetse flies will get in the car.

Lulu: Mmm.

Lulu: And beyond that, there were entire places around him—beautiful hilltops or fields of orange flowers—where Paul and his friends were forbidden from going.

Paul: Because, whenever you go there, you come back dozing off, sick.

Lulu: Huh.

Paul: Bad omen: That was how we described those areas.

Lulu: “Bad omen,” like bad luck?

Paul: Yeah. Bad omen.

(With a western-movie-style whistle, the music quiets.)

Lulu: Now, because of how tsetse flies appeared to us, they have not been historically well-loved. In fact, back in the 1800s, when scientists went around ranking all creatures on a scale of “Goodness,” they placed tsetse flies and other parasites way down at the bottom.

(Bumpy, bouncy string music plays for a minute before percussion enters in.

Lulu: They reasoned that, because of the way these creatures behaved, biting into our skin, lazily freeloading off our blood, and—people assumed for a long time—neglecting their babies by just laying a bunch of eggs and flying off … All of this made the creatures objectively, scientifically, bad news for the planet.

(With a xylophone flourish, the curious music plays out.)

Lulu: For a long time, this was how Paul—

Paul: Yes!

Lulu: —And even Sammy—

Sammy: Oh yeah.

Lulu: —Saw tsetse flies—

Sammy: Mhm.

Lulu: —And pretty much all bugs

Sammy: Uh, let me tell you, when I say that I was afraid of bugs, it's truly an understatement.

Lulu: Wait, really?

Sammy: I was absolutely terrified. I thought the insects were out for my ill. I thought that they were intentionally trying to hurt me. [Buzzing.] I thought bees were looking for a person to sting. [A mosquito buzzes, lightly.] I thought that mosquitoes were intentionally trying to make me itchy. [Crickets play up.]Uh, I thought that crickets were trying to keep me up at night with all of that loud racket that they're making.

Lulu: He didn't want to go outside for recess, because they’re might be bugs out there. And when his sister realized he was scared of bugs, she would sometimes grab beetles or ants.

Sammy: (In a high-pitched, mock-sister voice.) “Hey, Sammy, there's a bug on you!”

Lulu: And throw them at him.

Sammy: Uh. So I—I lost my mind in panic. Rather than brushing the insect off, I would just run around in circles.

Lulu: Screaming, [“Ahh!”] and then he’d feel embarrassed for being so scared.

Sammy: Oh man.

Lulu: And his fears of bugs began crawling their way into his dreams.

(Mysterious, dark music begins. A flute plays a mystical melody for a moment, whisking us away to a world of dreams.)

Sammy: I was always the smallest person in class, and I used to dream that the bugs were strong enough to carry me away. So, like, just a swarm of ants would come to my bed at night and carry me out of my house, down into their ant hill where they would, uh, divide me up and consume me.

(A pause.)

Sammy: It's a scary, scary little world to live in.

Lulu: Maybe it would have gone that way forever had his mom not pulled him inside one day and said, “Sammy, you gotta stop running.”

Sammy: She said, “Sammy, people fear what they don't understand. If you understood them, then you wouldn't fear them.”

Lulu: So, cautiously, Sammy headed toward the “Entomology” section of the library, and began taking out books on ants and crickets and mosquitoes and termites.

(Looping marimba notes move back and forth, each individual note and phrase swaying in time to the rhythm of something bigger, something greater.)

Sammy: I kept seeing all of these cool pictures really close-up of these creatures that had never bothered to really, really look at, and seeing all these cool—

Lulu: Hmm.

Sammy: —Extra appendages and things that they had and all this interesting stuff that they could do.

Lulu: Like building cities and regrowing limbs and surviving the most extreme conditions. These weren’t monsters. They're inventors and musicians and protectors, looking for food and family.

Sammy: They also became something I identified with. I was always the smallest kid in class. I was the shortest, I was the skinniest. But to find that these creatures—these really, really, really tiny organisms—they can build structures that are visible from space. [Laughs in wonder.] They can do awesome stuff at an incredibly small size. And that was inspiring to me.

(An expansion: The world—and the music—opens up before it fades into the sky.)

Lulu: And, by the time he hit high school, he had become so unafraid of bugs that he began wearing his giant, 14-inch millipede—

Sammy: (Excitedly.) Leroy, my millipede!

(For a moment, the jazzy cafe music returns.)

Lulu: —Around his neck.

Lulu: Was it kinda like a—a showing off to your classmates?

Sammy: Uh huh. Yeah, we call it a flex.

(And then, just as quickly, the music is gone again.)

Paul: (Shaking.) You can see now the tsetse flies!

Lulu: Speaking of flexes.

Lulu: Oh my gosh. Wait, are those actual tsetse flies right there?

Paul: Yes. Yes, and we have them here, as you can see.

Lulu: In the middle of our interview, Paul over in Kenya pulls out a tambourine-looking thing, that was filled with living tsetse flies.

Lulu: You know, it looks like you have almost 20 or so of them. And they're in this cage flying around.

Paul: Yeah. (Laughs.)

Lulu: Does that make you nervous to have them so close to you? Like, they’re—they’re—they … Right now, they look like they're swarming. They look like they're trying to get out of that little cage. Like, I feel nervous. Do you feel nervous?

Paul: No!

(Gentle, lush music unfolds for a breath. Then, plucky strings come back.)

Lulu: And the reason why not is that Paul used the same magical trick as Sammy. At a certain point he began looking closer at the thing he feared. He became a scientist, specializing in the tsetse fly—as he puts it, because he wanted to gain control over the bug.

Paul: Because, from the time I was a small boy, the bugs were controlling me. They were deciding when I should go to the river. They were deciding when I could go to the forest, they were deciding when I could play out with my friends. And now I decided that the best thing for me was go back and control the bugs. Make the bugs play by my rules.

Lulu: How one man tries to make millions of bugs play by his rules —

after this short break.

(The music ends with the break.)

(As we come back from the break, more buzzing!)

Lulu: Okay, we are back! Pfff! [As though swatting away bugs herself.] With a whole lot of tsetse flies and a man named Paul who has just set out to …

Paul: (In a distorted, low voice, like Darth Vader.) Control the bugs.

Lulu: So the way that people usually control fly populations—like, mosquitos, say—is that they …

Um, well, they kill their babies.

They target the places where they are likely to lay their eggs—stagnant water or dense brush—and then they’ll clear that stuff away [Wff! It’s gone!] and voila! No more adults.

(A refreshing silence.)

Lulu: But Paul learned that, for some frustrating reason, this technique [Wff! Again.] would not work with tsetse flies! So he began looking closer at the creature—

(The buzzing restarts, but this time it’s joined by light piano notes, gently wavering up and then back down again, over and over.)

Lulu: —Through microscopes and in obscure studies in books, and that’s when he learned this totally shocking thing which completely stunned Sammy, too.

(The buzzing cuts out from the music.)

Sammy: With tsetse flies, the weird thing about it is their egg hatches inside of their body. And they actually—

Lulu: Wait. What do you mean? I thought insects laid thousands of eggs out in the world and that’s just—that’s just how insects do it.

Sammy: That’s actually not how the tsetse fly does it.

Lulu: Wait! Meaning, they don’t lay eggs, so they … They don’t get pregnant, do they?

Sammy: Yeah, yeah, yeah! They've got this really thin back-end: The abdomen. That’s the place where the baby would normally be. But after they start developing this child, it swells to ridiculous size—multiple times the size of what it was before.

Lulu: Also, are you saying that the baby bump is on the booty?

(An abrupt stop to the music.)

Sammy: Yeah. The baby bump is on the … It’s—it’s a booty baby bump. [JOKE SFX]

(An Alan song! A funky drumline plays over a spoken-word song, light vocals over a low, percussive voice, both saying the same words:

“It’s a booty baby bump!

It’s a booty baby bump!

Is that junk in your trunk?

No, it’s a little tsetse punk!”)

Lulu: But the strangeness does not stop there, because, as scientists looked closer, they realized that those tsetse moms ...

Sammy: They actually will keep their baby fed on milk [Lulu gasps lightly.] that they produce inside of their body and feed to their offspring, which is crazy!

Lulu: Wait, but, okay … What do you mean, “milk”? Like, not … milk? [Sammy laughs.] Like, we're talking about a bug. Bugs don't have milk. Do they?

Sammy: Oh, bugs do have milk! [Taking on a fake fancy voice.] And I take exception with your skepticism!

Lulu: With my tone here? [Both laugh.] I’m being judgy again? No, but, like, okay. Aren’t mammals—which humans are and, you know, cuddly little dogs and elephants—like, aren't we, the only things that do milk? Isn’t that what makes us special?

Sammy: So we are not the only things that do milk.

Lulu: And we nurse–and it's like that science-y thing? We nurse our babies. We tend to them.

Sammy: We nurse them, yeah.

Lulu: We don't just lay eggs and leave them. Like, we’re—I feel like that's what makes us think we're in the caring class of animal.

Sammy: We are in the caring class, but we're not the only game in town.

(Inspiring, sustained piano music plays over long, stretched-out strings.)

Lulu: Sammy explains that if you wanna rank animals by how well they care for their babies, tsetse flies arguably score even higher than us because they incubate those babies in their bellies for proportionally longer to their lives than we do.

Sammy: Well, the tsetse flies keep that child inside of them [Lulu laughs.] until it's pretty much the day before it’s an adult.

Lulu: That’s so weird, to picture being inside the womb until you’re, like, in high school.

Sammy: Like, you’re basically born with a briefcase and a car. [Both laughing at the idea.] It’s time for you to get a job.

Lulu: And because they come into the world so fully developed, some scientists even guess that the survival rate of tsetse babies is better than ours

Sammy: Oh yeah, for sure!

Lulu: That is—that’s humbling. (Laughs gently.)

Lulu: And, to further shake our sense of specialness, Sammy pointed out that tsetse flies aren't even that much of an outlier. They aren’t even the only bugs that make milk.

Sammy: There's even roach milk.

(Wait, what? The music ends, as if in reaction to roach milk.)

Lulu: Blegh! Cockroaches?

Sammy: Oh yeah! Yeah yeah yeah. Like—like, cockroaches, cockroaches.

Lulu: Ugh!

Sammy: It is some of the most nutritious milk that we know of.

Lulu: Sammy told me there are even labs looking into how to bottle the stuff.

Lulu: (Over a big ripping sound.) Okay, I am opening this package from Omaha, Nebraska.

Lulu: Shortly after our interview, we talked our way into getting one of these labs to send us some cockroach milk for Sammy and me to taste.

Lulu: Oh my god, there are two little vials here. [Laughing at herself, like she’s losing it for doing this.] It looks kinda maple syrup-y, but white, with, like, darker grains. Am I really gonna do this?

(A pause.)

Lulu: Do you think this is our future? Like, are we gonna have roach milk in the supermarket alongside goat milk and rice milk and … ?

Sammy: Oh, I hope so. I hope so. And that might sound like a really weird thing for a human being to say.

(Clip-clopping exploratory music enters in.)

Lulu: But, Sammy reasons, with so many cockroaches scurrying around all over the planet—[The skittering sounds of so many cockroaches.]—harvesting their milk just might be better for the environment than milk from big—[Moo!]—gassy cows—[Moo number two!]—[Lulu’s voice speeds up, like a lawyer’s disclaimer.] who are constantly belching out tons of methane gas which is a significant contributor to climate change … (The cows burp, changing the climate right then and there.)

(The music plays out.)

Lulu: I can’t believe I’m about to try roach milk … [Sammy laughs.] Alright. No, but seriously, any little, like—can you give me a jingle to get me into the zone here?

Sammy: Okay!

[A harp plays a flourish. Then, singing, with keyboard accompaniment.] You’ve tried the cow, you’ve tried the goat! [A goat bleats.] So how ‘bout now, you milk a roach? [One more harp strum ends the jingle. Both laugh.]

How ‘bout that?

Lulu: Okay! Let’s just do it! Bottoms up!

Sammy: Cheers!

(They both take a big sip.)

Sammy: Oh!

Lulu: I’m, like, shaking.

Sammy: I kinda like that!

Lulu: There’s, like, a cucumber-y …

Sammy: Surprisingly salty.

Lulu: Acrid … [Sammy laughs.] Ruined dreams of sunshine? (Sammy breaks into deeper laughter.)

Lulu: Woo! Okay! So, speculative dairy scenarios aside. Back to Paul, with the real problem of real people being hurt by real tsetse flies—right now.

Paul: Yeah.

Lulu: Once Paul learned that there were no tsetse fly eggs out there in the world for him to ambush, he realized that, to control the tsetse fly population, he was going to have to find a way to make the adults …

(Electric guitar chords bump on up. It’s tsetse fly time!)

Lulu: Come to him.

Paul: Exactly!

Lulu: So he learned their favorite color.

Paul: Tsetse flies like people who dress in blue and black. Blue, like in jeans.

Lulu: Wait, what? They like the color blue?

Paul: Yes. Blue and black.

Lulu: Its favorite animal …

Paul: The buffalo.

(A buffalo sound.)

Lulu: (Whispering, an aside.) Nothin’ like a big, wet, stinky water buffalo.

Lulu: Its favorite place?

Paul: The river.

(Water rushes over a cool river.)

Lulu: And then Paul deviously combined all three of these things—the river, the buffalo, and the colors black and blue—into the perfect …

Paul: Trap!

Lulu: (Echoing.) Trap.

Lulu: He hung a big black cloth near the blue river and he smothered the cloth in a liquid that smelled like …

(The music stops for a beat.)

Paul: The urine of the buffalo.

Lulu: Wooo!

(One last flourish of the music.)

Lulu: He added a little poison …

(Spray spray!)

Lulu: And then he waited.

Paul: A little bit far away with the binoculars.

Lulu: Until …

(Buzzing sounds.)

Lulu: I've never heard of someone looking at insects with binoculars. Can you actually see flies with binoculars?

Paul: Yes, you can see from a distance …

Lulu: And through his binoculars, he watched as one tsetse fly landed on the cloth,

(One string note of alarm, then a wiggly noise.)

Lulu: Dipped its little straw in the poison … [Slurp!] Began to fly away …

Paul: And then collapse and fall down.

(Twang! The fly falls down.)

Lulu: Where it lay on the forest floor until, eventually …

Paul: It is taken away by ants.

(Sammy’s ant nightmare song returns.)

Lulu: Wow. I'm picturing you watching through your binoculars as the ants come and eat it. Like, carry it off and eat it!

Paul: Yeah. (Chuckles lightly.)

(The music ends.)

Lulu: Do you feel victorious? Do you feel, like, “Ha ha ha!” [Chuckles.] Like, “I—I got you!”?

Paul: A very big sense of relief. Because from every tsetse fly that is eaten away is one bite less—guaranteed one bite less—for me and for everyone around me.

(Spacey music plays up, peaceful and calm, like a success story playing out the credits.)

Lulu: These days, sleeping sickness is very well-controlled in Kenya. Thanks to new medicines. And, thanks to Paul’s work, bites themselves have even gone down.

Lulu: If you could just snap your fingers and make all the tsetse flies go away on planet Earth, would you do it?

Paul: No, I wouldn’t. Because it would upset … (Fades under and out.)

Lulu: Paul explains that, when he looks at the creature biting his skin—sure, he sees a gnarly little bugger that he is literally in the business of trying to kill—but when he zooms out, when he looks at a map of the national parks in Africa, he can’t help but to wonder if many of those green spots on the map were able to stay protected because of the tsetse fly, or, you know, our human fear of it.

Paul: Bad omen. We described as a bad omen.

Lulu: Which kept not just Paul and his neighbors away from certain mountains and parts of the savannah, but outsiders, like colonists and loggers and developers who might otherwise have long ago destroyed the nature in those parks. Which is why, these days, in Paul’s community …

Paul: Tsetse fly is considered the guardian of the savannah.

Lulu: The—the guardian?

Paul: Yes.

Lulu: Huh.

(The music rings up and shimmers—magic.)

Lulu: The closer scientists like Paul and Sammy look at the tsetse fly, the more they realize how much they had been missing by looking away.

Sammy: Oh yeah!

Lulu: For instance, Sammy got all dazzled about how the tsetse fly filters out toxins from our blood because he figured, if we could learn how they do it, it could help us decontaminate water supplies—or who knows!

Sammy: Like, these creatures have had to solve some really complicated situations and we have some big, scary, hairy problems to solve ourselves. Things like world hunger and global warming are going to require us to really, really think. And I think a lot of these answers are going to come from creatures that have used their creativity to solve all kinds of problems themselves.

(The music fades out.)

Sammy: Unfortunately, those may be creatures that can test the boundaries of our ability to wonder, but I hope that we'll push those boundaries more and keep the wonder going.

(A new Alan song!)

Lulu: Uh oh! Someone’s got a triangle!

(A funky triangle beat, played with rhythmic clapping, signals the start of the song.)

Alan: (Singing with a chorus of voices.) If you’re feeling stale or stuck,

scared, bored or out of luck,

Try a new point of view. To get yourself unstuck

You gotta yum your yuck! [A whip cracks.]

(A bouncy synthesizer gives the song a pop-music texture.)

Lulu: (Singing.) Help me! I don’t know what I’m gonna find.

I try to have an open mind

But you are crunching on something disgusting! [Spoken.] Yuck!

Alan: (Singing with autotune.) I just want to say it’s okay. Yeah, it’s fine

to change your mind anytime and redefine what you like!

I know that you’re brave, yeah!

And I know that you can change, yeah!

But don’t bug me with your yuck! [The new voice says, “Hey!”]

You better suck it up like a tsetse fly!

(A brief instrumental moment.)

Alan: Hey Dr. Sammy!

Sammy: Yo?

Alan: You got anything you wanna put on this track?

Sammy: Oh, I got you! I didn’t choose the bug life. The bug life chose me!

Alan: (Laughing.) Alright, boss. What’s on the menu?

Sammy: Here we go!

[Singing.] I’ve had silkworm caterpillars dried and fried.

A little bit of sugar makes the flavor come alive.

Banana nut muffins with worms inside.

The crunchier the better, now open wide!

The thing about bugs is they’re just another critter.

They all evolved because they were fitter.

[Harmonizing with Alan.] Better, smarter, stronger, quicker

So we can get a lot from them besides dinner.

Alan: If you’re feeling stale or stuck,

scared, bored, or out of luck,

Try a new point of view to get yourself unstuck

You gotta yum your yuck!

Spread your gross on jam like toast

And yum the thing that makes you yuck the most.

Take a whiff of something new

Even if it smells like—pretty roses! [Another whip!]

Watch out! We got an appetite

To take a bite

For giving something new a try.

Lulu: (Singing.) Hurry up before I change my mind!

Alan: 3, 2, 1.

Lulu: Gulp! (One more whip crack!)

Alan: If you’re feeling stale or stuck,

Scared, bored, and out of luck

Try a new point of view!

To get yourself unstuck,

You gotta yum your yuck!

(And with that, the song is over!)

Lulu: The one and only Alan Goffinski!

(A drumroll slides into credits music.)

Lulu: Terrestrials was created by me, Lulu Miller, with WNYC Studios. It is produced by the Tsetse-reffic Ana González and Alan Goffinski (plus, ya know, me). With help from Suzie Lechtenberg, Sarah Sandbach, Natalia Ramirez, Joe Plourde, Natalie Meade, and Sarita Bhatt. Sound design and additional editorial guidance by Mira Burt-Wintonick. Zoop!

Terrestrials is supported in part by Science Sandbox, an initiative of the Simons Foundation.

Our advisors are Theanne Griffith, Dominique Shabazz, Liza Steinberg-Demby, Tara Welty, and Aliyah Elijah.

Special thanks to Dr. Geoffrey Attardo and Paul Ayayee and his lab at the University of Nebraska for sending us cockroach milk … A sentence I thought I would never [A breath.] udder. [Chuckling at her own joke.] Udder! Eh? Those are Ds, not Ts. You get it if you get it!

And … That’s it! You should stop listening. Who listens to credits? Honestly, there’s life to live!

(Interrupting Lulu come the Badgers! They excuse themselves—four times—and here we go! It’s the Badgers!)

(Groovy elevator music with a ‘70s vibe begins to play.)

Lulu: Listeners, with badgering questions for the expert.

Lulu: You ready?

Sammy: Yeah!

Teo: Hi, my name is Teo and I’m twelve. [Giggles.] Is there anything that makes a mosquito bite you instead of somebody else?

Sammy: So mosquitoes really like people who are sweating and people who are exhaling a lot. So if you happen to be doing a lot of exercising outdoors, you will attract more mosquitoes.

Lulu: Oh.

Sammy: There's been some research around this and bananas actually do have some, uh, components in them that seem to, in some people, make them more attractive [Lulu gasps.] to mosquitoes.

Lulu: That is bananas.

Jad: Hi! My name is Jad and here’s my question: If a mosquito is biting your arm and you flex your arm muscles right at the moment that its little proboscis is going into your arm and it’s drawing out the blood—if you flew your arm right at that moment, will it explode or is that just an urban myth?

Sammy: Is that Jad Abumrad?

Lulu: Yeah!

Sammy: (Laughingly.) Oh, that makes me very happy. Mosquitoes have been around for a long time. Evolutionarily, they've got all kinds of pumps and mechanisms in place to prevent the backflow system that would allow for an influx of blood to make them blow up.

Lulu: Myth—unlike the mosquito—busted. (Explosion noise!)

Jude: Hi my name is Jude (Lulu whispers to Jude, “And how old are you?”). Three. Do ants make sounds?

Sammy: Hey Jude! Ants do make sounds. Um, some of the most famous ants that make sounds are the queens. So queen ants have a special sound that only they make in the colony …

(A scritchy-scratchy sound plays: It’s the queen!)

(At the same time, the music changes to become big and spaced-out.)

Sammy: The queen’s saying, [In a royal voice.] “I’m your queen. Give me your food.”

But there are some butterflies that have gotten into ant colonies and have figured out how to hijack that system. They lay an egg, their baby hatches from the egg, and the caterpillar walks around the colony, making the same sound as the queen!

(The same sound echoes, just a little lower than the queen’s sound!)

Sammy: (Making another silly, fancy voice.) “I am your queen! Feed me!” And the ants feed them and raise them like they're queens.

Lulu: Ohh! Sneaky!

Lulu: Alright. I’m gonna leave it there with the parasitic butterfly waiting in the … [Making a joke.] wings.

(One more queen ant sound for good measure. It almost sounds like laughter.)

Lulu: You know, I—I wasn’t sure about parasites … But they are growing on me. [A goofy giggle.] Okay, you’re free. No more parasite puns. Go enjoy your life! If you’d like to badger our next expert or check out cool drawing prompts, check out our website, at terrestrialspodcast.org! All kinds of neat stuff there.

Thanks for listening! See ya in a couple spins of this lumpy ol’ planet of ours.

(Lulu whistles, then whispers.) Bye!

(The music plays up for a moment, a dream of clouds in space, then drifts away.)

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

# included[].attributes.twitter-headline
Terrestrials 02. The Guardian: Tsetse Fly Defenders

# included[].attributes.appearances.producers[].bio
Ana is an audio producer and host who came to WNYC in 2021 to work on Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials. Before that, she produced and hosted Mosaic, a show about immigration experiences from Rhode Island Public Radio. In a former life, she played jazz bass and thinks about everything in terms of rhythm, conversation, and harmony.

# included[].attributes.appearances.producers[].bio
Alan Goffinski (he/him), is an arts administrator, songwriter, and producer from Charlottesville VA. He is the former Executive Director of The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative and the Charlottesville Mural Project—two city-wide organizations that utilize art and culture as a way for people to better understand themselves, each other, and the world around them. He is also a founding member of the Indianapolis-based whimsical performing arts collective Know No Stranger which has been described as “Sesame Street but for adults... but also for kids.” He produced the experimental music radio program Telemetry in partnership with the University of Virginia. Early in his career, Alan spent years making music in a nationally touring indie-punk band (signed to Victory Records) prior to becoming a social worker specializing in early childhood development. He began making kid’s music under the moniker Little Skunks as a fun way to be a part of the day-to-day lives of his nieces and nephew.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].bio
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

Her book, Why Fish Don’t Exist, is an international bestseller, translated into 11 languages. It was chosen as a Best Book by The Smithsonian, NPR, The Chicago Tribune, Brainpickings, The Washington Post and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and the American Association for the Advancement of Science Book Prize. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She has also won honors from The National Academy of Sciences, the Associated Press, the National Center on Disability and Journalism, and most recently an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Swarthmore College.

She reports on a range of scientific topics with a special interest in disability, mental illness, and ecology. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She serves as a Contributing Advisor to nature magazine Orion and she was the co-founder of NPR’s Invisibilia—a radio show about psychology, emotion, and human behavior. She recently published her debut children’s book, Trucky Roads, about trucks and, you’ll never guess this… roads. She lives in the Chicago area with her wife and two sons.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].lede
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].about.body
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].about.people[].image.alt-text
Producer Sarah Qari, smiling and standing proudly in the foreground of a field of sunflowers.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].description
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].tease
Investigating a strange world.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].bio
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

Her book, Why Fish Don’t Exist, is an international bestseller, translated into 11 languages. It was chosen as a Best Book by The Smithsonian, NPR, The Chicago Tribune, Brainpickings, The Washington Post and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and the American Association for the Advancement of Science Book Prize. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She has also won honors from The National Academy of Sciences, the Associated Press, the National Center on Disability and Journalism, and most recently an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Swarthmore College.

She reports on a range of scientific topics with a special interest in disability, mental illness, and ecology. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She serves as a Contributing Advisor to nature magazine Orion and she was the co-founder of NPR’s Invisibilia—a radio show about psychology, emotion, and human behavior. She recently published her debut children’s book, Trucky Roads, about trucks and, you’ll never guess this… roads. She lives in the Chicago area with her wife and two sons.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].lede
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].about.body
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].about.people[].image.alt-text
Producer Sarah Qari, smiling and standing proudly in the foreground of a field of sunflowers.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].description
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].tease
Investigating a strange world.

# included[].attributes.body
Sy Montgomery, an author and naturalist, shares the story of a color-changing creature many people assumed to be brainless who outsmarts his human captors. If you want a SPOILER of what the creature is, read on: It’s an octopus. We hear the story of one particularly devious octopus who lost a limb, was captured by humans, and then managed to make an escape from its aquarium tank—back into the ocean! The tale of “Inky” the octopus calls into question who we think of as intelligent (and kissable) in the animal kingdom.

Learn about the storytellers, listen to music, and dig deeper into the stories you hear on Terrestrials with activities you can do at home or in the classroom on our website, Terrestrialspodcast.org

Find MORE original Terrestrials fun on Youtube.

Badger us on Social Media: @radiolab and #TerrestrialsPodcast

Support for Terrestrials is provided by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.

More from Terrestrials

The Shovels: Dig Deeper

For each episode of Terrestrials, we provide a selection of activity sheets, drawing prompts, musical lessons, and more. We call them “shovels” because we hope they will help you (and your friends, family, students, neighbors, etc) dig more deeply into the world! You can do them at home, in the classroom, outside, or in the privacy of your own mind. We hope you enjoy!

If you want to share what you’ve made, ask an adult share it on social media using #TerrestrialsPodcast and make sure to tag @Radiolab

Draw -  Octopus brains are in their arms. What would happen if you got out of your head and let your limbs draw the world they saw? Listen to a very special drawing prompt created by artist Wendy Mac and the DrawTogether team to explore just that!

Play 🎶 - Learn how to play the chords to the song “1800 Little Kisses!” Plus, the kindly Songbud has put together a video teaching you, yes you, how to play 1800 Little Kisses (and you get to see an insider glimpse of his office)!

Do - Get crafty with a fun activity sheet!

This week’s storyteller is Sy Montgomery. Sy is an author, speaker, and naturalist who has published 31 books! She writes for adults and children, for print and broadcast, in America and overseas in an effort to reach as wide an audience as possible at what she considers a critical turning point in human history.

Want to keep learning? Check out these resources to learn about the brilliance that is the octopus:

Inky's Amazing Escape, a picture book by Sy Montgomery
“Deep Intellect,” a beautiful essay on octopus intelligence by Sy Montgomery
The Soul of an Octopus, Sy Montgomery’s science book all about octopuses
”Why The Octopus Brain is so Extraordinary,” a video by Claudio L. Guerra
”If Your Hands Could Smell, You’d be an Octopus,” a video by TEDEd

Terrestrials is a production of WNYC Studios, created by Lulu Miller. This episode is produced by Ana González, Alan Goffinski and Lulu Miller. Original Music by Alan Goffinski. Help from Suzie Lechtenberg, Sarah Sandbach, Natalia Ramirez, and Sarita Bhatt. Fact-check by Diane Kelley. Sound design by Mira Burt-Wintonick with additional engineering by Joe Plourde. Our storyteller this week is Sy Montgomery. Transcription by Caleb Codding.

Our advisors are Theanne Griffith, Aliyah Elijah, Dominique Shabazz, John Green, Liza Steinberg-Demby, Tara Welty, and Alice Wong.

Terrestrials is supported in part by Science Sandbox, an initiative of the Simons Foundation.

Have questions for us, badgers? Badger us away! Your parent/guardian should write to us along with you, so we know you have their permission, and for maybe even having your ideas mentioned on the show. Email terrestrials@wnyc.org.

# included[].attributes.headers.brand.logo-image.alt-text
Radiolab for Kids Presents Terrestrials Logo

# included[].attributes.headers.links[].title
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.npr-analytics-dimensions[]
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.show-tease
A show where we uncover the strangeness right here on Earth

# included[].attributes.show-title
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.series[].about.body
Terrestrials is a show for people of all ages that explores the strangeness that exists right here on Earth. In each episode, host Lulu Miller (co-host of Radiolab) will introduce you to a creature or earthly phenomenon that will defy your expectations of how nature is supposed to work. Along the way, you'll encounter a chorus of experts, including scientists, surfers, hip hop artists and…a "Songbud" named Alan (indie punk musician Alan Goffinski) who creates original songs for key moments of confusion, discovery or awe. New episodes drop Thursdays. Listen in with your whole family. Or all alone.

Support for Terrestrials is provided by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation.

LISTEN TO TERRESTRIALS  | SUPPORT TERRESTRIALS | TERRESTRIALS WANTS YOUR FEEDBACK! | PRESS INQUIRIES  | BECOME A SPONSOR | CONTACT US

# included[].attributes.series[].tease
A show where we uncover the strangeness right here on Earth

# included[].attributes.series[].logo-image.alt-text
Radiolab for Kids Presents Terrestrials Logo

# included[].attributes.tease
A color-changing creature many people assumed to be brainless outsmarts his human captors.

# included[].attributes.title
Terrestrials 01. The Mastermind: An Octopus Heist

# included[].attributes.transcript
Lulu Miller: Three. Two. [Whispering.] One.

Sy Montgomery: Imagine you are a liquid creature.

(A thumping dance beat plays. If it were playing through your speakers, you could feel it vibrate! Then, as if to join the party, a bucket of bubbles float past.)

Sy: No bones, and you are so pliable, you can literally pour your body through a tiny opening.

(Someone slurps through a straw over the music. Picture an octopus whizzing by!)

Lulu: You can change colors!

Sy: Blue and green and red and yellow, and even metallic!

(Sparkles shine by.)

Lulu: You can taste—with your skin.

Sy: And you have blue blood. And you have three hearts.

(A person pretends to make the sound of a heart beating: zha-zhoom, zha-zhoom, zha-zhoom.)

Sy: And if you're threatened—if you feel scared—you can shoot ink!

(Still over the music, the sound fwoo rushes by. That’s the ink.)

Lulu: Into a silhouette in the shape of you!

Sy: So the predator is fooled into believing you're still there.

Lulu: Now, look down at your arms and watch them slowly sprouting into eight.

Sy: (Quietly.) You are an octopus now.

(The music—and all the sounds that come with it—go down the drain!)

Lulu: Ok, now is where I make you sing the theme song with me.

Sy: Okay.

(The theme song plays, and Lulu and Sy sing with it: “Terrestrials, terrestrials! We’re not the worst—we are the …” But then the song pauses and waits for Sy to say:)

Sy: (A little unsure.) Best-rials!

(Almost like it agrees, the song finishes with the same word: “Best-rials!”)

Lulu: (Excitedly.) You got it!

Sy: (Laughing.) I dunno, man.

Lulu: Terrestrials is a show where we uncover the strangeness waiting right here on Earth and, sometimes, break out into song.

(The rest of the theme song plays, and Lulu keeps singing with it: “There’s so much to discover when you dive down deep. Terrestrials, terrestrials! So come on and plunge into the sea! Terrestrials, terrestrials.” The song ends with a splash. Literally.)

Lulu: Good voices not required!

I am your host Lulu Miller, joined, as always, by my songbud—

Alan: Hoo hoo!

Lulu: —Alan!

Alan Goffinski: (Using Autotune, Alan’s voice sounds like a computer, singing a bunch of chords all at once.) Hello everybody! (Sy laughs in response.)

Lulu: Today we’re joined by special guest Sy Montgomery who is gonna tell about a devious little octopus who outsmarted his human captors.

Hi, Sy!

Sy: Hi Lulu!

Lulu: Um, what do you [Pausing to look for the right word.] do for a living? What is your job?

Sy: Um, I’m an author, and I write about animals.

Lulu: And what are some of the animals you've written about?

Sy: Oh boy …

(Bouncy, goofy music lets us know this is going to be a long list.)

Sy: Gorillas, tarantulas, garter snakes, wildebeests, pink dolphins in the Amazon, hyenas, orangutans, man-eating tigers. Um, of course I'm a woman, so I knew I was safe, but, um …

Lulu: Ba-dum-tsch! (Sy laughs at her own joke with Lulu.)

(A dolphin says “Ee-ee-ee!” and cuts the song off.)

Lulu: Alright. So let’s head out on this octopus journey, where does it all start?

Sy: Um, it was likely in 2014 …

(Waves wash in.)

Sy: Deep in the ocean off the coast of New Zealand.

Lulu: And a little baby octopus is born.

(A metallic sound rings out. We’re going underwater.)

Sy: … The size of a grain of rice.

Lulu: In a stretch of ocean called Hawk’s Bay.

(A marimba plays an echoey song, an orchestra under the waves.)

Sy: He hatched out with hundreds of other octopuses.

Lulu: And then he began floating away. Little grain of rice with eight little arms. Not so great at swimming, very low chance of surviving. Only able to eat whatever little scraps of tiny crustaceans and shrimp happen to come his way.

Sy: An octopus actually grows faster than almost any other animal. They could double their size in a matter of days.

(“Ruuurp” grows the octopus! Up and up!)

Lulu: So this little guy [“Ruuurp!”] is getting bigger [“Ruuurp!” again.] and longer [“Ruuurp!” one more time.] and heavier [Just kidding—“Ruuurp!” again, but lower this time.] and as he did, he started being able to eat …

Sy: Bigger things, like crabs and fish!

(The music fades out.)

Lulu: How does it catch—how does an octopus catch a crab? There's something so confusing about something so soft being able to catch something so sharp. I always think the crab would win.

Sy: Of course you think that.

(New music wanders all up and down a xylophone, curious and exploratory and a little magical.)

Lulu: Sy explained that, like thousands of people who came before me, I was assuming that because an octopus was a kind of creature called a mollusk—basically a lumpy bug in the same family as slugs and clams—it just couldn’t be all that brainy.

Sy: We don't think of clams as very, uh, “brainy,” ‘cause they don't have any. (Lulu laughs.)

(A pause.)

Lulu: But all along, under their their slimy skin, unnoticed by humans, octopuses have had huge brains—brains so big they spill down into each of their arms and allow them to catch all kinds of things.

Sy: Oh, they'll eat fish. Um, they've been known to even eat sharks.

Lulu: (Unbelieving.) No!

Sy: Yes.

Lulu: (Gently, but definitely, in shock.) Wow!

Sy: They will eat birds.

Lulu: (Almost whispering.) What?

(Another Alan song, this time with harmony, no instruments, and lots of snapping: “Let's take a break to consider that an octopus can eat a bird. Let’s take a break to consider that an octopus [Each word moving more slowly than the last.] can eat a bird!” Then, as the song ends, a human voice says “Tweet tweet!” before a splashing sound and then a distinct gulp.)

Lulu: How does an octopus catch a bird?

Sy: Well, you’ve got certain birds that float on the ocean. And when they’re doing that, their little feet are below the water.

Lulu: (Realizing what Sy means.) Oh no!

Sy: And that would be an opportunity for an octopus to reach up and grab them.

Lulu: And then what? Can you take me over home plate there, so they grab ‘em and pull ‘em in the water … ?

Sy: They grab them and they wrap them in their arms and …

Lulu: Hug ‘em! ’Til they …

Sy: Drown.

Lulu: Alright.

Moving on. So our little octopus is now a few weeks old and he's getting better and better at hunting. But he also has to quickly master how to hide—

(A quick bit of musical punctuation signals a song is on its way.)

Lulu: —from the things that wanna eat him.

(The song arrives, a plinking, plunking synthesizer medley that echoes like it was recorded in an underwater cave.)

Lulu: Things like sharks, and whales and humans and other octopuses.

Sy: They will eat each other.

Lulu: So they’re—they’re cannibals, they'll eat each other?

Sy: Yeah.

Lulu: And …

Sy: The most dangerous predator to an octopus is a moray eel. Big, long green fish. They have two rows of teeth: Another row in their throat.

Lulu: Ugh!

(As a keyboard plays a little flourish, accordions enter in, in an under-the-sea musical ballet.)

Lulu: So to hide in that giant clear ocean, our little red octopus can turn a deep purple, or white, or yellow so that it looks like …

Sy: A piece of coral or a bunch of algae or rock or the sea floor.

Lulu: And it can also—

Sy: —Turn into spots all of a sudden, or stripes, or they can stripe just one part of their body. Some octopuses even make themselves look like poisonous sea snakes!

Lulu: Hmm!

Sy: Or poisonous flounders.

Lulu: They can grow horns.

Sy: Which, sometimes, can be two inches tall! They can even do a display called “passing cloud,” which … You know how when a cloud passes over something, it—it—it—it looks like, you know, a darkness sweeping across the land?

Lulu: Yeah.

Sy: They can make a darkness sweep across their bodies.

Lulu: (Laughing.) What!?

Sy: And this confuses fish into believing—

Lulu: (A gasp!) Woah!

Sy: A bigger fish is swimming.

Lulu: (Guessing what Sy is about to say.) Is above them?

Sy: Maybe!

Lulu: That is so clever!

Sy: It's really great.

(The music plays one final flourish, and then out.)

Lulu: So our little octopus, his days are busy, as he’s practicing throwing punches with his arms [Fshoo-fshoo go the punches.], and changing colors, and flexing each of his hundreds of suckers, which have grown so strong they can [With a click of the tongue.] crack open clam shells. [A whispered “Snap!” opens a shell.]

And every now and then, he conks out to take a nap.

Sy: They also appear to dream because when they're sleeping, sometimes they change color.

(An atmosphere of calm and currents plays up.)

Lulu: Hmm. Hm!

Sy: The same way, you know, a puppy or kitten might [Lulu laughs at the thought—it’s goofy!] run in its sleep.

Sy: Or bark or meow in its sleep.

(The music shifts a little, becoming serious, less light.)

Lulu: And then one day as he's moving through the world, transforming into eels and clouds and sand, something [A pause.] attacks him.

(A tiny roar rings out. An animal attack!)

Lulu: It snaps off one of his arms.

(The octopus gives a tiny, high-pitched “Ow!”)

Lulu: And though he fights back with all seven of the other ones—

(The sounds of a struggle, not too intense, but quite tense, follow.)

Lulu: —whatever predator it is manages to gnaw—

(Another roar and another squeaking sound of pain.)

Lulu: —pieces out of a bunch of the others.

Sy: So this octopus was pretty beat up.

(The octopus gives a gentle “Oh, boy!”)

Lulu: But eventually he is able to wriggle away, and finds a spot to lay down and rest inside a mysterious metal box.

(Mysterious metal sounds come from the mysterious metal box.)

Lulu: The owner of that box appears—after this short break.

(The break.)

Lulu: We’re back!

(A fisherman makes a goofy little looping “Yo ho ho” noise.)

Lulu: Picture a lobsterman, in his boat …

(We must be out to sea! Seagulls caw as they fly around us.)

Lulu: Bobbing along the water. One morning he is pulling up lobster traps and what does he find inside but our little octopus.

(The fisherman seems confused: “Wrr?”)

Lulu: And while he could have sold him—for, like, 30 bucks—to a fish market, to someone who wanted to eat him, instead, he thought he'd bring the octopus to the aquarium.

The National Aquarium of New Zealand, they gladly take him in, plunk him in a tank. They give him the name “Inky”—because, like, ink? Inky?) And, by all accounts, he was a huge hit!

Sy: He was a total sweetie. [Lulu chuckles at the thought.] Um, he was a super friendly octopus. Everybody knew him. He delighted everybody.

(Alan and the backups launch into a new song, this one over a circus-y soundtrack: “Well step right up and see our little seven-armed squirmy little friend dance the seven legged cancan—“ The music halts, realizing just how many cans a seven-legged octopus would can if a seven-legged octopus could cancan, before picking back up: “Can-can-can-can-can! An amazing little creature, yes—a marvel in our midst—watch him dance his little hearts out with a kick-kick, kick-kick. Ha!” Then the music starts to fade down.)

Sy: So they had them in a tank and there was plenty for him to do. He had toys to play with.

Lulu: He was given a Mr. Potato Head doll and he would rearrange the eyes and ears. They gave him puzzles and locks to unlock.

And you were saying an octopus can even take thread and tie a knot?

Sy: It can also do what’s harder, and that is untie a knot.

Lulu: Wow!

Sy: Even though they don't have hands and they don't have fingers.

Lulu: But perhaps the most amazing feat was that this seven-armed octopus—or [Questioningly.] septipus—was that, eventually, he was able to …

Sy: Grow a new one!

(The song continues, “Watch him play and watch him swim and regenerate a missing limb. Come on and all, young and old—it’s quite a sight to behold!”)

Lulu: Month after month Inky lived out his life inside that tank: Changing colors and charming the aquarium keepers by playing with their toys, slowly growing healthier, those suckers regenerating and growing stronger and stronger until, about two years into his captivity …

Sy: One morning the keepers came in and Inky wasn't there!

(The music suddenly winds down.)

Sy: And they saw a slime track going from his tank eight feet across the floor, which led to a drain pipe. And this drain pipe was 164 feet long. And it dropped directly into Hawk’s Bay, which is where he came from!

So it looks like Inky went home.

(Soft marimba music plays over waves, signaling Inky’s journey home.)

Lulu: Wow. And no human has ever seen him again.

Newscaster 1: It is time now for the mix. This octopus, Inky, actually made a break for it.

Lulu: The world freaked out [Lulu laughs.] when they heard about Inky’s story.

Newscaster 2: Inky the octopus, making a break for it. Slipping out of a New Zealand Aquarium …

Newscaster 3: It’s the Shaw-tank Redemption…

Newscaster 1: (Over party music.) Inky is having a party right now!

Lulu: But Sy says the most incredible thing about Inky’s escape is that it's not incredible.

Sy: There are many, many instances of octopuses that have gotten out of their tanks.

Lulu: The more that Sy researched octopuses, the more she came across tales of amazing escapes.

There was the octopus that escaped out of a cigar box that was nailed shut, the octopus that leapt out of an ice tray at a fish market and crawled [Laughs lightly] back into the ocean. And, in aquariums …

Sy: There were so many accounts of octopuses that get out of their tank at night, eat the fish in the neighboring tank, and then return to their own tank.

Lulu: So—so they’re really like … This isn't, this—Inky is not fluke-y? Like, octopuses are sort of known for being escape artists when—when forced into captivity? Is that, like …

Sy: Yeah. Yes. And octopuses will climb out of the ocean!

Lulu: Really? And do what?

Sy: Oh, they just kind of walk around on land for a little while, and then they go back in.

Lulu: Are you serious?

Sy: They're looking for food or they’re—and there’s tons of videos of this. You should see it!

Lulu: And do they just—they walk on their legs? Like, do they walk on all eight, or … ? (Chuckles.)

Sy: Well, they kind of slime around. [Lulu laughs at the thought.] I mean, it's not particularly easy. And they don't go far, but they will spend time out of the water, looking for new things to eat or escaping predators.

Lulu: Or, as was recently observed, grabbing two halves of a coconut and bringing them together to [A click sound.] hide inside as a kind of coconut fort. (A clonk sound—the coconuts bumping against each other.)

(The music gives way to sound from a video: a child calling out to their dad.)

Lulu: And, as more and more videos of behavior like this have been captured around the world—

(More video audio: “That’s a pretty good-sized octopus, no?”)

Lulu: —Octopuses making tools or unlocking locks or catching eagles—

(“That’s nature at its best!” Father and child let out a chuckle of wonder.)

Lulu: —Videos sometimes filmed by kids just looking out at the water—

(More scattered conversation from the same video.)

Lulu: Scientists have come together and scratched their fancy scientist chins and largely agreed that they can’t deny it anymore. Octopuses are:

Sy: Intelligent.

(Ringing notes overlap with one another, floating up and down so slowly, like jellyfish riding the current.)

Sy: It turns out that their intelligence is quite like ours in a way that their bodies are not, and that is surprising and delightful, that somebody who looks so unlike you and has senses so unlike yours …

Lulu: Can solve such similar problems.

Sy: That is mind-blowing!

(A moment with just music.)

Lulu: And while some people certainly noticed how amazing the octopus was long ago …

Sy: People in Mo’orea, which is part of Polynesia, were so impressed with octopuses, that they built a church with eight sides just to remind them of how special octopuses were. (Lulu reacts softly.)

Lulu: Sy thinks that scientists largely missed their intelligence … because of their intelligence.

(Xylophone music plays up, twinkling and bouncy, the soundtrack of exploration.)

Lulu: Octopuses were always darting out of our eyesight, [A sneaky sound—fwoo—plays as the octopus darts away.] flashing into whatever color hid them from us, and escaping our tanks when we were able to catch them—which made it hard to ever fully see them.

Sy: Oh, yeah.

Lulu: Oh, and one other reason.

(A pause for a breath.)

Sy: I think that most people who are looking for intelligence like ours, was looking for it and animals that were more like us. So we didn't look in the right place.

(Bubbles rush past alongside the music.)

Lulu: Before Sy could move onto her next animal—her next book—she knew she had to do one last thing. She wanted to touch an octopus. She had read an account by a famous scientist who described the feel of the octopuses’ slimy arms as one of the grossest things on Earth, like plunging your hand into a pit of snakes.

(The music ends with a rattle—and with Lulu saying “Eugh” in disgust.)

Lulu: But she wanted to find out for herself. So one morning, she showed up to the New England Aquarium, and was led to the tank which housed a giant Pacific octopus.

Sy: (Speaking with gentle wonder.) She was bright red …

Lulu: Five feet long.

Sy: And she was hiding in her lair.

Lulu: An aquarium worker named Scott popped the lid.

Sy: I saw her eye swivel in its socket and lock on mine. And then she came jetting out of there!

(A bright red octopus arm jumps out of the water, like air escaping from a balloon.)

Lulu: And she reached a few of her arms up over the edge of the tank.

Sy: And I asked Scott, “Can I touch her?” And he said, “Sure.” And so I plunged [A splash.] my hands and arms into the freezing cold water to meet the octopus. And instantly my flesh was covered with …

(The sound of suction—shoop, shoop, shoop, shoop—as Sy’s arm is covered with more and more suckers.)

Sy: Dozens of these soft suckers.

Lulu: Oof. ‘Kay …

Sy: And then I began to stroke her head, and I noticed that she was beginning to turn white beneath my touch, right where my fingers were.

And I later learned that that is a color of a relaxed octopus.

Lulu: Hm.

Sy: And that she was enjoying that.

(The music fades away slowly as Lulu speaks.)

Lulu: And when she was—as you were stroking her and, like, she was turning white where—what were her arms like? I'm picturing them just, like, coiled around your wrists, and was it disgusting? I mean, were they slithering and wrestling all around?

Sy: Well, they were all wrestling around. But it was like thousands of—of, well, not thousands, I guess—

(A drum beat starts, steady and heavy.)

Sy: —Under 2000, but, um … 1800 little kisses.

(Alan’s band is back with a ‘90s alt-rock-styled song, with electric guitars and all: “1800 little kisses, 1800 octopus kisses! 1800 octopus sucker kisses! I’m thinkin’ about all the octopus kissin’ we’ve been missing. 1800 little smooches, 1800 octopus hugs and smooches!”)

Lulu: Sing it, Alan!

(Alan continues: “1800 itty-bitty octopus sucker smooches! Why did it take so long to learn about this cuteness?”

A drum moment cuts out the rock guitars for just a second. “This friendly little octopus is smarter than we thought, and now we know to pucker up when they kiss us with their suction cups. It’s hard to understand a thing if we don’t give it a chance! If we didn’t search, we’d never learn about this funny mollusk romance.”

Lulu joins in as they take the song from the top. “1800 little kisses!”)

Lulu: Everybody!

(Alan and Lulu are joined by a chorus of kids: “1800 octopus sucker kisses! I’m thinkin’ about all the octopus kissin’ we’ve been missing.” As they reach the end of the chorus, Lulu gives one last “Ducka ducka ducka” drum sound.)

Lulu: Alan Goffinski, everybody!

(Rock out! The song plays heavy guitar riffs as Lulu reads the credits.)

Lulu: Terrestrials was created by me, Lulu Miller, with WNYC Studios. I t is produced by the INK-credible—ink-credible?—Ana Gonzales and Alan Goffinski, with … You know, me. With help from Suzie Lechtenberg, Sarah Sandbach, Natalia Ramirez, Diane Kelley, Joe Plourde and Sarita Bhatt. Sound design and additional editorial guidance by Mira Burt-Wintonic!

[Imitating a rock guitar.] Nee-nee-nee-nee-nee-nee-nee-nee-nee-nee-neee-nee-neee-nee-neew!

Our advisors are Theanne Griffith, Aliyah Elijah, Dominique Shabazz, John Green, Liza Steinberg-Demby, Tara Welty, and Alice Wong.

Terrestrials is supported in part by Science Sandbox, an initiative of the Simons Foundation.

Biggest thanks to Sy Montgomery! In addition to all her adult-y books, she has a beautiful picture book about Inky’s amazing escape called, uh … Inky’s Amazing Escape!

(The song ends!)

Lulu: And that’ll do it for the credits, ‘cause who keeps listening past the credits? There’s never gonna be anything—[An interrupting horn plays!] Woop! What’s that?!

(Vwoom vwoom vwoom: It’s the sound of the Badgers approaching!)

Mira Badgers: Excuse me, I have a question.

[A different voice.] Me too.

[One more!] Me three.

[Another one!] Me four!

Lulu: (In a raspy voice.) The Badgers!

(Funky little music plays up. Let’s go!)

Lulu: Listeners! With badgering questions … for the expert.

Okay, are you ready?

Sy: Ready!

Ruby: Hi, my name is Ruby, and my question is: How many species of octopus are there?

Sy: Over two hundred.

Evangeline: Hello my named is Evangeline, and I was wondering: What is the biggest octopus ever found?

Sy: Six hundred pounds.

Lulu: Wow!

Leo: Hi, Lulu! My name is Leo. [Speaking French] Est-ce qu’une pieuvre mange des oeufs?

Lulu: Huh! [Saying the French word for “French”!] Francais!

Leo’s Parent: Can you say “Does …”?

Leo: (Translating from French to English with help from a grown-up.) Does …

Leo’s Parent: Does an octopus eat eggs?

Leo: “Does an octopus eat eggs?”

Sy: I think it would.

Clara: My name is Clara. What is one of the biggest mistakes you have ever made?

Sy: Well, just last week, I was working at the Turtle Rescue League and I was moving an old turtle. I lifted a turtle, my finger was too close to her mouth, and she bit me.

Lulu: Ow.

Elliot: Hi, my name is Elliot: Why do octopuses squirt their ink? Is it smelly? And can you write with it?

Sy: You can write with it, actually! I bet it is smelly to the predators that it bothers. It is chemically very complex. And some people even think that the ink actually drugs the predator into believing that they’ve already had enough to eat.

Lulu: So cool.

Teo: Hi! My name is Teo. Do their arms move in unison? Or can they move independently of each other?

Sy: Yes they can move independently of each other. And, in fact, if a predator bites off one of your arms, for a while, that arm can still go off and do stuff.

(The music changes. It becomes less funky, and more mystical, like a choir singing a soft song in space.)

Lulu: Woah!

Sy: It’s almost as though the animal has nine brains! And sometimes it appears the octopus has shy arms and some bold arms.

Lulu: (Laughs gently.) It’s, like, got different personalities!

Sy: (Speaking through a smile.) Yeah! Imagine that! What is that like? What is the self like if you have nine brains?

Lulu: Fabulous questions, badgers. Thank you. I’m gonna leave it here to let you ponder that little mind-bender. And i’m definitely not gonna tell you about the claims that octopuses, when eaten alive, have been said to crawl out of the throats of the whales, dolphins and occasionally humans [Coughs.] that try to consume them. I’m not gonna tell you that, ‘cause … I’m nice.

If you would like to badger our next expert, or suggest a topic for the show, visit our website at terrestrialspodcast.org! There are also all kinds of other goodies there, like drawing prompts and fun activities to engage more deeply with these stories.

Thank you for listening. Catch you in a couple spins of this old lumpy old planet of ours.

(A wooshing sound as the planet spins.)

Lulu: Bye!

(The music, now driven by a persistent beat, plays up and out, full of whimsy and wonder, as the episode comes to an end.)

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

# included[].attributes.twitter-headline
Terrestrials 01. The Mastermind: An Octopus Heist

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].bio
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

Her book, Why Fish Don’t Exist, is an international bestseller, translated into 11 languages. It was chosen as a Best Book by The Smithsonian, NPR, The Chicago Tribune, Brainpickings, The Washington Post and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and the American Association for the Advancement of Science Book Prize. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She has also won honors from The National Academy of Sciences, the Associated Press, the National Center on Disability and Journalism, and most recently an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Swarthmore College.

She reports on a range of scientific topics with a special interest in disability, mental illness, and ecology. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She serves as a Contributing Advisor to nature magazine Orion and she was the co-founder of NPR’s Invisibilia—a radio show about psychology, emotion, and human behavior. She recently published her debut children’s book, Trucky Roads, about trucks and, you’ll never guess this… roads. She lives in the Chicago area with her wife and two sons.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].lede
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].about.body
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].about.people[].image.alt-text
Producer Sarah Qari, smiling and standing proudly in the foreground of a field of sunflowers.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].description
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.shows[].shows[].tease
Investigating a strange world.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].bio
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

Her book, Why Fish Don’t Exist, is an international bestseller, translated into 11 languages. It was chosen as a Best Book by The Smithsonian, NPR, The Chicago Tribune, Brainpickings, The Washington Post and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and the American Association for the Advancement of Science Book Prize. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She has also won honors from The National Academy of Sciences, the Associated Press, the National Center on Disability and Journalism, and most recently an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Swarthmore College.

She reports on a range of scientific topics with a special interest in disability, mental illness, and ecology. Her written work has been published in the New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR and beyond. She serves as a Contributing Advisor to nature magazine Orion and she was the co-founder of NPR’s Invisibilia—a radio show about psychology, emotion, and human behavior. She recently published her debut children’s book, Trucky Roads, about trucks and, you’ll never guess this… roads. She lives in the Chicago area with her wife and two sons.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].lede
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist. She is the Co-Host of Radiolab (with the wonderful Latif Nasser). And she is the Host/Creator of Radiolab’s podcast for kids, Terrestrials, all about nature. She was Radiolab’s first producer 20 years ago, and it is a thrill to return as Co-Host to the world’s best team.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].about.body
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].about.people[].image.alt-text
Producer Sarah Qari, smiling and standing proudly in the foreground of a field of sunflowers.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].description
About Radiolab

Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of someone halfway across the world. The show is known for innovative sound design, smashing information into music. It is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.

Radiolab is available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC, ABC, and the BBC.

Follow Radiolab on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Contact Radiolab using this form.

Apply to become a Radiolab intern!

Embed the Radiolab widget on your blog or website.

All press inquiries may be directed to Jennifer Houlihan Roussel at (646) 829-4497.

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.

# included[].attributes.appearances.hosts[].shows[].tease
Investigating a strange world.

# included[].attributes.body
Radiolab for Kids and WNYC Studios present Terrestrials, a six-episode miniseries hosted by Lulu Miller (co-host of Radiolab). Each episode introduces you to a creature or earthly phenomenon that will defy your expectations of how nature is supposed to work. Along the way, you'll encounter a chorus of experts, including scientists, surfers, hip hop artists and…a "Song Bud" named Alan Goffinski who creates original songs for every episode. New episodes drop Thursdays starting September 22, 2022. Listen with everyone you know. Or all alone.

Learn about the storytellers, listen to music, and dig deeper into the stories you hear on Terrestrials with activities you can do at home or in the classroom on our website, Terrestrialspodcast.org.

And badger us on Social Media: @radiolab and #TerrestrialsPodcast

Terrestrials is a production of WNYC Studios, created by Lulu Miller. This episode is produced by Ana González, Alan Goffinski and Lulu Miller. Original Music by Alan Goffinski. Help from Suzie Lechtenberg, Sarah Sandbach, Natalia Ramirez, and Sarita Bhatt. Sound design by Mira Burt-Wintonick and Phoebe Wang with additional engineering by Andrew Dunn. Transcriptions by Caleb Codding.

Our advisors are Theanne Griffith, Aliyah Elijah, Dominique Shabazz , John Green, Liza Steinberg-Demby, Tara Welty, and Alice Wong.

Support for Terrestrials is provided by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation.

Have questions for us, badgers? Badger us away! Your parent/guardian should write to us along with you, so we know you have their permission, and for maybe even having your ideas mentioned on the show. Email terrestrials@wnyc.org

# included[].attributes.headers.brand.logo-image.alt-text
Radiolab for Kids Presents Terrestrials Logo

# included[].attributes.headers.links[].title
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.image-main.alt-text
 A small child walks through a multi-color forest with big leaves, and a triumphant “Terrestrials” logo, while illuminating the forest with their flashlight. 

# included[].attributes.npr-analytics-dimensions[]
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.show-tease
A show where we uncover the strangeness right here on Earth

# included[].attributes.show-title
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# included[].attributes.series[].about.body
Terrestrials is a show for people of all ages that explores the strangeness that exists right here on Earth. In each episode, host Lulu Miller (co-host of Radiolab) will introduce you to a creature or earthly phenomenon that will defy your expectations of how nature is supposed to work. Along the way, you'll encounter a chorus of experts, including scientists, surfers, hip hop artists and…a "Songbud" named Alan (indie punk musician Alan Goffinski) who creates original songs for key moments of confusion, discovery or awe. New episodes drop Thursdays. Listen in with your whole family. Or all alone.

Support for Terrestrials is provided by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation.

LISTEN TO TERRESTRIALS  | SUPPORT TERRESTRIALS | TERRESTRIALS WANTS YOUR FEEDBACK! | PRESS INQUIRIES  | BECOME A SPONSOR | CONTACT US

# included[].attributes.series[].tease
A show where we uncover the strangeness right here on Earth

# included[].attributes.series[].logo-image.alt-text
Radiolab for Kids Presents Terrestrials Logo

# included[].attributes.tease
An introduction to your friendly neighborhood nature show from Radiolab for Kids. 

# included[].attributes.title
Terrestrials: A New Kids Show from Radiolab

# included[].attributes.transcript
Lulu Miller: Hey there. Have you ever felt a little [A pause, for drama.] bored?

A little stuck on this lumpy old planet of ours?

(Gently bubbling up out of nothingness, a synthesizer begins to play. Each note lifts up like a hot air balloon, slowly rising and falling as it moves towards the clouds.)

Miller: Well, got a little something for you. All I need you to do is close your eyes and:

AJ: Imagine …

Sy: Imagine …

Nataanii: Imagine …

Wanda: Let's imagine that you’re, um …

Sy: You are a liquid creature.

(Bubbles rush around you, flying towards the surface of imaginary waters.)

Sammy: You’ve got these two big red eyes.

Nataanii: Your skin turned to feathers.

(Birds flap their wings all around you. They soar up to the clouds.)

Sy: And you have blue blood. And you have three hearts.

(Dah-dun, dah-dun, dah-dun: the sound of a person pretending to be a heart.)

Nataanii: And you’re higher than the airplanes.

Sy: And you are so—

Wanda: —Powerful, moving at the speed of light!

(Lasers echo—pew pew!—almost bouncy, just like teeny-tiny tennis balls.)

Sy: You can literally pour your body through a tiny opening.

AJ: And, instantly, you feel weightless.

(A human voice blows out “Whew!” like a rush of air.)

(The balloon music goes quiet.)

Sammy: And that’s where things get freaky.

(Bubblegum-bright notes pop over a steady drumbeat.)

Miller: From WNYC Studios and Radiolab comes a brand new show for kids—and adults—all about the strangeness right here on earth.

Sy: She was beginning to turn white right where my fingers were.

Miller: Real creatures.

Sammy: Oh, yeah. Mhm.

Miller: Real encounters.

Ed: They were just going, “How did you do that?”

Miller: And occasional … Uh …

(The music winds down suddenly.)

Miller: Songs!

Wanda: Sí, cómo es la … How is the song?

(The theme song comes in over the candy-sweet music—“Terrestrials, terrestrials! We are not the worst, we are the …”—before every sound pauses, waiting for us to finish the next line.)

Wanda: And what do I say?

Ed: (Realizing.) Oh! “The best!”

(Ed got it! And so the song continues: “… Best-trials!”)

(Both Wanda and Sammy laugh a light, silly laugh.)

Miller: Terrestrials is your friendly neighborhood nature show. Hosted by me, Lulu Miller.

Miller: (Whispered, in shock.) What?!

Wanda: Mhm!

Miller: Check us out! September 22nd, wherever you get your podcasts.

(The music fades out, and so does the trailer.)

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

# included[].attributes.twitter-headline
Terrestrials: A New Kids Show from Radiolab

# data.attributes.description
Radiolab, one of the most beloved podcasts in the world, reaches into its archives to create Radiolab for Kids. It's a place where we've collected Radiolab's most family-friendly content. (Because we all know that over the years, some of the content has been…er…NOT so family friendly!) From “What do dogs see when they look at the rainbow?” to “Do animals laugh?” the topics are squeaky clean (mostly) and all about curiosity. Radiolab for Kids is sure to delight and engage the most curious minds.

Created in 2002 by Jad Abumrad, Radiolab has won Peabody Awards, a National Academies Communication Award “for their investigative use of radio to make science accessible to broad audiences,” and in 2011 Abumrad received the MacArthur Genius grant. The show has an archive of hundreds of episodes and has toured in sold out shows nationwide.

Radiolab is available on iTunes and heard around the country on more than 500 member stations. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC and the BBC.

# data.attributes.about.body
Radiolab, one of the most beloved podcasts in the world, reaches into its archives to create Radiolab for Kids. It's a place where we've collected Radiolab's most family-friendly content. (Because we all know that over the years, some of the content has been…er…NOT so family friendly!) From “What do dogs see when they look at the rainbow?” to “Do animals laugh?” the topics are squeaky clean (mostly) and all about curiosity. Radiolab for Kids is sure to delight and engage the most curious minds.

Created in 2002 by Jad Abumrad, Radiolab has won Peabody Awards, a National Academies Communication Award “for their investigative use of radio to make science accessible to broad audiences,” and in 2011 Abumrad received the MacArthur Genius grant. The show has an archive of hundreds of episodes and has toured in sold out shows nationwide.

Radiolab is available on iTunes and heard around the country on more than 500 member stations. Check your local station for airtimes. It's also available via the CBC and the BBC.

# data.attributes.npr-analytics-dimensions[]
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# data.attributes.title
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# data.attributes.tease
A show where we uncover the strangeness right here on Earth

# data.attributes.logo-image.alt-text
Radiolab for Kids Presents Terrestrials Logo

# data.attributes.headers.brand.title
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

# data.attributes.headers.brand.logo-image.alt-text
Radiolab for Kids Presents Terrestrials Logo

# data.attributes.headers.links[].title
Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials