I’m very excited. A new season of Radiolab starts this Friday, February 22!

If you’ve not experienced Radiolab, you’re really missing out on one of the best produced and most interesting radio shows out there. Here’s a little blurb about the show from their website:

Radiolab believes your ears are a portal to another world. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and human experience. Big questions are investigated, tinkered with, and encouraged to grow. Bring your curiosity, and we’ll feed it with possibility.

Radiolab is produced in seasons of 5 episodes, and this Friday’s show will kick off the fourth season. Episodes can be downloaded off the Radiolab website or through iTunes.

Each episodes focuses on a theme (e.g., morality, music, stress, time, or sleep) and usually contains three or four stories related to that theme. (If you’re familiar with This American Life, another great radio show, Radiolab’s structure is very similar.) The stories typically consist of multiple interviews woven together and then augmented by a rich tapestry of sound effects and supplemental audio. The shows are very immersive. And unlike most mass-media radio shows, the hosts of Radiolab actively seek out the questions to which they don’t have answers.

One of my favorite stories was from Season 2’s “Detective Stories” episode. It’s the story behind hundreds of old letters — all written to the same woman — found on the side of Hwy 101 along the California coast. It’s an engaging, amusing, and expertly-told tale. Incidentally, my favorite line from that story: “Since when does a cow not care? The goat’s not extraordinary. It’s the cow. The nonchalant cow.”

Give your brain a treat. Listen to Radiolab.

This entry was posted by Steve on Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 at 7:00 am and is filed under Entertainment, Internet/Web, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.