Programs

This episode was recorded on March 10th, 2024 at WVU's Canaday Creative Arts Center. The lineup includes Tim O'Brien Band, Karan Casey, Dirk & Amelia Powell, and Tin Men. https://bit.ly/3W4bOF7

In an episode we last featured on our Radiolab for Kids Feed back in 2020, and in honor of its blocking out the Sun for a bit of us for a bit last week, in this episode, we’re gonna talk more about the moon. According to one theory, (psst listen to The Moon Itself if you want to know more) the moon formed when a Mars-sized chunk of rock collided with Earth, the moon coalesced out of the debris from that impact. And it was MUCH closer to Earth than it is today. This idea is taken to its fanciful limit in Italo Calvino's story "The Distance of the Moon" (from his collection Cosmicomics, translated by William Weaver). Read by Liev Schreiber, the story is narrated by a character with the impossible-to-pronounce name Qfwfq, and tells of a strange crew who jump between Earth and moon, and sometimes hover in the nether reaches of gravity between the two.This reading was part of a live event hosted by Radiolab and Selected Shorts, and it originally aired on WNYC’s and PRI’s SELECTED SHORTS, hosted by BD Wong and paired with a Ray Bradbury classic, “All Summer in a Day,” read by musical theater star Michael Cerveris.Our newsletter comes out every Wednesday. It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

In this bonus episode, Greg adds a song to the Desert Island Jukebox from an artist was grouped in with neo-soul, but never really fit into that scene comfortably.Become a member on Patreon: https://bit.ly/3slWZvcSign up for our newsletter: https://bit.ly/3eEvRnGMake a donation via PayPal: https://bit.ly/3dmt9lUSend us a Voice Memo: Desktop: bit.ly/2RyD5Ah  Mobile: sayhi.chat/soundopsJoin our Facebook Group: https://bit.ly/3sivr9TSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The heart of the lion stays close to the Moon the next couple of nights. The bright star that marks the lion’s heart is Regulus. It’s to the lower left of the Moon at nightfall this evening, and to the upper right of the Moon tomorrow evening. Regulus is impressive. It’s a system of four stars, but only one shines bright enough to see. Known as Regulus A, it’s almost four times the Sun’s mass, and more than 300 times the Sun’s brightness. But the Moon is even closer to another star of Leo that’s more impressive. Eta Leonis is to the upper left of Regulus. It looks fainter than Regulus. Under the glare of the nearby Moon, in fact, it can be hard to see — especially from light-polluted cities. That’s only because Eta Leonis is much farther than Regulus — about 1800 light-years, versus only 79 light-years for Regulus. In fact, Eta Leonis is a one-percenter — among the biggest and brightest stars in the galaxy. Studies show that it’s about 10 times heavier than the Sun, about 50 times wider, and about 20 thousand times brighter. Eta Leonis is only about 25 million years old, compared to four and a half billion years for the Sun. But thanks to its great mass, the star is near the end of its life. Within a few million years, it’s likely to explode as a supernova. For a while, it will greatly outshine every other star in the galaxy — a brilliant beacon for the lion. Script by Damond Benningfield

We spotlight our fave tracks of the 2020's to date, including songs from Cimafunk, Trueno, Marilina Bertoldi, Francisca Valenzuela, Girl Ultra, Ramona, Bizarrap & Snow The Product and more!

It can be hard to know the right moment for something to happen. Prologue: When Jordan was going into his senior year of high school in small town Utah, he and his buddies all lived together in a house, daring each other into Jackass-style pranks and stunts. There's one particular thing Jordan did that he did not want to talk to Ira about. (10 minutes)Act One: Harmon Leon is a writer and comedian whose cocktail party story about “the-weirdest-gig-I-ever-did” is more weird—by a lot—than anyone else’s we’ve heard. He answered an ad several years ago that called for a hilarious sidekick to a celebrity on a hidden camera show. (30 minutes)Act Two: One of the show's producers, Zoe Chace, tells Ira about a joke she made pretty soon after something terrible had happened.Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org