Podcasts
American RadioWorks is explanatory and investigative journalism. It is public radio's source for documentaries that take you inside the lives of people grappling with today's vital issues.
The Perry Preschool Project is one of the most famous education experiments of the last 50 years. The study asked a question: Can preschool boost the IQ scores of poor African American children and prevent them from failing in school? The surprising results are now challenging widely-held notions about what helps people succeed - in school, and in life.
The United States is facing a dramatic demographic challenge: young Latinos are the fastest-growing segment of the population, and they are among the least likely to go to college. Experts say the future of the American economy is at stake, because higher education is essential in the 21st century economy. This documentary tells the story of Latino students working towards a college degree - and why it's so hard for them to get what they want.
We know that a good education can be the ticket to a good job. But for many Americans, conventional school isn't working. Every school day some 7,000 students drop out of high school. Often, what they managed to learn in the schoolhouse has not prepared them well enough for the job site. This documentary reports on a growing movement to turn workplaces into classrooms and marginal students into productive workers.
In the 1970s, the battle for the hearts and minds of America's school children erupted in violence. School buildings in West Virginia were hit by dynamite and Molotov cocktails, buses were riddled with bullets and surrounding coal mines were shut down by protesting miners. The flashpoint for the explosion was a new set of textbooks. Some parents said the schoolbooks undermined their values. This Peabody Award-winning documentary tells the story of an early skirmish in America's culture wars, and examines the divide that persists today over what to teach children in schools.
President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a war on poverty in 1964. He believed a mighty nation could eliminate want. After all, America had won World War II and was enjoying spectacular prosperity. Almost five decades later, the poverty rate is lower but the war is far from won. In the wake of the Great Recession, a new generation of Americans is struggling with economic deprivation. War on Poverty will blend contemporary storytelling with rich archival audio to examine the modern face of poverty, and to ask why LBJ's dream of a Great Society is still beyond reach.
Each hour Radiolab takes a big idea, so big that it lives everywhere, hiding in a thousand places under different names, and then chases that idea. Along the way, hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich interview, argue, imagine and discover the hidden connections which make this idea so surprisingly powerful. And the sounds you hear are as new and startling as the ideas explored. It’s Technicolor radio.
When we gaze into the eyes of our beloved pets, can we ever really know what they're thinking? Is it naive to assume they might be experiencing something close to the emotions we feel? Or, on the contrary, is it ridiculous to assume that they aren’t feeling anything back? Explore what science can say about what goes on in the minds of animals.
Chimps. Bonobos. Humans. We’re all great apes. Take a look at what happens when we all try to live together. The main story is about a chimp named Lucy. When Lucy was only 2-days-old she was adopted by a psychologist and his wife who wondered: if given the right environment, how human could Lucy become? Enjoy this story and other tales of radical sharing between humans and the creatures on earth most like us.
How much can you jam into a human brain? How far can you push yourself past feelings of exhaustion? In this hour of Radiolab, examine human limits. Hear from Ironman triathletes and the memorable tale of a man who couldn't forget. Are we limited by the size of our brain and the strength of our muscles or will there always be a way to push ourselves just a little bit further? And, what about human comprehension? As science barrels forward, will we reach the limit of human understanding?
It may sound like a grim topic, but what are found when looking closely at tumors, are fascinating tales of evolution, immortality, and even ... maybe ... God? Hear about a tumor that changes modern science, and the tragic untold story of the woman attached to that tumor. Witness terrifying contagious tumors, tumors that bring joy and tumors that bring ecstasy. And, Host Robert Krulwich will try to literally touch the tumor that killed President Ulysses S. Grant.
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