Welcome, nature lovers, to the home of the Terrestrials podcast and family-friendly Radiolab episodes about nature. Every other week, host Lulu Miller will take you on a nature walk to encounter a plant or animal behaving in ways that will surprise you. Squirrels that can regrow their brains, octopuses that can outsmart their human captors, honeybees that can predict the future. You don’t have to be a kid to listen, just someone who likes to see the world anew.
You’ll hear a range of nature stories on this podcast. Sometimes these will be brand new Terrestrials episodes, full of original songs (by “The Songbud” Alan Goffinski) that tell a fantastical-sounding story about nature that is 100% true. Sometimes these will be our very best, shiniest, furriest, leafiest Radiolab episodes about animals or plants or nature.
The stories that drop here will always be family-friendly and safe for kids. They will always be sound-rich and full of the vivid, gripping storytelling you’ve come to expect from Radiolab. They will always transport you to the beyond-human world: into the depths of the ocean, into jungles, prairies, forests, space, snow, wildflower fields and beyond. Sometimes we’ll encounter something so wild we just have to break out into song about it! Don’t worry, good voices not required.
Join us on this adventure!
Middle schooler, Aanya, has an up-close encounter with a squirrel in the school yard, which leads her to an obsession with one of North America's most common critters. She tells host Lulu Miller all about the overlooked superpowers of squirrels, including one squirrel who lives way up in the Arctic, where the weather gets so cold the squirrels who live there drop their body temperatures down below freezing and somehow, miraculously, survive. Host Lulu travels to Alaska to meet one of these squir...
Sep 26, 2024•24 min•Ep 19•Transcript available on Metacast
As dead as they seem, tree stumps are hubs of life and relationships. From stumps to snags, deadwood provides habitat for rodents, falcons, insects, and even humans! Stumps hold together the forest floor, give hunting perches to birds of prey in flatlands, prevent erosion and the encroachment of invasive species, usher in sunlight, provide nutrients, can be wells of renewable fuel, and hold onto stories human beings might have forgotten. Without these ghosts of trees past, nothing would be the s...
Sep 19, 2024•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast
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 alon...
Sep 05, 2024•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast
Think about the sounds you hear on a daily basis. Air conditioners whirring, keyboards clicking, cars honking, mosquitos buzzing, dishes clanking. Now picture yourself in a jungle. What do you hear? How do you make sense of it? Today on Radiolab for Kids, we eavesdrop on the world of animals. We bring you a story of two humans decoding animal sounds in nature. Science journalist Ari Daniel Shapiro tells us about Klaus Zuberbuhler and his time in the Tai forest of Africa, where he worked to uncov...
Aug 29, 2024•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast
Today’s episode asks how scientists see the world. We bring you two stories — one about a math guy and a bug guy. First, how the math guy, or one of our country's greatest mathematicians, Steven Strogatz, first became enchanted with math as a kid. Then, a story about a human developing a soft corner (literally) for a fly that lived in his scalp — the botfly. Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne went on a research trip to Costa Rica and returned home with a botfly feeding on his flesh. His friend S...
Aug 22, 2024•18 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast
The summer olympics are in full swing. Humans are racing against other humans from all across the globe. But you know the one race they don’t have? The one where a human competes against a horse. Radiolab for Kids is back with one of our favorite Radiolab animal episodes of all time where we head to that race in the desert of Arizona. Turns out it has everything to do with what gives us humans… our humanity. Also our butts. In this episode, Reporter Heather Radke and Producer Matt Kielty talk to...
Aug 08, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast
Radiolab for kids is back! Is there such a thing as a good cage? Happy gorillas, deft landscape architects and neurologists show us that there just might be. We go back to the late 1970s to relive the moment when zoos began to change—literally the moment that the modern zoo was born, as embodied by a few tentative steps of a gorilla named Kiki. That story, told by zoo director David Hancocks, architect Grant Jones, and gorilla keeper Violet Sunde. Also check out: Marina Belozerskaya's book The M...
Jul 25, 2024•15 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast
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 Kall...
May 09, 2024•2 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast
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...
Oct 27, 2022•35 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast
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...
Oct 20, 2022•30 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast
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 s...
Oct 13, 2022•27 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast
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 storytell...
Oct 06, 2022•27 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast
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, pr...
Sep 29, 2022•32 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast
A color-changing creature many people assumed to be brainless outsmarts his human captors. SPOILER: The creature is an octopus! Author Sy Montgomery tells the story of one octopus named Inky who makes us question who we consider 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 Te...
Sep 22, 2022•24 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast
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....
Sep 15, 2022•2 min•Transcript available on Metacast
