Signal Hill: Caterpillar Roadshow

11 April 2025 - 50 mins
Podcast Series Radiolab

A couple years ago, an entomologist named Martha Weiss got a letter from a little boy in Japan saying he wanted to replicate a famous study of hers. We covered that original study on Radiolab more than a decade ago in an episode called Goo and You – check it out here – and in addition to revealing some fascinating secrets of insect life, it also raises big questions about memory, permanence and transformation. The letter Martha received about building on this study set in motion a series of spectacular events that advance her original science and show how science works when a 12-year-old boy is the one doing it. Martha’s daughter, reporter Annie Rosenthal, captured all of it and turned it in...

50 mins

Series Episodes

The Buried Bodies Case Playing

The Buried Bodies Case

What's a lawyer's obligation to provide the best defense to the worst people?

49 mins

30 October Finished

Octomom Playing

Octomom

A mile under the ocean, we get to watch an octopus perform a heroic act of heart and determination.

34 mins

23 October Finished

The Smell of Hell Playing

The Smell of Hell

What if the smell of death is actually the smell of life?

43 mins

16 October Finished

Math Vs Machine Playing

Math Vs Machine

explicit

Machines are answering our hardest problems... Does it matter if we don’t understand how?

31 mins

9 October Finished

A 4-Track Mind Playing

A 4-Track Mind

A neurologist issues a dare to a ragtime piano player and a famous conductor, then the impossible happens.

21 mins

2 October Finished

Grass Apes Playing

Grass Apes

A tiny ode to grass, for its epic role in human history.

22 mins

25 September Finished

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