1. "Laughter"

We all laugh. This hour of Radiolab asks why.

If you look closely, you'll find that humor has very little to do with it. We ask what makes us laugh, and how it affects us. Along the way, we tickle some rats, listen in on a baby's first laugh, talk to a group of professional laughers, and travel to Tanzania to investigate an outbreak of contagious laughter.




2. "Deception"

Lies, liars, and lie catchers. This hour of Radiolab asks if it's possible for anyone to lead a life without deception.

We consult a cast of characters, from pathological liars to lying snakes to drunken psychiatrists, to try and understand the strange power of lying to yourself and others.




3. "War of the Worlds"

This hour of Radiolab: an examination of the power of mass media to create panic.

In our very first live hour, we take a deep dive into one of the most controversial moments in broadcasting history: Orson Welles' 1938 radio play about Martians invading New Jersey. "The War of the Worlds" is believed to have fooled over a million people when it originally aired, and it's continued to fool people since--from Santiago, Chile to Buffalo, New York to a particularly disastrous evening in Quito, Ecuador.




4. "(So-Called) Life"

In a world where biology and engineering intersect, how do you decide what's "natural"?

Biotechnology is making it easier and easier to create new forms of life, but what are the consequences when humans play with life? We travel back to the first billion years of life on Earth, take a look at how modern engineers tinker with living things, and meet a woman who could have been two people.




5. "Pop Music"

This hour of Radiolab: pop music's pull.

Some songs have the nefarious power to stick mercilessly in our heads, and some songs have the transcendent allure to overcome cultural differences. We ask how songwriters create these songs seemingly out of the ether, listen in on the music a deaf man hears, and examine the timeless appeal of the Elvis of Afghanistan.