This week, we flip the Disney story of life on it’s head thanks to a barrel of seawater, a 1970s era computer, and underwater geysers. It’s the chaos of life.
Latif, Lulu, and our Senior Producer Matt Kielty were all sitting on their own little stories until they got thrown into the studio, and had their cherished beliefs about the shape of life put on a collision course. From an accidental study of sea creatures, to the ambitions of Stephen J Gould, to an undercooked theory that captured the world’s imagination, we undo the seeming order of the living world and try to make some music out of the wreckage. (Bonus: Learn how Francis Crick really thought life got started on this planet).
This episode was reported by Latif Nasser, Matt Kielty, Heather Radke, Lulu Miller and Candice Wang. It was produced by Matt Kielty and Simon Adler. Sound and music from Matt Kielty, Simon Adler, and Jeremy Bloom, and dialogue mix by Arianne Wack.
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Selected Shorts
Memory and Forgetting
Small Potatoes
The Distance of the Moon
The Moon Itself
Short Cuts: Drawn Onward
Finding Emilie
Throughline: Dare to Dissent
Staph Retreat
Hold On
G: The World's Smartest Animal
Cheating Death
Breaking Newsve About Zoozve
G: Relative Genius
Zoozve
The Living Room
Our Little Stupid Bodies
Stochasticity
Zeroworld
Numbers
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Hidden Brain
This American Life
Slate Debates
Stuff To Blow Your Mind
The Incomparable Mothership