Terrestrials

Celestials: A Bedtime Snail Story Experiment

Meet François Tranquille. He's a snail. He's French. And this is the first episode of a little experiment we're calling Celestials: Bedtime Stories from Terrestrials. Restful tales, bedtime meditations, and the occasional lullaby, designed to help you drift off to sleep. Like Terrestrials, it's about a creature here on Earth. Unlike Terrestrials, it wanders away from the world of facts, towards someplace dreamier. In our very first Celestials pilot, Monsieur Tranquille tries his hand — er, antennae — at helping you slooowww doooowwwn. We're experimenting with a few more of these this year, and we'd love your help shaping them. After you listen, take two minutes to tell us what you thought: https://forms.gle/6WKkJsVpbJZgpLLf6 We'll be back next week with your regularly scheduled Terrestrials programming. In the meantime, sweet dreams! HEY GROWN-UPS!Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us!Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team!We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us.Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show.Follow us on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more.Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify, Apple Music, or our music page.Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Fuzzy Ruckus: The Power of Lichen (Replay)

Artist Ashley (Ash) Eliza Williams was so shy growing up that they found it hard to speak to people.  Instead, they withdrew from the world of humans and found comfort in the forest, where they spent hours exploring, scavenging, and collecting — eventually discovering lichen. They began painting portraits of lichen’s wild, colorful, and fuzzy shapes. In time, Ash learned that lichen is actually a composite organism, a mixture of two species — algae and fungi — working together to live. This idea originally challenged evolutionary theory so much that scientists didn’t believe it. But lichen had much more to teach us. Chef Prashanta Khanal fills us in on the food science of lichen, and how its collaborative powers also extend to making certain foods healthier! Learning that lichen draws its strength from collaboration eventually encouraged Ash to break out of their shell and reconnect to the world, where they would find not just friends and collaborators, but their true love.Since the release of this podcast, artist Ash Eliza Williams goes by Ash and uses they/them pronouns.Check out Ash Eliza Williams’s beautiful paintings.Visit chef Prashanta's cooking blog, the Gundruk, for more on Nepali food history and recipes.This episode features punk rock legend Laura Jane Grace, who makes a musical cameo on the song The Fuzzy Ruckus. Watch the music video and find the link to stream on our songs page.Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC studios. This episode was produced by Brenna Farrel, Mira Burt-Wintonick, Alan Goffinski, Ana González, Tanya Chawla, Joe Plourde, Sarah Sandbach, Valentina Powers and Lulu Miller. Fact-checking by Diane Kelly. Transcription by Caleb Codding. Special thanks to Siya Sharma-Gaines, Niran Bhatt Scharpf, Scott LaGreca, and Sarita Bhatt.Our advisors are Ana Luz Porzecanski, Andy J. Pizza, Anil Lewis, Dominique Shabazz, Liza Demby, Princess Daazhraii Johnson and Tara Welty.Learn more about 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.Badger us on social media: @radiolab  and #TerrestrialsPodcast or by emailing us at terrestrials@wnyc.org. HEY GROWN-UPS!Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us!Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team!We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us.Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show.Follow us on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more.Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify, Apple Music, or our music page.Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Jimothy: Seattle Raccoon Steals Hearts

If you’ve been on the internet recently, you might’ve heard of Jimothy—a raccoon from Seattle who went viral. Jimothy t-shirts, murals, tattoos, and tribute songs popped up across the country. We wanted to understand why this raccoon had captured so many hearts, so we spoke to one of the first people who spotted him: Ben Trammell. One night in Seattle, Ben was watching a raccoon family walk along his backyard fence when he saw a tiny, scruffy, hunched-over raccoon with stiff front legs and a short puffball of a tail instead of the usual long, stripey one.  He was instantly enamored with this clumsy little guy and began watching his escapades night after night.  What Ben saw taught him something about raccoons he never expected.  Songbud Alan talks with Ben about raccoon chaos, family care, and the joy of watching a wild animal do life his own way. They flip the script on “survival of the fittest” to discover that compassion and care are natural and weird is good! Lulu also speaks with Seattle writer and disability activist Elsa Sjunneson about how Jimothy became a champion for grungy Seattle and an icon for the disability community.  Very special thanks to Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes for his performance of the song, "Jimothy." KEEP LEARNING! Huge thanks to Elsa Sjunneson for joining us. Her new book, Dear Blind Lady, is out this fall and available for preorder now - it includes a whole chapter for parents on how to talk to their kids about disability. Elsa also recommended two children's books for young readers who want to learn more: We Move Together by Kelly Fritsch and Anne McGuire, a picture book about the many different ways disabled people move through the world. All the Way to the Top: How One Girl's Fight for Americans with Disabilities Changed Everything by Annette Bay Pimentel, the true story of Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins, who at 8 years old crawled up the steps of the U.S. Capitol to protest for the Americans with Disabilities Act. Want more Elsa? Listen to her Radiolab episode, The Helen Keller Exorcism, and watch this wonderful PBS mini documentary about Elsa and her fencing. Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC studios. This episode was produced by Alan Goffinski with sound design by Mira Burt-Wintonick. Sarah Sandbach is our Executive Producer. Our team also includes Ana González, Tanya Chawla, Natalia Ramirez, and Joe Plourde. Fact checking by Diane Kelly. HEY GROWN-UPS!Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us!Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team!We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us.Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show.Follow us on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more.Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify, Apple Music, or our music page.Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Dung Beetles from Just the Zoo of Us

It’s summer break! So, while Terrestrials takes a summer breather,, we’re bringing you a show that we really love. It’s called Just the Zoo of Us, and it’s produced by Ellen and Christian Weatherford, a married couple with a shared love of telling stories about this wonderful planet!In every episode, they rate a different animal on three qualities - effectiveness, ingenuity, and aesthetics. In this episode, they’re tackling the DUNG BEETLE, a beetle that loves… poop. It's a story that will take us to incredible places - beetles in boots, in hats, in planetariums! Enjoy! Check out the full episode to learn about Moray Eels here! HEY GROWN-UPS!Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us!Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team!We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us.Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show.Follow us on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more.Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify, Apple Music, or our music page.Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Charmer: King Cobras' FANGtastic Powers

Lulu has been terrified of snakes all her life. But strangely, her oldest son  has been obsessed with them since he was two. So to understand his fascination, she called a snake expert who might also be one of the least afraid people on Earth: Gowri Shankar Pogiri.  As a kid in Bangalore, India, Gowri was his neighborhood's resident snake-catcher — wrangling seven-foot snakes and motorcycling into the sunset with the serpent draped around his neck so he could release it back into the wild. In college, he'd skip school to look at snakes for hours at the zoo.  And the day he met his first king cobra? He became completely entranced. He started working as a professional herpetologist, and became one of the first researchers to track king cobras in the wild. He’d spend his days in the rainforests of India, following the giant snakes as they climbed trees, swam across streams, and hunted prey. Until one day, when a dramatic encounter with a king cobra nearly ended his life. That remarkable story, plus a last-minute marriage proposal, a heroic bag, and how the only thing that Gowri is truly scared of might just be what Lulu, and all of us, are most afraid of, too.  Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC studios. This episode was produced by Alan Goffinski with sound design by Mira Burt-Wintonick. Sarah Sandbach is our Executive Producer. Our team also includes Ana González, Tanya Chawla, Natalia Ramirez, and Joe Plourde. Fact checking by Sophie Samiee. HEY GROWN-UPS!Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us!Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team!We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us.Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show.Follow us on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more.Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify, Apple Music, or our music page.Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.