Sound science

Radio Lab, produced by WNYC New York Public Radio, builds complex scientific ideas around the sort of stories a guy might tell in a bar. In an episode exploring the effects of stress on the body, co-hosts Robert Krulwich and Jad Abumrad invited a guest to recount the tale of his "fight with a boat propeller" during a water-skiing accident. The hosts gave the guest plenty of time to describe the gory details, like the "big hunks of flesh" hanging off his limbs and the way his legs looked "like when someone cuts into a fish in a fish market, and you see the inside very clearly."But although they clearly enjoy a good gross-out, Krulwich and Abumrad were aiming at a larger point: in spite of his terrible injuries, the man did not feel panic, or even pain, in the minutes following his accident, and the hosts were after a scientific explanation of the phenomenon. The rest of the episode took off from there, including an interview with Stanford University neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky about how stress hormones in mammals help shut down pain perception and a talk with Paul J. Rosch, president of the American Institute of Stress, about how the small frustrations of everyday life can produce the same stress responses in the body as an emergency like a life-threatening fight with a propeller.Abumrad, 33, and Krulwich, 58, have used the same easygoing style to discuss, among other things, the Copernican Principle with astrophysicist Neil de Grasse,and computers that identify the "musical DNA" of dead composers to create new works. Their show appeals to listeners who want to know about biology, math and physics, but are intimidated by some other sources of information, according to the hosts. "We're trying to do 'Once upon a time' stories with science," says Krulwich, "The idea is to go out and have an adventure, but not to present ourselves as esteemed experts, like some priestly class, so ordinary folks can understand it and kick it around."Krulwich, who was a history major at Oberlin College and a 1974 Columbia Law School graduate, helped make economics understandable to the lay public as an ABC News correspondent, donning Groucho Marx glasses as part of an explanation of arbitrage, and illustrating the Texaco-Pennzoil battle with Barbie and Ken dolls. The same kind of approach can help keep laypeople from being alienated by science programming, he thinks. "You began to have hockey fans for economics, and you're getting the same with science. But, for a lot of people, science and common sense have separated. When you talk about the idea of time not existing, they're saying, 'What the hell are you talking about? Of course it exists.'""At the same time, people are reading about all kinds of science in the news: stem cells, in vitro fertilization, food science," Krulwich says. "But they don't really know what's behind these things. And they want to know." Radio Lab's success appears to be evidence of the public's hunger for understandable information about science: the show has been syndicated by 111 stations after only two seasons."You've seen these great shifts in radio since the 1950s," Krulwich notes. "First, the funny people turned to cultural satire. Then you had the huge popularity of utterly partisan talk shows dealing with politics. Now you've got a shift towards science. Look at the enormous popularity of neuroscience books, particularly Oliver Sacks."Krulwich and Abumrad are a generation apart, but they hit it off immediately when they met while Abumrad was recording promotional clips for WNYC. Neither of the men is a trained scientist -- "This is science seen by artists," says Abumrad -- but they both have a passion for the subject. Abumrad's parents are a molecular biologist and a surgeon, and he was a "science-y guy" in high school. As a result, he comfortably rattles off terms like "dorsolateral" and "prefrontal cortex." Krulwich -- who won an Emmy award for his PBS Frontline programs on Internet privacy and was the face of ABC's television series Brave New World, about technology's effects on modern life -- is more wary."People are still daunted by words like 'physics' and 'biology.' Say 'science' and they get a funny look in their eyes," he says. "Say 'Travolta' and they know exactly where they stand...You've got to bring them over gently."Part of the formula for doing so is humor, often embodied in sound effects designed by Abumrad, who used to write music for films. On one episode, to illustrate a discussion of the brain's preference for causing indirect harm over direct harm, the Radio Lab hosts asked listeners to consider the following question: A runaway train is about to kill four railway workers on the track. Would they rather pull a lever that flips the train off the track, killing one bystander, or physically push a man off a bridge to his death and stop the train that way? The broadcasters mixed all sorts of comic and gruesome sound effects into the discussion, including the death cries of the four railway workers against the death cry of one bystander."We did have one complaint from one station about that one," says Abumrad. "But otherwise people loved it."Arthur Warwick mail@the-scientist.comPhoto by Alan KleinLinks within this article:Robert Krulwich http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5194672Jad Abumrad http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/bios.htmlRobert Sapolsky http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/neurosurgery/faculty/Robert_Sapolsky/American Institute of Stress http://www.stress.orgRadio Lab archives http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2006/05Oliver Sacks http://www.oliversacks.com

Sound science

A surprise hit on public radio uses an irreverent style to sell listeners on science

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