meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Radiolab

A 4-Track Mind

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

Science, Natural Sciences, History, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.643.5K Ratings

🗓️ 8 December 2023

⏱️ 21 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this short episode, first aired in 2011, a neurologist issues a dare to a ragtime piano player and a famous conductor. When the two men face off in an fMRI machine, the challenge is so unimaginably difficult that one man instantly gives up. But the other achieves a musical feat that ought to be impossible.

Reporter Jessica Benko went to Michigan to visit Bob Milne, one of the best ragtime piano players in the world, and a preternaturally talented musician. Usually, Bob sticks to playing piano for small groups of ragtime enthusiasts, but he recently caught the attention of Penn State neuroscientist Kerstin Betterman, who had heard that Bob had a rare talent: He can play technically challenging pieces of music on demand while carrying on a conversation and cracking jokes. According to Kerstin, our brains just aren't wired for that. So she decided to investigate Bob's brain, and along the way she discovered that Bob has an even more amazing ability ... one that we could hardly believe and science can't explain.

Our newsletter comes out every Wednesday. It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!

Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.

Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].

Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey, it's Lothif. We've got an oldie but a goodie today from 2011. This episode, and I mean I can say this because I had nothing to do with making it. It pulls off one of the most difficult and satisfying things

0:16.7

a story, really a story in any medium can do,

0:21.4

which is that it stretches your conception of what a human being is capable of.

0:28.6

And besides being just a jaw-dropping portrait of a human with a brain.

0:34.4

It also just makes you wonder what obscure

0:37.4

superpowers we are all

0:39.7

just walking around with, totally oblivious that they are even superpowers.

0:45.5

Anyway, if you haven't heard it before, I'm jealous of you. If you have, it completely holds up,

0:51.3

even, you know, 10 plus years later later this is four track mind enjoy.

0:56.1

Yeah wait wait you're listening.

0:57.3

Okay. All right. Okay.

1:00.5

All right. You're listening to Radio Lab.

1:06.0

Radio. Radio.

1:07.0

From WNY.

1:08.0

Y.

1:09.0

See?

1:10.0

Rewind.

1:12.0

Rewind. No, I wouldn't be so bad.

1:16.0

Oh, should we do that now?

1:18.0

Yep. Hey, I'm Jad Abumrod, this is Radio Lab.

1:21.0

Yes, we...

1:22.0

Yes it is. No, we, yes it is.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WNYC Studios, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of WNYC Studios and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.