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Radiolab

WNYC Studios

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

4.6 • 43.5K Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2021

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today we have a story about the sometimes obvious but sometimes sneaky effects of the way that we humans rearrange the elemental stuff around us. Reporter Avir Mitra and science journalist Lydia Denworth bring us a story about how one man’s relentless pursuit of a deep truth about the Earth led to an obsession that really changed the very air we breathe.

This episode was reported by Avir Mitra, and produced by Matt Kielty, Becca Bressler, Rachael Cusick, and Maria Paz Gutiérrez.

Special thanks to Cliff Davidson, Paul M. Sutter, Denton Ebel, and Sam Kean.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Wattifnosser, this is RadioLab.
0:21.7	Today, a story about how we humans rearranged the elemental stuff all around us, and how
0:28.1	one man's pursuit of a basic truth about the Earth revealed in an extraterrestrial explosion,
0:33.8	a 2000 year old Peruvian skeleton, even a strand of his lab assistant's hair changed the
0:40.1	very air we breathe.
0:42.2	Come to us from reporter of your metra.
0:44.1	So I guess we'll start it.
0:46.1	Okay, good afternoon Dr. Patterson, it's a pleasure to talk to you.
0:49.0	With this guy Claire Patterson, he goes by the name Pat.
0:51.7	And I think we'd like to start this interview with you just telling us a little bit about
0:55.8	your background.
0:56.8	This is from an oral history in 1995.
0:58.8	All right, well I was born in a small town in the middle of Iowa that was located in the
1:05.8	midst of a farmland, rolling prairie type farmland central Iowa.
1:11.1	In this little town at that school, it was a small school.
1:16.2	All the students knew each other for 12 years.
1:18.7	So you were only one school the whole time?
1:20.7	Well, once, one school a whole time, people didn't move in and out.
1:23.4	It was sort of a tribal interaction.
1:26.5	And so Pat's tried, we learned how to hunt.
1:30.1	Did all the things you do growing up in the country?
1:32.2	Learn how to swim and fish and we saw a crop being planted.
	...

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