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Radiolab

WNYC Studios

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

4.6 • 44.5K 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. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab today. Radiolab is on YouTube! Catch up with new episodes and hear classics from our archive. Plus, find other cool things we did in the past — like miniseries, music videos, short films and animations, behind-the-scenes features, Radiolab live shows, and more. Take a look, explore and subscribe!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Wait, you're listening.
0:03.1	Okay.
0:04.4	All right.
0:05.6	Okay.
0:07.0	All right.
0:08.5	You're listening to Radio Lab.
0:11.4	Radio Lab.
0:11.9	From W. N. Y.
0:13.9	C.
0:14.8	See?
0:19.1	I'm Latif Nassar. This is Radio Lab.
0:21.7	Today, a story about how we humans rearrange the elemental stuff all around us and how one man's
0:28.8	pursuit of a basic truth about the earth revealed in an extraterrestrial explosion, a
0:34.4	2,000-year-old Peruvian skeleton, even a strand of his lab assistant's hair changed the very air we breathe. Comes to us from reporter of Yer Mitra. So I guess we'll start it... Okay, good afternoon, Dr. Patterson. It's a pleasure to talk to you. With this guy, Claire Patterson, he goes by the name Pat. And I think we'd like to start this interview with you just telling us a little bit about your
0:56.0	background.
0:56.7	This is from a oral history from 1995.
0:59.0	All right.
0:59.4	Well, I was born in a small town in the middle of Iowa that was located in the midst of
1:06.6	farmland, rolling prairie type farmland, central Iowa.
1:10.7	And this little town at uh, at that school,
1:14.4	it was a small school. All the students knew each other for 12 years. So you were all in one school
1:19.9	at one school a whole time. People didn't move in and out. It was sort of a tribal interaction.
	...

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