Hey, this is Chad. Before we start the episode, which will happen in a few seconds, I just want to give a quick peek behind the Radio Lab curtain. So Radio Lab is a team of about 20 people. And that includes, you know, reporters, producers, fact checkers, Robert, me.

Some of the stuff that we do on this podcast is a lighter lift.

Not to say it's easy by any means, but some of it is contained.

You know, maybe it took a producer or two, a few months to make.

But most of the stuff that you hear on this feed took years to make, start to finish.

Literally years.

It takes so much time to do this kind of work.

And I think in the last year we've done some of our best stuff.

So I just want to review with you some of the work you heard on Radio Lab in the past year.

All right, let's start with Latif Nasser and Matt Kielto.

It brought you this amazing story of a underdog hockey star.

Pat Walters and Rachel Cusick reported an entire six-part series about intelligence called G.

Robert teamed up with Becca Bressler and Bethel Hoppe to explore how beauty affects

evolution and of course the deep, deep mystery of eelsex. And then there was the right to be forgotten.

Molly Webster and Soren Wheeler took a look at the ethics of erasing people's histories online.

Tracy Hunt brought you the history of square dancing, the complicated

backstory of why so many of us had to learn square dancing as a kid. We reported on birthright

citizenship in Samoa, immigration in Switzerland, undemocratic elections in Gabon, and I got to tell

the life story of Dolly Parton in a nine-part special series.

Okay, so honestly, making all of this stuff is as time and labor intensive as making a movie.

There are dozens of interviews that go into it. Every fact has to be checked. Every breath is

sought through. All of our music is originally composed.

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