Shrink

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

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

4.6 • 44.5K Ratings

🗓️ 24 November 2023

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The definition of life is in flux, complexity is overrated, and humans are shrinking. Viruses are supposed to be sleek, pared-down, dead-eyed machines. But when one microbiologist stumbled upon a GIANT virus, hundreds of times bigger than any seen before, all that went out the window. The discovery opened the door not only to a new cast of microscopic characters with names like Mimivirus, Mamavirus, and Megavirus, but also to basic questions: How did we miss these until now? Have they been around since the beginning? What if evolution could go … backwards? In this episode from 2015, join former co-hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich as they grill Radiolab regular Carl Zimmer on these paradoxical viruses – they’re so big that they can get their own viruses! - and what they can tell us about the nature of life. 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 radiolab@wnyc.org. 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

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0:00.0	Hello I'm Lulu Miller. If you joined us last week you met the hidden body part stowing away inside
0:06.8	your body and today we have another hidden story about life and non-life and how the line in between them is way
0:17.8	bluer than we might think. We are talking about viruses today. This episode is a rewind but it's a lovely one. It's called
0:26.0	Shrink and what I love about it is not just that it busts a binary between life and non-life that I always thought was hard and fast, but also
0:37.0	that as you listen, it really feels, at least to me, like Robert Krollich and Jad Abumrod, O.G. hosts that they kind of shrink down into these
0:48.1	little boys who are so giddy with questions for Carl Zimmer.
0:53.4	It's like they're, I picture them like two little boys
0:55.9	at Santa's knee, just taking in the knowledge.
0:59.7	And it's a really raw, lovely glimpse,
1:01.9	I think, at what this show does best when it when it does its best which is to make space for for questions and for real listening so I hope you enjoy this kind of giddy a romp through the evolution of life and non-life and all the
1:16.8	places where that line blurs out a bit. Here we go.
1:21.3	Yeah, wait, you're listening.
1:23.0	Okay.
1:24.0	All right.
1:25.0	Okay.
1:27.0	You're listening to Radio Lab.
1:31.0	Radio.
1:32.0	From W N N. Weiss.
1:33.0	Rewind.
1:40.0	Come on.
1:41.0	You guys came saying we want to talk to you about three things.
1:44.0	Okay, okay, let's do it, let's do that.
	...

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