Jad offers some more context on the "Yellow Rain" segment from our new episode The Fact of the Matter.

Thanks to everyone who tuned in to watch our first-ever Google Hangout. We had a blast!

Surprising and exciting scientific findings capture our attention and captivate the press.  But what if, at some point after a finding has been soundly established, it starts to disappear?  In a special collaboration with Radiolab we look at the 'decline effect' when more data tells us less, not more, about scientific truth.

Correction: An earlier version of this short incorrectly stated that Jonathan Schooler saw the effect size of his study fall by 30% on two different occasions. In fact, he saw it fall by that amount the first time he repeated the study and saw a general downward trend thereafter. The audio has been adjusted to reflect this fact.

 

Correction: An earlier version of this short incorrectly attributed a statement to Jonathan Schooler’s advisor. The statement was actually made by his colleague. The audio has been adjusted to reflect this fact.

Recently, Radiolab host Jad Abumrad started wondering about the legend of bluesman Robert Johnson. You know, the one where he goes down to the crossroads and sells his soul to the devil in return for unnatural guitar ability. What you don’t know, and what Jad found out, is that the truth is far stranger than the fiction. He’ll join us to share the story. 

We spent the first part of the show talking about the blues, and bluesman Robert Johnson. But what about the yellows and the reds and the rest of the colors? Well, Jad Abumrad and his Radiolab cohorts have been thinking about color recently -- and in fact asked a number of bands to record versions of songs about the various colors.  We hear a few excerpts.

Beginning Thursday, December 8th at 7 pm, Q2 Music launches a weekly series of compelling new-music shows as recorded in their entirety at venues around New York City.This week: instr...

"La Verdad," by Juana Molina

Juana Molina lands on my very short list of Awesome. Nobody sings like her -- that raspy ever-so-slightly-but-delightfully-flat tone. And very few people make music that's simultaneously so inviting but so completely formless. Well, I shouldn't use the word completely. There's form there. It just not the usual snoozy song-structurey form. Her songs ebb and flow and and meander from one section to the next like water, organic but full of unexpected turns. Like sometimes she'll ditch the words and start to vocalize like a cat. I don't know why, but it works. Hope you dig this one. It's one of only about forty songs that frequent my list of Awesome.

And for more of Juana's music, check out the Sperm show, where we used some bits and pieces of one of her songs. And this podcast we produced with her, after a ton of you demanded to hear more.

Alexis Madrigal, technology editor for The Atlantic, talks about Jobs' tech legacy and his surprising counterculture origins; then, Jad Abumrad, host of Radiolab, on Jobs' influence on music and radio.

"I Saw the Bright Shinies," by The Octopus Project

A specific memory colors this song for me. About five years ago, my wife and I traveled to Japan for a wedding, and during the ceremony, the couple played a photo slide show of their Happy Moments (beach kissing, the proposal, painting the house, etc)... sort of your classic slightly-cheesy but sweet wedding video. But what made this one over the top beautiful and moving and at the same time funny was the accompanying music. This song. "I Saw the Bright Shinies." I downloaded it that night, and then a whole bunch of others from The Octopus Project. They're that rare math rock band that still remembers to rock. And they have a good sense of humor. I hope you enjoy this song. If you like it, definitely check out their new album, Hexadecagon.

"I Didn't Know That," by The Books

"Infra 1," by Max Richter

I’m really proud to feature Max Richter for this week’s download. Max is my favorite film composer. He writes these beautiful small pieces that take you into the emotional depths of a moment or a character.

I use him as a guide for scoring this show. Constantly. Like: when I’m stuck scoring a piece and I just can't get the mood or feeling right (which is often) what I’ll do, to hit the reset button, is listen to Max Richter’s 24 Postcards In Full Colour and ask myself, what would Max do here? Sparse piano cords? Subterranean strings?

His music seems to live in the place our stories are always striving to get to – awe, mystery, transformation, illumination. Yeah, I’m pretty much a Max Richter-hack.

"Infra 1" is the first track from an album he released last year called Infra. It’s on the quieter, more fragile end of his spectrum, which is the stuff of his I tend to like most. I hope you enjoy this piece.

"Optimist," by Zoe Keating

Zoe Keating is a friend of the show. We've performed live with her around a dozen times, give or take. And on our last tour (Symmetry), Zoe would often play this piece, Optimist, which she wrote for her son Alex when he was negative four months old. Every time, the audience fell into a trance. Those are the moments from the tour I really remember, getting to sit quietly on stage and watch the audience watch Zoe.

"Faking The Books," by Lali Puna

When I first heard this song, I went into one of those strange deliriums that happen to me once a decade, and I played the song fifteen times in a row, no joke. I’ve since heard from a few other people who’ve had the same reaction. There’s something narcotic about the way the song builds, and about what’s being described – people trying to fake their way to being good. But I won’t bore you with my thoughts. Just listen to it. Let me know if this song does to you what it does (still does, now 7 years later) to me.

 

 

Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, host of the Peabody Award-winning WNYC program “Radiolab,” talk about creating the show and what’s in store for their new season.

This week, Q2 launches the 13-week Spring 2011 season of our flagship show, Cued Up, with the first encore presentation of one of the more mesmerizing evenings in our recent live Webc...

On Sunday, March 6 at 7 p.m., EST, Q2 presents a live audio Web cast of experimental musician and technophile Zoë Keating in a sold-out concert from Greenwich Village's (Le) Poisson...