6 Science Radio Episodes to Make Your Week Smarter

We’re all victim to feeling overwhelmed by the entertainment choices at our fingertips. With the radio world bursting with incredible science podcasts, even a simple search for an episode for your morning commute can quickly snowball into a 45 minute-decision making process that leaves you wondering why you’re ​paragraphs deep in a Wikipedia article about black holes.

​In an effort to make one thing in your day easier, the SMASH team has hand-picked some of our favorite science podcast episodes.

Bald's Leechbook (Photo Credit: British Museum)

1) Radiolab: Staph Retreat
http://www.radiolab.org/story/best-medicine/
What happens when you combine an axe-wielding microbiologist and a disease-obsessed historian? A strange brew that's hard to resist, even for a modern day microbe.

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istock

2) TED Radio Hour: The Unknown Brain
http://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/384949524/the-unknown-brain
The brain can seem as mysterious as a distant galaxy, but scientists are starting to map and manipulate its many regions. In this hour, TED speakers take us on a trip through the human brain.

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Daniel Horowitz for NPR

3) Invisibilia: How to Become Batman
http://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/378577902/how-to-become-batman
Alix and Lulu examine the surprising effect our expectations can have on the people around us. Plus, the story of a blind man who says expectations have helped him see. Yes, see.

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4) You’re the Expert: Bacteria of the NYC Subway System
https://soundcloud.com/youre-the-expert/bacteria-of-the-nyc-subway-system
Science? Yes. Comedy? Yes. Double win. Learn some of the shocking findings from the first large scale genetic study of the NYC Subway System. 

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the-lightwriter/iStock.

5) Star Talk: Science Queries - Science and Morality
https://soundcloud.com/startalk/cosmic-queries-science-and-morality
​Explore the intersection of science and morality when host Neil deGrasse Tyson answers fan questions with the help of guest Michael Shermer, the founder of Skeptic Magazine and author of The Moral Arc.

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Nicola Twilley

6) Gastropod: The Scoop on Ice Cream
https://soundcloud.com/gastropodcast/the-scoop-on-ice-cream
It's one of the most complex food products you'll ever consume: a thermodynamic miracle that contains all three states of matter—solid, liquid, and gas—at the same time. And yet no birthday party, beach trip, or 4th of July celebration is complete without a scoop or two. That's right—in this episode of Gastropod, we serve up a big bowl of delicious ice cream, topped with the hot fudge sauce of history and a sprinkling of science.

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