Radiolab - Funky Hand Jive

Episode Date: November 10, 2023

Back when Robert was kid, he had a chance encounter with then President John F. Kennedy. The interaction began with a hello and ended with a handshake. And like many of us who have touched greatness, 14 year old Robert was left wondering if maybe some of Kennedy would stay with him. Back in 2017, when this episode first aired, Robert found himself still pondering that encounter and question. And so with the help of what was brand new science back then, and a helping hand from Neil Degrasse Tyson, he set out to satisfy this curiosity once and for all.EPISODE CREDITS:Produced by - Simon Adlerwith help from - Only Human: Amanda Aronczyk, Kenny Malone, Jillian Weinberger and Elaine Chen. EPISODE CITATIONS: Videos: The Handshake Experiment (https://zpr.io/buzgQeJJLqvY)Books: Neil deGrasse Tyson's newest book is called "Astrophysics for People in A Hurry." (https://zpr.io/idRcrMu3Kj8c) Ed Yong, “I Contain Multitudes.” (https://zpr.io/ff5imFP3kA6s) 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 [e-mail]. 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.  

Happy Friday. This is Lulu. We have hit you with some harder stuff the last couple weeks. So we thought we'd just lighten things up with a, uh, a lower stakes thing, a lighter thing, a classic Crowwich episode. Today Robert Crowwich is gonna do the thing he does, which is take a very small question. Run it through the scientific process and come out with something that, you know, changes how you see yourself in relation to the world. So enjoy funky hand jive. Wait, wait, you're listening to radio lab. from W and Y. Three, why? Can I just tell you a story?

I don't have a choice, do I? No, don't give a shit. What's the story? This takes me back to when I was 14. Jack Kennedy, John F. Kennedy was the president, and he's very glamorous. I mean, he was on television, he was fun to watch. And he would go to mass in my neighborhood in New York. When he comes to New York, he'd go to a particular church all the time and just out of enthusiasm.

Some of my friends and I would go and stand there and watch him just walk up the steps with you. You can see the president of the United States and his wife. So you did this multiple times. Many times. Yes. Because we were big fans. And then one day we went to do that. And I can't remember whether he zipped by or zipped in, but anyway we missed it. And my friend John said, damn, but he was a New York kid. So he thought there would be interesting. He knew the place where President Kennedy was staying, which was a famous hotel on Madison Avenue. And he came up with this crazy plan that he was going to ask for his aunt when

we walk in the lobby. So the secret service wouldn't have to worry about us. So we go to the hotel, he does the thing, we're in the lobby, and then crazily the elevator door opens and there is President Kennedy steps out of the elevator with Jackie. Whoa. She's immediately a grab by these reporters and they're asking her something and he's got nothing to do. So he's a politician, he glances around and I am standing behind a potted plant, staring at him. And so he steps towards the bush and he reaches over the bush and goes, hello, young man, or something like that. And I couldn't speak because there was so much flame coming flooding into my throat that I thought I might drown standing up, but I took his hand and I shook it. And then

he released and he went off to do something else, and I was just staring at my hand. Later that day I said to my sister, I shook President Kennedy's hand, and I guess I'm not gonna wash it for like two days, two weeks maybe. What did she say to you? I don't remember what she said,

but that's a funny thing to say when 50 years later you're a science reporter. This is just like a, like you think, huh? Because at the moment I thought, oh, Kennedy, on Robert, I didn't know whether that was true or it was kind of like a dream thing. Everybody has to, I think with celebrities who they do. But now it turns out we can examine the question scientifically. There's now a science that can do that.

What do you mean? Well, first of all, we all know this. We're covered with germs, with bacteria. Yes. But what I didn't realize is that there are scientists who say the bacteria on us They cling to us almost like for life so you can be identified by your microbes And these scientists are now making the bold claim that they can check those microbes to solve crimes to detect diseases to do public health kind of things. I thought well really

I'm gonna I why? Put them to the test. Here he is. Are these people? Yeah, these are the people. And go after this small, little bit of personal history, I got. So I decided to reproduce the John F. Kennedy, Robert Klobich, handshake.

It's an experiment. What? That's the thing. I thought we could just, we could have, I could find somebody who would be president Kennedy, who would shake my hand, and we would measure and calculate and see. So I got a team of producers from WNYC Show Only Human to help me doing this, and we found a scientist.

Oh, hey, your name again? Jack Gilbert. Jack, hey, Jack. Jack Gilbert is director of the Microbiome Center at the University of Chicago and then I don't have president Kennedy around anymore so I got myself you're gonna be president Kennedy for these purposes substitute president Kennedy okay can you do a JFK by the way our nation will put a man on the moon and return him safely to here no no just this is Neil deGrasse Tyson director of the Hayden Planetarium with the American Music of Natural History here in New York.

Have you ever had your handshake and buy a person who you, that you feel like you'd like to have his or her stuff sustain? Yeah, I'm not that weird or creepy. Okay, fair enough. No, there's no part of anyone else that I just want to... What about, what about, if you got Carl Sagan's underwear, would you keep Carl Sagan's underwear?

No. Sorry. But I have come to love and embrace all bacteria that want a part of my body. You are, you are, Olsen. And so am I your man for this? You are absolutely the man for this. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and I don't think no one exactly knows the answer to this question.

But if a person shakes another person's hands for a ordinary interval, then the question is how much of person A lands on person B and how much of person A stays on person B, but most crucially for how long? Presumably, there's an exchange. Yes. So we're nicking off back and forth. You do have enormous hands though, now that I'm looking at them. Yeah, I know when I try to find gloves. It doesn't work.

So it's 3XL. All right. So just so we can be given, the fact that you are carrying all these microbes on you, first of all, where are they predominantly? They're all over. So every mucosal serves in your body. So your mouth, your gastrointestinal tract all the way down, your skin, your fingernails, your urigenital tract, your ears, every part of you that's... Your butt. Your butt, especially your butt, is covered in bacteria. And just sitting

here, you're actually releasing into the air around you, I think pig pen from the peanuts cartoon, remember? About 36 million bacterial cells an hour. So every minute. How do they come off of me? They are literally leaving on the surface your skin cells, that you're shedding, and through your respirations coming out of your nose

and your mouth, also detaching. So a lot of them, they dry out on the surface, and they can literally just drift off as dust. So just so I understand the anatomy of the room, all over this room on the doorknob, on the table surface, on his pants, on the desk, and on the chairs, there's neo everywhere. A lot of them are colonic, Neal, right? So a lot of them actually coming out of your pants, right? And they are on the surface of the chair and they deposit the fine cut down your shirt.

It's a multi-slavic word, but we I think we understand what you mean. Yeah, yeah, they are put back in. Why would that be? Is it just? It's the largest resource. It's the best of it. It's not a good out of me.

And it does. All the time. All the time, so that means this is not a bathroom? It's not a bathroom. The surfaces of chairs would have them most. Yes. All right, so now, yes. Let me just time question real quick.

So Jack needs about 20 minutes to do for us to do this handshake. That's by the way producer Kenny Malone. Why don't we start the experiment now? That's good idea. And then we have time to talk in between. OK. All right, what are you going to do?

So what we're going to do is we have little test you can see. I'm not offering you my butthole for this experiment. You did the check in, and I'm Tyson. It doesn't mean I am offering you my butthole. Just stand up. Just stand up. Sorry, we're going to put my butthole for this experiment. It's in the tube, in the antiso. It doesn't mean I am offering you my butthole. Just stand up. So we're going to do hands.

Absolutely. So we have these little sterile tubes. We each tube, the green cap tube, has a sterile swab in it with a completely sterile tip. We're going to open that up and very quickly rub very vigorously each of your hands, so you're palm inside of your fingers. And we're going to do that very vigorously and then put it as quickly as possible back into the sterile.

So this is your control sample? This is the starter. The starter, okay. And you are gonna shake hands with the young man over there, right, with Robert. And we're gonna definitely, I try to see how many you have received from Neil and how many Neil has received from Robert. Wait, he is swabbing your hands before you handshake

so that he can figure out what's the baseline that you've got on both your hands, pre-handshake. Right. And he sure you're gonna have different bacteria on your hands, you and Neil? Yeah. So this is where it gets very interesting. So you have very specific types of bacteria

and he has very specific types of bacteria, but they're unique to you. I mean, I guess like, I mean, like if I just think about it for a second, like the two of you had different days, you arrive in this office, you've probably touched different places, you've eaten different things. So, okay, maybe you have a little bit of difference. But in general, you are both men living in New York City, breathing the same air, riding the same someplace. Yes, exactly. So, why would you be that different from one

another? Well, because there's one very important difference between us. Okay. We have different mothers. So, have you been told anything like what this is? I've been a little bit about the microbiome, but I'm happy to hear more. This is Dr. Shivan Dolan. I'm an obstetrician gynecologist,

and I'm actually a clinical geneticist as well. And we brought her in because she knows more and most when it comes to moms and babies. During my training years, probably delivered 100 babies a year. So that was about 500 babies. Then I was in private practice at Yale New Haven Hospital for a bunch of years.

And I probably delivered another couple hundred. And I have three kids myself. So I was in the other side as well. Okay. And she says, as a fetus, before you're born, you're exposed to what's in the amniotic fluid, but it's a pretty clean setup in utero. But then you go through the vagina,

and the vagina is just a host of bacteria and yeast and amniotic fluid, there's blood. And this moment is, in essence, your bacterial baptism. Right, exactly. Because at this point, you're this pristine, unadulterated hunk of biomass, the bacteria. They're like, give me a ride. I'm gonna jump on.

Yeah, the bacteria have colonized that surface because that's what bacteria do. And so finally, when the babies born, the doctors, they take it. You make sure they stay well breathing and then write up on to mom to start to immediately promote the bonding and the skin to skin.

In your own case, if you can remember. I can. Like what happened? Like what I remember is just grabbing for him like your mind and I've been waiting nine months to meet you and here you are and like just kind of embracing him and looking in his eyes. And so there's a sort of bonding there that I will never forget.

And in the same moment, you're going to get some micro bonding too. It's a very dynamic hug. And bacteria go, PUUU, they leap from the mom skin onto the baby. I did this for both my children. I took both of them onto my bare chest at birth. But you wanted to compete against your wife, huh? Absolutely. Maybe a little bit of daddy was a helpful thing.

You know who knows? So yeah, that was the reason I did it. And the thing is, well, start. So I'll do your first one. The strains of bacteria that we get in those first few hours. Okay, so give me a right hand. And then to a lesser degree, the bacteria that we meet later in the first year of our life, when we stick weird things in our mouth that the dog comes by.

You ready? Yeah. Those strains of bacteria stick with us. Ready, set, forever. Go! So we're going to swab it as much as possible. Even the bacteria, the jack will find. It tickles. Now on Neil's hand.

And now we'll do Robert. All right, and on my hand. All over the finger. Okay, in between. Okay. Our descendants of those first moments of contact. There we are. And, uh, good.

Pop that back in there. And crazily enough, even if you try to get rid of your bacterial inheritance, you know, put a savon, get rid of all your skin bacteria, take lots of antibiotics and get rid of all your tummy bacteria, and then move to some completely different part of the world where the food is different, and the temperature's different. Still, the bacteria you got from your mom will come creeping back. Why would that be?

Well, there's something in ecology called the founder effect, whereby the first organisms to get there and to be successful in an environment, they can't be found. something in ecology called the Founder Effect, whereby the first organisms to get there and to be successful in an environment, they alter the trajectory of the rest of the ecosystem and change how it develops, right? So if a tree species, certain type of tree lands on an island and becomes dominant, then it will support the types of birds

and the types of monkeys and the types of monkeys and the types of insects that love that type of tree. So the same is true in the microbiome. So you have a lifelong partnership with the bacteria you interacted with. So we know that Neil and I each have a unique mix of microbes, almost to the point where they're like a fingerprint. But if we shake hands, just a mere hello, handshake, how much of his is going to get on me, how much of mine is going to get on him, and most important of all is how long will

the exchange microbially last? So next step, you guys got to shake hands. I want you to shake hands. Just as if you were meeting in the hall and you were like, hey Neil or hey Robert, nice to meet you and just shake hands. Okay. Are you ready? No, I have to like, think meet you and just shake hands. Okay. Yeah ready Now have to like think about how to actually shake Robert

See you again. All right, okay now hand Feel it oh, yeah, my index finger too because he got a little I feel it. I'm going to grab me on. Oh yeah, my index finger too, because he got a little... Because the ponds didn't touch it as much as the ponds. And so every five minutes for the next 20 minutes... And then we're going to swap your hand again.

Jack swam both knees, hand and my hand. I'm actually pulling off a slight patina of bacteria, but... Just checking to see if any bacteria moved and for how long. So what happened? Did you... What happened? Well, why would I tell you now when we have the advantage of a short break? We'll be right back.

Chad Robert radio lab. By the way, do you have a hint of the outcome of this thing that we've just done like? Okay, just before we went to break, Robert Neal had just shaken hands and Jack Gilbert was going to swab those hands, right? Mm-hmm. One minute after the hand shake, and then around every five minutes for about 25 minutes. What exactly does he do after he swabs them? Well, he takes our bacteria back to the lab and he identifies our bacteria by their DNA.

Yeah, that is exactly it. That means it strikes me. This is a whole new science, isn't it? I mean, like, there are a thousand things you could wonder about. Well, yes, it is a whole new science. It's a science that's on the cutting edge. We're still researching and developing it.

And it will take many years before we're ready for prime time. But Jack says they are now at the phase where they can look into all kinds of different applications for this new microbiome detecting ability. Take, for example, forensics. Imagine if somebody comes into a room and does an evil deed. Right now, we know that when somebody interacts with that space for 15 minutes, they leave behind enough of the signature for us to be able to detect 30 minutes later. Huh. If I had to pick between three people or four people

that were to break into a room, there's a good possibility that I could detect which one of them had broken into that room. Wow. And they're only getting better and better, he says. Do you think maybe one day you'll be able to track somebody like outside moving around, purely on the, based on

the bacteria that they leave behind. That's exactly what we're investigating. He also says being able to identify bacteria in a town sewer system will be really useful in helping us to predict a potential outbreak. By noticing that there's a disease causing bacteria right in the sewer so you can go to town and before anyone begins to show symptoms, you could say, so I'm like, wait a second, we've got a quarantine, vaccinate, we've got to do something here.

And nip it in the bud, if you will, before it becomes a problem. And as you may have heard, there's plenty of research looking at the microbiome inside of you. It's revolutionizing medicine. I mean, we already have evidence that we can determine whether somebody will have

a bad response to a drug based on the bacteria that are present inside them. So we can screen them using their microbiome to determine if they have that likely outcome. But for now... So come on, yes. So come on in. Back to this absolutely crucial and breathtaking experiment. So let me just quickly remind you of the situation where we last left you. You and I...

So a couple of weeks later We got the results from Jack and so I decided to go to Neil to deliver them Right and just to set up expectations here Jack told us what he expected was immediately after our handshake a little bit of Me would be on Neil a little bit of Neil would be on me and that We're all pretty fast the bacteria would die and be gone You know, pretty fast the bacteria would die and be gone. However, I am very happy to say that isn't that what happened. What percentage change would you guess you caused on me? Of me on you, 10%.

10%. I can't imagine it, I would say 1%, 10%, but not much less than 1%. Well, it was less than 10. When they came back, it was significantly less than 10. Okay. It was zero. Zero. Well, it can't be zero. It'd be below there, whatever it is. It's a low capacity dimension.

It's a low capacity dimension. Right, okay. Actually, they found a teeny number of bacteria, but they died. There was essentially nothing. Huh, nothing from Neal. Yes. Nothing. It's just odd.

Should I put it that way? I mean, that was quite shocking. We were expecting there to be a lot more bacteria being transferred and to have an exchange of microbes. So, one person picks up 10 bacteria, the other person picks up 10 to 12 bacteria. Do you think you might have washed your hand immediately previous? I don't think so. No, no, there was no sabotage or anything.

You use an alcohol-wise, but water? No, I never. I hate antibacterial. I don't use what he called a purell. I never use any of it. So for reasons that are at this moment totally unknown, Niels' bacteria simply failed completely to affect my hand.

The other side of this equation is, what would you guess the presence of my microbes on you was percentage? OK, what I know from physics of surfaces is if they have approximately the same coefficient of friction, then it's a complete two-way street. So if I gave you nothing, you would have given me nothing, is my guess. Here's what happened.

He definitely picked up bacteria from you and that led to quite a substantial disruption. It turns out I swam your hand. You tell me you're a skank nasty. I, I rule you. I don't know what happened. They don't understand. You have a skank. I came on skank funky.

The percentage before the handshake was that you and I were 60% the same 40% different. Post-shake, you were more than 75% correlated. What? You were so you made him more you by 15% at least. I was swarming all over him. I'm slightly proud and kind of troubled at the same time. Not only did you get my microbes, but my kept staying and staying and staying.

Every time they swamped, I was still there. Six minutes later, 12 minutes later. That's nasty. Could it have been an hour later, am I might still be on his hand like you used? Yeah, I mean, there's no indication that they were in decay. When I left, you were covered with...

Ah! Me! That's a record show he beat his chest in that moment. It looks like there is a possibility that some of them could have gone on at him for night. At him for night? What do you mean? You think that I might stay on him? What I think is that there's a high probability

that some of those organisms, once they set up shop on his hand in those initial 20 minutes, could stay on his hand. What do you mean like forever? Like forever and ever? There is a possibility. Wow. There is a possibility.

Precisely. Do we have any idea whether what we've just described is typical of a common handshake experience? My gut feeling is this is atypical. Why? Because they may be at all out competed. Jackson says to understand just how strange this result is, well, think about it this way, two hands coming together.

It's like taking a rainforest from Bolivia and extro, and dumping it on top of a rainforest in Brazil, and wondering whether any of the trees from the Bolivian rainforest will take root and adapt and become prolific in that environment. Oh, so the invaders don't really have a huge shot here then? No. Your bacteria have home-field advantage. They are abundant and they are dominant in that environment. So we would generally suspect that very quickly the invading microbes start to die, they're killed off, they starve, and they just become inactive.

So it happens and it's over and nobody wins? Precisely. There's mutual decay. So am I now a successful invasive species on its hand? Well, some of your microbes are successful invasive species, but yeah, absolutely. How would you explain my success? What we think actually happened is that something disrupted Neil's ecosystem, right? And we think, based on the analysis,

that there was a streptococcus, which is usually quite rare, but was... Well, that doesn't sound so good, streptococcus. Well, there are lots of species of streptococcus, but not all of them are pathogenic. So there was a streptococcus that was very abundant on your hand at the beginning. There was transfer to Neal's hand

and we see that transfer occurring. And that streptococcus somehow disrupted Neal's ecosystem and allowed for a greater transfer of bacteria from your hand to his hand. Oh man, that's so interesting. So you have like a little band of like murderous little bacteria in the morning and cleared away the forest

and then so that the rest of you could come in and colonize. I don't know. I don't think anybody knows the answer to that question. All I know is that I'm all over the man. I don't mind some of Robert slathered on my body. That's fine. Do you feel any defensiveness towards the fact that he managed to conquer your microbiome

and yet yours was unable to do the same to him? That, by the way, is producer Simon Adler. So the word conquer in that context, I would reword the sentence and say, my microbiome was perfectly tense staying where it is. So, I had apparently Robert's microbiome we tend to stay where it is. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha because if he's a cool cucumber it's all on you state on him. Yeah. I believe the list nation treats the mission.

Achieving the goal before this deck ends out a landing a man and turning it into a safety say you're the earth. Yeah, maybe you're the anomaly. Yeah. You're the creepy, sweaty man with wet palms. That's what you cover your fire. The riposte.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Big, big thanks to astrophysicist and author Neil deGrasse Tyson for putting up with this shenanigans. I can go five days without a shower and you wouldn't know it. The man is smelling his armpits for the moment but we'll just... Smell my armpits for the moment. Just smell my armpits. Like I just don smell it. Just smell it my armpits. Like I just don't smell.

Let me smell your armpit, where are we? Don't want you to smell your armpit. What if it smells terrible? Then it's on the way to smelling bad. Oh yes, it's not repulsive. I never come back. She's being nice. This story was produced by Simon Adler. Big thanks to Jared Myself, who did a lot of the technical work in the lab work that

gave us our microbial analysis. Also to the Manifefior Medical Center. Also to Science Writer and author Ed Young, whose book, I contain multitudes as a primer on all things micro-biamic. And it was talking to Ed, where I began thinking, oh yeah, that Jack Kennedy hashakes. So that's how this whole thing got started.

And then when things really got going, that's when the team at WNYC's only human kicked in, that's Amanda Aeroncic, Elaine Chen, Kenny Malone, Julian Weinberger. These are the ones who were with me all the way and stuck with this crazy thing, with the swabs and whatever. And actually next week they're putting on their own show which involves a microbial robbery.

That is, can you catch the robber if all you can see is a microbes? I believe your house figures into that. Yes, there's an actual... That's a robbery in my home. Yes, onlyhuman.org. And also go to our website... RadioLab.org

Because along with only human, we are putting up a very short animation of the handshake situation done by Nate Milton, which is, uh, it's just... gloriously weird. Oh, a quick reminder, you can listen to radio lab on Spotify. Okay, Jett, I would shake your hand, but I... Radio lab was created by Chad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler, Lulu Miller and Lotto Thnasser are our co-hosts.

Dylan Keith is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Brestler, Aketty Foster Keys, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindu Nyanosambada, Matt Kielty, Annie McEwan, Alex Nisen, Alyssa John Perry, Sara Kare, Sarah Sammak, Arian Wack, Pat Walters, and Molly Webster. With help from Timmy Broderick, our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, and Natalie Middleton. Hi, my name is Michael Smith. I'm calling from Pennington, New Jersey.

Leadership support for RDO Lab Science Programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Science Sandbox, Assignments Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Conditional Support for Radio Lab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. you