Radiolab - Voice

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

Over the course of millions of years, human voices have evolved to hold startling power. These clouds of vibrating air carry crucial information about who we are–and we rely on them to push ourselves up and out into the physical world.This week, we’re on a journey to understand how we got our unique sonic fingerprint, the power it affords us, and what happens when it’s taken away.Special thanks to Alice Wong, Wren Farrell, Hector Espinal and his parents, Crisaly and Hector Espinal, Mary Croke, Nancy Kielty, Beth McEwen, Robin Feuer Miller, Roomful of Teeth, Amanda Crider, Caroline Shaw, Judd Greenstein, Leilihua Lanzilotti, Rebekka Karijord, and Michael Harrison.EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by -Annie McEwen and Matt KieltyProduced by - Annie McEwen and Matt KieltyOriginal music and sound design contributed by - Jeremy Bloom and Matt Kieltywith mixing help from - Jeremy BloomFact-checking by - Anna Pujol-Mazziniand Edited by  - Alex Neason EPISODE CITATIONS:Books - Disability Intimacy by Alice WongYear of the Tiger by Alice WongThis is the Voice by John ColapintoWebsites -DisabilityVisibilityProject.comSign up for our newsletter! 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] 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.

Oh, wait, you're listening. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. You're listening to Radio Lab. Radio Lab. From W. N. Y.

C. See? Yeah. Okay. Okay. This is Radio Lab. I'm Loua Miller. I am here with Valiant producers, Matt Kilty and Annie McEwan.

Hello. Hello. Hi. All right. Okay. Why are we here? What are we doing? Okay, so today what we're doing is this. This thing right here.

This. Here. What? Well, this thing right under our noses, where our mouths are, that emits this signal that is layered like lasagna, that is carrying information that is making us judge people's wealth and income and education level. but it's also conveying all this emotional information, hostility, love, lust, anger, jealousy, all these physical operations, this respiratory, articulatory feat

of symphonic timed movements that we use to make the air vibrate in interesting ways. It's the voice. Lulu, that's what we're doing. The voice. La Voix. That's right. That is a thing we use a fair amount here in the audio arts.

Sure. And so I'm just going to stick with the layer of lasagna analogy, but today we are bringing you three different layers of this thing, this important thing, the voice. One, where it comes from. Two. The power it holds over you. And three.

The power it can give you. So, Where it comes from. Huh, I should put these on. It's actually a story that came to us from this guy. Oh, that's turned down. Let's see. Let me turn the headphones up.

John. Wait, wait, you need to introduce yourself. Oh, yeah. My name is John Colapinto. I was a longtime contributing editor at Rolling Stone, longtime staff writer at The New Yorker. And a few years back, John wrote this book about The Voice.

I did. It's called This Is the Voice. Great book. What a title, too. Isn't that grabby? Which kind of set us off in this whole episode because in it is this really gripping chapter about The very, very beginning.

The very, very beginning of voice. Which emerges first with a particular species of fish. And you say, fish, you've got to be kidding. But no, I'm not. You've got to be kidding. You've got to be kidding. Get out of here. Stop it.

Telling our leg, John. About 400 million years ago. Before there were humans, before there were mammals, before there were dinosaurs. It was the age of fishes. The age of fishes. Who named that? Darwin's four-year-old. There were a lot of fish.

A lot of different species. And the particular one was living in sort of swampy areas. These areas where there wasn't a lot of water. It's pretty shallow. And they found themselves these poor fish in periods of drought. Suddenly. Completely landlocked. Doomed.

They only can breathe underwater. They don't have a means for extracting oxygen from the air. And so these fish... They would flop. They would gasp. They would die. I'm just picturing to see a fish like... Yes. It's horrible to witness them suffocate to death, which is literally what's happening

to them. But, and as Darwin pointed out, you know, all species evolve from random genetic mutations. I mean, it's so hard to wrap your mind around the randomness of it all, but that's the way it was. So you've got a fish who one day has a random mutation that creates this little pouch in its throat. So what happens is the next time there's a drought, this fish can open its mouth, suck in the air. And that air goes down its throat into this hole, into this pouch. That would literally permit oxygen to pass through it into the bloodstream of the fish and keep it alive. Wow.

Yeah. It's what we've come to think of as the first lung. Why didn't you give a little, the universe is first lung? Because it seems like you have a fish that mostly prefers to be in the water, right? 100%. But now it has this hole in his throat that leads to this sack. Yep. It's like hole, whole, whole good, bad, bad hole.

You got it. You have got it. Because when this poor creature goes back into the water, it's now in danger of drowning. Right, because like if the pouch fills with water, you're dead. Exactly. So that hole, it's really like a slit, a valve, that it can open and close. Like a little tiny mouth. Yeah, like a little mouth.

And it opens to pull the oxygen in. And then closes to keep the water out. Exactly. Okay. Now, that's critically important. And again, the thing that just made me go, oh, I got to write this book was that slit, that valve. That became our vocal cords. And our vocal cords remain a valve. I mean, I never knew this because we call them vocal cords. We think of them as being like strings, like on a violin or piano strings that are struck and vibrate to create sound. That's not how we make our voices. That's not how we produce sound with our voices. John explained that literally all that a voice is, when I go up, is you are closing that valve and you're pushing the air from your lungs up through this closed valve. The valve starts to vibrate and you get a voice. So wait, okay, if we're pushing air through a valve to talk and this fish hundreds of millions of years ago had a maybe similar valve, does that mean it had a voice? Well, that's the thing, Lulu.

It did. Yeah. Even though that exact fish has long since been extinct, we can give you an approximation of what it sounded like. Which is the following. Oh. Mm-hmm. Shockingly underwhelming.

Yeah. It's hard to do. It's a... Oh, like a horse? I'm not doing it. Yes, like a horse. There, Annie's doing it so well there. Thank you.

Oh, what about me? No, Matt's on. I'm sure you did it well, too. I was listening to Annie. So it would make various sounds that sound like air being driven through a tight aperture, which also happens in another part of the human body. I was going to say it sounds like we're talking farts here, John. I'm talking about a fart sound.

That's exactly what I'm talking about because that's exactly what our anus is. It's also a sphincter because that valve that I mentioned, it's actually a sphincter muscle. So the first sounds heard on Earth were very fart-like. I mean, you know, Bob. Bottom line. It's great. No pun intended. Can't escape it with you, too.

That's right. All farts all the time. Yeah. Anyway, Lulu, it's not going to be far as forever. Unfortunately, because that fish, it crawled out of the water. Evolution kept going. You have taken along. And over time, this fish, it's fins.

Pop, pop, pop, pop. Evolved in little feet, little limbs. And suddenly you've got a mobile creature with four legs. Living on land. Scurrying around. And because it's now on land, breathing air. its lung starts to evolve, and that one lung becomes two. Two paired lungs, so more air.

And then the lungs are surrounded by this new thing called a ribcage, which can expand and contract the lungs. They can suddenly squeeze the air out of their lungs through that valve. And so by the time you get to reptiles like blizzards or crocodiles, alligators. They are able to make not just farts, but also squeaks. And squawks. And hisses.

And rumbles. The voice is becoming more. controlled. Refined. But... John points out, most of these animals are actually quite quiet.

Incredibly quiet. Like reptiles don't make that much noise. Oh, and it's believed that dinosaurs, which are huge overgrown reptiles, were also pretty silent.

So those Spielberg movies where you've got Tyrannosaurus rex doing those amazing roars. It's believed now that they were actually kind of wusses. I mean, they were really not...

Just imagine the movie is just like T. Rex being like, ooh. And then devoid. But John says that's a thing. Like, if you're only using your ribcage to make sounds. There's only so much air that you're like pushing out.

Exactly. So what you have back then is just this relative silence. It's a quiet world. But that all changes. When Hugh Jesterot hits the earth... Almost everything dies. But crawling up from underground. were the earliest mammals.

They were tiny. They were like little mice. Some of which had spent most their lives. Climbing up trees. Running from dinosaurs. Burning up oxygen at an incredible rate. And so they had evolved this really powerful muscle called the diaphragm. That sits below the lungs that allowed them to take in air and push it out.

Rapidly and powerfully. This would kind of change everything. Because even though you had these tiny little 80-bitty mammals that, had their tiny squeaks. Over time, as they evolved into bigger mammals with bigger lungs and bigger, more powerful diaphragms, you'd get bigger sounds, more air. And John says at the same time, that valve that slit in the throat. All of a sudden, it's being refined. Little bits of cartilage appear on it, and so do these folds.

Which now enable through a complex like twisting and moving back and forth of those cartilage. You can stretch the vocal folds to create a higher pitch sound. You can loosen and slacken it for lower sounds. You can actually tense it for growling sounds. You can sort of make the vocal cords stiff for this popping air through the vocal folds. John says all of this means that the voice is becoming more and more of a tool. For those things that drive evolution. Like asserting dominance.

Fighting off rivals. Showing affection. Wooing mates. The voice starts communicating basic emotions. And the other thing is that mammals... The way that their young feed is on... mammary glands. A breast. That's new with mammals. So the action of affixing lips to a nipple and then coaxing milk from that nipple with very specific rhythmic lip movements, but then

also coordinating the tongue to sort of get out of the way to let the milk come in, but then rippling the tongue in complex ways in order to make the milk pass down into our stomach is an amazing system of muscles in the mammalian face. throat and tongue. And so if you're an animal with a big complex brain, John says you can start doing things like hitting the tongue against the back of the teeth for t and duh, popping the lips for a p, or holding them clothes for a m. Or you can start making, ha, he, he, fowl sounds.

It's literally the posture and shape of the tongue. It's over 400 million years. From diaphragm to lungs. To that valve. That opening closable slit with all its little folds. to facial muscles and so on. This whole system from your gut to the tip of your tongue that we would eventually recruit

for the act that I'm now performing. These symphonic time movements. To speak. And that's what I love. 400 million years of evolution to all these parts of your body that eventually allow you to escape your own body. You can protect yourself out in the world.

You can convey thoughts, ideas, feelings, emotions, and all of it is distinct to you, to your physical body. Like, your voice is you. Yeah, your sonic fingerprint. Yeah, like a sort of face. A face shooting out of your mouth. A little rosy cheeks flying in the wind. Wee!

Good morning. I'm not right. And I'm sweating. From a fish all the way to this. The voice is just... It's everywhere. Like, we hear from the second we wake up, if you live with anyone. And even if you don't, you know, everything's talking to us.

And we just get so acclimated and adjusted to kind of a constant onslaught of voices in our life. That you can sort of forget that they're meaningful. And why they're important. Okay. When we come back, this voice that you just heard is going to take us on a little journey to a very important voice that you probably have some feelings about in just a minute. Matt? Annie. Okay, back from break. Took a little break. Took a break.

Now we're back. And we're continuing on with voice. And number two, the power it holds over you. Yes. Which, we'll start with this guy. Daniel Abrams, clinical associate professor here at Stanford University. Where he studies the brain. Yeah.

Okay. But he kind of has like a weird career trajectory. Yes. Out of college, I was what's called an acoustical engineer. One of those people that, like, when you build a building. Sit around and stare at drawings of. of buildings and, you know, the HVAC components of buildings. You basically do some math to make sure that the air conditioning is not like just too loud

in parts of the building. Yeah. And that wasn't enough for you. No, it sounds super sexy work. Something about it didn't click for him. I realized I wasn't cut out to be an engineer. But he did like spend a lot of time thinking about sound. And not just kind of any old sound, but the sounds that are that are really important to us

as human beings. And in particular, how does the brain make sense of the sounds that our ears detect? Sounds such as a voice. And in particular, a very special voice. Mom's voice. Mother's voice. Okay, that sounds icky. Well, it's certainly a loaded term, right?

But Daniel's basically like, a mother's voice is one of the first voices that you hear in your life. And studies have shown that children are actually able to recognize their mother's voice before they're even born. So, like, in the womb, right around 18 weeks, ears poke out of the side of the head of a fetus. And researchers have done studies showing that when the fetus hears the voice of the person who's carrying it, its heart rate starts going way faster. And it's kind of inferred that the fetus can recognize what we're calling mother's voice. From other voices. Huh. And...

What is the beating hot? Sorry, go ahead. Oh, sorry. I just... Why would a heartbeat faster? You know, I mean, I guess it's... Anxiety. Yeah, it's truly angry.

The truth is that no one really knows because it's a fetus. But it was clear to Daniel that this mother's voice was powerful. And so what Daniel wanted to know is, okay, what is this powerful voice actually doing in, say, the brain of a kid? So at this point, Daniel's at Stanford. And basically, what he and his team do is they get these kids. Kids at a range of ages between seven and 12. And then they had the mothers. of these children come in for voice recording.

Then Daniel would hand them a piece of paper with some words on it. Oh, my God. Wait, what am I saying? And tell them to read the words as if their child comes out to them at a museum and says, Mom. What's that weird thing here? And you would say. Should I say the whole, should I say that? Yeah, I think just, yeah, the whole phrase.

Okay. Jimmy, whatever your child's name is. Oh, that's a. Kibataichelt. Kibata shalt. Kibadishalt. Kibatashalt. Kibatashalt.

There are these nonsense words. From Kuh. Kibatajchalt to t'u. Pibatajal to t. There we go. Good. Because they didn't want it to be something like airplane. Because we would be measuring more than the voice.

We would be measuring some association with an airplane in this case, possibly a negative one. And maybe in other kids, they love airplanes. And so. They have these words that truly meant nothing. And then they had these other moms come in who did not have kids in the group. They were mothers. They were mothers, though. Oh.

They had this sort of, Jean-Nesikov, mom. Yeah, like mom vibes. Yeah, exactly, mom vibes. So they had them record the words as well. And then Daniel and his team would bring in a kid, have them lie on their back inside of an fMRI machine. And they would play them the voice of somebody who is not their mom.

And then take a picture of their brain, play him another voice of not mom. Take a picture, then. Oh. Through a couple of kitty cat meows. in there to make sure that they were awake and attending to sounds. And then they just keep going through this.

Keep an eye show. Not mom. Picture. Not mom. Picture. Amen. Keep on that show. Mom.

Wait. Is that my mom? Is that actually? You're all played again. Keep eye shell. That's my mom. It is your mom. That's totally my mom.

How did you get my mom? How did it feel to hear your mom? Well, whatever. Should we get to them? Yeah, let's wait. I can't believe you got my mom. Okay, sorry. I'm still.

I'm still, okay, keep going. Yeah, we're going to get back to that. But let's just get to what they found. Yeah, tell us what you found. What we found was that when a kid heard the voice of a stranger, their brain was essentially quiet. Yeah, exactly. Not a lot of activity. But then the moment he but a shalt, the kid's mom spoke, all these regions in the kid's brain.

That are associated with all kinds of rewards in our life. Would start firing, like crazy. So you love chocolate. I could show you a picture of chocolate. And these exact same regions in your brain would start going... And when you hear music that you love... The hammer of the gods, thundering in years.

Yes. This part of the brain becomes active. Or... When you're doing drugs. Wait. That's right, Lulu, hardcore drugs. Or when you're thinking about sex. What?

Same parts of your brain are lighting up. It's the sex drugs and rock and roll part of your brain. And mom. And mom's just like, hey, guys, he's got a splint. She's just, like, at the concert, like on the table, like doing lives. Yeah, she's right there with you. Wait, what? I know.

That is so wild. But, you know, it makes sense because voices are rewarding, you know. Well, why? Actually, I'm curious why that's a given. Well, the way I think about it is that during development, you know, mother's voice is paired with. Sylvie, my love, friend. Tender loving care. Right, nourishment, touch, love, love,

all forms of kind of parental care. Mother's voice is just Pavlov's bell. Just a ringing bell. It's kind of a coarse way of thinking about it. But, you know, there's probably far more to it than that, obviously. But if you're looking for a scientific explanation as to how a voice becomes rewarding, this seems like a fairly non-controversial kind of connection there. Yeah, I can see that. It's like this, you know, the picture of this little baby brain totally lost, all these things whizzing around.

It can't tell like a butterfly from its own foot. And then there's this disembodied voice that it can like grab onto to survive. Yeah, it's almost like this little rope you can hang on to. But wait, and I'll take you down a little side route. We thought the study was so cool. We were like, I mean, again, we were totally floored by it. So after this study, Daniel and his collaborator. Put our heads together and decided, oh, well, let's do the same thing in adolescence.

Teenagers, 13 to 16. Yeah. Why did you think that? Well, we just thought there was going to be something interesting there. So they do the whole study again with these teens. The exact same thing for each kid. We brought their mom in and we recorded their voice, the mom's voice. and we played to them while they hear kitty cat meows and other stuff.

They look at the brains of these teens, and what do they see? I don't know. In the Reward Center, strangers' voices. Ooh, booh. Exactly. Everything flipped. Unfamiliar voices became more rewarding than mom's voice. Oh, no.

So sad. I know. Well, as a mother, I think it validates something I experienced in my life, you know? So we did talk to our moms. Are you taking notes? Yeah, she is taking notes. What are you doing? I'm pretty corporate.

My mom, Nancy Kilty. Yeah, I know. This is nice. I can see Matt. You don't need to see me. And my mom, Beth McEwen. They're just going to ask them, what do you make of this? Yeah, like, how does it make you feel?

Well, the childhood part, I mean, I can relate just love. It's heaven. It's honey and butter. It's awesome if everything's going, right? And then, you know, to reach a point where anytime you say something, you get this negative kind of reaction. Right, everything becomes this big internal eye roll. Oh, there's external eye rolls for sure.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, and it's hard, I think, as a parent. I know. It's a little painful. But, you know, the way we think about it is that, you know, adolescence is this important time of life where you're starting to shift to your friends and peers, and this is an important part of development

for kind of charting a path and independent life. And this was something both our moms acknowledge, It was hard when I saw you pulling away, but it was healthy, right, you know? That's what a mother wants. You don't want a clingy kid that's going to be right beside you forever. You want a kid who will turn away from you and go, wow, look at that stuff. The world is big and huge and wonderful. Yeah, it's like your mom's voice is your whole world when you're a little kid. And then you, it's like your job to turn away from that and start building the world that you will step into with all these other voices somehow. Like, you're, I don't know, the rejection of the mom's voice is a beginning of finding your own.

Right. Like, I remember being in eighth grade and the quote unquote other voices around me were like skater kids and that's what I was trying to become. Yeah, and you're trying to, like, it's funny. When you were trying to be a skater kid, I was probably pretending to be a horse. So, like, I'm not sure what that says. Nothing good. Nothing good, guys. Nothing good.

But yeah, it's the same thing of like, bye mom. But it swings back around to the parent, the mom, event. Eventually, right? Like when my kid's 40... No, Annie. Like, they're going to just be so happy to hear from me. That's what I've been told, that they do circle back. Really?

Yeah. Come on. This is what I've been told. Did you do that test? Okay, you just do that. Yeah, it hasn't been confirmed by science. It's just anecdotal. Yeah.

But Daniel says, when they did do that study with the teens... Oh, yeah. No, no, no. The results showed that mom's voice is still in that pleasure center. Yes. Mom doesn't get completely kicked out. out of that part of the brain. Is this now that she's a little bit quieter?

It's interesting because, like, when I heard my mom's voice, when you guys played it, I felt like, preternaturally comforted. But it's like, I don't, these days, I don't, you know, gab on the phone that much with her about stuff. And, you know, but just hearing the voice and the rhythms and, like, the little, like, the articulations. Like, tibagasha in this way that is so her. that's like comforting in a way that's kind of like re-encountering like a primal lullaby. Boceneeramy, jimmy go galla, bocineeramese fellammy own.

Bacheen Neremi, Jemico Gala, Bacin'ermi's fellammy yawn. Bachin bichin'iach, bachin'erammy, Bacchin'ermi, Bachin'irach, bachin jontak, Pachin'nermis, fellammy yawni. Bocin elamie jemicotauri, Bocin elamie,

bachin elamie, bachin elam, Jemicotauri, Bachin alimis, Vailamian bichok, bachin bion bion bion bion bion bion bion bion jirok, Okay. When we come back, what the voice gives back to you. Back in a second. All right, so I'm Lulu Miller, back with...

I mean, a protein bar. Producers Matt Kilty and... I'm meaning a banana. Annie McEwen. Two different people, two different worlds. Back with our episode on voice. Okay. So, a final story about what the voice gives you.

Maybe also kind of like what the voice takes. And Lulu, we're going to start with you. Yeah, I mean, I guess so this begins with... Oh, where we go. One of my favorite voices out there. The Godfather. Funny woman, punk. It all around to a picture.

The MacArthur Award-winning activist and writer. Welcome, Alice. Alice. How are you doing, Alice? I've been alive tomorrow. How about you? And years ago, we sort of became... Do you have a jumper?

She's your style. Friends. Hi. Started a book club of two. I know. Oh, my God. Collaborate on work together. What do I go through it was?

And then, if you have any notes. She performed this essay for. us about how she has muscular dystrophy, how she uses a ventilator to breathe. Yeah, and I want to get to the point. Which has given her this very distinct voice. Well, we don't even have to defend our assistance. Which she uses to fight for disability rights and to shine light on disabled writers and artists, inventors. The world is ours.

And this is for all of us. Anyway, so that's Alice. And then in the summer of 2022, I saw that she had posted this. photo of herself online. She was in a hospital bed with all kinds of tubes and wires coming out of her and she did not look well. She had a caption about how she was in the ICU and then she just went dark. And it wasn't until a few months later that I finally heard from her. Oh, Alice, it is so good to see your face. How are you doing? Like, are you hurting right now? I had some opioids earlier, but fun fact, they cause constipation, so I quit them and take Tylenol only when necessary.

I missed the fentanyl I had in the hospital, which was delightful. Utterly delightful. I called fentanyl, Fenty, and I said he was my boyfriend. I miss Fenty very much. It turned out she had had to have a tracheostomy. Basically, she'd had a lung infection that was so serious to allow her to breathe, they had to cut straight into her windpipe and insert a tube. Right, where you're like on a ventilator.

Yeah, and she's on a ventilator, and, you know, that saved her life. But it took her speaking voice. It's been a lot. And obviously, you can totally still hear Alice's voice is just now coming through this computer voice. I also have a range of voices that I can. select from and honestly i hate all of them she played me some of them hi my name is darius and i'm the first male african-american english speech synthesis voice from macabella there's also hello my name is ella

a tiny child hi i'm karen there's karen which alice was like no way hi and then i'm hither there's hither efficient fast and a very high quality why not try me out with your own words So Heather is just the one I hate least. It is robotic, clinical, and white. Alice is Chinese American. I just tolerate her and I bet she tolerates me. Ha, ha, ha. Oh, see what added there?

I typed ha ha ha to simulate actual laughter. And while it works to some extent, it feels robotic and hollow to me. I miss laughing and all the sounds I can make that make people laugh. Shit, can you, you can't guffaw? You can't laugh. Oh, you just made a, uh, uh, uh, mixed laugh and pained like, oh, with your mouth. Like, aw. Does it feel different, though, without the sound?

Like, does it detract from the experience of savoring the humor? I wish I could laugh. because isn't that also a collective experience? I think that's the heart of it. Being able to join with others and sharing an emotion the same way. Hmm. Is your speaking voice lost forever?

There is a device I could attach to my. ventilator where it will potentially allow me to speak called the Passy Muir valve. And in a way, that's what this story is really about. This tiny piece of plastic with odd existential potential that would come to have a profound and kind of unexpected effect on Alice's life. It's a flash forward. In early 2025, Alice is in a hospital. Hi, Dr. Rosen. Happy New Year.

Happy New Year to you. Good to see you. Where she lives in San Francisco. Things going okay. To get this valve. Wow, it's big, which she showed me. It almost looks like a shampoo cap, bottle cap, or something. And then does that go, do you know how it would go in? Yes, that's in my next.

Answer, young one. Okay. Alice explained this valve attaches to a person's trache tube right where it goes into their neck. And redirects air flow through the vocal cords and nasal passages so a person can speak.

Oh, that's an elegant design. And the cherry on top for Alice was that this valve, this sleekly designed little contraption... I was excited that he was a disabled inventor. Was invented by a disabled guy. He was a quadriplegic due to Deshens Muscular dystrophy.

Muscular dystrophy. Like me. His name was David Muir, Pasi mirror valve. I felt a kinship with him in that regard. So back at the hospital. Are you ready? Okay. A doctor and a nurse took this valve,

attached it to a new trache tube. All right, Alice, I'm going to hold your head here. Pulled her old one out of her neck. Show me. That looks okay. took the new one with the valve. Coming down. Push that into her neck.

You're all set. To go conquer the world, right? Then made sure she could breathe. And then had her try to speak. Try that passing air. I'm going to do that. But it doesn't work. We're vocal for moving.

She's definitely moving. It just wasn't enough to... Yeah. So I guess my muscular dystrophy has made my dial. If I am weaker, probably, especially these past few years. Unfortunately. Yeah. I suspect that is the case.

Do you have it? It's fine. Let's still try again. Okay. So they try again. Big inhale. And again, she can't get any sound to come out. It just is not enough of that push.

And so she gave it one last big push. You ready? Oh, wait. Let's see what I'm feeling. Love it. Love it. There we go. With feeling.

Okay. Cuff is down. But again. One more big one. Yeah. Nothing. How do you feel? Pooped.

Oh. So we were able to record that day. This was actually Alice's fifth attempt to use the valve since she went into the ICU. in 2022. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, five different times of trying this thing that promised to give her her voice back and failed to give her her voice back.

And she said that over these years, she's had this thing with her in her apartment just kind of sitting there on the shelf, unused, not working. And over time, she grew to resent it. And she said that one day... I went to their website and did some digging. And she found some writings by its inventor,

this guy, David Muir. Talking about the value of this valve. Writing about the power this valve holds, how it can really give people their life back. What it can do is if it's some miracle solution. And that the mission, the whole point of this valve was, quote, dignity through speech. Dignity through speech. The phrase, dignity through speech, gave me pause.

And Alice ended up publishing this open letter addressed to David, who she learned had died back in 1990. David, isn't there dignity in silence? Silence does not mean a person is voiceless, as there are millions of non-speaking people who use gestures, sign language, writing, technology, and other means to communicate with the world. I live in a world of silence that is not lesser or devoid of richness. My reality is just different. And she said going through that process of writing to him, imagining him, also left her with all these questions about him.

I'm so curious if he had disabled friends or was connected to community. Of how the two of them could be so similar and yet so different. David Muir is a mystery to me. There's almost nothing about David out there. He's sort of this forgotten, disabled inventor. And so I told Alice, well, maybe we could unravel this mystery. Maybe we could go report it out and figure out who he was and how he came to these ideas about voice and the concept of dignity.

And then... Lulu, are you clear? Close to your delivery date. So close. I was useless. Yeah, thanks a lot. I went on maternity leave for the full six months, babies. Beautiful.

And so you guys picked up the torch, the reporting torch. Yeah, and it took a while, but eventually. Oh, are you showing up too? Hello. We got in touch with. Annie, I don't know if you want to kind of either start or say more. Well, I was there when David was born. Oh.

All right, let's start there. June Mir and Don Mir. You're David's father? Yes. I presume. I am. David's parents who live outside of Phoenix and seemed actually just like really excited to talk to us about David, I think, because they don't often get the chance to. Well, when David was born.

This was in 1961. The doctor said, this guy is going to be a football player. He had like really strong, defined muscles. Like somebody that had been doing major. Kefraises at the gym. A little jacked baby. Yeah, little jacked baby. Okay.

But in the first year... He had some problems that I noticed when he started walking. So, for instance, like most kids... You know how they take their little fat feet and they just sort of plop them down? Yeah. When David lifted his foot to take a step... He would halt. Hesitate.

Then put it down. Then one day when June noticed he was playing... He couldn't get up off the floor. So at the age of five, they took David to a doctor who ran some tests and told them that David had muscular dystrophy. And the doctor was describing what was going to be happening and how he was not going to be able to walk and finally not be able to breathe and the heart wouldn't work because they're all muscle. and they probably wouldn't live past 12 years of age. And I'm thinking to myself, why are you saying this in front of my child?

Did David seem terrified in that moment? He was just sitting there. Very stoically. And so they go home and try it as best as they can to just have a normal life. He loved cartoons on Saturday morning. He loved to play with matches. And little plastic army guys. And in early age, he's using a wheelchair.

A push type. The little stinker. Apparently got his friends at the playground to push him as fast as they could at this ditch. And try to jump it. What? To hit the berm and try to get it over this. So he would get air? Yeah.

So I got a call to come down to the school. So he didn't do that anymore. Instead, what he did is he got his friends to push him down the hallway at school. And they were mowing down all of the kids. in the hallway. So I got another call from the principal. Okay, okay.

So he's got like rambunctious troublemaker. Like fun. Yeah, totally. But I think like the thing that June and Don said stood out most about David was...

He was a unstoppable communicator. David was a talker. A motorbouth. From the age of 6, 78, 9. We talked about everything. 10, 11, 12.

The last year he has. But then 13. 14. If he heard something on television that morning, he would pick his side and I'd pick his side. 15. And then we would just debate back and forth. 16, 17. He's in high school.

His voice is dropping. Didn't get as deep as mine, but... 18. He's 12th grader. He actually switches high schools, and this new one doesn't have a ramp. And this way that totally reminds me of Alice, he tells the administrators... There is this law that you're supposed to provide me access. You guys have to bill me a ramp.

Or I will sue you. Or I will see you. That week, he had a ramp. There was a ramp. No way. Yeah. By 19, he's in an electric wheelchair and a lot of his muscles. We're just slowly shutting down.

By 20, 21. His diaphragm's not working enough. He's having trouble breathing. That's when all of his fears came out. It usually be at night in bed. When he started talking about dying and the things that he, He had noticed that he wasn't able to do any longer. In June...

We would talk all night. We'd sit next to him in bed. Trying to calm his fears. The next morning he'd be up, cheerful, talking. But night times were bad for him. And then he turns 22, 23, 24, 25. And one morning when June was on our way out of the house, she went into David's room to check on him. And he said, I'm having a dream.

The good guys are fighting the bad guys. Should I go back to sleep and see who wins? And I said, sure. So she grabs her keys, gets to the front door. And I think something's wrong. She goes back to David's room. And David was blue. And I don't know what to do.

She just freezes. He needs oxygen. Then I remember the alarm. They had an alarm installed that went directly to the fire department. Pushed the alarm, and the fireman come. They give him oxygen, put him on a gurney, and take him out to the hospital. And when we're at the hospital, that's when they put the trache in. The doctors performed a tracheostomy on David.

So he could breathe. In the hospital, the best doctors could provide David with the ability to see him. speak was... With these communication boards. You can imagine like a Ouija board. It's this board with letters and numbers. And basically, somebody like June would have to sit with David and watch his eyes go from letter to letter. To spell out the words.

So if you ask David... What do you want to watch? On TV, June would sit there and watch as his eyes would go to the B, the A, the S, the E. Face. B, A, L, L. Baseball. It took forever. It was not a good deal.

I mean, for somebody like David. A motorbath. When you took that away. It's just like his whole world fell apart. He was asking me if I can't live with this trick, if it's just one step too far for me, will you help me die? I've got to be able to talk. And then one afternoon, he's sitting at the table with his mom and dad. And he starts to spell out and mouth the words of this idea.

He says, my ventilator has this little valve. It's a valve that's connected to the machine that lets air come in into David's lungs. But then... It closes. So that David's breath, the moisture in his breath, doesn't go back down into the machine and, you know, potentially damage it. Right. It's like a door that swings shut behind you? Yeah.

Yes. And so David was basically like... Can we do something like that? Can we take this valve that's on my ventilator, modify it, and put it right where the trait tube goes into my neck, so it still lets air in, but then... It closes. Trapping the air inside my body. Forcing the air to take its normal path, up through the neck. Up through the vocal cords.

And out. Meaning, hopefully, possibly... He would be able to talk. So... He tells this, father, okay, I need you to do this for me. Go to the ventilator. Get that valve. Tweak this.

That attach it here. I'm going, oh, he wants us to kill him. Don, how do you feel about it? Well, this is an interesting project to me. So Don goes and grabs an exacto knife, some duct tape, walks over to David, and disconnects the tube from his neck. So at this point, David could barely breathe. And then he grabbed that little valve from the ventilator. Just pulled it off.

Cut it. Shaped it. And literally taped it on to the end of the tube. Put the tube with this modified valve back into David's neck and waited. And lo and behold. Today, April 22nd, 1989, we're visiting with... It worked. David Mir, the inventor of the passiumeer, tracheostomy, speaking valve.

How are you doing, David? How are you? Just fine, thank. I have a few questions for you. Why did you invent the valve? I'm pure frustration. I had a respiratory rest And after that I was able to speak

All the air just escaped And very frustrating So I decided if I could just keep the air in Send it to my vocal cords That I'd be able to speak Wow it's like a little bit soft but super Like it just Feels like it has all the complexity of a voice

Yeah like you can hear a real personality there. I wonder if he could laugh. Do I take a look at that? Well, so there's this moment where they hand him this book that has a picture of his valve in it. Oh, yeah.

Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah, he just did. Okay. He just chuckled out the book. Yeah, this little chuckle. Huh. I mean, it's like the thing, it's like using duct tape

to build this ladder out of a deep well. Like, as in releasing himself from himself. Once again, yeah, with duct tape. Right. Damn, so this is David Muir. So what did the, what happens? I mean, I guess we know this.

Valve becomes big enough to make it to Alice's hands. Yeah, so what happens is not long after they made the valve. We ran into Dr. Passy. This doctor in California. At E&T, doctor. Ear, nose and throat. Right. And he's like, I can help a bunch of people with this right now.

And so they patent the valve and they form this company. And David. Initially, he was one of the order takers. Don had set him up in his. room with a computer. Or you could talk into the computer, and it would write. And he would process orders for this valve you'd created. And it just evolved from there.

And over the years, this valve would be given to patience. Do I sing a song? Young and old. Now let's do the wheels on the bus go. There were even cases of infants who couldn't make a noise. Because of the trache they had. So parents would have this valve attached to their trache. And...

They could hear their baby cry for the first time. Agnes, what is it like to not have your voice when you are on the ventilator without your valve? Horrible. And there's all these testimonials online. The worst feeling ever. Of these different people with tricks. Just laying in the bed and not able to speak. Who got their voice back from this valve.

Thank you ever invented this. It's just so much better. It's made a lot of very unhappy people be able to live again. I'm so grateful. It was like a switch had flipped. Suddenly, David. He was just happy. And he said, I thought I was just doing it for me.

But there were all these other people out there waiting to have that. He says, I know why I'm here. One of the things about this story for us, and I know you guys aren't a part of the company at all but we were working with this writer Alice Wong who lost her speaking voice and had a tracheostomy and she saw on the website

when she learned about the valve that there was this word dignity was used about this valve giving people dignity through speech and that word really bothered her and so I kind of was just curious how you guys think of the word dignity, how David maybe thought of the word dignity. You know, if you can't communicate with people, you disappear.

And you do lose yourself because, well, just like you're doing with the interviewing, the talking. You're expressing yourself, you're putting your opinions, you're being heard, you're making a statement in life. If you don't have that, it's much more difficult on you. And I think that's where the dignity comes in. is the I want to people to know I'm here

how did go ahead I'm just curious like what happened next I mean yeah because you said that David died at 28 yes

and he made the valve at 25 and so I'm just wondering like how did he die was it just ultimately like his muscles failed no So June said it was August 30th, 1990.

I went in and I got David up, got him dressed, combed his hair, brush his teeth. And she reminded him that he had promised to go pick his nephew up from the bus stop that day. On the first day of school. So David in his wheelchair, left the house, made his way to the bus stop. And after a little while, his nephew came to the front door. Crying. And he said, David didn't come and get me. My stomach was falling. June runs outside.

To the middle of the street, and I look down the street, and I see him down the end of the block. His wheelchair is on its side, on the sidewalk. And I'm running as fast as I can, and I hear the ventilator, which means he is disconnected from the ventilator. Which means he had no air, no way of calling out for help. And June rushed over to him. I said, Cowboy, what's wrong? And I put the ventilator hose back on and connected it. She had a neighbor called 911.

The EMT showed up, took David to the hospital. They're at the hospital, and the doctor came out and told me he didn't think David was going to make it. Don was working in California at the time. I called him, told him what the doctor said, hung up the phone, and went back to stay by David's bed. And all I could do was say, I'm sorry because he was alone when he died. He just didn't want to be alone. when he died. And yet, that's what happened.

He was alone when he died. So, the way David died is one of my biggest nightmares. So we played all that to Alice. Oh, wow. Falling and having your ventilator disconnect. or malfunction while in public. She said, like David, she has alarm systems in place, and she even pays a speaking person to be with her at all times

could call out for help. But these systems will never replace the ability to scream for help, and the loss is real and it's terrifying. I was a pretty sassy young person, so I laughed when I heard David's threat to sue his school. Maybe that's one aspect of being disabled in a non-disabled world. The aspect being what exactly? I guess we have to be tenacious and pretty daring in order to get the bare minimum,

which in many ways drives us in our ambitions. He created something out of a personal need that helped many disabled people, which is so rad. Does learning about him as a person, change your feelings or some of your frustration with that phrase, dignity through speech? My stance hasn't changed after David's mom reflected on that phrase. Yes, David and I both lost our voices and he was able to gain it back thanks to the invention of valve, but let's say he wasn't able to speak again. He would still have dignity despite

mourning the loss of something so close to his identity. I miss my voice every day and am frustrated by how I communicate in the way I sound on the radio right now, but I still have dignity. And in true Alice fashion, she has since joined this organization for folks who are non-speaking. It's called Communication First, and she's become a part of their advisory council, just That's sort of like advocating. Advocating for folks who don't have a speaking voice and shining light on all the ways people can communicate. Right. And yet, okay, you shown the bat signal on the moon two days ago.

Do you want to tell us why we are here? It turned out, despite all her beef with the speaking voice, her belief that most of us overvalue it, all that while she had been feeding recordings of her old speaking voice into this AI model to try to recover hers. This is an impossible wish, but my hope is that any sort of generated voice from my past can capture my humor and personality. This may be too much to ask from something artificial, but at the very least, maybe when talking to friends who knew me in the before times, they will feel like it's the same me. And so one day she messaged Annie and I and was like, it just made me a voice based on my voice. Do you guys, I haven't listened to it yet. Should we try it out together on tape?

Yes. Let's give it a world. How do we, how should we do this? Okay, I'm going to type the sentence and play it. And? Hello, Lulu and Getty. This is the voice created by AI. Oh, my God.

It was Erie, right? Yeah. That's not, not you. And, like, the part I remember the most is that it included her breathing machine. Like, it included the very unique voice that she had. Yes. What do you think? Okay, what do you think?

I agree, it's like a reclamation of my own self, and the old self that was always a part of me, that didn't get a chance to come out. Of course, I can't go back, but this is a tool that might be helpful adjusting to this new way of existing. I wonder if a good analogy is with cosmetic surgery. This is something I don't really need to live, but it makes me feel a bit better about

myself. But here's the thing. Alice. A few months later when we check in again, how are things over there? Good to see you. She's not using it. She doesn't want to use it. In part, she said, because the more she thought about it, she realized that it's no longer who I am. That is a question I've had throughout all of this, though, like, is you inside necessarily any different just because the mode of getting you to the outside has changed? I think the inner me has changed because I still cannot be my full self. And by full self, I mean my old self, and this is a kind of. conflict that I struggle with.

I lost a way to express my personality, humor. I lost the kind of wit that comes from my ability to quickly respond or interject something vital during a chat. I lost my ability to debate and smack someone down with an argument who deserves it. I lost that sense of freedom, looseness, and messiness. I am still me to some extent from the before times, but I miss the old me. I am changing, we all are changing, and I hope I am becoming fuller and a truer reflection of the inner me, but that's a work in progress. I'm wondering, what are you noticing that's changing or becoming this truer version of you?

As I say less with my text-to-speech app, I am more into my thoughts. Perhaps I am more precise and concise on what I want to say. For me, everything I process is more vital, urgent, and serious. If all you knew what's really going on inside of me, ha-ha, it's also a more perceptible, gentle world. Perceptible. Perceptible. Meaning, like, could you help me understand what you mean by? perceptible? I am sensing and seeing and feeling more now that I am in the solitude of this silent world.

I am taking in a lot and perhaps because I am not communicating fully. I am absorbing things more than before. Like, for instance, Alice explains. explained this moment with a friend of hers named Lateef, who also uses a computer-assisted voice. They were at this party together. I am a party animal, and we do meet up at events or parties. And she said they were sitting at the dinner table amidst all the people talking.

She was watching as Lateef's attendant helped to meet. A luscious piece of sea bass. He was eating and we were looking at each other in this moment of pleasure and understanding amidst the din of chattering, speaking. people. We had a conversation that was complete in itself. Yeah, I guess, yeah, it just makes me think, like, sometimes, I don't know, sometimes the voice is this wall, like, it's, it's, it can get in the way of two people

and their connection. and, yeah, I don't know, it's not all gain. Alice Wong. Her most recent book is called Disability Intimacy. Her memoir is called Year of the Tiger, and her website is Disability Visibility Project.com. You can head there to learn more about everything she is noticing and perceiving.

This episode was produced by Matt Kilty and Annie McEwen. It was also reported by them and sound design by them with additional sound design by Jeremy Bloom, original music by Matt Kilty and Jeremy Bloom. Mixing help from Jeremy Bloom. It was edited by Alex Neeson, fact-checking by Anna Pujol Manzini. And big thanks to Ren Farrell, who recorded our conversations with Alice over many years.

Thank you, thank you, Ren. And also to Room Full of Teeth, the very talented musicians and vocalists who you hear a lot of throughout the episode. A special shout out to Amanda Kreider for helping us get our hands on this music composed by Caroline Shaw, Jud Greenstein, Leila Hula Lanzaladi, Rebecca Carriord and Michael Harrison. And then a special, special thanks to Hector Espinall and his parents, Crisali, and Hector Espinall. Hector was our young child in the museum. Wonderful acting. And finally, special thanks to you, our listeners, for supporting us. It has been a deeply unsettling summer for Radio Lab and public radio across the country.

As you are likely aware, Congress voted to eliminate all federal funding for public media in America for the first time in history. And for Radio Lab and New York Public Radio, which produces this show, we cannot count on this funding to come back in the future. But while we may be defunded, we will not be defeated. and this is where you maybe, just maybe, come in. The best way that you can support Radio Lab is to become a lab member. This is our membership program for as little as $7 a month, a fancy coffee a month. You can become a lab member. And as a thanks, you get all kinds of perks and extras like ad-free listening, bonus content.

And as of right now, an extra big tote bag. Our newest producer, Anisa, designed it. She drew it. She's a genius. She's very multi-talented. She could do radio, multimedia, and we didn't know it, but also drawing. And she designed it. Wow, it's so pretty.

Isn't it gorgeous? Describe what you see. Ooh, I see. What's the theme? What theme are you detecting? The age of fishes. Well, I guess not, yeah, they're not all fish. There's a seashell.

There's a starfish. There's a starfish, or a sea star, as they're called. There's a squid. So, okay, so we looked back. The reason is not just because it would make a great beach bag, But we look back and we realized we had like a secretly incredibly aquatic year. So each creature represents a story. Can you pick any out?

Where the fart is the shark? That's what I'm like. Oh, there is a shark. No, there's a shark. That thing in the bottom left is the scientist's best guess at what an ancient shark might have looked like. That's so bad ass. The one from the shark inside you that like inspired all of our immune systems. That's it.

So the one bottom left is an ancient shark. Can you guess any other ones? Pufferfish? Eel. No, no, no. It's not Neal. It's a lungfish. Oh, right, right, right.

Is that a squid or is that Annie's octopus from the Ocumum? That's a squid. What did we do about a squid story? That is a baby octopus. That is? Which is an Octam reference for you, Annie. Why is there a seashell? Don't ask about that, please.

What about the top left? He's like, la la la. The top, oh, the top left. Not to brag, that's my guy. That is the singing fish, the toad, the ugliest fish in the sea that sings out to attract our mate. And we put him in our screaming into the void episode. I did a little essay about him. But yeah, there are all kinds of references to other stories.

It's kind of like a secret code, all rendered in this beautiful blue, and it is big. It is a big tote. I wonder if I could fit a toddler. Oh, I think it could, but would not recommend. Pack one in there. I think, well, for sure. Maybe like in the way that, like a doggy bag, like the toddler could put his little head out. Yes.

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, and they get a little coffee. Yeah. But please, if you would like this jumbo toad, if you would like to support our voices, go and sign up to become a lab member. It would mean so much to us. Just head on over to radio lab.org.org slash join. Radiolab.org slash join. See if it's for you.

That was our show. Thank you so much. See you next week with more. stuff that hopefully makes you think more deeply about this world and the sounds within it and the sounds that come out of you. Anyway, bye. Thanks. Hi, I'm Jonathan and I'm from El Monte, California, and here are the staff credits. Radio Lab was created by Jad Abramrod and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lil bin Miller and Latsath Naser are a co-host. Dylan Keith is our director of sound design.

Our staffing suits, Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Doug. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindu Yanam Sambandam, Matt Kilty, Annie McEwen, Alecnesin, Sarakari, Sarah Sandbach, Anisa Vizza, Ariane Watt, Pat Walters, Molly Webster, Jessica Young, with help from Rebecca Rand. Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, Anna Pujol Matzini, and Natalie Millington. Hi, I'm Monica, and I'm calling from Mexico City. Leadership support for Radio Lab Science Programming is provided by the Simon's Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radio Lab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.