The First Known Earthly Voice
Radiolab9 Touko 2025

The First Known Earthly Voice

What happens when a voice emerges? What happens when one is lost? Is something gained? A couple months ago, Lulu guest edited an issue of the nature magazine Orion. She called the issue “Queer Planet: A Celebration of Biodiversity,” and it was a wide-ranging celebration of queerness in nature. It featured work by amazing writers like Ocean Vuong, Kristen Arnett, Carmen Maria Machado and adrienne maree brown, among many others. But one piece in particular struck Lulu as something that was really meant to be made into audio, an essay called “Key Changes,” by the writer Sabrina Imbler. If their name sounds familiar, it might be because they’ve been on the show before. In this episode, we bring you Sabrina’s essay – which takes us from the beginning of time, to a field of crickets, to a karaoke bar – read by the phenomenal actor Becca Blackwell, and scored by our director of sound design Dylan Keefe. Stay to the end for a special surprise … from Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls!

Special thanks to Jay Gallagher from UC Davis.

EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Sabrina Imbler
Produced by - Annie McEwen and Pat Walters
with help from - Maria Paz Gutiérrez
Original music from - Dylan Keefe
Fact-checking by - Kim Schmidt
and Edited by - Tajja Isen and Pat Walters

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Articles -
Check out Queer Planet: A Celebration of Biodiversity, Orion Magazine (Spring 2025)
Read Sabrina Imbler’s original essay, “Key Changes,” Orion Magazine (Spring 2025)
Read Lulu Miller’s mini-essay, “Astonishing Immobility,” Orion Magazine (Spring 2025)
Check out Sabrina Imbler’s Defector column Creaturefector all about animals

Audio -
Listen to Amy Ray’s song “Chuck Will’s Widow” from her solo album If It All Goes South

Books -
How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures, by Sabrina Imbler

Signup 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 radiolab@wnyc.org.

Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(652)

Killer Empathy

Killer Empathy

In an episode first aired in 2012, Lulu Miller introduces us to Jeff Lockwood, a professor at the University of Wyoming, who spent a part of his career studying a particularly ferocious set of insects...

4 Huhti 202525min

Malthusian Swerve

Malthusian Swerve

Earth can sustain life for another 100 million years, but can we?In this episode, we partnered with the team at Planet Money to take stock of the essential raw materials that enable us to live as we d...

28 Maalis 202538min

Everybody's Got One

Everybody's Got One

We all think we know the story of pregnancy. Sperm meets egg, followed by nine months of nurturing, nesting, and quiet incubation. this story isn’t the nursery rhyme we think it is. In a way, it’s a s...

21 Maalis 202528min

Growth

Growth

It’s easy to take growth for granted, for it to seem expected, inevitable even. Every person starts out as a baby and grows up. Plants grow from seeds into food. The economy grows. That stack of mail ...

14 Maalis 202558min

More Perfect: Sex Appeal

More Perfect: Sex Appeal

In 2017 our sister show, More Perfect aired an episode all about RBG, In September of 2020, we lost Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the annals of history. She was 87. Given the atmosphere...

7 Maalis 20251h 5min

Revenge of the Miasma

Revenge of the Miasma

Today we uncover an invisible killer hidden, for over a hundred years, by reasonable disbelief. Science journalist extraordinaire Carl Zimmer tells us the story of a centuries-long battle of ideas tha...

28 Helmi 202535min

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Today, a story that starts small and private, with one woman alone in her bathroom, as she makes a quiet, startling discovery about her own body. But that small, private moment grows and grows, and pr...

21 Helmi 202534min

Quantum Birds

Quantum Birds

Annie McEwen went to a mountain in Pennsylvania to help catch some migratory owls. Then Scott Weidensaul peeled back the owl’s feathery face disc, so that she could look at the back of its eyeball. No...

14 Helmi 202534min

Suosittua kategoriassa Tiede

tiedekulma-podcast
rss-poliisin-mieli
docemilia
rss-mita-tulisi-tietaa
rss-lapsuuden-rakentajat-podcast
filocast-filosofian-perusteet
rss-tiedetta-vai-tarinaa
rss-lihavuudesta-podcast
rss-bios-podcast
rss-duodecim-lehti
rss-metsantuntijat-podcast