Cheating Death | Radiolab Podcasts

From the Radiolab podcast: A battle against death, to the death, that comes face-to-face with the end of everything ever.

In this episode, Maria Paz Gutiérrez does battle against the one absolute truth of human existence and all life — death. After getting a team of scientists to stand in for death (the Grim Reaper wasn’t available), we parry and thrust our way through the myriad ways that death comes for us — from falling pianos to evolution’s disinterest in longevity. In the process, we see if we can find a satisfying answer to the question “why do we have to die” and find ourselves face to face with the bitter end of everything that ever existed.

Special thanks to Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, Steven Nadler, Beth Jarosz, Anjana Badrinarayanan, Shaon Chakrabarti, Bob Horvitz, John K. Davis, Jessica Brand, Chandan K. Sen, Cole Imperi, Carl Bergstrom, Erin Gentry -Lam and Jared Silvia.

This episode was made in loving memory of Dali Rodriguez.

EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported and produces by Maria Paz Gutiérrez, with help from Alyssa Jeong Perry and Timmy Broderick.
Original music and sound design contributed by Maria Paz Gutiérrez and Jeremy Bloom, with mixing help from Arianne Wack.
Fact-checking by Emily Krieger.

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Guests in this episode include:

Photo illustration by Jared Bartman
Video by W. Harry Fortuna