Mystery Bay

Summary

Radiolab Episode Summary: "Mystery Bay"

Release Date: June 19, 2025
Hosts: Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser
Guest: Rachel Cusick
Episode: Mystery Bay

---

Introduction

In the "Mystery Bay" episode of Radiolab's week-long exploration of sharks, hosts Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser delve into the enigmatic behaviors of apex predators in South Africa's marine ecosystems. Guided by marine biologist Alison Cook and marine ecologist Dr. Neil Hammerschlag, the episode uncovers startling interactions between great white sharks, seals, and orcas at Seal Island.

---

Alison Cook's Discovery

Latif Nasser introduces the episode's central figure, Rachel Cusick, who spotlights Alison Cook, a marine biologist based in South Africa. Cook's journey begins unexpectedly at a modest hand-operated car wash during her student years at the University of Cape Town in the 1990s.

[01:38] Alison Cook: "I used to also love just being around water. So that was another draw card for."

While performing routine checks for valuables and managing cars, Cook's fascination with water leads to an extraordinary discovery.

---

Life at Seal Island

One day, as Cook inspects a vehicle's trunk, she uncovers a dead body accompanied by an astonishing photograph of a flying great white shark—an image that defies her scientific training and understanding.

[02:13] Rachel Cusick: "And so, you know, when the car owner returned to get his car, Alison asked him like, what is this photo? Is this fake?"

Eager to verify the authenticity of the photograph, Cook meets Chris Fellows and Rob, who introduce her to the reality of these aerial sharks. This encounter sets Cook on a path to Seal Island, a massive breeding colony of seals off the South African coast.

---

Life at Seal Island

At Seal Island, Cook and her team witness the formidable prowess of great white sharks as they prey on seals. The island teems with 60,000 seals, creating a dynamic and often perilous environment.

[04:19] Alison Cook: "So, you know, Chris kept saying to me, keep your eyes peeled."

The first-hand experience of witnessing a great white shark in flight leaves Cook in awe, compelling her to dedicate her career to studying these mysterious creatures.

[05:05] Alison Cook: "I'm in shock."

---

The Impact of Great White Sharks on Seals

As Cook delves deeper into the ecosystem, Dr. Neil Hammerschlag discusses the intense predation pressure sharks exert on seal populations, leading to significant behavioral and physiological changes among the seals.

[06:15] Dr. Neil Hammerschlag: "One of the days I saw 42 great white attacks."

This relentless predation not only affects individual seals but also the overall stress levels and survival strategies of the colony.

---

The Role of Dr. Neil Hammerschlag

Dr. Hammerschlag's research reveals that seals on Seal Island experience quadruple the stress levels compared to those on islands without such intense shark activity.

[07:32] Rachel Cusick: "And what he found was that the seals that live on Seal island have stress levels that are four times higher than the seals on all the other islands."

His studies highlight the profound impact predators have on their prey, shaping behaviors and ecosystem dynamics.

---

The Mystery of the Slashed Sharks

In 2015, Cook encounters dead sevengill sharks with unnervingly clean surgical-like wounds and missing livers, sparking a new mystery. Subsequent findings of similarly mutilated sharks deepen the intrigue, suggesting an unusual predator or a sinister human intervention.

[11:09] Alison Cook: "I mean, it was such a clean wound that my immediate suspicion was people that had done it."

These incidents raise questions about the forces at play beneath the ocean's surface, threatening the already fragile balance of marine life.

---

The Orca Intervention

The mystery takes a dramatic turn in 2017 when a drone pilot captures shocking footage of orcas preying on great white sharks. The orcas methodically kill the sharks, targeting their nutrient-rich livers.

[14:48] Latif Nasser: "Oh."

This revelation not only explains the decline of great whites at Seal Island but also introduces orcas as a formidable force reshaping the marine hierarchy.

[15:40] Alison Cook: "I was in denial for a very long time because for me, white sharks were always the apex predator."

---

The Decline of Great White Sharks at Seal Island

The combined pressures of orca predation and human-induced mortality through lethal netting programs have led to a significant decrease in great white shark populations at Seal Island.

[16:02] Rachel Cusick: "Nets in the water to protect swimmers. And something like 30 sharks get caught in these nets and killed every year."

These factors collectively undermine the sharks' dominance, allowing orcas to ascend as the new apex predators in the region.

---

The Spread of Fear Among Sharks

Dr. Neil Hammerschlag and Colin Brown explore how fear disseminates through shark populations. They describe a chemical contagion—schreskof—released when sharks are injured or killed, inducing a widespread fear response that alters shark behavior.

[18:14] Rachel Cusick: "Chemical, which in the German word is called schreskof, which literally translates to scary."

This behavioral contagion results in great white sharks abandoning their traditional haunts, such as Seal Island, exacerbating their decline.

[18:31] Colin Brown: "Shreskov can set off a contagion, effectively a behavioral contagion, and an entire population could potentially develop a fear response."

---

Conclusion

"Mystery Bay" paints a complex picture of marine ecosystems, where apex predators like great white sharks and orcas influence each other's existence and the lives of their prey in unforeseen ways. Through meticulous research and compelling storytelling, Radiolab uncovers the delicate balance of fear, survival, and adaptation beneath the waves.

[19:37] Rachel Cusick: "So next time you're afraid of a shark, just remember they have feelings too."

This episode underscores the interconnectedness of marine life and the far-reaching consequences of human interventions on natural predator-prey relationships.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Alison Cook [05:35]: "There was no fear. I don't know if it was ignorance. I felt awe. I just saw majesty. I just saw this incredible beauty."

• Dr. Neil Hammerschlag [16:02]: "The nets in the water to protect swimmers. And something like 30 sharks get caught in these nets and killed every year."

• Colin Brown [18:05]: "Yeah, there's always a bigger fish in the sea. Right. And that is virtually true of every animal."

---

Production Credits:

Reported by Rachel Cusick and produced by Rachel Cusick, Simon Adler, and Maria Pazguchi Tierrez, with production assistance from Becky Lacks. Edited by Pat Walters, fact-checked by Diane Kelly, and mixed with sound design by Jeremy Bloom. Special thanks to Katie Ayers.

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Support and Membership:

Radiolab extends gratitude to its members and invites new listeners to join the Lab membership program, offering exclusive rewards and supporting the creation of in-depth content like "Mystery Bay."

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This summary captures the essence of the "Mystery Bay" episode, providing an engaging overview of the discussions and discoveries surrounding the intricate dynamics of marine predators at Seal Island.

Transcript

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[Latif Nasser]

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[Earthjustice Sponsor]

Wait, you're listening.

[Rachel Cusick]

Okay. All right. Okay. All right. You're listening to Radiolab Radio Lab from wnyc.

[Latif Nasser]

Hey, I'm Latif Nasser. This is Radiolab. Day four of our week of sharks.

[Alison Cook]

Hello, Hello.

[Latif Nasser]

And we're starting today with our shark guide in residence, Rachel Cusick.

[Alison Cook]

And this lady, I'm Alison Cook. I'm a marine biologist in South Africa.

[Latif Nasser]

At a car wash. Oh, my gosh.

[Alison Cook]

Yes.

[Rachel Cusick]

Today, Allison works for South Africa's national parks. But back in the 90s, you young, without a lot of money.

[Alison Cook]

I was a student at the University of Cape Town working at that car wash that you mentioned.

[Rachel Cusick]

It was a small little spot, not one of those drive through car washes with those, like, flying sponges.

[Alison Cook]

It was all by, yeah, by hand. And my role was to check the cars for valuables and move the cars from the wash basin through to the dry basin. I used to also love just being around water. So that was another draw card for.

[Rachel Cusick]

That car wash. Wow. You're like, I'll even take the soapy water of a car wash, even if it's not the ocean water. And one day, you know, Allison's doing her thing, wash, rinse, repeat. When one car, it kind of changed her life. This car, she's.

[Latif Nasser]

Where is this going? How could a car at a car wash change someone's life? Okay, keep going.

[Rachel Cusick]

So. So, so she gets. She like, kind of like checks for the. The front, front valuables, nothing there, Nothing. The back seat. But she then goes to the trunk.

[Latif Nasser]

Dead body in the trunk.

[Rachel Cusick]

Dead body in the trunk. Exactly as she opens up this trunk. And inside the trunk are these photographs.

[Alison Cook]

They just blew me away.

[Rachel Cusick]

There in full color is this image of a shark.

[Alison Cook]

This incredibly big, massive, great white shark.

[Rachel Cusick]

Soaring above the waves below, completely out.

[Alison Cook]

Of the water, flying fully in the Air like an airplane.

[Rachel Cusick]

It was unlike anything she'd ever seen.

[Alison Cook]

Absolutely. But I was quite skeptical.

[Rachel Cusick]

Like you thought they were Photoshopped or something?

[Alison Cook]

Well, at the time Photoshop wasn't. I just, I thought they were fake. You know, I just, I couldn't believe that I'd spent three years at university studying marine biology and not one time did anybody mention flying great white sharks.

[Rachel Cusick]

And so, you know, when the car owner returned to get his car, Alison asked him like, what is this photo? Is this fake?

[Alison Cook]

And he said it's real, that a friend of his takes these photographs. And I just said to him, look, this car wash will be on me if you introduce me to your friend. And a few weeks later, Alison is.

[Rachel Cusick]

On a boat with that friend, Chris Fellows, and also one of his friends, a guy named Rob.

[Latif Nasser]

And was there any part of her that was like they photoshopped this image and now they're kidnapping?

[Rachel Cusick]

Well, that's what I was saying. Like very trusting of you to believe these men and go out on their boat.

[Alison Cook]

Looking back, it probably was, yeah. Anyhow, I mean it was a beautiful day, it was a flat day and there was very little wind.

[Rachel Cusick]

The sun hadn't risen yet, the sky was totally black. And they were headed out to a place called Seal island.

[Alison Cook]

About a 25 minute boat trip, this.

[Rachel Cusick]

Massive breeding colony of seals. And as they're getting closer, she starts hearing the sounds of 60,000 seals.

[Alison Cook]

You just listen to the seals and you listen to the ocean and the.

[Rachel Cusick]

Seabirds, but no sharks.

[Alison Cook]

So, you know, Chris kept saying to me, keep your eyes peeled. And him and Rob were really vigilant and they staring and they looking and the whole time I still was not believing it, you know, I was still remained very, very skeptical when suddenly Chris shouts predation. And right in front of my eyes.

[Rachel Cusick]

Were this little helpless seal is floating.

[Alison Cook]

Literally within 10 meters.

[Rachel Cusick]

The water seems to like open up as this giant giant shark, this incredible animal comes flying out from below in the sky. And time kind of like slows down at this point for her.

[Alison Cook]

I'm in shock.

[Rachel Cusick]

Her eyes bulge out of her face and is just like this massive shark suspended in air. It's like defying every, not just gravity, it's like defying every version of any shark that she's ever seen, thought about or learned about in her entire life. It's just like right in front of.

[Alison Cook]

Her there was no fear. I don't know if it was ignorance. I felt awe. I just saw majesty. I just saw this incredible beauty.

[Rachel Cusick]

And then.

[Alison Cook]

The shark lands back in the water, actually moving the boat with the wave from the big splash. And I'm still standing there in complete awe. And I just went, okay, this is me for the rest of my life. I'm gonna study these sharks.

[Rachel Cusick]

And that's exactly what she did. She went back to school, got her Master's, then her PhD, and started making more and more trips out there. And what she quickly discovered was, while this is an awesome thing to watch as a human being on a boat.

[Dr. Neil Hammerschlag]

One of the days I saw 42 great white attacks.

[Rachel Cusick]

No way.

[Dr. Neil Hammerschlag]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cusick]

If you were a seal on Seal island, this place was terrible.

[Dr. Neil Hammerschlag]

I've seen great whites, like, flying out of the water with this seal in its mouth. And the seal is kind of, like, never giving up until crunch. And, I mean, you're just screaming when you see it happen.

[Rachel Cusick]

That, by the way, is Neil.

[Dr. Neil Hammerschlag]

Dr. Neil Hammerschlag.

[Rachel Cusick]

He's a marine ecologist and a shark researcher. He was spending a ton of time out there. Just like Allison.

[Dr. Neil Hammerschlag]

If you saw, like, a lone seal coming back to the island, and they're like a small kind of baby seal which would have, you know, smaller claws and not as experienced, like, you would watch it and pull out your camera. I know it sounds terrible. Terrible. But, like, you could pretty much be sure great white would come flying out of the water with this seal in its mouth, like, minutes later.

[Rachel Cusick]

And Neil started to wonder, like, do these seals register how awful this place is to be a seal? Like, do they feel the fear that I can just see so clearly?

[Dr. Neil Hammerschlag]

So I designed this study where we would actually go to the island, get up on the island, and collect seal poop.

[Rachel Cusick]

He did the same exact thing on.

[Dr. Neil Hammerschlag]

Other islands, islands where there weren't sharks. Then analyze the seal poop for stress levels, stress hormone levels.

[Rachel Cusick]

And what, like, cortisol? What were you.

[Dr. Neil Hammerschlag]

Cortisol? Yeah, like. Like metabolized cortisol.

[Rachel Cusick]

And what he found was that the seals that live on Seal island have stress levels that are four times higher than the seals on all the other islands.

[Latif Nasser]

Wow.

[Dr. Neil Hammerschlag]

Yeah. Like, quadruple levels of stress.

[Rachel Cusick]

And Neil says you can kind of just see this with the naked eye.

[Dr. Neil Hammerschlag]

Yeah. I mean, in the shallow water, the sharks couldn't really ambush them, so the seals would always stay within 5 meters of the island. It seemed like the sharks were controlling their behaviors through just a landscape of fear. They were causing these seals to not go and do whatever they want or hang out wherever they want or behave any way that they wanted. They were keeping them under. Under control.

[Rachel Cusick]

The way that we Imagine sharks the way that we see them in movies. Sharks. But they can fly like that is what they were. Something following us to the seals on Seal Island. They tasted human flesh. Oh, my God. However, now you've seen how bad things can get and how quick they can get that way. Well, they can get a whole lot worse. For the seals and the sharks of Seal island, all of that was about to get flipped on its head. And we're gonna find a way to.

[Alison Cook]

Get out of here.

[Rachel Cusick]

And we'll get to that first, right after a break.

[Latif Nasser]

Radiolab is supported by Capital One. Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees. Just ask the Capital One bank guy. It's pretty much all he talks about. In a good way. He'd also tell you that Radiolab is his favorite podcast too. Oh, really? Thanks, Capital One Bank Guy. What's in your wallet? Terms apply seecapitalone.com Bank Capital One NA Member FDIC. Did it occur to you that he.

[Dr. Neil Hammerschlag]

Charmed you in any way?

[Latif Nasser]

Yes, it did. But he was a charming man.

[Colin Brown]

It looks like the ingredients of a really grand spy story. Because this ties together the Cold War with the new one.

[Latif Nasser]

I often ask myself now, did I know the true Yan at all?

[Rachel Cusick]

Listen to Hot Money, agent of chaos.

[Latif Nasser]

Wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Latif Nasser, this is Radiolab. We are back with part two of day four, four of our week of sharks.

[Alison Cook]

Yay.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay, before the break, Rachel, you told us about some high flying great white sharks, these colossal apex predators terrorizing some poor little seals on an island off the coast of South Africa.

[Rachel Cusick]

Yep, that's right. And we are going to get back to those great whites and those little seals in just a minute. But first, you know there are other fish in the sea we'd been monitoring. So back in 2015, Allison Kock, that shark researcher who got her start because of a photograph she had seen scene, she received another photo of another kind of shark in the bay. But this one, it was different.

[Alison Cook]

Absolutely. Divers sent me photographs of these dead sevengill sharks lying at the bottom of the ocean.

[Rachel Cusick]

These sevengill sharks, they're smaller than their great white cousins, a little narrower. But what struck Allison was that on each of the sharks, there was this.

[Alison Cook]

Huge gaping wound, like the shark had literally been cut and sliced open.

[Rachel Cusick]

And the slice was so clean, it almost looked like a surgical wound.

[Alison Cook]

I mean, it was such a clean wound that my immediate suspicion was people that had did It.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah, I know.

[Alison Cook]

And that's kind of where we had to leave it because all we had was photographs.

[Rachel Cusick]

But then just a couple months later, another dead sevengill shark was found by a different diver. And so she's like, please collect it.

[Alison Cook]

Please collect it.

[Rachel Cusick]

She wants to do like Law and Order. Sharkview Shark V. U.

[Alison Cook]

So anyway, they collected it for me and we did the necropsy at the. At the dive shop.

[Rachel Cusick]

And as she's poking around at it.

[Alison Cook]

She realizes again, it was.

[Rachel Cusick]

It has the exact same wound as the last one did.

[Alison Cook]

This clean wound between the pectoral fins of the shark. And that weirdly, on closer inspection, the liver was gone.

[Rachel Cusick]

The liver had been taken out.

[Alison Cook]

Just the liver.

[Latif Nasser]

It's like creepy, like Hannibal serial killer vibes.

[Rachel Cusick]

Yeah, maybe like poaching or some shady black market stuff.

[Alison Cook]

Yeah, I didn't know.

[Rachel Cusick]

But it doesn't end there. And here is where those great whites on Seal island swim back into the story. In 2017, Allison gets a call from another Allison, who's another researcher who studies sharks down kind of like the coast of South Africa. And she's like, allison, there's this massive great white shark that's washed ashore, and guess exactly what? It looks like Plateau.

[Latif Nasser]

She's got the same slash, the slash down the body.

[Rachel Cusick]

Liver is missing.

[Alison Cook]

Everything looked exactly the same.

[Latif Nasser]

Very weird.

[Rachel Cusick]

I know. And it's about to get even weirder because right around the time Allison hears about this one sliced open great white.

[Dr. Neil Hammerschlag]

The sharks at Seal island literally disappeared.

[Rachel Cusick]

Again, Neil Hammerschlag like, they were gone.

[Alison Cook]

So again, I was like, gosh, you know, what could this be? What's going on?

[Rachel Cusick]

And finally, on the 16th of May, 2022, Allison gets her answer.

[Alison Cook]

So we were contacted by a drone pilot, and he captured the most extraordinary footage.

[Rachel Cusick]

There's no sound, but the video starts with this big wide shot looking straight down into this bluish green Ocean, maybe like 50ft below. And right in the center of the frame, you see this shark and this giant, giant white spotted black orca. For a while, the pair is just eyeing each other, swimming in these tighter and tighter circles, around and around, until slyly, a second orca swims into the right of the frame.

[Alison Cook]

And the whitetail can only keep its eye on one orca at a time.

[Rachel Cusick]

The second orca starts to slowly glide towards them until suddenly it darts, slamming the shark, rendering it motionless, turning the water frothy white. A moment later, as the froth fades, the orca swims next to the motionless shark, this time bearing its teeth. It slices out the shark's liver.

[Latif Nasser]

Oh.

[Rachel Cusick]

Before the clip ends, you can actually even see the orcas start feasting on this white, fleshy pouch. And the shark slowly starts to sink, fading into the blue depths of the ocean.

[Alison Cook]

This was unbelievable. Unbelievable.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay, so it's. So it's the orcas who are killing the sharks.

[Rachel Cusick]

Yeah. So, yeah. So these. These livers of sharks, they're. They're super nutrient rich. They're really fatty. They actually take up like, a third of the shark's body. And so they are like the creme de la creme for these orcas. They. They are just this massive meal for them. So they go in and they take the. They take the liver, and then they actually just leave, huh? Yeah. I mean, even Alison found this hard to believe.

[Alison Cook]

I was in denial for a very long time because for me, white sharks were always the apex predator.

[Latif Nasser]

Oh, wow. Okay, so. So we're saying the orcas killed all the great whites at Seal Island?

[Rachel Cusick]

Well, it seems like they definitely killed some of them. And Neil is quick to point out that we humans killed some of them as well.

[Dr. Neil Hammerschlag]

The nets. Right. The lethal netting program government has had.

[Rachel Cusick]

Nets in the water to protect swimmers. And something like 30 sharks get caught in these nets and killed every year, which is a lot for great white shark populations. So that's definitely a part of their decline. Allison would agree. But here is where things get even more shocking for our apex shark predators. Allison says that for the orcas to clear all the great white sharks at Asial island, the orcas didn't need to kill all of them.

[Alison Cook]

Zara, this is the whole point.

[Rachel Cusick]

Allison and her grad students and some researchers in the area, they had tagged a bunch of these sharks. And when they looked at that tagging data, they found that after each predation event, you know, ajorka attack took the.

[Alison Cook]

Sharks longer to come back, and fewer came back until eventually, after about four or five of these predation events that we knew of, the white sharks stayed away and didn't come back. And so, you know, it's very possible that different fear of predation, the fear of being predated on, made the white sharks abandon Seal Island.

[Latif Nasser]

But, like, I can imagine an individual shark getting attacked and then leaving, or even, like, if it sees a friend or family member or something getting attacked, and then they leave as, like, a little family unit. But, like, it's not like they have like, a giant, like, WhatsApp group or something where they can, like, they're all gonna, you know, leave en masse. Like, how does that even work like.

[Rachel Cusick]

A community watch program, but for sharks?

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah, like.

[Rachel Cusick]

Well, actually they kind of do. Like, they have this very cool trick.

[Colin Brown]

I mean, sharks aren't stupid. Fear can spread through a population in much the same way as it can through, you know, a group of people.

[Rachel Cusick]

I spoke to this man named Colin Brown, he's the head of this fish lab at Macquarie University in Australia. I think one interview called you Dr. Fish Feels or something.

[Colin Brown]

Yes, I speak for the fish.

[Rachel Cusick]

And he explained to me how fear can spread literally through the water.

[Colin Brown]

So if. If a shark is injured or killed.

[Rachel Cusick]

It releases this chemical, a very particular.

[Colin Brown]

Chemical, which in the German word is called schreskof, which literally translates to scary.

[Rachel Cusick]

Stuff signaling, like, something bad is happening here. Go protect yourself. Get away. And if a situation is bad enough.

[Colin Brown]

Shreskov can set off a contagion, effectively a behavioral contagion, and an entire population could potentially develop a fear response, almost.

[Rachel Cusick]

Like a scream echoing through a crowd. Like, it's funny to me that, like, they are the, like, poster child for scary, especially these flying white sharks. And yet when you get to know them, they are just these little. These little fish that are scared of bigger fish that, like, as Colm says, there is always something scarier.

[Colin Brown]

Yeah, there's always a bigger fish in the sea. Right. And that is virtually true of every animal. The more we find out about fishes and sharks and these sorts of aquatic animals, the more we realise we're basically fish with some tweaks. Of course, we've come quite some way, but nonetheless, our physiology and our sort of behavioural responses haven't really changed that much.

[Rachel Cusick]

So next time you're afraid of a shark, just remember they have feelings too.

[Latif Nasser]

This episode was reported by Rachel Cusick and produced by Rachel Cusick, Simon Adler and Maria Pazguchi Tierrez, with production help from Becky Lacks. It was edited by Pat Walters and fact checked by Diane Kelly, with mixing help and sound design by Jeremy Bloom. And special thanks to Katie Ayers. One more thing. We want to give a big thanks to everyone out there who is a member of the Lab, our membership program. Your support makes big projects like this possible, makes our entire show possible. And we are so grateful. If you are not yet a member or you've been thinking about giving more, this is a perfect time to take the plunge. Because if you join or re up now, you'll get a gift. And it's a limited edition week of Sharks hat. I wanted it to have like a fin on top, but then everybody else vetoed that idea. And fair. Like I don't think I would even wear that in public. Instead you're going to get one designed by the main based artist Ty Williams. It's beautiful, something you would actually want to be seen in in public and it gives you a chance to show the world that you support our show. It's available to everyone who joins the Lab this month, even for as little as seven bucks a month. You can [e-mail] join existing members. Check your email for details. Tomorrow is our last day of the week of sharks and we are going from some of the best biggest fish in the sea to some of the teeny tiniest catch you tomorrow.

[Isha]

Hi, I'm Isha and I'm from Plano, Texas and here are the staff credits. Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Thorne Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co hosts. Dylan Keefe is our director. Sat Sign Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, backup Rustler W. Harry Fortuna, David Gebel, Rebecca Lack, Maria Pazputira, Sindhu, Nyana Sumbumdum, Matt Kilty, Annie McKeown, Alex Neeson, Sara Khari, Sarah Sandak, Anissa Vita, Arianne Wack, Pat Walters, Molly Webster, Jessica Young, with help from Rebecca Rand. Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, Anna Pujol Mazzini and Natalie Middleton.

[Rachel Cusick]

Hi, this is Michelle calling from Richardson, Texas. Leadership support for Radiolab. 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.

[Latif Nasser]

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