Radiolab - Terrestrials: The Mastermind

Lulu Miller, intrepid host and fearless mother of two, went off on her own and put together a little something for kids. All kids: hers, yours, and the one still living inside us all. Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials And it’s spellbinding. So much so, that we wanted to put this audio goodness in front of as many ears as possible. Which is why we’re running the first episode of that series here for you today. It’s called The Mastermind. In it, Sy Montgomery, an author and naturalist, shares the story of a color-changing creature many people assumed to be brainless who outsmarts his human captors. If you want a SPOILER of what the creature is, read on: It’s an octopus. We hear the story of one particularly devious octopus who lost a limb, was captured by humans, and then managed to make an escape from its aquarium tank—back into the ocean! The tale of “Inky” the octopus calls into question who we think of as intelligent (and kissable) in the animal kingdom. Learn about the storytellers, listen to music, and dig deeper into the stories you hear on Terrestrials with activities you can do at home or in the classroom on our website, Terrestrialspodcast.org Find MORE original Terrestrials fun on Youtube.And badger us on Social Media: @radiolab and #TerrestrialsPodcast And if your little ones or you want to hear more of Team Terrestrials amazing work on this series, please search for Radiolab for Kids Presents: The Mastermind, wherever you get podcasts or subscribe here. Terrestrials is a production of WNYC Studios, created by Lulu Miller. This episode is produced by Ana González, Alan Goffinski and Lulu Miller. Original Music by Alan Goffinski. Help from Suzie Lechtenberg, Sarah Sandbach, Natalia Ramirez, and Sarita Bhatt. Fact-checking by Diane Kelley. Sound design by Mira Burt-Wintonick with additional engineering by Joe Plourde. Our storyteller this week is Sy Montgomery. Transcription by Caleb Codding. Our advisors are Theanne Griffith, Aliyah Elijah, Dominique Shabazz, John Green, Liza Steinberg-Demby, Tara Welty, and Alice Wong. Our newsletter comes out every Wednesday. It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Duration: 32m
Broadcast on: 23 Sep 2022
Audio Format: other

Lulu Miller, intrepid host and fearless mother of two, went off on her own and put together a little something for kids. All kids: hers, yours, and the one still living inside us all.

Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials

And it’s spellbinding. So much so, that we wanted to put this audio goodness in front of as many ears as possible.

Which is why we’re running the first episode of that series here for you today.

It’s called The Mastermind. In it, Sy Montgomery, an author and naturalist, shares the story of a color-changing creature many people assumed to be brainless who outsmarts his human captors. If you want a SPOILER of what the creature is, read on: It’s an octopus. We hear the story of one particularly devious octopus who lost a limb, was captured by humans, and then managed to make an escape from its aquarium tank—back into the ocean! The tale of “Inky” the octopus calls into question who we think of as intelligent (and kissable) in the animal kingdom.

Learn about the storytellers, listen to music, and dig deeper into the stories you hear on Terrestrials with activities you can do at home or in the classroom on our website, Terrestrialspodcast.org

Find MORE original Terrestrials fun on Youtube.And badger us on Social Media: @radiolab and #TerrestrialsPodcast

And if your little ones or you want to hear more of Team Terrestrials amazing work on this series, please search for Radiolab for Kids Presents: The Mastermind, wherever you get podcasts or subscribe here.

Terrestrials is a production of WNYC Studios, created by Lulu Miller. This episode is produced by Ana González, Alan Goffinski and Lulu Miller. Original Music by Alan Goffinski. Help from Suzie Lechtenberg, Sarah Sandbach, Natalia Ramirez, and Sarita Bhatt. Fact-checking by Diane Kelley. Sound design by Mira Burt-Wintonick with additional engineering by Joe Plourde. Our storyteller this week is Sy Montgomery. Transcription by Caleb Codding.

Our advisors are Theanne Griffith, Aliyah Elijah, Dominique Shabazz, John Green, Liza Steinberg-Demby, Tara Welty, and Alice Wong.

Our newsletter comes out every Wednesday. It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.

Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

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I know what we're here to talk about because it's like a jubilant day, but let's let me, let me faint, let me pretend you're Lulu, what are we doing here in the studio? What are we going to talk about? That was great theater. Okay, well, yes, I am here to come out of the closet as a children's entertainer.

Yeah, for the past year, I've been working with a small and wonderful team on a radio series for kids, and it's called Terrestrials, and it is about the strangeness waiting right here on Earth. I've already heard it. I mean, it's great. It's so great. It's like a… He's contractually album. Jewel of a delight. It's just so fun. Was there a grain of sand around which you built this pearl of a series? I mean, so it's partly a boring story. I became a mom. Now I have two little boys, and I became interested in how kids' minds worked. I'm the youngest of my whole extended family. I didn't really babysit growing up, so I didn't really know kids until I had them, and they always kind of intimidated me. But now that I spend a lot of time with them, their minds are so psychedelic, and there's just this space of openness and curiosity and humor. I think that's part of it. They're becoming a mom and being interested in kids' journey, but I think, in a way, I'm making this for my past self who was a little bit of a sad kid as I hit that 8-9-10 area where I was haunted by the sense that there is no magic on Earth. And honestly, this series is an attempt to use science and close-looking to say like, "Yeah, okay, maybe there's not magic dragons up there in the sky."

But there are Komodo dragons here on Earth. There are Komodo dragons here on Earth, exactly. Like, it might not be up in the sky, but it might be right here on Earth. And not only might we see beautiful things, but we might see things that even break some of the rules we thought applied to all life. And that's the spot that I'm passionate about. So does that mean it's just for kids and the sort of half-begrudging parents that are sitting with them? Well, no, I mean, you might have the bar of getting over the fact that you have to go subscribe to the Radio Lab for Kids Feed. But I think if you're just an adult, and like, if there's a day where you need 20 minutes of your life to hang out with your very nerdy friends who want to take you outside and show you something and point at it and like sing a little, kind of, rib you and cheer you up a little. We are waiting there. We would love if you join us. And it does, it sort of grabs you by the ears and is like, look human, the way you live in the world, it's not the only way. And that's like, to me, that's kids are especially receptive to that, because they're just getting used to these sensory inputs, I guess. But I think that's, to me, that's an important lesson for all of us. It really is, it's a work of art. I'm really impressed, so impressed. I just can't wait for the world to hear it. Just go listen, go listen if you are a kid or wherever a kid, or if you live on planet Earth, either of those things. Okay, I think now we just play it, right? We just let them listen to the pilot? Oh yeah, and this is, and this genuinely was the pilot. This is the first time you made a long time ago. So here we go. The first episode of the series, "Terrestrials" from Lula Miller and Radio Lab, "The Mastermind." Enjoy. Wait, wait, you're listening to Radio Lab from WNYC 3, 2, 1, imagine you are a liquid creature,

no bones, and you are so pliable that you can literally pour your body through a tiny opening. You can change colors, blue and green and red and yellow and even metallic. You can taste with your skin, and you have blue blood, and you have three hearts.

And if you're threatened, if you feel scared, you can shoot ink into a silhouette in the shape of you. So the predator is fooled into believing you're still there. Now look down at your arms and watch them slowly sprouting into eight. You are an octopus now.

Okay, now is where I make you sing the theme song with me.

Transcription truncated.