Quantum Refuge
Radiolab host Lulu speaks with 28-year-old Gazan physicist Qasem Walid about how quantum physics has become both a language and an inner refuge for him while living through war, displacement, and loss in Gaza. Over months of conversations, he describes daily life under bombardment, the deaths of his professor and relatives, and his experience of feeling like Schrödinger's cat-trapped in a box where his survival is uncertain and unseen by the outside world. He uses concepts like superposition, quantum tunneling, and harmonic oscillators to make sense of his own existence and to plead for the world to "open the box" and truly look at what is happening in Gaza.
Short Stuff: Third Man Syndrome
Josh and Chuck discuss "third man syndrome," a phenomenon where people in extreme, often life-threatening situations report sensing a distinct, guiding presence that feels like another person with them. They explore classic accounts from Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic expedition, mountaineers like Frank Smythe and Joe Simpson, and survivors of the 9/11 attacks, then consider possible explanations ranging from an innate survival mechanism to the bicameral mind hypothesis. The conversation stays grounded in reported experiences while acknowledging that science has no definitive explanation yet.
Psychic Medium Laura Lynne Jackson: 3 Signs From the Universe You Have Been Missing (The Answers Are Right in Front of You!)
Psychic medium Laura Lynn Jackson returns to discuss how to move from merely noticing signs to actually living a guided life. She explains the concept of a "team of light," how intuition differs from the analytical "monkey mind," and how to work with signs, inner knowings, and everyday moments to feel supported, make decisions, and reframe past experiences. The conversation gives listeners practical ways to cultivate trust in their inner guidance, especially during periods of confusion, grief, or major life transitions.
Inside the mind of a newborn baby | Claudia Passos Ferreira
Host Elise Hu introduces philosopher, bioethicist, and clinical psychologist Claudia Pasos-Ferreira, who explores when and how consciousness begins in human life. Drawing on recent neuroscience and developmental psychology, Pasos-Ferreira argues that newborns, and possibly late-term fetuses, display brain signatures associated with conscious perception and attention. She discusses the ethical implications of this evidence for medical practice and debates around personhood, and concludes with a broader reflection on consciousness as a "flame of awareness" shared across life and potentially machines.
Selects: How ESP Works (?)
Hosts Josh Clark and Charles W. "Chuck" Bryant explore extrasensory perception (ESP), outlining different proposed phenomena such as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, retrocognition, mediumship, psychometry, and telekinesis. They trace the history of parapsychology from early work by William James and the Society for Psychical Research through J.B. Rhine's laboratory studies with Zenner cards and later experiments like Ganzfeld setups, Princeton's PEAR random number generator research, and Daryl Bem's controversial precognition studies. Throughout, they contrast believers' interpretations with skeptical explanations involving coincidence, attentional bias, subliminal cues, and issues of scientific rigor and reproducibility.
Atheist vs Christian vs Spiritual Thinker: The Paperclip Problem That Exposes Religion!
The host brings together three thinkers-an atheist/agnostic philosopher, a Christian apologist, and a Hindu-trained psychiatrist and spiritual practitioner-to explore why so many people today report a lack of meaning and purpose. They debate whether purpose is objective or purely subjective, how religion, spirituality, neuroscience, trauma, technology, and social conditions contribute to a "meaning crisis," and whether any worldview can adequately address deep suffering such as children dying of cancer. Alongside high-level philosophical disagreement, they also discuss concrete psychological tools and spiritual practices that can help individuals move from feeling lost to experiencing more direction and purpose in their own lives.
The Spark of Life
Host Molly Webster speaks with applied biophysicist Narosha Murugan about the discovery that living cells emit extremely faint light tied to their metabolism, and explores how this challenges the traditional lock-and-key view of cellular signaling. They discuss possible mechanisms for how this light is generated in mitochondria and potentially guided through cellular structures, its hypothesized roles in brain function and consciousness, and how its distinct signatures can already be used experimentally to detect cancer and distinguish living from dead tissue. The conversation ends with reflections on "life flashes" at fertilization and death, and on thinking of living beings as organized patterns of energy and light.