Listener supported WNYC Studios. Wait, you're OK? You're listening to Radiolab Radio from WNYC. Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad. This is Radiolab. I want to start off with some good news about the show. As most of you know. My longtime co-host, co conspirator pal Robert Krulwich, left the show back in January and a few things were immediately clear.

One. He's irreplaceable. There's no other rapper, but simultaneously it was also clear that. You know, over the years, the show has grown to be way more than just the Robert Gerard situation. I mean, we now have all of these reporters and producers who you hear on the show all the time. It's much more of a collective. And so. In the spirit of doing something new rather than trying to recapture the old and in keeping with that chaotic, more collective vibe that the show has now become, here is my news.

Going forward, I'm still going to be hosting the show, of course, but I will be sharing this space on again, off again with two new co-hosts.

Hello, everybody, for the first time out there who aren't actually new. Good to see you.

Lots of Nasser and Lulu Miller Jatta you having cold feet about welcoming us to the fire of the microphone. No.

So excited when we were planning this whole thing out.

I actually got them into the studio just to sort of talk about the emotional issues of being in Radiolab host. What's up? It's a syndrome, actually.

It's a pathology Stockholm syndrome called host. Yeah. There you go. Welcome. Thanks. So, Latife, of course, you've heard on the show over and over again, including most recently, the series, the other Latife. On top of that, he just released a Netflix show called Connected, which is very cool. Go check it out.

And then Lulu actually started with me on the show like 15 some years ago when I was just a tiny little operation. And she is now back with us after having gone off, co-founded the podcast, invisibly written this incredible book, Why Fish Don't Exist, that made me cry. Now you will be hearing Lulu and lots of talking to me, bringing their own stories to the show, as always, but also talking to our usual incredible lineup of producers and reporters.

What I'm really excited about is getting to go along with all these different reporters, like I like someone else has reported this story.

And then we get to like circle and draw some air circles.

And that's what got we're good at that. That's our that's that's our only strength.

So that we could do that just to try just just humor me, introduce yourselves in this new role and see how it goes. I'm Lulu Miller, co-host of Radiolab. Yeah, I'm not sure how the words are going to come out of the mouth here, but let me try. All right. I'm lots of Nassr, co-host of Radiolab. Do feel. I'll tell you very acutely what it felt for me was like. I hope I don't screw it up between the time I said that and the time this goes to air, like anything can happen between then and I hope I don't mess it up with.

Just just everyone was going like that so you could fit, so you could see your arm, that feels very that feels very, very special. Don't make me put words to it. All right. Fair enough.

Let me just say that I. I can't even express in words how excited I am to be sharing this space with these two brilliant, strange, deep thinking, deep feeling humans having them with us as we head into this the end of a very strange year and take on whatever comes next. It just feels right to me and really exciting. Now, at this moment in time, lots of is actually still finishing up his paternity leave. He had his second kid just recently, so he's hunkered down at home with a newborn.

But Lulu actually jumped into the saddle with us here at Radio Lab a few weeks ago. And after hanging around and climbing into a bunch of conversations and arguments and meetings, she. Well, she ended up bringing a little something for all of you today, it's a it's an experiment, sort of definitely something we've never done before. So we're just going to it's going to dive in.

OK, Lulu, Malcolm, this is the first time that you and I in our new relationship to one another, first time we do this.

Yeah. Where do you want to start? I think it was about a week ago. It was about a week and a half ago where we all had a pitch meeting. It was like my second week maybe here on the team just trying to, like, get my bearings and step in. And I brought up how I'd been having trouble sleeping back in the spring. And I noticed pretty quickly that I was one in this wave. There had been all these studies coming about coming out about how insomnia is on the rise.

Mm hmm. And it turned out a ton of people on the team had been thinking about similar stuff, this shadow epidemic of anxiety and sleeplessness, wishing there was a way to tap directly into that space. And and within literally a couple minutes, we hatched this idea of setting up an insomnia line, what people call in. And we thought we just have the phones open from 2:00 a.m. to sunrise, Eastern Standard Time.

Wow. You went all the way from 2:00 a.m. to sunrise. Yes, we chose a night, which was last Thursday night, September 17th. And, you know, the night we picked at this point seems like a totally different world. It was the night before. It was the night before our big died and about a week before the Brianna Taylor ruling.

So this new wave of hardship wasn't in the air yet for us or our callers. OK, but at one 45 a.m., we tweeted out the phone number and said, if you're awake, call us with a radio lab.

I'm in Los Angeles, California. I have insomnia then.

So then the voice mails started rolling in. Oh, like, right away. Yeah.

So like two a.m. struck a real first time was no longer a longtime listener.

First-Time Caller, there were like 40 right off the bat just waiting.

And it was like this immediate cross-section here laying in my bed with my dog of the country and even beyond.

It's one forty one in the morning here in Mexico City of just like intensity.

I mean, I think the thing we all realized really quick was that we were staking out this antenna into like a really vulnerable time.

Hi, my name's Kendra calling from Denver, Colorado. And I can't sleep because I miss my mom. He passed away earlier this year and I miss her every single day.

Oh, I'm up because I quit drinking a few weeks ago and I am currently walking circles around my apartment.

I really want to drink again. I can hear the clock ticking.

All the days are just wanting to drive right now.

I can hear the fans just swimming through time soup.

You know, people were worried. They were worried about covid homeowners in the time period. And so I don't feel any more about their jobs.

I lost my job in March like the covid was teaching English as a foreign language today and tomorrow, too.

I have another job interview and I don't have a job lined up. I don't tell anyone about this.

So I wake up every night like this for the state of the country with everything that is happening with the US. Um, yeah. As a woman, yeah, it's complicated. So I'm considering moving maybe to Costa Rica or Dominican Republic or even going back to Puerto Rico.

You know how breathe and your lungs squeak a little bit from the West Coast, there was just tons about the smoky sky I house smells like an ashtray for days and really hazy and smoky and kind of always smelled like toast as a person to used, evidently.

But if you choose to, your food after your draft is OK.

But there's a fun twist right now, which is you and I can go outside actually. But some places it had rains and now there's thunder and rain. Wow. That was a bright flash.

But, you know, for all the worry, there was another side to that night, a yo yo man name is Ricky and I'm surviving right now, you know, even though I'm tired, I just want to stay just because all of us out, you know, or for somebody else to work working. And I didn't want those one three hours to be mine. I'm not totally sure why I'm awake, but I started crying and now I think I really don't want to go back to sleep.

All these people just leaning into their weird thoughts, thinking and thinking about things that I learned that course treadmills exist. Do you imagine you have a building which is mushrooming with mushrooms literally in the morning when you wake up instead of plucking your, you know, from the garden, you fucking mushrooms from your building? It's it's just great to think that maybe one day we can have a building which will give us food throughout the whole night.

That line between reality and fantasy was thin. I've been having really weird dreams.

Yeah, I have nightmares, terrible dreams. It was like little baby fox that died and we were trying to have a funeral for it.

A few minutes ago, I had to break up a fight between a couple of raccoons outside.

There are monsters chasing me.

My cat is sitting on my neck. I'm on the planet. Telefax, about seventy three light years from Earth.

Right now, I'm looking at Mars from my backyard. I can see it just by looking at the sky. It's particularly red and I would very much love to fall asleep. You can't sleep. You know, all told there, over 200 calls, and if anything came through loud and clear, it was that during those hours. People feel really alone. I know, Ron. And I'm scared. If you want to call me back, I, Mr.

Abrams, to give me a call back to the numbers, give me a call back. I might be away for a while longer. Coming up, conversations across the void and a trip to the stars Radiolab will continue in a moment. Audie, this is Blake Crozier from Nashville, Tennessee. Radiolab is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about Sloan and w w w that Sloan Dog Science reporting on Radiolab is supported in part by Science.

Sandbox is Science Foundation initiative dedicated to engaging everyone with the process of science.

This is Radiolab. We are back. I'm Jad Abumrad and I am your co-host, Lulu Miller. Yes.

And interestingly enough, a lot of crying in the bathroom while actually calling in the bathroom says, I want to wake the baby.

At 247 a.m. on the insomnia line, we got a call from our other co-host, Latife Nassr, who wanted to share a little factoid that I discovered being very, very lots of, which was that in 1939, there was a ship, PE class destroyer called the HMS Porcupine, and it broke into two pieces.

And then they named the pieces, the HMS Port and the HMS Tyne, which was just incredible.

Anyway, back to the mission at hand, a bunch of Radio Labas had all gathered to man the phones and screen the voice mails and two a.m. heads and the voice mails are ready.

OK, so we started calling people back. All right. Here we go.

There we go. Who's that on the phone here? She met with the.

Hello. Hey, this is Cima calling from Radiolab. What's your name? My name is Quadrio Addai. Where are you? I'm in New Haven, Connecticut. I'm. I'm Bassets Street and I have been commissioned by the city to make the city's first Black Lives Matter mural. I'm sketching out the words which are twenty two by two hundred and seventy seven feet in total. And then on Sunday, people are going to come and take some yellow paint and I'm going to orchestrate them to fill in the letters.

Is there a reason that you're that you have to do this mural at three thirty in the morning.

It's three thirty where you are, right.

It's three thirty in the morning. Yeah. So the city of New Haven commissioned me to make this mural, but they only are closing the street from there, only crossing the street from 6:00 a.m. on Saturday to 9:00 p.m. And I told them, like, this is a pavement mural, like you need to clean the street so I can sketch it out and make sure that there's enough drying time after we paint or. Yeah, and they're like, well, we can't do that.

So in your sketch, are there like people in this mural or is it just the letters themselves?

Oh, it's just it's just the words Black Lives Matter and like yellow paint. And, you know, this message is I was conflicted with this message because I would rather be like painting flowers or painting in people, but like having to paint. This is it's been really tough.

Why? It's tough to be reminded and to have to remind others of your own humanity. That's difficult for me. Yeah.

I don't know how much we're doing in terms of a city to. You know, make it so they don't have to paint this mural again. Good morning, this is Alex. Hi, Alex. This is Sarah calling from Radiolab producer Sarah Koenig. It seems like you might have called a while ago.

I wake up at that time because that's when rodents tend to be most active. And I work in Boston, so there's plenty of rodents to be had. You're an exterminator.

Yes, that that's what most people call us. We have factory farms for ourselves. But, um, and so I usually wake up at to drive into the city and start chasing rats.

Hey, take care. Have a good rest of you, do you have a great morning. You, too. Is this Bobby? Yeah, then Molly Webster, Bobby, it's Molly Webster from Radiolab. How are you? I'm amazing. I mean, I'm I'm looking out over at Brighton Beach Ocean. Got I'm on my terrace with my trees and my plan.

Can you tell me either why you're awake or if something's keeping you awake?

I've always been an insomnia person since I was a little kid. You know, I sneak out of the house when I was a teenager, you know, like 13, 14. And I go wander out on the beach at nine to midnight and sing to the ocean, you know, and see what I can see. I'm here on the 18th floor, OK?

I was looking over there that Rockaway is that the ocean that I can hear in the background or like wind like like I don't know, it might be traffic, but the ocean that.

Anyway, it's a beautiful night. What a great life I have. I'm blessed. We are. Hi. Hi, is this a Zuhal? Yeah, this is them. Hello. Tell me where you are at and why you're awake.

Yeah, so I am in Portland, Oregon, and I am awake because we are about to embark on a little road trip all the way to Minnesota to get away from the smoke from the fires. I hear that the sky still blue in other places. So I'm really excited.

Like, what is it like to live without a sky?

Honestly, it's pretty trippy. Feels like I live either, like in an Instagram, like maybe a filter or something like.

Are there other ways in which the world looks or feels or sounds different because of the fires? Friday was like one of the top of the older birds, just like stopped showing up or singing. Well, just really quiet.

Today, I think, was the first day of like actual fresh air. So I've just been sitting outside and, like, breathing that in while it last.

Where am I reaching you right now? Where are you?

Producer Topin Lo. I am in the Bay Area in Northern California. I'm standing in my yard and just to come outside and be reminded that there's still life out here. Like to hear the crickets. It's really beautiful. It's like gleeful insomnia.

Can you take a deep breath for me and sort of describe what that feels like now that the air is clear? Isn't. It feels. Freeing. Hello. Hi, reporter Tracy Hunn, hi. Hi. Speaking with a woman named Maya, I'm OK, I'm OK.

And where are you calling from? Westchester, New York. And why are you awake? I'm a college student right now.

And homework till one active brain till four. Oh, it's so much going on. It feels like to me all day long there's no light at the end of the tunnel.

Have you really thought about calling your friend when you're up to sleep? Another friend that you know might be having trouble sleeping?

Oh, no, not actually. Well, I called you guys. Yes, I know. But that's that's kind of why I ask the question.

Yeah. It's like something I always do during the day, but no better things to do at night when they know we're all feeling.

Yeah. Well, Maya, can I pass on a tip that I learned recently for falling asleep? I about one. OK, so why don't you try when you're lying in bed, try thinking of a letter and like the easy one, like an M or a B or something. And then think of every word you can make with that letter. And to see if you can bore yourself to sleep. Modern day of counting sheep. It's kind of like counting sheep.

I'm going to give you a letter. I'm going to think of think of the letter L Trevor.

So we've had. Oh. I like. Well. Labradoodle. Lamping. And this is something we did do from time to time that we knew we probably couldn't help much, we would give people little offerings that we hoped might at least change their mindset.

So, OK, I'll just play you one last. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, is this Justin? Yes. I'm sorry that that sleep is eluding you.

Yes, so yeah, can just say again where you are and and why you're awake.

I'm in Detroit and I'm in my bed. That is half the time, I suppose, as a workspace. And it's been. Really troubling. Separating work from personal life and whole days go by that are just one contiguousness, you know, it feels like just just trapped, I guess.

Well, may I may we may I offer you a sonic gift to maybe try a different thing and see if I can.

OK, can you stay on the phone? But can you turn. Can you get all those screens away from you?

If I can. Close that and move it a little way. All right, I'm going to pipe in a special. Tests multiple, hey, can you hear us? Yeah, I can't hear I'm. Nice to meet you. Hey, nice to meet you. Hi.

OK, musicians West Wing and Kelly Libby from Virginia.

And we've got a song to play here. The song is called Middle of the Night. Well, here goes. I look for you when the fog rolls through and the fog. And I'll turn you in when you pay for those sins, when you've paid. And they just they just called up and sang how to do it. I asked them I asked them if they would be willing to sing a lullaby to someone who couldn't sleep.

And they gave me a window that they would like to get up and do it. I see. That was nice. I like that. Yeah. And to end this whole thing. Thank you.

But this whole sleepless, anxious night time experiment, I'm just tired and I want to go back to sleep.

I want to leave everyone with one more of these offerings comes from producer Annie McKewon. Hello.

Hi. I can just see the very top of your head. I have a second for me.

Can you hear me? Yeah. Good to meet you. And you, first of all, I want you to introduce yourself. So tell me, like, what is your name? Whose name I know what your name is. Oh, Facture Phleger, such a good name. What's your last name?

So my name is Flagellate Johnson. We think about Daisy. See how old are you? Five. And wanted to talk to you about sleep. Do you have trouble falling asleep?

Yeah, every night. I hate a long time until I get to sleep.

And why is that. What are you thinking when you're trying to fall asleep?

I'm not thinking of anything. I just way like I we have a lot of energy to stay up at night. Yeah.

What would you rather do. What is your body want to do when you're trying to keep it still?

I like to have a dance party but one night we did down. Oh you did. Yeah. I just like to have that party every night I can.

Oh yeah. What are your pajamas look like long.

The dark P.J. glow in the dark days. That's cool.

On my old one round for I had like glowing shoutin one that magic. Well I don't know. I bought a new one for a five year old. Yesterday on the phone, we talked a little bit about how you dream about monsters. Oh, I dream about monsters every night.

What are these monsters? Tell me about them.

So like a lovely boxing monsters. OK, well, they're honorable and very scary.

Is that hard to fall asleep because of the monsters?

Yeah, very cute. So I went down.

Hmm. Yeah, I have that problem, too. It's hard to fall asleep and you're afraid of things. Mm hmm. Fletcher, I want to ask your advice about something, so tonight we're going to have a lot of people call in to our radio show and they're going to be people who can't fall asleep and they're trying and trying and trying, but they just can't. And they're so tired, but they can't fall asleep. I want to know what and what advice do you have for them?

What do you think they should do? They said I was Geissinger medication. OK, that's a good idea. Do you want to read me your meditations? Do you want to try doing that? Yeah, I guess so.

And then we can play it tonight for the Sleepy's people that can't fall asleep, like.

I'll take my shoes off to blast off into space. First, let's get you to relax no down, close your eyes and your position. Smokestacks, these glass. Now, imagine a space where the stars. Well, I think planet Earth. You can see all the way to your backyard. A black ness of space technology stars. It makes you want to compartmentalize.

I know when you so can a lot of stars these constellations, you pack a big enough Hercules and anything else.

Larosière, Rayco Concatenating. While you are looking at starting considerations, you take fleabite flesh being articulate and taking.

Well, Mars is a long way away, so you slow into your spaceship and fall asleep on the floor and green of all the things you can do tomorrow and the staff that come in at the morning time, you play and you play baseball.

Suckerfish be and go on more adventures. And they had no plan to let the next. Oh, my God. Fletcher from Tennessee, you are amazing. I want you to talk to me every year. Lulu Wow. Thank you for taking us on that journey. Yeah. And also thanks to Andy McEwen and Rachel Cusack, who helped Lulu produce what you just heard and to the entire Radiolab team, the road shotgun with Lulu, all night screen calls, talked to people who called in Tracy Hunt Shimoda, Molly Webster and McEwen's Sakari Tobey Lowe.

Also big thanks to Fletcher Lee Johnson and his mom, Elaine Boyd, and to six feet of separation in the publication by and for Kids, where we found Fletcher sleep meditation, thanks to Chris Cullen, Alice Wong, LeVar Burton, musician Wesseling and Kelly Libby, and to Jinyang, who helped with reporting for this show. And finally, a big shout out to our friends at Reply All who do a mean call and show you like this. We highly recommend you check out their episode called Hello, I'm Jad Abumrad.

And I am Lulu Miller. Thanks for listening. Goodbye.

This is Grace calling from Chicago, Illinois. Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and it's edited by Sean Wheeler, Lulu Miller and lots if not there are co-hosts. Dylan Keefe is our director of Sound Design DC. Lichtenberg is our executive producer. Our staff include Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, backup wrestler, Rachel Kucik, David Gabal, Bhathal Habchi, Tracy Hunt, Not Guilty, Tobin Low and in McKewon Sakari Aryan, Black Hat Wapner's and Molly Webster with help from CMA only Sarah Sontag and Johnny Miller.

Our fact checker is Michelle Harris. So hi, my name is Anna McKewon, I'm a producer at Radiolab, and I wanted to talk about this thing we do at Radiolab because I like it and we have the thing. It's a newsletter, big surprise every show us newsletter. But ours, I think it's pretty fun. Oh, it's so fun. Matt, KDDI. Hello, producer, fellow producer Radiolab.

What is your favorite part of the newsletter?

My favorite part of the newsletter is first it's getting it and seeing it in my inbox and then second it's opening it and then third is just hitting page down on my keyboard till I get to the very bottom of the email. That's good.

You know, it's at the bottom of the email where, you know, staff picks stuff, fix it, which is like, how great is that? It's great. It's just like stuff. Stuff that we like. Stuff Rindo. What do your favorites? Some of his stuff, because there was the one video where it was like seventeen babies on a hamster wheel. Really the article about the guy who made seventeen burritos that nothing really.

OK, what's your favorite subject? My favorite one ever. Well, it's hard to say.

One of my favorite ones ever was Robert talking in delightful detail about the great sausage duel of 1865, classic classic Mollie's bedbug pajamas.

Oh, yeah.

That was a scary time treacy's pasta recipe, which I did not make because I don't really cook, but I'm just proud of her. Actually, it's it's really simple. This is online.

It's a twenty eight ounce can add tomatoes, five tablespoons of butter, a pinch of salt, an onion, and you cook it in a pan for 45 minutes. All right.

Thank you, Tracy. I'm telling you, everybody is loving this positive. Oh, I do. Definitely. That woman. This guy for sure, though, I think it's wonderful tasting pasta every day.

Yeah, helping. Anyway, a newsletter as like cools off and it like staff picks and also tells you when an episode is dropping, it's free. It's free. Um, so we're just kind of here to just say, like, you should sign up and you can sign up in about 30 seconds at real iboga newsletter or text RL News, as in Radiolab News two seven zero one zero one. That's our news two seven zero one zero one. And thank you.