Bite the Dust

Whatever your feelings on Disco, it's hard not to root for the resurgence of one particular track that started taking CPR classes by storm. Producer Ellen Horne explains how one aptly named 70s mega-hit could help you save someone's life.

Then, Jad and Robert pit physics against an ancient tale. In the bible, the sound of seven shofar players (shofars are basically trumpets made of rams' horns) blasts down the walls of Jericho. To find out how many shofars it would actually take to level a Bronze Age wall, we call on engineer and sound expert David Lubman. And we pay a visit to Cantor Daniel Pincus to hear him and his students blow some powerful shofars. Finally, we talk to inventor Woody Norris about a modern twist on this biblical challenge.

Many thanks to the 2010 Shofar All-Stars who played for us: David Liebowitz, Daniela Drakhler, Miriam Frank, Adam Hametz-Berner, Rachel Kelk, Ed Kerson, Anna Levy, Richard Scheiner, and Robert Wine.

Om Podcasten

Welcome, nature lovers, to the home of the Terrestrials podcast and family-friendly Radiolab episodes about nature. Every other week, host Lulu Miller will take you on a nature walk to encounter a plant or animal behaving in ways that will surprise you. Squirrels that can regrow their brains, octopuses that can outsmart their human captors, honeybees that can predict the future. You don’t have to be a kid to listen, just someone who likes to see the world anew. You’ll hear a range of nature stories on this podcast. Sometimes these will be brand new Terrestrials episodes, full of original songs (by “The Songbud” Alan Goffinski) that tell a fantastical-sounding story about nature that is 100% true. Sometimes these will be our very best, shiniest, furriest, leafiest Radiolab episodes about animals or plants or nature. The stories that drop here will always be family-friendly and safe for kids. They will always be sound-rich and full of the vivid, gripping storytelling you’ve come to expect from Radiolab. They will always transport you to the beyond-human world: into the depths of the ocean, into jungles, prairies, forests, space, snow, wildflower fields and beyond. Sometimes we’ll encounter something so wild we just have to break out into song about it! Don’t worry, good voices not required. Join us on this adventure!