Robert Krulwich
Robert Krulwich works on radio, podcasts, video, the blogosphere. He has been called "the most inventive network reporter in television" by TV Guide.
Krulwich is the co-host of WNYC's Radiolab, a radio/podcast series distributed nationally by NPR that explores new developments in science for people who are curious but not usually drawn to science shows. Radiolab won a Peabody Award in 2011.
His specialty is explaining complex subjects, science, technology, economics, in a style that is clear, compelling and entertaining. On television he has explored the structure of DNA using a banana; on radio he created an Italian opera, "Ratto Interesso" to explain how the Federal Reserve regulates interest rates; he has pioneered the use of new animation on ABC's Nightline and World News Tonight.
For 22 years, Krulwich was a science, economics, general assignment and foreign correspondent at ABC and CBS News.
He won Emmy awards for a cultural history of the Barbie doll, for a Frontline investigation of computers and privacy, a George Polk and Emmy for a look at the Savings & Loan bailout online advertising and the 2010 Essay Prize from the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
Krulwich earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Oberlin College and a law degree from Columbia University.
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One night, an elderly woman woke up to a female voice singing Irish ballads. The problem was the voice was in her head. Dr. Oliver Sacks was able to determine why she heard the voice. But the more interesting question was -- whose voice was it? -
In the 1800s, a chef in Paris created a liquid that deepened the flavor of everything it touched. Its flavor wasn't any combination of the four recognized tastes. It took a Japanese soup lover and scientists to acknowledge a fifth taste: umami.
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In 1777, Gen. George Washington and his troops faced British and Hessian soldiers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He issued a firm order that no matter how barbaric enemy armies might be, he would not abide any such behavior in his own troops.
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Ever wonder where the gold in your wedding ring came from? For Valentine's Day, Robert Krulwich tracks the rare element all the way to outer space, where gold is formed in the fiery center of collapsing stars.
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Some of science's great ideas were created in homespun ways. To test his ideas on evolution, Charles Darwin and his butler dropped asparagus into a tub. Darwin's oldest son studied dead pigeons by letting them float upside down in a bowl.
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Susan Barry was born with crossed eyes. Shortly after her second birthday, she had a surgery to treat them. But what she didn't know until decades later was how differently she still saw the world. A type of physical therapy for the eyes has changed all of that.
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Everyone has heard at one time or another about the old myth that if you dug a hole deep enough, you'd end up on the other side of the Earth, in China. As it turns out, the undertaking is much more complex than it might seem.
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Rodrigues island's "cafe marron" plant has been presumed extinct for scores of years. Then, one day, a little boy told his teacher that the plant lived, near his house. Suddenly, an obscure, skinny little bush that nobody had noticed became an international treasure and the focus of a 20-year effort to preserve it.
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Some scientists have proposed that when a woman has a baby, she gets not just a son or a daughter, but a gift of cells that stays behind and protects her for the rest of her life. That's because a baby's cells linger in its mom's body for decades and — like stem cells — may help to repair damage when she gets sick.
