My new new favorite radio program.

I love This American Life. I've loved them for years, even after I learned what Ira looked like. The show has made me weep openly and I even bought the TAL comic book. The day they added a podcast was a red letter day.

But I found a program that's even more amazing. From WNYC, Radio Lab follows the same format: an hour show with a few segments. Radio Lab is ostensibly a science show, but I didn't realize this until I'd listened to a couple episodes. It's "how does the world work" science, not "let's do our chemistry homework science". Think Newton's Apple on the radio, for grownups, only way more interesting than I'm making it sound. I spend most of the episode with my mouth hanging open with amazement. Or with tears in my eyes with how emotional the stories are.

Take the episode Detective Stories. It starts at a Egyptian garbage dump that contains 1000 years of garbage, including 117 lost sayings from Jesus. Next a goat standing on a cow leads to a heartbreaking story of lost love, letters and the great inherent value of mystery. The final segment of the episode takes us to central Asia, where researchers discover millions of people who are very likely share Genghis Khan as an ancestor. It's fascinating, remarkable stuff presented masterfully. Other episodes feature a computer program that captures the essence of composers and generates new "Bach" and "Chopin" works, a spellbinding conversation with Ann Druyan (Carl Sagan's widow), and a doctor who finds a way to amputate a phantom limb.

The downside? There's only ten episodes. And only five are in mp3 format on the web. Still, amazing stuff: Radio Lab.