Radio Lab, Show 103: Emergence

Summary:

A bottom-up tour of a leaderless world.

Website:

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/season/radiolab.html

Additional Credits and Funding:

Host/Producer Jad Abumrad, Co-Host Robert Krulwich, Producer Ellen Horne, Production Executive's Dean Capello and Mikel Ellcessor

Tones:

Contemplative, Edgy, Humorous

Language:

English

Description:

What happens when there is no leader? Starlings, bees, and ants manage just fine. In fact, they form staggeringly complicated societies, all without a Toscanini to conduct them into harmony. How? That?s our question this hour. We gaze down at the bottom-up logic of cities, Google, even our very own brains. Featured: author Steven Johnson, fire-flyologists John and Elizabeth Buck, biologist E.O. Wilson, Ant expert Debra Gordon, mathematician Steve Strogatz, economist James Surowiecki, and neurologists Oliver Sacks and Christof Koch.

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