AI Summary
5 min read🎙️ The Voices & The Context
- The Format: This is a classic Radio Lab episode—a narrative-driven, deeply reported podcast that blends science, human stories, and existential wonder. It feels like a casual but intellectually curious conversation between hosts and guests.
- The Key Players:
- Lulu Miller & Latif Nasser: The hosts. Their chemistry is warm and playful, like two friends geeking out over a fascinating book they've discovered. They guide the listener through the episode with genuine curiosity and humor.
- John: A man living with paranoid schizophrenia who shares his deeply personal story of wearing layers in the summer heat.
- Dr. Hans Ijzerman: A social scientist who studies "kleptothermy" (heat theft) and the social dimensions of temperature.
- Dr. Maheen Tamani & Dr. Terrence Chong: Psychiatrists who observed the "redundant clothing" phenomenon in patients with schizophrenia.
- Deanna Day & Catherine Ley: Historians and epidemiologists who unpack the myth of 98.6°F.
- The Vibe: Educational, Empathetic, and Slightly Existential. The episode balances hard science with profound human stories, leaving you feeling both smarter and more connected to the world.
🗝️ Key Themes & Topics
Continue reading the full summary in the app — free to try.
Read Full Summary →Free • No credit card required
What you'll learn
- 1 (00:00) **🎙️ Introduction: Latif Nasser & Lulu Miller** (No guest)
- 2 (04:12) **Chapter 1: Kleptothermy (Heat Theft) in Animals**
- 3 (08:24) **Chapter 2: Redundant Clothing and Schizophrenia**
- 4 (24:29) **Chapter 3: Social Exclusion and Physical Coldness**
- 5 (29:35) **Chapter 4: The Myth of 98.6°F**
- 6 (46:06) **Chapter 5: Equilibrium and the Thermal Death of the Universe**
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
In this episode, we break the thermometer and watch the mercury spill out as we discover that temperature is far stranger than it seems. We first ran this episode in 2021: Five stories that run the gamut from snakes to stars. We start out underwater, with a species of snake that has evolved a devious trick for keeping warm. Then we hear the tale of a young man whose seemingly simple method of warming up might be the very thing making him cold. And Senior Correspondent Molly Webster blows the lid off the idea that 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit is a sound marker of health.Â
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Lulu Miller and Molly Webster
Produced by - Becca Bressler, Lulu Miller and Molly Webster
with help from - Carin Leong
Fact-checking by - Emily Krieger
Sign up for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Signup (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
More from this podcast
Radiolab →