>>Robert Krulwich: On the plane coming here, I was sitting next to a woman from the University
of New Mexico who said -- this is one of those conversations you only have when Google pays
for the ticket. But she said, After the mass extensions of mastodons, saber-toothed tigers,
and giant sloths 10,000 years ago, the amount of methane in the atmosphere, she says -- this
is at least the case -- dropped by 10 billion kilograms.
When I went to the hotel here, I looked it up. I said, that's a sizable fraction of what
was in the air back then. I thought why. And she said, "The animals
in those days were unusually big" -- not quite sure how to put this politely -- "they were
unusually big farts because their gaseous emissions were so considerable that the disappearance
of them and their emissions caused a statistically significant atmospheric gas collapse."
When you think about it, it is particularly interesting these days because methane is
the bad guy in global warming. I'm thinking maybe this is the good side of the extinction
story. I don't know. I don't even know if it is true. But if it
checks out, I find things like this really, really interesting which is my advantage and
my problem. Because what I find interesting is not always
interesting to my colleagues and bosses in the news business. Yet, I often think like
-- I found story gold here if they would only think like me, but they don't think like me.
Case in point, one time I got a video tape from a marine biologist. When I looked at
it, I thought "Oh, my God." I mean, it was like nothing -- you may have seen it by now.
This was a while ago. I said, "Oh, no." I run down stairs to Peter Jennings' office.
I worked at ABC News at the time. I said, "I have an octopus story." It was octopus
in shallow Caribbean waters. I said to Peter, "This is going to knock your
socks off." He has this teletape -- he had this tape-recorder there and I start to jam
-- he said, "Go away." I said, "I'm not going to go away. You need to see the octopus story."
He said, "No!" I said, "Why not?" He said, "It may have escaped your notice,
but the U.S. Army is now occupying Baghdad. And we've conquered the place. Saddam Hussein
and his two sons, Uday, the other one, have gone missing and we are concentrating on that.
I said, "For the whole show? You have 18 1/2 minutes. You can spare a couple of minutes
for my octopus. Let me just stick it in." "No, you can't stick it in."
"Come on. I want to stick it in." "No!"
I said all right. This is the situation I'm always in. I said, "Look, if my made my octopus
story about Saddam Hussein, would you run it then?"
Now he's looking at me. I'm not especially proud of what you are about to see.
[ Laughter ] Let's roll the tape.
[ Video ] >>> After Saddam and his son stole more than
a billion dollars, there is talk now that he is searching for a cosmetic surgeon to
disguise himself. Well, Saddam the dictator might want to meet Saddam the octopus because
Saddam the octopus -- >>Robert Krulwich: I'm so ashamed.
>>> This is what octopuses do for a living. They disappear all the time.
>>> For example, Roger saw this bush in shallow Caribbean water. But as he moved closer, now
watch the bush. Look at it. It turns into an octopus --
>>Robert Krulwich: Right? >>> -- squirts ink and runs. That's good.
>>> This one is one of the best. >>> We got to see this again. Let's go backwards
before it ran away to when the octopus was all puffed up to look big and scary. And now
backwards and in slow motion, watch the eyes. You see how the pigment is changing back to
a dark algae and rock color? And the skin, if you look, it is beginning to pucker. It
becomes more rock-like. This is deliberate. >>> So if they see the algae next to them,
they can mimic the algae. >>> It is definitely getting lumpier all over.
And this is happening, the muscle changes, and the color changes, how long in realtime?
>>> It takes less than a second to make any of these changes. So they can become a rock
in less than a second. It is instantaneous. >>Robert Krulwich: I mean, come on, you know?
[ Video concludes ] [ Applause ]
So... Thank you. So I ask myself, Why is this so
hard? I don't blame Peter for trying to cover Saddam. Of course, he should cover Saddam.
But the real problem in the news business like all mature business is that they found
a routine that's a deep routine, a way of doing business and a way of seeing the world.
So I will tell you what it's like. On a typical morning, you go to the news meeting and they
go around the room and say, Okay, what do you got? And the reporters and the editors,
they pitch. "I got the governor's press conference." "I got the three-alarm fire." "I got a pennant
race." "I got a murder." It comes to me and says, I've got the fart story."
It may not be fair, but the room goes a little quiet and they give me that look. But I know
just as I knew here, I know what I'm doing and I know it'll be good.
And at the morning meeting at 10:00 in the morning when the day is young, your special
story is often the favorite because governors come and go but a fart collapse, very unusual.
You talk about it all day. But what happens around the noon, the governor
gives a slightly interesting press conference and you have to do it because the competitors
are going to do it. There is a burglary. You got to do that.
There is a fire. You got to do that. There is a tornado warning. You got to do
that. Slowly but surely you watch your precious
story drop lower and lower on the scad list of stories they are going to do.
And by about 3:00 or 4:30, you hear it go kerplunk and it drops off the list. We'll
do it tomorrow, they say, because after all, it happened 10,000 years ago. You're like
yeah, yeah. But then the next day the same thing happens.
So peter once asked me, "What do you do here anyway?" I said, "Well, what you do is 'This
just in,' 'This just happened,' 'He just got elected,' 'He just got shot.'"
I do "this always is," stories that are sitting right in front of us all the time. We don't
know about it. And I happen to think that "this always is" is just as interesting as
"this just in." And I'm convinced, totally convinced, that
you can mix science and mystery and complexity into a news show with ease and success. And
partly to prove it a bunch of years ago with an amazing partner, Jad Abumrad, who was recently
by the way pronounced a genius by The MacArthur Foundation, we created this show called RadioLab.
It is a podcast and radio show. It has gotten really popular. Some of you --
[ Applause ] And what we do on this show is we try -- we
try to break or at least experiment with some very basic journalism rules. Normally if a
reporter gets a story, what you do is you interview people, you learn what you are doing,
you get your research down, you write your copy, you check your copy, you check your
facts. And when everything is known and checked and ready, you go on the air and you say "Let
me tell you what I know." We don't do that. Instead of telling you what
we know, we tell people what we don't know. And we do our reporting and out learning right
in front of our audience. So we argue. We make mistakes. We interview people. We try
to figure out what they have just said. And it creates a kind of edginess because you
watch us learning. So to give you a taste of this alternate model,
one time we got to wondering, where does music come from? That was our subject. We can go
for a whole hour so we can ask big questions. One of the thoughts was that music may have
evolved from speech, from people talking. So to explore the "people talking produced
music" hypothesis, we found a woman who makes tapes of people talking and loops them, people
talking and loops them, people talking and loops them, people talking and -- it just
connects them like that. What you are about to hear is an accident.
It is an accident that taught her something, and now you are going to experience that very
accident. Here we go.
[ Video ] >>> So you put things on loops in order to
fine-tune the way the speech sounds. So I had this particular phrase on a loop and forgot
about it. >>> What phrase was this?
>>> It is a phrase that occurs at the beginning of the CD in which I say, The sounds as they
appear to you are not only different from those that are really present but they sometimes
behave so strangely as to seem quite impossible to seem quite impossible.
Now, I had "sometimes behaved so strangely" looped. The sounds as they appear to you are
not only different from those that are really present but they sometimes behave so strangely
sometimes behave so strangely. Just those few words.
>>> Sometimes behave so strangely. >>> And forgot about it.
>>> Sometimes behave so strangely. Sometimes behave so strangely.
>>> So here's what happened. Diana leaves her studio. She closes the door, goes into
the kitchen to make some tea. All the while this loop is whirring away in the background.
As she is sipping her tea, she thinks, "Is someone singing? Who's singing?"
>>> I heard what sounded like song in the background.
>>> She realized, "Wait a second, that's not singing. That's me talking."
>>> That very phrase. But at this point -- >>> Sometimes behaves so strangely.
>>> -- it appeared to be sung rather than spoken.
>>> Sometimes behaves so strangely. Sometimes behaves so strangely.
>>> Sometimes behaves so strangely, right? >>> You still hear the words, but they're
sound words rather than spoken words. >>> It is weird. It just switches at a certain
point. Three or four repetitions in, it is going, it is going, and then pow, it becomes
music. And then now -- now none of us can get it out of our head. The whole office is
"sometimes behaves so strangely." >>> Sometimes behaves so strangely.
>>> And you know what? If you do this demo and then you go back to the original sentence,
it sounds like, you know, speech to begin with. And when you come to that very phrase,
I seem to be bursting into song. >>> The sounds as they appear to you are not
only different from those that are really present but they sometimes behave so strangely
as to seem quite impossible. >>> I have to say this can continue for months
and months. It is sort of -- sort of like your brain gets altered for that particular
phrase, and it continues to sound like singing --
>>> Sometimes behaves so strangely. >>> -- for a very, very long time.
>>> Sometimes behaves so strangely. >>> So here we have just one small indication
that music is -- well, it behaves very strangely. I mean, think about this. We started with
some basic speech, repeated it a few times. [ Video concludes ]
>>Robert Krulwich: Okay. So the cool thing about doing it that way is the energy comes
from hearing the process of discovery. We don't describe it. We let you hear the discovery
itself. And ideas, we think, are very explorable in
news format, whether they be long or short -- we do both -- if you play with the ideas
and struggle with them and argue about them. I don't have time to let you hear some of
the arguments we get into. But it just also gives you a chance to experiment wildly with
format, with how you do the explaining. So one time, we got interested in the autonomic
nervous system. This is the system that kicks in when something shocking happens and you
have to have an immediate reaction. So it's fight or flight as an example. So when you
fight, your muscles tense, your throat gets dry, your heartbeat goes up. You don't control
that, it happens fast, autonomic. Here's our story. We learned that the system
works differently in men and women. And it's a really big difference, and in a moment,
you'll find it a very familiar difference. The woman you're going to hear -- We did a
really odd thing to make the point. The woman you're going to hear is my actual real-life
wife. And in the show, we're in the middle of talking about some nervous system, talking
to some professor or something, and all of a sudden, the phone rings.
Here we go. [ Audio ]
>>> Oh, crap. Forgot to turn the ringer off. Hold on.
Hello. Oh, hi. Yeah. Hold on one second. It's your wife.
>>> Really? Hello. >>> Robert?
>>> Yeah. >>> I can't believe you're still there. What
are you doing there? >>> What do you mean?
>>> You were supposed to be home an hour ago. >>> You call me in the studio. We're on the
air. >>> I don't care. You were supposed to be
home an hour ago. I reminded you this morning. I reminded you last night.
>>> I -- I was -- >>> It's just not important to you.
>>> There's is not such a big deal. I'll be back --
>>> Actually, this is a perfect example of what we've been talking about.
>>> No. >>> Robert's having a fight with his wife,
Tamar. And while he's fighting, inside his body, his stomach is clenching, his heart
is palpitating. Hers is doing the same. Their brains are picking up these signals and thinking:
Anger. Feel angry! >>> There are other people who --
>>> My work is just as important as your work, and you've now screwed it up.
>>> How did I screw it up? How did I screw up your work?
>>> Your job -- >>> Now, at a certain point, Robert will probably
realize he has screwed up, and -- >>> Just get home.
>>> -- he'll apologize. >>> Okay. If I get home in 20 minutes will
-- I'm really sorry. I know this is horrible. >>> Robert, is everything okay?
>>> Yeah, yeah, it's -- Just a second. I'm really sorry.
>>> Okay. >>> Now, when it comes to brains and bodies
and men and women, the interesting thing is that when a man and woman fight, these systems
in their body, the heart palpitating, the stomach clenching, while these systems do
turn on at the same speed. >>> And it takes, like, two seconds.
>>> -- according to Robert Sapolsky, -- >>> Where there's an interesting gender difference
is how long it takes to turn off the system. >>> And, ladies, sorry in advance.
>>> And, in general, it turns off more slowly in women than in men.
[ Laughter ] >>> Which may explain something that happens
to couples all the time. >>> Okay. I -- I'm really sorry.
>>> This just isn't right. >>> I know. I'm really sorry.
>>> Here we are. >>> Maybe, like -- maybe later we'll go do
something or -- I'm really sorry. >>> Okay. Robert's stomach is relaxing.
>>> This is really stupid, I know. >>> His heart is slowing.
>>> Very stupid. >>> He thinks the fight might be over.
>>> Okay. It's -- You know, this is something you do
all the time. [ Laughter ]
>>> Remember when we were having a dinner right after we got engaged, and we went to
the restaurant, and I was waiting for you, and I made the reservation, and I was sitting
-- >>> That was in the Carter administration.
>>> -- I was sitting there for, like, 45 minutes. You didn't even call. You didn't anything.
>>> I just apologized. >>> Did you hear what just happened there?
>>> It's the (indiscernible) James stuff coming back to haunt us a century later.
>>> Sapolsky says that sometimes the body actually tricks the brain. Tamar knows the
fight is over mentally, but her body is still tense, her heart is still racing, and her
brain thinks, whoa, wait -- >>> If my heart is still racing and I consciously
know that this issue has been resolved, it must be because I'm still pissed off about
that thing that happened in the Carter administration. >>> You minimize everything everybody does
for you. >>> The brain fills a vacuum.
>>> You have a list now or something? >>> I do. I have a long list. Do you know
how often you do this sort of thing? >>> I -- I do it, like, once --
>>> No! I can count them. As soon as the babysitter calls when I'm going to be out of town, and
says, "Should I make dinner for Robert?" Because, of course, you can't make dinner for yourself
and the kids, no. >>> I do make dinner.
>>> You don't do much of anything. >>> I made baked potatoes last week, Wednesday.
I made the baked potatoes. >>> That's just applying heat.
[ Laughter ] >>Robert Krulwich: Now, when you hear a story
like this, you realize, oh, my God this has been happening to me since forever. I just
didn't know it was science, you see. [ Laughter ]
And that's what we do. We like to start with what you know, work backwards, and add layers
of abstraction as we go. The surprise is this kind of stuff finds an audience. And it's
a big audience. It allows me to say in a kind of prideful way, check it out, Peter Jennings,
may he rest in peace, because to be fair, he was a wonderful, brilliant anchor. But
there is more room now to explore new ways to talk about complex subjects, to do it at
greater lengths, to go deeper, to get more subtle, because people are ready. The times
-- something's changed. You know, something's happened. iPods happened, portability happened,
wearable computers happened. Now when people take long car trips or go to the StairMaster
or go for runs or spend hours cooking or lying in a hammock, they take us with them, and
it turns out they're happy to fill these little down times, their in-between times listening
to a slightly confused reporter getting yelled at by his wife. And life, I must tell you,
is full of very happy surprises. And one of them is this business of telling
stories is entering a whole new -- and I kind of think a glorious -- phase. So thanks very
much. [ Applause ]