radiolab: awesome as usual / by april befort

http://www.radiolab.org/2012/may/21/

Admittedly, this is our favorite gather-around-the-bullet-speaker-on-the-front-porch-and-have-a-couple-beers-podcast. We listened the one about the ants a few times. Nerds, I know. Give this one a listen. Oh and make sure you listen to the one about Beethoven at 160 BPM. Awesome. 

Our world is saturated in color, from soft hues to violent stains. How does something so intangible pack such a visceral punch? This hour, in the name of science and poetry, Jad and Robert tear the rainbow to pieces

To what extent is color a physical thing in the physical world, and to what extent is it created in our minds? We start with Sir Isaac Newton, who was so eager to solve this very mystery, he stuck a knife in his eye to pinpoint the answer. Then, we meet a sea creature that sees a rainbow way beyond anything humans can experience, and we track down a woman who we're pretty sure can see thousands (maybe even millions) more colors than the rest of us. And we end with an age-old question, that, it turns out, never even occurred to most humans until very recently: why is the sky blue?