Best Cracking Rocking Radio Podcasts (2025)

1
Listen Now: Death County, PA 5:32

10d ago5:32

5:32

Lamont Jones leaves Dauphin County Prison for the last time, a free man ready to move on with his life. But when his young cousin dies in that same jail, he learns that this is not the only mysterious death that has plagued Dauphin County Prison. The search for the truth will put him at odds with a reality TV show coroner who claims to speak for th…

1
Introducing: Law & Crime’s LUIGI 5:39

24d ago5:39

5:39

When Luigi Mangione allegedly gunned down UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, the media called it a senseless crime. But online, a different story emerged—one of rage, reckoning, and a suspected killer turned folk hero. More than just a true crime podcast, LUIGI, hosted by Jesse Weber, dares to look beyond the crime and the accused to explore a cultural tippin…

1
The Mystery of Stuxnet | Cracking the Code | S57-E1 41:01

3+ y ago41:01

41:01

In the summer of 2010, a mysterious computer virus called Stuxnet lands on the desk of Symantec cybersecurity analyst Liam O’Murchu. Stuxnet is unlike anything O’Murchu has ever seen: a highly sophisticated piece of malware that serves no obvious purpose. O’Murchu and his colleagues are determined to figure out how it works and who’s behind it -- b…

1
Man with No Memory | The Accident | S55-E1 41:28

3+ y ago41:28

41:28

Even as recently as the early 1950s, we didn’t understand that there were different types of memory, or how the brain processed and stored memories. Then, in 1953, a radical surgery by a reckless doctor gave us tremendous insights into how human memory works. Those scientific gains came at a terrible cost, however. The surgery left the patient, Hen…

1
Predator Drone | From Albatross to Amber | S54-E1 46:34

3+ y ago46:34

46:34

What if you could design a spy plane that could be flown remotely and hover in the sky for hours, providing reconnaissance for troops on the ground? In the early 1980s, the visionary inventor Abe Karem begins building drones out of his L.A. garage. Soon, the Pentagon and the CIA take notice. Though he faces many challenges, Karem is on the forefron…

1
Pushing Painkillers | An Untapped Market | S53-E1 42:33

3+ y ago42:33

42:33

1
Social Media | Find Your Friends | S51-E1 44:48

3+ y ago44:48

44:48

Today social media is such a dominant part of our daily lives, it's hard to believe that only 20 years ago, it didn’t exist. Then a newly single tech entrepreneur named Jonathan Abrams wondered: What if you could use the internet to expand your network of real-life friends? His simple idea became Friendster, the first social media site, which would…

1
Fracking | The Source Rock | S50-E1 46:06

4y ago46:06

46:06

In the late 1970s, oil and natural gas fields across the U.S. were drying up, making the country increasingly dependent on foreign oil. Then, a Texas energy magnate named George Mitchell decided to try extracting natural gas from shale, a layer of rock almost two miles beneath the surface, using a technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.…

1
Cryonics | Immortality On Ice | S48-E1 38:42

4y ago38:42

38:42

Not everyone chooses burial or cremation after death. Some believe in cryonics, freezing their bodies in the hopes of being reanimated sometime in the future. Bob Nelson, a TV repairman with no scientific background, made history when he froze the first human being. But as Nelson would discover, freezing someone is easy; keeping them frozen is a lo…

1
Storm Chasers | Tornado Alley | S47-E1 39:36

4y ago39:36

39:36

No extreme weather phenomenon fascinates us more than tornadoes. For most of human history, very little was known about how these graceful yet violent columns of swirling air formed or behaved. Then, in the 1950s, a teenager from North Dakota began chasing them, and a scientist from Japan began studying them. Together, they started a movement. You …

1
Hacking | What’s in the Blue Box? | S46-E1 40:38

4y ago40:38

40:38

Hackers: the criminals who prey on our digital lives. Today they steal credit cards and personal information, or even commit acts of cyber-terrorism. But in the early days, hackers were largely seen as harmless pranksters. And it wasn’t computers they were initially interested in, but phones -- which they hacked with a mysterious device called the …

1
Breaking The Sound Barrier | A Bullet With Wings | S45-E1 42:38

4y ago42:38

42:38

In the 1940s, as planes got faster, it seemed like they were hitting a wall -- literally. Many pilots tried to travel faster than the speed of sound, often with fatal results. Could American test pilot Chuck Yeager succeed where they had failed? Or would his daredevil attitude get him grounded before he gets a chance? You can binge all episodes of …

1
Lie Detector | The Heart of a Liar | S43-E1 40:16

4y ago40:16

40:16

Humans are shockingly bad at telling whether or not someone is lying. That’s why, a century ago, psychologists and criminologists developed machines to detect lies for us, by measuring blood pressure, pulse, and breathing rate. Their lie detectors promised to revolutionize the criminal justice system. But is it really possible for science to separa…

1
Mission To Mars | Seeing Red | S42-E1 35:04

4+ y ago35:04

35:04

Even after the Apollo program put astronauts on the moon, Mars remained out of reach. Then, in 1990, an ambitious engineer hatched an ingenious plan to send the first humans to the red planet. But will anyone at NASA buy into his idea? You can binge all episodes of American Innovations exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Find Wondery+ in the Wonde…

1
Year In Review | When Will I Get the Vaccine? | S40-E1 30:17

4+ y ago30:17

30:17

2020 has been a year of struggle, uncertainty and loss. It has also forced us to adapt and innovate in nearly every aspect of our lives. But no innovation this year has been more important and more astounding than the Covid-19 vaccine. On this year-end episode, Steven talks to Bruce Gellin, president of Global Immunization at the Sabin Vaccine Inst…

1
Telephone | Call Waiting | S39-E1 41:09

4+ y ago41:09

41:09

In the 19th Century, the telegraph is the cutting edge of communication. No one can imagine anything better—except Alexander Graham Bell. You can binge all episodes of American Innovations exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Find Wondery+ in the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privac…

1
Auto-Tune: From Cher to Kanye | S38-E1 41:09

4+ y ago41:09

41:09

All Andy Hildebrand wanted to do was make a computer program to help singers sound better. He never expected it to kick off a battle for the soul of modern music. You can binge all episodes of American Innovations exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Find Wondery+ in the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/priv…

1
The Fight Against AIDS | The Epidemic Begins | S37-E1 42:23

4+ y ago42:23

42:23

In the early 1980s, a mysterious new disease spread like wildfire through the gay communities of major U.S. cities. Before it even had a name, AIDS had already killed over half its victims. Public response was hampered by ignorance, fear, and homophobia. This is the story of the doctors, scientists and activists who risked everything to lead the fi…

1
Keeping Cool | A Chilly Reception | S35-E1 38:53

4+ y ago38:53

38:53

Muggy. Sticky. Miserable. For eons, that’s just what summer was. In fact, when air conditioning first became available, few people took advantage of it. Wasn’t summer supposed to be uncomfortable? This is the story of how people finally warmed up to the idea of keeping cool. You can binge all episodes of American Innovations exclusively and ad-free…

1
Video Games | Electric Dreams | S34-E1 38:56

5y ago38:56

38:56

Call of Duty, Fortnite, Animal Crossing.... The video game industry generates billions of dollars each year. But not so long ago, video games were mostly played by the programmers who made them. On our new season, we’re telling the story of how video games broke out of university computer labs and found their way straight to the heart of popular cu…

1
Radar | Welcome to Tuxedo Park | S33-E1 34:05

5y ago34:05

34:05

What technology won WWII? Most people would say the atomic bomb, but the real answer is radar. As a small island country, vulnerable to aerial attacks, England took the lead in developing radar in the 1930s. But the early radar systems were too massive to fit into planes, where they would be of most use in the fight against the Germans. At the hear…

1
Ferris Wheel | Wheel in the Sky | S31-E1 41:46

5y ago41:46

41:46

The 1889 World’s Fair in Paris dazzles attendees with the Eiffel Tower. So, when plans begin for the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, the mandate is clear: beat the Tower. America’s architects and engineers compete to win the job – but every proposal they submit is more outlandish and dangerous than the last. And the most dangerous of all? Well, that …

1
Enemy of All Mankind | A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt | S30-E1 36:19

5y ago36:19

36:19

On September 11th, 1695, two ships confronted each other in the middle of the Indian Ocean: one an enormous treasure ship owned by the Grand Mughal of India, and the other a much smaller British pirate ship led by Henry Every. What happened next changed the world. Every and his crew took off with $100 million in loot and sparked the world’s first g…

1
Chewing Gum: Snapping and Stretching | S29-E1 33:17

5y ago33:17

33:17

It’s the mid-1800s and in Maine, John Bacon Curtis is back from clearing the spruce forests with a crazy idea. He’s going to sell ready-to-chew gum. But his bold plan is only the start of what will become a decades-long search for the ideal chew. It’s a search that will see the nascent gum business butt heads with newspaper tycoons, strike an allia…

1
Dynamite: The Controlled Explosion | S28-E1 34:14

5y ago34:14

34:14

In 1846, an Italian chemist discovered the volatile compound nitroglycerine, the first major breakthrough in creating man-made explosions since the invention of gunpowder a thousand years earlier. But almost everyone who experiments with the compound thinks it’s too dangerous for any commercial application–everyone except for one brooding, obsessed…

1
Fighting Coronavirus: Bruce Gellin On How COVID-19 Could Change Vaccine Development | S27-E1 25:37

5y ago25:37

25:37

As the first in a series on fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, Steven Johnson speaks with Dr. Bruce Gellin, president of Global Immunization at the Sabin Vaccine Institute in Washington D.C.. Dr. Gellin is also a former director of the National Vaccine Program at the Department of Health and Human Services, and led the creation of HHS’s first pandemic…

1
Organ Transplant: The Kidney Twins | S26-E1 42:50

5y ago42:50

42:50

A century ago, organ transplants were the stuff of science fiction. But a handful of experimental surgeons believed that transplants were not just possible – they had the potential to save thousands of lives. Then, in 1954, a man agreed to donate his kidney to his twin brother – and one surgeon finally got his chance to prove the doubters wrong. Yo…

1
Valium: Miltown Magic | S25-E1 39:31

5y ago39:31

39:31

Anxiety. It’s something everyone experiences at some point in their lives, but for centuries doctors had no effective way to treat it. They could send patients on rest cures, order them to do nothing at all, or prescribe barbiturates that depressed the central nervous system, easily leading to overdose and death. Finally, in the mid-1950s, chemists…

1
Electronic Television: The Picture Radio | S24-E1 38:57

5+ y ago38:57

38:57

The invention of the electronic television was uniquely complicated for its time. So complicated, in fact, that the prevailing narrative is that it couldn’t have been invented by a single person -- let alone Philo Farnsworth. After all, some of the most brilliant minds in the world spent the first quarter of the 20th century working on television s…

1
Kodak Roll Film: As Convenient as a Pencil | S23-E1 35:48

5+ y ago35:48

35:48

Today, if we want to take a photo, we unlock our phone, aim, and click. It can be done on a whim, without a second thought. We document everything from new haircuts to latte art, cute cats to baby’s first smile. But prior to the 1900s, photography was the exclusive domain of professionals and dedicated hobbyists -- people willing to learn complex s…

1
The Modern Ambulance | S22-E1 43:17

5+ y ago43:17

43:17

Today, if you or someone you know experiences a medical emergency, you dial 9-1-1 and a squad of trained medical professionals arrives at your door. But just 55 years ago, that was not the case. Emergency calls were generally dispatched to funeral homes simply because their vehicles were suited to transporting bodies. You’d be lucky if the person t…

1
Electric Chair | War of the Currents | S21-E1 44:52

5+ y ago44:52

44:52

On August 6, 1890, a prisoner named William Kemmler became the first man executed in the electric chair. It was designed to be a more humane form of execution, but the gruesome scene in the death chamber that day revealed the device to be anything but. Still, the chair stuck around. And Kemmler’s execution proved to be a pivotal moment in the histo…

1
Skylab: NASA’s Best-Kept Secret| Apollo’s Leftovers | S20-E1 39:02

5+ y ago39:02

39:02

Fifty years ago, America’s space program achieved its greatest triumph, when Apollo Eleven put the first men on the moon. The Apollo program was a remarkable success story. But as NASA was sending men to the moon, they were engaged in another, less celebrated project — one even more important than the moon landings to humanity’s potential future in…

1
Corn Flakes | The Brothers of Battle Creek | S19-E1 40:36

5+ y ago40:36

40:36

For the first 150 years of American history, American citizens were plagued by gastrointestinal issues. Diarrhea, gastritis and dysentery were pretty much a way of life. Indigestion was such an immense problem, the poet Walt Whitman called it “the Great American Evil.” All these stomach issues were thanks, in part, to breakfast—which looked very di…

1
The Heimlich Maneuver | S18-E1 43:45

5+ y ago43:45

43:45

In the 1960s, choking was a national epidemic. In the United States alone, close to 4,000 people were dying from choking every year. Lobster, ham, and hamburger were common culprits. But steak was by far the greatest offender. Coroners called for a solution to these “Cafe Coronaries,”� and the medical community responded with weird and dangerous ga…

1
Innovation Fails: DeLorean | Driven to Succeed | S17-E1 40:24

6y ago40:24

40:24

Normally on American Innovations, we look at the history of the science and technology that transformed the world we live in. These stories teach us about the vision, grit, competition, and teamwork required to conquer new frontiers and forge new pathways to the future. But equally valuable, perhaps, are the stories of those visionary innovators wh…

1
The Birth Control Pill | But Can It Be Done? | S16-E1 40:56

6y ago40:56

40:56

When Margaret Sanger opened her birth control clinic in 1916, she knew she was breaking the law. Distributing contraceptives, or even literature about birth control, was a jailable offense. But she didn’t care. As a nurse, Sanger had sworn to devote herself to the welfare of those in her community. And in the early 1900s, that meant doing something…

1
Star Wars' Cinema Technology | 6842 Valjean Ave | S15-E1 43:15

6y ago43:15

43:15

When STAR WARS debuted in May 1977, it gave rise to a pop-cultural phenomenon unlike any the world had ever seen. The movie was so singular and iconic, and so technically ambitious -- that it almost never came to be. To bring Star Wars to the screen, new technology had to be invented and existing technology had to be utilized in ways never before i…

1
Airplane | The Flight of the June Bug | S14-E1 44:15

6y ago44:15

44:15

Think for a moment about some of the pioneering developments from the earliest days of American aviation: The first pilot’s licence; the first flight from one city to another; the first airplane sold commercially. More than a century later, most people attribute these milestones to the Wright brothers. But the Wright brothers were responsible for n…

1
XX Factor | The Woman Who Put Man on the Moon | S13-E1 40:33

6y ago40:33

40:33

Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are preparing to land on the Moon. The whole world is watching live on television. But something is very wrong, their warning alarms are flashing and they don't know what it is. There’s only one woman who can fix it: MIT software engineer Margaret Hamilton. This is the first episode of a special series with…

1
Coca-Cola: The Cocaine Clinician | S12-E1 42:30

6y ago42:30

42:30

In the wake of the Civil War, Atlanta emerged as both the cultural capital of the New South, and the epicenter of its snake oil trade. A shell-shocked populace, haunted by poverty, hunger and disease sought salvation in the dubious cure-all tonics of the pharmacy trade. What they got instead would go on to become the most famous beverage in the wor…

1
Rubber: The Miracle Material | Bouncing Ideas | S11-E1 36:55

6+ y ago36:55

36:55

You can binge all episodes of American Innovations exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Find Wondery+ in the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts In a world where materials were limited to wood, leather, metal, and cloth, rubber was something new: a substance that was strong, soft, flexible, and waterproof—but completely undependable. Then along came a…

1
Virtual Reality I The Sword of Damocles | S7-E1 41:46

6+ y ago41:46

41:46

You can binge all episodes of American Innovations exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Find Wondery+ in the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts In the 1960s a group of scientists and engineers had a vision: that one day people could put on a pair of goggles and enter a whole new world. You can binge all episodes of American Innovations exclusively an…

1
Conquering Pain | The Frolic | S5-E1 33:20

6+ y ago33:20

33:20

For decades, Americans resigned themselves to gritting their teeth through the agony of surgery. And then along came an eminent surgeon, a charming swindler and his hapless mark and changed everything. You can binge all episodes of American Innovations exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Find Wondery+ in the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts. See P…

1
Preventing Paralysis | Marching Towards a Cure | S4-E1 34:41

6+ y ago34:41

34:41

You can binge all episodes of American Innovations exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Find Wondery+ in the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts By the middle of the last century Americans lived in fear of one disease: polio. The story of the polio vaccine is not just a scientific story- it’s a political and financial one, too. One that would pave the…

1
Thinking Machines | Artificial Intelligence | S3-E1 39:49

6+ y ago39:49

39:49

Artificial Intelligence is no longer the stuff of science fiction. And it’s about to get much more powerful: machines that can reason, create, predict the future, even dream. AI is likely to be one of the most transformative technologies of the 21st-century. This is the first in our four-episode series about the rise of artificial intelligence and …

1
Nuclear Energy | E = MC Squared | S2-E1 46:51

7y ago46:51

46:51

You can binge all episodes of American Innovations exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Find Wondery+ in the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts In 1958, President Dwight Eisenhower went on national television introducing a new kind of power plant, one that will transform the world. Nuclear energy and the Atomic Age took America by storm, but this mis…

1
Life's Building Blocks | Lost Pioneers | S1-E1 42:31

7y ago42:31

42:31

In 2000, President Bill Clinton held a press conference to share a milestone for humanity. He said, “we will all see the unbelievable capacity to be noble.” Science and technology embrace this idea, leading to the incredible innovations that change the world, and yes, even humanity. This is American Innovations, a series that will look at the most …

1
Introducing: American Innovations 2:08

7y ago2:08

2:08

DNA science. Artificial intelligence. Smartphones and 3D printers. Science and technology have transformed the world we live in. But how did we get here? It wasn’t by accident. Well, sometimes it was. It was also the result of hard work, teamwork, and competition. And incredibly surprising moments. Hosted by bestselling author Steven Johnson (“How …