On my way to India I was stranded for over 12 hours on the runway due to bad weather. So what was to be a 4 hour flight turned out to be a 12 hour nightmare with a detour to another airport and 200 passengers just waiting to get home. While I can talk about the pains of being couped up in an aircraft with no food and small doses of water, I found reprieve and inspiration in WNYC’s Radio Lab podcasts that I had downloaded as a last minute effort to keep me company on the long haul. While podcasts have been gaining popularity around the world, I am a late adopter of this media. In fact I am a new podcast fan ever since I discovered the Radio Lab series. What Radio Lab does well is content and delivery, two key ingredients often lacking in podcasts. The content is intriguing and thought-provoking and the voices behind these series have a great style that keep you engaged for the 30 minute shorts. Each series is further broken up into 5-7 minute features that cover one aspect of the overall theme. My all-time favorite is the “Musical Language” series that breaks down music as a language spoken around the world. My favorite line “Music is touch at a distance” is what threads each feature into this podcast.

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