Sing for Science

Alt-R&B artist rum.gold joins host Matt Whyte with Dr. Nim Tottenham, Chair of Psychology at Columbia University, for a live taping centered on his song and video “Is It Something I Said.” What begins as a conversation about a music video portraying a mother and son living with anxiety, grief, and hoarding becomes a striking window into Dr. Tottenham’s research on how early caregiving and stress shape the developing brain — and how those early emotional environments can echo into adulthood as anxiety, attachment struggles, and dysregulation. Taped live at Ludlow House in NYC on January 27, 2026 as part of the On Air presents series.

Taped live at Japan House LA on January 10, 2026. Matt chats with Lucius front women Jess Wolfe and Holly Lessig—and Dr. Ladan Shams, UCLA professor of psychology, bioengineering, and neuroscience, to explore the science behind the band’s song “Ice Cream.” Starting from the lyric “time melts away like ice cream in the sun,” the conversation moves between metaphor, memory, and the fleeting nature of love, and into the brain’s remarkable ability to blend sound, sight, taste, and touch into a single experience. From rubber hands to ventriloquists, pop art to perceptual pleasure, the episode reveals how our senses collaborate, compete, and sometimes fool us—while Lucius reflects on their own multisensory artistry, coordinated visuals, and the emotional power of metaphor in their music.

A century-old vanishing act meets modern investigation in a conversation where art and archaeology follow the same pursuit. J. Willgoose, Esq.—founder of the British band Public Service Broadcasting—and archaeologist Dr. Rick Pettigrew, Executive Director of the Archaeological Legacy Institute, go for a deep dive into one of the most enduring mysteries of the 20th century: Amelia Earhart’s final flight. Willgoose unpacks the research and craft behind The Last Flight, PSB’s album built from primary sources, historical texts, and period-accurate voice performances engineered to sound convincingly 1930s. Pettigrew brings the scientific side of the story, explaining why the Nikumaroro hypothesis has persisted for decades—and why a newly analyzed “Taraia object” in the island’s lagoon could represent the long-missing Lockheed Electra. Together they explore the tangled intersection of history, sound, celebrity, navigation, and evidence, from radio failures and line-of-position logic to artifacts found on the island and the ethics of doing archaeology with care and diplomacy.

The conversation also looks ahead to Pettigrew’s planned 2026 expedition—what it will take to test the hypothesis on the ground (and underwater), and what it would mean to finally move from theory to proof.

Queen of Percussion and Prince collaborator Sheila E talks about her 1984 hit, working with Prince, salsa music and learning from her legendary father with University of Mexico Neuroscientist, Dr. Hugo Merchant. Hugo shares fascinating findings about how the mechanisms in the brain process rhythm and help us keep a beat.

Where does necrophilia come from? What makes people desecrate corpses? And do you have to be a serial killer to have a death fetish?

Today’s guests are Dr. Victoria Hartmann, a clinical psychology researcher and executive director of the Erotic Heritage Museum in Las Vegas, and neuroscientist and science communicator Dr. Jens Foell.