Shipworms. Hairy Chested Yeti Crabs. Parasitic Barnacles in the cloaca of Greenland Sharks. These are the types of creatures Sabrina Imbler, a columnist at Defector, likes to write about. The stranger, the better.

In this episode, Imbler discusses how they balance maintaining scientific rigor while also drawing inspiration and metaphor from the animal world. Then they read a stirring essay from their new book, How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures . It’s about the sand striker, one of the ocean’s most gruesome predators, and the various prey that surround it. In learning about the relationships between predator and prey lurking in the murky bottom, Imbler ends up unearthing new insights about predation in human society. The essay deals with sexual assault so listen with care.

EPISODE CREDITS

Reported by - Lulu Miller

Produced by - Sindhu Gnanasambandan

Original music and sound design contributed by - Alex Overington

with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom and Arianne Wack

Fact-checking by - Natalie Middleton

and Edited by - Alex Neason and Pat Walters

EPISODE CITATIONS

Articles:“Creaturefector” (https://zpr.io/3myWi4grgkGB) by Sabrina Imbler

Books: How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures (https://zpr.io/agkRj7xyPG9T) by Sabrina Imbler Dyke (geology) (https://zpr.io/7kAtAKjdBqPa) by Sabrina Imbler

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Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

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