Voice

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Okay.

All right.

Okay.

All right.

You are listening

to Radiolab.

Lab.

Radio Lab.

From

WNYC.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

This is Radiolab.

I'm Lula Miller.

I'm here with valiant producers Matt Kilty and Annie McEwen.

Hello.

Hello.

Hi.

All right.

Okay.

Why are we here?

What are we doing?

Okay, so today what we're doing is

this.

This thing right here.

That's right.

This.

Here.

What?

Well,

this thing right under our noses, where our mouths are, that emits this

signal that is layered like lasagna, that is carrying information, that is making us judge people's wealth and income and education level, but it's also conveying all this emotional information, hostility, love,

lust, anger, jealousy, all these physical operations, this respiratory, articulatory feat of symphonic timed movements that we use to make the air vibrate in interesting ways.

It's the voice, Lulu.

That's what we're doing.

The

voice.

La voi.

That's right.

That is a thing we use a fair amount here in the audio arts.

Sure.

And so I'm just going to stick with the layer of lasagna analogy, but today we are bringing you three different layers of this thing, this important thing, the voice.

One, where it comes from.

Two, the power it holds over you.

And three, the power it can give you

so where it comes from

i should put these on this is actually a story that came to us from the sky oh that's turned down let's see let me turn the headphones up john wait wait wait you need to introduce yourself oh yeah my name is john colapinto i was a longtime contributing editor at rolling stone longtime staff writer at the new yorker and a few years back john wrote this book about the voice i did it's called this is the voice great book What a title, too.

Isn't that grabby?

Which kind of set us off in this whole episode because in it is this really gripping chapter about the very, very beginning.

The very, very beginning of voice.

Which emerges first with a particular species of fish.

And you say, fish, you got to be kidding, but no, I'm not.

You got to be kidding.

You got to kidding.

You got to kill me.

You're not kidding.

Get out of here.

John.

Stop pulling your leg, John.

About 400 million years ago.

Before there were humans, before there were mammals, before there were dinosaurs.

it was the age of fishes.

The age of fishes.

Who named that?

Darwin's four-year-old?

There were a lot of fish.

A lot of different species, and the particular one was living in sort of swampy areas.

These areas where there wasn't a lot of water.

It was pretty shallow.

And they found themselves, these poor fish,

in periods of drought.

Suddenly.

Completely landlocked.

Doomed.

They only can breathe underwater.

They don't have a means for extracting oxygen from the air.

And so these fish, they would flop, they would gasp, they would die.

I'm just picturing to see a fish, like

yes, it's horrible to witness them suffocate to death, which is literally what's happening to them.

But, and as Darwin pointed out, you know, all species evolve from random genetic mutations.

I mean, it's so hard to wrap your mind around the randomness of it all, but that's the way it was.

So you've got a fish who one day has a random mutation that creates this little pouch in its throat.

So what happens is the next time there's a drought, this fish can open its mouth

and that air goes down its throat into this hole, into this pouch.

That would literally permit oxygen to pass through it into the bloodstream of the fish and keep it alive.

Wow.

Yeah.

It's what we've come to think of as the first lung.

Why didn't you give a little...

The universe is first lung.

Well, because it seems like you have a fish that mostly prefers to be in the water, right?

100%.

But now it has this hole in its throat that leads to this sack.

Yep.

It's like whole, whole, good, bad, bad hole.

You got it.

You have got it.

Because

when this poor creature goes back into the water, it's now in danger of drowning.

Right, because like if the pouch fills with water, you're dead.

Exactly.

So that hole, it's really like a slit, a valve, that it can open and close.

Like a little tiny mouth.

Yeah, like a little mouth, and it opens to pull the oxygen in.

And then closes to keep the water out.

Exactly.

Okay.

Now that's critically important.

And again, the thing that just made me go, oh, I got to write this book, was that slit, that valve, that became our vocal cords.

And our vocal cords remain a valve.

I mean, I never knew this because we call them vocal cords.

We think of them as being like strings like on a violin or piano strings that are struck and vibrate to create sound.

That's not how we make our voices.

That's not how we produce sound with our voices.

John explained that literally all that a voice is when I go

is you are closing that valve and you are pushing the air from your lungs up through this closed valve.

The valve starts to vibrate and you get

a voice.

Huh, so wait, okay, if we're pushing air through a valve to talk and this fish hundreds of millions of years ago had a maybe similar valve, does that mean it had a voice?

Well, that's the thing, Lulu.

It did.

Yeah.

Even though that exact fish has long since been extinct, we can give you an approximation of what it sounded like.

Which is the following.

Oh.

Shockingly underwhelming.

Yeah.

It's hard to do.

It's a like a horse.

I'm not doing it.

Well, yes, like a horse.

There, Annie's doing it so well there.

Thank you.

Oh, what about me?

No, Matt.

So that I'm sure you did it well, too.

I I was listening to Annie.

So

it would make various sounds that sound like air being driven through a tight aperture, which also happens in another part of the human body.

I was going to say, it sounds like we're talking farts here, John.

I'm talking about a fart sound.

That's exactly what I'm talking about because that's exactly what our anus is.

It's also a sphincter because that valve that I mentioned that opened, it's actually a sphincter muscle.

So the first sounds heard on Earth were very fart-like.

I mean,

you have bottom line.

It's great.

No pun intended.

Can't escape it with you too.

That's right.

All farts all the time.

Yeah.

Anyway, Lulu is not going to be farts forever.

Unfortunately, because

that fish, it crawled out of the water.

Evolution kept going.

Taken along.

And over time, this fish, its fins

evolved in little feet, little limbs.

And suddenly you've got a mobile creature with four legs living on land scurrying around.

And because it's now on land, breathing air, its lung starts to evolve and that one lung becomes two, two paired lungs, so more air.

And then the lungs are surrounded by this new thing called a rib cage, which can expand and contract the lungs.

They can suddenly squeeze the air out of their lungs through that valve.

And so by the time you get to reptiles like

lizards or crocodiles and

alligators, they are able to make not just farts, but also squeaks and squawks and hisses and rumbles.

The voice is becoming more controlled.

Refined.

But

John points out most of these animals are actually quite quiet.

Incredibly quiet.

Like reptiles just don't make that much noise.

Oh, and it's believed that dinosaurs, which are huge overgrown reptiles, were also pretty silent.

So those Spielberg movies where you've got Tyrannosaurus Rex doing those amazing roars.

It's believed now that they were actually kind of wusses.

I mean, they were really...

Just imagine the movie is just like T-Rex being like, ooh, and then devouring people.

But John says that's a thing.

Like, if you're only using your rib cage to make sounds.

There's only so much air that you're like pushing out.

Exactly.

So what you have back then is just this relative silence.

It's a quiet world.

But that all changes.

When

a huge asteroid hits the earth, almost everything dies.

But crawling up from underground were the earliest mammals.

They were tiny.

They were like little mice.

Some of which had spent most of their lives climbing up trees, running from dinosaurs, burning up oxygen at an incredible rate.

And so they had evolved this really powerful muscle called the diaphragm

that sits below the lungs that allowed them to take in air and push it out.

Rapidly and powerfully.

This would kind of change everything.

Because even though you had these tiny little itty-bitty mammals that had their tiny squeaks, over time, as they evolved into bigger mammals with bigger lungs and bigger, more powerful diaphragms, you'd get bigger sounds, more air.

And John says, at the same time, that valve, that slit in the throat.

All of a sudden, it's being refined.

Little bits of cartilage appear on it, and so do these folds.

Which now enable through a complex like twisting and moving back and forth of those cartilages, you can stretch the vocal folds to create a higher pitched sound.

You can loosen and slacken it for lower sounds.

You can actually tense it for growling sounds.

You can sort of make the vocal cords stiff for this popping air through the vocal folds.

John says all of this means that the voice is becoming more and more of a tool.

For those things that drive evolution.

Like asserting dominance, fighting off rivals, showing affection, wooing mates.

The voice starts communicating basic emotions.

And the other thing is that mammals, the way that their young feed is on mammary glands, a breast.

That's new with mammals.

So the action of affixing lips to a nipple and then coaxing milk from that nipple with very specific rhythmic lip movements, but then also coordinating the tongue to sort of get out of the way, to let the milk come in, but then rippling the tongue in complex ways in order to make the milk pass down into our stomach is an amazing system of muscles in the mammalian face and throat and tongue.

And so if you're an animal with a big complex brain, John says you can start doing things like hitting the tongue against the back of the teeth for tuh and duh, popping the lips for p

or holding them closed for a mm.

Or you can start making ha he.

Vowel sounds.

It's literally the posture and shape of the tongue.

It's over 400 million years.

From diaphragm to lungs to that valve.

That open and closable slit with all its little folds.

To facial muscles and so on.

This whole system from your gut to the tip of your tongue that we would eventually recruit for the act that i'm now performing these symphonic time movements to speak

and that's what i love 400 million years of evolution to all these parts of your body that eventually allow you to escape your own body You can project yourself out in the world.

You can convey thoughts, ideas, feelings, emotions, and all of it is distinct to to you,

to your physical body.

Like your voice is you.

Yeah, your sonic fingerprint.

Yeah, like a sort of face.

A face shooting out of your mouth.

Little rosy cheeks flying in the wind.

Um,

from a fish

all the way.

Thank you so much.

The voice is just

everywhere.

Like, we hear it from the second we wake up.

If you live with anyone, and even if you don't, you know, everything's talking to us.

And we just get so acclimated and adjusted to kind of a constant onslaught of voices in our life that you can sort of forget that they're meaningful and why they're important.

Okay.

When we come back, this voice that you just heard is going to take us on a little journey to a very important voice that you probably have some feelings about.

In just a minute.

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Heyo, Lulu here.

As you have likely heard, this summer the federal government defunded public media in America.

Here at WNYC, that has resulted in a loss of $3 million each year that we cannot count on anymore.

But while we may have been defunded, we have not been defeated.

And that is where you, just maybe you, come in.

If you have never supported Radiolab before, consider tossing a few bucks each month our way.

The best way to do that is to join our membership program, The Lab.

Go online, click a few buttons, and then for $7 a month, boom, you are supporting our team.

And as a thank you this month, we will mail you a brand new, beautifully designed jumbo tote bag, one of those ones that can fit like all your beach stuff and and your big grocery hauls.

It will not fit, however,

our gratitude.

If the mission of public radio means something to you, if Radiolab means something to you, your support right now means more than ever.

Please go on over to members.radiolab.org and check out what it takes to become a member.

Check out the new design of the gorgeous tote bag, which has a sort of aquatic theme because of all the aquatic stories that we randomly did this year.

One more time, members.radiolab.org.

Check it out.

Thank you so much for listening and standing with us when we need you the most.

Radiolab, Lulu, Matt, Annie.

Okay, back from break.

Took a little break.

Took a break.

Now we're back.

And we're continuing on with

voice.

And number two, the power it holds over you.

Yes.

Which we'll start with this guy.

Daniel Abrams, clinical associate professor here at Stanford University.

Where he studies the brain.

Yep.

Okay.

But he kind of has like a weird career trajectory.

Yes.

Out of college I was what's called an acoustical engineer.

One of those people that like when you build a building.

Sit around and stare at drawings of buildings and you know the HVAC components of buildings.

You basically do some math to make sure that the air conditioning is like not like just too loud in parts of the building.

Yep.

And that wasn't enough for you.

No, no, it sounds super sexy work.

Something about it didn't click for him.

I realized I wasn't cut out to be an engineer.

But he did like spend a lot of time thinking about sound.

And not just kind of any old sound, but the sounds that are that are really important to us as human beings.

And in particular, how does the brain make sense of the sounds that our ears detect?

Sounds such as a voice.

And in particular, a very special voice.

Mom's voice.

Mother's voice.

Okay, that sounds icky.

Well, it's certainly a loaded term, right?

But Daniel's basically like, a mother's voice is one of the first voices that you hear in your life.

And studies have shown that children are actually able to recognize their mother's voice before they're even born.

So like in the womb, right around 18 weeks, ears poke out of the side of the head of a fetus.

And

researchers have done studies showing that when the fetus hears the voice of the person who's carrying it, its heart rate starts going way faster.

And it's kind of inferred that the fetus can recognize what we're calling mother's voice.

From other voices.

Huh.

And what is the beating heartbeat?

Sorry, go ahead.

I'm sorry.

I just,

why, why would a heartbeat faster?

You know, I mean, I guess anxiety.

Yeah, I mean, truly,

the truth is that no one really knows because it's a fetus.

But it was clear to Daniel that this mother's voice was powerful.

And so, what Daniel wanted to know is: okay, what is this powerful voice actually doing in, say, the brain of a kid?

So, at this point, daniel's at stanford and basically what he and his team do is they get these kids kids at a range of ages between seven and twelve and then they had the mothers of these children come in for a voice recording okay and daniel would hand them a piece of paper with some words on it oh my god wait what am i saying and tell them to read the words as if

their child comes up to them at a museum and says

mom what's that weird thingy over there and you would say should I say the whole, should I say that?

Yeah, I think just, yeah, the whole phrase.

Okay.

Jimmy, whatever your child's name is.

Oh, that's a kibaraischalt.

Kibaraschal.

Kibarai Schultz.

Kibuda Schultz.

Kibudai Schultz.

Kibarashalt.

Kibarashalt.

There are these nonsense words.

From k.

Kibudai Schultz.

To pie butt eyeschalt.

To tuh.

Tibudai Schultz.

There we go, good.

Because they didn't want it to be something like airplane.

Because we would be measuring more than the voice.

We would be measuring some association with an airplane, in this case, possibly a negative one, and maybe in other kids, they love airplanes.

And so they have these words that truly meant nothing.

And then they had these other moms come in.

Who did not have kids in the group?

But they were mothers.

They were mothers, though.

They had this sort of je ne céque v mom vibes.

Yeah, like mom vibes.

Yeah, exactly.

Mom vibes.

So they had them record the words as well.

And then Daniel and his team would bring in a kid, have them lie on their back inside of an fMRI machine, and they would play them

the voice of somebody who is not their mom, and then take a picture of their brain play them another voice

of not mom take a picture then

threw a couple of kitty cat meows in there to make sure that they were awake and attending to sounds and then they just keep going through this

not mom picture

not mom picture and then

mom wait is that my mom

Is that actually?

Here, I'll play it again.

That's my mom.

It is your mom.

That's totally my mom.

How did you get my mom?

Why did it feel to hear your mom?

Well, whatever.

Should we get to it?

Yeah, let's wait.

I can't believe you got my mom.

Sorry, I'm still, I'm still.

Okay, keep going.

Yeah, we're gonna get back to that.

But let's just get to what they found.

Yeah, tell us what you found.

What we found was that when a kid heard the voice of a stranger, their brain was essentially quiet.

Yeah, exactly.

Not a lot of activity.

But then the moment he buttish shot, the kid's mom spoke.

all these regions in the kid's brain that are associated with all kinds of rewards in our life would start firing like crazy.

So if you love chocolate, I could show you a picture of chocolate.

And these exact same regions in your brain would start going.

And when you hear music that you love,

the hammer of the gods thundering in your ears.

Yes.

This part of the brain becomes active.

Or

when you're doing drugs.

Wait.

That's right, Lulu, hardcore drugs.

Or when you're thinking about sex.

What?

Same parts of your brain are lighting up.

It's the sex, drugs, and rock and roll part of your brain.

And mom.

And mom is just playing it out.

And she's like, again, he's got a sniff.

He's just like at the concert, like on the table, like doing live.

Yeah, she's right there with you.

Wait, what?

I know.

That is so wild.

But, you know, it makes sense because voices are rewarding, you know?

Well, why?

Actually, I'm curious why that's a given.

Well, the way I think about it is that during development, you know, mother's voice is paired with

tender, loving care.

Sylvie's my

breath.

Right?

Nourishment, touch, love,

all forms of kind of parental

care.

Mother's voice is just Pavlov's bells.

It's just a ringing bell.

It's kind of a coarse way of thinking about it, but you know, there's probably far more to it than that, obviously.

But if you're looking for a scientific explanation as to how a voice becomes rewarding,

this seems like a fairly non-controversial kind of connection there.

Yeah, I can see that.

It's like this, you know, the picture of this little baby brain totally lost.

All these things whizzing around.

It can't tell like a butterfly from its own foot.

And then there's this disembodied voice that it can like grab onto to survive.

Yeah, it's almost like this little rope you can hang on to.

But wait, and I'll take you down a little side route.

We thought the study was so cool.

We were like, I mean, again, we were totally floored by it.

So after the study, Daniel and his collaborator put our heads together and decided, oh, well, let's do the same thing in adolescents.

Teenagers.

13 to 16.

Yeah.

Why did you think that?

Well, we just thought there was going to be something interesting there.

So they do the whole study again with these teens.

The exact same thing for each kid.

We brought their mom in and we recorded their voice, the mom's voice, and we played to them while they hear kitty cat meows and other stuff.

They look at the brains of these teens, and what do they see?

I don't know.

In the reward center, strangers' voices.

Exactly.

Everything flipped.

Unfamiliar voices became more rewarding than mom's voices.

Oh, no.

That's so sad.

I know.

Well, as a mother, I think it validates something I experienced in my life, you know?

So we did talk to our moms.

Are you taking notes?

Yeah, she's taking little tips.

What are you doing?

I'm pretty corporate.

My mom, Nancy Kilty.

Yeah, I know.

This is nice.

I can see Matt.

You don't need to see me.

And my mom, Beth McEwen.

So just going to ask them, what do you make of this?

Yeah, like, how does it make you feel?

Well, at the childhood part, I mean, I can relate just love.

It's heaven.

It's honey and butter.

It's awesome if everything's going right.

And then, you know, to reach a point where anytime you say something, you get this negative kind of reaction.

Right.

Everything becomes this big internal eye roll.

Oh, there's external eye rolls for sure.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

And it's hard, I think, as a parent.

I know.

It's a little painful.

But, you know, the way we think about it is that, you know, adolescence is this important time of life where you're starting to shift to your friends and peers.

And this is an important part of development for kind of charting a path and an independent life.

And this was something both our moms acknowledged.

It was hard when I saw you pulling away, but it was healthy, right?

You know, that's what a mother wants.

You don't want a clingy kid that's going to be right beside you forever.

You want a kid who will turn away from you and go, wow, look at that stuff.

The world is big and huge and wonderful.

Yeah, it's like your mom's voice is your whole world when you're a little kid.

And then you, it's like your job to turn away from that and start building the world that you will step into with all these other voices somehow.

Like you're, I don't know, the rejection of the mom's voice is a beginning of finding your own.

Right.

Like I remember being in eighth grade and the quote unquote other voices around me were like skater kids.

And that's what I was trying to become.

Yeah.

And you're trying to, like, it's funny.

When you were trying to be a skater kid, I was probably pretending to be a horse.

So I'm not sure what

that says.

Nothing good.

Nothing good, guys.

Nothing good.

But yeah, it's the same thing of like, bye, mom but it swings back around to the parent the mom eventually right like when when my kid's 40 no

like they're gonna just be so happy to hear from me that's what i've been told that they do circle back really yeah come on this is this is what i've been told

okay you just did that hasn't been confirmed by science it's just anecdotal yeah but daniel says when they did do that study with the teens oh yeah no no no the results showed that mom's voice is still in that pleasure center.

Yes, mom doesn't get completely kicked out of that part of the brain.

It's just now that she's a little bit quieter.

It's interesting because, like, when I heard my mom's voice, when you guys played it, I felt like preternaturally comforted.

But it's like, I don't, these days, I don't, you know, gab on the phone that much with her about stuff.

And, you know, but just hearing the voice and the rhythms and like the little, like the articulations, like tiba yasha in this way that is so her.

That's like

comforting in a way that's kind of like

re-encountering

like a primal lullaby,

Jimmy Gogala, Bochin Edemies Valami on

Bochini, Jimmy Go Gala, Bochin enemies fell me on

Boching Beach

Bochin Yosak Bochin Boy

Boching Enemy Bochin Jock Bochin John Tock Bochin Edamis Felamiang

Bachin Enemy Jimmy Gotti Boching enemies fell a meam

Bachin enemy Jimmy Gotti Bochin enemies Velemiam

Bochin me joking your soul body

boy of watching enemy watching Joking John Dog Bochin enemies Velemium

Bochin

Okay

when When we come back, what the voice gives back to you.

Back in a second.

Radio Lab is supported by hims and hers.

If you're someone who values choice in your money, your goals, and your future, then you know how frustrating traditional healthcare can be.

One size fits all treatments, preset dosages, zero flexibility.

It's like trying to budget with a fixed expense you didn't even choose.

But now there's another way with him's and hers.

Hims and hers is reimagining healthcare with you in mind.

They offer access to personalized care for weight loss, hair loss, sexual health, and mental health because your goals, your biology, and your lifestyle are anything but average.

There are no membership fees, no surprise fees, just transparent pricing and real care that you can access from from anywhere.

Feel like your best self with quality, convenient care through HIMS and HERS.

Search a free online visit today at HIMS.com slash Radiolab.

That's HIMS.com/slash Radiolab to find your personalized treatment options.

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See website for full details, important safety information, and restrictions.

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Heyo, Lulu here.

As you have likely heard, this summer the federal government defunded public media in America.

Here at WNYC, that has resulted in a loss of $3 million each year that we cannot count on anymore.

But while we may have been defunded, we have not been defeated.

And that is where you, just maybe you, come in.

If you have never supported Radiolab before, consider tossing a few bucks each month our way.

The best way to do that is to join our membership program, The Lab.

Go online, click a few buttons, and then for $7 a month, boom, you are supporting our team.

And as a thank you this month, we will mail you a brand new, beautifully designed jumbo tote bag, one of those ones that can fit like all your beach stuff and your big grocery hauls.

It will not fit, however, our gratitude.

If the mission of public radio means something to you, if Radiolab means something to you,

your support right now means more than ever.

Please go on over to members.radiolab.org and check out what it takes to become a member.

Check out the new design of the gorgeous tote bag, which has a sort of aquatic theme because of all the aquatic stories that we randomly did this year.

One more time, members.radiolab.org.

Check it out.

Thank you so much for listening and standing with us when we need you the most.

All right, so I'm Lulu Miller back with Arming of Protein Bar.

Producers Matt Kilty and

Annie McEwen.

Two different people, two different worlds.

Back with our episode on voice.

Okay.

So

final story about what the voice gives you.

Maybe also kind of like what the voice takes.

And Lulu, we're going to start with you.

Yeah.

I mean, I guess so this begins with

one of my favorite voices out there.

The Godfather.

Funny woman, punk.

The MacArthur Award-winning activist and writer.

Welcome, Alice.

Alice Wong.

How are you doing, Alice?

I'm a live tomorrow.

How about you?

And years ago, we sort of became

friends.

Hi.

Started a book club of two.

I know.

Oh, my God.

Collaborate on work together.

Why don't I go through a voice and then give you anticipates?

She performed this essay for us about how she has muscular dystrophy, how she uses a ventilator to breathe.

Yeah, and I want to get to the point.

Which has given her this very distinct voice,

which she uses to fight for disability rights and to shine light on disabled writers and artists, inventors.

The world is ours.

This is for all of us.

Anyway, so that's Alice.

And then in the summer of 2022, I saw that she had posted this photo of herself online.

She was in a hospital bed with all kinds of tubes and wires coming out of her, and she did not look well.

She had a caption about how she was in the ICU, and then she just went dark.

And it wasn't until a few months later

that I finally heard from her.

Oh, Alice, it is so good to see your face.

How are you doing?

Like, are you hurting right now?

I had some opioids earlier, but fun fact, they cause constipation, so I quit them and take Tylenol only when necessary.

I missed the fentanyl I had in the hospital, which was delightful.

Utterly delightful.

I called Fentonil, Fenty, and I said he was my boyfriend.

I miss Fenty Fenty very much.

It turned out she had had to have a tracheostomy.

Basically, she'd had a lung infection that was so serious to allow her to breathe, they had to cut straight into her windpipe and insert a tube.

Right, where you're like on a ventilator.

Yeah, and she's on a ventilator, and you know, that saved her life.

But it took her speaking voice.

It's been a lot.

And obviously, you can totally still hear Alice's voice.

It's just now coming through this computer voice.

I also have a range of voices that I can select from, and honestly, I hate all of them.

She played me some of them.

Hi, my name is Darius, and I'm the first male African-American English speech synthesis voice from Necapella.

There's also.

Hello, my name is Ella.

A tiny child.

Hi, I'm Karen.

There's Karen, which Alice was like, no way.

Hi.

And then.

I'm Heather.

There's Heather.

Efficient, fast, and a very high quality.

Why not try me out with your own own words?

So, Heather is just the one I hate least.

It is robotic, clinical, and white.

Alice is Chinese American.

I just tolerate her, and I bet she tolerates me.

Ha ha ha.

Oh, see what I did there?

I typed ha ha ha to simulate actual laughter, and while it works to some extent, it feels robotic and hollow to me.

I miss laughing, and all the sounds I can make that make people laugh.

Shit, can you.

You can't guffa.

You can't laugh.

Oh, you just made a uh-uh.

Mixed laugh and paint, like, oh, with your mouth.

Like, oh.

Does it feel different, though, without the sound?

Like, does it detract from the experience of savoring the humor?

I wish I could laugh because isn't that also a collective experience?

I think that's the heart of it.

Being able to join with others and sharing an emotion the same way.

Is...

Is your speaking voice lost forever?

There is a device I could attach to my ventilator where it will potentially allow me to speak called the Passium Ur valve.

And in a way, that's what this story is really about.

This tiny piece of plastic with odd existential potential that would come to have a profound and

kind of unexpected effect on Alice's life.

So flash forward.

In early 2025, Alice is

in a hospital.

Hi, Dr.

Rosen.

Happy New Year.

Happy New Year to you.

Good to see you.

Where she lives in San Francisco.

Things going okay?

To get this

valve.

Wow, it's big.

Which she showed me.

It almost looks like a shampoo cap, bottle cap, or something.

And then does that go?

Do you know how it would go in?

Yes, that's in my next and the young one.

Okay.

Alice explained this valve attaches to a person's trach tube right where it goes into their neck.

And redirects airflow through the vocal cords and nasal passages so a person can speak.

Oh, that's an elegant design.

And the cherry on top for Alice was that this valve, this sleekly designed little contraption, I was excited that he was a disabled inventor.

Was invented by a disabled guy.

He was a quadriplegic due to Duchenne's muscular dystrophy.

Muscular dystrophy?

Like me.

His name was David Mirror, Passy Mirror Valve.

I felt a kinship with him in that regard.

So back at the hospital.

Are you ready?

Okay.

A doctor and a nurse took this valve,

attached it to a new trach tube.

Alright, Alice, I'm going to hold your head here.

Pulled her old one out

of her neck.

Show me.

That looks okay.

Took the new one with the valve.

Coming down.

Pushed that into her neck.

You're all set

to go conquer the world, right?

Then made sure she could breathe.

And then had her try to speak.

Try that passing mirror.

But it doesn't work.

Her vocal flows were moving.

She's definitely.

It just wasn't enough to.

Yeah.

So I guess my muscular dystrophy has made my diaphragm weaker, probably, especially these past few years.

Unfortunately,

I suspect that is

the case.

Let's still try again.

Okay.

Suction.

So they try again.

Big inhale.

And again.

She can't get any sound to come out.

It's just not enough of that push.

And so,

she gave it one last big push.

You ready?

Oh, wait, lose it.

Let's go with feeling.

Love it.

Love it.

Here we go.

With feeling.

Okay.

Cuff is down.

But again.

One more big one.

Yeah.

Nothing.

How you feel?

Pooped.

So we were able to record that day.

This was actually Alice's fifth attempt to use the valve since she went into the ICU in 2022.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, five different times of trying this thing that promised to give her her voice back and failed to give her her voice back.

And she said that over these years, she's had this thing with her in her apartment, just kind of sitting there on the shelf, unused, not working.

And over time, she grew to resent it.

And she said that one day...

I went to their website and did some digging.

And she found some writings by its inventor, this guy, David Muir, talking about the value of this valve.

Writing about the power this valve holds, how it can really give people their life back.

What it can do as if it's some miracle solution.

And that the mission, the whole point of this valve was...

Quote,

dignity through speech.

Dignity through speech.

The phrase dignity through speech gave me pause.

And Alice ended up publishing this open letter addressed to David, who she learned had died back in 1990.

David, isn't there dignity in silence too?

Silence does not mean a person is voiceless, as there are millions of non-speaking people who use gestures, signed language, writing, technology, and other means to communicate with the world.

I live in a world of silence that is not lesser or devoid of richness.

My reality is just different.

And she said, going through that process of writing to him, imagining him, also left her with all these questions about him.

I'm so curious if he had disabled friends friends or was connected to community.

Of how the two of them could be so similar and yet so different.

David Muir is a mystery to me.

There's almost nothing about David out there.

He's sort of this forgotten disabled inventor.

And so I told Alice, well, maybe we could unravel this mystery.

Maybe we could go report it out and figure out who he was and how he came to these ideas about voice and the concept of dignity.

And

then Lulu, are you close to your delivery date?

So close.

I was useless.

I went on maternity leave for the full six months babies beautiful and uh and so you guys picked up the torch the reporting torch yeah and it took a while but eventually oh are you showing up too hello we got in touch with Annie I don't know if you want to kind of either start or say more well I was there when David was born Oh all right let's start there

June Mir and Don Mirror you're David's father yes I presume I am David's parents who live outside of Phoenix and seemed actually just like really excited to talk to us about David, I think, because they don't often get the chance to.

Well, when David was born, this was in 1961.

The doctor said, This guy is going to be a football player.

He had like really strong, defined muscles.

Like somebody that had been doing major calf raises at the gym.

A little jacked baby.

Yeah, little jacked baby.

Okay.

But in the first year, he had some problems that I noticed when he started walking.

So for instance, like most kids.

You know how they take their little fat feet and they just sort of plop them down?

Yeah.

When David lifted his foot to take a step, he would halt,

hesitate, then put it down.

Then one day when June noticed he was playing, he couldn't get up off the floor.

So at the age of five, they took David to a doctor who ran some tests and told them that David had muscular dystrophy.

And the doctor was describing what was going to be happening and how he was not going to be able to walk and finally not be able to breathe and the heart wouldn't work because they're all muscle

and they

probably wouldn't live past 12 years of age.

And I'm thinking to myself,

why are you saying this in front of my child?

Did David seem terrified in that moment?

He was just sitting there.

Very stoically.

And so they go home and try as best as they can to just have a normal life.

He loved cartoons on Saturday morning.

He loved to play with matches.

And little plastic army guys.

And in an early age, he's using a wheelchair.

A push type.

The little stinker.

Apparently, he got his friends at the playground to push him as fast as they could at this ditch.

And and tried to jump it.

What?

To hit the berm and try to get it over this.

Don't get air.

Yeah.

So I got a call to come down to the school.

So he didn't do that anymore.

Instead, what he did is he got his friends to push him down the hallway at school.

And they were mowing down all of the kids in the hallway.

So I got another call from the principal.

Okay, okay.

So he's got like rambunctious troublemaker, like fun.

Yeah, totally.

But I think like the thing that June and Don said like stood out most about David was.

He was an unstoppable communicator.

David was a talker.

A motor mouth.

From the age of six, seven, eight, nine.

We talked about everything.

10, 11, 12.

The last year he has.

But then 13, 14.

If he heard something on television that morning, he would pick his side and I'd pick his side.

15.

And then we would just debate back and forth.

16, 17.

He's He's in high school.

His voice is dropping.

Didn't get as deep as mine, but 18.

He's 12th grader.

He actually switches high schools, and this new one doesn't have a ramp.

And in this way, that totally reminds me of Alice, he tells the administrators, There is this law that you're supposed to provide me access.

You guys have to build me a ramp.

Or I will sue you.

Or I will sue you.

That week he had a ramp.

There was a ramp.

No way.

Yeah.

By 19, he's in an electric wheelchair, and a lot of his muscles were just slowly shutting down by 20 21 his diaphragm's not working enough he's having trouble breathing that's when all of his fears came out it'd usually be at night in bed when he started talking about dying

and

the things that he had noticed that he wasn't able to do any longer In June, we would talk all night.

Would sit next to him in bed trying to calm his fears.

The next morning he'd be up cheerful talking.

But nighttimes were bad for him.

And then he turns 22, 23, 24, 25.

And one morning when June was on her way to the house, she went into David's room to check on him.

And he said, I'm having a dream.

The good guys are fighting the bad guys.

Should I go back to sleep and see who wins?

And I said, sure.

So she grabs her keys, gets to the front door.

And I think something's wrong.

She goes back to David's room.

And David was blue.

And I don't know what to do.

She just freezes.

He needs oxygen.

Then I remember the alarm.

They had an alarm installed that went directly to the fire department.

Push the alarm.

And the firemen come.

They give him oxygen, put him on a gurney, and take him out to the hospital.

And when we're at the hospital, that's when they put the trick in.

The doctors performed a tracheostomy on David.

So he could breathe.

In the hospital, the best doctors could provide David with the ability to speak was.

With these communication boards.

You can imagine like a Ouija board.

It's this board with letters and numbers.

And basically, somebody like June would have to sit with David and watch his eyes go from letter to letter.

To spell out the words.

So if you ask David, what do you want to watch?

On TV, June would sit there and watch as his eyes would go to the B, the A, the S, the E, base, B, A, L, L.

Baseball.

It took forever.

It was not a good deal.

I mean, for somebody like David,

when you took that away, it's just like his whole world fell apart.

He was asking me if I can't live with this drake, if it's just one step too far for me.

Will you help me die?

I've got to be able to talk.

And then one afternoon, he's sitting at the table with his mom and dad, and he starts to spell out and mouth the words of this idea.

He says, my ventilator has

this

little valve.

It's a valve that's connected to the machine that lets air come come in into David's lungs, but then it closes.

So that David's breath, the moisture in his breath, doesn't go back down into the machine and, you know, potentially damage it.

Right.

It's like a door that swings shut behind you.

Yeah.

Yes.

And so David was basically like, can we do something like that?

Can we take this valve that's on my ventilator, modify it, and put it right where the tray tube goes into my neck so it still lets air in, but then it closes.

Trapping the air inside my body, forcing the air to take its normal path up through the neck up through the vocal cords and out meaning hopefully possibly he would be able to talk

so he tells us while they're okay i need you to do this for me go to the ventilator get that valve tweak this cut that attach it here i'm going oh

he wants us to kill him don how do you feel about it uh well this is an interesting project to me so don goes and grabs an x-acto knife some duct tape walks over to David, and disconnects the tube from his neck.

So at this point, David could barely breathe.

And then he grabbed that little valve from the ventilator.

Just pulled it off, cut it, shaped it, and literally taped it onto the end of the tube.

Put the tube with this modified valve back into David's neck and waited.

And lo and behold.

Today, April 22nd, 1989, we're visiting with

David Mirror, the inventor of the Pasimir tracheostomy speaking valve.

How are you doing, David?

Great, how are you?

Just fine, thanks.

I have a few questions for you.

Why did you invent the valve?

Out of pure frustration.

You needed to speak.

I had a

respiratory rest,

and after that, I wasn't able to speak.

All the air just escaped.

Very frustrating.

So I decided that if I could just keep the air in,

send it to my motor cords, then I'm able to see.

Wow, it's like a little bit soft, but super, like, it just feels like it has all the complexity of voice.

Yeah, like you can hear a real personality there.

I wonder if he could laugh.

You want to take a look at that?

Well, so there's this moment where they hand him this book that has a picture of his valve in it.

Oh, yeah, he just did.

Okay.

He just chuckled at the book.

Yeah, this little chuckle.

I mean, it's like the thing,

it's like built, it's like using duct tape to build this ladder out of a deep well.

Like as in releasing himself from himself once again, with duct tape.

Right.

Damn.

So this is David Muir.

So what did the, what happens?

I mean, I guess we know this valve becomes big enough to make it to Alice's hands.

Yeah, so what happens is not long after they made the valve, we ran into Dr.

Passey.

This doctor in California.

ENT doctor.

Ear, nose, and throat.

Right.

And he's like, I can help a bunch of people with this right now.

And so they patent the valve and they form this company.

And David.

Initially, he was one of the order takers.

Don and set him up in his room with a computer.

Where you could talk into the computer and it would write.

And he would process orders for this valve he'd created.

And it just evolved from there.

And over the years, this valve would be given to patients.

Can I sing a song?

Young and old.

Let's

There were even cases of infants who couldn't make a noise.

Because of the trach they had.

So parents would have this valve attached to their trache

and

they could hear their baby cry for the first time.

Agnes, what was it like to not have your voice when you were on the ventilator without your valve?

Horrible.

And there's all these testimonials online.

The worst feeling ever.

Of these different people with traches

to speak.

Who got their voice back from this valve?

Thank whoever invented this.

It's just so much better.

It's made a lot of very unhappy people be able to live again.

Oh, I'm so grateful.

It was like a switch had flipped.

Suddenly, David.

He was just happy.

He said, I thought I was just doing it for me.

But there were all these other people out there waiting to have that.

He says, I know why I'm here.

One of the things about this story for us, and I know you guys aren't a part of the company at all, but we were working with this writer, Alice Wong, who lost her speaking voice and had a tracheostomy.

And she saw on the website, when she learned about the Valve, that there was this, the word dignity was used

about

this valve giving people dignity through speech, and that word really bothered her.

And so I kind of was

just curious how

you guys think of the word dignity, how David maybe thought of the word dignity.

You know, if you can't communicate with people,

you disappear,

and

you

do lose yourself

because

well just like you're doing with the interviewing the talking

you're expressing yourself you're putting your opinions you're being heard

you're making a statement in life

if you don't have that

it's much more difficult on you

And I think that's where the dignity comes in.

It's the

I want

people to know I'm here.

How did

go ahead?

Oh, I'm just curious, like, what happened next?

I mean, yeah, because you said that David died at 28.

Yes.

And he made the valve at 25.

And so I'm just wondering, like,

how did he die?

Was it just ultimately like his muscles failed?

No.

So.

June said it was August 30th, 1990.

I went in and I got David up, got him dressed, combed his hair, brushed his teeth.

And she reminded him that he had promised to go pick his nephew up from the bus stop that day.

On the first day of school.

So David in his wheelchair left the house, made his way to the bus stop, and after a little while, his nephew came to the front door Crying.

And he said, David didn't come and get me.

My stomach was falling.

June runs outside.

To the middle of the street, and I look down the street, and I see him down at the end of the block.

His wheelchair is on its side on the sidewalk.

And I'm running as fast as I can.

I hear the ventilator, which means he is disconnected from the ventilator.

Which means he had no air, no way of calling out for help.

And June rushed over to him.

I said, Cowboy, what's wrong?

And I put the ventilator hose back on and connected it.

She had a neighbor call 911.

The EMT showed up, took David to the hospital.

They're at the hospital, and the doctor came out and told me he didn't think David was going to make it.

Don was was working in California at the time.

I called him, told him what the doctor said, hung up the phone, and

went back to stay by David's bed.

And all I could do

was say,

I'm sorry,

because

he was alone

when he died.

He just didn't want to be alone when he died.

And yet, that's what happened.

He was alone when he died.

The way David died is one of my biggest nightmares.

So we played all that to Alice.

Oh, yeah.

Falling and having your ventilator disconnected or malfunction while in public.

She said like David, she has alarm systems in place and she even pays a speaking person to be with her at all times could call out for help.

But these systems will never replace the ability to scream for help and the loss is real and it's terrifying.

I was a pretty sassy young person, so I laughed when I heard David's threat to sue his school.

Maybe that's one aspect of being disabled in a non-disabled world.

The aspect being what exactly?

I guess we have to be tenacious and pretty daring in order to get the bare minimum which in many ways drives us and our ambitions.

He created something out of a personal need that helped many disabled people which is so rad.

Does learning about him as a person

change your feelings or some of your frustration with that phrase, dignity through speech?

My stance hasn't changed after David's mom reflected on that phrase.

Yes, David and I both lost our voices and he was able to gain it back thanks to the invention of his valve but let's say he wasn't able to speak again.

He would still have dignity despite mourning the loss of something so close to his identity.

I miss my voice every day and am frustrated by how I communicate and the way I sound on the radio right now but I still have dignity.

And in true Alice fashion, she has since joined this organization for folks who are non-speaking.

It's called Communication First and she's become a part of their advisory council, just

sort of like advocating.

Advocating for folks who don't have a speaking voice and shining light on all the ways people can communicate.

Right.

And yet, okay.

You shown the bat signal on the moon two days ago.

Do you want to tell us why we are here?

It turned out, despite all her beef with the speaking voice, or her belief that most of us overvalue it, all that while she had been feeding recordings of her old speaking voice into this AI model to try to recover hers.

This is an impossible wish, but my hope is that any sort of generated voice from my past can capture my humor and personality.

This may be too much to ask from something artificial, but at the very least, maybe when talking to friends who knew me in the before times, they will feel like it's the same me.

And so one day she messaged Annie and I and was like, It just made me a voice based on my voice.

Do you guys, I haven't listened to it yet.

Should we try it out together on tape?

Yes, let's give it a whirl.

How do we, how should we do this?

Okay, I'm going to type a sentence and play it.

And

hello, Google, Eddie.

This is the voice created by AI.

Oh my god!

It was eerie, right?

Yeah, that's not not

you.

And like the part I remember the most is that it included her breathing machine, like it included the very unique voice that she had.

Yes.

What do you think?

Okay, what do you think?

I agree, it's like a reclamation of my old self.

And the old self that was always a part of me.

That didn't get a chance to come out.

Of course, I can't go back, but

this is a tool that might be helpful.

Adjusting to this new way of existing.

I wonder if a good analogy is with cosmetic surgery.

This is something I don't really need to live, but it makes me feel a bit better about myself.

But here's the thing.

Alice!

A few months later, when we check in again.

How are things over there?

Good to see you.

She's not using it.

She doesn't want to use it.

In part, she said, because the more she thought about it, she realized that.

It's no longer who I am.

That is a question I've had throughout all of this, though.

Like, is

inside

necessarily any different

just because the mode of getting you to the outside has changed?

I think the inner me has changed because I still cannot be my full self.

And by full self, I mean my old self, and this is a conflict that I struggle with.

I lost a way to to express my personality, humor, I lost the kind of wit that comes from my ability to quickly respond or interject something vital during a chat.

I lost my ability to debate and smack someone down with an argument who deserves it.

I lost that sense of freedom, looseness, and messiness.

I am still me to some extent from the before times but I miss the old me.

I am changing, we all are changing, and I hope I am becoming fuller and a truer reflection of the inner me.

But that's a work in progress.

Hmm.

I'm wondering, what are you noticing that's

changing or becoming this truer version of you?

As I say less with my text-to-speech app, I am more into my thoughts.

Perhaps I am more precise and concise on what I want to say.

For me, everything I process is more vital, urgent, and serious.

If only you knew what's really going on inside of me, haha.

It's also a more perceptible, gentle world.

Perceptible.

Perceptible.

Meaning, I like.

Can you help me understand what you mean by perceptible?

I am sensing and seeing and feeling more now that I am in the solitude of this silent world.

I am taking in a lot, and perhaps because I am not communicating fully, I am absorbing things more than before.

Like, for instance, Alice explained this moment with a friend of hers named Latif, who also uses a computer-assisted voice.

They were at this party together.

And she said they were sitting at the dinner table amidst all the people talking.

She was watching as Latif's attendant helped him eat.

in itself.

Yeah, I guess, yeah, it just makes me think like sometimes,

I don't know, sometimes the voice is

this wall, like it's it's it can get in the way

of two people and their connection.

And

yeah, I don't know, it's not, it's not all gain.

Alice Wong.

Her most recent book is called Disability Intimacy.

Her memoir is called Year of the Tiger, and her website is Disability VisibilityProject.com.

You can head there to learn more about everything she is noticing and perceiving.

This episode was produced by Matt Kilty and Annie McEwen.

It was also reported by them and sound designed by them with additional sound design by Jeremy Bloom, original music by Matt Kilty and Jeremy Bloom, mixing help from Jeremy Bloom.

It was edited by Alex Neeson, fact-checking by Anna Pujol-Mazzini.

And big thanks to Wren Farrell, who recorded our conversations with Alice over many years.

Thank you, thank you, Wren.

And also to Room Full of Teeth, the very talented musicians and vocalists who you hear a lot of throughout the episode.

A special shout out to Amanda Kreider for helping us get our hands on this music, composed by Caroline Shaw, Judd Greenstein, Leila Hua Lanzalati, Rebecca Cariord, and Michael Harrison.

And then a special, special thanks to Hector Espinall and his parents, Chrisali and Hector Espinall.

Hector was our young child in the museum.

Wonderful acting.

And finally, special thanks to you,

our listeners, for supporting us.

It has been a deeply unsettling summer for Radiolab Radiolab and public radio across the country.

As you are likely aware, Congress voted to eliminate all federal funding for public media in America for the first time in history.

And for Radiolab and New York Public Radio, which produces this show, we cannot count on this funding to come back in the future.

But while we may be defunded, we will not be defeated.

And this is where you maybe, just maybe, come in.

The best way that you can support Radiolab is to become a lab member.

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For as little as $7 a month, a fancy coffee a month, you can become a lab member.

And as a thanks, you get all kinds of perks and extras like ad-free listening, bonus content, and as of right now, an extra big tote bag.

Our newest producer, Anissa, designed it.

She drew it.

She's a genius.

She's very multi-talented.

She could do radio, multimedia, and we didn't know it, but also drawing.

And she designed it.

Wow, it's so pretty.

Isn't it gorgeous?

Much more.

you see.

Ooh, I see.

What's the theme?

What theme is she detecting?

The age of fishes.

Well, I guess not.

They're not all fish.

Well, there's some.

There's a seashell.

There's a starfish or a sea star as they're called.

There's a squid.

So, okay, so we looked back.

The reason is not just because it would make a great beach bag, but we looked back and we realized we had like a secretly, incredibly aquatic year.

So each creature represents a story.

Can you pick any out of this?

Where the heart is the shark?

That's what I'm talking about.

Oh, there is a shark.

No, there's a shark.

That thing in the bottom left is the scientist's best guess at what an ancient shark might have looked like.

Like the one from the shark inside you that like inspired all of our immune systems.

Wow.

That's it.

So the one bottom left is an ancient shark.

Can you guess any other ones?

Pufferfish?

Eel?

No, no, no.

That's on Neil.

It's not Neil.

It's not Neil.

It's a lungfish.

Oh, right, right, right.

Is that a squid or is that Annie's octopus from the Octomom?

What did we do with the squid story?

That is a baby octopus.

That is?

Which is an octomom reference for you, Annie.

Why is there a seashell?

Don't ask about that, please.

What about the top left?

He's like, la la la la.

The top, oh, the top left,

not to brag, that's my guy.

That is the singing fish, the toad, the ugliest fish in the sea that sings out to attract our mate.

And we put him in our Screaming Into the Void episode.

I did a little essay about him.

But yeah, there are all kinds of references to other stories.

It's kind of like a secret code, all rendered in this beautiful blue, and it is big.

It is a big tote.

I wonder if I could fit a toddler.

Oh, I think it could, but would not recommend.

Pack one in there.

I think, oh, for sure.

Maybe, like, in the way that like a doggy bag, like the toddler could put a head out.

Yes.

Yeah, I think.

Yeah, and they'll get a little coffee.

Yeah.

But please, if you would like this jumbo tote, if you would like to support our voices, go and sign up to become a lab member.

It would mean so much to us.

Just head on over to radiolab.org slash join.

Radiolab.org slash join.

See if it's for you.

That was our show.

Thank you so much.

See you next week with more stuff that hopefully makes you think more deeply about this world and the sounds within it and the sounds that come out of you.

Anyway, bye.

Thanks.

Hi, I'm Jonathan and I'm from El Monte, California.

And here are the staff credits.

Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrod and is edited by Soren Wheeler.

Lila Miller and Latza Nasser are our co-hosts.

Dylan Keith is our director of sound design.

Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Blue, W.

Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Pazbutyaris, Sindhu Yanam Sambandam, Matt Kilchi, Annie McEwen, Alec Neeson, Sara Kari, Sarah Sandback, Anissa Vitza, Arianne Wack, Pat Walter, Molly Webster, Jessica Young.

With help from Rebecca Rand, our fact-checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Creeker, Anna Pujo-Matsin, and Natalie Middleton.

Hi, I'm Monica, and I'm colleague from Mexico City.

Leadership support for Radiolab science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation.

Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P.

Sloan Foundation.

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