You have to admire the cockroach. Gross buggers, yes, but they have been able to survive on this planet for 280 million years. This is a creature that can live for an entire week without its head. Impressive.
But that’s nothing compare to a microscopic animal called a tartigrade. Even though they’re just half a millimetre long, they’re almost impossible to kill. If you try, a tartigrade will say “Hold my beer.”
Scientists have exposed them to the vacuum of space at -271 C, which is absolute zero. Nothing. They’ve been boiled in alcohol. Still nothing. They’ve been subjected to pressures six times that of the bottom of the ocean. They even seem to be impervious to all sorts of radiation exposure. No wonder they’re the only organism to survive the five great extinctions the Earth has seen.
Why am I going on about cockroaches in tartigrades? Because we’re about to get into more of the history of the long-living electronic media there is. Many attempts have been made to kill it, but it’s still here.
This is 100 years of radio, part 2.
Songs heard on this show:
- Velvet Underground, Rock and Roll
- Talking Heads, Radio Head
- Jonathan Richman, Roadrunner
- Wall of Voodoo, Mexican Radio
- Michael Carpenter, FM (No Static at All)
- Queens the Stone Age, God is in the Radio
- Steve Earle, Satellite Radio
- The Selector, On My Radio
Eric Wilhite made this playlist so you can listen along.
The Ongoing History of New Music can be heard on the following stations:
- 102.1 The Edge/Toronto – Sunday at 7 pm
- Q107/Toronto – Sunday at 9 pm
- Live 88-5/Ottawa
- 107.5 Dave-FM/Kitchener – Sunday at 8p pm
- Big Kingston – Saturday and Sunday at 11 pm
- The Wolf, Peterborough – Sunday at 8 pm
- FM96/London – Sunday night at 7, Monday night at 11
- Power 97/Winnipeg – Sunday at 8 am
- Sonic 102.9/Edmonton
- The Zone/Victoria
- The Fox/Vancouver – Sunday at 11 pm
- WAPS/WKTL The Summit/Arkon, Canton, Cleveland, Youngstown The show runs at 11 am Sunday. This, by the way, is a great option for American listeners who are prevented from listening to the show live because of geo-blocking,
We’re still looking for more affiliates in Calgary, Kamloops, Kelowna, Regina, Saskatoon, Brandon, Windsor, Montreal, Halifax, Charlottetown, Moncton, Fredericton, and St John’s and anywhere else with a transmitter. If you’re in any of those markets and you want the show, lemme know and I’ll see what I can do.
If you ever miss a show, you can always get the podcast edition available through Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your on-demand audio.