logo
episode-header-image
Jun 27
25m 8s

Sex, Ducks and the Founding Feud

Wnyc Studios
About this episode

Jilted lovers and disrupted duck hunts provide a very odd look into the soul of the US Constitution.

What does a betrayed lover’s revenge have to do with an international chemical weapons treaty? More than you’d think. From poison and duck hunts to our feuding fathers, we step into a very odd tug of war between local and federal law.

When Carol Anne Bond found out her husband had impregnated her best friend, she took revenge. Carol's particular flavor of revenge led to a US Supreme Court case that puts into question a part of the US treaty power. 

Producer Kelsey Padgett drags Jad and Robert into Carol's poisonous web, which starts them on a journey from the birth of the US Constitution, to a duck hunt in 1918, and back to the present day. It’s all about an ongoing argument that might actually be the very heart and soul of our system of government.

Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!

Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.

Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.

Leadership support for Radiolab’s 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.

Up next
Aug 22
The Medical Matchmaking Machine
As he finished his medical school exam, David Fajgenbaum felt off. He walked down to the ER and checked himself in. Soon he was in the ICU with multiple organ failure. The only drug for his condition didn’t work. He had months to live, if that. If he was going to survive, he was ... Show More
1h 1m
Aug 15
Weighing Good Intentions
In an episode first released in 2010, then-producer Lulu Miller drives to Michigan to track down the endangered Kirtland’s warbler. Efforts to protect the bird have lead to the killing of cowbirds (a species that commandeers warbler nests), and a prescribed burn aimed at creating ... Show More
25m 29s
Aug 8
The Menopause Mystery
Until recently, scientists assumed humans were the only species in which females went through menopause, and lived a substantial part of their lives after they were no longer able to reproduce. And they had no idea why that happens, and why evolution wouldn’t push females to keep ... Show More
38m 58s
Recommended Episodes
Jan 2019
Episode 34: From the Archive - Margaret Mead
In this never-before-released archival lecture from 1974, anthropologist Margaret Mead discusses the lives of women from prehistoric through modern times. Show Notes The Leakey Foundation is 50 years old this year, and we’re celebrating this milestone by sharing rare, previously ... Show More
51m 41s
Oct 2023
Forgiveness, Seinfeld Grudges + The Science of Blame
It seems that the denizens of New London, Connecticut have real issues with forgiveness and letting go. Every year they throw a bizarre festival castigating the infamous American Revolutionary War-era traitor Benedict Arnold for giving information to the British forces leading th ... Show More
48m 12s
Jan 2025
Hunting the Unabomber
During a 17-year bombing campaign, an elusive terrorist known as the Unabomber killed three and injured 23 Americans.In 1995, he contacted The New York Times and The Washington Post promising to stop his terror attacks if they published his 35,000-word manifesto. The document exp ... Show More
10m 2s
Jan 2023
Top Human Origins Discoveries of 2022
2022 was another exciting year in human origins research! New fossil discoveries and ancient DNA research expanded our understanding of the past. We learned something surprising about the evolution of human speech, and new methodologies and showed promising potential to improve t ... Show More
35m 5s
May 26
How the Whitman Murders Redefined the American West
May 30, 1855. Five thousand Native Americans come to Walla Walla to negotiate a treaty. However, it’s not exactly a fair negotiation – the territorial governor basically tells these tribes that they have no choice but to live on reservations in order to maintain peace. This momen ... Show More
39m 18s
Jul 9
Evolution Went On Trial 100 Years Ago. Where Are We Now?
This week marks the 100th anniversary of the Scopes "Monkey Trial" — where a teacher was charged with the crime of teaching Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. At the time, it was illegal in Tennessee to "teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creatio ... Show More
12m 37s
May 2024
Lyndsey Stonebridge and Lucas Johnson — On Love, Politics, and Violence (Channeling Hannah Arendt)
Here is a stunning sentence for you, written by Lyndsey Stonebridge, our guest this hour, channeling the 20th-century political thinker and journalist Hannah Arendt: "Loneliness is the bully that coerces us into giving up on democracy." This conversation is a kind of guide to gen ... Show More
1h 15m
Jun 26
Poison in the Tower of London
Today’s story is one that takes us to a very familiar setting - the Tower of London - but shows it in a new light. Edward Francis was an enslaved man who lived in the Lion Tower. In 1691 he decided to poison his enslavers. Maddy and Anthony are joined by (friend of the pod) Dr Mi ... Show More
43m 45s
Nov 2024
Andrew Fleming, "The Gravity of Feathers: Fame, Fortune and the Story of St Kilda" (Birlinn, 2024)
When the last 36 inhabitants of St Kilda, 40 miles west of the Scottish Hebrides, were evacuated in 1930, the archipelago at ‘the edge of the world’ lost its permanent population after five millennia.It has long been accepted that the islanders’ failure to adapt to the modern wor ... Show More
42m 30s
May 21
Why Your Brain Craves Revenge and How to Break Free
Revenge, why do we want to get revenge so bad? And where does that urge come from? And how do we go from wanting to get revenge to being able to forgive someone or others? James Kimmel Jr., Yale lecturer and co-founder of the Yale Collaborative for Motive Studies, is on Getting B ... Show More
51 m