Middle schooler, Aanya, has an up-close encounter with a squirrel in the school yard, which leads her to an obsession with one of North America's most common critters. She tells host Lulu Miller all about the overlooked superpowers of squirrels, including one squirrel who lives way up in the Arctic, where the weather gets so cold the squirrels who live there drop their body temperatures down below freezing and somehow, miraculously, survive.

Host Lulu travels to Alaska to meet one of these squirrels as it sleeps, and Lulu talks with biologists Dr. Kelly Drew and Dr. Brian Barnes about why this humble squirrel holds potential for treating Alzheimers, brain injury, and even helping astronauts hibernate on the long journey to Mars.

Check out the making of this episode here:    • Extreme Squirrels In the Arctic from ...  

🎶 This episode features a song with a cameo from Chicago-based musician Tasha. Check out our songs page to hear "On The Other Side (ft. Tasha)" and more new singles every week: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/...

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🌎 Radiolab for Kids features episodes about nature. Sometimes these will be brand new Terrestrials episodes full of songs and silliness, sometimes they will be our very best, shiniest, furriest, family-friendliest Radiolab episodes about animals or plants or nature. You’ll always get a little hello from host Lulu Miller, and we hope that this feed will feel like a nature walk, a place you can show up and explore and always encounter something unexpected out there in the wilderness. You don’t have to be a kid to listen, just someone who likes to see the world anew.

Illustration by Tara Anand.
Video by Kim Nowacki.