To celebrate Jaws, This week, WNYC Radiolab manages a series entitled “Swimming in the Shadows”.
Juana Summers, host:
This week marks the 50th anniversary of the release of “Jaws”, a film that terrified generations of beach. And in honor of this anniversary, this week, our friends from the Radiolab of WNYC explore the science of sharks. Here is a small slice of this, with the Cohost Radiolab Lulu Miller and the journalist Rachael Cusick.
(Soundbit of archived registration)
Rachael Cusick: Like, Lulu, if you were to guess for 2024 – last year – do you want to guess, like, how many people died of shark attacks around the world?
Lulu Miller: How many people died?
Cusick: Yes.
Miller: I don’t know – like, maybe 970.
CUSICK: OK, so take this number and subtract 963.
Miller: Seven. So seven – seven people.
CUSICK: Seven people.
Miller: Seven singular people.
CUSICK: Seven confirmed deaths of sharks …
Miller: OK.
Cusick: … last year.
Miller: OK.
CUSICK: So, just to put this in perspective …
Miller: Yeah.
Cusick: … These are some of the things that will kill more humans than sharks each year.
Miller: OK.
(Soundbite of Music)
Cusick: So at the beach alone, things that are much more likely to do you …
Miller: Yeah.
Cusick: … at the beach are currents of tear …
Miller: Water herself.
Cusick: … water itself …
Miller: OK.
Cusick: … Skin cancer – huge. And it’s just at the beach.
Miller: OK.
CUSICK: Zoom in a little.
Miller: Yeah.
CUSICK: Lightning blows are huge.
Miller: Are more than sharks?
Cusick: Yes, 24,000 people a year, apparently – selfies.
Miller: It’s so sad.
Cusick: It’s a very bad way to proceed.
Miller: OK. So you say, like …
Cusick: Wait – Sorry – one more, one more.
Miller: Yeah. Yeah.
Cusick: The only statistics that I just like as New Yorker is that you are 10 times more likely to be bitten by a New Yorker that you should not be bitten by a shark (laughs), who …
Miller: I believe in a way.
Cusick: … Honestly, hides.
Miller: I understand that.
Cusick: Yeah (laughs).
Miller: I understand that. ALL RIGHT. But, but, but, but, but …
Cusick: Yes.
Miller: … but, but, but …
Cusick: Yes. Yes.
Miller: … but the sharks, guy, as, they are so fast and so large. And, as, I can hear these statistics, but if we are at the beach and you tell me that there are sharks in the water, I will not enter. Could this be analogous to a fear of a snake where it is fair, like – or, I am not afraid, but a fear of spider, where we are like, we are – we are ready to be frightened of these things because it served us?
Cusick: Yeah. Well, according to the scientist, I talked about Chris Lowe …
Chris Lowe: Marine biology professor and director of the Shark Lab at Cal State Long Beach.
Cusick: … it’s totally true for some animals.
LOWE: There are terrestrial animals with which we coevolved that we have an innate fear.
Cusick: But not for sharks.
Lowe: Psychologists have studied where they showed photos of snakes and spiders, and they react with fear. Then they show them an image of a shark, and there is no reaction.
Cusick: Chris stressed the obvious fact that …
Lowe: We are not an aquatic animal.
CUSICK: For most of human history, people had very few interactions with sharks.
Lowe: It was this beast that people have been informed that they have rarely seen.
CUSICK: And Chris says when everything you have is are stories …
LOWE: What’s going on is that it allows people to imagine.
(Soundbit of Ron Gozzo’s “light rays”)
Cusick: As, we had no glasses before the 1950s. We did not do it – we knew that things took us. We have never seen these creatures. As, the most we could see is the fin.
Lowe: We are given some information, then we start to develop this image of what these animals look like. We make the monster in our head.
Cusick: And to make the monster in our head is exactly what made “Jaws” a perfect horror film.
Lowe: You really haven’t seen a shark very often.
Cusick: You get an hour in the film without seeing a shark.
Lowe: And I think it was actually the brilliance of the film.
Cusick: All you get is this emblematic score.
(Soundbite of the “Jaws John Williams theme”)
Summers: Lulu Miller de Radiolab and Rachael Cusick, speaking of sharks this week in honor of the 50th anniversary of the film “Jaws”. For more wild stories on shining sharks, steals that fly and sharks that could even be able to heal cancer, swim to your podcast application and consult Radiolab.
(Soundbite of the “Jaws John Williams theme”)
Copyright © 2025 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit the pages of use of the conditions of use of our website on www.npr.org for more information.
The accuracy and availability of NPR transcriptions may vary. The transcription text can be revised to correct errors or match audio updates. Audio on npr.org can be published after its original broadcast or publication. The file authorizing the NPR programming is the audio recording.
