Unexplainable
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Unexplainable
Unexplainable takes listeners right up to the edge of what we know…and then keeps on going. The Unexplainable team — Noam Hassenfeld, Julia Longoria, Byrd Pinkerton, and Meradith Hoddinott — tackles scientific mysteries, unanswered questions, and everything we learn diving into the unknown. New epis...
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235 episoodi
Composing chaos
Terry Riley's "In C" is one of the most influential pieces of music of the last century...but you'll never hear it the same way twice.
Gu...
Does Tylenol cause autism?
Donald Trump and RFK Jr. seem convinced that it does. But our friends at Science Vs say the data is far more complicated.
Guest: Meryl Ho...
How to change your personality
Who are you, really? Our friends at The Gray Area ask whether it's really possible to change.
Guest: Olga Khazan, author of Me, But Bet...
What’s A
The centuries-old international battle over the real sound of a musical note.
Guest: Fanny Gribenski, historical musicologist and author...
Did we find signs of life on Mars?
NASA found a Martian rock that might have traces of ancient life. It's perhaps the most tantalizing revelation in the century-long search for Martian...
The metabolism myth
Recent research — and one surprising season of The Biggest Loser — has scientists wondering whether some of the most basic things they know about meta...
The Vagina Voyages
Join our friends at The Longest Shortest Time for a deep dive into the misunderstood world of vaginas. We’ll learn about orgasm-chasing royalty, clito...
A rabbi and the Lorax walk into a bar...
How the bedtime stories we grew up with inspire the stories we tell now.
For show transcripts, go to vox...
Is a little alcohol bad for you?
We spoke to two researchers who disagree about the answer to this question. But they do agree about why it's so hard to answer to begin with.
Ice Sheet Time Machine
The US military carved a tiny city into the Greenland ice sheet. What they found, and lost, and found again, and what it tells us about climate change...
Animals in the year 20202025
What do scientists think animals might be like millions of years from now? (First published in 2021)
Guests: Benji Jones, senior correspo...
Nightmare at the end of the universe
Dark energy is the strange stuff that makes up the vast majority of the universe and will ultimately lead to the end of everything. Unless it doesn't...
Life in plastic — not fantastic?
Much of our modern world is made of plastic, but as more signs point to its dangers to human health, what can we even do about it?
...
When waves go rogue
Towering walls of water sometimes appear in the ocean without warning or apparent cause. What drives their terrifying power? (First published in 2023)...
Good news for people who love bad news
Good news can be hard to find, especially when our brains — and the media — are biased against it.
Guest: Bryan Walsh, senior editorial d...
12 tiny worlds
If you went back 500 million years and re-ran evolution, would life be totally different today?
Guests: Richard Lenski and ...
How good was Michael Jordan, really?
It's easy to assume there is objective truth in basketball stats. A clear story of what happened in the past. But our friends at Pablo Torre Finds Out...
One weird trick to get unlimited clean energy
Is a solution to climate change…pouring water on hot rocks?
Guest: Dylan Matthews, Senior Correspondent at Vox's Future Perfect
Who taught beavers to build dams?
How does any animal know what to do? A neuroscientist argues it's not “instinct.” Something bigger is going on. (First published in 2022)
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The disease we let win
We have a cure for tuberculosis. Why does it still kill over a million people every year?
GUEST: John Green, podcaster, You...
Science! Tell me what to eat!
Figuring out the perfect healthy diet remains stubbornly out of reach. Our friends at Gastropod ask: Why?
Guests: Cynthia Graber and Nico...
A magical world at the ocean’s edge
In coastal California, researchers grapple with potentially losing a landscape they love.
Guests: Rebecca Johnson, Director of the Center...
Ruff translation
We love our pets. And think we understand them. Are we fooling ourselves?
Guests: Alexandra Horowitz, dog cognition resea...
Sick of “morning” sickness
If pregnant people need to eat for two, why do so many of us puke morning, noon, and night?
Guests: Marlena Fejzo, Ph.D., g...
Your bug roommates
Our houses are homes to hidden worlds of bugs. And the more ecologists explore those worlds, the more they realize that some of our creepy, crawly hou...
Why I left the NIH
Francis Collins oversaw some of the most revolutionary science of the last few decades at the National Institutes of Health. A few months ago, he sudd...
Mostly dead is slightly alive
When bringing people to the edge of death is your day job.
Guest: Adam Richman, perfusionist at the Mayo Clinic and Unexpl...
We don't understand yogurt
Many physicists dream of coming up with a unified theory of the universe. Rae Robertson-Anderson dreams of understanding ranch dressing, shampoo, and...
The musical structure of the universe
If matter is a result of vibration, what causes the vibration? Our friends at The Gray Area ask, “Is the universe behaving like an instrument?”
...
How to beat roulette
You’ll need your best friend, a computer in your shoe, and a working knowledge of physics.
Guest: Doyne Farmer, Director of Complexity Ec...
Is climate change really making hurricanes worse?
The answer isn’t as clear as you might think. And because of drastic cuts to climate science funding, this question might be getting even harder to so...
Are we sure about fluoride?
Florida just became the second state to ban fluoride from its water system, which has made some public health experts pretty angry. Just how risky is...
The man who walked butterflies on a leash
Static electricity plays an invisible role in the natural world, and it may even help insects pollinate plants. To understand this hidden force, scien...
Imagine a sunset, now imagine you can't
Aphantasia is the inability to see with your mind’s eye. And its discovery has made scientists ask a surprising question: What is the mind’s eye even...
An imaginary planet that feels extremely real
Scavengers Reign, the Emmy-winning Netflix show, has done something most sci-fi shows or movies struggle to do. Build a world that feels truly alien....
The view from inside a volcano
The magma chambers at the heart of volcanoes are very deep and very hot. So naturally, some researchers want to build an observatory in one.
Who are you calling a Neanderthal?
Rumors of Neanderthal brutishness have been greatly exaggerated.
Guest: Paige Madison, science writer
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Sorry, we left an implant in your brain
What happens when you get a life-changing device implanted into your body... and then the company that maintains it goes bankrupt?
...
Blood farm
Tens of thousands of lives could be saved each year if hospitals had more blood. So scientists are racing to understand how this living fluid does wha...
Moon genes
We know life on Earth wouldn't be possible without the moon. Now scientists are finding the moon might even be influencing our biology on a molecular...