Weather may be something you associate with life on land, but the ocean has its own version of fronts and storms. <b<br/>r/>

Hosted by: Jaida Elcock (she/her)

There's a lot of humans on our planet. But our global domination was hardly a given. New evidence suggests that our ancestors were on the brink of total extinction nearly a million years ago. So let's talk about that time when the Homo...

Hey remember that time you waved at a stranger who was actually waving at someone behind you? The universe can, at least in its own way. If you thought gravitational waves were wild, just wait until you hear about this thing called...

It's no secret that people like pretty stuff, or that we like to make our worlds as pretty as possible. And for centuries, tons of people have used the mineral in this month's Rocks Box to paint the towns blue, so let's talk about some...

This October, the launch window opens for NASA's Europa Clipper mission. When it arrives in the Jovian system, this spacecraft will probe the icy moon...and its ocean buried kilometers beneath the surface...for the ingredients of life...

Sometimes, one animal ends up in an evolutionary arms race with another for millions of years. Here are four fascinating examples, including our own showdown with snakes. <b<br/>r/>

Hosted by: Jaida Elcock (she/her)

In 2022, humanity threw roughly 15 billion dollars of gold into the trash. That's because gold plays a small but significant role in our electronics. E-waste is a major issue these days, and scientists are hunting for better ways to...

If you ask your favorite search engine where Earth gets the most hail, it's likely to spit out Kericho. But can you use exploding rockets to suppress that hail? That's one question both companies and researchers tested...

The Pyramids of Giza have fascinated and confused us for hundreds of years, and while we know a lot about who built them and how they were made, one question that has remained is why they are where they are. And the answer to that...

There's a scientific reason most hand sanitizers claim they can kill 99.99 percent of germs, and there's only one way to deal with the rest.



Correction: there is a typo in the credits. This episode was written by Ro

shni...

When conditions are just right, one species can turn into hundreds in a short period of time. Welcome to the weird world of adaptive radiation. <b<br/>r/>

Hosted by: Jaida Elcock

Does childbirth increase your chance of breast cancer? Yes. But it also decreases it in the longterm ...depending on how old you are your first time around. It has to do with your hormones like estrogen and the damaged DNA in your...

We've all heard about microplastics, but where do they come from? And what can we do about ocean plastics? We'll follow a single water bottle on its journey to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and beyond.<b<br/>r/>

Hosted by: Stefan Chin

Imagine you could remember everything that ever happened to you. Would it be a blessing, or a curse? Super rememberers, people with highly superior autobiographical memory or HSAM, have the answer -- and may also be able to tell us how...

Leeches are bloodsucking parasites, and you wouldn't think they're great at protecting other species. Yet for some conservationists, these little vampires are one of the best tools available for conserving endangered and threatened...

An asteroid nearly twice the size of the one that killed the dinosaurs left a record-setting crater in South Africa. If you look closely, you can still see it today, 2 billion years later. <b<br/>r/>

Hosted by: Jaida Elcock (She/her)

It's no secret that we need green energy solutions. But one often-overlooked part of that future is the need to store our green energy longer-term, so finding novel ways to store that energy is key. Enter: gravity...

Even when a species has officially gone extinct, there's sometimes still hope of saving it. Scientists keep insurance populations of endangered animals all over the world with the goal of one day reintroducing them to the wild....

A lot of very smart people have been working for a very long time on vaccines for HIV/AIDS, and they've come up empty. Thanks to broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) and mRNA vaccine technology, that might be changing. Here's why we...

There's a growing trend out there among users of hallucinogenic drugs - microdosing. The idea is to take a tiny dose of these drugs to get certain brain benefits without going all Sergeant Pepper. But does it work? Let's get into what...

Settle in and grab a painkiller, because these are some of the most painful diseases out there. From trigeminal neuralgia to thunderclap headaches and even jackhammer esophagus, these conditions crank the pain scale to an...

How many decibels would be recorded by the loudest sound waves your ears could possibly process? The loudest sound might be quieter than you think (because of how sound waves work)...or it might be louder than you think (because of how...

Of the 10 largest rough diamonds ever mined, 6 of them have come from the African nation of Botswana. Russia is the only country that produces more diamonds by volume, but the individual gems don't tend to be as large. So why is...

Yellowstone National Park is one of the most famous tourist destinations and nature reserves in the world. And it's also the perfect place for.... geothermal power plants? Let's talk about the weird reason why NASA is all for building...