When people picture New York City they see skyscrapers, subways, and a concrete jungle. But the Big Apple is really a seaside city built on an archipelago. In the wake of a century of industrial pollution and climate change-fueled...

2023 was a wild year with everything from scorching temperatures to massive wildfires. Even with more renewable energy than ever, 2023’s climate data still seems really bad. So how should we think about climate change today? And what can...

Predictive analytics uses math and historical data to make predictions about the future. It’s used in commerce, sports, politics, social media and tons of other places. And as it turns out, people have been using math to predict people’s...

Would it surprise you to learn that fish and birds count in pretty much the same way that we do? And that infants can do math? Our animal brains deal with quantities in very specific ways, from quick counts of a few dots to how we...

Have you ever looked at a cloud and seen a face? Or the front of a car and seen a face? Or an electrical outlet and seen a face? You definitely have. We all see faces everywhere we look thanks to a fun quirk of the human brain called...

There are a lot of great debates in science, and a major one is when exactly humans reached the Americas. There's contentious footprints and wishy-washy stone tools, all of which has spurred some heated academic arguments. But the most...

The number of people with Parkinson's Disease has doubled in just 25 years, but its rise has been much worse in some places than in others. <b<br/>r/>

Hosted by: Stefan Chin (he/him)

Correction: This episode has some mistakes in our on-screen credits. The Writer is Tom Rivlin, the script Script Editor is JD Voyek, and the Fact Checker is Angela Reed.



Have you ever listened to someone speaking a foreign...

Are you old enough for your childhood to be filled with the threat of acid rain? Are you now thinking "Wait, why haven't I heard about the threat of acid rain in forever?". Well it's because scientists and policymakers around the...

From fake Etruscan clay statues to reburied Japanese Stone Age tools; from a prank that spiraled out of control to a simple case of black market greed, here are the stories of four artifact forgeries.



Hosted by: Hank Green...

Space travel is infamous for the effects it can have on the human body. But some of those effects are a little more unusual than others. For example, if you ever had mono or chicken pox, it can reawaken those viruses that have been...

There's a hallucinogenic drug called ibogaine that some proponents say is the magic bullet for curing opioid addiction, sometimes in a single dose. But, it's illegal in a ton of countries. So let's talk about ibogaine, where it comes...

Whether someone's running for President or to be on their school board, there's a lot that a politician has to do to try to sway voters. But did you know that what name they use is on that list? Research shows that whether you choose...

If you've ever watched a video of someone doing some crazy parkour daredevil stuff, you might have wondered how they're still in the gene pool. But it turns out that all that dangerous behavior may be a pretty good thing after all, and...

Identical twins may look exactly alike, but they differ in some pretty weird ways. In this List Show, we'll explore five of them. <b<br/>r/>

Hosted by: Jaida Elcock (she/her)

You've probably heard that urine is sterile. And we're only just learning that's not true. Understanding the urinary microbiome could help us find new ways to treat kidney stones, UTIs, and even bladder cancer.



Hosted by:...

You can dye your hair, you can get a tan, but the color of your eyes is pretty much set in stone - or is it? From weird diseases to temper flare-ups and even iris implants, here are just a few ways that your eye color might not be so...

If you've ever taken care of a baby, you might have heard that sleeping on the same bed with them, AKA co-sleeping, is a big no-no. But the research into the ins and outs of bed sharing is more complicated than you might...

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...

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...

As of 2024, exactly seven people have been cured of HIV, most recently the "next Berlin patient." Why aren't we sharing this cure with everyone living with HIV? It's complicated.<b<br/>r/>

Hosted by: Reid Reimers (he/him)

Whether you’re trying to play Dungeons and Dragons or one of the many other TTRPGs out there, there’s a good chance your last campaign failed because there were simply too many adventurers in the party. And by "too many" I mean,...

You've heard of Pompeii and the volcano that wiped it out, but how much do you REALLY know about this incredibly famous place? Turns out there are a lot of mysteries that researchers are still studying, from the timing and causes of...