Episodes

Was the Chinese seed scare of mid-2020 just a matter of delayed orders and pandemic memory? The Ever Green clogging the Suez Canal is probably a sign of things to come, not a one-off accident. And Wally Funk returns from space—oh, also, Jeff Bezos was there and he gave a bunch of money to the Smith…

Coca-Cola brings your dead taste buds back to life with a new Coke Zero formulation that probably definitely certainly won’t produce a New Coke outrage, Olympic athletes can perform team gymnastics on the beds provided in Japan, and how to watch Jeff Bezos fly into space with all his money. All tha…

The flood of robocalls may soon abate due to a technology named after James Bond’s martini instructions to bartenders, an ethical debate over whether we can revive the dead’s voices to simulate what they said or wrote in life after a documentary filmmaker deep-faked Anthony Bourdain, and dropping f…

It’s not mind reading, but a man’s ability to convey words is partially restored through electrodes and machine learning; NASA carefully prepares to press Control-Alt-Delete on the Hubble Space Telescope; look to the skies, the Perseids are coming; inexplicable black ice worms emerge by the billion…

It’s all greeked to me, some new history about the old text “lorem ipsum”; Europa may hide its secrets more deeply than previously thought; and a man happily discovers 160 bowling bowls under his house.

Archeologists dig up a massive cache of 15th century metal printing type in South Korea, a baby beaver is born in Exmoor, what if ice cream but also macaroni and cheese, a video-game breaks records and may indicate a sales bubble, and Nic Cage’s Pig: probably good?

Houseplants became Instagram models in 2020 driving sales up by billions and overwhelming mail-order and garden-supply stores; we know a lot more about the bulbous shape of the sun’s shield against the ravages of the interstellar medium due to data gathered over a decade; and creators learn more ab…

New findings in the debate about whether the dinosaurs were actually already in a sharp decline before the asteroid hit the Earth. A rumination on private ownership and how, by 2030, we might not own anything at all, just subscribe to services. And an upcoming Pride and Prejudice-themed reality dat…

Could lead poisoning have led to the fall of Rome? The Australian craft brewery using algae to offset their carbon emissions. And Moderna has started human trials of their mRNA flu vaccine.

Why do we have a five-day work week and could changes from the pandemic be enough to finally implement the long held fantasy of the four-day work week? Are we looking at a passwordless login landscape in our near future? And vinyl is more popular than CDs, but could disruptions to supply and demand…

The restaurant that inspired Taco Bell, its larger legacy, and the question of authenticity. Plus, the new species of beetle that was discovered in some fossilized dinosaur dung. And the communities of people who devote their time to uncovering the mystery of dogman.

This week has proven we need air conditioners more than ever, but we also need them to be better than ever. Here are some of the innovations being considered. Plus, one of the women from the secret Mercury 13 program at 1960s NASA is finally getting the chance to go to space this month. And the UAE…

What’s with the on-going trend of horror films and TV shows being set in the 1980s? Is sunscreen worse in the United States compared to Europe? And one of the sports returning to the Olympics next month has a deadly precedent.

Why exactly were McDonald’s french fries so good back in the day? Why did they change and can the secret original recipe be recreated? Plus, a new sort of post-post-punk subgenre is emerging in the post-Brexit United Kingdom. And, a completely pointless but wonderful website I discovered last week.

As promised on Friday, more information on the so-called Dragon Man––the recently unveiled 140,000-year-old skull that may be a new species of extinct human. The science behind why all your in-person coffee dates since reopening have been so awkward. And a first-of-its-kind study puts a number on t…

Researchers have found evidence of a coronavirus epidemic from 20,000 years ago. A new blood test that can detect fifty different types of cancer. And what the lowercase “i” in Apple products stands for and why they stopped using it.

The growing attempts to put flavor back into our produce because, yes, apparently it left. An update on the lumber industry and what it could mean for the economy overall. And the surprisingly strange things astronauts have done with their dirty laundry, plus the introduction of NASA Tide.

A very big and very strange comet-ish object has entered our solar system. Some tips to help your body recover from a year of virtual learning, working, and socializing. And the two badass twelve-year-old girls going to the Tokyo Olympics for skateboarding.

How a single-celled yellow slime is changing the way scientists think about intelligence. A new upcycled food label that would let you know when your food has been made with food scraps that would’ve otherwise gone to waste. And everything you need to know about this week’s Strawberry Supermoon.

What will our homes look like in the future and how much has the pandemic shaped that vision? Plus, why are humans so thirsty? And, Brian Eno has found a home for hundreds of his previously unreleased songs.

A new species of giant rhino might be the largest land mammal that ever walked the earth. Did you know there are probably dinosaur teeth on the moon? For real. The Girl Scouts have millions of leftover cookies and we must do our part by eating as many as we can. And China sent its first crewed miss…

A ranking of the top ten best places in our solar system to find extraterrestrial life. Plus, you know about the food pyramid, but what about the nature pyramid? Also called the 20-5-3 rule. And, I guess we have to talk about that Jeff-Bezos-Eating-the-Mona-Lisa petition.

How Juneteenth has evolved over the years from its origins in Texas, and its reception today. How the Xerox machine (and several dozen dalmatian puppies) saved Disney Animation Studios from closing up shop. And a portal for exploring the cosmos… on Google Chrome.

A new report from fifty of the world’s leading scientists on the need to combine solutions for combatting the climate crisis and our planet’s rapidly declining biodiversity. California’s historically low water levels may have inadvertently helped solve the case of a missing plane that crashed fifty…