Unexplainable
Episodes
Vitamin X
13 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Millions of Americans take dietary supplements — everything from vitamins and minerals to weight loss pills and probiotics. But because supplements ...
Lost Worlds: What killed Venus?
29 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Venus is the hottest, scariest planet in the solar system, but billions of years ago it may have been a lot like Earth, complete with an ocean of wate...
Lost Worlds: Life on Mars?
22 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mars was once a very different planet, with rivers, lakes, and — potentially — life. NASA’s latest Mars rover is on a mission to find traces of ...
Lost Worlds: Why do we have a moon?
15 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In all our searching of the universe, we’ve never seen another moon like ours. It's big, it's weird, it's played a huge role in shaping our planet. ...
Lost Worlds: Aliens from Earth?
08 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Was there a technologically advanced species living on Earth long before humans? And if one had existed, how would we know? This is the first episode ...
Dropping like flies
25 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Insect populations are shrinking all over the world, and entomologists are buzzing with questions: Why is this happening? How quickly? And, most conce...
Is telepathy real?
18 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A groundbreaking study claims to have found a way for a fully paralyzed person to communicate entirely via thought. Today, Explained breaks down the s...
Why do we dream?
11 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dreams are weird, but can they be a scientific tool? Can they teach us anything about humanity? About ourselves? For more, go to http://vox.com/unexp...
Should I take a DNA ancestry test?
04 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What are the scientific, family, and privacy implications? For more, go to http://vox.com/unexplainable It’s a great place to view show transcripts ...
My octopus friend?
27 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Octopuses are largely solitary animals, but there have been rare times — notably in the movie My Octopus Teacher — where they seem to have become ...
Glow in the dark ocean
20 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Most deep-water creatures are bioluminescent. Marine biologist Edie Widder has spent the last 40 years trying to figure out why. For more, go to http:...
When reality broke
13 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1920s, the scientist Werner Heisenberg came up with a wild idea that broke reality as Western science knew it. And it's still unsettling to thi...
Making Sense: The sixth sense
06 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why stop at five senses? Just how much of the world can we perceive? And how much is out there that’s still out of reach, hiding in the dark? This i...
Making Sense: Sight unseen
30 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Close your eyes and try to imagine an apple. Can you see anything? Aphantasia is the inability to see with your mind’s eye. Since it was discovered,...
Making Sense: The Umami Mama
23 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For thousands of years, there have been four basic tastes recognized across cultures. But thanks to Kumiko Ninomiya (a.k.a. the Umami Mama), scientist...
Making Sense: No one nose
16 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dogs can smell cancer, Covid-19, and many other health problems in humans. Now, scientists are trying to duplicate these powers in robotic sniffers. B...
Making Sense: The healing power of touch
09 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Doctors can save the lives of premature infants, but the process is often painful. Luckily, a solution might be as simple as a parent’s loving touch...
Making Sense: How sound becomes hearing
02 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the same way optical illusions trick our eyes, audio illusions can trick our ears. This raises a fundamental question: What is hearing, and how muc...
The methane hunters
16 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Methane traps more than 80 times as much heat as CO2 over the short term. So we could make a real difference on climate change this decade if we could...
What is love?
09 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Can science help us predict whether a relationship will succeed? Or is it all just chaos? For more, go to http://vox.com/unexplainable It’s a great ...
A sonic tour of the solar system
02 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What does it sound like on Mars? On Jupiter? Titan? This collaboration between the podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz and the composer Melodysheep imagines...
Finding asteroids before they find us
26 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Scientists are constantly searching for asteroids that could crash into Earth. But if they find one, will they be able to do anything about it? NASA h...
Skeleton Lake
19 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When scientists examined the DNA of ancient bones found near a Himalayan lake, they were forced to confront a seemingly impossible conclusion. This ep...
Are humans running out of sperm?
12 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 2017, researchers published an explosive finding: Sperm counts may be declining in some countries around the world. Media outlets began worrying ab...
The quest to build a star
05 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Scientists are closer than ever to harnessing fusion power — the same process that powers the sun — by essentially making a small star here on Ear...
BONUS: The 2021 song
31 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Noam wrote an end-of-year song with Today, Explained host Sean Rameswaram, so we thought to drop it here as a little end-of-year surprise. Lyrics: 2...
The building blocks of the universe
22 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Most of the matter in the universe is dark matter, an invisible, untouchable, mysterious substance. Scientists don’t know what exactly dark matter i...
99% of ocean plastic is missing
15 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How can we solve the problem of ocean plastic if we don’t know where most of the plastic is? For more, go to http://vox.com/unexplainable It’s a g...
How medicine mansplained women’s health
08 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Until 1993, many researchers excluded women from clinical drug trials, leaving doctors in the dark about how new treatments work in more than half the...
How Venus went to hell
01 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Venus is the hottest, scariest planet in the solar system, but billions of years ago it may have been a lot like Earth, complete with an ocean of wate...
Mind readers
17 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Will scientists ever fully understand the human brain? In their quest for knowledge, they’ve tried knives, magnets, computers, blood, and even a goo...
A brainless yellow goo that does math
10 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Slime molds can navigate mazes, control robots, and make complicated decisions, all without a central nervous system. If this weird gooey blob can thi...
Why whales get beached
03 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Every year, thousands of marine mammals end up trapped on beaches, but it’s often hard to figure out why. It’s even harder to figure out how much ...
Talking to ghosts
27 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Why do so many people think they can see and hear ghosts, and what does that say about our conscious experience of the world? For more, go to http://v...
Honey, we shrunk the birds
20 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A recent study of tens of thousands of birds has shown that birds are growing smaller over time. It could be due to climate change, and if so, we ough...
Nobel Prize 2.0
06 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Nobel Prize has rewarded some amazing discoveries. It’s also contributed to scientific tunnel vision. This week, how the Nobel impacted our unde...
The James Webb Time Machine
29 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
To look into deep space is to look back in time. With the upcoming launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists hope to see “cosmic dawn,”...
The James Webb Space Telescope
22 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
After decades of planning, NASA is finally (finally!) set to launch the successor to the Hubble. The new Webb telescope will be a paradigm shift for a...
What causes Alzheimer’s?
15 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, Alzheimer’s researchers have been stubbornly pursuing a single theory, but they’re starting to wonder: is this narrow focus the reaso...
Havana syndrome
01 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Several years after US diplomats in Cuba claimed they were attacked by an invisible weapon, similar incidents continue to be reported around the world...
Getting to the bottom of butts
25 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Once upon a time, there were no anuses. These ingenious organs allowed our primordial ancestors to grow bigger and more complex, but scientists still ...
The mysteries of endometriosis
18 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This common chronic condition — where tissue similar to what grows inside the uterus grows elsewhere in the body — is barely understood. So why is...
A 150-year-old human
11 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Two scientists. A billion-dollar wager. One unanswered question: Is the first human who will live to 150 already alive? The technology to make that ha...
How low can you go?
04 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier this year, Nicole Yamase explored the bottom of the Challenger Deep, the deepest place in the ocean, where few people have ever been. The rest...
The tornado problem
28 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
8 minutes, 24 seconds. That’s the average amount of warning time people get before a tornado touches down. To do better, and to understand tornadoes...
Moon poop
21 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Astronauts left something on the moon that could help unlock the origins of life itself. For more, go to http://vox.com/unexplainable It’s a great p...
Hot pink flying squirrels
14 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An accidental discovery on a nighttime walk led one scientist and his team to wonder: How many mammals glow under ultraviolet light? The list keeps gr...
Henrietta Leavitt and the end of the universe
30 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the early 1900s, Henrietta Leavitt made one of the most important discoveries in the history of astronomy: a yardstick to measure distances to fara...
How do animals know where to go?
23 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As part of a massive new global tracking project, scientists are monitoring animals from a receiver on the International Space Station, mapping the in...
Invasion of the jumping worms
16 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
These worms are fast, they’re mysterious, and they’re quickly changing North American ecosystems. How worried should we be about global worming? F...
The many heights of Mount Everest
09 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How tall is the world’s tallest mountain? The answer is surprisingly tricky, which means that Everest’s official height is constantly changing. In...
Unexplainable Flying Objects
02 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
UFOs are real, but that doesn’t mean they’re aliens. Today, Explained, Vox's daily news podcast, tells the story of America's longstanding relatio...
The hunt for a new Pluto
26 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Something strange is going on at the outer reaches of the solar system. One astronomer thinks it might be a Neptune-sized ninth planet, and he’s on ...
Cloudy with a chance of chaos
19 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It’s surprisingly hard to predict how clouds form, move, and change, but it’s essential to try. Because how clouds react to a warming world helps ...
A new force of nature?
12 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Last month, physicists at Fermilab in Illinois found that tiny subatomic particles called muons were wobbling strangely. This small observation could ...
Placebos work. Why?
05 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, scientists thought that placebos only worked if patients didn’t know they were taking them. Not anymore: You can give patients placebos...
A virus that could heal people
28 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 2016, the UN declared antibiotic-resistant bacteria the “greatest and most urgent global risk.” Our best hope just might be phages, or viruses ...
The Twilight Zone of the ocean
21 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Every day, untold numbers of strange organisms rise from the middle of the ocean to its surface. They may be playing a crucial role in slowing climate...
The viral ghosts of long Covid
14 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Scientists don’t understand why so many people suffer from Covid-19 symptoms for months, well after they stop testing positive. But that’s just th...
Is a ton of psychology just ... wrong?
07 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A decade ago, psychologists realized much of their science was fatally flawed, calling untold numbers of studies into question. Now, some young psycho...
It’s ball lightning!
31 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For millennia, people have been reporting stories of mysterious spheres of light that glow, crackle, and hover eerily during thunderstorms. They’ve ...
Skeleton Lake
24 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When scientists examined the DNA of ancient bones found near a Himalayan lake, they were forced to confront a seemingly impossible conclusion. *This e...
Journey Toward the Center of the Earth
17 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Sixty years ago, geologists tried to drill down through the Earth’s crust to pull up a piece of the Earth’s mantle. Their mission didn’t go exac...
No one nose
10 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Believe it or not, scientists still don't know how the sense of smell works. But they're looking at how powerful it is - dogs can actually sniff out c...
Most of the universe is missing
10 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Scientists all over the world are searching for dark matter: an invisible, untouchable substance that holds our universe together. But they haven't fo...
Introducing Unexplainable
19 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Scientists don’t know what 95% of the universe is made of. They don’t know how a bike stays up. They don’t even really know how the nose works. ...