We Have Concerns

City Hall of Mirrors

03 Aug 2016

Contributed by Lukas

With the rise of autonomous machines and the possibility of an invading army comprised of robots, scientists are starting to think about designing spa...

Those Lion Eyes

01 Aug 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Scientists in Botswana are painting intimidating eyes onto the rumps of cattle that graze near wildlife areas to prevent them from being preyed upon b...

A Growing Smile

27 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A team of scientists from the University of Nottingham and Harvard University have developed a method of regrowing damaged teeth using a filling-like ...

Skin Vogue

20 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Tina Gorjanc has sourced the late designer Alexander McQueen’s DNA to harvest into skin tissue, which she’ll then tan and turn into human leather....

Plate and Switch

18 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A new book called Real Food Fake Food: Why You Don't Know What You're Eating and What You Can Do About It, by Larry Olmsted, has caught Anthony's eye....

Me Grow Horny

15 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

With Rhinos on the brink of extinction, some bioengineers are 3D printing horns to flood the market with fakes, in an attempt to stop the decline. Je...

Animal Magnetism

13 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A researcher in US thinks he might have finally found evidence of humanity's sixth sense - the ability to detect, in some subconscious way, Earth's ma...

Manifestingray

11 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Scientists have built a robotic stingray made of heart muscle cells from a rat, a skeleton of gold, plastic fins, and light-activated algae proteins. ...

Fire Walk With Me

08 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

More than 30 people were treated for burns in Dallas after walking on hot coals at an event hosted by self-help guru Tony Robbins. Jeff and Anthony t...

Drain Dead

06 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A Canadian funeral business is offering "green" funerals by dissolving the dead and pouring them into town sewers. Anthony and Jeff conside...

Oh Pear

04 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Physicists have confirmed the existence of a new form of atomic nuclei, and the fact that it’s not symmetrical challenges the fundamental theories o...

Sell No We Won't Go

01 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Buying your first house is supposed to be a joyous occasion, but for young Tamara Holloway, from Nashville, Tennessee it was a terrible nightmare she ...

Dead Shoe Fineries

29 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Remains of found at an altitude of 2,803 metres in the Altai Mountains are being hailed as the first complete Turkik burial found in Central Asia. In...

Money for Nothing and Your Pics for Fees

27 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

WeLab Ltd., a Hong Kong-based online lender that makes loans in China, looks at what apps people have downloaded, where they go using the phone’s GP...

A Bridge Too Far

24 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon Glass Bridge is found above the Tianmenshan National Forest Park in the mountainous Hunan province of southern China, and...

Booty Call

20 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The wreckage of a 500-year-old Portuguese ship filled with gold coins has been unearthed by miners in a Namibian desert. How did a shipwreck end up in...

A Fish's Edge with Visages

17 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Archerfish shoot high-powered water jets from their mouths to stun prey. By training them to direct those jets of spit at certain individuals, scient...

Solitary Alignment

15 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

In 2006, 20 families occupied the village of Xuenshanshe in China, but as people passed away from old age, and others moved due to the decline of natu...

Babel Wish

10 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A new Indigogo campaign claims to offer an earpiece that can translate between languages. Anthony and Jeff have dreamed of a universal communication ...

DNA'd to Order

08 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A group of 25 scientists has proposed an ambitious project to create a synthetic human genome, or genetic blueprint, in an endeavor raises concerns ov...

At Bats

06 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

An Australian town was reduced to breaking point by the sudden arrival of more than 100,000 giant bats who screeched incessantly and left carpets of f...

Keeping Grandma Swarm

03 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Carol Howarth, 65, was amazed when a swarm of over 20,000 insects flew down onto her silver Mitsubishi Outlander, covering the back end of the vehicle...

Gangs of New Look

01 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Wearing a Straw Hat after September 15th was such a fashion faux-pas in 1922 that a group of street toughs began attacking anyone with the gall to do ...

Meteor's Ours

30 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Japanese research company ALE is bidding to create an artificial meteor shower for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2020. Jeff a...

Am I Human or Am I Dancer?

27 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Moon Ribas is a ‘cyborg artist’ who can feel every earthquake on the planet through a tiny sensor permanently grafted under her skin near the croo...

Buy Some Bison

25 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A Texas woman sold her seven-year-old housebroken pet bison named Bullet on Craigslist for $5,960. So, of course, Anthony and Jeff take this opportun...

Another One Bites for Trust

23 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

In order to become a member of the Sateré-Mawé, a tribe of roughly ten thousand members that inhabits the northern region of Amazonas, boys as young...

Discovery Kids!

20 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Using an unprecedented technique of matching stars to the locations of temples on Earth, a 15-year-old Canadian student says he’s discovered a forgo...

Batteries Caught, Extruded

18 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

MIT says that every year in the US there are more than 3,500 reports of swallowed batteries. If left in the stomach or esophagus these can burn the ti...

Nature vs Searcher

16 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A small mammal has sabotaged the world's most powerful scientific instrument. The Large Hadron Collider, a 17-mile superconducting machine designed t...

Mind Blind Defined

13 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Certain people, researchers have discovered, can’t summon up mental images — it’s as if their mind’s eye is blind. This month in the journal C...

The Eye of the Patent Holder

11 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

According to a new patent filing, Google has devised a method to inject a device directly into your eyeballs. Per the patent filing, the device is me...

Watch Where You're Roaming

09 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A small city in southern Germany may be the first place in the world to introduce in-ground traffic lights. The move by authorities in Augsburg comes...

Building Excitement

06 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A growing body of research in cognitive science illuminates the physical and mental toll bland cityscapes exact on residents. It turns out boring arch...

Fail the Testimony

02 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every expert scientific witness gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in wh...

Tiger Mom

29 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The Toronto Zoo is investigating a video that shows a woman climbing into part of its tiger enclosure to retrieve her hat. That's right, she scaled a...

Castle Hassle

27 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Robert Fidler built a castle at Salfords in Surrey, England without planning permission and hid it behind straw bales for four years. He has now been...

A Boat By Any Other Name

25 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Although Boaty McBoatface decisively won a public poll that Britain's Natural Environment Research Council launched last month to whip up enthusiasm a...

Dream Goblin

22 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The Flyboard Air, made by Franky Zapata‘s Zapata Racing is either a clever fake, or the most impressive hoverboard yet in action. Jeff and Anthony ...

Worry Thwart

20 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Writer and programmer Paul Ford decided to outsource his anxiety by writing a piece of software that would email him expressions of his worst fears ev...

The Eight Escape

18 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

An octopus at the National Aquarium of New Zealand sliped out of its tank, crawled across floor, and escaped down pipe to ocean, leading Anthony and J...

Junk Food

13 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

In Portugal, thousands of storks have chosen to forgo their typical winter migration to sub-Saharan Africa in favor of sticking around to gorge on ga...

Prepare Yourself

11 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Science host Greg Foot tries to get to the secret of what human flesh tastes like by performing a biopsy of his leg muscle to smell the aroma of his ...

Puppy Thaws

06 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Scientists have managed to thaw out and perform an autopsy on an ancient frozen puppy, which was mummified in the Russian permafrost some 12,400 years...

You Mar What You Tweet

04 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Microsoft introduced a chatbot that was built to learn from its interactions with Twitter users, but had to disable it after it began spouting some ve...

Safety Worst

30 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The community of Delta, B.C. is looking at updating its Annieville playground with riskier equipment, after a public health expert told the council th...

Skin Beep

28 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Scientists from Cornell University and the Italian Technology Institute in Pontedera have developed an elastic robotic skin that is able to stretch up...

If You're Lion I'm Dying

25 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A mountain lion miraculously surviving in the urban mountains in Los Angeles is believed to have breached a 9-foot fence at the Los Angeles Zoo and ma...

Dad Yoke

23 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A medical condition called Witzelsucht causes people to compulsively create puns and bad jokes all day long. Anthony thinks this might explain Jeff's...

Keeping Bankrupt with the Joneses

21 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A new study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found that neighbors of lottery winners are unusually likely to go bankrupt, and the larger ...

Hum Linger

18 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Residents of Windsor, the industrial Canadian city that lies just across the river from Detroit, have been experiencing a monotonous type of noise pol...

Horse Remorse

16 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Psychologists at Sussex University published a new study that claims a horse can not only tell whether a human might be in a bad mood by simply lookin...

Fire in the Hull!

14 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Fire behaves very differently in zero gravity, and NASA wants to study it. The problem? It is very, very foolish to set fire to something inside a sp...

Bob Lawbot

11 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Nineteen-year old British programmer Joshua Browder has created a robotic appeal system for parking tickets. Since its inception in 2015, this robo-l...

River Wok

09 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

For centuries, Peruvian locals talked about a river in the Amazon that burns so hot it can kill. Now, Peruvian geoscientist, Andrés Ruzo has actually...

A Bug in Your Ear (w/ Travis McElroy)

07 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

In an extremely strange case that can’t be found anywhere in medical history, a girl from Deesa, Gujarat in India has been unlucky enough to be chos...

Data Inplants

04 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A scientist at the University Medical Centre Maribor, Slovenia has presented a way to encode data directly into the DNA of plants, which would contin...

Dr? No.

02 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

An 18-year old in Florida posed as a doctor for a year without, apparently, any qualifications whatsoever. Anthony can relate, and he and Jeff discus...

Maniac Firebird

29 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Certain birds of prey are picking up burning sticks from brush fires and dropping them in dry grass. Why? Because then all the little critters will ru...

High Fructose Corn Worship

26 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Writer Jeff Wilser ate nothing but processed, packaged junk food for an entire month, and still managed to lose 11 pounds. His hypothesis: If you li...

Sleeper Agent

24 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

New research published in the journal Nature Communications, suggests that being an early riser is in some people's DNA -- and not in others'. The stu...

English as a Sullen Language

22 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

While investigating non-English words associated with positive emotions and concepts, a British researcher recently discovered 216 foreign words for w...

Southern Cuddle Circle (LIVE from PAX South 2016!)

19 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A very different kind of episode of We Have Concerns, this one was recorded live at the PAX South convention in San Antonio Texas, and consists entire...

Black Death of Journalism

17 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

An article on Fox News says that scientists from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany have reconstructed the Black Dea...

A Prairie Vole's Home Companion (LIVE from PAX South 2016!)

15 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The prairie vole, unlike 97 percent of mammals, are monogamous, forming bonds that last long after mating, and scientists have been doing experiments ...

Spectacular Spider-Plan

13 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Jumping spiders, members of the Salticidae family of arachnids, have a level of cognizance rarely seen in creatures of their diminutive size, which en...

Whateverlasting Life (LIVE from PAX South 2016)

10 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Australian startup company Humai claims to be working on a way to transfer a person’s consciousness into an artificial body after they’ve died. T...

Chubmunks

08 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The exceptionally mild winter in many areas of the world caused by global climate change has led to squirrels across Europe and North America piling o...

Planet 9 From Outer Space

05 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Astronomers at the California Institute of Technology announced that they have found new evidence of a giant icy planet lurking in the darkness of our...

No Croaking Zone

03 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

In the Norwegian town of Longyearbyen, it is forbidden to die. The reason? The Arctic region is so cold year-round, that bodies simply do not decomp...

Mantis! 3D

01 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The praying mantis is the only known invertebrate with 3D perception, so, of course, scientists have created tiny 3D glasses and a tiny theater to tes...

Jail Bird

29 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

On the barren Moroccan island of Mogador, falcons seem to imprison small birds by trapping them in crevasses, presumably saving them to eat later. Sc...

Cardboard of Surgery

27 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Google Cardboard has helped save the life of a baby who was born missing a lung and half a heart. Surgeons used the inexpensive VR device to map out ...

Blart Bots

25 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A Mountain View startup called Knightscope has developed a fleet of crime-fighting machinery it hopes to rent for less than minimum wage to malls. Ar...

Tree Howls of Horror

22 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

In their continuing series on things that want to kill you, Anthony and Jeff discuss the Manchineel tree, whose poison is so potent, even standing und...

Dragon Braggin'

20 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

An essay in The American Journal of Bioethics claims dragons and other spectacular animals could be brought to life using the targeted gene-editing sy...

Where the Antelope Syndrome

18 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Over half the Antelope population in Kazakhstan died in 4 days, and scientists are baffled as to the cause. Jeff and Anthony have a few theories, thou...

Downward Phasing Dog (w/ Christian Spicer)

15 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Are dogs getting dumber because of their association with humans? New new study comparing intelligence of wolves to domesticated canines seems to ind...

Stalin for Time: The Story of the American Tumbleweed

13 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Jeff and Anthony uncover the remarkable true story of that iconic symbol of the American west, the tumbleweed. Turns out, it was all a lie. Get all y...

Occupy Octopi

11 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A giant squid, rarely seen outside of deep waters, was filmed swimming near a pier in central Japan. Even crazier, a local dive shop owner decided to...

What's Up Dog?

08 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Melody Jackson, a computer scientist at Georgia Tech, has been outfitting service dogs with computerized vests, so that in an emergency they can find ...

On Core

06 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

This year, efforts will resume to drill deeper into the Earth than ever before. In fact, scientists believe this new effort, drilling from a ship at ...

Cluck Bait

04 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

To combat an epidemic of rabies spread by wild foxes, the Swiss government, from the late seventies through the early nineties, showered their country...

It's (Sort of) Your Funeral

28 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

South Korean companies think they've figured out how to help depressed employees: throw them into coffins and give them fake funerals. One of us loves...

New Pain Regained

25 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

A woman born incapable of feeling pain has been hurt for the first time, thanks to a drug normally prescribed for opioid overdoses. Jeff and Anthony ...

Ships of Lost Souls

23 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Over the last 5 years, 283 wooden boats have washed up on the shores of Japan, full of decomposing human bodies. No one knows where they came from, w...

Urine Trouble Pal

21 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The problem of splash-back at the urinal has been tackled by Researchers at Utah State University who have developed a new device that's being called ...

Designer Genes

18 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The recent International Summit on Human Gene Editing brought scientists from around the worth together to debate the benefits and potential dangers o...

Anger Banishment

16 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

New research by an archaeologist at the University of York suggests that betrayals of trust were the missing link in understanding the rapid spread of...

Spoil Sports

14 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

An astrophysicist by the name of Matt Ginsberg believes he will revolutionize the way we will watch sports. He is patenting technology that will pred...

Keep Your Head Worm

11 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Biologists at Tufts University have succeeded in inducing one species of flatworm to grow heads and brains characteristic of another species of flatwo...

Time Flies When You're Having Phone

09 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Scientists from James Cook University’s Singapore campus have published a study which seems to suggest that modern technology is affecting perceptio...

Space's Mine

07 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Both the House of Representatives and the Senate have passed the US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, a measure that lets US companies own ...

iRosebot

04 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Scientists have created a kind of cyborg flower: living roses with tiny electronic circuits threaded through their vascular systems. Jeff and Anthony...

Dubai Our Shirt

02 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Previously, on We Have Concerns, Jeff and Anthony pitched the idea of a Jetpack Rescue Squad - a group of first-responders equipped with personal prop...

What Concerns Brock Wilbur?

30 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

This double-length episode was recorded back in August of 2015, and was originally released as a Patron-only bonus episode. In it, special guest Broc...

Face the Truth

27 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Researchers at the University of Oulu in Finland have developed an algorithm that can detect micro-expressions imperceptible to the human eye, which c...

Cesspool

25 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Jeff and Anthony love swimming, but now they are faced with a report from the CDC, who has teamed up with the Water Quality and Health Council and the...

Toe Tally Gone

23 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Anthony is full on freaked out after reading a story about dactylolysis spontanea, or human auto-amputation. This is a real thing that happens when t...

Space Ref

20 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

According to a job posting on their website, NASA is looking to hire a referee for their flag football league. This begs the question: NASA has a fla...