Unhealthy Curiosity

A famous biology textbook diagram. A Harvard psychologist called Edwin Boring. And somehow... netball. This episode explores the mad history of the tongue map, and why taste exists in the first place.

If you thought doing sit-ups would give you a six-pack, think again. This episode explores the gruelling reality of competitive bodybuilding, and how a 19th century circus strongman used a tape measure, Greek statues, and a little mathematics to define the ‘perfect’ physique. (Do you measure up?)

In one experiment, a man who didn't sleep for a week ended up sobbing about an imaginary gorilla. This episode explores what science has uncovered about the effects of sleep deprivation, from hallucinations to frank psychosis – and whether the brain recovers afterwards.

The inventor of Corn Flakes believed cinnamon was morally suspicious and flavour was a threat to virtue. This episode explores the strange story of John Harvey Kellogg, his wellness empire, his obsession with chewing, vibrating chairs for constipation, and why evolution made flavour far too appealing for his crusade to succeed.

In 1980, flight attendants began apparently sweating blood on flights between New York and Florida. The CDC investigated. The explanation was not what anyone expected. Also featuring blue sweat, pink sweat, and the only diagnostic dilemma ever solved by a dermatologist ringing a snack-food manufacturer.

This episode explores the biology of itching. Including NASA’s emergency Velcro patches, exploding lice in World War I trenches, contagious scratching, "amphetamites", mosquito mouth-javelins, and the imaginary insects produced by the human brain itself.

This episode explores what urine can reveal about you — from pregnancy and diabetes to drugs, disease, and genetic disorders. Including ancient Egyptian pregnancy tests, beetroot-induced panic, blue urine pranks, and why IKEA once asked women to wee on their catalogue.

This episode examines the odd biology and even odder rituals surrounding sneezing. Including sunlight sneezes, chocolate sneezes, and why on earth we feel compelled to bless them.

For thousands of years, doctors believed urine revealed the hidden workings of the body. By peering at a patient’s wee, they diagnosed everything from epilepsy to death — sometimes without even meeting the patient. This episode explores the strange history of uroscopy, the rise of the “piss prophets”, and why modern doctors still occasionally ask you for a wee sample today.

If you were feeling sickly 100 years ago, your doctor might have prescribed a loincloth, a bed, and a sun-drenched balcony in the Swiss Alps. No blood tests or scans — your degree of tan would determine your prognosis. From sun worship to sun-gazing to Coco Chanel accidentally making bronzed skin chic, this episode explores the many ways medicine and mankind have misunderstood the sun.

Your DNA can build a body, grow a tumour, or implicate you in a crime. This episode explores what happens when DNA evidence meets identical twins, and why one of Europe’s most feared serial killers turned out to be much stranger than anyone expected.

If you’ve ever heard a recording of your own voice, you may have wished for a voice transplant. But would it be possible? This episode explores why your voice is more than your voice box — and what it would actually take to sound like Elvis.

Your oesophagus was never designed to handle acid splashes — and yet, sometimes it has to. This episode looks at heartburn — why it happens, the neat trick emergency doctors use to distinguish it from a heart attack, and what spaceflight reveals about reflux.

Over the centuries, doctors have tried everything to cure hiccups — from sugar to shock to what modern medicine would classify as controlled drugs and poisons. This episode looks at what hiccups actually are, why they happen, and which cures have at least some chance of working.

Many animals use chemical signals — pheromones — to find mates, mark territory, and warn of danger. Humans, despite popular belief, can’t detect them. This episode examines these signals — including the anatomical relic of our pheromone-sniffing past, still sitting in the middle of your face.

A strange accident in 1822 left a man with a window through his chest into his stomach. What followed was one of the most unusual series of experiments in medical history — revealing how digestion really works, and why your stomach doesn’t digest itself.

Can stress really make someone sweat blood? In rare cases, yes. This episode explores the strange condition known as hematidrosis — and why hippos seem to have it too.

People have long warned that cracking your knuckles causes arthritis. But does it? And what actually makes the sound? This episode explores the surprisingly contentious science behind one of the body’s most divisive noises.

When you eat meat, you’re eating muscle — the same tissue that moves your own body. This episode explores the anatomical overlap between butcher’s cuts and human muscles, and what cannibals and curious journalists have reported about the smell and taste of human flesh. A brief lesson in comparative anatomy, with some unsettling culinary implications.

Within each of your ears is a fluid-filled shell left over from our aquatic past. This episode examines how hearing depends on that miniature ocean, and why excessive noise — from jet engines to blank rounds on the Die Hard set — can permanently damage it.

No windows. No watches. No TV. When humans were sealed underground for weeks at a time without clocks, their biology kept time anyway. This episode explores the bunker experiments that revealed the brain’s internal clock — and why it’s so stubborn.

Teething hurts, but it is not a disease. From hare-brained remedies to modern misunderstandings, this episode explains why the correct treatment for teething is palliative — and why that’s less alarming than it sounds.

From Magellan’s three-year voyage to the invention of the International Date Line, this episode explores how humans resolved the problem of lost and gained days on paper — but not in human physiology.

From stroke wards to boxing rings — and even airport “suspicious behaviour” lists — yawning appears at curious moments. This episode explores what it really signals, and why fatigue and boredom are the least interesting explanations.

Julius Caesar hid his baldness with a comb-over. Not even a dictator can dictate his own hairline. In this episode, I explore the strange hormonal paradox behind male pattern baldness — why the same androgens that thicken your beard can shrink the follicles on your scalp. From ancient observations to twentieth-century hormone experiments, this is the biology of balding.