A Little Bit Of Science

This week’s episode is a reminder that science news is basically three genres on rotation: animals behaving badly, humans believing wild things with full confidence, and researchers doing work that sounds like a plot twist in a sci‑fi novel. We’ve got dolphins running ocean heists, urine therapy finding new ways to stay alive online, and mice with human brain cells making everyone quie...

This week’s episode is a reminder that science is basically a grab bag of “that’s amazing” and “please don’t make me think about that”. We’ve got flight attendants quietly racking up cosmic radiation exposure, lasers that can “smell” disease, NASA flirting with the idea of turning plastic into food, and a deep-sea stash of radioactive bar...

This week’s episode is a reminder that science can make you feel tiny and powerful in the same breath. One minute we’re scanning the sky for signs of alien engineering, the next we’re looking at something that behaves like a star and a black hole at the same time, and then we’re back on Earth asking the least fun question of all: should we be building machines that can deci...

This week’s episode is a reminder that humans will try to make money from anything, and nature will always be stranger than we expect. We jump from dinosaur bones as luxury investments, to an AI school that claims it can speed up learning, to a snake with a tail that looks like a spider, and then to crime patterns that change with the seasons. First up: dinosaur fossils. Dinosaur skeletons a...

This week’s episode is what happens when science stops asking “should we?” and gets very focused on “could we?”. Cockroaches are being upgraded into tiny rescue workers, a Silicon Valley crew pitching brain tech you might one day take through your nose, and the Ig Nobels are back to remind everyone that the line between genius and ridiculous is thin. First up, cyborg...

This week’s line-up is a reminder that humans can turn literally anything into a warning sign. A flight tracker becomes an apocalypse detector, a medieval siege weapon becomes a forensic crime scene, and wartime sugar rationing turns into an accidental public health intervention. All of these stories are weirdly useful. First up: the DIY apocalypse forecast. Kyle MacDonald’s idea is th...

This week’s line-up is a perfect reminder that science is not a neat little march of progress. It’s more like a grab bag where you pull out “chicken-powered nuclear landmines”, “mini brains that can sense time”, “one woman quietly preventing a medical catastrophe” and a misinformation spiral about circumcision and autism, all in the same episode. Dur...

This week’s science news is a perfect example of the universe having a weird sense of timing. The Danube River hits record low water levels and suddenly Europe starts coughing up skeletons, WWII war relics, and Roman engineering like it’s doing a historical clear-out. If you’re into archaeological discoveries, ancient history, and the climate change impacts hiding in plain sight,...

Someone once described a snake as “a tail with a face”, and honestly, it’s hard to unsee it. Snakes look like pure commitment to the tube lifestyle, with very little going on besides forward motion and mild judgement. Except a 2015 study basically ruined the idea that snakes are neckless noodles by pointing out they do have a neck, it’s just short. From snakes we zigzag int...

Is there any evidence-based reason cannibalism shouldn’t make a comeback? It’s a question that really should come with a warning label, but we couldn’t resist digging into it properly this week. We’ve got researchers running the numbers on human-eating, rats in MRI “snuggle sacks” while tripping on mescaline, ants living their best fake-queen lives thanks to a t...

This week’s line-up is a reminder that humans will do anything except choose the obvious option straight away. We’ve got a wheelie suitcase that was probably invented by a woman, then ignored until a man made it respectable, plus a smallpox vaccine rollout that sounds like a historical thriller, and a drug that went from medical research to TikTok tan hack with a side of “please...

This week we went from “surely that can’t be true” to “oh… that’s actually happening”. We fact check the legendary pig orgasm claim, then get weirdly hopeful about placebo pills that work even when you’re told they’re fake. From there, we look at research that points a finger at the iPhone era for a chunk of the fertility slide, and what that...

Will’s gone walkabout, so Rod’s raided the archives and pulled out four of his favourite segments for you to enjoy. You’ll get a philosophical gut punch about the Experience Machine and why a perfect fake life still feels wrong, a genuinely weird global mystery with Havana Syndrome and the uncomfortable question of what’s actually causing it, plus the bad news that venting...

Microplastics are everywhere. Birds are masturbating. A trillion dollars is still not a real number. And somewhere in the middle of all that, a mushroom case study pops up and reminds you Alzheimer’s is not just a punchline. This week, we ping pong between lab gear that can fake a crisis, wildlife behaviour that is way more common than we pretend, billionaire maths that breaks your sense of...

Australia has a list of baby names you are not allowed to use, a church once removed a devil statue for being distractingly hot, and one German bloke accidentally kayaked from Europe to Australia. This week, Will and Rod bounce between naming laws, scandalous art, and a seven-year adventure that sounds fake, but absolutely wasn’t. We start with banned baby names and why governments step in w...

A robot exosuit now costs more than most people’s houses, scientists are pitching a telescope built from the solar system itself, and Pokémon Go has somehow ended up feeding the war tech pipeline. This week, Will and Rod bounce between expensive robotics, slow burn space ambition, biosecurity chaos, and a 5,000 year old gut microbe that can still create great beer. We start with a lit...

Mosquitoes are learning how to ignore your repellents, cows can recognise human faces on TV, and Wi Fi can identify you through a wall with the help of AI. This week, Will and Rod flick between animal intelligence, ocean weirdness, and technology that is getting a little too confident.  We start with mosquitoes and conditioning, because apparently even the most annoying creature on Earth can...

A relaxing trip to Japan turns into an accidental run down a double black diamond, a mathematician solves “impossible” problems because nobody told him they were impossible, and missing scientists get pulled into UFO flavoured rumours. This week, Will and Rod bounce between snowboarding psychology, statistical legend, conspiracy culture, and the strange ways expectations shape what we...

Crystals have been fascinating humans for hundreds of thousands of years, chimpanzees might share the same shiny object obsession, and mushrooms may be sending electrical signals through their underground networks. This episode bounces between ancient archaeology, animal behaviour, and the weird possibility that fungi are doing more than just quietly existing in the forest. We dig into evidence th...

Robot wolves are now being used to scare bears away from Japanese schools, scientists have grown mini Neanderthal brains and plugged them into little robots, and snakes are quietly topping the lethality leaderboard while everyone keeps blaming sharks. This week, Will and Rod bounce between wildlife deterrence, prehistoric brain tech, and a public health reality check that hits harder than any movi...

A 1960s mouse utopia that collapsed into a vanity-obsessed apocalypse, a global database of 150,000 enthusiastic stool photos, and a scientific quest to help humans regrow limbs like a salamander. This week, we bounce between rodent dystopias, AI-powered gut tracking, regenerating toes, and international idioms for absolute chaos. We start in the late 1960s with Universe 25, an experiment that gav...

A poll has asked people if they could win in a fist fight against Donald Trump, a survey on female orgasms has wandered into yawning, crying, and hallucinations, and vulture nests are quietly operating as accidental museums of human history. This week, Will and Rod bounce between political fantasy, private biology, and birds that apparently have a better archive system than most institutions. We s...

High school students launch blood samples into near space , a real life love story involves a faecal microbiota transplant (FMT) , and scientists find cocaine in sharks off The Bahamas. Today we bounce between space medicine , the gut microbiome and mental health , and the uncomfortable reality of ocean pollution . We break down what those student rocket experiments could mean for space exploratio...

AI chatbots (and lazy researchers) can be convinced a fake disease is real, Gen Z is side-eyeing the whole “helpful assistant” thing, and apparently, the best way to jailbreak AI is to ask it nicely in the form of cyberpunk short fiction. This week, we bounce between medical misinformation, bureaucratic chaos, nuclear fallout hiding in baby teeth, and the U.S. Space Force anthem doing...

Deepfake scammers are now running full Zoom meetings, birds are lining their nests with cigarette butts like it’s a homewares trend, and Europe’s climate could be one ocean current wobble away from doing something dramatic. This week, Will and Rod bounce between AI crime, urban wildlife hacks, climate tipping points, and a fruit fly brain getting uploaded like it’s just another f...