Unhealthy Curiosity

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.

Bad breath has existed forever. The disease halitosis , however, is newer. From Joseph Lister’s antiseptic surgery to Listerine — once sold as a floor cleaner and a treatment for gonorrhoea — this episode explores how bad breath became a disease, and what’s actually happening inside your mouth when it smells.