We Have Concerns

At the University of Chicago in the early 1920s, psychology grad student William Blatz built a remote-controlled trick chair that would collapse when he pressed a switch. (It was padded to avoid injury.) Then he had subjects sit in the chair while wearing electrodes to measure heart rate and other vital signs. Blatz's goal was to "study the physiology of fear under controlled, repeatable cond...

A writing team at Botnik Studios used a ‘predictive keyboard’ – a text generator that tries to guess what the next word typed will most likely be - to create a truly hilarious piece of Harry Potter fanfiction. Anthony and Jeff take a look at the new chapter of the Potter-verse and decide if they're ready to read AI created novels. ET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.c...

A species of Mexican fish amasses in reproductive orgies so loud they can deafen other sea animals, awed scientists have said, calling for preservation of the “spectacle” threatened by overfishing. Certainly a lot to unpack there, and Jeff and Anthony do their best. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.com/wehaveconcerns Get all your sweet We Have Concerns merch by sw...

Since 2007, the $600 billion annual Defense Department budgets included $22 million spent on the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. The Defense Department has never before acknowledged the existence of the program, which it says it shut down in 2012. For years, the program investigated reports of unidentified flying objects. Jeff and Anthony discuss this state sponsored UFO investig...

Researchers from the journal Annals of Botany report that, just like humans, plants can succumb to the effects of general anesthetic drugs. The finding is striking for a variety of reasons—there’s the pesky fact that plants lack a central nervous system, for one thing. Jeff and Anthony examine the problem and come up with some theories as to what is going on. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND...

Psychologists have reported in Child Development that when four- to six-year-olds pretended to be Batman while they were doing a boring but important task, it helped them to resist distraction and stay more focused. The experts don't know exactly why this works so well, but Jeff and Anthony have a few ideas. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.com/wehaveconcerns Get...

It’s usually OK to be proud of your work and lend your name to it. But most people would draw the line at signing their initials into the flesh of internal organs. Not Dr. Simon Bramhall of the UK, apparently. He pleaded guilty to charges that he etched his initials, “SB,” onto the livers of two transplant patients with an argon beam in 2013. Jeff and Anthony discuss whether this should be a crime...

Squirrels can bury up to 10,000 nuts annually, many of which they do go back and find. A recent study on cognition in the journal Royal Society Open Science examines how fox squirrels keep track of their nuts, and whether those techniques can be used by humans. Anthony and Jeff discuss the finding in hopes of learning to chunk like squirrel. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http...

Engineers at MIT have developed a temporary tattoo that’s 3-D printed with living ink. The tattoo is made up of bacterial cells that are genetically programmed to light up when exposed to different types of stimuli. Jeff and Anthony discuss the usefulness of a living tattoo and whether they'd want to get all inked up for science. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.c...

Two neuroscientists at the University of Rochester say they have managed to introduce information directly into the premotor cortex of monkeys. Anthony and Jeff discuss the idea of injecting information directly into the brain, and what it could mean for monkeys - and humans. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.com/wehaveconcerns Get all your sweet We Have Concerns m...

According to a new study in the journal PeerJ, the interior surfaces of the 17-year-old, 250-mile-high, airtight International Space Station harbor at least 1,000 and perhaps more than 4,000 microbe species. Jeff and Anthony discuss germs in space, and the very real society of Cheerleader Scientists. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.com/wehaveconcerns Get all your...

In a study published in Geophysical Research Letters earlier this year, Roger Bilham of the University of Colorado and Rebecca Bendick of the University of Montana predict that, because of Earth’s slowing rotation, the world will see a significant spike in large earthquakes in 2018. Jeff and Anthony take a look at their findings to decide whether they should start to panic. GET BONUS EPISODES, VID...

Rather than go with realistic methods of death, many films contain unbelievable movie death scenes that viewers accept as possible because they have been shown so many times. These movie death myths have become tropes that are used throughout the industry but that no one questions. Time to question them! Jeff and Anthony run down 11 movie deaths that don't hold up to science. GET BONUS EPISODES, V...

Ten of the 12 water companies in the UK have admitted they are still using the practice of water dowsing despite the lack of scientific evidence for its effectiveness. Jeff and Anthony discuss why a public utility would use such a debunked and decidedly unscientific method. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.com/wehaveconcerns Get all your sweet We Have Concerns mer...

A small cluster of stem cells in the brain seems to help mice stay young, and injecting extra stem cells helps them live longer. The hypothalamus, which releases hormones that affect other organs, seems to affect how mice age. By interfering with a molecular pathway in the hypothalamus, a team pf scientists has extended the lifespan of mice by 20 per cent. Anthony and Jeff discuss this event, and...

According to new linguistic analysis published in the journal Public Understanding of Science, even scientists who write about public comprehension of scientific ideas overwhelmingly conflate the terms “knowledge” and “understanding.” The researchers argue that this linguistic imprecision is problematic—not just for scientists, but for all of us. Jeff and Anthony discuss the distinction, and try t...

We’ve known about zombie ants for some time. These are ants infected with the parasitic fungus, O. unilateralis, which takes over their bodies amd moved them around like a zombie. This fungus is often referred to as a “brain parasite,” but new research published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that the brains of these zombie ants are left intact by the parasite,...

Scientists can grow miniature versions of human brains — called organoids — in the lab, but during the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience two teams of scientists presented previously unpublished research on how these human mini-brains can grow inside other animals. Namely, rats. Jeff and Anthony discuss the idea of rats with human brains and what that might mean for the ethics of scien...

Swallowed by a sinkhole. Washed away by a mudflow. Drowned after falling through thin ice. These are the fates that many unlucky mammoths suffered in Siberia thousands of years ago. Their well-preserved fossils have provided paleobiologists with insight into their prehistoric lives. Now, after performing a genetic analysis on the remains from the furry victims of natural traps, a team of scientist...

Nathaniel Hoyle of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, and his team have been investigating how the time of day affects wound healing, after they discovered that cuts and burns seem to heal twice as fast if sustained during daytime hours rather than at night. Jeff and Anthony discuss this phenomenon and try to decide if it is even worth being Wild Boyz anymore. GET BONUS EPISODES...

Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza—one of the wonders of the ancient world, and a dazzling feat of architectural genius—contains a hidden void at least a hundred feet long. The void is the first large inner structure discovered within the 4,500-year-old pyramid since the 1800s—a find made possible by recent advances in high-energy particle physics. Anthony and Jeff discuss the mysteries of Egypt and if...

Brain scans have revealed that when your mind wanders, it switches into “autopilot” mode, enabling you to carry on doing tasks quickly, accurately and without conscious thought. Jeff and Anthony discuss this internal autopilot mode and how they can harness it to be better at stuff. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.com/wehaveconcerns Get all your sweet We Have Conc...

Marine biologists from the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of Portsmouth in the UK published a study on the feeding preferences of nudibranches, a kind of sea slug that might be targeting prey with full bellies. They coined the term “kleptopredation” to describe the behavior, but there is some uncertainty about it. Anthony and Jeff dive into the details to see if eating a animal tha...

Behold! It is the 500th episode of We Have Concerns! Since that is a nice, round number, Anthony and Jeff take an episode to answer some listener questions and reflect on how the hell they got here. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.com/wehaveconcerns Get all your sweet We Have Concerns merch by swinging by http://wehaveconcerns.com/shop Hey! If you’re enjoying the...

According to researchers in New York, a person’s brain is still active after death, meaning in many cases they can be aware that they’ve passed away. Anthony is, of course fascinated with this, and forces Jeff to once again deal with his own mortality. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.com/wehaveconcerns Get all your sweet We Have Concerns merch by swinging by http...