Unexplainable
Unexplainable takes listeners right up to the edge of what we know … and then keeps on going. Host Noam Hassenfeld and an all-star team of reporters — Byrd Pinkerton, Meradith Hoddinott, and Mandy Nguyen — tackle scientific mysteries, unanswered questions, and everything we learn by diving into the unknown. New episodes drop every Wednesday.
76
We booped an asteroid
Last fall, a NASA spacecraft slammed into an asteroid to test a way to avert a disaster on Earth. So are we safe now?
20 min
77
Your creepy, crawly roommates
Our houses are homes to hidden worlds of bugs.
24 min
78
Henrietta Leavitt and the end of the universe
In the early 1900s, Henrietta Leavitt made one of the most important discoveries in the history of astronomy: a yardstick to measure distances to faraway stars.
29 min
79
Plants with eyes?
In the temperate rainforests of Chile, there is a vine that can shapeshift to copy the look of other plants.
24 min
80
Unexplainable or Not: Bikes, planes, ice skates
Our game show is back!
27 min
81
Your gut's feelings
How we feel emotionally may be influenced by unseen troves of microbial life that live inside us. Is it possible to harness this gut power?
26 min
82
Nuclear fusion breaks through
Back in January, we spoke to a scientist at the National Ignition Facility about how close they were to achieving what’s been called “one of the most impressive scientific feats of the 21st century.”
28 min
83
Basic instinct
How do animals know how to do things like spin a web or build a dam? A neuroscientist argues it's not “instinct.” Something bigger is going on.
26 min
84
Why we cry
Humans seem to be the only animals that cry from emotion. What makes our tears so special?
21 min
85
Can we live in space?
NASA just launched the Artemis program, a series of missions that will eventually take humans back to the moon, and beyond.
29 min
86
Holding on to power
A mountain, a tower, a thermos full of molten salt: These are the batteries that could power our renewable future.
28 min
87
Redefining death
Death used to be fairly self-evident, but new technologies have forced us to ask: When is someone actually dead?
30 min
88
Talking to ghosts
Why do so many people think they can see and hear ghosts, and what does that say about our conscious experience of the world?
29 min
89
Why is everyone getting food allergies?
In the past few decades, the rate of food allergies in both children and adults has dramatically increased.
23 min
90
Introducing The Gray Area
On the first episode of Vox’s new podcast, The Gray Area, host Sean Illing talks with Neil deGrasse Tyson about the limits of both politics and science.
54 min
91
Let’s play Unexplainable or Not
For the first time, we get some answers.
26 min
92
The math problem that could break the internet
Today's internet is built on a series of locks and keys that protect your private information as it travels through cyberspace. But could all these locks be broken?
35 min
93
Jumping the gun
At the 2022 World Athletics Championships, sprinter TyNia Gaither was disqualified for false starting ... after the gun went off.
30 min
94
An Alzheimer's uproar
This past July, a bombshell report in Science magazine suggested that a key Alzheimer’s study might have contained manipulated evidence.
34 min
95
Salamander search party
One of the world’s most biodiverse aquifers is full of strange, blind creatures that have evolved in isolation for millions of years. But one is missing.
24 min
96
What did dinosaurs sound like?
They probably didn’t roar like lions.
36 min
97
Can ovaries make new eggs?
There's an old story scientists tell about human ovaries: that they are ticking clocks that only lose eggs, never gain them.
26 min
98
Will the eel (slim, shady) please have sex?
Where eels come from is a surprisingly difficult question to answer, in large part because scientists have never actually seen them reproduce in the wild.
44 min
99
Yawn baby yawn
People yawn when they’re bored, right?
34 min
100
What’s the James Webb telescope searching for?
A lava planet, life on other worlds, the very first starlight in the universe — the most powerful space telescope ever built is ready to reveal many mysteries of the cosmos.
46 min