Unexplainable
Unexplainable takes listeners right up to the edge of what we know…and then keeps on going. The Unexplainable team — Noam Hassenfeld, Julia Longoria, Byrd Pinkerton, and Meradith Hoddinott — tackles scientific mysteries, unanswered questions, and everything we learn diving into the unknown. New episodes Mondays and Wednesdays.
176
The mysteries of endometriosis
This common chronic condition — where tissue that normally grows in the uterus grows elsewhere in the body — is barely understood.
27 min
177
A 150-year-old human
Two scientists. A billion-dollar wager. One unanswered question: Is the first human who will live to 150 already alive?
27 min
178
How low can you go?
Earlier this year, Nicole Yamase explored the bottom of the Challenger Deep, the deepest place in the ocean, where few people have ever been.
25 min
179
The tornado problem
8 minutes, 24 seconds.
21 min
180
Moon poop
Astronauts left something on the moon that could help unlock the origins of life itself.
21 min
181
Hot pink flying squirrels
An accidental discovery on a nighttime walk led one scientist and his team to wonder: How many mammals glow under ultraviolet light?
27 min
182
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.
28 min
183
How do animals know where to go?
25 min
184
Invasion of the jumping worms
These worms are fast, they’re mysterious, and they’re quickly changing North American ecosystems.
23 min
185
The many heights of Mount Everest
How tall is the world’s tallest mountain?
26 min
186
Unexplainable Flying Objects
UFOs are real, but that doesn’t mean they’re aliens.
29 min
187
The hunt for a new Pluto
Something strange is going on at the outer reaches of the solar system.
30 min
188
Cloudy with a chance of chaos
It’s surprisingly hard to predict how clouds form, move, and change.
25 min
189
A new force of nature?
Last month, physicists at Fermilab in Illinois found that tiny subatomic particles called muons were wobbling strangely.
22 min
190
Placebos work. Why?
For decades, scientists thought that placebos only worked if patients didn’t know they were taking them.
23 min
191
A virus that could heal people
In 2016, the UN declared antibiotic-resistant bacteria the “greatest and most urgent global risk.” Our best hope just might be phages,
21 min
192
The Twilight Zone of the ocean
A dive into its mysterious depths
24 min
193
The viral ghosts of long Covid
Scientists don’t understand why so many people suffer from Covid-19 symptoms for months, long after they stop testing positive.
22 min
194
Is a ton of psychology just ... wrong?
Psych!
27 min
195
It’s ball lightning!
A perfect sphere of crackling light
23 min
196
Skeleton Lake
When scientists examined the DNA of ancient bones found near a Himalayan lake, they were forced to confront a seemingly impossible conclusion.
25 min
197
Journey Toward the Center of the Earth
What lies beneath our feet?
25 min
198
No one nose
Believe it or not, scientists still don't know how the sense of smell works.
26 min
199
Most of the universe is missing
Scientists all over the world are searching for dark matter: an invisible, untouchable substance that holds our universe together.
30 min
200
Introducing Unexplainable
2 min