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.
From Vox and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
1
A breakthrough in synthetic life
Synthetic biologist Kate Adamala has been making major headlines as her lab creates cells that feed, divide, and grow — all from nonliving parts.
31 min
2
Life from scratch
Scientists stripped a cell down to its most essential genes in order to find out what makes life...alive.
27 min
3
The idea of a song
A few hundred milliseconds are often all you need to recognize a song, but a lot of recent hits have moved away from intros.
41 min
4
Why can’t I remember being a baby?
And if babies forget their earliest experiences, do they still matter?
24 min
5
Can these corals take the heat?
Warming waters are an existential threat to coral reefs, and for people who want to restore them. But in the Republic of Palau, researchers are testing out an approach to help restored reefs survive hotter temperatures — before it's too late.
28 min
6
Why Hank Green takes pseudoscience seriously
Dismissing pseudoscience is too easy.
24 min
7
A trip to the twilight reefs
Down beneath the waves, where the light starts to fade, there's an ecosystem scientists don't fully understand.
37 min
8
The hidden world that birds see
Birds navigate using Earth’s magnetic field, but scientists still don’t know how they actually sense it.
25 min
9
The Godzilla El Niño
This global weather phenomenon could help make 2027 the hottest year on record.
40 min
10
An argument for the sun
It can be hard to know how to interact with the sun.
28 min
11
What the Odyssey is hiding
The Late Bronze Age, when the Trojan War supposedly took place, was way more modern than Homer made it seem.
22 min
12
Dinosaur mysteries with Riley Black
How do we know what we know about dinosaurs?
29 min
13
When doctors don't know what's wrong
A 2015 review found that most people in the US will experience a diagnostic error in their lifetime.
29 min
14
Are you a lyric person or a music person?
When people listen to songs, why do some people pay more attention to the music, and some people pay more attention to the lyrics?
30 min
15
Big news!
Unexplainable is coming to Netflix!
3 min
16
Are we all living in an enormous black hole?
It’s possible that the entire observable universe is inside a black hole.
23 min
17
Risky business
As the world gets warmer and storms get worse, insurance companies are jacking up rates or refusing to cover homeowners altogether.
27 min
18
A period piece
Periods and menstrual fluid have long been overlooked by scientists.
17 min
19
Bird people and deep space shrapnel
Two mysteries we can't stop thinking about: Is lightning actually caused by cosmic rays? And why don't birds play chess?
24 min
20
Should we really kill all the lanternflies?
When an invasive bug landed on the East Coast, people embraced the order to squish it to death.
30 min
21
Sean tries raw milk
Sean Rameswaram, co-host of Today, Explained, recently went on a dairy adventure.
29 min
22
A new species in New York
Around 90% of life on Earth is unknown.
23 min
23
The disaster problem
Climate change is making hurricanes, floods, and wildfires harder to prepare for just as confidence in the government’s disaster response is collapsing.
56 min
24
The lost Lyme vaccine
Vijay Sikand is a family doctor in the Connecticut town that gave Lyme disease its name.
35 min
25
The cells we share
Fetuses leave cells behind in their parents' bodies, where they braid themselves into tissues, and remain, for years.
33 min