Learn about whether it’s better to be a big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a big pond, a mysterious, ancient city called Cahokia that’s, weirdly, just outside St. Louis, and how AI might be able to catch heart disease with a selfie.

Learn about a new theory for the uncanny valley effect and the Door to Hell, a giant fiery pit that’s been burning since 1971. We’ll also answer a listener question about how drug and alcohol tolerance works.

Learn how deliberate practice makes perfect, what the New England Vampire Panic is, and how baby tortoises are attracted to faces from birth

Learn why Einstein worried that science can’t explain “the now,” how high-impact exercise is actually good for your bones, and why in Haiti, zombies are more than fiction.

Learn about how bacteria in your gut can produce electricity. Then, performer and lecturer Thom Britton will tell us about the origins of seances and how Hollywood gets them wrong

Learn how calling loved ones builds stronger social connections than texting does, why the return of wolves improved life for every animal in Yellowstone, and how body snatchers of the 19th century contributed to modern medicine.

Learn about whether parasites can turn us into zombies, why awkward silences are so awkward, and why bubbles form in boiling water.

Learn about how eclipses on Mars can tell scientists more about the planet’s interior, why we behave irrationally when our freedom is threatened, and how an ‘80s video game was at the center of a conspiracy theory.

Learn about how being a “Viking” was actually a career choice, not an ethnicity, why it’s easy to plant false memories, and how the pandemic has made birdsong more complex.

Learn about why predators don’t hunt their prey into extinction, then discover the history of crossword puzzles from author Adrienne Raphel!