Science... sort of

00:00:00 - Joe begins the show by explaining how we all just nearly died last month but didn’t as an asteroid had the closest flyby of Earth ever detected thanks to some pretty cool new observation t…

00:00:00 - Phosphine has been detected in the atmosphere of Venus, where it shouldn’t exist. How could it have formed in detectable quantities? One explanation could be microbes living in a habitable…

00:00:00 - Charlie, Abe, and Ryan are joined by Sommelier Kristy Wenz because we’re talking about wine! Why wine? Stay tuned to the drinks segment to find out! But first up, they discuss the effects …

00:00:00 - We're doing another Anchor-themed clip show! Following up on episodes 266 and 282, we have another round of short audio clips that Ryan created for the podcast startup Anchor under the ba…

00:00:00 - First up, we discuss the evolution of thalattoscuhians, or crocodilians who evolved to live life in the seas, based on CAT scans of their skulls and what that means for their convergent ev…

00:00:00 - Ryan is joined by Lisa Lundgren and Gabriel Santos, two of the heads of Cosplay for Science, an organization that uses elaborating costuming (called cosplay) to advocate for science! But f…

00:00:00 - This episode Ben and Ryan are joined by Ph.D. student and podcaster Kathryn Cogert (@KathrynIsabel), who specializes in mimicking the microbial nitrogen cycling as seen in Oxygen Minimum Z…

00:00:00 - We are joined by cartoonist Jeffrey Brown to talk about his work. First up, we discuss his Lucy & Andy Neanderthal series about a Homo neanderthalensis family that’s just trying to get by …

00:00:00 - New experimental research shows that there might still be volcanoes active on Venus, which is a big deal since it has long been thought that Venus didn’t have active plate tectonics. Abe b…

00:00:00 - Patrick puts forth proposals for less automobile-focused cities (see more on his Twitter feed @pvwheatley) before we dive into part 1 of Ryan’s interview with UCSD Scripps Institution of O…

00:00:00 - We welcome back our old buddy Jacob Stump as he joins to discuss the evolution of the human big toe, which is more interesting than you might think because it showed up sort of lake to the…

00:00:00 - Asher Elbein (@asher_elbein) is still back but this time he and Ryan get really nerdy (if you believe that’s even possible after the last episode). The first half of super nerd talk begins…

00:00:00 - Asher Elbein (@asher_elbein) is back to talk about feral hogs! If you listen to Reply All you may have already heard some of his reporting on the issue, but we were able to dig deep and re…

00:00:00 - Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson returns to the show to talk about his new book, Letters from an Astrophysicist. In addition to book chat, he and Ryan also touch on the culture growth of pseudoscie…

00:00:00 - For our first topic, Ryan, Ben, and Joe explore the theory that the oddly-shaped space rock Oumumua is actually an alien reconnaissance ship. Seriously.

00:23:38 - If the threat of alien …

00:00:00 - For this episode, we’re joined by Peter Brannen (@PeterBrannen1), author of the book The Ends of the World: Supervolcanoes, Lethal Oceans, and the Search for Past Apocalypses, which explai…

00:00:00 - Paleontologist Adam Pritchard (@PTPritchard), post-doc at NMNH and future Assistant Collections Manager at VNMN, joins Ryan to talk about all things reptiles! Diapsids, crown versus stem, …

00:00:00 - Joe brings his friend and historian Kristina Gaddy (@kgadz) onto the show to talk about Chessie, the supposed sea monster of the Chesapeake Bay (bay monster?). She wrote a piece about the …

00:00:00 - The boys are back and they’re talking about meat. Specifically, how the idea that neanderthals ate mostly meat is being challenged by the idea that the chemistry can be tricked if the meat…

00:00:00 - After seeing a twitter thread about a recent publication, Ryan invited Jesse Alston (@IntegratEcology) on the show to talk about that paper and his scientific journey. They met up in Laram…