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How Nature Makes A Complex Brain
Episode 1257
A recent series of studies suggests that the brains of birds, reptiles and mammals all evolved independently — even though they share a common ancestor. That means evolution has found more than one w…
Published on 8 months, 2 weeks ago
Your Allergies May Be Getting Worse
Episode 1256
Plants are blooming right now – and so are people's allergies. And if it feels like those pesky symptoms are getting worse ... you're probably right. Wednesday, a review published in the journal The …
Published on 8 months, 2 weeks ago
All Hail The Butt Flicker
Episode 1255
Did you know there's an insect that can fling its pee 40 times faster than a cheetah accelerates? We did — thanks to a comic from the Bhamla Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Since 2020, p…
Published on 8 months, 2 weeks ago
How Do Astronomers Find Exoplanets? Wiggles!
Episode 1254
Dune. Star Wars. Alien. Science fiction movies love alien worlds, and so do we. But how do scientists find planets outside our solar system in real life? One way is by looking for the stars that wigg…
Published on 8 months, 2 weeks ago
Could Psychedelics Become Tripless?
Episode 1253
This week, we've heard from researchers trying to untangle the effects of the "trip" that often comes with psychedelics and ketamine from the ways these drugs might change the human brain. For part t…
Published on 8 months, 3 weeks ago
What If You Took The "Trip" Out Of Ketamine?
Episode 1252
What if you could get all the potential benefits of ketamine without the "trip"? For part two of our series on psychedelics, we look at how some researchers are trying to disentangle the "trip" from …
Published on 8 months, 3 weeks ago
Why The Trip Complicates Psychedelic Research
Episode 1251
Researchers are studying psychedelics as a possible treatment for conditions like depression, PTSD and substance use disorders. But they don't know exactly how these drugs work.
Getting the answer to…
Published on 8 months, 3 weeks ago
Could Running Change Your Brain?
Episode 1250
Running an entire marathon takes a lot of energy. Neuroscientist Carlos Matute knows this: he's run 18 of them. He wondered how runners' bodies get the energy they need to make it to the finish line.…
Published on 8 months, 3 weeks ago
Tornado Alley: Home Of Extreme Winds
Episode 1249
Each year, the United States has about 1,200 tornadoes. Many of them happen in tornado alley, a very broad swath of the U.S. that shifts seasonally. This area gets at least ten times more tornadoes t…
Published on 8 months, 4 weeks ago
The Iguanas That Rafted To Fiji
Episode 1248
Most iguanas are indigenous to the Americas. So how did the Fijian species end up on the island, nearly 5000 miles away in the South Pacific? According to a new study in the journal PNAS, it was prob…
Published on 8 months, 4 weeks ago