Ep 177 Toxic Shock Syndrome: A shock to the system

What happens if you put a bunch of rats in an enclosure and provision them with unlimited food and water? Researcher John B. Calhoun was committed to finding out. Results from Calhoun’s “rat utopia” e...

24 Feb 56min

Poop is an incredibly valuable and massively underutilized resource. However, most of us don’t see it that way because of our evolutionarily ingrained disgust towards poop. Flush toilets and intricate...

17 Feb 1h 21min

It might be stinky and it might be unpleasant to behold, but we all do it. For many of us, our poop is out of sight, out of mind once we flush it away. But for the next hour and fifteen minutes or so,...

10 Feb 1h 11min

For much of the world, refrigeration is such a commonplace technology that we rarely stop to wonder at the many ways it has transformed our lives. From the foods we grow to where we grow them, from ho...

3 Feb 1h

Now that we know just how critical sleep is, we’re all making sure we get the amount we need, right? Unfortunately no. One-third to one-half of Americans are not getting enough sleep, according to pub...

27 Jan 1h 10min

Sleep is a universal experience. It’s not just the lion that sleeps tonight - it’s also the butterfly, the chicken, the jellyfish, the dog, the snake, the worm, and of course the human. What is this w...

20 Jan 1h 14min

The widespread use of leaded gasoline in the 20th century led to one of the world’s biggest public health and environmental disasters, the effects of which are still present today. Since its developme...

13 Jan 57min

Ah, the new year. After the last month and a half of indulgent food and drink, disrupted schedules, and laying around the house, who doesn’t feel like they’re in need of a whole-body cleanse? There ar...

6 Jan 1h 16min