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PODCAST

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.

science life sciences

All Episodes

27:57

Placebos work. Why?

Unexplainable ·

2024/11/06

For decades, scientists thought that placebos only worked if patients didn’t know they were taking them. Not anymore: You can give patients placebos, tell them they’re on sugar pills, and they still might feel better. No one is sure how this works, but it raises a question: Should doctors embrace placebos in mainstream medicine? (First published in 2021.) Guests: Ted Kaptchuk, professor at Harvard Medical School; Darwin Guevarra, professor of psychology at Miami University; Luana Colloca, professor

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21:52

Why is horror so fun?

Unexplainable ·

2024/10/30

It makes sense that we run away from scary things. That’s a good way to stay alive. But why do some people also love scary things? Why do people gravitate toward horror?Guests: Mathias Clasen and Marc Andersen, co-directors of the Recreational Fear Lab at Aarhus University For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com We read every email. Support Unexplainable by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members Learn

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26:40

Are psychedelics breaking science?

Unexplainable ·

2024/10/23

Drugs like ecstasy and mushrooms have shown promise as mental health treatments, but they’re also exposing some major cracks in how scientists study the brain. Guests: Jonathan Lambert, science journalist; Boris Heifets, professor at Stanford University of Medicine; Amy Mcguire, professor at Baylor College of Medicine For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com We read every email. Support Unexplainable by

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30:09

Your gut’s feelings

Unexplainable ·

2024/10/16

How we feel emotionally may be influenced by unseen troves of microbial life that live inside us. Is it possible to harness this gut power? (First published in 2022)Guests: Michael Gershon, professor of pathology at Columbia University; and Katerina Johnson, microbiome researcher at Oxford University For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com We read every email. Support Unexplainable by becoming a Vox Member

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30:59

Is insurance doomed?

Unexplainable ·

2024/10/09

As the world gets warmer and storms get worse, insurance companies are jacking up rates — or refusing to cover homeowners altogether. Is the future uninsurable?Guests: Umair Irfan, correspondent at Vox; Karen Clark, co-founder and CEO of Karen Clark & Company; Joe Skuba, VP at The Gray Insurance Company; and Carolyn Kousky, Associate VP at Environmental Defense Fund For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com We

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27:20

My animal heart

Unexplainable ·

2024/10/02

Doctors have started transplanting animal organs into people, hoping this experimental procedure could one day solve an organ shortage crisis that kills 17 Americans every day. Is this really the solution?For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com We read every email. Support Unexplainable by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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25:58

How hot could the world get?

Unexplainable ·

2024/09/25

Scientists have lots of ways to try to answer that question, and lots of different predictions. So how do they figure out one set of numbers we can all work with?For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com We read every email. Support Unexplainable by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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30:40

Should you be eating poison oak?

Unexplainable ·

2024/09/18

Probably not. But Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz decided to try anyway, putting his body — and specifically his butt — on the line to answer a seemingly straightforward question: Is it possible to build up a tolerance to poison oak by eating it? For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com We read every email. Support Unexplainable by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad

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25:28

Dark oxygen could rewrite Earth’s history

Unexplainable ·

2024/09/11

Scientists just discovered oxygen being produced without sunlight — without photosynthesis — at the bottom of the ocean. This “dark oxygen” could fundamentally change the story we tell of life on Earth and in the rest of the universe.For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com We read every email. Support Unexplainable by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

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24:04

You're lost in the wilderness. Now what?

Unexplainable ·

2024/08/28

For decades, search and rescue teams followed an accepted playbook. Now, scientists are helping them reimagine how to find lost people.Guests: Robert Koester, author of Lost Person Behavior, and Paul Doherty, search and rescue researcher For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com We read every email. Support Unexplainable by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

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25:56

Viral dark matter

Unexplainable ·

2024/08/21

With antibiotic resistance on the rise, some scientists are turning to viruses as a medical tool. But we barely know anything about the bacteria-eating viruses all around us. (First published in 2021)Guest: Nicola Twilley, host of Gastropod For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com We read every email. Support Unexplainable by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

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21:56

The good virus

Unexplainable ·

2024/08/14

Our bodies are teeming with viruses. But some of them, called phages, might play a really important role in keeping us healthy. Guest: Tom Ireland, author of The Good Virus For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com We read every email. Support Unexplainable by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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32:18

Ecstasy therapy

Unexplainable ·

2024/08/07

The FDA is about to announce whether it’s going to approve MDMA as a treatment for PTSD. Our friends at Today, Explained explore what this kind of therapy looks like, and why it’s so controversial.For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com We read every email. Support Unexplainable by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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40:39

What did dinosaurs sound like?

Unexplainable ·

2024/07/31

They probably didn’t roar like lions. Their real voices were likely much, much weirder. We asked scientists to help us re-create these strange, extinct sounds. (First published in 2022)For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com We read every email. Support Unexplainable by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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25:09

Do we live inside an enormous black hole?

Unexplainable ·

2024/07/24

It’s possible that the entire observable universe is inside a black hole. All we need to do to find out is … build a gigantic particle collider around the moon. Guest: James Beacham, particle physicist at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com We read every email. Support Unexplainable by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

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21:26

Is good posture actually good?

Unexplainable ·

2024/07/17

Send this episode to the person who constantly hounds you not to slouch.Guest: Beth Linker, author of “Slouch: Posture Panic in Modern America” For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com We read every email. Support Unexplainable by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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36:34

Yawn baby yawn

Unexplainable ·

2024/07/10

People yawn when they’re bored, right? So then why do athletes yawn before races? And why do so many animals yawn? … And why does reading this paragraph make you more likely to yawn? (Updated from 2022)Guest: Dr. Andrew Gallup For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com We read every email. Support Unexplainable by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members Please take a second to help us learn more about you

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26:42

Embracing economic chaos

Unexplainable ·

2024/07/03

Can a physicist predict our messy economy by building an enormous simulation of the entire world?For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com We read every email. Support Unexplainable by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members Please take a second to help us learn more about you! vox.com/podcastsurvey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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30:02

We still don’t really know how inflation works

Unexplainable ·

2024/06/26

Inflation is one of the most significant issues shaping the 2024 election. But how much can we actually do to control it?For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com We read every email. Support Unexplainable by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members Please take a second to help us learn more about you! vox.com/podcastsurvey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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23:07

Can you put a price on nature?

Unexplainable ·

2024/06/19

It’s hard to figure out the economic value of a wild bat or any other part of the natural world, but some scientists argue that this kind of calculation could help protect our environment. For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com We read every email. Support Unexplainable by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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229 results

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