Exploring bleeding edge experiments, oddities, new and bizarre dicoveries, and fact-checking conspiracy theories since 2008. No question is out of bounds and no topic is too strange for a deep dive.
# evolution
Do we owe our ability to walk on two legs to a sudden burst of supernovae activity lasting for nearly five million years, or are researchers connecting dots that don't need to be connected?
# podcast
Far from being just a slightly bigger rocky sphere than our planet, Super-Earths are a fascinating class of worlds ranging from Earths with a few extra tons to failed seeds of gas giants.
# tech
A new artificial intelligence system called GROVER can create extremely plausible fake news stories. Why would anyone build something like this? Why, to fight fake news of course!
# health
We already know that highly processed foods are bad for you. But several new studies show that it's even worse for you than we thought, damaging both your waistline and mood.
# science
For some inexplicable reason, Google funded an experiment to test whether cold fusion is possible. It's not and can't be unless everything we know about physics is wrong.
# tech
Resistance to Huawei's technology being implemented across the world for new 5G networks isn't xenophobia or tech feudalism. It's a sober stance based on China's behavior.
# tech
Universal basic income is pitched as the best possible solution to tens of millions of jobs being taken over by code and machines. But it's another populist bumper sticker solution to a complicated problem.
# podcast
We're on the verge of driving many childhood illnesses into extinction but a group of obsessed conspiracy theorists is trying to stop us, with thousands of kids as collateral damage.
# oddities
Both Finland and the United States have a serious fake news problem, but only one of them has been successful in tacking it. How this played out is both instructive and disturbing
# tech
Computer scientists at MIT are spearheading an effort to make designing and training artificial neural networks a lot faster and more efficient by powering through a paradox in their implementation.