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.
# science
Before you get your DNA tested, remember that most of the baseline samples used to process your genome only come from three countries and your reports will feature a lot of asterisks.
# podcast
In sci-fi movies, explorers arrive on alien worlds in the blink of an eye using warp drives, or cheat time with cryogenic sleep chambers. But how would interstellar travel actually work in the real world?
# space
If you imagine galaxies as tranquil clouds of gas and dust, lit up by billions of pinpoints of light, a 3D map of the Milky Way and the details behind it will show you otherwise.
# science
Paradoxically, we’re both closer and farther from zooming across the galaxy than you might think…
# health
Politicians and the public want short-term solutions to the opioid epidemic. But they aren't tackling its root cause: legitimate chronic pain.
# science
Crime and a lack of impulse control go hand in hand. Now, there may be a way to activate that impulse control with an electric current. But we’ll need to be careful how we use it.
# sci-fi saturday
Each installment of Sci-Fi Saturday and attempt at introducing science fiction at Weird Things was given a very positive reception, so the experiment is expanding. Here’s how and why.
# podcast
Millennials are suffering from what’s been called “the sex recession,” and a number of researchers and pundits have been blaming technology. They might not be completely off base for a change...
# space
A tiny, roughly kilometer sized rock might not seem like much of a discovery, but it’s an important confirmation of our models of planetary formation and solar system evolution.
# tech
Automation is responsible for most jobs lost in the industrial world and could replace as much as two thirds of the developing world’s workforce. Why are we still pretending it’s decades away?