Unexplainable

The wildest stories that never made it into our episodes. Until now. Guests: Amy Boddy [https://www.anth.ucsb.edu/people/amy-boddy], anthropological scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara; Jayme Locke [https://ast.digitellinc.com/b/sp/jayme-locke-2969], transplant surgeon at the University of Alabama at Birmingham; Jonathan Jiang [https://science.jpl.nasa.gov/people/jonathan], research scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts [http://vox.com/unxtranscripts] For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable [http://vox.com/unexplainable] And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com [unexplainable@vox.com] We read every email. Support Unexplainable by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members [http://vox.com/members] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

Dogs were the first domesticated animal in history, emerging from wolves some 20,000 years ago. But how did wolves become dogs? To find the answer, scientists have to play with a lot of puppies. (First published in 2023.) Guest: Kathryn Lord [https://karlssonlab.org/about/people-old/kathryn-lord/], evolutionary biology researcher at UMass Chan Medical School For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts [http://vox.com/unxtranscripts] For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable [http://vox.com/unexplainable] And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com [unexplainable@vox.com] We read every email. Support Unexplainable by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members [http://vox.com/members] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

We know Neanderthals and early modern humans coupled up. But when did they meet, exactly? And where? Some fossilized smoke and a baby tooth might hold clues. Guest: Adam Cole of HowTown [https://www.youtube.com/@Howtown] For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts [http://vox.com/unxtranscripts] For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable [http://vox.com/unexplainable] And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com [unexplainable@vox.com] We read every email. Support Unexplainable by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members [http://vox.com/members] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

It’s not great to be a lab rat. And it turns out, lab rats might not be that great for science either. Could the future be little lab-grown brain clumps? Guests: Rachel Nuwer [https://www.rachelnuwer.com/about], science journalist; Lisa Genzel [https://www.ru.nl/en/people/genzel-l], professor of neuroscience at Radboud University This episode has been updated. An earlier version didn’t differentiate between two stages of drug development. For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts [http://vox.com/unxtranscripts] For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable [http://vox.com/unexplainable] And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com [unexplainable@vox.com] We read every email. Support Unexplainable by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members [http://vox.com/members] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

This week on Unexplainable or Not, we’ve got three scientific mysteries all about left and right. Jonquilyn Hill, host of Vox’s new podcast Explain It to Me [https://link.chtbl.com/explainit], is going to guess which of them has been solved and which ones are still unexplainable. Guest: S. Furkan Ozturk [https://sasselov.cfa.harvard.edu/people/furkan-ozturk], researcher at Harvard University For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts [http://vox.com/unxtranscripts] For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable [http://vox.com/unexplainable] And please email us! unexplainable@vox.com [unexplainable@vox.com] We read every email. Support Unexplainable by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/members [http://vox.com/members] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]