Latest Episodes

E13 – Waiting for Poop

There are lots of weird, dirty jobs out there. Roadkill collector. Deodorant tester. Catfish noodler. Chicken sexer. But what about… whale poop collector?

Centennial E1 – How the Cold War advanced atmospheric science

Tensions escalated between the United States and Soviet Union in the wake of World War II as the two countries stockpiled nuclear weapons and detonated hundreds of test bombs in the atmosphere. But this arms race had an unexpected side effect: scientists learned for the first time how air behaves in Earth’s upper atmosphere and how pollution, volcanic ash, and radioactive fallout travel around the globe.

E12 – The Oldest Water on Earth

Thousands of feet below the surface of the Earth is salty water that hasn’t seen the light of day in millions or even billions of years. Miners working deep underground had encountered and wondered about the origin of this water for decades, but it wasn’t until the 1980s that scientists started to investigate where this water was coming from and what it might contain – giving researchers clues into how life survives in the deepest parts of our planet.

E10 – Tracking Adorable Chainsaws

Northern fur seals spend more than half their lives at sea. But every summer, they congregate on the rocky, charcoal-colored beaches of Alaska’s Pribilof Islands to mate and give birth to tiny, black-furred pups. Researchers take advantage of the seals’ short time on land to learn more about them by placing GPS trackers on the seals’ bodies. But it’s not easy walking into a fur seal breeding colony full of aggressive, 500-pound males – not to mention getting close enough to attach a satellite tag.

E9 – Inside the Boiling Center of the Solar System

At the heart of our solar system is an enormous, churning ball of hot plasma. The Sun blows a stream of charged particles over our planet, creating the solar wind. Sometimes the Sun flares bursts of x-rays, or burps bursts of charged particles, which can sweep over Earth and potentially create havoc for power grids, satellites, and GPS networks. There is weather in space, and it has more consequences for civilization than you might think.