Unexplainable
Rásarupplýsingar
Unexplainable
Nýlegir þættir
14 þættir
Diary of a teenage brain, part 2
As our brains develop throughout our childhood and teens, they form connections and then prune back the ones that aren't used. What can we learn from...
Diary of a teenage brain
What's going on in teens' heads? Scientists working on a country-wide study following thousands of young people have spent the last decade trying to a...
The trees of death
Way back when forests first evolved on Earth... they might have triggered one of the biggest mass extinctions in the history of the planet. (Originall...
That's no moon...
It's a quasi-moon. Or, a quasi-satellite. Whatever you want to call it, it's hanging out near Earth. And it could be the source of some fascinating ne...
Lost on the road to enlightenment
So many of us have been told that meditation can make us less stressed, more productive, and happier. But for a small group of people, it has a dark s...
Is animal grief real?
A dog on its owner’s grave. A killer whale carrying around its dead calf. A goose that isolates when its mate dies. These behaviors in animals may loo...
The Sound Barrier #4: Listen to the universe
When Wanda Diáz-Merced lost her sight as a college student, she thought her dreams of becoming an astronomer were over — until she learned to listen t...
The Sound Barrier #3: What does silence sound like?
A scientist asked people to sit in a silent room for 15 minutes. Almost half of them decided to give themselves a painful electric shock instead. Wha...
The Sound Barrier #2: The noise that isn't there
Almost 15% of adults suffer from a persistent, often intolerable sound... that is literally just in their heads. Why does the brain do this to us? We...
The Sound Barrier #1: The myth of hearing
Just like optical illusions trick our eyes, audio illusions can trick our ears. It makes scientists wonder: What exactly are we hearing, when we're he...
Solve me a river
This week on Unexplainable or Not, Sally Helm, the newest member of our team, tries to figure out what's killing mussels, why rivers suddenly change c...
This episode is haunted and spooky
Now why would you click on something like this? What's wrong with you?! Why are you — and so many other people — into scary stuff? Two scientists are...
Consider the shrimp
Killing two people is worse than killing one. What about 440 billion crustaceans? Adapted from Dylan Matthews's essay on Vox.com.
This st...
Real-life zombies
Zombies might seem like the stuff of horror movies, but there are lots of examples of parasites taking over bugs’ bodies and bending them to their wil...