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Unexplainable

Vox

Unexplainable takes listeners right up to the edge of what we know…and then keeps on going. The Unexplainable team — Noam Hassenfeld, Julia Longoria, Byrd Pinkerton, and Meradith Hoddinott — tackles scientific mysteries, unanswered questions, and everything we learn diving into the unknown. New episodes Mondays and Wednesdays.

From Vox and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

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40 episodes
Avg 30 min
English

Episodes 40

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August 5 · 39 min
A trip to the twilight reefs
Down beneath the waves, where the light starts to fade, there's an ecosystem scientists don't fully understand.
August 3 · 27 min
The hidden world that birds see
Birds navigate using Earth’s magnetic field, but scientists still don’t know how they actually sense it.
July 29 · 44 min
The Godzilla El Niño
This global weather phenomenon could help make 2027 the hottest year on record.
July 27 · 30 min
An argument for the sun
It can be hard to know how to interact with the sun.
July 22 · 25 min
What the Odyssey is hiding
The Late Bronze Age, when the Trojan War supposedly took place, was way more modern than Homer made it seem.
July 20 · 31 min
Dinosaur mysteries with Riley Black
How do we know what we know about dinosaurs?
July 15 · 32 min
When doctors don't know what's wrong
A 2015 review found that most people in the US will experience a diagnostic error in their lifetime.
July 13 · 32 min
Are you a lyric person or a music person?
When people listen to songs, why do some people pay more attention to the music, and some people pay more attention to the lyrics?
July 9 · 3 min
Big news!
Unexplainable is coming to Netflix!
July 6 · 25 min
Are we all living in an enormous black hole?
It’s possible that the entire observable universe is inside a black hole.
June 29 · 29 min
Risky business
As the world gets warmer and storms get worse, insurance companies are jacking up rates or refusing to cover homeowners altogether.
June 24 · 19 min
A period piece
Periods and menstrual fluid have long been overlooked by scientists.
June 22 · 27 min
Bird people and deep space shrapnel
Two mysteries we can't stop thinking about: Is lightning actually caused by cosmic rays? And why don't birds play chess?
June 17 · 32 min
Should we really kill all the lanternflies?
When an invasive bug landed on the East Coast, people embraced the order to squish it to death.
June 15 · 31 min
Sean tries raw milk
Sean Rameswaram, co-host of⁠ Today, Explained⁠, recently went on a dairy adventure.
June 10 · 26 min
A new species in New York
Around 90% of life on Earth is unknown.
June 8 · 1 hr
The disaster problem
Climate change is making hurricanes, floods, and wildfires harder to prepare for just as confidence in the government’s disaster response is collapsing.
June 3 · 38 min
The lost Lyme vaccine
Vijay Sikand is a family doctor in the Connecticut town that gave Lyme disease its name.
June 1 · 36 min
The cells we share
Fetuses leave cells behind in their parents' bodies, where they braid themselves into tissues, and remain, for years.
May 20 · 16 min
The man who bet against humanity — and lost
Paul Ehrlich was famous for predicting a population explosion that would destroy the planet, but he didn't count on human ingenuity.

Showing 21–40 of 40 episodes