Yesterday

How Does the Thymus Work (and What Can Happen When It Doesn’t)?

The thymus is a small organ in the center of your chest that's responsible for getting your immune system's T cells ready to protect you from germs. Learn what we know and don't know about how the thymus works (and about some of the autoimmune conditions that can emerge when it d ... Show More

12m 5s

Nov 7

BrainStuff Classics: How Does Venus Work?

Venus is the hottest planet, its years are shorter than its days, and its atmospheric pressure is 92 times greater than that on Earth. Learn how researchers think Venus got this way in today’s classic episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://science.howstuffworks.com ... Show More

7m 19s

Nov 6

Why Do We Eat Three Meals a Day?

The concept of eating three square meals a day only goes back about 150 years. Learn how technology, marketing, and other factors have shifted our meals and mealtimes in today's episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://recipes.howstuffworks.com/biological-reason-to-e ... Show More

12m 48s

Aug 2015

How Earth-Like Planets Work

Since the Kepler telescope went online, astronomers have found there may be an estimate 40 billion planets like Earth in the Milky Way galaxy alone. What does it take for a planet to be considered Earth-like? Learn more about your ad-choices at <a href="https://www ... Show More

31m 37s

Jul 2015

Grizzly Bears from Outer Space

A region of space barely a thousandth of a square degree on the sky contains a whopping 5,500 galaxies. Making the probability that there exists at least one planet that could support life pretty tantalizing. What might that life form look like? Robert and Joe discuss cosmolog ... Show More

59m 59s

Mar 2019

The Lost Daughters of Aten: Planet 9

Pluto may not be a planet, but it definitely exists. Not every case is so clear. The history of near-Earth astronomy contains many cases of bodies that may or may not have ever existed in the solar system we call home. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert Lamb and J ... Show More

44m 45s

Aug 2024

Hide and seek with Planet 9

A ninth planet may be lurking in our Solar System out beyond Neptune. Caltech's Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin join us to discuss their new paper, the latest evidence for Planet 9, and why they believe their hunt may soon be over. Then, Bruce Betts, chief scientist of The P ... Show More

52m 11s

Aug 2019

Forget Storming Area 51, AI’s Helping Astronomers Scour the Skies for Habitable Planets - Ep. 93

Imagine staring into the high-beams of an oncoming car. Now imagine trying to pick out a speck of dust in the glare of the headlights. That’s the challenge Olivier Guyon and Damien Gratadour face as they try to find the dull glint of an exoplanet — a planet orbiting a star outsid ... Show More

24m 32s

Nov 2019

The search for our solar system's ninth planet | Mike Brown

Could the strange orbits of small, distant objects in our solar system lead us to a big discovery? Planetary astronomer Mike Brown proposes the existence of a new, giant planet lurking in the far reaches of our solar system -- and shows us how traces of its presence might already ... Show More

13m 14s

Apr 2023

Science Has New Ideas about 'Oumuamua's Weirdness

Our first known interstellar visitor is now long gone, but new research has some ideas about why it moved the way it did while it was in our cosmic neighborhood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

6m 10s

Have We Found the First Planet Outside t...