The Natural Experiment

Canada reshaped its music industry with a quirky radio rule that changed who got heard. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Ho ... Show More

In the early 20th century, nothing quite fit — fire hoses couldn't connect to one another, football teams played with different balls, traffic lights meant different things in different states. Then World War II exposed the deadly cost of incompatibility, and the US quietly impos ... Show More

What started as a revolutionary treatment for river blindness became something far messier. Listen to Drug Story wherever you get your podcasts! Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Ap ... Show More

Not all inventions are the product of careful experimentation. Sometimes, someone pulls a whoopsie and learns something new. This episode is all about those types of discoveries.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 

Natural viruses and bacteria can be deadly enough; the 1918 Spanish Flu killed 50 million people in four months. But risky new research, carried out in an unknown number of labs around the world, are creating even more dangerous humanmade pathogens. (Original score by Point Lobo. ... Show More

<p>In December 1988, two sets of identical twins became test subjects in a study for which they had never volunteered. It was an experiment that could never be performed in a lab, and had never before been documented. This week, we revisit this fascinating story, told by <a href= ... Show More

Until 2020 developing a new drug took at least 15 years. Scientists by and large competed with each other, were somewhat secretive about their research and only shared their data once publication was secured. And the public and the press had no interest in the various early phase ... Show More

00:46 Uncovering the origins of the Black DeathThe Black Death is estimated to have caused the deaths of up to 60% of the population of Europe. However, despite extensive research, the origin of this wave of disease has remained unclear. Now, by using a combination of techniques, ... Show More

Des nouvelles de la mort. Une récente étude internationale affirme en effet qu’après un arrêt cardiaque le passage de vie à trépas est loin d'être immédiat, et prend environ 10 minutes dans le cerveau. Durant ce laps de temps, qui nous sépare de l’extinction définitive du système ... Show More

Neuroscientists are creating more naturalistic experiments that they hope will provide a more nuanced understanding of animal — and human — behaviour.These set-ups differ from the classic laboratory experiments that have been used for decades, and may help in the understanding of ... Show More

Gene editing was a new idea in the mid-1970s. So when Harvard and MIT planned new research in recombinant DNA, alarm bells went off. "People were worried about a 'Frankengene,'" says Lydia Villa-Komaroff, then a freshly minted PhD. Amidst a political circus, the city of Cambridge ... Show More

Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been allegations that SARS-CoV-2 could have originated in a Chinese lab. A phase one WHO investigation concluded that a 'lab-leak' was "extremely unlikely" and yet, the theory has seen a resurgence in recent weeks with several scien ... Show More