When you think of a brain, you probably imagine that pink, wrinkly organ in your skull, but we don’t have to stop there! Neither the brain’s functions, nor its cells, are confined to the organ we normally think of as the brain.

Each of our bodies is utterly unique, which is a lovely thought until it comes to treating an illness -- when every body reacts differently, often unpredictably, to standard treatment. Tissue engineer Nina Tandon talks about a possible...

Why does too much sun turn some people's skin all red and shiny? Quick Questions explains!

Gargling with warm saltwater for a sore throat is a remedy commonly known and loved by doctors, and there is some evidence to back it up, but it’s not a cure.

As we walk through our daily environments, we're surrounded by exotic creatures that are too small to see with the naked eye. We usually imagine these microscopic organisms, or microbes, as asocial cells that float around by themselves....

If you're like us, you love the sound of a brunch buffet. But not everything you eat at that glorious buffet is going to be turned into energy. Your body has to work with different forms of food in different ways. In this episode of...

To ring in 2021, we want to celebrate some of the greatest minds in science — folks who have contributed to our understanding of the world and in some cases saved lives along the way!

It’s Nobel Prize week 2016, which means it’s basically science Christmas!

Can we edit the content of our memories? It's a sci-fi-tinged question that Steve Ramirez and Xu Liu are asking in their lab at MIT. Essentially, the pair shoot a laser beam into the brain of a living mouse to activate and manipulate its...

Medical ethicist Harvey Fineberg shows us three paths forward for the ever-evolving human species: to stop evolving completely, to evolve naturally -- or to control the next steps of human evolution, using genetic modification, to make...

Vaccines teach your immune system to recognize pathogens, but sometimes your body needs a bit of a reminder.

There’s a lot we just don’t know about death, but even among the things we think we do know, there are a lot of misconceptions. Here are 5 weird things we believe about death! Chapters SWIM CRAMPS 1 0:39 GUNSHOT WOUND TO THE LEG 2:36...

Nature is full of all kinds of beautiful color, and there is plenty of weird science there too! Here's a showcase of a few of our episodes all about coloration.

We humans can rely on our internal body heat to help keep us warm. But what can cold-blooded animals do when faced with the threat of freezing? Here are three creatures that have come up with some...“cool” solutions.

Aphids can reproduce incredibly fast: they can make 20 new generations within a single season. And that means lots of poop. Some aphid populations can produce hundreds of kilograms of poop per acre— making them some of the most prolific...

Unlike most living things, there are species of bacteria that can harness electrons directly and even shuttle them around from place to place like living wires.

What if you could eat chicken nuggets without harming a chicken? It's possible through "cellular agriculture," says Isha Datar. In a talk about cutting-edge science, she explains how this new means of food production makes it possible to...

Heart transplants are hard to come by, but based on the results of two papers published this week, we might one day be able to grow all the organs we need!

Due to an odd quirk of genetics and some unique evolutionary circumstances, two humans who lived at different times in the distant past managed to pass on a very small fraction of their genomes to you. And to me. To all of us.

Alan Russell studies regenerative medicine -- a breakthrough way of thinking about disease and injury, using a process that can signal the body to rebuild itself.

Scientists report that humans might be quick to judge, but we we may have also evolved to be quick to forgive. And in another paper out this week, scientists have discovered a new type of human stem cell!

Mark Roth studies suspended animation: the art of shutting down life processes and then starting them up again. It's wild stuff, but it's not science fiction. Induced by careful use of an otherwise toxic gas, suspended animation can...

Designing skin for robots was out of reach for a long time, but last week, scientists announced they successfully made the first autonomous robot with full-body skin!

People have been getting tattoos for thousands of years, but we've never quite been sure why the ink sticks around under our skin. A group of researchers now think they might have the answer. Plus, scientists are on the road to making...