It's no secret that cold can help treat a source of pain, like a sprained ankle or even a burn. But new technology might be able to take that principle and apply it /directly/ onto your nerves!

There's an abandoned Soviet nuclear bunker in Poland full of cannibal ants. And weird as it sounds, it's helping us learn more about the behavior of social insects.<br/>

The body can get a whole lot colder - but not a whole lot hotter - before we die. Why is that?<br/>

In the quest to understand how evolution basically built the woolly mammoth, we may have found the blueprints for building them ourselves.

Throughout the Pleistocene Epoch, the range of the woolly rhino grew and shrank in sync with global climate. So what caused the climate -- and the range of the woolly rhino -- to cycle back and forth between such extremes?

A mysterious, large feline roamed Eurasia during the last ice age. Its fossils have been found across the continent, and it’s been the subject of ancient artwork. So what exactly were these big cats?

Nunalleq, a village in what’s today southwest Alaska, seemed to have thrived during the Little Ice Age. How did this village manage to survive and prosper during this time period? And what caused this period of climate change in the...

They have survived every catastrophe and every mass extinction event that nature has thrown at them. And by being the little, filter-feeding, water-cleaning creatures that they are, sponges may have saved the world.

The Toba supervolcano was the biggest explosive eruption of the last 2.5 million years. And humans were around to see it, or at least feel its effects! But what were those effects?

Perhaps for plants in times of great stress and ecological upheaval, the more DNA the better.

In 1964, a paleontologist named John Ostrom unearthed some fascinating fossils from the mudstone of Montana. Its discovery set the stage for what’s known today as the Dinosaur Renaissance, a total re-thinking of what we thought we knew...

For decades, scientists have been studying the cause of the Younger Dryas, and trying to figure out if something like it could happen again. And it turns out that what caused this event is the subject of a heated debate.

Have we misunderstood pain? Researcher and physician Amy Baxter unravels the symphony of connections that send pain from your body to your brain, explaining practical neuroscience hacks to quickly block those signals. Her groundbreaking...

Refrigeration and air conditioning are among the largest sources of carbon, and the refrigerants we use are greenhouse gases, too. But green refrigerants are on the way, from elastocaloric cooling to a method a bit like salting an icy road.

Nuclear war is a terrifying existential threat, but we shouldn't only fear the blasts because the ensuing smoke is the real killer.

For thousands of years, sailors have been telling stories of a mysterious phenomenon called dead water. Even after scientists figured out why it happens, it still affects swimmers today.

Bright pillars of light... clouds of glowing dust... shimmering discs floating around the sun... signs of extraterrestrial activity, or is there a more rational and scientific explanation for this phenomenon?

During long, cold winters in medieval Europe, church organs grew gray, sickly-looking circles that spread over their pipes. People back then believed that this was the work of the devil, but as it turns out, it’s just some pretty simple...

Bananas! They’ve got a long trip from harvest to table, and a lot of science goes into keeping them delicious. This episode was produced in collaboration with and sponsored by Emerson.

Working in the White House in the 1840s may have been more hazardous than we thought.

The cold medicine you picked up at the store involves some cool chemistry to treat your symptoms. *Correction: This episode was written by Alison Caldwell.

For a long time, scientists have debated whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded or cold-blooded. Turns out, they were probably somewhere in between.

Scientists have discovered an underground lake of liquid water on Mars! While this isn’t itself evidence for life on Mars, it does raise some new possibilities.

Hank tells us some of the surprising things that could be causing or contributing to the obesity epidemic.