Probably Science

Original Probably Science co-host Brooks Wheelan (@brookswheelan) returns to the show after spending a year on Saturday Night Live, not to mention appearing on Girls, Conan, and Late Night with Seth Meyers, to give the inside scoop on what it's like to join the cast of the most iconic sketch comedy series ever, RHCP tattoos, Terry Crews and David Prowse, handshake-smelling, Juggalos and tattoo removal creams, bird strikes, New York stories, Brooks's new album, why bubbles don't spill, the shovel video and urban legends about celebrity stomach-pumpings.

Nikki Glaser (@nikkiglaser) of Nikki & Sara Live!, Conan, @midnight, I Am Comic and much more joins Matt, Andy and Jesse this week to talk about her love of ASMR, the threat of peak phosphorus, gerbils and rats and plagues, oh my!, Genghis Khan, NYC subway deaths, cheating fingers, parasitic zombie wasp beetles, naughty aphids ruining symbiosis for everyone, light slowed down, a teaser announcement about the Bridgetown Comedy Festival and the recently re-launched LA PodFest Podcast.

British comedian and actor Barry Castagnola (@BarryCastagnola) joins Jesse, Andy and Matt to discuss Midwest cold, royal warrants and drugs, Mick Jagger, chicks and number lines, lefthanded people, musicians and music stands, mudsharks and Who jackets, rodents of unusual size with giant teeth, high-speed lasers that can see molecules, an even larger reboot of the Large Hadron Collider, the doomsday list, a new Earthlike planet and TV apologies.

Comedian Jackie Gold (@iamjackiegold) joins the crew this week to talk about Barbie dolls, Jackie's genetics, pheromone parties, Broken Heart Syndrome, over-the-counter meds linked to dementia, Matt's fake foreign accent, bad BICEP/good BICEP, UK lawmakers approving three-parent babies and how exactly those are made, and the wonders of J-Date.

Comedy legend, podcasting pioneer and author Todd Glass (@ToddGlass) helps Andy, Matt and Jesse celebrate the 150th episode and the new identities they’ve been assigned by discussing stalagmites and stalactites, Jesus painting restoration, anonymous donors, a guy with endless déjà vu, ketamine and anesthetics, boners and massages, bouncing water, sex education, unboiling an egg, getting paid to donate your poo, hookworms vs. gluten, wiping vs. bidets, Gaye vs. Thicke, and why you shouldn't hit your kids.

Former psychology major and tight end-turned-comedian Patrick Keane joins the proceedings this week to talk with Jesse, Andy and Matt about Chinese diaper trains, Wims and Pims, the video of Stefan Pop's visit to Bluebell Ranch, celebrity photographs and autographs, snow shoveling and heart attacks, polar bear wangs and pollution, some annoying truth-stretching in The Imitation Game, Alan Turing stories from the first and fifth episodes of Probably Science, Jesse's squirting update, listener Anderson Jones's recently published paper, PTSD in the ancient world, false crime memories, finding the space Beagle, the speech Nixon would have given if the moon landing had gone wrong and Patrick's adventure chaffeuring Buzz Aldrin around town.

Television's Tone Bell finally makes his Probably Science debut this week to help the gang with topics including Ted Bundy's jello woes, Tone's cat restructuring, a punk rock Joe Strummer snail, weird shipwreck metal, ancient milk drinking, how Facebook likes can predict personality, ketamine's depression uses, Andy's Uber/Lyft tales, an unbeatable poker computer and things Jesse would do for $500,000.

Comedian and co-host of The Dollop Gareth Reynolds joins Jesse, Andy and Matt this week to talk about Hollywood tourists, Gareth's important moss experiments, airborne farts, the point of the narwhal's point, an antibiotic breakthrough, what self-tickling tells us about brains, materiAl vs. materiEl, why lady jizz ain't jizz, why lady jizz may in fact be jizz, HIV getting milder and Native American art.

Matt, Jesse and Andy haven't seen each other in about a month, so this week's episode is a guest-free chance for everyone to catch up on each other's December goings-on, including Andy's Nicaraguan war stories and Jesse's bro-lesque competition, along with updates on SpaceX's aborted launch, Elon Musk's Reddit AMA, a British effort to send a probe to the moon (and how you can add your DNA to the mission), the slurred singing of drunk birds, the complexity of music as it relates to popularity, carnie scams and whether or not Earth's water came from comets.

The ProbSci gang aren't all back in town together just yet, so to hold you over until our next new episode, please enjoy Jesse's interview with Lizard Case, a Nashville songwriter and tavern proprietor who also happens to be his father. Happy New Year!