Science in Context

Seven-foot wingspans. Hissing at joggers. Can a bird own your backyard? I got way too deep into chenology, my word for the serious study of swans and geese, and now I can't stop. This one moves through the size situation, where these birds actually live, why bread causes real harm, how imprinting works, what those wings do at fifty miles per hour, the simultaneous molt, black swans and broken assumptions, trumpeter calls versus mute silence, eggs and precocial goslings, lifespans, a swan named Excalibur, and one thing still in my coat pocket. Can a goose actually own your kitchen? What does a twenty-year research record on a city pond bird even look like?Tired of ads? Listen to this podcast and 200+ more ad-free on OBOMEDIA.Try it free for 7 days, cancel anytime: https://obomedia.com/en/gratis?ref=desc-6ad8de2d5de627c5404d7e53© 2026 Created by an independent creator of the OBOMEDIA Network. All rights reserved.This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the property of their respective creator, who is solely responsible for them, and are distributed by the OBOMEDIA Network on platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Pocket Casts. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without the creator's prior written permission is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected] episode was created with artificial intelligence: AI-assisted script and AI-generated (synthetic) voice.

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The urge to know. A rattling drawer in your brain. Why does not knowing feel like hunger? I'm going deep on curiosity, the drive and emotion researchers call curiositology, tracing it from ancient brains through modern neuroscience. This one moves through what curiosity actually is, how it formed over deep time, the brain's reward trick, collective curiosity, physical signals your body sends, extreme cases, myths about who gets to be curious, pop culture love letters to asking why, practical tools for using it better, whether animals feel it, what kills it, whether kids and adults differ, and one unanswered napkin question I've been carrying for years. Does curiosity get stronger the more you feed it? What does closing even a boring gap do to your brain?Tired of ads? Listen to this podcast and 200+ more ad-free on OBOMEDIA.Try it free for 7 days, cancel anytime: https://obomedia.com/en/gratis?ref=desc-6ad8de2d5de627c5404d7e53© 2026 Created by an independent creator of the OBOMEDIA Network. All rights reserved.This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the property of their respective creator, who is solely responsible for them, and are distributed by the OBOMEDIA Network on platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Pocket Casts. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without the creator's prior written permission is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected] episode was created with artificial intelligence: AI-assisted script and AI-generated (synthetic) voice.

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Six thousand kilograms. A nose with forty thousand muscles. A family tree nobody saw coming. I've been obsessed with elephants for years, and elephantology, built from the Greek elephas meaning ivory and elephant both, is my attempt to finally go all the way in. This one covers how big they actually get, that pig-sized ancestor, the trunk's real job, why the skin looks the way it does, what the tusks are made of, how they move so quietly, memory and the brain, whether they're scared of mice, elephant ghosts, swimming elephants, how they talk to each other, famous elephants, and one thing about keeping them that nobody warns you about. Are manatees really their closest living relatives? And what actually sets the limit on how long an elephant lives?Tired of ads? Listen to this podcast and 200+ more ad-free on OBOMEDIA.Try it free for 7 days, cancel anytime: https://obomedia.com/en/gratis?ref=desc-6ad8de2d5de627c5404d7e53© 2026 Created by an independent creator of the OBOMEDIA Network. All rights reserved.This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the property of their respective creator, who is solely responsible for them, and are distributed by the OBOMEDIA Network on platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Pocket Casts. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without the creator's prior written permission is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected] episode was created with artificial intelligence: AI-assisted script and AI-generated (synthetic) voice.

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Paper city. Vegan couriers. Drunk in September. Do wasps actually have terrible PR? I'm obsessed with vespology, the study of wasps, and this episode runs through what wasps actually are, how many kinds exist, whether all wasps sting, the first scientists to crack open a nest, how a wasp makes paper from scratch, what that venom is really doing, the strange truth about wasp pollination, whether wasps feel pain, how a wasp can recognize your face, what happens to a queen in winter, who eats wasps, and the penciled secret hiding in an old field guide. Are wasps secretly holding ecosystems together? And what does it actually take to stop flinching long enough to look?Tired of ads? Listen to this podcast and 200+ more ad-free on OBOMEDIA.Try it free for 7 days, cancel anytime: https://obomedia.com/en/gratis?ref=desc-6ad8de2d5de627c5404d7e53© 2026 Created by an independent creator of the OBOMEDIA Network. All rights reserved.This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the property of their respective creator, who is solely responsible for them, and are distributed by the OBOMEDIA Network on platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Pocket Casts. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without the creator's prior written permission is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected] episode was created with artificial intelligence: AI-assisted script and AI-generated (synthetic) voice.

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A perfect sphere. Gone in a second. Why always round? I'm completely obsessed with soap bubbles and the field I'm calling Bullology, from the Latin bulla meaning bubble. This one runs through how thick a bubble wall really is, why a sphere is the only possible shape, who first mapped the geometry, the two-layer molecular sandwich inside every film, how rainbow colours get in, the one hundred twenty degree junction rule, the speed of a pop, bubbles that survive for over a year, bubbles in microgravity, what clustering reveals about maths, and what a bread bowl taught me one Tuesday morning. Why is foam white when a single bubble is full of colour? Can sound actually pop a bubble?Tired of ads? Listen to this podcast and 200+ more ad-free on OBOMEDIA.Try it free for 7 days, cancel anytime: https://obomedia.com/en/gratis?ref=desc-6ad8de2d5de627c5404d7e53© 2026 Created by an independent creator of the OBOMEDIA Network. All rights reserved.This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the property of their respective creator, who is solely responsible for them, and are distributed by the OBOMEDIA Network on platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Pocket Casts. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without the creator's prior written permission is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected] episode was created with artificial intelligence: AI-assisted script and AI-generated (synthetic) voice.

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Three tiny cells. A brain that invents everything. Is color even real? I'm diving into chromatology, the science of color vision, because it turns out almost everything I assumed about seeing was wrong. This one covers why color lives in the brain and not in objects, how three cone types do enormous work, the Thomas Young theory that rewired the field, James Clerk Maxwell and his accidental first color photograph, what mantis shrimp are really doing with sixteen photoreceptors, whether you can train yourself to see more, what color blindness actually is, the gene therapy that gave new color vision to adult monkeys, tetrachromacy and who might have it, and why no two people can ever fully prove they see the same red. Can practice sharpen your color perception? Is your red the same as mine?Tired of ads? Listen to this podcast and 200+ more ad-free on OBOMEDIA.Try it free for 7 days, cancel anytime: https://obomedia.com/en/gratis?ref=desc-6ad8de2d5de627c5404d7e53© 2026 Created by an independent creator of the OBOMEDIA Network. All rights reserved.This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the property of their respective creator, who is solely responsible for them, and are distributed by the OBOMEDIA Network on platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Pocket Casts. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without the creator's prior written permission is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected] episode was created with artificial intelligence: AI-assisted script and AI-generated (synthetic) voice.

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Upside down and unbothered. Claws the length of your finger. An animal named after a sin. How does something this slow actually survive? I got completely absorbed in the science of sloths and I cannot stop thinking about what I found. I dug into all of it alone and I'm here to tell you everything. We're covering the three toed versus two toed family split, the fur that grows backward, the algae that makes them green, the claw design that works like a coat hook, the neck with extra bones, the metabolic rate lower than almost anything alive, the weekly dangerous ground descent, the moths living their whole lives on one animal, the screaming mating call nobody expects, and the conservation reality that is more complicated than you'd hope. Can slow actually be a survival strategy? Does the sloth feel anything? What does science still not know?Tired of ads? Listen to this podcast and 200+ more ad-free on OBOMEDIA.Try it free for 7 days, cancel anytime: https://obomedia.com/en/gratis?ref=desc-6ad8de2d5de627c5404d7e53© 2026 Created by an independent creator of the OBOMEDIA Network. All rights reserved.This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the property of their respective creator, who is solely responsible for them, and are distributed by the OBOMEDIA Network on platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Pocket Casts. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without the creator's prior written permission is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected] episode was created with artificial intelligence: AI-assisted script and AI-generated (synthetic) voice.

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