The Rest Is Science

A can of fizzy drink has been violently shaken. The pressure is building, the bubbles are ready to erupt, and Michael Stevens is about to open it. But Hannah Fry has a trick up her sleeve. Can a few taps really prevent an explosion?This week on The Rest Is Science, Hannah and Michael begin with the surprisingly complicated physics of carbonation before tackling a much bigger question: can we really trust science?From the replication crisis and scientific studies that fail to stand up to scrutiny, to the strange incentives that shape what gets published, they explore why even respected scientific discoveries can turn out to be wrong...and why that might not be such a bad thing.Along the way, they investigate whether Archimedes really could have moved the Earth with a long enough lever, why aircraft are designed to withstand enormous pressure changes, and what happens when we lose our curiosity.Plus, an unexpected discussion about nuns, the dangers of absolute certainty, and why asking questions might be one…

For the past few decades, something strange has been happening in clinical trials. Painkillers aren't getting worse, but the placebos they're tested against appear to be getting better. In one landmark study, the advantage of pain medication over placebo shrank from 27.3% in 1996 to just 8.9% in 2013. Even stranger? This trend was found almost entirely in American trials.In this episode of The Rest Is Science, Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens (Vsauce) investigate the extraordinary science of the placebo effect; how our expectations influence pain, why belief can change the way our bodies respond, and what this means for the future of medicine. Why does the way a treatment is presented matter so much? And how can simply expecting something to hurt actually make it hurt? But the placebo effect doesn't stop at medicine. From pedestrian crossing buttons that do nothing to the surprising psychology of road safety, Hannah and Michael explore just how easily our expectations can shape our experience of the…

Hannah surprises Michael with a mammoth bone from Doggerland, the lost Ice Age land that once joined Britain to mainland Europe, and now lies beneath the North Sea. Who lived there, what roamed it, and how did an entire landscape disappear under the waves?Then it's your questions: where did "cool" come from as a word for style, and how did it stick around for so long? What on earth is "skank face"? And what are Hannah and Michael reading right now?-------------------For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscienceCancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.-------------------Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking…

Why do we turn on innocent people? A convincing story, a suspicious glance and suddenly everyone’s an armchair detective. But what happens when the crowd gets it completely wrong? Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens explore the psychology of false accusations, witch hunts and mob mentality, starting with Richard Jewell, the security guard hailed as a hero after the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing before becoming the target of a media storm. From the Salem witch trials and the Satanic Panic to internet detectives and social media pile-ons, they investigate how a hunch snowballs into certainty. Along the way: confirmation bias, beliefs that refuse to budge, and the famous Asch conformity experiments that show how easily we join the crowd, even when the crowd is obviously wrong. Plus, Michael tackles accusations that Vsauce’s Mind Field was faked, Hannah shares her own brush with conspiracy theories, and they ask why we’re so convinced we can spot a liar when the evidence suggests we’re barely better than a coin toss.…

Michael hands Hannah a kendama, the Japanese cup-and-ball toy, and asks her to land a single catch. Then he brings out one built for him by Adam Savage of MythBusters and explains why a heavier kendama is a completely different physics problem. A kendama looks like a children's toy. It is really a pendulum, a lesson in angular momentum and a catching problem borrowed from spacecraft docking. Michael and Hannah get into why the swing timing barely changes when the ball gets heavier, why the trick is to match the ball's velocity rather than grab at it, why bending your knees on the catch is doing real work, and why the paint finish on a kendama changes how it plays. Then Hannah and Michael take on your questions: what would actually happen if you flew into Jupiter and kept going, whether there is a mathematical way to swim faster, and which books they'd hand an adult who wants to get back into maths after school ruined it. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research,…

What is fire, and why does watching it hold our attention in a different way from scrolling on your phone? Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens start with the science of a flame: why it glows, what its different colours reveal, and why fire is a series of chemical reactions rather than a single substance. Then they travel back to a time before wildfires could burn on Earth, and ask how early humans learned to use and make it. Could keeping a fire alive have helped our ancestors learn to plan and cooperate? And what happens when we replace the quiet pull of a hearth with the endless pull of a phone? From candle flames to early human history and the psychology of attention, this is the story of fire, the space it occupies in our history and lives. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/our-research/rest-is-science Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464),…

The wait is finally over: Hannah Fry introduces Michael Stevens to her beloved fountain pen collection and the beautiful physics behind how fountain pens work. From a £20 Lamy Safari to vintage Waterman and Montblanc pens, Hannah explains how capillary action, surface tension, air pressure and carefully engineered feeds control the flow of fountain pen ink. Michael tests the collection, chooses his favourite and discovers why the most expensive pen is not necessarily the nicest to write with. Then Hannah and Michael answer your questions: which words are terrible at their jobs, how do aeroplane wings actually generate lift, and which moment in history would they most like to witness? ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited…

Almost every human who has ever lived has one thing in common: they were born and died on Earth. Except for three people. Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens uncover the extraordinary story of Soyuz 11, the Soviet cosmonauts who became the only humans ever to die in outer space, and what their deaths meant for the future of human spaceflight.But that raises a bigger question: what exactly is trapped on Earth, and what can escape? Is the water left inside discarded plastic bottles being locked away forever? Is Earth itself slowly leaking water into space? Can you really trap a monkey simply because it refuses to let go of something shiny? And are your phone number, your name and every other possible sequence of numbers really hidden somewhere inside the digits of pi? From space exploration and the Soyuz 11 disaster to Earth's water, animal behaviour and one of mathematics' biggest unanswered questions, Hannah and Michael investigate what gets trapped, what escapes, and what might have been hiding in plain sight…

What if a single strange word could save you a fortune? In this episode Michael opens up a Victorian telegram code book and explores how users compressed long messages into brief coded words to outwit the per word charge of the telegraph system. Coded language turned everyday phrases about everyday events into something that looked like nonsense to outsiders, and why that secrecy was often a side effect of economy rather than espionage, and how operators learned to live inside this clipped new dialect of distance and delay. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.…

Does space travel make astronauts younger? Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens explore Einstein’s twin paradox, time dilation and NASA’s famous Twins Study with astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly. After Scott Kelly spent 340 days aboard the International Space Station, he returned milliseconds younger than his identical twin. But microgravity had also affected his eyesight, bones, blood, gut microbiome, body temperature, genes and telomeres. So what exactly happens to the human body in space, and which changes remain after astronauts return to Earth? In this episode, Hannah and Michael discover how deeply the human body depends on gravity. Along the way, they uncover why your head ages faster than your feet, what a 63 day cave experiment reveals about our sense of time, and whether future humans could ever truly adapt to life beyond Earth. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit…

Do collagen pills live up to their promises for skin and joints and healthy ageing? In this episode, Hannah and Michael examine what collagen actually is and how the body makes and uses it, before looking closely at whether collagen supplements survive digestion and reach the skin in any meaningful form. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/our-research/rest-is-science Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ. ------------------- Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠ ------------------- Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley + Jack Meek Animator: Sam Benson Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell…

⁠What is the smallest thing you can possibly feel? ⁠ ⁠ Michael Stevens and Professor Hannah Fry journey through varying levels of perception, from the faintest touch on skin to the faintest trace of flavour and odour, and on to the remarkable question of whether the eye can register a single particle of light. ⁠ ⁠ This is an exploration of human senses at their most sensitive, blending physics and neuroscience with everyday experience to reveal where our biology draws the line between nothing and something, and what about emotion... how do we feel those?⁠ ⁠What is the smallest thing you can possibly feel? ⁠ ⁠ Michael Stevens and Professor Hannah Fry journey through varying levels of perception, from the faintest touch on skin to the faintest trace of flavour and odour, and on to the remarkable question of whether the eye can register a single particle of light. ⁠ This is an exploration of human senses at their most sensitive, blending physics and neuroscience with everyday experience to reveal where our…

The scale of the universe stretches from the Planck length, the smallest scale physics can describe, to the observable universe, the largest thing we can see. Travel inward from one and outward from the other by powers of ten and they meet at something astonishingly familiar: the size of a human egg cell. Michael Stevens (VSauce) takes Professor Hannah Fry on a journey through powers of ten, from quarks and protons and DNA to bananas and pyramids and on to planets and galaxies, to explore where we sit in the scale of the universe. Along the way they ask whether the Planck length could be the universe's smallest pixel, whether reality might be a computer simulation and just how empty space really is. Plus, your questions: why our best ideas arrive in the shower, Wikipedia's strangest rabbit holes and Hannah corrects the record on whether Saint Augustine and Thomas Aquinas believed curiosity was a sin. ------------------- You can find the Reddit thread for scale of the universe here:…

The mukbang phenomenon is comfort viewing for millions, yet for others the sound of chewing, slurping and everyday mouth noises is enough to trigger instant anger, disgust and distress. Why do the sounds soothe one person and enrage another? In this episode, Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens (Vsauce) explore misophonia, the misunderstood sound sensitivity that can turn everyday mouth sounds into powerful emotional triggers. 1 in 5 people in a UK study have reported a hatred of mouth sounds, but where does the problem lie, and can you train your brain to stop hating a sound, or is the person chewing next to you simply beyond forgiveness? Are the sounds themselves the trigger? Or is the structure of the human ear to blame? Perhaps, instead, the answer lies in a surprising connection between our brains and our jaws. To find out, Hannah and Michael trial a surprising trick that could offer genuine relief, and discover how changing what you see can completely transform your response to what you hear. Along…

In this episode of Field Notes, Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens (Vsauce) begin with a Persian word for a smell Hannah cannot detect on a freshly washed plate. From the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and Russian words for blue to emotions and identity, Hannah and Michael investigate how language may shape our experience of the world. Then, your questions. How fast would you need to throw a rock for it to escape Earth? What is the planet's escape velocity? Could it survive the atmosphere, or would it take something the size of the Chicxulub asteroid to make it out? How does soap kill germs? Why does bleach feel slippery on your hands? And can a scientific theory be completely wrong but still appear to work? Join them, as they explore linguistics, psychology, colour perception, space travel, bacteria, viruses and, of course, the scientific method. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit…

What is the fastest, cheapest and possibly worst way to get into space? Could a nuclear explosion launch a manhole cover beyond the Earth’s atmosphere? And could space elevators, skyhooks or launch loops one day replace rockets? In this episode, Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens (VSauce) explore where space really begins, why orbit means falling forever, and how Newton’s cannon explains the motion of the International Space Station. They also interrogate the physics of the Kármán line, orbital velocity and geostationary orbit, before asking whether humans could ever climb a staircase to space, or catch a rotating skyhook into orbit. Plus, the far future fate of Earth, firing a bullet around the Moon, the true value of the Apollo Moon landing, the ethics of colonising Mars and whether the future of space exploration should belong to private companies or the public! ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit…

Michael Stevens keeps a small museum of unusual timepieces on his desk: a clock that runs backwards, a watch built to be read in complete darkness, and one whose entire face simply says "now." Each is a miniature experiment in the psychology of time, and each reveals something surprising about how our perception of time shapes the way we understand uncertainty and the world around us. The conversation then turns to logic and reasoning: how we make judgements, why we get things wrong, and whether thinking more carefully can help us make better sense of reality. It ends with your questions, including why so many of us are convinced we're simply "not maths people”. Is that belief itself, rather than any innate ability, the real source of our mathematical failure? ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/our-research/rest-is-science Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England…

How did the Gila monster, a desert lizard that eats just five times a year, help unlock the science behind Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro?In this episode of The Rest Is Science, Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens (Vsauce) trace the strange journey from a molecule found in lizard venom to medicines reshaping diabetes and weight-loss treatment, exploring how GLP-1 helps regulate blood sugar, appetite and the hum of ‘food noise’.Early evidence suggests their effects may extend far beyond food, quieting cravings for alcohol and cigarettes, and even the urge to gamble. What might this reveal about the biology of wanting itself, and how much control do any of us really have over what we crave?-------------------For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/our-research/rest-is-scienceCancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey…

When you picture the North Pole, you probably imagine a vast, frozen expanse of floating sea ice. But hidden deep beneath the surface of the Arctic lies something incredible: a massive, churning reservoir of nearly freshwater, suspended right in the middle of a saltwater ocean. In this episode of The Rest Is Science, Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens (VSauce) explore the hidden hydrodynamics of the Arctic. Fresh off a real-world scientific expedition to the sprawling ice sheets of Greenland, Hannah shares firsthand accounts of the colossal forces currently reshaping our polar regions. Together, they unpack the bizarre physics that allow a gigantic freshwater lake to form beneath the Arctic ice. Fancy some some of your own glacial water? https://svalbardi.com Send questions of your own to therestisscience@goalhanger.com or find us at r/TheRestIsScience. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit…

Why does the cartoon Sun always wear sunglasses? And how big would a real pair need to be? Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens investigate space mirrors, Reflect Orbital and solar eclipses to find out. Starting with a pencil held at arm’s length, they use the Sun’s angular diameter to calculate how big a pair of solar sunglasses would need to be for one eye, two eyes, everyone in London and eventually the entire planet. Their hypothetical answer is a strange structure more than a million kilometres wide, positioned deep in space. Entirely practical. They compare its extraordinary scale with NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, the real spacecraft flying closer to the Sun than anything ever built, before using Lagrange points to work out where their creation could possibly go. But could putting something between Earth and the Sun ever be useful? Real proposals for space sunshades and climate geo-engineering suggest that blocking a small fraction of sunlight could help cool the planet. Moving from shade to reflection, they…

Colour wheel or colour line? Light itself runs in a straight line from red to violet, yet every colour theory chart bends that spectrum into a circle and the reason has nothing to do with physics. Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens (VSauce) dig into why human vision refuses to see colour the way light actually behaves, tracing the visible light spectrum from one end to the other and asking where all the "missing" colours, like magenta and purple, actually come from if they don't exist on that spectrum at all. It turns out the colour wheel is less a description of light and more a diagram of a workaround your brain performs constantly. Send your questions to therestofscience@goalhanger.com or find us at r/TheRestIsScience on Reddit. Find the wetter water Michael discusses at - https://winsol.com/products/wetter-water ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠ Cancer…

Can Hannah convince Michael that the lithium-ion battery is one of our most overrated inventions to ever happen? Hannah makes her case using a surprising energy source hidden in your fridge, a bell in Oxford that's been ringing since 1840, and a metal that is useful… but prone to bursting into flame from the inside out. Tracing the battery's strange history, from a twitching dead frog to the executed man who helped inspire Frankenstein. But the real point runs deeper: we don't have an energy problem, we have a storage issue, and until we crack it, the clean energy future stays just out of reach. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠ Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man…

What grows in the spaces humans are forced to abandon?Hannah brings Michael an actual piece of barbed wire from the Korean Demilitarised Zone, one of the most heavily fortified and forbidden borders on Earth, and it sends them somewhere unexpected. From deserted no man's land and radioactive exclusion zones to remote islands that most of humankind has quietly agreed to leave well alone, they explore the surprising ways life adapts to the damage we leave behind.Plus your questions: the scientific fact that scared Michael most, where tectonic plates actually go when they collide, and a very good would you rather. Send questions of your own to therestofscience@goalhanger.com or find us at r/TheRestIsScience. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠ Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and…

Did the world really end in 2012? Not with fire, meteors or an ancient Mayan prophecy, but Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens ask whether something just as profound took place instead. Together they unravel how one of the biggest myths in history took hold and why the Maya were unable to accurately predict the apocalypse. But they also delve into why, according to Michael, 2012 was the year an old world was discarded and a new one began to emerge. It was, afterall, the year a novel technology became unavoidable and we began to abandon a shared culture for millions of fragmented realities. Along the way they also explore the science of confirmation bias, why humans are fascinated by the end of the world, and whether technology has made us less connected...or reconnected us in a different way. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/our-research/rest-is-science. Cancer Research UK…

Can you hide your skeleton from a dog? Would you want to know the day you’ll die? Has evolution ever come close to producing a real fire breather? Michael and Hannah test a T-shirt with a secret only humans can see, leading them into the strange world of colour vision, from colourblindness and tetrachromacy, to the remarkable eyes of the mantis shrimp. They also ask whether DNA could become the ultimate hard drive, visit a data storage mountain in Pittsburgh and discover just how little space all of humanity’s writing might take up. Send your questions to therestofscience@goalhanger.com or find us at r/TheRestIsScience. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠ Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales…

Why can't you leave a sealed envelope unopened? Professor Hannah Fry begins by refusing to allow Michael Stevens to open a mystery envelope addressed to him. A small act of torture that turns out to be the perfect way in to today's subject: curiosity. What is it, why does it feel almost physical, and how far will people actually go just to resolve a nagging uncertainty? From there Hannah and Michael trace curiosity's surprising reputation through history; how for well over a thousand years it was branded a vice, even a sin, before a couple of inventions flipped it into a virtue almost overnight. Along the way they delve into the psychology and neuroscience of this itch. Why your brain can't stop worrying at a missing answer, why getting something wrong could be the key to remembering it, and which animals share the drive (and one surprising creature that doesn't). Plus curiosity's darker side, the way the modern world has learned to hijack the very same circuitry, and a rather lovely story about how a Mars…

It begins with a discovery in a loft: a full man eating tiger skin, brought back from a village in northern India where Professor Hannah Fry's ex-mother in law grew up. That find sends Hannah and Michael Stevens into the strange world of man eating big cats: a tigress blamed for a staggering number of deaths, what can turn a tiger toward hunting humans in the first place, and how India now borrows techniques from forensic science…effectively putting a tiger on trial before deciding its fate. And it raises an uncomfortable question: when a critically endangered animal kills a person, how do you weigh human safety against saving a species? Plus the wonderfully simple trick that stops attacks in their tracks.Then it's over to your questions, taking in some of the universe's most beautiful coincidences, from the sky above us to the clockwork of distant moons, and a mysterious number that once haunted one of the great physicists. Come and join our sub-Reddit: /r/TheRestIsScience ------------------- For more…

Do your friends actually like you? Does an acquaintance think you’re closer than you are? This week, Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens explore the surprising psychology of friendship, from familiar strangers and para-social relationships to the unsettling discovery that nearly half of friendships may not be mutual. Why are we so bad at judging who considers us a friend? Why do strangers often have a bigger impact on our lives than we realise? And why do your friends almost certainly have more friends than you do? Along the way, they uncover the science of social networks, loneliness, influence, popularity, and the famous friendship paradox, revealing how the hidden connections around us shape our health, happiness, and behaviour. A View From A Bridge - https://www.instagram.com/aview.fromabridge Letters Anonymous - https://www.lettersanonymous.com Are You Friends', Friend paper - https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0151588&type=printable ------------------- For more…

The statistical reality of "The World's #1 Dad Mug" is nothing but a well meaning lie. In this episode of The Rest Is Science, Michael brings another treasured artifact into the studio: a mug gifted by his daughter. Rather than claiming the top spot, the mug features a specific, mathematically defensible ranking of his fatherly abilities. If he's not the very best...surely he's in the top percentile? Find out on Field Notes. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠ Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ. ------------------- Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠ -------------------…

Stubbing your toe feels like the pain is entirely in your foot. But the reality is far stranger... the agonising sensation you experience is actually a highly complex, constructed illusion, invented in real-time by your brain.In this episode of The Rest Is Science, Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens (VSauce) explore the weird neuroscience of human pain and why pain is ultimately a brilliant evolutionary survival mechanism, how psychological state and the placebo effect can physically alter how much an injury hurts.-------------------For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20…

When you think of dangerous geological specimens, does your mind jump straight to radioactive uranium, toxic heavy metals, or even asbestos? What if one of the most dangerous items sitting on a shelf is actually a polished, perfectly ordinary-looking piece of black obsidian? Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens dive into the surprisingly treacherous geology and chemistry of obsidian. Hannah brings an onyx from her personal rock collection to explain exactly why this specific piece of material holds the title of the most dangerous rock she owns, unpicking the fascinating physical properties of the stone and exploring how its conchoidal fracture pattern can easily create edges sharper than a modern surgical scalpel. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠ Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man…

Your ears are lying to you right now. In this episode of The Rest Is Science, Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens (Vsauce) dive into the bizarre world of audio illusions where your brain hears sounds that don't exist, fills in frequencies that were never there, and constructs a version of reality that simply isn't real. From the impossible endless ascending tone to the battle between your eyes and ears, explore how auditory illusions reveal the cracks in human perception. Along the way, we uncover how hearing works at a neurological level, why your brain edits sounds before you consciously register them, and what sensory perception research tells us about whether any of us truly experience reality as it is. Could the gap between what's real and what you perceive be wider than you think? The answer might change how you listen to the world. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit…

A pen designed to write in space sits unopened for 25 years. Does it still work?In this episode of Field Notes, Michael Stevens finally opens a treasured souvenir from his time at Space Camp: a genuine Fisher Space Pen that has been waiting decades for its first scribble. From there, the conversation launches into the challenges of living in space, why astronauts abandoned pencils, and what happens to your sense of direction when gravity disappears.Along the way they investigate whether eight billion people clapping could damage a building, discover why the ISS is constantly falling towards Earth, and ask whether the Kardashev Scale tells us anything meaningful about the future of civilisation.-------------------For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A…

What will humanity leave behind? In this episode, Professor Hannah Fry and VSauce's Michael Stevens explore the traces humans leave behind and what those traces reveal about how we think. From Tranquility Base, where humanity's first footprints on another world still sit undisturbed in lunar dust, to a three million year old pebble that may represent one of the earliest signs of symbolic thought, they uncover how ordinary objects can become extraordinary windows into our past. Why would one of our ancestors carry a rock that looked like a face? Who owns the artefacts we leave beyond Earth? And what might future generations learn from our footprints, tools, jokes, habits, and settlements scattered across the Solar System? ------------------ For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠ Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man…

Most living things vanish without a trace. A select few become fossils. But how? In this episode of Field Notes Professor Hannah Fry and VSauce's Michael Stevens dig into the unlikely process that turns bone into stone. From prehistoric seas hidden beneath Kansas to fossils mistaken for mythical creatures, they follow the clues that reveal Earth's deep past. Along the way they uncover the lost landscape of Doggerland, investigate creatures that survive without sunlight, and tackle listener questions about radioactive waste, volcanoes, and some surprisingly persistent scientific myths. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/our-research/rest-is-science Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of…

Compared with almost every other animal on Earth, our feet seem strangely specialised. They can't grip branches, they're full of arches and joints, and for some reason we're the only species that regularly puts shoes on them. Hannah and Michael explore how millions of years of evolution transformed ape like feet into powerful biological springboards, uncovering a surprising connection between human walking, pizza slices, and one of mathematics' most beautiful ideas. After the break, they ask why feet attract so much attention from WikiFeet ratings to one of the most common fetishes on Earth. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/our-research/rest-is-science Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the…

Most people use just a fraction of the words they understand. But how big is your vocabulary, really? When a listener builds a tool that claims to measure it, Hannah and Michael put themselves to the test. If you'd like to try for yourself, follow the link and tell us what score you get in the comments: https://vocabowl-870366514258.us-west1.run.app/ Along the way they uncover forgotten words, obscure linguistic curiosities, and a surprising question hiding beneath the quiz itself: what does it mean to know a word? After the break, they tackle your questions and answer a nuclear pizza problem, explain why humans can grow such remarkably long hair, and ask whether everyone has a voice inside their head. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/our-research/rest-is-science Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man…

Do you think your thoughts belong to you? How would feel if you found out they don't? In this episode Hannah and Michael discuss a tangible future where the last bastion of privacy is breached and the thoughts that run through out heads no longer belong to us. Why is it that in 2026 police can open your phone using face ID any time they want, but they can't do the same with your password? When might a single brain wave called P300 eliminate the need for evidence in court? And how do we protect the contents of our minds now that we're imaging dreams, translating thoughts and installing brain chips? Find out on The Rest Is Science. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠ Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and…

What do lightning, wireless electricity, Cambridge dining etiquette, hypnosis, and a lovestruck pigeon have in common? The answer is (of course) Nikola Tesla. In this episode of The Rest Is Science: Field Notes, Michael and Hannah experience a real Tesla coil, exploring the spectacular physics behind one of Tesla's most famous inventions. Why do these devices create miniature lightning storms? How did Tesla dream of delivering wireless electricity to the entire planet? But there was a stranger side to Tesla's life too, from his fear of pearls to the heartfelt story of the white pigeon he claimed to love "as a man loves a woman." Plus, your questions: the science of hypnosis, the oldest symbols still in use today, why Cambridge professors have personal napkin rings, and whether ‘nothing’ can ever truly exist. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠ Cancer Research UK is a…

Is there a new way to make twins? If there is, Michael's might just have discovered it. And hint: it's going to hard work. From Hannah’s twin-like sister to the most famous cells in human history, in this episode Hannah and Michael continue to explore whether we truly own of ourselves, this time at a microscopic level. From our genome, to our cells and even our personalities, what happens in a future where cloning is the norm? Where Zygotes might be used to create mini-Michaels? And where reproduction as we know it now is...optional. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠ Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.…

What can be revealed about a person by their choice of…lead? In this gloriously nerdy episode of Field Notes, Michael Stevens arrives armed with an entire collection of mechanical pencils, sparking a series of passionate debates about graphite, the merits of ink, and whether the perfect pencil will ever really exist. Plus: what happens to fizzy drink bubbles in zero gravity? Why did early scientists believe sperm contained tiny pre-formed humans? Are gravitational waves the most beautiful thing in the cosmos? And are modern scientific discoveries becoming too complicated for any one person to fully understand? ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/our-research/rest-is-science Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales…

What happens to a body part once it’s been removed from your body? Can you take it home? Cremate it? Bury it? Even give it a funeral? In the first episode of a new mini-series on ownership, Hannah and Michael explore a deceptively simple question: what parts of ourselves do we actually own? From amputated limbs and stolen skulls to black markets for human organs, they uncover the strange, unsettling, and often lucrative world of body ownership. Why did grave robbing help advance modern medicine? When are flesh-eating beetles surprisingly useful? Who owns your organs after you die? And what does the bizarre fate of Einstein’s brain reveal about the blurry line between science, consent, and control after death? This episode asks: do our bodies really belong to us? ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/our-research/rest-is-science Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England…

What if the next pandemic could be predicted before it even begins? Hannah and Michael step into the unsettling world of outbreak simulations, where scientists map invisible infections, model human behaviour, and try to stop global catastrophe before it starts. Some warnings save millions. Others get ignored, until it’s too late. After the break the conversation takes a turn into space stations, fizzy drinks in zero gravity, the first microscopes, and gravitational waves bending the fabric of spacetime itself. Welcome to Field Notes! ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠ Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.…

Why are black cars more dangerous, white chess pieces more successful, and pandas apparently incapable of coping with minor inconvenience? Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens (VSauce) unpack one deceptively simple question - which would win in a fight between black and white? - and end up exploring everything from colour psychology and radioactive frogs to quasars, fantasy literature, and whether the universe itself ultimately sides with darkness. Along the way, Hannah invents a new category of “cool cult members,” Michael explains how light could theoretically form a black hole, and both attempt to avoid turning the entire episode into a Tolkien podcast. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠ Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee.…

What if one of the most valuable objects on Earth has been sitting untouched at the bottom of the ocean for 100 million years? In this Field Notes episode, Professor Hannah Fry brings Michael Stevens (VSauce) a strange metallic rock formed in the deepest parts of the Atlantic over millions of years. What begins with a bizarre Cold War CIA cover story involving Howard Hughes and a sunken Soviet submarine quickly turns into a journey through deep sea geology, natural “electric” rocks, and the environmental dilemma of mining the ocean floor for the rare metals used in electric car batteries. Plus: can you train yourself to become ambidextrous? are giraffes more vulnerable to lightning strikes than other animals? Does damp cold really feel colder than dry cold? And do humans actually sense wetness at all? ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠ Cancer Research UK is a…

* This episode contains descriptions of warfare and use of chemical weapons * How do you feed a world that’s running out of food? In this episode of The Rest Is Science, Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens uncover one of the strangest and most unsettling stories in modern science: the tale of the man who learned how to pull fertiliser out of thin air. This discovery transformed agriculture. It made modern civilisation possible. But it also powered explosives, prolonged the First World War, and helped to birth some of the most deadly chemical weapons in history. From battles for bird poop and to the ethics of scientific progress, this is the story of the molecule that changed humanity forever. ------------------ For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠ Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company…

Why does one of the most familiar numbers on a nutrition label turn out to be far more complicated than it looks? What can a can of fizzy drink teach us about thermodynamics, human metabolism, and the strange ways scientists measure energy? Professor Hannah Fry and VSauce’s Michael Stevens dive into the weird science of calories. From century-old experiments involving fire, body heat, and human digestion to the hidden quirks of modern food labelling. Do “negative calorie” foods really exist? Where does burned fat actually go? Why chewing matters more than you’d think, and how your body is constantly leaking energy out into the universe. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/our-research/rest-is-science⁠⁠ Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered…

What if the universe is recording everything you’ve ever seen and done? In this episode, Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens explore the idea that light itself might carry a record of the past. And if it did, how could we watch history unfold by capturing it. Could a perfectly placed mirror or even a black hole bend that ancient light back to us? Could we watch the pyramids being built, or hear Einstein’s final words? From a nano-second old reflection in a mirror to the photons drifting through billions of miles of space, they reveal how everything we see is already gone, and uncover surprising truths about time, perception, and our own DNA. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠ Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England…

What can a humble airplane sick bag teach us about physics, engineering, and the limits of the human stomach; And why are there people out there collecting thousands of them? Professor Hannah Fry and VSauce’s Michael Stevens turn an unlikely holiday prompt into a surprisingly rich exploration of flight. From the biology of motion sickness to the physics of turbulence, and from exploding crisp packets to next-generation aircraft design, they unpack how flying messes with your body and how science has made it (mostly) better. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠ Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.…

How does a perfectly symmetrical ball of cells become an animal, with a head, a tail, and complex zebra or leopard like patterns? In this episode, we dive into the mind bending science of how order emerges from chaos, guided by an unexpected genius: Alan Turing. From leopard spots and human embryos to crime hotbeds, Hannah and Michael discover the hidden mathematical rules shaping life itself…and the ethical dilemmas that come with them. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠ Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ. ------------------- Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠…