If you're a dog lover, just being with your pet feels good. So it's no surprise that therapy dogs are healing companions for people with health conditions. Research confirms that the benefits of pet therapy are real—but what do dogs think about helping humans? Science has considered this question too, and the results are reassuring. Jeff and Anthony discuss whether or not these findings apply to Anthony's perfect prince. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.com/weha...
May 23, 2018•20 min•Ep. 579
James Harrison, an Australian man whose blood contains a rare antibody that can create a treatment that saves babies' lives, has donated plasma one last time. Harrison, known as "the man with a golden arm," has donated blood and plasma regularly for more than six decades, from age 18 to age 81. The service estimates that over the course of his life, he has helped save some 2.4 million babies. Jeff and Anthony want to try some of that sweet, sweet blood. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MOR...
May 21, 2018•20 min•Ep. 578
The words "balloonfest" and "disaster" don't necessarily seem to go together – except in the case of the 1986 Cleveland Balloonfest, which really did end in disaster for the city. The Cleveland Balloonfest was a fundraiser that attempted to beat Disneyland's previous record of most balloons released at once. Although the photos are beautiful, the results were disastrous for the environment and the city. On the bright side, Jeff and Anthony think that Cleveland will hold the record for quite a wh...
May 18, 2018•20 min•Ep. 577
Ali Rahimi, a researcher in artificial intelligence (AI) at Google, took a swipe at his field last December—and received a 40-second ovation for it. Speaking at an AI conference, Rahimi charged that machine learning algorithms, in which computers learn through trial and error, have become a form of "alchemy." Researchers, he said, do not know why some algorithms work and others don't. Without deep understanding of the basic tools needed to build and train new algorithms, he says, researchers cre...
May 16, 2018•16 min•Ep. 576
In the beginning, the rules of the space bar were simple. Two spaces after each period. Every time. Easy. That made sense in the age of the typewriter. Letters of uniform width looked cramped without extra space after the period. Typists learned not to do it. But then, at the end of the 20th century, the typewriter gave way to the word processor, and the computer, and modern variable-width fonts. And the world divided. Jeff and Anthony try not to space out during this very interesting episode. G...
May 14, 2018•21 min•Ep. 575
US-based researchers have successfully kept alive the brain cells of decapitated pigs for 36 hours, sparking concerns over the ethics involved in such frontline research. The researchers said they had succeeded in delivering oxygen to the cells via a system of pumps and blood maintained at body temperature. The key question being that if a brain is revived in this way, would a human being involved have any memories, an identity and rights? Jeff and Anthony request that you please just let them d...
May 11, 2018•17 min•Ep. 574
893.35 quadrillion to one. That’s the likelihood of what’s happened to 20-year-old Dylan McWilliams. He was bitten by a shark, attacked by a bear, and bitten by a rattlesnake—all in just over three years. .He’s one of the unluckiest guys on the planet. How unlucky? Since each event is independent the odds of each are multiplied together, he said, making the odds of this happening 893.35 quadrillion to one. Jeff and Anthony are going to politely decline your camping invitation. GET BONUS EPISODES...
May 09, 2018•18 min•Ep. 573
A study by University of Manchester researchers has shown for the first time that a bad night’s sleep is associated with suicidal thoughts the next day in people with depression. That data revealed that poor sleep quality and short sleep duration were both associated with higher feelings of suicidal thoughts the next day. In hopefully unrelated news, Jeff just had his second child. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.com/wehaveconcerns Get all your sweet We Have Co...
May 07, 2018•18 min•Ep. 572
Judges of the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year have disqualified a winning contestant after the anteater in his prize-winning photograph was judged “highly likely” to be a taxidermy specimen. Called “The Night Raider,” the image was taken by photographer Marcio Cabral and depicts an anteater underneath starry skies next to a termite mound dotted with glowing bioluminescence. Jeff and Anthony knew it was Photoshopped as they could see the pixels. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AN...
May 04, 2018•24 min•Ep. 571
Hi! Jeff is in the midst of the Fatherhood Ritual. We'll be back next Monday!
Apr 30, 2018•29 sec•Ep. 571
A Canadian man finally got the chance to clear his name after 17 years in exile from a hotel in British Columbia. His ordeal began in 2001, involving a flock of seagulls (the animals, not the band) and a suitcase full of pepperoni. Jeff and Anthony discuss the value of a good apology. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.com/wehaveconcerns Get all your sweet We Have Concerns merch by swinging by http://wehaveconcerns.com/shop Hey! If you’re enjoying the show, please...
Apr 30, 2018•25 min•Ep. 570
What can artificial intelligence learn from dogs? Quite a lot, say researchers from the University of Washington and Allen Institute for AI. They recently trained neural networks to interpret and predict the behavior of canines. Their results, they say, show that animals could provide a new source of training data for AI systems — including those used to control robots. Jeff and Anthony learn that you can teach a new bot an old dog's tricks. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: ht...
Apr 27, 2018•22 min•Ep. 569
While hunting for dinner, the big brown bat must hone in on flitting insects and keep track of its surroundings to avoid crashing into them. Now, scientists have taken a peek at what’s going on in these bats’ brains while they swoop and dive. They identified a brain region that helps the animals map where objects are in relation to their own bodies, and saw that individual brain cells changed their behavior while the bats focused their attention on a particular object. The findings could help us...
Apr 25, 2018•17 min•Ep. 568
John Corcoran grew up in New Mexico in the US during the 1940s and 50s. He graduated from high school, went on to university, and became a teacher in the 1960s - a job he held for 17 years. But, he hid an extraordinary secret. He had never learned to read. In this episode we learn that Jeff and Anthony thought illiterate meant a dog couldn't have puppies. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.com/wehaveconcerns Get all your sweet We Have Concerns merch by swinging by...
Apr 23, 2018•20 min•Ep. 567
Crash safety technology has come a long way in the past decade or so, with cars that now sense an impending crash and can prepare the driver for impact or even attempt to avoid a collision entirely. Current Mercedes cars even go so far as to provide your ears with an extra layer of audio protection. It’s called “pink noise” and it’s designed to keep your hearing intact after being bombarded by the extremely loud sounds typically associated with a vehicle crash. Jeff and Anthony wonder what this ...
Apr 20, 2018•20 min•Ep. 566
Birds can sense Earth’s magnetic field, and this uncanny ability may help them fly home from unfamiliar places or navigate migrations that span tens of thousands of kilometers. Scientists have now pinpointed a possible protein behind this “sixth sense.” Jeff and Anthony consider the bird prankz possibilities. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.com/wehaveconcerns Get all your sweet We Have Concerns merch by swinging by http://wehaveconcerns.com/shop Hey! If you’re ...
Apr 18, 2018•16 min•Ep. 565
PATRONS GET A BONUS EPISODE WITH IFY AND DANI. LISTEN TO IT HERE: https://www.patreon.com/posts/bonus-content-18207635 Right now, dozens of train cars carrying 10 million pounds of poop are stranded in a rural Alabama rail yard. Technically it's biowaste, but to the 982 residents in the small town of Parrish, that's just semantics. They want it gone. The load has been there for almost two months, and it's making the whole place smell like a rotting animal carcass. Jeff and Anthony are joined by ...
Apr 16, 2018•22 min•Ep. 564
The thrilling conclusion of our week of episodes recorded live at PAX East 2018 in beautiful Boston! We respond to audience questions. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.com/wehaveconcerns Get all your sweet We Have Concerns merch by swinging by http://wehaveconcerns.com/shop Hey! If you’re enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate/review it on whatever service you use to listen. Here’s the iTunes link: http://bit.ly/wehaveconcerns And here’s the Stitcher li...
Apr 13, 2018•18 min•Ep. 563
Scientists in developing nations plan to step up research into dimming sunshine to curb climate change, hoping to judge if a man-made chemical sunshade would be less risky than a harmful rise in global temperatures. Twelve scholars, from countries including Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Ethiopia, India, Jamaica and Thailand, wrote in the journal Nature on Wednesday that the poor were most vulnerable to global warming and should be more involved. These countries are starting to research “solar geo-e...
Apr 11, 2018•21 min•Ep. 562
Around a third of the population have trouble maintaining sleep throughout the night. While nighttime awakenings are distressing for most sufferers, there is some evidence from our recent past that suggests this period of wakefulness occurring between two separate sleep periods was the norm. Throughout history, there have been numerous accounts of segmented sleep, with a common reference to "first" and "second" sleep. Jeff and Anthony hope you can make it all the way through this episode. Record...
Apr 09, 2018•20 min•Ep. 561
Though they may appear crystal clear in our minds, our memories are not a carbon copy of the events we witnessed. Every time we recall a memory, we may accidentally alter it or diminish its accuracy. Even trivial memories are easily corrupted with mere suggestions. Jeff and Anthony struggle to recall if they've done this story before. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.com/wehaveconcerns Get all your sweet We Have Concerns merch by swinging by http://wehaveconcern...
Apr 06, 2018•20 min•Ep. 560
A study claims to have discovered a new human organ that could help scientists better understand its impact on diseases such as cancer. Reports suggests this organ, called the interstitium, is a series of interconnected, fluid-filled compartments found throughout the body. The study also claims the interstitium is among the body's largest organs. Jeff and Anthony make it through the episode without making a joke about the body's largest organs. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT:...
Apr 04, 2018•20 min•Ep. 559
In the 19th Century, a Pennsylvania dentist called WH Atkinson came across a condition that sounds like the stuff of nightmares. Writing in The Dental Cosmos, the first major journal for American dentists, Atkinson documented an outbreak of exploding teeth. Although there were five or six reported cases in the 19th Century, there has been no documented case of exploding teeth since the 1920s. Jeff and Anthony chew this story over. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreo...
Apr 02, 2018•19 min•Ep. 558
A reminder of something rad coming up and a scheduling update.
Mar 30, 2018•40 sec•Ep. 558
Right after the election, Erik Hagerman decided he’d take a break from reading about the hoopla of politics. He swore that he would avoid learning about anything that happened to America after Nov. 8, 2016. “I just look at the weather,” said Mr. Hagerman, 53, who lives alone on a pig farm in southeastern Ohio. Jeff and Anthony berate this selfish stranger. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.com/wehaveconcerns Get all your sweet We Have Concerns merch by swinging b...
Mar 28, 2018•19 min•Ep. 557
"What if we told you we could back up your mind?" That's the business pitch of Nectome, a preserve-your-brain-and-upload-it company. Its chemical solution can keep a body intact for hundreds of years, maybe thousands, as a statue of frozen glass. The idea is that someday in the future scientists will scan your bricked brain and turn it into a computer simulation. That way, someone a lot like you, though not exactly you, will smell the flowers again in a data server somewhere. Jeff and Anthony ac...
Mar 26, 2018•21 min•Ep. 556
A new study from NASA has found that astronaut Scott Kelly's genes are no longer identical to those of his identical twin after spending a year in space. Preliminary results from NASA's Twins Study found that seven percent of Kelly's genes no longer match those of his twin, Mark. Scott Kelly spent one year aboard the International Space Station during the study, while his brother remained on Earth. Jeff and Anthony discuss how this story might have been mutated. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUT...
Mar 23, 2018•19 min•Ep. 555
IN THE LAST 20 years, genealogy websites have attracted more than 15 million customers by promising insights into your past. It’s deeply personal, affecting stuff. But when your family tree contains thousands, millions, even tens of millions of people, it’s no longer a personal history. It’s human history. Recently, scientists from the New York Genome Center, Columbia, MIT, and Harvard scraped crowdsourced public records into family trees the size of small nations. Their analysis, which was publ...
Mar 21, 2018•21 min•Ep. 554
Most of us know it - that weird, sudden feeling of experiencing something not for the first time. It's called déjà vu - French for "already seen" - and it's an uncanny feeling. But according to new research, that's all it is. Just a feeling. The most accepted explanation is that it has to do with memory. Much like a word can be on the tip of your tongue, a memory could be on the tip of your mind - there, but not quite accessible. Jeff and Anthony think they might have done this story before. GET...
Mar 19, 2018•18 min•Ep. 553
A dog searching for a lost child is typically given an item of clothing to smell. But what does that scent “look” like? To find out, scientists tested 48 dogs, half of which had special police or rescue training. Jeff and Anthony discuss whether or not this study stinks. GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.com/wehaveconcerns Get all your sweet We Have Concerns merch by swinging by http://wehaveconcerns.com/shop Hey! If you’re enjoying the show, please take a moment...
Mar 16, 2018•19 min•Ep. 552
