Episodes

  • Gay Animals with Field Guide to Gay Animals

    Gay Animals with Field Guide to Gay Animals
    Jun 25 2024
    It wouldn't be Pride at Tangents if we weren't getting into some science! We're joined by Owen Ever and Laine Kaplan-Levenson, the hosts of a new show from news outlet Canadaland called "Field Guide to Gay Animals." Our conversation ranged far and wide across a myriad of ways queerness is expressed in the animal world and the challenges and joys of studying it. SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents to check out this episode with the added bonus of seeing our faces! Head to www.patreon.com/SciShowTangents to find out how you can help support SciShow Tangents, and see all the cool perks you’ll get in return, like bonus episodes and a monthly newsletter! A big thank you to Patreon subscriber Garth Riley for helping to make the show possible!And go to https://store.dftba.com/collections/scishow-tangents to buy some great Tangents merch!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! While you're at it, check out the Tangents crew on Twitter: Ceri: @ceriley Sam: @im_sam_schultz Hank: @hankgreenSources:[Truth or Fail Express]Sequentially hermaphroditic shrimphttps://sites.lsa.umich.edu/eeblog/2020/12/01/sequential-hermaphroditism-or-why-to-be-wary-of-frog-dna/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/oceans-rising-acidity-could-impact-shrimps-early-sex-reversal-180972521/https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0218238https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355179232_Protandric_Transcriptomes_to_Uncover_Parts_of_the_Crustacean_Sex-Differentiation_PuzzleNudibranch with male and female sex organshttps://www.livescience.com/27065-sea-slug-uses-disposable-penis.htmlhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3639767/https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10164-018-0562-z?wtSparrows with white or tan stripes and functionally four gendershttps://www.audubon.org/news/the-fascinating-and-complicated-sex-lives-white-throated-sparrowshttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7725849/[This or That: Bird or Bug?]Male-male duo that dances together to attract a mate (blue-backed manakin)https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/51171525#page/225/mode/1uphttps://academic.oup.com/beheco/article/18/1/21/209396Male-male pair that takes over a male-female pair’s nest (Japanese termites)https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/680968https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347216301233Mating-related injuries on both male and female specimens (dragonflies)https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/16252041#page/48/mode/1up[Ask the Science Couch]History of sexual diversity in animals documented or not in zoology (e.g. Adelie penguins)https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/article/195/1/1/6568055https://www.penguinscience.com/reprints/10%20Russell.pdfhttp://www.italian-journal-of-mammalogy.it/pdf-77304-13455?filename=Same_sex%20sexual%20behaviour.pdf[Butt One More Thing]Aristotle’s History of Animals mentions female pigeons laying wind-eggs after same-sex sexual behaviorhttps://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/history_anim.6.vi.htmlhttps://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/found-an-egg-with-no-yolk
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    52 mins
  • Bananas with Answer in Progress

    Bananas with Answer in Progress
    Jun 11 2024
    It's all right there on the tin - this episode is BANANAS. And not just because we have the most guests we've ever had in Tangents history. Not even just because one of them is a super special surprise RETURN friend of the pod. And not even because we check out some flowers that are way more uncomfortable to look at than you think. No, this episode is bananas because we're talking about (you guessed it) bananas!SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents to check out this episode with the added bonus of seeing our faces! Head to www.patreon.com/SciShowTangents to find out how you can help support SciShow Tangents, and see all the cool perks you’ll get in return, like bonus episodes and a monthly newsletter! A big thank you to Patreon subscribers Garth Riley and Glenn Trewitt for helping to make the show possible!And go to https://store.dftba.com/collections/scishow-tangents to buy some great Tangents merch!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents to check out this episode with the added bonus of seeing our faces! Head to www.patreon.com/SciShowTangents to find out how you can help support SciShow Tangents, and see all the cool perks you’ll get in return, like bonus episodes and a monthly newsletter! A big thank you to Patreon subscribers Garth Riley and Glenn Trewitt for helping to make the show possible!And go to https://store.dftba.com/collections/scishow-tangents to buy some great Tangents merch!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! [Truth or Fail Express]Banana peel pastahttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844022023325https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220809141224.htmBanana peel perfume adherenthttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360132323007679https://www.scopus.com/record/display.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85021229177&origin=inward&txGid=4b400d048de28231cfb5cce2c0ee924aBanana peel water filtrationhttps://www.acs.org/pressroom/presspacs/2011/acs-presspac-april-13-2011/banana-peels-get-a-second-life-as-water-purifier.htmlhttps://www.livescience.com/13276-banana-peels-filter-toxic-metals.htmlhttps://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/ie101499e[This or That: Yellow or Not Yellow?]Banana fiddler crabhttps://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00265-020-02899-wImage: https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/753425Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Austruca_mjoebergi_coenobita.jpgBanana galaxies https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.15232Nokia 8110 aka the “banana phone” https://www.mobilephonemuseum.com/phone-detail/nokia-8110https://www.mobilephonemuseum.com/phone-detail/hmd-global-nokia-8110-4gImage: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nokia_8110.jpgImage of 4G: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nokia_8110_4G.png[Ask the Science Couch]Commercial banana cultivar genetics and Fusarium wilt or other disease riskshttps://academic.oup.com/jxb/article-abstract/4/1/87/588827https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0154448https://journals.ashs.org/horttech/view/journals/horttech/31/6/article-p838.xmlhttps://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/01/11/462375558/our-favorite-banana-may-be-doomed-can-new-varieties-replace-ithttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01670-6[Butt One More Thing]Honey bee alarm pheromones contain the banana flavor isoamyl acetatehttps://www.nature.com/articles/1951018b0https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2017.2653
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    50 mins
  • Teaser: Turtles Cut For Time Question

    Teaser: Turtles Cut For Time Question
    Jun 5 2024
    Another wild teaser appears! This little snippet is from a bonus, cut-for-time question from our episode on Turtles! You can listen to the rest, and also a bunch more bonus content, on our Patreon. It's one of the best ways you can support the show and keep Tangents going and free for everyone. Head over to Patreon.com/scishowtangents and join in all the learning and shenanigans! Thank you so much to all our Patrons - we genuinely would not get to do this without you, and we really like doing this, so it rocks that we can. THANK YOU!
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    4 mins
  • Cloning

    Cloning
    May 28 2024
    It may seem like cloning really only shows up regularly in science fiction, but it turns out, it's been a sneaky, significant real-world process for a super long time! In this episode we learn about cloning found in nature, labs, and...this very podcast??SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents to check out this episode with the added bonus of seeing our faces! Head to www.patreon.com/SciShowTangents to find out how you can help support SciShow Tangents, and see all the cool perks you’ll get in return, like bonus episodes and a monthly newsletter! A big thank you to Patreon subscribers Garth Riley and Glenn Trewitt for helping to make the show possible!And go to https://store.dftba.com/collections/scishow-tangents to buy some great Tangents merch!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! [Truth or Fail]Crayfish that’s been cloning itself might help us study prion diseaseshttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/science/mutant-crayfish-clones-europe.htmlhttps://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/904708Scientists envision a new insect repellant while cloning hemlock treeshttps://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/801445Athlete’s foot fungus rejects sex for cloninghttps://today.duke.edu/2018/02/toenail-fungus-gives-sex-infect-human-hostshttps://academic.oup.com/genetics/article/208/4/1657/6084243https://gizmodo.com/the-fungi-that-cause-athletes-foot-have-given-up-on-sex-1823265768[Trivia Question]First cloned cat, which was named Copy Cathttps://vetmed.tamu.edu/news/press-releases/texas-am-says-goodbye-to-cc-worlds-first-cloned-cat/https://www.npr.org/2020/03/08/813384347/remembering-cc-the-cloned-cat[Fact Off]Electric ant queens and males sexually reproduce but actually like two different clonal speciesA 34-member “twin study” with Amazon molly fish cloneshttps://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1009151https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-43069-6https://phys.org/news/2021-02-defeating-enemy-evolution-clone-fish.htmlhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4919929/https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/twins-study/about/[Ask the Science Couch]Cross-species cloning and back-breeding as de-extinction strategieshttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK223960/https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4157387/https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC521203/https://lsspjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2195-7819-10-3https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/species-revival-bringing-back-extinct-animalshttps://www.fws.gov/press-release/2021-02/genetic-research-boosts-black-footed-ferret-conservation-efforts[Butt One More Thing]Portuguese man o’ war is a colony of zooid clones, including gastrozooids for digesting (and maybe pooping)https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-51842-1https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/portuguese-man-o-war.html
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    50 mins
  • Glue

    Glue
    May 14 2024
    Humanity is bound together by so many qualities, and in this episode, we add Being Goopy to the list. What does that have to do with glue? A whole lot, it turns out - cue some ominous foreshadowing....Memento goopy! SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents to check out this episode with the added bonus of seeing our faces! Head to www.patreon.com/SciShowTangents to find out how you can help support SciShow Tangents, and see all the cool perks you’ll get in return, like bonus episodes and a monthly newsletter! A big thank you to Patreon subscribers Garth Riley and Glenn Trewitt for helping to make the show possible!And go to https://store.dftba.com/collections/scishow-tangents to buy some great Tangents merch!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! [Secret Ingredient]Fibers mixed with water to make adhesive https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/1/1/pgac026/6549457https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/945194Adhesive inspired by animal proteinhttps://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/945194https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.1c10936Chinese bricks made with gluey substancehttps://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/chinese-architecturehttps://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/eem2.12143[Trivia Question]Year that the first adhesive stamp Penny Black was mailedhttps://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/how-a-single-postage-stamp-birthed-the-information-agehttps://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/first-piece-of-mail-sent-using-a-stamp-auction-180983619/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-story-of-the-first-postage-stamp-14931961/[Fact Off]Reversible glue made with caffeic acid exposed to certain UV light wavelengths Blood albumin glue used in plywood and pre-plastic resin objectshttps://extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/FNR/FNR-154.pdfhttps://foodeng.wisc.edu/images/publications/2010-9.pdfhttps://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/fluidsengineering/article-abstract/54/11/15/1162589/Blood-Albumin-and-the-Woodworking-Industry?redirectedFrom=PDFhttps://plastiquarian.com/?page_id=14216[Ask the Science Couch]How glue adhesion/cohesion works and why glue (sometimes) doesn’t cure in the bottlehttps://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.macromol.1c01182#https://www.uhu.com/en-en/glue-advice/adhesive-typeshttps://d-lab.mit.edu/sites/default/files/inline-files/D-Lab_Learn-It_Adhesives_Jul13.pdfhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0143749618300575https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/CT07137[Butt One More Thing]Fibrin glue used to help seal anal fistulashttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12682544/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1782483/
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    47 mins
  • Introducing Crash Course Pods: The Universe

    Introducing Crash Course Pods: The Universe
    May 7 2024
    No, your eyes and ears don't deceive you - this is, in fact, a super special cross-feed treat from our friends over at Crash Course in the form of the first episode of their brand new show, "Crash Course Pods: The Universe." Hosted by novelist John Green and astrophysicist Dr. Katie Mack, "The Universe" is a podcast about the history of the entire universe, from its explosive beginnings to its mysterious, but inevitable, end. In this first episode Dr. Mack walks John through the Big Bang and the very first micro-moments of the universe, and some of the ways that that ancient event is actually still connected to us, here, today. It's great, we really like it, we're really proud of the Crash Course team, and we thought you guys would also really enjoy the show! So to make it easy, we put the entire first episode right here! The rest of John and Dr. Mack's conversation will cover 11 episodes airing every other week on the Crash Course YouTube channel at youtube.com/crashcourse or wherever you get your podcasts. Give it a listen, and we hope you enjoy!
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    48 mins
  • Machine Learning

    Machine Learning
    Apr 30 2024
    We do a lot of learning on Tangents, so naturally, we've got questions about what learning looks like...for machines! AI and machine learning science communicator Jordan Harrod (https://www.youtube.com/@jordanharrod) lends her expertise to this episode as we definitely for sure learn all there is to know and will ever need to be known about machine learning, algorithms, and AI. Definitely we got all of it, everyone.SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents to check out this episode with the added bonus of seeing our faces! Head to www.patreon.com/SciShowTangents to find out how you can help support SciShow Tangents, and see all the cool perks you’ll get in return, like bonus episodes and a monthly newsletter! A big thank you to Patreon subscribers Garth Riley and Glenn Trewitt for helping to make the show possible!And go to https://store.dftba.com/collections/scishow-tangents to buy some great Tangents merch!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! [Truth or Fail Express]Racoon-inspired algorithmhttps://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8552661Dolphin-inspired algorithmPelican-inspired algorithm[Trivia Question]Using machine learning to measure plant vibration and sounds when they experience stress https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(23)00262-3https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/plants-make-noises-when-stressed-study-finds-180981920/[Fact Off]Lenna (an image of a Playboy model) used as the standard for digital image processinghttps://www.404media.co/lena-test-image-ieee-policy/Tricking speech recognition systems with “neural voice camouflage”https://www.engineering.columbia.edu/news/block-smartphone-microphone-speech-recognition-spyinghttps://web.stanford.edu/~jurafsky/slp3/16.pdfhttps://arxiv.org/pdf/2112.07076.pdfhttps://www.vox.com/2018/7/20/17594074/phone-spying-wiretap-microphone-smartphone-northeastern-dave-choffnes-christo-wilson-kara-swisherhttps://gizmodo.com/these-academics-spent-the-last-year-testing-whether-you-1826961188[Ask the Science Couch]AI image generator mistakes (hands, feet, teeth) and how they work (diffusion models)https://www.sciencefocus.com/future-technology/why-ai-generated-hands-are-the-stuff-of-nightmares-explained-by-a-scientisthttps://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/ai-generated-art-hands-fingers-messed-uphttps://hai.stanford.edu/news/what-dall-e-reveals-about-human-creativityhttps://proceedings.mlr.press/v37/sohl-dickstein15.pdf[Butt One More Thing]Training machine learning models (convolutional neural networks) to classify poop imageshttps://arxiv.org/pdf/1903.10578.pdfhttps://journals.lww.com/ajg/abstract/2022/07000/a_smartphone_application_using_artificial.24.aspxhttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33275399/Anal Recognition Paperhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-020-0534-9
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    48 mins
  • Teaser: Hygiene Patreon Bonus Episode

    Teaser: Hygiene Patreon Bonus Episode
    Apr 26 2024
    Another wild teaser appears! This little snippet is the first part of our revisit of Hygiene and answering even more questions that we didn't get to in the episode. You can listen to the rest, and also a bunch more bonus content, on our Patreon. It's one of the best ways you can support the show and keep Tangents going and free for everyone. Head over to Patreon.com/scishowtangents and join in all the learning and shenanigans! Thank you so much to all our Patrons - we genuinely would not get to do this without you, and we really like doing this, so it rocks that we can. THANK YOU!
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    5 mins