Strange by Nature Podcast

We've been building to it all month, it is time for Halloween and we have some great topics.

Kirk kicks off the show with a topic that may have you think twice about the candy you pop in your mouth this year. He talks about all of the ways that insects end up in your candy. Red food coloring from ground up beetles, excretions from the Lac beetles in your hard candy coating and maybe some bee vomit, insects are an important part of ...

Victoria kicks things off this week with the terrifying topic of Prion diseases. These bizarre infections can take years to manifest, are incurable, and can turn your brain into a sponge. Charming.

Kirk is up next with a ghost story for this spooky season. Science wins out over superstition and in the end it ends up being a tale of how infrasound can affect human physiology and may be to blame for many ghost reports.

Rachel rounds ...

This week's show starts of with Rachel telling us about the Door to Hell. Seems like a fitting topic as we approach Halloween. But what is it? The Door to Hell is also known as the Darvaza Gas Crater in Turkmenistan. It is a pit of fire that has burned for perhaps 50 years. It is the result of a drilling project gone horribly wrong. It reminds us a bit of the Burning Mountain in Australia from Episode 68 called "Dead Man's Fingers....

Kirk keeps the Halloween month theme going by talking a bit about Black Cats big and small. What makes them strange? Why do they exist? Why were they the preferred color of cat to have on ships? All questions are answered.

Rachel is up next and she brings us to...the ocean. I know, we're all shocked. This week it is to talk about Sea Urchins. They are truly some of the strangest creatures in the ocean.

Victoria takes us underground...

Happy October! 

We've got quite a show for you this week. Victoria kicks Spooky Month off with the Worm Pearlfish. At first they don't sound too bad but it turns out that they sneak though the anus of sea cucumbers and eat their gonads. Yikes. No thanks.

Kirk keeps the ick going with an absolutely wild story about doctors restoring blind people's vision by putting their tooth in their eye. Say what? It is as weird as it sounds. War...

This week Rachel kicks things off with a discussion of Cloud Forests. This rare habitat is found only in specific parts of the world and many unique plants and animals live there. Okay, so really Rachel is just setting the scene for where next week's strange topic lives.

Victoria is up second and brings us fascinating research. Can plants hear? We've talked about this on the show when Kirk talked about plants hearing running water....

Kirk kicks off this week with predatory fungus that hunts for animals. Say what?

Rachel tells us about the massive northern elephant seal.

Victoria lets us know about the beautiful but incredibly powerfully poisonous rosary pea that is still used for jewelry to this day. 

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This week, Victoria takes us to the ocean to learn about a truly bizarre creature, Sea spiders!

Kirk then shares a story about the scientists giving robotic bodies to mushrooms so they can move around.

Finally, Rachel takes us back to the ocean once again to share what makes Bonnethead sharks strange.

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This week, Rachel starts us off with an interesting question. Can bees play? A team of researchers thinks they can. Find out what happens when they gave them balls of wood.

Kirk then makes us all thirsty with a dive into the roots of Root Beer. From medicinal medicine to soft drink, Kirk traces the history of this drink and the many natural ingredients that make it up.

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What a wild show this week. Kirk starts things off with a listener submitted story about how researchers created fake fiddler crabs to better understand sexual signaling.

CRAB VIDEO: https://youtu.be/UOFtsJkiRmE?si=eWpbJzBPtIGCpb8I

Our special guest Brett Sieberer then brings us the amazing story of a wasp that can consume enormous amounts of alcohol with seemingly no effects.

Rachel then wraps up the show with a wild mystery in a ...

What a wild ride this week! Victoria is up first with a bizarre story about how researchers looked into frog glue.

Kirk then builds off last week by talking about the origins of gold in the universe.

Finally, Rachel tells us about the weird history of blood transfusions and how they were initially used to cure syphilis! They are older than you think!

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This week we explore the Pharaoh's tomb with Rachel and possibly discover the cause of the Curse of the Pharaoh. What's more, can it cure cancer? Rachel takes a look at Aspergillus fungus, how it causes disease but also has been used in experiments to cure Leukemia.

Victoria is up next with a fascinating look at how spiders might be manipulating the flashing of fireflies in order to attract more prey. It's brand new research and wi...

Kirk kicks off this week's show with the amazing migration skills of the Bogong Moth. They are the first ever recorded invertebrate that uses celestial navigation for long-distance migration wayfinding.

Rachel then tells us all about the Bluntnose Six-gilled Shark. This amazing creature gives birth to an incredible number of pups.

Victoria rounds out this week's show with the aptly named Sword-billed Hummingbird and some of the ama...

This week, Kirk is back and the crew pulled together another great show. Victoria kicks things off with a creature feature on an animal we can't believe it took this long to discuss, the Dodo!

Kirk, fresh from vacation spins a tale taking us back thousands of years to the eruption of Thera/Santorini in 1618 BCE and how it may have lead to the collapse of a dynasty in China.

Rachel rounds out this week with spiders, so...many...spid...

Hello Everyone, time for another weekly dose of weird. This week, Victoria kicks things off with a story about Brown-headed cowbirds and their amazing nesting strategy of being nest parasitizers. 

Rachel then stinks up the place with a deep dive on those cuddly creatures...skunks. 

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This week we've got two amazing stories that couldn't be more different. Rachel spins a tale that spans millions of years. Could the explosion of life during the Ordovician have been the result of meteor impacts? Could those meteors have come from a time when Earth had rings like Saturn? She explores this possibility this week!

Victoria is up next and scoops Rachel with a topic off her secret list. This week she present to you the ...

Victoria kicks off the show this week with yet another flying animal that usually can't fly. She's brought us flying snakes and flying spiders, how about flying fish?

Kirk takes us on a winding journey connecting the dots over millions of years of history to connect a high-school sex-ed class with Sue the T-rex and an ancient protozoan disease.

Rachel rounds out the show with the Secretary Bird. An amazing raptor that kills not wit...

Rachel brings us the beautiful and disgusting Bradford pear this week. Thank you?

Victoria takes us deep underground to discover mind-blowingly large gypsum crystals discovered deep in the earth in Mexico.

Kirk round out this week's show with the strange mystery of a toad with eyes in mouth.

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Kirk starts off the show with the mysterious story of the Basra Grain Poisoning of 1971, a terrible story of the dangers of methylmercury.

Rachel is up next with the amazing story of Lake Baikal, the oldest and deepest freshwater lake on Earth. 

Victoria rounds out this week's show by talking about animal asymmetry. Turns out, not all animals are symmetrical and they can get real weird. 

Join us weekly for more strange nature. Our ...