Unexplainable
Unexplainable takes listeners right up to the edge of what we know…and then keeps on going. The Unexplainable team — Noam Hassenfeld, Julia Longoria, Byrd Pinkerton, and Meradith Hoddinott — tackles scientific mysteries, unanswered questions, and everything we learn diving into the unknown. New episodes Mondays and Wednesdays. From Vox and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Episodes
September 23, 2026 • 27 mins
Once upon a time (around 300 million years ago), Earth was home to massive dragonfly-like insects and two meter long millipede-like creatures. Why did they die off?
Guests: Ned Snelling, professor of experimental physiology at the University of Pretoria; Jon Harrison, professor of environmental physiology at Arizona State University
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September 21, 2026 • 35 mins
Five-sixths of all the matter in the universe is this invisible stuff called dark matter, and scientists barely understand what it is. So what happens if we can't answer arguably the biggest mystery in the universe? One physicist decided to quit because he started asking questions that went way beyond what he initially thought science was for.
Guest: Joseph Howlett, reporter at Scientific American
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September 16, 2026 • 26 mins
It's a question that seems impossible to grapple with, but scientists won't take no for an answer. In this collaboration with Scientific American, we take on the big bang and a whole bunch of seemingly impossible questions.
Guests: Rachel Feltman, host of the Science Quickly podcast; Sarah Scoles, senior contributor at Scientific American
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September 14, 2026 • 27 mins
An astrophysicist uses the motion of the stars to argue that a single story has been told for 100,000 years. A cognitive anthropologist has questions.
Guests: Ray Norris, astrophysicist; Manvir Singh, cognitive anthropologist at the University of California, Davis
For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscriptsFor more, go to vox.com/unexplainableAnd please email ...
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September 2, 2026 • 36 mins
When scientists write their own rules for life, how do they know what could go wrong before it’s too late?
This is the final episode of our new three-part series, Life from Scratch.
Guests: Kate Adamala, associate professor at the University of Minnesota; David Relman, professor at Stanford University; John Glass, leader of the JCVI Synthetic Biology Group.
For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts...
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August 31, 2026 • 34 mins
Synthetic biologist Kate Adamala has been making major headlines as her lab creates cells that feed, divide, and grow — all from nonliving parts. It may sound like sci-fi, but Kate believes that these “not quite alive” cells are key to a renewable future.
This is the second episode of our new three-part series, Life from Scratch.
Guests: Kate Adamala, associate professor at the University of Minnesota
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August 26, 2026 • 29 mins
Scientists stripped a cell down to its most essential genes in order to find out what makes life...alive. What they found was more bizarre than they could have imagined.
This is the first episode of our new three-part series, Life from Scratch.
Guests: Kate Adamala, associate professor at the University of Minnesota; John Glass, leader of the JCVI Synthetic Biology Group.
For show transcripts, go to vox.com/...
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August 24, 2026 • 44 mins
A few hundred milliseconds are often all you need to recognize a song, but a lot of recent hits have moved away from intros. Our friends at Switched on Pop (along with the National's Aaron Dessner) break down how song intros can shape our perception and what we lose when they disappear.
To watch this episode on video, find us on Netflix!
Guests: Charlie Harding and Nate Sloan, hosts of Switched on Pop; Aaron Dessne...
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August 19, 2026 • 26 mins
And if babies forget their earliest experiences, do they still matter?
This episode is a collaboration with Vox's Explain It to Me podcast
Guests: Kristin Ohlson, writer; Tristan Yates, cognitive psychologist at Columbia University; Dana Suskind, professor of surgery and pediatrics at the University of Chicago
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August 17, 2026 • 30 mins
Warming waters are an existential threat to coral reefs, and for people who want to restore them. But in the Republic of Palau, researchers are testing out an approach to help restored reefs survive hotter temperatures — before it's too late.
To watch this episode on video, find us on Netflix!
Guests: Benji Jones, senior environmental correspondent at Vox
For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts...
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August 10, 2026 • 27 mins
Dismissing pseudoscience is too easy. Understanding why it spreads so quickly is harder. It can teach us why real science works and how to spot the difference between the two.
To watch this episode on video, find us on Netflix!
Guest: Hank Green, creator of SciShow and Crash Course, co-host of Vlogbrothers
For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts For more, go to vox.c...
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August 5, 2026 • 39 mins
Down beneath the waves, where the light starts to fade, there's an ecosystem scientists don't fully understand. About a decade ago, some researchers left structures in this mysterious world and let them grow encrusted with life. Now they're pulling them back up again and unwrapping them like scientific presents.Guests: Luiz Rocha, ichthyology curator at the California Academy of Sciences, along with Johanna Loacker, Lynn Bonomo, Ch...
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August 3, 2026 • 27 mins
Birds navigate using Earth’s magnetic field, but scientists still don’t know how they actually sense it. Called the holy grail of sensory biology, magnetoreception offers a window into the thousands of unique sensory worlds animals experience.
To watch this episode on video, find us on Netflix!
Guest: Ed Yong, author of An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
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July 29, 2026 • 44 mins
This global weather phenomenon could help make 2027 the hottest year on record. Our friends at The Gray Area explore what the upcoming El Niño season could reveal about the future of our climate.
Guests: Sean Illing, host of The Gray Area; David Wallace-Wells, New York Times climate writer
For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts
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July 27, 2026 • 30 mins
It can be hard to know how to interact with the sun. Some people have swung to opposite ends of the spectrum — either over-tanning or avoiding the sun entirely. But what would a middle ground look like?
To watch this episode on video, find us on Netflix!
Guest: Rowan Jacobsen, author of In Defense of Sunlight
For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscriptsFor more, go to vox....
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July 22, 2026 • 25 mins
The Late Bronze Age, when the Trojan War supposedly took place, was way more modern than Homer made it seem. But around 1177 BCE, a vast network of interconnected societies suddenly collapsed. What caused arguably the greatest societal collapse in the history of the world? Hint: It's a lot more complicated than the "Sea Peoples."
Guest: Eric Cline, professor at George Washington University and author of 1177 B.C.: The Year Civil...
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July 20, 2026 • 31 mins
How do we know what we know about dinosaurs? Riley Black takes us back to the Mesozoic Era and explains how paleontologists piece together the lives of dinosaurs from often fragmentary clues.
To watch this episode on video, find us on Netflix!
Guest: Riley Black, science writer, amateur paleontologist, and consultant for the Jurassic World franchise.
For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscripts...
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July 15, 2026 • 32 mins
A 2015 review found that most people in the US will experience a diagnostic error in their lifetime. Some of those errors are less devastating than others, but how can we help people get better answers about their health? One family's search for answers with a mystifying illness highlights a different approach to diagnosis.Guest: Alexandra Sifferlin, author of The Elusive Body: Patients, Doctors, and the Diagnosis Crisis and deputy...
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July 13, 2026 • 32 mins
When people listen to songs, why do some people pay more attention to the music, and some people pay more attention to the lyrics? The answer goes way deeper than you might think — to the heart of what it means to hear anything at all.
To watch this episode on video, find us on Netflix!
Guests: Charlie Harding, host of the Switched on Pop podcast; Dominique Vuvan, professor at Skidmore CollegeFor show transcripts, go to ...
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July 9, 2026 • 3 mins
Unexplainable is coming to Netflix! Starting Monday, July 13.
For show transcripts, go to vox.com/unxtranscriptsFor more, go to vox.com/unexplainableAnd please email us! unexplainable@vox.comWe read every email.Support Unexplainable (and get ad-free episodes) by becoming a Vox Member today: vox.com/membersThank you!
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