Mosquitos are learning how to ignore your repellents, cows can recognise human faces on TV, and Wi Fi can now identify you through a wall with the help of AI. This week, we bounce between animal brains, ocean weirdness, and technology that is getting a little too confident, which is a fun mix until you remember you live in the same world as all of it.

A relaxing trip to Japan turns into an accidental run down a double black diamond, a mathematician solves “impossible” problems because nobody told him they were impossible, and missing scientists get pulled into UFO flavoured rumours. This week, Will and Rod bounce between snowboarding psychology, statistical legend, conspiracy culture, and the strange ways expectations shape what we think we can do.

Crystals have been fascinating humans for hundreds of thousands of years, chimpanzees might share the same shiny object obsession, and mushrooms may be sending electrical signals through their underground networks. This episode bounces between ancient archaeology, animal behaviour, and the weird possibility that fungi are doing more than just quietly existing in the forest.

Robot wolves are now being used to scare bears away from Japanese schools, scientists have grown mini Neanderthal brains and plugged them into little robots, and snakes are quietly topping the lethality leaderboard while everyone keeps blaming sharks. This week, we bounce between wildlife deterrence, prehistoric brain tech, public health reality checks, and a cybersecurity story that proves the weakest link is still a human with a phone.

A 1960s mouse utopia that collapsed into a vanity-obsessed apocalypse, a global database of 150,000 enthusiastic stool photos, and a scientific quest to help humans regrow limbs like a salamander. This week, we bounce between rodent dystopias, AI-powered gut tracking, regenerating toes, and international idioms for absolute chaos.

A poll has asked people if they could win in a fist fight against Donald Trump, a survey on female orgasms has wandered into yawning, crying, and hallucinations, and vulture nests are quietly operating as accidental museums of human history. This week, Will and Rod bounce between political fantasy, private biology, and birds that apparently have a better archive system than most institutions.

High school students launch blood samples into near space, a real life love story involves a faecal microbiota transplant (FMT), and scientists find cocaine in sharks off The Bahamas. Today we bounce between space medicine, the gut microbiome and mental health, and the uncomfortable reality of ocean pollution.

We also unpack why we yawn, including research on brain temperature regulation and whether yawning patterns act like a physiological fingerprint.

AI chatbots (and lazy researchers) can be convinced a fake disease is real, Gen Z is side-eyeing the whole “helpful assistant” thing, and apparently, the best way to jailbreak AI is to ask it nicely in the form of cyberpunk short fiction. This week, we bounce between medical misinformation, bureaucratic chaos, nuclear fallout hiding in baby teeth, and the U.S. Space Force anthem doing whatever it is doing, which is a lot to process in one sitting, but here we are.

Deepfake scammers are now running full Zoom meetings, birds are lining their nests with cigarette butts like it’s a homewares trend, and Europe’s climate could be one ocean current wobble away from doing something dramatic. This week, we bounce between AI crime, urban wildlife hacks, climate tipping points, and a fruit fly brain getting uploaded like it’s just another file transfer, which is a fairly unhinged itinerary, but here we are.

Cloning is edging closer to science fiction’s favourite nightmare, tropical trees may actually be better at cooperation than their colder cousins, and smart underwear is now tracking human flatulence in alarming detail. This week, we bounce between organ growing biotech, forest diplomacy, AI failures, and fart analytics, which is not a sentence anyone should have to type, but science keeps forcing the issue.

Sirocco the kakapo preferred seducing human heads, Japanese scientists kept cloning mice until the whole thing started falling apart and a robotic dog is now sniffing whisky barrels in Scotland. This week is a tidy little mix of conservation chaos, cloning limits and high tech booze protection, which is exactly the sort of sentence science forces you to write from time to time.

Breaking Bad turns out to be less fictional than you would hope, the chainsaw has a deeply upsetting origin story, and people are now wondering whether AI can guide them through a psychedelic experience. This week is a tidy little mix of crime, medical horror, and digital absurdity, which is to say science is behaving exactly as expected.

Brain-eating amoebas, climate change, economists, and Leonardo da Vinci’s robot lion all collide in this week’s episode. We dig into how warming freshwater is helping dangerous amoebas spread into new places, why these rare but terrifying organisms are linked to water going up the nose, and what that means for swimmers, public health, and the very specific fear of warm lakes. It is science, climate, and nightmare fuel all in one neat package.

Conspiracy theorists hate uncertainty, a mushroom hot pot in China can apparently summon tiny imaginary people, a bunch of seeds have been sitting underground since the 1800s waiting for their moment and scientists are trying to quantify why words like boobs are funny. This week is a mixed bag of psychology, botany and childish humour, which is basically the entire scientific enterprise when you strip away the grant applications.

Venting might be making you angrier, Neanderthals apparently had a type, and unborn babies are already forming strong opinions about kale. This week we bounce from modern psychology to ancient DNA to fetal facial expressions, with a quick detour into pokie machines and how they might be made a little less addictive.

AI is casually reaching for the nuclear button, a Norwegian scientist accidentally speed-ran his way into Havana Syndrome territory, and a brain glitch has turned a marathon runner into the kind of person who says things like, "this foam has notes of regret." It is a neat little trio of stories that all land on the same uncomfortable point. The future is weird, the human brain is weirder, and neither of them comes with a user manual.

Hippos with hidden bits, hearts that take a mechanical detour, and a medical case study that will make you sit down and reconsider every life choice that led you to having a body. Showcasing the very best of when science is equal parts fascinating and deeply inconvenient. We are talking population control in zoos, post surgery brain fog, and a man whose internal plumbing was re-routed in the most unhelpful way possible.

Aliens might crash the economy, your brain might solve puzzles while you are drooling on a pillow, and someone, somewhere, has forced an emergency department to call the bomb squad for reasons that should never need explaining. This week is a perfect reminder that the world is held together by vibes, paperwork, and a thin layer of social agreement that can be shattered by a UFO, a dream, or an artillery shell in the wrong place.

Winter Olympians are allegedly gaming their suit seams for extra lift, the ocean is still capable of throwing an absolutely giant wall of water at your face with no warning, and somewhere in Queensland, a blob of pitch is taking nearly a century to prove it is technically a liquid. This week, we bounce from sports cheating to monster waves to the slowest experiment on Earth, with science doing what it does best and refusing to be tidy.

People are arguing about porn again. Magic mushrooms are being pitched as a health supplement. And a flu study managed to do the one thing flu is famous for not doing, which is spread. This week, we are bouncing between sex, psychedelics, and infectious disease, which sounds like a bad uni share house, but it is actually a pretty good episode.