The Rest Is Science

Is it better to own something amazing, or to actually experience it? Michael has built a collected a whole shelf of things he refuses to look at, smell or open, and he's about to defend every one of them.

Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens (Vsauce) are back with Field Notes, a show-and-tell where the star attractions stay firmly sealed.

Is a puzzle still a puzzle if the answer is staring you in the face?

What does the tail of a comet smell like, and why will Michael never find out? And what is hiding inside a mystery can that's been sitting on his shelf for years?

Then it's over to your questions.

Can you wake up from surgery knowing something you never learned? What is the oldest everyday object we still use, and where does Lizzo come into it?

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For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience

Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.

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Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠

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Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley + Jack Meek

Animator: Sam Benson

Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell

Producer: Simona Rata + Lucy Lipscombe

Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter

Chief Digital Officer: Samuel Oakley

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What if your thoughts, fears and desires weren't entirely your own? What if something living inside your body could change your behaviour, without you ever knowing?

Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens (Vsauce) enter the disturbing world of parasites.

From worms that grow inside crickets to viruses that alter animal behaviour, they explore the extraordinary lengths parasites will go to in order to survive and reproduce.

But how does one organism evolve the ability to manipulate another?

How do parasites overcome the body's defences?

Along the way, Hannah and Michael investigate 500 million year old fossils, parasites that hitchhike on mosquitoes, the strange science of rabies and the unsettling relationship between cats, rats and a parasite that may even influence our own behaviour.

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For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience

Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.

-------------------

Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠

-------------------

Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley + Jack Meek

Animator: Sam Benson

Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell

Producer: Simona Rata + Lucy Lipscombe

Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter

Chief Digital Officer: Samuel Oakley

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Every week, around three undersea internet cables get damaged badly enough to need urgent repair... and the culprit usually isn’t sabotage.

Submarine cables carry more than 99% of the world’s international data, from your video calls to global financial transactions. Yet they lie on the ocean floor, where fishing gear and dragging ship anchors cause huge amounts of the damage.

In this episode of The Rest Is Science, Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens (Vsauce) investigate the hidden network of underwater cables holding the internet together, and the problems that come with running it across the bottom of the ocean.

How do you lay a cable across an entire ocean? What happens when one breaks miles below the surface? And in the age of satellites, why are we still relying on cables on the seabed?

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For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience

Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.

-------------------

Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠

-------------------

Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley + Jack Meek

Animator: Sam Benson

Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell

Producer: Simona Rata + Lucy Lipscombe

Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter

Chief Digital Officer: Samuel Oakley

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is 100 really such a special number? Or have we spent thousands of years getting excited about something completely arbitrary?

To celebrate the 100th episode of The Rest Is Science, Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens (Vsauce) go head-to-head in a mathematical showdown: which is the better number, 100 or 101?

It sounds like a simple question, but the answer takes them from the strange history of counting, to the psychology of numbers, the mathematics of primes and the possibility of communicating with alien species.

Why do we find round numbers so satisfying? Would 100 mean anything if we'd evolved with 9 fingers? And is there a single number that’s fundamentally special, regardless of the counting system we use?

Can Hannah and Michael settle the debate once and for all? Or is the most ‘important’ number of all one they haven't even considered yet?

-------------------

For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience

Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.

-------------------

Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠

-------------------

Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley + Jack Meek

Animator: Sam Benson

Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell

Assistant Producer: Lucy Lipscombe

Producer: Simona Rata

Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter

Chief Digital Officer: Samuel Oakley

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Some of the most creepy sounds ever recorded aren't from horror films. They're real.

From mysterious noises from the deepest parts of the ocean to the eerie voices of people who died more than a century ago, the world is full of sounds stranger than anything we could dream up.

But what on Earth is making them?

In this Halloween special of The Rest Is Science, Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens (Vsauce) listen to some of the world's most mysterious and unsettling recordings, attempting to identify their origins and uncover the surprising science behind them.

They travel back to 1860 to hear a voice that was never intended to be heard again, investigate a bizarre underwater noise that baffled scientists for a decade, and encounter a sound so strange that Hannah suspects it might have come from outer space.

Turn up the volume, put on your headphones, and see how many you can identify…before Hannah does.

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For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience

Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.

-------------------

Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠

-------------------

Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley + Jack Meek

Animator: Sam Benson

Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell

Assistant Producer: Lucy Lipscombe

Producer: Simona Rata

Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter

Chief Digital Officer: Samuel Oakley

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices