What happens when you give a scientist, obsessed with biblical death, near unlimited control over a utopian city of mice? Well...a lot of death, it turns out. In the 1960's and 70's, Dr. John Calhoun created what should have been a perfect mouse city - unlimited food, shelter, and water with no predators or inclement weather. Then he let nature run…

As urban environments grow and natural vegetation gets replaced with concrete and asphalt, “Urban Heat Islands” develop, where urbanized areas retain much more heat than surrounding rural areas. The increased heat in densely populated areas can pose significant problems to both comfort and, more importantly, people’s health. The City of Los Angeles…

Returning rock samples from planets and asteroids can provide new insights into how the solar system, the universe, and life formed. But how much can we learn from meteorite samples that fell to the ground here on Earth? It turns out, quite a bit! Join us this week as we explore a new paper about a 4 billion-year-old rock from Mars that landed in A…

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This week is a bit different - instead of a fresh episode, we are sharing one of our bonus episodes covering the Stanford Prison Experiment. Tune in to hear how this seemingly innocent psychology experiment from the early 1970s went terribly wrong. If you like this episode you can find more like it at www.patreon.com/paperboyspod.…

Oumuamua is an interstellar object that passed through our solar system in late 2017. It originally made the news thanks to several scientists suggesting its odd shape might be explained if it were a spaceship. New research on Oumuamua presents a much more tractable--and still extremely fascinating--explanation though. Join us this week as we dive …

Check out the paper, news articles, and more at www.paperboyspodcast.com. Like the show? Want more every month? Fan of universal constants? Check out www.patreon.com/paperboyspodPar Paper Boys

Check out the paper, news articles, and more at www.paperboyspodcast.com. Like the show? Want more every month? Fan of universal constants? Check out www.patreon.com/paperboyspodPar Paper Boys

Any kid can intuitively understand how much you need to fill a water balloon to effectively drench someone. But it turns out that predicting this quantitatively with physics is much more challenging! Join us James and Charlie this week for a look into an experimental physics paper that analyzed precisely when a water balloon (or any liquid-filled) …

The coronavirus, COVID-19, has been spreading around the world since it was first detected in December 2019. Since then, drastic measures have been taken in communities around the world to limit its spread. Recent research from Imperial College London looked at how different suppression techniques such as social distancing and isolation could affec…

Gray whales have some of the longest migrations on the planet--between 10,000-12,000 miles long each year! Sadly, they often get stranded on beaches. As weird as it may sound, scientists have found that the whales are more likely to get stranded during solar storms. What is the connection between whales becoming stranded and storms on our sun 92 mi…

Over a year ago we covered the challenges that NASA’s InSight lander overcame to land on Mars and begin performing the first detailed seismographic measurements of Mars. The InSight science team has just published the initial findings from InSight’s measurements, detailing unexpected results about Mars’ seismic activity, magnetism, and more. Join u…

Consciousness is challenging to study. We interact with consciousness everyday, and yet there are still so many questions. Learning about how consciousness arises and where it occurs in the brain could have a significant impact on medicine and fundamental neuroscience. It also begs the question, can consciousness be controlled? Join us this week as…

Fast radio bursts are millisecond-long signals we detect coming from distant galaxies. They were only recently discovered in 2007 and we still have no clue what’s causing them. These radio bursts appear in short durations on earth at very low powers. At their origin, we have calculated their energies to be enormous--more than our entire sun gives o…

It’s clear that birds can communicate. All you have to do is listen to their songs. But when they communicate, do their songs conform to the same linguistic laws as human speech? Join James and Charlie this week as they dive into a paper that analyzes the songs of African "jackass" penguins in search of deeper linguistic structures. Check out the p…

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In the year 79 A.D., the infamous Mt. Vesuvius transformed the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum--as well as its residents. For a long time, archaeologists thought that all the victims died quickly, vaporizing from the hot ash and leaving their remains in the dust that cooled and hardened. However, new research analyzing their bodies suggests a grim…

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It is estimated that sleep apnea affects nearly 1 billion worldwide. However, many of the mechanisms behind sleep apnea are still a mystery. New research has pointed to high levels of tongue fat as a primary factor controlling the severity of sleep apnea. Join us this week as James and Charlie dive into the “thick” of it and learn about this new di…

OSIRIS-REx is an exciting mission from NASA that seeks to return samples from asteroid Bennu back to Earth, providing insight into the original building blocks of our solar system. Touchdown on the asteroid is expected in August 2020, but the spacecraft has already learned a ton about its target. Join us this week as Charlie and James dive into a p…

Join us this new year as we discuss the best science of 2019 that we never got to present on Paper Boys! Like the show? Want more every month? Fan of universal constants? Check out www.patreon.com/paperboyspodPar Paper Boys

(WARNING: Do not listen with young children!!) For Christmas Eve, the Paper Boys tackle the everlasting mythos of Santa Claus. Why do parents encourage kids to believe? What reactions do kids have when they learn the truth? How far do some parents go to keep the dream alive? Do parents know how upset kids really are to learn the truth? Join us as w…

Jupiter’s moon Europa garners a lot of attention for its potential to house life, particularly thanks to what are predicted to be vast oceans beneath the planet’s icy crust. From past observations made by the Galileo spacecraft and the Hubble Space Telescope, we’ve witnessed large plumes erupting from the surface. But what are these plumes made of?…

Saturn’s tiny moon Enceladus is of great interest to scientists for its unique features and potential for life. Despite its far distance from the sun, a vast ocean exists under its surface, and geyser-like jets regularly shoot water vapor into its atmosphere and space. For many years, planetary scientists have wondered how four deep, nearly paralle…

Food has a big impact on the world. What we eat can drastically affect our health. It can also have major consequences for the environment. But is there any link between the health and environmental impacts of food? Join us this week as James and Charlie dive into research that seeks to determine whether eating healthy is also better for the planet…

With winter setting in, it’s easy to wonder why we humans can’t simply hibernate. How is it that animals like bears can simply bypass eating and drinking for such a long time? Join us this week as Charlie and James dive into new research investigating the genetic mechanisms of hibernation in bears! Check out the paper, news articles, and more at ww…

Certain languages have reputations for speaking faster. But, over the same amount of time do these languages actually convey more information than other slower languages? Would a slower, more complex language convey more information still? Join us this week as James and Charlie dive into new research that seeks to compare the amount of information …

With their habitats heavily dependent on sea ice, Emperor penguins are extremely impacted by climate change in Antarctica. The 2015 Paris Climate agreement sought the commitment of nations to keep the global temperature rise below 2 degrees centigrade, but how would this level of warming impact emperor penguin populations? Join us this week as Char…

Cell phones, tablets, home assistants, and even cars are leveraging voice control technology to add convenience to our lives. But are our voice controlled devices at risk for being hacked...by lasers? In an interesting new study, researchers figured out how voice controlled devices could be hacked inconspicuously using laser pointers. Join James an…

In a new paper in Nature, Google recently claimed that they achieved "quantum supremacy," or using a quantum computer to achieve a task that a classical computer could not. However, not everyone agrees with Google's results. IBM released a paper at nearly the same time that scrutinizes Google's calculations. Listen as Charlie and James dive into th…

Touch screens are ubiquitous in technology today. We’ve grown very accustomed to using our fingers to tap and swipe our way through most tasks. But what if we could do more…like caress, or even tickle, our devices? New research looks at how “skin” interfaces might open up the ways we interact with our technology. Join us this week as James and Char…

Endurance athletes are used to pushing themselves; most people would give up if they attempted similar feats. Does this constant push towards finishing difficult physical goals carry a mental burden as well though? Join us this week as Charlie and James take on a new paper about the mental tax of training on athletes’ brains. Check out the paper, n…

The 2019 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to three researchers whose work significantly advanced our understanding of the universe. Two of the researchers worked together to identify the first exoplanet in the universe that orbits a star similar to our Sun. Join us this week as James and Charlie dive into their research in astronomy and physics …

Astronomers have noticed a strange clustering of objects orbiting our solar system very far from the sun. Their grouping suggests that there might be a planet (dubbed “Planet 9”) responsible for this strange behavior. However, new research has proposed the idea that instead of being a planet, “Planet 9” could instead be a primordial black hole! Joi…

The material Vantablack made headlines a few years ago as being the “blackest black” color ever known. People were shocked by how this color would transform shapes, and the material even sparked deep running feud in the art community. Well now it turns out there’s a newer black that is 10X darker than Vantablack! Join us this week as James dives in…

Health studies continuously debate the pros and cons of different diets, particularly vegetarian diets vs. carnivorous diets. Will one type of diet lower your risk for certain disease? Could the same diet increase your risk for other diseases? Join us this week as Charlie breaks down a new study making waves in popular science news about the risks …

Talk of intermittent fasting has grown in the news. Some feel intermittent fasting is a new dieting fad, others claim that it’s an amazing technique to improve health and lose weight. But what does the research actually have to say on the subject? Join us this week as James looks at a study on the effects of intermittent fasting. Check out the pape…

Our planet is bombarded with tons of extraterrestrial dust every year. While much of the dust comes from asteroids, some of these particles may have come from supernovas - ancient stars that exploded nearly 20 million years ago! But finding this dust on Earth is tricky, and determining that the dust came from an exploding star is even tougher. This…

Tracking the productivity and impact of research has always been problematic. Especially in the highly competitive environment of today where hiring and promotions can be tied to a single performance metric such as “total number of citations” or “h-index.” The problem is that these metrics don’t tell the full story of productivity. Different discip…

For the average person, the words used to describe whiskey can seem strange, if not completely arbitrary. Dignified vs. subtle, austere vs. rich, mouth-coatingly winey...the entire process of tasting feels extremely subjective. However, new research from the University of Glasgow is seeking to change that with their creation of an artificial tongue…

Check out the paper, news articles, and more at www.paperboyspodcast.com. Like the show? Want more every month? Fan of universal constants? Check out www.patreon.com/paperboyspod!Par Paper Boys

Nearly everyone has heard the advice “walk 10,000 steps per day to be healthy!” As fitness trackers like FitBit have grown in popularity, many people use the 10,000-step benchmark as their goal for daily fitness. But where did this goal come from? And are there actually measurable health benefits if you walk 10,000 steps per day or more? Join us th…

News channels have been buzzing with the new press releases from Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface company, Neuralink. The company hopes to develop new devices that could change the way humans interact with technology by interfacing directly to the brain. Join us this week as James dives into a publicly-available paper published by Neuralink to …

Stonehenge has puzzled people for centuries. What was the purpose of such a massive rock formation? And how were people able to move such large boulders from quarries 50-150 km away? As scientists and archaeologists have learned more though, a new mystery has appeared: why is there such a high concentration of pig fat on pottery found in the area? …

Recent research has sparked popular news headlines about the brain “seeing what’s around the corner.” Can your brain actually look around corners? Well, not quite...however, fascinating research from the University of Glasgow has shown that the parts of your brain responsible for vision actually try to predict what you’ll see next--even faster than…

In the early 20th century, Einstein, Hubble, and other scientists confirmed the universe was expanding. With the exception of a few nearby galaxies, nearly all galaxies are moving away from us. Scientists have long been tempted by the challenging problem that arises from trying to measure how fast these galaxies are moving away, resulting in some f…

Most people don’t need an excuse to drink caffeine in the morning. Pick your poison: whether it’s coffee, tea, or an extra large Red Bull, caffeine’s psychoactive effects are evident. But could that same drug be kickstarting your body to burn more calories than you would be otherwise? Join us this week as James looks at new research studying the ef…

Researchers have long been puzzled about how human language evolved. Humans’ ability to create complex, flexible, spoken language stands out in the animal kingdom, but little is known about how language developed, and particularly, how animals evolved to repeatedly create novel recognizable sounds (“formant modification” as it’s called in the study…

In the 1980s, neuroscientists put forth the Critical Brain Hypothesis, which suggests our brain operates on a teetering edge between different "phases" of operation. These phase changes characterize the way we think and the way our brain functions. However, our brains have to sit right near the critical point that lies between these phases - just l…

Humans love to test their limits. Some people run marathons, race triathlons, or climb the world’s highest peaks. All of these endeavors are challenging, but can we quantitatively compare how each undertaking pushes the human body? Join us this week as Charlie dives into new research that seeks to determine a ‘hard limit’ on human energy expenditur…