Brains On Podcast

Microchips are in our phones and laptops. They’re in our cars and refrigerators. They’re in our watches and vacuum cleaners. They are everywhere, but where did they come from?

Wow, it’s been almost 10 years since we put out our first episode about eating. We’re revisiting the episode with some behind the scenes commentary.

Picnics wouldn’t be picnics without fungus. Bread, cheese and salami all incorporate our fungal friends!

Molds and fungi have been responsible for everything from medicines to that mystery that’s been in your fridge for too long. This episode looks at how the kingdom of fungus thrives.

Who hasn’t dreamed of going to the past or taking a peek into the future? This episode takes a look at the ins and outs of time travel.

How many Mystery Sounds can you guess? How many can you handle?!?

Screens are everywhere these days! We’re taking a look at why smartphones are so addictive, and how our devices affect us. Our co-hosts took on a bold challenge for this episode: they went a week without phones or tablets. We’ll hear how their experiment went, then Sanden will fill us in on the brain chemical that trains us to love our screens.

New discoveries and technologies are getting us closer than ever to recreating dinosaur sounds and figuring out how they might have moved.

With new fossils and new technology, our understanding of what dinosaurs looked like is evolving. This episode tracks those changes to show a more complete dino picture.

There’s a lot of talk about the COVID vaccines, but what are they actually made of. Let’s take a peek!

How does the moon control the tides? Where do waves come from? And what’s it like to live in a tide pool?

Butterflies in your stomach, blushing, that giddy feeling… why do crushes do these things to us and what can it teach us?

All your banana questions answered. How close is human DNA to a banana’s? Why do bananas change color? Where did that slipping on a banana peel joke come from?

People have started getting vaccinated. Here’s why that’s a good thing and why you should too.

Molly and Gitanjali chat about how kids can turn their ideas into reality, and why kids shouldn't be afraid to share their viewpoints and skills with the world -- we need them!

Ever wondered how synthesizers make all those bleep-bloop-blorps? Well, this episode has got you covered.

If habits are really stuck, we don't think much about them -- we just do them! Some habits are good (like brushing your teeth in the morning) and others are not so good (like biting your nails). Today we find out what parts of our brains help us form habits and why it's actually super useful to not have to think so hard about everything.

We’ll be back with new episodes in January. But we wanted to share another show with you that we’ve been working on -- Smash Boom Best.