Strange by Nature Podcast

This week on the show Rachel and Kirk had a great time sharing their topics.

Kirk starts off the show with a bizarre listener submitted tale of the Coudersport Ice Mine. In this bizarre mine, ice grows thicker in the heat of the summer and them, equally strangely, it melts in the cold of winter. Kirk looks at the history and geology of what's really going on.

Rachel looks into the close connection between Ravens and Wolves. It turns out it is more complex than we previously thought. The new research shows that ravens have incredible memories.

Join us weekly for more strange nature. Our supporters on Patreon get every episode ad-free! 

Support us: patreon.com/strangebynature

Email us: contact@strangebynaturepodcast.com

Visit us at: strangebynaturepodcast.com  where you can sign up for our episode emails.

Victoria brings us the intriguing tale of Lusitanian flora. These are plants only found in Iberia AND southern Ireland. The reason they are in Ireland at all is a tale that goes back thousands of years and involves copper, trees, and booze.

Kirk brings back a topic from last December because it turns out a dutch painter beat scientists to a discovery about bats by over 400 years. No one had looked closely enough at the painting to notice.

Rachel rounds out the show with a fascinating profile on the plants we call Horsetails. They may not get very big these days, but they used to be over 100 feet tall and form whole forests.

Join us weekly for more strange nature. Our supporters on Patreon get every episode ad-free! 

Support us: patreon.com/strangebynature

Email us: contact@strangebynaturepodcast.com

Visit us at: strangebynaturepodcast.com  where you can sign up for our episode emails.

Rachel kicks things off this week with a fascinating look at the ancient relationship between moss and fungus.

Victoria brings us a story about a bizarre form of locomotion. She brings us... Jumping snails (and slugs).

Kirk's story this week is about the Japanese Tree Frog and how new research shows us that this small creature just might hold an amazing bacterial cure for cancers.

Join us weekly for more strange nature. Our supporters on Patreon get every episode ad-free! 

Support us: patreon.com/strangebynature

Email us: contact@strangebynaturepodcast.com

Visit us at: strangebynaturepodcast.com  where you can sign up for our episode emails.

We had a ton of fun with this week's show. Kirk starts us off with a story about the bizarre evidence for Heat Bursts. This strange weather phenomenon can create oven-like blasts of air seemingly out of nowhere.

Rachel comes back to the ocean and tells us about Basking Sharks just in time for Shark Week.

Victoria takes us on a trip with new research on a psychoactive mushroom species that seems to always make people see little imaginary people.

Join us weekly for more strange nature. Our supporters on Patreon get every episode ad-free! 

Support us: patreon.com/strangebynature

Email us: contact@strangebynaturepodcast.com

Visit us at: strangebynaturepodcast.com  where you can sign up for our episode emails.

Victoria brings us into the strange medical world of autosomal dominant diseases.

Kirk brings us the strange sad tale of nutmeg. Sometimes a great plant turns into a curse.

Rachel tells us about strange Fish Eating Bats.

Join us weekly for more strange nature. Our supporters on Patreon get every episode ad-free! 

Support us: patreon.com/strangebynature

Email us: contact@strangebynaturepodcast.com

Visit us at: strangebynaturepodcast.com  where you can sign up for our episode emails.

This week, Rachel continues her series on bears, this time with the utterly strange Panda Bear.

Victoria tells us about the mysterious and recently discovered whale graveyard that has been around for millions of years.

Kirk tells us about the Coldest Trees in the World.

Join us weekly for more strange nature. Our supporters on Patreon get every episode ad-free! 

Support us: patreon.com/strangebynature

Email us: contact@strangebynaturepodcast.com

Visit us at: strangebynaturepodcast.com  where you can sign up for our episode emails.

Kirk starts us off with a strange nematode parasite that causes spiders to drown themselves.

Rachel also takes us to the water but we don't want to get in. She tells us about Lake Natron, a lake that will calcify anything that dies it in it and turn you to stone.

Victoria tells us about cordyceps fungus and how it zombifies the insects it infects and causes them to engage in strange behaviors.

Join us weekly for more strange nature. Our supporters on Patreon get every episode ad-free! 

Support us: patreon.com/strangebynature

Email us: contact@strangebynaturepodcast.com

Visit us at: strangebynaturepodcast.com  where you can sign up for our episode emails.

Victoria takes a page from Kirk and brings us to space with some weird facts about Mars and how it got where it is.

Kirk breaks our brains with a genealogy puzzle. When was the most recent common ancestor to all humans alive? The answer is bizarre.

Rachel doesn't want to break our brains so she brings us a beautiful rainbow sea jelly.

Join us weekly for more strange nature. Our supporters on Patreon get every episode ad-free! 

Support us: patreon.com/strangebynature

Email us: contact@strangebynaturepodcast.com

Visit us at: strangebynaturepodcast.com  where you can sign up for our episode emails.

Rachel tells us this week about spiny rats. These strange little mammals can actually drop their tails when in danger.

Victoria brings us the fascinating topic of fasciation, when plant flowers go a bit wrong. These blooms get really weird.

Kirk rounds out the show by talking about how plants are master manipulators and this time we discover that they can mimic the smell of ants attacked by spiders in order to attract pollinating flies.

Join us weekly for more strange nature. Our supporters on Patreon get every episode ad-free! 

Support us: patreon.com/strangebynature

Email us: contact@strangebynaturepodcast.com

Visit us at: strangebynaturepodcast.com  where you can sign up for our episode emails.

Rachel shocks no one when she goes back to the ocean this week and comes up with the rather strange looking Goosefish.

Not to be outdone, Victoria takes us to Brazil to see glowing termite mounds. It turns out, the glowing is actually click beetles.

Join us weekly for more strange nature. Our supporters on Patreon get every episode ad-free! 

Support us: patreon.com/strangebynature

Email us: contact@strangebynaturepodcast.com

Visit us at: strangebynaturepodcast.com  where you can sign up for our episode emails.