Strange by Nature Podcast

The Only True Blue in Nature

Rachel keeps things light as we start off the show with a discussion of Botulism toxin just in time for the holidays. Watch out for those bulging cans.

Victoria is up next and she talks about how rare blue is in nature. She shares the very few examples of true blue pigments found in nature.

Finally, Kirk talks about birds decorating their nests with predator scat to keep away predators.

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A Nuclear Bunker of Cannibal Ants

This week, Kirk starts us off with a strange story about mushrooms being used as computer parts. He sincerely hopes he never has to pronounce the word memristor again. 

Rachel brings us the tale of a group of 100,000 cannibal ants living in a nuclear bunker. 

Victoria rounds things out this week with research proving that at least one species of bat can catch and eat birds all while both are flying. 

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Don't Stick Your Head in the Particle Accelerator

Victoria starts us off this week with a bizarre story about how some animals can see without having eyes.

Kirk is up next and he tells us about Fugu, a.k.a. the pufferfish and we learn about these highly toxic fish people like to eat. Their poison seems to come from a strange source.

Rachel is up last this week and she tells us all why we should not stick our head into an active particle accelerator. Just in case, you know, you were thinking of doing that.

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When Fish Climb Cliffs

Welcome to our 250th episode!

Rachel kicks things off with a discussion of Carrion Beetles.

Victoria then tells us about fish that can climb cliffs. Say what?

Kirk finishes up with the story of how one predator uses static electricity to attract themselves to their prey like a homing missile. 

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Visit the Spider Megacity

What a wild show this week. Well, it finally happened. After approximately 700 topics, we finally had two hosts come with the same secret topic. Kirk and Victoria both brought the same story. Kirk kicks things off talking about researchers finding the largest spider web in the world in a sulfur cave. Victoria adds in some fun extra facts from her research on the topic.

Rachel is up next and she discusses some of the weird things we all should know about the Pronghorn. Turns out they are so fast because they evolved with fast predators that no longer exist.

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Can a Snake be Venomous AND Poisonous?

Victoria starts the show this week with a look at the cyclops (cyclopses?). From Greek legend to modern reality, Victoria traces a few of the possible origins of this legendary creature.

As promised last week, Kirk brings us the mighty Cave Lion. It seems strange but humans of the past living in Europe lived alongside cave lions longer than they have lived without them.

Rachel rounds out this week's show with a snake that is both venomous AND poisonous. Great, now we get to worry about that.

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Vampire Squid from Hell

Rachel starts the show this week with a topic that almost made the Halloween show last week. She brings us the Vampire Squid from Hell. That's literally what the scientific name of this bizarre deep-sea creature means. 

Victoria brings us the story of the most deadly body of water in the world. She's talking about none other than The Strid in England. It looks like an idyllic stretch of water but this river is deadly. 

Kirk wraps up this week's show by talking about some of the amazing megafauna that lived with humans here in North America. Lions, Mammoths and Bears oh my!

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Death by Potatoes

We've been building to it all month, it is time for Halloween and we have some great topics.

Kirk kicks off the show with a topic that may have you think twice about the candy you pop in your mouth this year. He talks about all of the ways that insects end up in your candy. Red food coloring from ground up beetles, excretions from the Lac beetles in your hard candy coating and maybe some bee vomit, insects are an important part of the candy business.

Are your potatoes trying to kill you? Time to unlock a new fear. Rachel gives us all a new reason to be afraid of the basement. This week she teaches us about solanine, the very deadly chemical in potatoes that can kill.

What could be more Halloween than bats? Victoria tells us all about Bat Flies. These strange Halloween-colored parasitic flies look like spiders, suck blood, give live birth, and live their whole lives on bats. They are truly bizarre.

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Ghosts in the Lab

Victoria kicks things off this week with the terrifying topic of Prion diseases. These bizarre infections can take years to manifest, are incurable, and can turn your brain into a sponge. Charming.

Kirk is up next with a ghost story for this spooky season. Science wins out over superstition and in the end it ends up being a tale of how infrasound can affect human physiology and may be to blame for many ghost reports.

Rachel rounds out the show with a creature feature on the most venomous and possibly most painful animal in the world, the Stonefish.

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The Burning Crater of Fire

This week's show starts of with Rachel telling us about the Door to Hell. Seems like a fitting topic as we approach Halloween. But what is it? The Door to Hell is also known as the Darvaza Gas Crater in Turkmenistan. It is a pit of fire that has burned for perhaps 50 years. It is the result of a drilling project gone horribly wrong. It reminds us a bit of the Burning Mountain in Australia from Episode 68 called "Dead Man's Fingers." 

Victoria is up next with the strange fish the Arctic Char. We're likely watching speciation take place as this one fish species has an amazing range of sizes and behaviors. Due to the amazing number of "morphs" present, the Arctic Char has been called the "most variable vertebrate on Earth."

Kirk wraps up this week's show with a bizarre creature feature, the Sea Squirt. This strange creature lives a double life and not even Rachel and Victoria suspect that it is actually not an invertebrate. 

 

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