Strange by Nature Podcast

Do Bees Play?

This week, Rachel starts us off with an interesting question. Can bees play? A team of researchers thinks they can. Find out what happens when they gave them balls of wood.

Kirk then makes us all thirsty with a dive into the roots of Root Beer. From medicinal medicine to soft drink, Kirk traces the history of this drink and the many natural ingredients that make it up.

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The Stone Cold Steve Austin of Wasps

What a wild show this week. Kirk starts things off with a listener submitted story about how researchers created fake fiddler crabs to better understand sexual signaling.

CRAB VIDEO: https://youtu.be/UOFtsJkiRmE?si=eWpbJzBPtIGCpb8I

Our special guest Brett Sieberer then brings us the amazing story of a wasp that can consume enormous amounts of alcohol with seemingly no effects.

Rachel then wraps up the show with a wild mystery in a German aquarium. Something lives there that has never been seen.

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Testing the Frog Glue

What a wild ride this week! Victoria is up first with a bizarre story about how researchers looked into frog glue.

Kirk then builds off last week by talking about the origins of gold in the universe.

Finally, Rachel tells us about the weird history of blood transfusions and how they were initially used to cure syphilis! They are older than you think!

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Pharaoh's Curse Cures Leukemia

This week we explore the Pharaoh's tomb with Rachel and possibly discover the cause of the Curse of the Pharaoh. What's more, can it cure cancer? Rachel takes a look at Aspergillus fungus, how it causes disease but also has been used in experiments to cure Leukemia.

Victoria is up next with a fascinating look at how spiders might be manipulating the flashing of fireflies in order to attract more prey. It's brand new research and wild.

Kirk rounds out the show this week with a look at Mt Erebus in Antarctica. Not only is the most active volcano in the southern hemisphere, it has a permanent lava pool surrounded by snow and rains gold on Antarctica. This is a bizarre volcano.

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Milky Way Migrating Moths

Kirk kicks off this week's show with the amazing migration skills of the Bogong Moth. They are the first ever recorded invertebrate that uses celestial navigation for long-distance migration wayfinding.

Rachel then tells us all about the Bluntnose Six-gilled Shark. This amazing creature gives birth to an incredible number of pups.

Victoria rounds out this week's show with the aptly named Sword-billed Hummingbird and some of the amazing and strange adaptations it has to survive.

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The Dodo!

This week, Kirk is back and the crew pulled together another great show. Victoria kicks things off with a creature feature on an animal we can't believe it took this long to discuss, the Dodo!

Kirk, fresh from vacation spins a tale taking us back thousands of years to the eruption of Thera/Santorini in 1618 BCE and how it may have lead to the collapse of a dynasty in China.

Rachel rounds out this week with spiders, so...many...spiders. Not only that, these spiders feed themselves to their young to keep the colony going. It's a fascinating look into yet another example of nature not fitting into our preconceived boxes.

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This Episode Stinks (it's about skunks)

Hello Everyone, time for another weekly dose of weird. This week, Victoria kicks things off with a story about Brown-headed cowbirds and their amazing nesting strategy of being nest parasitizers. 

Rachel then stinks up the place with a deep dive on those cuddly creatures...skunks. 

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Earth Had Rings Like Saturn?

This week we've got two amazing stories that couldn't be more different. Rachel spins a tale that spans millions of years. Could the explosion of life during the Ordovician have been the result of meteor impacts? Could those meteors have come from a time when Earth had rings like Saturn? She explores this possibility this week!

Victoria is up next and scoops Rachel with a topic off her secret list. This week she present to you the mysterious and strange Blue Sea Dragons. Earth is full of strange creatures. We're happy to bring them to you each and every week.

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The Bird with a Skull Crushing Kick

Victoria kicks off the show this week with yet another flying animal that usually can't fly. She's brought us flying snakes and flying spiders, how about flying fish?

Kirk takes us on a winding journey connecting the dots over millions of years of history to connect a high-school sex-ed class with Sue the T-rex and an ancient protozoan disease.

Rachel rounds out the show with the Secretary Bird. An amazing raptor that kills not with talons but with one of the most powerful kicks in the animal kingdom. Beware your skull being crushed.

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The Toad with Eyes in its Mouth

Rachel brings us the beautiful and disgusting Bradford pear this week. Thank you?

Victoria takes us deep underground to discover mind-blowingly large gypsum crystals discovered deep in the earth in Mexico.

Kirk round out this week's show with the strange mystery of a toad with eyes in mouth.

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