Tag: australia

• Houdini Birds and the Space Dagger

  Researchers in Australia have been trying to track magpies using tiny, featherweight transmitters, but the birds have banded together to escape the magnetic backpacks that house the signal. This kind of cooperation has never been observed among this species and it raises a whole bunch of new questions. Anthony and Jeff take a look at those wily birds, and what this could mean for their incessant pranks. Then, new analysis of a dagger found in King Tut's tomb reveal that it is made out of iron from a meteorite. Jeff and Anthony step through the incredible process used to make that discovery. [more]

  March 15, 2022Episodes

• Vibing Minds and Robot Inventors

  When we cooperate on certain tasks, our brainwaves might synchronize. So says a new finding from researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan. Anthony and Jeff discuss what that might mean for how we understand consciousness and the brain. Then, if an AI can come up with new concepts, should it be able to get the credit? A court decision in Australia is awarding authorship of two patents to a non-human. Jeff and Anthony weigh in on robot inventors. [more]

  August 13, 2021Episodes

• Octlantis and Tall Boy

  In Jervis Bay, off Eastern Australia, researchers recently spotted 15 gloomy octopuses congregating, communicating, dwelling together, and even evicting each other from dens at a site the scientists named “Octlantis.” Anthony and Jeff discuss the reasons and potential dangers of Octopi starting cities. Then, Polish military divers are due to begin a delicate operation on Monday to defuse a massive World War II bomb at the bottom of a channel near the Baltic Sea. The five-ton device -- nicknamed "Tallboy" and also known as an "earthquake bomb" -- was dropped by the Royal Air Force in an attack on a Nazi warship in 1945. Jeff and Anthony run through the process and terrifying possibilities of diffusing a decades old mega bomb. [more]

  October 27, 2020Episodes

• Mind The Crap

  It turns out those gut feelings or pits in your stomach may actually come from your second brain. Scientists from Australia have discovered that human beings have a second brain, and it is located in the butt. Called the enteric nervous system (ENS), it controls the muscle movement in the colon independently of the central nervous system. Jeff and Anthony try to make it through the episode without butting heads. [more]

  June 13, 2018Episodes