Curiosity Daily Podcast: Equinox and Solstice Science, Foreign Accent Syndrome, and an 80-Year Harvard Study

Learn about what causes an equinox or a solstice; how a rare condition can give you a foreign accent; and, an 80-year Harvard study that found the greatest predictor of happiness in later life.

March 20, 2019

Episode Show Notes:

In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:

If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom

Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Next Up

Shark Week 2025 Kicks Off July 20th

Shark Week is back for its 37th year on Sunday, July 20th. Don't miss it!

Gold Rush Sweeps

The following Promotion is intended for the 50 United States and D.C. only and will be construed and evaluated according to United States laws. Do not proceed in this site if you are not a legal resident of the 50 United States or D.C., and 21 years or older, as of Promotion start date.

An Astronomical Review of “Don’t Look Up”

In our annual New Year’s family tradition of struggling to stay awake until midnight, we decided to watch “Don’t Look Up,” the Adam McKay satire starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, and other fabulously good-looking people.

Shark Week: The Podcast - Did Alien Tech Crash-Land into the Ocean?

Host Luke Tipple is joined this week by renowned Harvard professor, Dr. Avi Loeb, who recently led a deep-sea expedition to discover if evidence for advanced alien life crash-landed off the coast of Papua New Guinea in 2014. They discuss the recent Congressional UFO hearings, how the last seventy years of research into extraterrestrial life has been potentially misguided, and the challenges of searching for tiny objects on the bottom of the ocean.

Shark Week: The Podcast - How To Have A Career in Shark Science

Shark Week’s Luke Tipple tackles the question “How can I work with sharks?” alongside two experts in the field – and their answers are not always the obvious ones. Luke is joined first by Kelly Link, Associate Curator of the Georgia Aquarium who talks about what it’s like to be an aquarist, how it differs from field work, and how to get yourself noticed. The second guest is Dr. Neil Hammerschlag who goes into detail on what it takes to become a prominent scientist, and what other paths you can take if a PhD isn’t for you. And at the end, researcher Sierra stops by to tell us about the world’s smallest shark.

Shark Week: The Podcast - Do Scientists Need to Kill Sharks?

Host Luke Tipple welcomes two guests to discuss how researchers can kill sharks in the name of science – and whether they need to at all. The first is Dr. Neil Hammerschlag, shark researcher and founder of Atlantic Shark Expeditions, and an expert on data-gathering in the field. He’s followed by explorer Fred Buyle, a world-record-breaking freediver whose innovative methods of shark tagging are explored. Plus, our researcher Sierra tells us about how a 50-year study changed our understanding of tiger sharks – and much of the work wasn’t even done by scientists.

Shark Week: The Podcast - Undiscovered Sharks and the State of the Ocean

Luke Tipple invites “The Lost Shark Guy,” Dr. Dave Ebert, who is personally responsible for finding dozens of shark species that were either previously unknown to science or thought to be extinct. He and Luke discuss why shark populations are a direct indicator of how healthy the ocean is, how to find undiscovered sharks, and why diversity in sharks is essential for marine life.

Scientists Watch as Stars Quake

The European Space Agency’s Gaia spacecraft has managed to watch stars tremble, their light subtly changing as starquakes ripple through their surfaces. Which is pretty cool, because Gaia wasn’t even designed to do it.

Year in Review: Nature in Focus Adventures

For many years I've looked back on the year in review and thought about all of the incredible adventures I've experienced and this year is no exception.

Shark Week: The Podcast – Shark Morphology - The Body of a Shark

Marine biologist and shark expert Luke Tipple recounts a shark interaction with a 20-foot Great White shark as he deep dives on shark anatomy.