Curiosity Daily Podcast: First Animal That Doesn’t Breathe Oxygen, Biggest Explosion in the Universe’s History, and Improving Memory with the Brain’s Immune System
Learn about the first animal scientists have ever discovered that doesn’t breathe oxygen; how we might be able to hijack the brain’s immune system to improve memory; and the biggest explosion in the history of the universe.
March 23, 2020
Episode Show Notes:
Scientists discover first animal that doesn't breathe oxygen by Cameron Duke
- Specktor, B. (2020, February 24). Scientists discover first known animal that doesn’t breathe. Livescience.com; Live Science. https://www.livescience.com/first-non-breathing-animal.html
- Yahalomi, D., Atkinson, S. D., Neuhof, M., Chang, E. S., Philippe, H., Cartwright, P., Bartholomew, J. L., & Huchon, D. (2020). A cnidarian parasite of salmon (Myxozoa: Henneguya) lacks a mitochondrial genome. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201909907. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1909907117
We might be able to hijack the brain's immune system to improve memory by Grant Currin
- Weaver II, E., Doyle, H. (2019, August 8). Cells of the Brain. Dana Foundation. https://www.dana.org/article/cells-of-the-brain/#:~:text=
- How the brain’s immune system could be harnessed to improve memory. (2020). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-02/ru-htb021020.php
- De Luca, S. N., Soch, A., Sominsky, L., Nguyen, T.-X., Bosakhar, A., & Spencer, S. J. (2020). Glial remodeling enhances short-term memory performance in Wistar rats. Journal of Neuroinflammation, 17(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12974-020-1729-4
Astronomers detect biggest explosion in the history of the universe by Grant Currin
- Astronomers detect biggest explosion in the history of the universe. (2020). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-02/icfr-adb022720.php
- Giacintucci, S., Markevitch, M., Johnston-Hollitt, M., Wik, D. R., Wang, Q. H. S., & Clarke, T. E. (2020). Discovery of a Giant Radio Fossil in the Ophiuchus Galaxy Cluster. The Astrophysical Journal, 891(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ab6a9d
- This Black Hole Blew a Hole in the Cosmos. (2020, March 6). The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/science/black-hole-cosmos-astrophysics.html
Subscribe to Curiosity Daily to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. You can also listen to our podcast as part of your Alexa Flash Briefing; Amazon smart speakers users, click/tap “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing
Next Up
Get Ready for Puppy Bowl XXII on Animal Planet!
Puppy Bowl XXII premieres Sunday, February 8, 2026, at 2:00PM ET/11:00AM PT with more adoptable puppies from shelters and rescues than ever before.
Why We Know Nothing about Dark Matter and Dark Energy
Welcome to the era of precision cosmology…where we’ve managed to very precisely measure everything we don't know about the universe.
Get Ready for Puppy Bowl XXI on Animal Planet!
Puppy Bowl XXI premieres Sunday, February 9 at 2P ET/11A PT with more adoptable puppies from shelters and rescues than ever before.
Watch World-Class High Diver Molly Carlson Leap From a Helicopter Into a Shark Cage on 'Ultimate Shark Dive'
Plunge head-first into the most shocking Shark Week special yet! Learn all about it here.
Sing Along to the Shark Week Song
Listen to the first official Shark Week song and catch all the action July 26 through August 1 on Discovery!
Get Ready for Puppy Bowl XX on Animal Planet!
Puppy Bowl XX premieres Sunday, February 11 at 2P ET/11A PT with more adoptable puppies from shelters and rescues than ever before.
Shark Week: The Podcast - Lights! Camera! TEETH! Making Shark Docs
Shark Week’s Luke Tipple is joined by longtime filmmaker and Emmy-award-winner Andy Casagrande. He’s filmed and appeared in dozens of shark documentaries, and might just be the most prolific shark cinematographer in history. He talks with Luke about his career, the contentious term “shark porn,” and the future of the industry. And at the end, our researcher Sierra talks about the unprecedented ways that sharks are currently endangered.
Shark Week: The Podcast - Superstar Kesha Lifts the Gag Order on Saving Sharks
Pop superstar Kesha joins Shark Week’s Luke Tipple on the podcast to discuss her love of sharks, how her music funds her addiction to diving, and how you can find inner peace while under the water. And at the end, our researcher Sierra drops in to tell us that some sharks have teeth in their eyes.
Shark Week: The Podcast - What is the Status of Sharks in our Oceans?
In this season’s final episode, Luke welcomes Emmy-winning filmmaker and conservationist Shawn Heinrichs to discuss the state of sharks in the ocean. They go over how both legal and illegal fishing operations are decimating the ocean’s wildlife, what it’s like to have a hit put out on you for exposing criminal enterprises to the world, and whether or not NOAA’s data on “sustainable” fishing can really be trusted.
Shipwrecked & Surrounded by Sharks
This week, we do things a little differently, as Shark Week’s Luke Tipple invites Adventure Aaron into the podcast studio to talk about his incredible near-death experience on the open water. Adventure Aaron gets into what it takes to circumnavigate the world in an ocean rowboat, what it’s like to stare eye-to-eye with an oceanic white tip that probably wants you for lunch, and everything else that happened to him when his boat was capsized, and he was lost by himself at sea.