A Little Bit Of Science

A 1960s mouse utopia that collapsed into a vanity-obsessed apocalypse, a global database of 150,000 enthusiastic stool photos, and a scientific quest to help humans regrow limbs like a salamander. This week, we bounce between rodent dystopias, AI-powered gut tracking, regenerating toes, and international idioms for absolute chaos.
We start in the late 1960s with Universe 25, an experiment that gave mice everything they wanted and accidentally proved that absolute perfection leads to a total social meltdown and a faction of self-obsessed, grooming-addicted rodents. Then, shifting gears with a violent jerk, we check in on a health app that has amassed a staggering database of 150,000 human poo images to train AI to analyse gut health.
From there, we look to the future, where scientists are trying to steal a trick from the salamander to see if mice and eventually humans can regrow missing limbs. And to end the episode, we take a quick detour into international linguistics to look at how different cultures describe things going completely wrong, from Swedish blue cupboards to vivid Brazilian panic.

CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction
02:20 Why Universe 25 Happened
04:58 Building Mousetopia
08:43 Utopia Turns Violent
11:53 Behavioural Sink Theory
14:04 Misuse And Critiques
18:45 Poop App Citizen Science
24:58 Sharing Stool Online
25:44 Selling Poo Data
27:25 AI Data Hunger
28:23 Elvis Toilet Death
29:43 Constipation Studies
35:02 Mouse Toe Regrowth
41:17 Cactus And Sayings

SOURCES:
https://www.404media.co/ai-poop-analysis-app-offered-to-sell-me-access-to-its-users-poops/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-72066-8
https://bsky.app/profile/adamcsharp.bsky.social/post/3mlqozoour22z
https://theconversation.com/constipation-increases-your-risk-of-a-heart-attack-new-study-finds-and-not-just-on-the-toilet-237209
https://www.mamamia.com.au/elvis-constipation/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-38068-y
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32873621/
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/nov/21/the-mad-egghead-who-built-a-mouse-utopia-john-b-calhoun
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A poll has asked people if they could win in a fist fight against Donald Trump, a survey on female orgasms has wandered into yawning, crying, and hallucinations, and vulture nests are quietly operating as accidental museums of human history. This week, Will and Rod bounce between political fantasy, private biology, and birds that apparently have a better archive system than most institutions.
We start with the poll that turned politics into Fight Club, which is less about combat and more about confidence, identity, and how people relate to power. Then we get into the science of female orgasms, and why the data is far stranger than the usual “fireworks” story, with reports ranging from tears to yawns to hallucination like effects.
Finally, we head to the vultures, whose nests can preserve scraps and artefacts for decades, creating accidental time capsules for archaeologists. And to end on a rare positive note, we’ve got some good climate news: renewable energy is still surging in the US, despite all the noise.

CHAPTERS:
00:00 Political Science Milestones
00:44 Poll Who Beats Trump
01:56 Meet the Hosts
02:50 Science Missed Female Biology
04:00 Mapping the Clitoris
05:49 Surveying Orgasm Effects
08:47 Peri Orgasmic Symptoms
14:08 Taboo and Medical Framing
15:20 Case Report Finger Cure
19:38 Altruism Games
21:38 Resenting Do Gooders
24:05 Tainted Altruism
27:07 Academic Award Hoax
30:49 Self Made Medals
34:11 Vulture Nest Time Capsules
40:07 Climate News Uplift
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High school students launch blood samples into near space, a real life love story involves a faecal microbiota transplant (FMT), and scientists find cocaine in sharks off The Bahamas. Today we bounce between space medicine, the gut microbiome and mental health, and the uncomfortable reality of ocean pollution.
We break down what those student rocket experiments could mean for space exploration and future medical procedures, then dive into the emerging science of gut bacteria, antibiotics, and how the microbiome may influence conditions like bipolar disorder. It is fascinating, hopeful, and also a bit gross, which is basically the scientific sweet spot.
Then we hit the ocean for the headline nobody asked for: sharks on cocaine. It is not just a meme, it is a sign of how far human contaminants travel through marine ecosystems, and why environmental science keeps finding our mess in places we thought were pristine.
We also unpack why we yawn, including research on brain temperature regulation and whether yawning patterns act like a physiological fingerprint.

CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction
01:08 Chivalry Frog Meet Cute
03:37 Bipolar Confession Backstory
05:21 Gut Brain Link Evidence
06:50 DIY FMT Love Story
08:27 FMT Risks And Hype
11:10 Defensive Rewilding Idea
16:40 Cocaine Sharks Explained
17:52 Bahamas Study Findings
22:40 Pollution Everywhere
23:30 Why We Yawn
26:00 Contagious Yawns
27:22 Yawns in the MRI
28:37 Yawning Fingerprints
30:21 Brain Goo Hypothesis
32:06 Student Science Journal
38:12 Blood to Space
39:39 Four-Dimensional Minds

SOURCES:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-28/faecal-microbiota-transplant-credited-with-curing-bipolar/105541522
https://futurism.com/science-energy/sharks-high-levels-of-cocaine
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969724049477
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0269749126001880
https://emerginginvestigators.org/
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03071847.2026.2646067#d1e362
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1569904826000340?via=ihub
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AI chatbots (and lazy researchers) can be convinced a fake disease is real, Gen Z is side-eyeing the whole “helpful assistant” thing, and apparently, the best way to jailbreak AI is to ask it nicely in the form of cyberpunk short fiction. This week, we bounce between medical misinformation, bureaucratic chaos, nuclear fallout hiding in baby teeth, and the U.S. Space Force anthem doing whatever it is doing, which is a lot to process in one sitting, but here we are.

We start with a medical warning that is both funny and genuinely unsettling. A researcher basically invented a fake illness, “Bixonomania”, then seeded enough convincing-looking nonsense online that AI chatbots started repeating it like it was in a textbook.

After that, we head into one of the most ridiculous corners of AI safety. Researchers have found that you can sometimes trick chatbots into revealing restricted information by wrapping your request in a poem, or a short story, or a cyberpunk scenario. This has a name, adversarial hermeneutics, which sounds like a philosophy seminar, but is really just “jailbreaking with vibes”.

Among other little bits of science, to finish, we step back to the 1950s, when researchers collected thousands of baby teeth to track radioactive strontium from nuclear fallout. It is one of those stories that feels spooky even when you know it helped. Tiny teeth, big consequences. The data showed contamination rising, and it played a role in pushing back against atmospheric nuclear testing.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Science Chat Kickoff
00:51 Fake Disease Goes Viral
02:04 How It Fooled Chatbots
03:55 LLMs Repeat It Everywhere
04:55 From Preprints to Journals
07:02 Medical Chatbot Accuracy Reality
09:43 Gen Z Turns on AI
13:29 Workplace AI Sabotage
15:06 Adversarial Hermeneutics Hacks
17:43 Adversarial Hermeneutics Hacks
18:49 AI Flooding Regulations
22:28 Gemini Speed vs Safety
23:46 Humans as Test Cases
24:45 Baby Teeth Fallout Study
28:54 Strontium 90 and Test Ban
29:40 Space Force Theme Song
32:00 Wrap Up and Plug
SOURCES:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01100-y?_bhlid=a10e41ad7eb12d68ab8fd4f81a75625fc74323ac
https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/please-dont-trust-your-chatbot-for
https://ahb.icaro-lab.com/index.html
https://www.pcgamer.com/software/ai/ai-is-10-to-20-times-more-likely-to-help-you-build-a-bomb-if-you-hide-your-request-in-cyberpunk-fiction-new-research-paper-says/
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/trump-regulations-ai
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-artificial-intelligence-google-gemini-transportation-regulations
https://www.gallup.com/analytics/651674/gen-z-research.aspx
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/zoomers-ai-sabotage
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/gen-z-attitude-ai
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Deepfake scammers are now running full Zoom meetings, birds are lining their nests with cigarette butts like it’s a homewares trend, and Europe’s climate could be one ocean current wobble away from doing something dramatic. This week, Will and Rod bounce between AI crime, urban wildlife hacks, climate tipping points, and a fruit fly brain getting uploaded like it’s just another file transfer.
We start in Hong Kong, where scammers used AI deepfakes to impersonate colleagues on a video call and convinced a CFO to transfer a huge amount of money. We then headed outside, where birds have started collecting cigarette butts for their nests.
From there, we get serious with the ocean currents that help keep Europe mild, and why scientists are worried about what happens if that system collapses. And because the future refuses to wait its turn, we also look at a fruit fly brain mapped neuron by neuron and uploaded into a virtual simulation, plus a quick detour into hats as status symbols and tools of punishment.

CHAPTERS:
00:00 AI Zoom Scam
01:31 Show Intro and Lineup
03:02 Pipe Smoking Animal Tales
06:28 Birds Using Cigarette Butts
08:32 Nicotine as Parasite Control
11:20 School Smoking and Odd Uses
15:29 AMOC Climate Tipping Point
19:33 Uploading Brains Fruit Fly Model
23:50 Connectome Driven Fly
24:47 Virtual Embodiment Claims
25:20 Scaling Up To Mouse
26:48 Hybrid Bio Machine Futures
28:13 Hat History Detour
30:27 Hats As Social Signals

SOURCES:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/15/critical-atlantic-current-significantly-more-likely-to-collapse-than-thought
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/04/asia/deepfake-cfo-scam-hong-kong-intl-hnk?_bhlid=3bc010593bc73c17aa86ed0b6e79b5ae720c787f
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/BE4E11BFE7F8CCF5A5A7081869710925/S0018246X26101460a.pdf/the-cultural-social-and-ideological-role-of-the-hat-in-early-modern-england.pdf
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2026/ay/d5ay01801c
https://futurism.com/science-energy/birds-cigarettes-nest
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347226000011
https://nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jav.01324
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2024BiInv..26.1705P/abstract
https://futurism.com/science-energy/research-fly-brain-matrix
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07763-9
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39533006/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.