What The If?
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What The If?
Learn how to think like EINSTEIN! Every week we learn science running imaginative thought experiments. Our brilliant guests are some of the world’s greatest science fiction writers, scientists & science communicators. Leap into a journey to answer the most fascinating question in the universe: What...
Recent Episodes
453 episodes
The Milky Way Is ALIVE - With Dr. Moiya McTier!
The whole crew is off on separate adventures this week, so we've unlocked the vault for an encore of one of our most popular episodes ever. Get ready...
GOOP Powers The WORLD!
What the if one gooey substance could drink up every kind of energy around it, from sunlight and heat to a stray spark or even the smack of a moving h...
BIRDS Aren't REAL!
What the if birds aren't actually birds? Play it straight for a second: somewhere between 1959 and 1971, the government quietly swaps every bird for a...
ANTIMATTER On Demand!
ANTIMATTER On Demand! by Philip Shane, Matt Stanley, Gabrielle Paniccia
WHO The If - GABY!
Behind every voice you've come to love on this show is a life full of stories you've never heard. With our eighth anniversary just around the corner,...
TOO SOCIAL Media!
Listener Kevin Towers asks: what the if the internet made everyone use their real, traceable name? No usernames. No masks. No hiding behind a clever h...
The Other Theory of EVOLUTION!
What the if Lamarck was right? Stanford historian Jessica Riskin, author of "The Power of Life," is our guide into a universe where living things aren...
Moon Babies Meet EARTH - Part 2!
What the if you were born on the Moon and Earth was the alien planet? Picking up from last month's cliffhanger, our travelers from the lunar surface f...
The Last DROP Of Gasoline!
Listener Helina asks: what the if we just pumped the last drop of gasoline? The answer goes well beyond empty parking lots and quiet highways. Along t...
Build A Brand New ALPHABET - with Linguist DANNY BATE!
What the if you had to invent the alphabet from scratch? The Pharaoh hands you a stone tablet, a chisel, and an impossible assignment: condense every...
Moon Babies Meet EARTH!
Picture this: you're a moon baby, born and raised underground on Luna, and you've just landed on Earth for the very first time. Meet the loonies, a ci...
Microbe Grudge Match!
What the if microbes held a grudge? We're thrilled to welcome Ethan Rappaport, theoretical ecologist at the University of Maryland, to take us inside...
Space JUNK!
In honor of the 25th anniversary of the MIR SPACE STATION's spectacular farewell reentry, we're featuring an encore of our August 11, 2023 episode abo...
Telepathy!
What the if you could read minds — but only when someone's nearby? Congratulations, your subway commute just became a psychic nightmare. Babies would...
Reality Is Making Stuff UP!
Right now, billions of particles are popping in and out of existence in your pocket. That's not a metaphor — that's quantum mechanics. Inspired by a Y...
Ants Adopt A CATERPILLAR!
What the if you got zapped by a shrink ray while walking past the physics department and your only hope of survival was convincing a colony of ants to...
The Buddy System Run AMOK!
What the if humans moved in schools — not classrooms, but like fish? Inspired by Carl Zimmer's New York Times article on how misinformation spreads am...
Black Holes
MIT physicist David Kaiser is one of those rare scientists who can make mind-bending physics feel like a great conversation over coffee — funny, gener...
The Day Gravity QUIT!
A conspiracy theory went viral claiming that on August 12th, 2026, Earth will lose gravity for seven seconds. The internet did what the internet does,...
GROUND HOG Day PHYSICS!
What the if a groundhog could actually predict the weather? Turns out Punxsutawney Phil would need way more than a shadow — we're talking a full groun...
HAGFISH - Champion Of The SLIMER BOWL!
We first shared this one on Super Bowl Sunday 2019 — what better weekend to bring back nature's ultimate underdog? Enjoy this encore presentation!
CITIZEN Science!
Planetary geologist Kirby Runyon from the Planetary Science Institute needs volunteers to map ancient impact melt flows on the moon from their home co...
Walking on IO with Robin Andrews! (Encore)
We're taking a break this week while Philip recovers from the 'double-whammy' of flu and COVID boosters. (Science works, but sometimes it makes you na...
BIOLOGICAL New Year's Resolutions!
What the if your New Year's resolution became a biological compulsion you literally could not ignore? Imagine waking up on January 1st with the same u...
Time REVERSAL with Ian Durham!
What the if time suddenly started running backwards? Your breakfast un-eats itself, LEGO sets come pre-assembled, and you get younger every day. The d...
Santa's MEGA Fauna!
Listener Anne of Queens got us thinking about flying reindeer for the holidays. Imagine herds of 1,500-pound mammals migrating through your town like...
Green SUN Apocalypse!
What the if the Sun suddenly turned green? Your pizza now looks like charcoal because all red things go black. Stop signs become invisible. The sky sh...
Dr. Kiki Turns Us Into BIRDS!
Happy Thanksgiving! We're off this week for the holiday, so we're presenting an encore presentation of an episode that was originally broadcast on Sep...
Two BABIES, Two SPECIES!
Scientists just discovered ant queens that give birth to two completely different species - not twins, but actual separate species hatching from the s...
CHINA vs NASA
This week we're trading hypothetical fungi and exploding planets for something scarier: actual government budgets. But don't worry - watching America...
Mosquitoes Fall for FUNGI!
What the if mosquitoes were helpless against the sweet smell of their own doom? Scientists genetically engineered Metarhizium fungus to smell so irres...
FRANKENSTEIN
What the if Frankenstein was real and doctors actually tried stitching corpses together to create new people? Forget dramatic lightning strikes and br...
The BURPING Lake!
What the if all bodies of water on Earth were fizzy like soda? In the real world, Seneca Lake in New York produces mysterious underwater booms called...
Animals Train YOU!
Honey guide birds in Africa respond to culturally distinct human calls and lead hunters to beehives, where humans crack them open and birds feast on t...
AI Viruses
Scientists just used artificial intelligence to design the world's first AI-generated viruses capable of hunting down and killing drug-resistant strai...
MEMORY Maxed Out - with Nikolay Kukushkin!
What the if your brain literally ran out of storage space like a laptop refusing to save one more file? Neuroscientist Nikolay Kukushkin explains how...
Gravity Waves Go WIGGLE
What the if gravitational waves were big enough to see and feel? Instead of measuring distortions smaller than a proton, imagine watching your coffee...
Science ROCKS On MARS!
What the if you found a rock on Mars that might - emphasis on might - show signs of ancient life? NASA's Perseverance rover discovered intriguing leop...
VITALERIUM with Nicholas Casbarro!
Our guest this week is science fiction author Nicholas Casbarro, who brings us a universe-changing concept from his novel Vitalerium - a radioactive s...
Riding GRAVITY FORCE ONE with KIRBY RUNYON
D'oh! We had technical difficulties this week and so we are presenting this encore presentation of one of our most popular episodes.
It a...