Brigitta Green from the perennial winter wonderland of Minnesota has a fitting question for us about ice. After a mysterious, late night howling sound caused “mass slight curiosity” on the streets of St. Paul last winter, she wants to know how

What's The Coolest Species Name?

Dec 13th, 2016 10m 53s

What's the coolest or weirdest official name for a species of plant or animal? And how do they get those funny sounding Latin names anyway?

Why Distinguish Between Fruits and Vegetables?

Nov 29th, 2016 10m 28s

Is a watermelon a vegetable? Biologically it’s logical, but does the answer depend where you live?

Why Do Animals See Color Differently?

Nov 15th, 2016 10m 34s

Zookeeper Rick asks why why animals see color differently? Dr. Jay Neitz of the University of Washington Department of Ophthalmology says there is more than one factor that accounts for how animals perceive color. Some plants and animals prese

Do Animals Have Rituals Around Death?

Nov 1st, 2016 10m 33s

Listener Ross Wintle, driving past a cemetery near his home, wonders if animals other than humans have rituals around death? Barbara J King, professor emerita of anthropology at the College of William and Mary and the author of How Animals Grie

Why Do We Laugh At Pain?

Oct 18th, 2016 11m 30s

Listener Matthew Hollingshead, a skateboard enthusiast, asks why it’s so funny to watch people get hurt. We’re not necessarily talking about critical injuries, more like America’s Funniest Home Videos style failures, pain, and embarrassment. Ca

Do Animals Have Eating Contests?

Oct 4th, 2016 11m 59s

Hilah Johnson hosts a show about cooking (and, naturally, eating)and she came to us with a very on-brand question. Do animals have eating contests? We spoke to biologist Elise Huchard to get the answer. Check out Hilah's cooking show! Find he

What's Quantum Teleportation?

Sep 20th, 2016 9m 28s

Listening to Shohini Ghose talk about what would happen if a human reached light speed in Episode 16, Fred Papon of Australia wanted to know more about her research into quantum teleportation. Ghose reveals that teleportation has already happen

How Do Animal Taste Buds Work?

Sep 6th, 2016 11m 11s

Dallas College professor Patrick Moore, seeing his dog Abbey eating her own poo and swallowing dirty socks, wonders how animal tastebuds work. Danielle Reed, associate director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center, takes a break from feeding he

Why Do Siblings Have Rivalries?

Aug 23rd, 2016 10m 3s

Molly and John Knefel, sister and brother co-hosts of the daily podcast “Radio Dispatch” wonder why siblings become rivals. Naomi White, PhD, of Cambridge University, explores the evolutionary and cultural roots of sibling conflict and finds t

What Does the Sun Sound Like? [rerun]

Aug 9th, 2016 7m 55s

Inspired by freeze-dried ice cream at Space Camp, podcast producer of 99% Invisible Avery Trufelman wonders what the sun really sounds like setting aside the hokey furnace effect shown in movies. Knowing that no sound waves can travel in the va

Can Music Make You Hungry?

Jul 26th, 2016 12m 25s

Breakmaster Cylinder, creator of the Completely Optional Knowledge theme music, wonders if music can be used to trigger specific responses in people. Jessica Grahn of the Music and Neuroscience Lab at Western University explores ways that music

What Is Wind?

Jul 12th, 2016 12m 5s

Lauren Ober is the host of WAMU's The Big Listen. She wanted to know the answer to a relatively simple question - what is wind? With help from UCLA mathematician Marcus Roper, she got an answer plus something unexpected: the fascinating way mus

How Do You Take Great Photos From Space?

Jun 28th, 2016 11m 38s

Jonathan Mehring has photographed all over the world, but there’s one place he hasn’t been yet that he’s dying to learn about: outer space. So we talked to someone who’s spent a whole year in space and taken thousands of photos while he was out

Are There Lazy Ants?

Jun 14th, 2016 10m 36s

Have you ever seen an ant just … hanging out? Completely Optional Knowledge listener Bryan Fox hasn’t, and it’s getting under his skin. To get Bryan the scoop on whether ants’ seemingly steadfast work ethic is just a facade, we called up biolog

Who Governs Space?

May 31st, 2016 10m 18s

Who makes the rules in outer space? That’s what Completely Optional Knowledge listener Tim Burberich called in to find out. So we got in touch with space lawyer Joanne Irene Gabrynowicz (dream job alert) who walks us through highly political pr

What's the Most Surprising Partnership Between Species?

May 17th, 2016 11m 37s

Emily Schorr Lesnick is the co-host of the SoulGlo podcast, a show about how diversity helps humans thrive. Naturally, she wants to find out if diversity in nature helps animals thrive the same way it helps us. Thinking about unlikely animal pa

Do Invincible Creatures Exist?

May 3rd, 2016 9m 31s

Jessica Abel is working on a new book about Mars (Trish Trash: Rollergirl of Mars - available in November 2016) - which got her wondering about the most amazing creatures here on earth. Dr. Roberto Guidetti gives us the lowdown on the incredibl

What If I Went Light Speed?

Apr 19th, 2016 8m 59s

Tom Sortodden wants to know what would happen if he went the speed of light. Physicist Shohini Ghose of Wilfrid Laurier University explores the implications of the theory of relativity, abstract art, time and distance and infinite force. Prepar

What Animal Has the Stinkiest Farts?

Apr 5th, 2016 8m 17s

Award-winning filmmaker Troy Hale comes to Completely Optional Knowledge to find out which animal has the smelliest farts. Zookeeper Rick of the San Diego Zoo is in the right job to sniff out the answer. He works with 60 different species of an

What Sounds Can't I Hear?

Mar 22nd, 2016 9m 18s

Annie McEwen has great hearing — but she's still only human — so she's wondering what sounds are out there that she's not able to pick up. To find the answer, we spoke to Milton Garces of the University of Hawaii's Infrasound Laboratory. He tel

Have Whale Songs Changed Over Time?

Mar 15th, 2016 8m 44s

Music critic Stacey Anderson has listened to a lot of songs in her time. So many, in fact, that she’s grown a bit bored of human music. Now she’s curious about the famous crooners of the deep blue: whales. We spoke to humpback whale expert Elle

Do Animals in the Wild Get Drunk?

Mar 1st, 2016 8m 27s

If you give a mouse a vodka tonic, will he even drink it? That’s the question Ben Harrison — host of the Let’s Drink About It podcast — has brought to Completely Optional Knowledge. And who better to give us our answer than Dr. Robert Dudley, U

What Is the Fastest Insect in the World?

Feb 16th, 2016 9m 25s

Listener Stephen Rang wants to know how fast he would have to run (or drive, as it turns out) to flee the world’s fastest known insect. We go off to the races with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences’ Chris Goforth, who informs us tha