Skip to main content
Back to Show
It's Okay to Be Smart

The Crime Wave We Can Blame on… Neutron Stars?

Season 10 Episode 11

There’s a crime wave sweeping the world right now. A new kind of theft that takes just minutes to carry out. These criminals are on the hunt for something that fetches big bucks on the black market. Numbers are skyrocketing, and public officials are scrambling for answers. Turns out, we can blame it all on neutron stars and some oddities of the periodic table.

Support Provided By
Season
How Scientists Cracked the Secret To Making Diamonds
12:15
These diamond makers create one of the most amazing materials on Earth — from dead people.
Camouflage Isn't What It Appears To Be
11:20
Learn nature’s ultimate game of hide-and-seek, and the way to win this game is all in the brain.
Why Don’t Humans Hibernate?
11:17
Nature has had to come up with some crazy ways to survive winter. None are weirder than hibernation.
The Paradox of Voting
12:40
Political scientist Don Green joins Joe to figure out the complex psychological and social factors t
Why Do We Hate Certain Sounds
16:27
Why do certain sounds make some of us so upset?!
The Sun is NOT the Center of the Solar System
11:43
Despite what you may have heard or learned in school, the sun is NOT the center of the solar system.
Why You See Faces in Things
10:23
People see faces everywhere thanks to a quirk of the brain called visual pareidolia.
Why trees look like rivers and also blood vessels and also lightning…
10:00
Why do the same, self-repeating patterns appear in trees, rivers, lightning, and even our bodies?
The Real (Weird) Way We See Numbers
15:25
Our animal brains deal with quantities in very specific, and fascinating, ways.
Computers Can Predict When You're Going to Die… Here's How
12:54
Can new technologies make death prediction even more accurate?
Can AI Help Us Talk to Whales?
21:33
AI may help us talk to whales soon. But should we?!
Measuring the Universe With a 14-Billion Light-Year Ruler
10:40
The cosmic distance ladder is the world’s longest ruler, built to measure the universe.
Active loading indicator