It begins with a discovery in a loft: a full man eating tiger skin, brought back from a village in northern India where Professor Hannah Fry's ex-mother in law grew up.

That find sends Hannah and Michael Stevens into the strange world of man eating big cats: a tigress blamed for a staggering number of deaths, what can turn a tiger toward hunting humans in the first place, and how India now borrows techniques from forensic science…effectively putting a tiger on trial before deciding its fate.

And it raises an uncomfortable question: when a critically endangered animal kills a person, how do you weigh human safety against saving a species? Plus the wonderfully simple trick that stops attacks in their tracks.
Then it's over to your questions, taking in some of the universe's most beautiful coincidences, from the sky above us to the clockwork of distant moons, and a mysterious number that once haunted one of the great physicists.

Come and join our sub-Reddit: /r/TheRestIsScience

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For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠

Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.

-------------------

Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠

-------------------

Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley + Jack Meek
Animator: Sam Benson
Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell
Assistant Producer: Lucy Lipscombe
Producer: Simona Rata
Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter
Chief Digital Officer: Samuel Oakley
Exec Producer: Neil Fearn

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Do your friends actually like you? Does an acquaintance think you’re closer than you are?

This week, Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens explore the surprising psychology of friendship, from familiar strangers and para-social relationships to the unsettling discovery that nearly half of friendships may not be mutual.

Why are we so bad at judging who considers us a friend?
Why do strangers often have a bigger impact on our lives than we realise? And why do your friends almost certainly have more friends than you do?

Along the way, they uncover the science of social networks, loneliness, influence, popularity, and the famous friendship paradox, revealing how the hidden connections around us shape our health, happiness, and behaviour.

• A View From A Bridge - https://www.instagram.com/aview.fromabridge

• Letters Anonymous - https://www.lettersanonymous.com

• Are You Friends', Friend paper - https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0151588&type=printable

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For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience

⁠⁠
Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.

-------------------

Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠

-------------------

Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley + Jack Meek
Animator: Sam Benson
Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell
Assistant Producer: Lucy Lipscombe
Producer: Simona Rata
Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter
Head Of Digital: Samuel Oakley
Exec Producer: Neil Fearn

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The statistical reality of "The World's #1 Dad Mug" is nothing but a well meaning lie.

In this episode of The Rest Is Science, Michael brings another treasured artifact into the studio: a mug gifted by his daughter.

Rather than claiming the top spot, the mug features a specific, mathematically defensible ranking of his fatherly abilities.

If he's not the very best...surely he's in the top percentile?

Find out on Field Notes.

-------------------

For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠

Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.

-------------------

Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠

-------------------

Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley + Jack Meek
Animator: Sam Benson
Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell
Assistant Producer: Lucy Lipscombe
Producer: Simona Rata
Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter
Head Of Digital: Samuel Oakley
Exec Producer: Neil Fearn

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Stubbing your toe feels like the pain is entirely in your foot. But the reality is far stranger... the agonising sensation you experience is actually a highly complex, constructed illusion, invented in real-time by your brain.
In this episode of The Rest Is Science, Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens (VSauce) explore the weird neuroscience of human pain and why pain is ultimately a brilliant evolutionary survival mechanism, how psychological state and the placebo effect can physically alter how much an injury hurts.
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For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠
Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.
-------------------
Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠
-------------------
Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley + Jack Meek
Animator: Sam Benson
Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell
Assistant Producer: Lucy Lipscombe
Producer: Simona Rata
Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter
Head Of Digital: Samuel Oakley
Exec Producer: Neil Fearn

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you think of dangerous geological specimens, does your mind jump straight to radioactive uranium, toxic heavy metals, or even asbestos? What if one of the most dangerous items sitting on a shelf is actually a polished, perfectly ordinary-looking piece of black obsidian?

Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens dive into the surprisingly treacherous geology and chemistry of obsidian.

Hannah brings an onyx from her personal rock collection to explain exactly why this specific piece of material holds the title of the most dangerous rock she owns, unpicking the fascinating physical properties of the stone and exploring how its conchoidal fracture pattern can easily create edges sharper than a modern surgical scalpel.

-------------------

For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠

Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.

-------------------

Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠

-------------------

Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley + Jack Meek
Animator: Sam Benson
Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell
Assistant Producer: Lucy Lipscombe
Producer: Simona Rata
Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter
Head Of Digital: Samuel Oakley
Exec Producer: Neil Fearn

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Your ears are lying to you right now. In this episode of The Rest Is Science, Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens (Vsauce) dive into the bizarre world of audio illusions where your brain hears sounds that don't exist, fills in frequencies that were never there, and constructs a version of reality that simply isn't real.

From the impossible endless ascending tone to the battle between your eyes and ears, explore how auditory illusions reveal the cracks in human perception. Along the way, we uncover how hearing works at a neurological level, why your brain edits sounds before you consciously register them, and what sensory perception research tells us about whether any of us truly experience reality as it is.

Could the gap between what's real and what you perceive be wider than you think? The answer might change how you listen to the world.

-------------------

For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠

Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.

-------------------

Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠

-------------------

Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley + Jack Meek

Animator: Sam Benson

Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell

Assistant Producer: Lucy Lipscombe

Producer: Simona Rata

Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter

Head Of Digital: Samuel Oakley

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A pen designed to write in space sits unopened for 25 years. Does it still work?
In this episode of Field Notes, Michael Stevens finally opens a treasured souvenir from his time at Space Camp: a genuine Fisher Space Pen that has been waiting decades for its first scribble.
From there, the conversation launches into the challenges of living in space, why astronauts abandoned pencils, and what happens to your sense of direction when gravity disappears.
Along the way they investigate whether eight billion people clapping could damage a building, discover why the ISS is constantly falling towards Earth, and ask whether the Kardashev Scale tells us anything meaningful about the future of civilisation.
-------------------
For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠
Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.
-------------------
Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠
-------------------
Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley + Jack Meek
Animator: Sam Benson
Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell
Assistant Producer: Lucy Lipscombe
Producer: Simona Rata
Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter
Head Of Digital: Samuel Oakley
Exec Producer: Neil Fearn

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What will humanity leave behind?

In this episode, Professor Hannah Fry and VSauce's Michael Stevens explore the traces humans leave behind and what those traces reveal about how we think.

From Tranquility Base, where humanity's first footprints on another world still sit undisturbed in lunar dust, to a three million year old pebble that may represent one of the earliest signs of symbolic thought, they uncover how ordinary objects can become extraordinary windows into our past.

Why would one of our ancestors carry a rock that looked like a face? Who owns the artefacts we leave beyond Earth? And what might future generations learn from our footprints, tools, jokes, habits, and settlements scattered across the Solar System?

------------------

For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠

Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.

-------------------

Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠

-------------------

Attribution for images used, no chanages have been made.

W. Bulach - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

Jerzy Strzelecki - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Rakot13 - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0

Museum of Human Evolution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

Robert G. Bednarik - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

-------------------

Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley + Jack Meek

Animator: Sam Benson

Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell

Assistant Producer: Lucy Lipscombe

Producer: Simona Rata

Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter

Head Of Digital: Samuel Oakley

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Most living things vanish without a trace. A select few become fossils. But how?

In this episode of Field Notes Professor Hannah Fry and VSauce's Michael Stevens dig into the unlikely process that turns bone into stone.

From prehistoric seas hidden beneath Kansas to fossils mistaken for mythical creatures, they follow the clues that reveal Earth's deep past.

Along the way they uncover the lost landscape of Doggerland, investigate creatures that survive without sunlight, and tackle listener questions about radioactive waste, volcanoes, and some surprisingly persistent scientific myths.

-------------------

For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/our-research/rest-is-science

Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.

-------------------

Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠

-------------------

Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley + Jack Meek

Animator: Sam Benson

Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell

Assistant Producer: Lucy Lipscombe

Producer: Simona Rata

Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter

Head Of Digital: Samuel Oakley

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Compared with almost every other animal on Earth, our feet seem strangely specialised. They can't grip branches, they're full of arches and joints, and for some reason we're the only species that regularly puts shoes on them.

Hannah and Michael explore how millions of years of evolution transformed ape like feet into powerful biological springboards, uncovering a surprising connection between human walking, pizza slices, and one of mathematics' most beautiful ideas.

After the break, they ask why feet attract so much attention from WikiFeet ratings to one of the most common fetishes on Earth.

-------------------

For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/our-research/rest-is-science

Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.

-------------------

Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠

-------------------

Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley + Jack Meek

Animator: Sam Benson

Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell

Assistant Producer: Lucy Lipscombe

Producer: Simona Rata

Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter

Head Of Digital: Samuel Oakley

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Most people use just a fraction of the words they understand. But how big is your vocabulary, really?

When a listener builds a tool that claims to measure it, Hannah and Michael put themselves to the test.

If you'd like to try for yourself, follow the link and tell us what score you get in the comments: https://vocabowl-870366514258.us-west1.run.app/

Along the way they uncover forgotten words, obscure linguistic curiosities, and a surprising question hiding beneath the quiz itself: what does it mean to know a word?

After the break, they tackle your questions and answer a nuclear pizza problem, explain why humans can grow such remarkably long hair, and ask whether everyone has a voice inside their head.

-------------------

For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/our-research/rest-is-science

Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.

-------------------

Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠

-------------------

Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley + Jack Meek

Animator: Sam Benson

Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell

Assistant Producer: Lucy Lipscombe

Producer: Simona Rata

Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter

Head Of Digital: Samuel Oakley

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices