News Archive

This is a companion blog post to the April 2020 episode Homeschool STEM Resource Extravaganza which first aired during the midst of the coronavirus pandemic lockdown. On the day we posted this, our little podcast has over 550 episodes on a wide variety of topics. While we wouldn't say all of our content is student-friendly, we do think there are plenty of our episodes that are suitable for teenagers, in particular students 15 and up. Many of those episodes are us talking to authors of great books that are also suitable for that same age group. So if you've got a teenager at home who likes to read, discuss, and think about science, here's a list of our episodes that we think would be a sensible place to start in our own archive.

We've linked both to the Kindle version of the books on Amazon – as always when we link to books, we also include our affiliate tag – and to the episode where we discuss the book.

Note: this page uses javascript to give you Amazon links appropriate for the country your IP resolves to. We don't store or track your IP: the javascript just checks it to build an Amazon link for the store most relevant to you. If some of the below links aren't working, make sure you don't have javascript blocked.

Friendship: The Evolution, Biology, and Extraordinary Power of Life's Fundamental Bond by Lydia Denworth
Featured on episode The Power of Friendship, #556

Slime: How Algae Created Us, Plague Us, and Just Might Save Us by Ruth Kassinger
Featured on episode Let's Get Slimy, #549

Wayfinding: The Science and Mystery of How Humans Navigate the World by Maura O'Connor
Featured on episode Wayfinding, #541

Why Aren't We Dead Yet?: The Survivor's Guide to the Immune System by Idan Ben-Barak
Featured on episode Why Aren't We Dead Yet, #530

Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higginbotham
Featured on episode Chernobyl, #525

The Human Network: How Your Social Position Determines Your Power, Beliefs, and Behaviors by Matthew Jackson
Featured on episode The Human Network, #524

Never Home Alone: From Microbes to Millipedes, Camel Crickets, and Honeybees, the Natural History of Where We Live by Rob Dunn
Featured on episode Home Alone, #522

Skeleton Keys: The Secret Life of Bone by Brian Switek
Featured on episode The Keys to Skeletons Lost, #516

Dinosaurs of the Alberta Badlands by Scott Persons
Featured on episode Dinosaur Tails, #513

All Over the Map: A Cartographic Odyssey by Betsy Mason & Greg Miller
Featured on episode All over the Map, #512

The Art of Logic in an Illogical World by Eugenia Cheng
Featured on episode The Art of Logic, #504

Built: The Hidden Stories Behind Our Structures by Roma Agrawal
Featured on episode Built, #497

What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City by Mona Hanna-Attisha
Featured on episode Flint Water Crisis, #492

The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization by Vince Beiser
Featured on episode Sand, #489

Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes: Tactile Mathematics, Art and Craft for all to Explore, Second Edition by Daina Taimina
Featured on episode Knitting in Pearl, #487

The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan
Featured on episode The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, #469

The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris
Featured on episode Slicing Into Surgery, #468

Plucked: Chicken, Antibiotics, and How Big Business Changed the Way We Eat by Maryn McKenna
Featured on episode Big Chicken, #438

Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper
Featured on episode The Dictionary, #434

I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong
Featured on episode Bacteria in Bodies and on the Farm, #430

Built on Bones: 15,000 Years of Urban Life and Death by Brenna Hassett
Featured on episode Built on Bones, #423

The Wasp That Brainwashed the Caterpillar: Evolution's Most Unbelievable Solutions to Life's Biggest Problems by Matt Simon
Featured on episode The Wasp that Brainwashed the Caterpillar, #408

The Sting of the Wild by Justin Schmidt
Featured on episode What Doesn't Kill You, #400

Venomous: How Earth's Deadliest Creatures Mastered Biochemistry by Christie Wilcox
Featured on episode Venomous, #392

The Jazz of Physics: The Secret Link Between Music and the Structure of the Universe by Stephon Alexander
Featured on episode The Jazz of Physics, #389

What a Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins by Jonathan Balcombe
Featured on episode Fish, #388

The Triumph of Seeds: How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses, and Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History by Thor Hanson
Featured on episode The Triumph of Seeds, #381

The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer by Sydney Padua
Featured on episode Lovelace and Babbage, #336

Animal Weapons: The Evolution of Battle by Douglas Emlen
Featured on episode Animal Weapons, #330

Faster, Higher, Stronger: How Sports Science Is Creating a New Generation of Superathletes and What We Can Learn from Them by Mark McClusky
Featured on episode Sports Science, #316

A Sting in the Tale: My Adventures with Bumblebees by Dave Goulson
Featured on episode A Sting in the Tale, #302

Extreme Medicine: How Exploration Transformed Medicine in the Twentieth Century by Kevin Fong
Featured on episode Extreme Medicine, #268

The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets by Simon Singh
Featured on episode Everyday Science and Math, #252

Time Warped: Unlocking the Mysteries of Time Perception by Claudia Hammond
Featured on episode Time Warped, #242

Bug Music: How Insects Gave Us Rhythm and Noise by David Rothenberg
Featured on episode Bug Music, #230

How to Make a Zombie: The Real Life (and Death) Science of Reanimation and Mind Control by Frank Swain
Featured on episode Monster Mash, #228

The Science of Monsters: The Origins of the Creatures We Love to Fear by Matt Kaplan
Featured on episode Monster Mash, #228

Gifts of the Crow: How Perception, Emotion, and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave Like Humans by John Marzluff
Featured on episode Bird Brains, #213

The Violinist's Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code by Sam Kean
Featured on episode The Violinist's Thumb, #176

The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum
Featured on episode The Poisoner's Handbook, #152

Spider Silk: Evolution and 400 Million Years of Spinning, Waiting, Snagging, and Mating by Leslie Brunetta
Featured on episode Spider Silk, #146

The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean
Featured on episode Elemental Intrigue, #128

Adventures among Ants: A Global Safari with a Cast of Trillions by Mark Moffett
Featured on episode Adventures Among Ants, #68