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What The IF?

@whattheif

Learn science like Einstein did! Thought experiments w/Sci Historian Matt Stanley & Biologist Gaby Paniccia. Tweets by Host @PhilipAShane - http://WhatTheIF.com

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Latest posts by What The IF? @whattheif

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A tiny hagfish blob expands by 10,000 times to stop sharks in their tracks. Scale that to humans and one sneeze could slime an entire subway car. New York commuters, take notes. Listen now at whattheif.com

31.01.2026 15:36 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Forget pepper spray β€” what if you could spit a tiny blob that explodes into an 800-foot slime net? The hagfish figured this out millions of years ago and we're just catching up. Listen now at whattheif.com

30.01.2026 18:06 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Mountains grew out of molten rock lakes in minutes on the moon. We've got the photos. We need you to trace them. Listen now at whattheif.com

22.01.2026 15:36 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Middle school Kirby would feel way more popular in a world where everyone's mapping lunar craters. Same honestly. Listen now at whattheif.com

21.01.2026 22:50 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Professional citizen scientists with mouse sponsorships and their own sports drinks coming to a science bar near you. Listen now at whattheif.com

20.01.2026 18:06 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Reality dating shows but you advance to the next round by mapping the most impact melt flows. Romance meets lunar geology. Listen now at whattheif.com

19.01.2026 15:36 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Forget the Kardashians - the future water cooler conversation is about who found the best boulder on the moon last night. Listen now at whattheif.com

18.01.2026 22:50 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Four billion years ago you could watch glowing lava waterfalls cascade down freshly formed lunar craters from your backyard. Now you can map them from your couch. Listen now at whattheif.com

17.01.2026 18:06 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Science bars are coming to replace sports bars. Instead of watching the game, you'll be cheering on competitive boulder counters on Twitch. Listen now at whattheif.com

16.01.2026 15:36 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Santa's MEGA Fauna! β€” WHAT THE IF? Santa's sleigh won't fly, but a reindeer dirigible with forty hovering mammals just might.

Re. "flying reindeer ...1,500-pound mammals migrating through your town like Canada geese. Suddenly those goose droppings don't seem so bad." Another awesome thought experiment from @whattheif.bsky.social - fun science podcast from
@philipashane.bsky.social, Prof. Matt Stanley, & Dr. Gaby Paniccia

22.12.2025 18:50 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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What if NASA's budget got cut in half while China built moon bases? Guess who wins that space race. Listen now at whattheif.com

14.11.2025 15:36 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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WHAT THE IF? We build NEW WORLDS as we learn REAL SCIENCE about the limits of the COSMOS. Join us in exploring the science of SPACE, cosmology, physics, life, the UNIVERSE and everything!Β How do we do it? By…

Real talk: Seneca Lake makes mysterious booms. Our world: Chicago evacuates to the mountains because the Great Lakes won't stop fizzing. Listen now at

22.10.2025 14:36 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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WHAT THE IF? We build NEW WORLDS as we learn REAL SCIENCE about the limits of the COSMOS. Join us in exploring the science of SPACE, cosmology, physics, life, the UNIVERSE and everything!Β How do we do it? By…

Scientists at Los Alamos literally held uranium chunks apart with a screwdriver in an experiment called "tickling the dragon's tail" until one day the screwdriver slipped. Listen now at

10.08.2025 14:36 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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The actual nuclear reactor is only the size of a truck but needs massive cooling infrastructure because apparently even space gets too hot when you're splitting atoms. Listen now at whattheif.com

09.08.2025 14:36 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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NASA wants to put a nuclear reactor on the moon by 2030 because two-week-long lunar nights make solar panels pretty useless for powering moon bases. Listen now at whattheif.com

08.08.2025 17:06 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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ALS sufferer uses iPad in demonstration of thought control Apple's new thought control protocol has now been shown in use by Synchron, a medical company that has made a prototype for using iPads solely by thinking.

Apple helpsΒ ALS sufferer to use an iPad in a demonstration of thought control (via @ambermac newsletter): appleinsider.com/articles/25/...

05.08.2025 14:33 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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WHAT THE IF? We build NEW WORLDS as we learn REAL SCIENCE about the limits of the COSMOS. Join us in exploring the science of SPACE, cosmology, physics, life, the UNIVERSE and everything!Β How do we do it? By…

Cities would install water pipeline infrastructure so everyone can live knee-deep in their living rooms to stay cool. Listen now at

02.08.2025 14:36 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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No more sweating means everyone walks around panting like dogs with their tongues out during important meetings. Listen now at whattheif.com

01.08.2025 21:50 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1
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WHAT THE IF? We build NEW WORLDS as we learn REAL SCIENCE about the limits of the COSMOS. Join us in exploring the science of SPACE, cosmology, physics, life, the UNIVERSE and everything!Β How do we do it? By…

Want to see taxi cabs on alien planets? Just position yourself a billion miles from the Sun and use gravity as your magnifying glass! Listen now at

26.07.2025 14:36 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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The Vera Rubin Observatory spotted 2,000 asteroids on its first night - imagine what a telescope the size of Earth's orbit could find! Listen now at whattheif.com

25.07.2025 17:06 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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WHAT THE IF? We build NEW WORLDS as we learn REAL SCIENCE about the limits of the COSMOS. Join us in exploring the science of SPACE, cosmology, physics, life, the UNIVERSE and everything!Β How do we do it? By…

Shake hands with Usain Bolt, get the fast-running genes. Shake hands with Keith Richards, become immortal. Listen now at

20.07.2025 17:06 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Fungi can trade superpowers through Starship elements, but humans just get awkward handshakes. Listen now at whattheif.com

19.07.2025 14:36 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Scientists named genetic elements after Star Trek because they kept seeing Vulcan hand signs in their data. Listen now at whattheif.com

18.07.2025 21:50 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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WHAT THE IF? We build NEW WORLDS as we learn REAL SCIENCE about the limits of the COSMOS. Join us in exploring the science of SPACE, cosmology, physics, life, the UNIVERSE and everything!Β How do we do it? By…

Billions of neutrinos are zipping through your body right now and you can't feel any of them. Listen now at

29.06.2025 14:36 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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WHAT THE IF? We build NEW WORLDS as we learn REAL SCIENCE about the limits of the COSMOS. Join us in exploring the science of SPACE, cosmology, physics, life, the UNIVERSE and everything!Β How do we do it? By…

Wolfgang Pauli was so bad at experiments that people waited for him to leave the city before running them. Listen now at

28.06.2025 21:50 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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WHAT THE IF? We build NEW WORLDS as we learn REAL SCIENCE about the limits of the COSMOS. Join us in exploring the science of SPACE, cosmology, physics, life, the UNIVERSE and everything!Β How do we do it? By…

The Total Perspective Vortex shows you're just a piece of fairy cake in an infinite universe and that's the point. Listen now at

21.06.2025 17:06 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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WHAT THE IF? We build NEW WORLDS as we learn REAL SCIENCE about the limits of the COSMOS. Join us in exploring the science of SPACE, cosmology, physics, life, the UNIVERSE and everything!Β How do we do it? By…

Space is really huge, but Douglas Adams already told us that and we still haven't learned our lesson. Listen now at

20.06.2025 14:36 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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WHAT THE IF? We build NEW WORLDS as we learn REAL SCIENCE about the limits of the COSMOS. Join us in exploring the science of SPACE, cosmology, physics, life, the UNIVERSE and everything!Β How do we do it? By…

Jellyfish swarms are clogging warship engines while thermal layers hide nuclear subs forever. Nature's ultimate defense system. Listen now at

14.06.2025 14:36 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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WHAT THE IF? We build NEW WORLDS as we learn REAL SCIENCE about the limits of the COSMOS. Join us in exploring the science of SPACE, cosmology, physics, life, the UNIVERSE and everything!Β How do we do it? By…

Climate change is creating underwater stealth zones where submarines just vanish completely into thermal chaos. Listen now at

13.06.2025 17:06 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

#BattleoftheBigBang is finally here!

Take advantage of a 30% discount by using this discount code (UCPNEW) when ordering from:

press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

02.05.2025 01:41 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0