The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

Popular Science magazine has been explaining the world since 1872, and this podcast carries that tradition into territory too strange for print. Host Rachel Feltman and producer Jess Boddy gather the most bizarre facts they stumble across during their reporting week and present them in a casual, round-table format. One episode might cover a deadly radioactive sphere nicknamed the Demon Core, Victorian theater kids using phosphorus for ghost effects, and Louis Pasteur’s hidden lab notebooks -- all in a single sitting. The show draws from the full range of science, history, and technology, but it gravitates toward stories that make you stop and say wait, really? Episodes run between 45 minutes and an hour, and the hosts trade off presenting their finds while the others react with genuine surprise. It is not a lecture format. It feels more like overhearing smart people swap the most interesting things they read that week. The back catalog holds 224 episodes, and the show carries a 4.6-star rating from over 2,100 reviewers. Guest appearances from comedians and other science communicators keep the rotating cast fresh. The monthly release schedule means each episode is packed rather than padded. If you like the feeling of learning three completely unrelated facts that you will definitely repeat at your next dinner party, this show delivers reliably.