Why can't stars fuse Iron?

Daniel and Kelly answer listener questions about scent dialects, drilling through the ice above the oceans of Enceladus, and why some animals have penises.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 

Daniel and Kelly interview Dr. Marcelo Wood about what addiction does to our brains, why some of us become addicted to drugs while others don't, what drugs do to our brains in the long term, and more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 

Like most things in the universe, stars begin as particles floating around in massive clouds of dust and gas. But what forces these particles to coalesce and form a star? Tune in and learn more about the birth of stars in this podcast.

You are a star. Literally. You are a carbon-based life form and those atoms of carbon in the molecules that make up your cells were formed by a nuclear fusion reaction at the heart of long dead stars. That goes for the oxygen in your lungs too. And the red blood cells that c ...

The atoms in your heart once burned in the fires of a dead star. Does this constitute an almost-spiritual connection to the cosmos or is it mere chemistry? In this episode, Robert and Julie discuss the billion-year-old carbon inside us.

Can you see the light of the stars from the bottom of a well? Did an astrologer once fall into a well because he was staring up at the stars? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss a couple of well-and-cosmos-related tales from antiquity.See omnystudio ...  Show more