Toy Soldiers

If a species is horrible enough, do we have the right to kill it forever? Seventy years ago, a nightmare parasite feasted on the live flesh of warm-blooded creatures in North America: the screwworm. That is, until a young scientist named Edward F. Knipling discovered a crucial sc ...  Show more

In this episode, we consider a creature we often don’t think much about—the snail. And not just snails, but their sex lives. Which, as it turns out, is epic. There is persuasion and subterfuge, spaghetti penises and co-copulation. And this very surprising habit—erm kink—of making ...  Show more

This week, we’re sharing a Spotify Exclusive from another Gimlet podcast, Stolen: The Search for Jermain. In 2018, a young Indigenous mother named Jermain Charlo left a bar in Missoula, Montana, and was never seen again. After two years and thousands of hours of investigative wor ...  Show more

Before the war, Vladimir was a film producer and Yuriy was a journalist. Daria works in marketing, Andrii is a musician, and Anna is a human resources manager for an IT company. This week we asked five Ukrainians to send us some voice messages, documenting their thoughts and f ...

What did sound mean to French people as radio and other listening technologies began to proliferate in the early twentieth century? What was the nature and significance of French auditory culture in the years between the two world wars? These are two of the central questions that ...  Show more

It started with students walking out of school to demand more action on climate change, built into an international movement – and then was propelled forward by a pandemic. Today on the show, the surprising story behind Europe’s climate plan, and what the rest of us can learn fro ...  Show more