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People are reporting a very strange phenomenon: They say that when their nipples get touched, they feel this weird sinking feeling. People describe it like being homesick, or hung over. Some feel anguish and despair, others call it dread. The condition has a name: "Sad Nipple Syndrome." But how could just touching a nipple set off all of these feelings?? To get to the bottom of this booby baffler, we go deep into the mysteries of anatomy and through a world of hormones and nipple erections. You might never look at your nipples the same way again! Distinguished Professor Barry Komisurak and…

Science Vs

by Spotify Studios · English · Tech & Science

There are a lot of fads, blogs and strong opinions, but then there’s SCIENCE. Science Vs is the show from Spotify Studios that finds out what’s fact, what’s not, and what’s somewhere in between. We do the hard work of sifting through all the science so you don't have to and cover everything from…

More from Science Vs

  1. 2 Apr 2026 · 37 min

    How To Stop Scrolling

    The apps on our phones do an amazing job of sucking us in. In fact, a big court case just found that some of these companies should be held responsible for basically designing products to be addictive. And that might not be shocking for lots of us, who feel the pull of these algorithms every day. So, is there anything we can do to help us put down our phones?? Tons of solutions are bandied about: Buy this special device to stay off your phone! What we really need to do is up the friction! Or go hardcore — just get a flip phone! But what actually works to stop scrolling? We dive into the…

  2. 26 Mar 2026 · 54 min

    The Great Mysteries of Sex with Mary Roach

    Today, best-selling author and nerd Mary Roach joins us to talk all about sex. We’ll uncover the secrets of the female orgasm (does “upsuck” exist?), detail the bizarre methods of pioneering sex researchers like Masters and Johnson (including a famous penis camera), and get into the nitty-gritty of how to sexually stimulate a pig in Denmark. Plus, Mary tells us what it's like to have sex while getting an ultrasound — all in the name of science. Mary’s new book, Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy, is out now. Find our transcript here: https://tinyurl.com/ScienceVsMaryRoach In this…

  3. 19 Mar 2026 · 41 min

    Colon Cancer: Should Young People Worry?

    Colorectal cancer has long been thought of as a disease of older folks. But that's changing — fast. Rates in older people are actually going down, and more and more people under 50 are getting this disease. And a surprising number of them are dying from it. So what’s going on here? We dig into why young people are getting hit harder. Plus, we often hear that you should watch out for changes in your poo. But what changes?? We’ll find out. We talk to gastrointestinal medical oncologist Dr. Michael Foote and cancer biologist Prof. Ludmil Alexandrov. Find our transcript here:…

  4. 26 Feb 2026 · 26 min

    How Do You Get Pregnant With No Vagina?

    UPDATE [June 30, 2026]: If we had our time again we would have produced this episode differently. We got carried away with the wildness of the story, from a scientific perspective, and didn't take time to really think about the fact that this is the story of a 15-year-old, who would have been going through a really difficult time. Many of our listeners rightly pointed this out, and we appreciate it." We have changed some of our language in this episode based on the feedback – we replaced all references to woman to teenager or girl, we cut some moments that we viewed as insensitive, and we…

  5. 19 Feb 2026 · 54 min

    Brian Can’t Stop Fact-Checking His Mother-in-Law

    We’ve all been there. Feeling stuck with a problem because no one in our life can relate. Or because the one person we need to talk to … won’t. Or can’t. Enter Yowei Shaw and the show Proxy. Proxy is built on a simple idea: no one is ever as alone with their problem as they think. So Yowei brings in a proxy, a perfect stranger, to help her guests work through their dilemma. Today we’re sharing the case of Brian, a journalist whose mother-in-law has Alzheimer's. Even though Brian knows she can’t help misremembering things, he can’t stop losing his patience with her, and with himself. This…

  6. 8 Oct 2026 · 35 minNew

    Collagen Peptides: Should You Take Them?

    Collagen peptides!! Can they make you look younger and be healthier? It feels like everyone wants to be bursting with collagen, and apparently the way to do it is by scooping up that white powder of collagen peptides and guzzling it down. Do that, and — according to the wellfluencers — not only will your skin be as bouncy as a baby's bottom, but you'll also be stronger and you'll heal from injuries faster. But of course, not everyone is on the collagen train. There are the collagen haters, who say that eating collagen is a load of baloney. So who's right? To find out, we talk to dietetics…

  7. 1 Oct 2026 · 59 min

    Why We Never Forget Our Teen Years, with Lisa Damour

    Our brains go completely WILD when we go through our teenage years. It’s a time where it feels like every disagreement with our parents turns into World War III, and every idea that could get us killed sounds like the most fun we could ever have. In this episode, we get into the science of what the brain is doing during the teenage years with clinical psychologist Dr. Lisa Damour. Lisa co-wrote the college textbook “Abnormal Psychology” and was a consultant on Disney's “Inside Out 2.” She takes us deep into the developing brain to explain what makes teens tick. Plus, we talk about mental…

  8. 24 Sep 2026 · 40 min

    Stress: The Science of Chilling Out

    Stress! We’re all feeling it. And besides just feeling crappy, we’re also told that stress can wreak havoc on our bodies. The internet has a million solutions: vagus nerve stimulators, deep breaths, or a hot sauna! If that doesn’t work, maybe a cold plunge? But what does the science say about all this — what works to lower our stress? And is it really THAT bad to be stressed out? We dive into the research to find out, with psychology Professor Mark Seery, psychology Professor Jeremy Jamieson, and anatomist Dr. Theresa Larkin. Find our transcript here: https://tinyurl.com/ScienceVsStress In…

  9. 17 Sep 2026 · 45 min

    Could AI Really Kill Us All?

    Could artificial intelligence really wipe out humanity? Claims that AI poses an existential threat are going gangbusters. AI agents from OpenAI recently hacked into another company, Hugging Face, which has people talking about whether AI can go “rogue.” And some current and former AI company employees are raising the alarm. CEOs have called for a slowdown, and one Anthropic employee just quit, saying that the companies creating this tech are putting us all at risk — and adding that “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.” So — are we…

  10. 10 Sep 2026 · 46 min

    Where Have The Insects Gone?? With Dr. Jessica Ware

    Bugs are disappearing at alarming rates, scientists are telling us. Bees, butterflies, beetles: all of them have been dropping like flies. And scientists say there are a bunch of reasons to care about this — for example, fewer bugs means less pollination, which means less pasta in your pantry. But recently, some have suggested that all these scientists crying out about the insect apocalypse might just be crying wolf. They say that the math isn’t math-ing and that the insects are doing all right. And this has been bugging us! So we called up Dr. Jessica Ware, an entomologist and a curator at…

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