Howtown

The problem with Jurassic World

I spoke with Mark Witton for our episode about how paleontologists know what giant pterosaurs looked like. (He was also a co-author on the T-Rex lips paper that we covered in a 2025-06-26 14:00:14 +0000 UTC View Post

Into Cleo's eye (making of)

I had to delve into some animations from a year ago (!) for an episode of the Patreon-affiliated podcast "Digital Spaghetti" (coming out later this month I believe!) ... and so I decided to record a brief behind-the-scenes video.

I detail the frankly gratuitous steps I took in After Effects to try and make a flat shot o...

State of the Howtown (1 year update!)

In this video (and the attached pdf) we take a look at what your generous support has made possible -- and what's to come.

Replay: Science Paper Book Club, June 2

We had a fascinating discussion about therapy and AI this week, hooked on this paper that compared responses from therapists to responses from ChatGPT. Thanks to all who contributed!

Join our Discord to suggest papers for future sessions!

Can ChatGPT do therapy? Let's talk about it on June 2.

Howtown's Science Paper Book Club meets on Monday, June 2 at noon ET. (Click here for your local time).

A reddit post from a month ago 2025-05-26 20:04:19 +0000 UTC View Post

New episode: the creatures of the abyss

Hello all - Can you believe it's been nearly a year since we published our trailer?

Our latest episode is a collaboration with our old colleague Johnny Harris. He's spent the last few months investigating the fight over deep sea "nodules" — little potato sized nuggets of important metals (cobalt, nickel, copper) tha...

A sea shanty about deep sea biodiversity

I spend the last month immersed in reports from the HMS Challenger Expedition - an incredible three year journey to explore the world's oceans. All 50 volumes the expedition produced are available via the 2025-05-15 00:51:36 +0000 UTC View Post

Interview: Rhythm and sea lions

I called up Peter Cook, a cognitive scientist and professor of Marine Mammal Science at the New College of Florida to talk about a special sea lion named Ronan. His 2025-05-09 12:00:11 +0000 UTC View Post

Replay: Science Paper Book Club, May 5

Big thanks to Marcos for helping out with this one! Continue the discussion on Discord, and here's the paper in case you missed it.

Science Paper Book Club, May 5: Signs of life on another planet?

Big news for us to chew on, folks! A team of researchers at Cambridge University made headlines around the world last week when they announced the "the strongest evidence yet that life may exist on a planet outside our...

New episode: How to find ancient cities hiding under the trees

Hi folks,

Today we have an 18-minute feature video about how lasers are uncovering an ancient Maya megalopolis. Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

2025-04-17 12:05:01 +0000 UTC View Post

Deleted scene: Adam 'splains lasers

Adam and I often talk about being haunted by the "russian dolls" in our video scripts. In each piece, we explain "how they know" some things, while other things we just assert as fact. Otherwise every video would fracture and spiral as we chase down the bottom dolls.

See, for airborne lidar to work, you need to know: 1....

SPBC4: Are super old people frauds?

We start with a paper that picks apart "Blue Zones" (places where a surprising number of people live a really long time) ... and end up tackling the converging crises of AI and birth rates. But we keep it fun!

You can find more...

New ep: how to map lost worlds

Hey howtownies! At the end of 2024 I came across a paper that showed where various pieces of the earth's surface were 1.8 billion years (and a couple supercontinents) ago. It was fun to imagine being able to walk from Canada to Australia - but it got me wondering ... how do scientists figure all this out? We answer that quest...

How to fight Flat Earth

Back in December, a pastor from Colorado named Will Duffy led an expedition of "Flat Earthers" and "Globers" to Antarctica. His goal was to try and confirm the true shape of the earth (and take down the Flat Earth movement) by capturing video of the 24-hour sun. You can watch a bunch of videos about the trip at 2025-03-11 17:51:03 +0000 UTC View Post

SPBC3: What to do about Daylight Saving Time

You can find more discussion on our Discord, or feel free to add comments here. Our next session will be on April 7!

Here's the paper in case yo...

New Video: I tried to prove I'm not AI

Here with some updates and a fresh link to our new feature video: I tried to prove I'm not AI, in which I attempt, with mixed success, to take an authenticated selfie.

2025-02-21 19:20:46 +0000 UTC View Post

an AI podcast about our not-AI channel

While working on our new video about authenticating content, I uploaded our AI-related YouTube comments to Notebook LM and told it a little bit about our channel. Here's what "they" had to say. *

*I generated two versions of this and edi...

Poll: Steering the ship through strange times

Hey Howtowners, we've been thinking about if/how our channel should be covering the new administration in the US. We know that the majority of our audience lives outside this country. We also know that some of the policy changes happening now will not withstand scrutiny from the courts.

At the same time, we don't want ...

Replay: Science Paper Book Club, Feb. 3

You can find more discussion on our Discord, or feel free to add comments here. Our next session will be on March 3!

Is Ozempic also an antidepressant? (SPBC)

We hope you'll join us on Monday (Feb 3, noon-1 EST) to talk about some of the weird and surprising effects of drugs like Ozempic. We'll send out a link to the google meeting in a few days.

What's the paper?

It's 2025-01-27 23:11:51 +0000 UTC View Post

New Video: hold my beer

Happy New Year Howtowners!

It's "Dry January," and so this week we took a look at the sobering and sometimes confusing world of alcohol research. If you've ever been confused about contradictory stream of headlines about moderate drinking - we hope 2025-01-10 21:32:43 +0000 UTC View Post

Replay: Science Paper Book Club, Jan. 6

Big thanks to everyone who joined our first monthly journal club! Everyone raised really apt questions and it was a much richer conversation than if Adam and I had done it alone.

You can find more discussion on our Discord, or feel free to add comments here. Our next session will be on Feb. 3!

-Joss

We're starting a Science Paper Book Club 🤓

Science papers can be hard to read, but it's a lot easier (and more fun) when we do it together! We'll gather from noon-1 EST on the first Monday of each month to decipher and discuss a research paper. Our first meeting will be on January 6 and we'll send the meeting link a day in advance.

What'...