Bird people and deep space shrapnel

6/22/202627 min

Two mysteries we can't stop thinking about: Is lightning actually caused by cosmic rays? And why don't birds play chess?

Articles featured: “What Causes Lightning?” by Charlie Wood (also featured on The Quanta Podcast) and “Empire of flight” by Antone Martinho-Truswell.

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Clips

First 90 seconds

Speaker 10:00
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Meredith Hodnot· Host1:05
[singing] And that's us. [laughs] Noam and Meredith.
Noam Hassenfeld· Host1:26
Jazz hands.
Meredith Hodnot· Host1:26
Jazzing it up. [laughs] All right, uh,