What The If?

Scientists have discovered a snail that NEVER NEEDS TO EAT because it grows a humongous, self sustaining BACTERIAL FOOD FACTORY in it's gut. What the IF you could do that, too? The MANY FACES and USES of BACTERIA, this week on What The IF! Oh, and yeah... that's sooooo icky!!!! But also kinda cool. ICKY COOL!

We shrunk the universe down to the size of a football field. We also shrunk your dorm room. And it's Friday night. Things are about to get downright WTiF! Put on your lampshade and let's party!

Are you enjoying your life in this SIMULATION we call... Earth? Is it a simulation? How would we know? Last week we began to ponder the mystery... and this week we set out... using REAL SCIENCE... to HACK it! Join us as we try to figure out how to FIND THE SEAMS and contact our DIGITAL OVERLORDS. We'll try anyway!

Elon Musk asked something many of us have wondered (while in various states of sobriety)... "Do we live in a SIMULATION?" Well, we figured if we dooooooo live in a simulation, maybe it's a REALITY TV SHOW or, much more fun, maybe it's a VIDEO GAME? How, how, how, might SCIENCE try to answer this question? Insert your quarter, hit play, and READY IFFER ONE!

WTiF the Earth was STUCK with ONE side always facing the Sun? Is there a battle between the DARK SIDE and the LIGHT? Are you a NIGHT person or a MORNING person? Join us and find just the right spot for you as we explore the SCIENCE behind a tidally locked planet.

49 - OUMUAMAUA Has It's Eyes On YOU by Philip Shane, Matt Stanley, Gabrielle Paniccia

48 - The Girl Scouts Make A STARGATE by Philip Shane, Matt Stanley, Gabrielle Paniccia

47 - The Early Bird Gets The WORMHOLE by Philip Shane, Matt Stanley, Gabrielle Paniccia

46 - WTiF There's ANIMALS On MARS? Cute Ones! by Philip Shane, Matt Stanley, Gabrielle Paniccia

(Apologies if you heard this episode earlier, it was accidentally uploaded last week for a brief time. Still... it's a fun one! Enjoy.)

Professor Brian Keating is an astrophysicist with UC San Diego’s Department of Physics. He and his team develop telescopes to study the Big Bang. He is the author of over 100 scientific publications and holds two U.S.Patents. He received the 2007 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers at the White House from President Bush for a telescope he invented and deployed at the U.S. South Pole Research Station called “BICEP". Professor Keating became a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2016 and is the author of Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science's Highest Honor, selected as one of Amazon.com’s Ten Best Nonfiction Books of the Month and one of Nature Magazine’s Six Best Books of the Season. Website: BrianKeating.com Twitter: @DrBrianKeating

Professor Brian Keating is an astrophysicist with UC San Diego’s Department of Physics. He and his team develop telescopes to study the Big Bang. He is the author of over 100 scientific publications and holds two U.S.Patents. He received the 2007 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers at the White House from President Bush for a telescope he invented and deployed at the U.S. South Pole Research Station called “BICEP". Professor Keating became a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2016 and is the author of Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science's Highest Honor, selected as one of Amazon.com’s Ten Best Nonfiction Books of the Month and one of Nature Magazine’s Six Best Books of the Season. Website: BrianKeating.com Twitter: @DrBrianKeating

43 - The World According To Greek Weirdos by Philip Shane, Matt Stanley, Gabrielle Paniccia

42 - SuperMegaUltraHyperConnectedWORLD! by Philip Shane, Matt Stanley, Gabrielle Paniccia

41 - M.I.T., The Mysterious Inter-Terrestrial by Philip Shane, Matt Stanley, Gabrielle Paniccia

Professor Matt returns to the WTIF Studios to drop some knowledge on all the questions and imaginary scenarios we generated in our last episode when we... whoops!... turned off all the FRICTION in the universe. Snap on your seatbelts and put on your helmet because we're joining the greatest lover of friction ever: Evil Kenevil for a high flyin' episode of big, big IF's!

Did you ever try ice skating? Did you fall, or did you fly??? This week, Philip flips the friction switch! What if we could TURN OFF FRICTION all across the universe? A slip sliding world like we've never seen before! Slap on your slippers and strap on your safety helmet, here we go, go, goooooooooo...!!!!

Super fan and fellow IFFER Eric is desperate to de-clutter his apartment and, gosh darnit, no matter how much he piles things together, the dagnabbit things don't get smaller... THE UNIVERSE REFUSES TO BE DECLUTTERED! Or... Does it? MAGIC MATT, aka Professor Matt Stanley, Chief Wizard of the IFFERS has a solution! Maybe. Click and listen... And find out if The Power (!!!) of Quantum Mechanics can help Eric turn his apartment from pigpen to Zen!

Astrology is super complicated and totally crazy. But! What The IF... Astrology were REAL? Would there be "personality rays" shooting out of the planets? So many, many questions. Our crack Crazy Elaborate Systems Construction Department is working overtime to make this Astrology thing work in a genuinely SCIENTIFIC way. Amazingly, our WIZARD OF SCIENCE AND SCIENCE HISTORY AND CRAZY OLD BELIEF SYSTEMS, Professor Matt, is an unstoppable font of REAL knowledge about everyone from Ptolemy to Newton to Nancy Reagan. Join us for a journey of nearly 2,000 YEARS of people looking up and asking WHAT THE IF? (PS: Read your horoscope before listening, because after this episode you won't read it ever again.) This is one of our funnest, most skepticalist, wackiest, mythbustingest episode yet. Ok click that button and let's fly to the ZENITH.

Edward Teller, creator of the Hydrogen Bomb wondered one day (smoke drifting from his pipe) could NUCLEAR BOMBS be used for (puff puff) PEACEFUL purposes? Could you build a harbor with the flick of a switch? Egomaniacs that we are, today we go even further and ask out loud to you and us.... Heck if BOMBS could be used for construction, what about BIG BANGS?! WTiF you could make a bang in your backyard? DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. But do listen, at home, or wherever you are most compelled to ask the BIGGEST, BANGIEST question in the Universe: "What The IF?" Click & listen!