This Podcast Will Kill You

These episodes will be coming out in Spring 2026, and we'll be reaching out to folks who submit a firsthand shortly after the New Year.

This is a huge topic and your firsthand stories mean so much to us so thank you in advance to anyone willing to share their story. You can find the link to our firsthand account form in our bio or on our website under "contact us".

Hi everyone! We are putting together a mini-series on cancer, from the history to the biology to the concept of cancer as a disease. We are looking for people willing to share your experience with cancer - whatever that may mean to you.

Is salt actually bad for us and if so, why is there still a debate? This week we’ll figure out what salt actually does in our bodies and how it might impact our health. If you’ve ever wondered how we’ve arrived at the maximum daily sodium intake and why salt impacts blood pressure, tune in!

Have you ever thrown a pinch of spilled salt over your shoulder? Or said “take this with a grain of salt”? Salt is so deeply embedded in our history as a species that we often take its influence for granted. In the first of a two-parter on everyone’s favorite seasoning, we delve deep into salt lore.

You’ve been asking and we finally have… NEW MERCH!! Order now on exactlyrightstore.com and order by 12/14 if you’re planning on gifting for the holidays!!

The human body is an endlessly fascinating machine. But when you spend so much time learning about the body, you can lose sight of the fact that it isn’t a machine. This week, Erin is joined by Gabriel Weston to discuss her latest book Alive: Our Bodies and the Richness and Brevity of Existence.

Necrotizing fasciitis earned its nickname “flesh eating bacteria” from how quickly it progresses from what looks like a skin irritation to a deadly infection. This week, we get up close and personal with necrotizing fasciitis and its causative agents.

The New World Screwworm, is a nightmare of a fly and it seems to be making a comeback in the places it was previously eradicated - Central and North America. What exactly this fly does, why it’s such a problem, and how we came to defeat it (temporarily) all feature in this week’s episode.

Ohio! We are coming to you! We are so honored to be presenting one of the keynote addresses at this year's Infectious Diseases Institute Annual Meeting! Registration closes this Friday... we can't wait to see you there!

This week, we (both!) chat with two of our all-time favorite science communicators, @drlindseyfitz.bsky.social and @tealcartoons.bsky.social to discuss their newest book Dead Ends! There’s learning, there’s laughter, there’s a lesson: failure is okay. Not just okay but a necessary part of science

Famine is much more than a food shortage and starvation on a population-level scale. This week, we’re picking up where we left off last episode to explore the definitions, drivers, and many dimensions of famine. Tune in for a broad overview of this heavy but incredibly important topic.

This is the first of two episodes centered around malnutrition, starvation, and famine. Today, we explore the profound consequences that arise when our bodies are not given the energy stores they need and we tell the story of how we came to learn about these outcomes through a WWII-era study.

The roots of the inequities we see in our modern mental health system can be traced back decades, to the earliest psychiatric hospitals founded on racist notions of mental illness. This week's book club features @ahylton26.bsky.social and her book Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum.

Today's episode is all about newborn screening - from its serendipitous origins, to what the process looks like from a parent’s perspective, and how cutting-edge technology could revolutionize these programs. We even brought on an expert guest to walk us through the future of newborn screening!

Yeast infections! We've all had them (er, around 75% of us probably have), but what really are they, where do they come from, and why are they so hard to get rid of? All this and then some on today's episode featuring Candida!

On this week's book club Erin chats with the one and only @maryroach.bsky.social about book Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy, available TODAY! As with any Mary Roach production, this is the perfect combination of informative, fascinating, and fun. Tune in today!

Last ep, we took you through all the ways that cold can harm us. Ending the story there would be skipping over the parts where cold is the hero, rather than the villain. In the second of this frosty miniseries, we explore situations in which we might use cold to protect us and how it actually
works.

We humans are not well-equipped to deal with the cold. Take us out of our insulated dwellings, take away our winter clothes, and things can get dicey fast. In this episode: the long and grim history of
hypothermia in war, what exactly happens inside your body when your temperature drops, and more!

On this week's TPWKY Book Club episode, Erin interviews author Lina Zeldovich about her book The Living Medicine, which takes readers through the incredible and long-forgotten story of phage therapy and the doctors who developed it. You don't want to miss this one!

In December of 1952, a thick, noxious smog surrounded the entire city of London for days on end. What led to such conditions? What was in the smog to make it so toxic? And how did this pollution event lead to massive changes in air quality regulations around the world? Tune in for all this and more.

YOUR GALLBLADDER! What is it? Do you still have yours? How can you live without it? Also - what the heck is bile? And what does it have to do with the humoral theory of medicine? All this and literally so much more on this week's episode!

In this week’s TPWKY book club episode, renowned science writer and journalist Carl Zimmer discusses his latest book Airborne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe, which uncovers the long-forgotten story of an entire field of study - aerobiology. Tune in for a fascinating conversation!

😍 This is one of the best compliments we could ever receive! Radiolab is one of the podcasts that got us into podcasting!!

Last week, we took you on a journey of discovery, and today we’re gonna tell you how the heck it all works. The discourse surrounding SSRIs is complicated and contradictory, and this episode provides lots of answers and some terrible baseball metaphors to help you make sense of SSRIs.

This week and next, we tell the story of SSRIs in two parts. In part 1 we explore the origins antidepressants, a surprising journey that takes us back millions of years and across the animal kingdom, and one that proves that John Green was right - everything truly is tuberculosis. Tune in now!

Our first ever fiction book, Wendy Chin-Tanner's King of the Armadillos tells the story of a young man sent to a federal treatment facility after a diagnosis of Hansen’s disease (aka leprosy). Listen now to hear about about the writing process, and how her father’s life provided the story's basis.

PCOS or polycystic ovarian syndrome is, frankly, a poorly named disorder. So what is PCOS, really, and what can it teach us about our understanding of health and disease and our assumptions about sex and gender? Tune in to this week's episode to find out!

Do you miss purple ketchup? Or do you shiver when you remember that pink and blue "butter" was once a thing? Today we regale you with the story of food dyes! What the heck are they, why do we use them, are they really a problem and why?! All this and literally so much more on this week's episode!

In this week's Book Club episode, Erin Welsh sat down with Dr Steven Mithen to talk about how the heck we can even talk to each other! In his latest book, The Language Puzzle, he details the evolution of language, from the earliest sounds and gestures to the multitude of languages we use today.