What The If?

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Science & Medicine
**What The If?**

Learn how to think like EINSTEIN! Every week we learn science running imaginative thought experiments. Our brilliant guests are some of the world’s greatest science fiction writers, scientists & science communicators. Leap into a journey to answer the most fascinating question in the universe: What The IF?

Latest Episodes:

ANTIMATTER On Demand! Jun 17, 2026

Show notes

ANTIMATTER On Demand! by Philip Shane, Matt Stanley, Gabrielle Paniccia

WHO The If - GABY! Jun 09, 2026

Show notes

Behind every voice you've come to love on this show is a life full of stories you've never heard. With our eighth anniversary just around the corner, we're doing something we've never done: each of us takes a turn in the guest's chair to answer all the questions the rest of us have always wondered about. First up is Gaby, a microbiologist at Harvard. What's it really like to spend your days in her world? Step into a lab alive with invisible wonders, head out to a beach where secret animal rituals are hiding in plain sight, and meet the kid who once chased frogs across a backyard and grew into a scientist chasing the deepest mysteries of life. —— When she's not studying zombie fungus at Harvard or helping us break the universe every week, our very own Gaby Paniccia writes science fiction. Her short story "The Automatic Grocery Store" is now featured on the popular podcast Escape Pod! Listen here: https://escapepod.org/2026/02/19/escape-pod-1033-the-automatic-grocery-store/ —— Check out our membership rewards! Visit us at Patreon.com/Whattheif —— Got an IF of your own? Want to have us consider your idea for a show topic? Send YOUR IF to us! Visit https://whattheif.com/contact and let us know what's in your imagination. No idea is too small, or too big! Keep On IFFin', Philip, Matt & Gaby

TOO SOCIAL Media! Jun 03, 2026

Show notes

Listener Kevin Towers asks: what the if the internet made everyone use their real, traceable name? No usernames. No masks. No hiding behind a clever handle at 2am. In this universe, every comment you fire off comes permanently stapled to your actual identity, your job, and your reputation. Would all that sunlight finally make us kind? Or would we go quiet, too nervous to ever post again? There's a crash course in why we turn feral online, a trip back to the dial-up Stone Age, and a rowdy brawl over whether forced honesty saves us or sinks us. So log in as your true self and come hang out where everybody finally knows your name. —— When she's not studying zombie fungus at Harvard or helping us break the universe every week, our very own Gaby Paniccia writes science fiction. Her short story "The Automatic Grocery Store" is now featured on the popular podcast Escape Pod! Listen here: https://escapepod.org/2026/02/19/escape-pod-1033-the-automatic-grocery-store/ —— Check out our membership rewards! Visit us at Patreon.com/Whattheif —— Got an IF of your own? Want to have us consider your idea for a show topic? Send YOUR IF to us! Visit https://whattheif.com/contact and let us know what's in your imagination. No idea is too small, or too big! Keep On IFFin', Philip, Matt & Gaby

The Other Theory of EVOLUTION! May 20, 2026

Show notes

What the if Lamarck was right? Stanford historian Jessica Riskin, author of "The Power of Life," is our guide into a universe where living things aren't passive passengers waiting for evolution to happen to them, but the active architects of their own bodies, their offspring, and the world around them. The line between creature and environment dissolves. Even the smallest beings turn out to be busy reshaping the planet. Stretch your neck. Reshape your descendants. Welcome to the Lamarckian universe. Want more Jessica? Grab her book at https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/763654/the-power-of-life-by-jessica-riskin/ Find her at Stanford here: https://history.stanford.edu/people/jessica-riskin —————————————————— In the show, I mentioned a wonderful note from longtime listener Steve Scalici about our recent "no gasoline" episode. Here's Steve's full message: —————————————————— From: Steve Scalici Subject: No gasoline, phase 2 "Maybe THE best IFisode I've heard, perhaps because I've been noodling with that inevitable coming world without petroleum…how'd we function, how would society break down, would we be in a Soylent Green-scape? "Seems to me that this too was a corollary of the IF I sent in regarding an aeroplane-less world. My supposition culminated with small self-supporting cities of a certain drivable radius from the city limits. "But overlaying the petro-less factor into the equation, we would devolve berryyyyy quickly to an agrarian localized world perhaps reminiscent of sometime in the 1800s. "The curveball to this is the Industrial Revolution would not, could not be. No power source! This leads me back to my Malthusian philosophy is coming: population does invariably increase when the means of subsistence increase. "Well then the opposite is true…population would curtail as our means of food harvesting ebbs. And it'd happen rather quickly as our food stocks diminish and famine would occur. "Back to the Middle Ages of castles, moats, bows and arrows, and self-sustained populations. "So my newer IF is 'how and what would a powerless world happen, assuming a stasis occurs in, say, 20 years?' "Shout out to my grandson Matteo here as we drive to a gas station to fill up, he posed a mini-IF: where does the gas come from. Tough to explain to a 5-year-old, but then last week's IF struck and I listened to it multiple times with my wife hearing it replayed and yelled 'WTF!'" —— When she's not studying zombie fungus at Harvard or helping us break the universe every week, our very own Gaby Paniccia writes science fiction. Her short story "The Automatic Grocery Store" is now featured on the popular podcast Escape Pod! Listen here: https://escapepod.org/2026/02/19/escape-pod-1033-the-automatic-grocery-store/ —— Check out our membership rewards! Visit us at Patreon.com/Whattheif —— Got an IF of your own? Want to have us consider your idea for a show topic? Send YOUR IF to us! Visit https://whattheif.com/contact and let us know what's in your imagination. No idea is too small, or too big! Keep On IFFin', Philip, Matt & Gaby

Moon Babies Meet EARTH - Part 2! May 16, 2026

Show notes

What the if you were born on the Moon and Earth was the alien planet? Picking up from last month's cliffhanger, our travelers from the lunar surface finally touch down — and nothing about this place is what they expected. There's some physics, some biology, a detour through ancient Greece, and a first encounter with the locals that nobody could have prepared for. The view from another world makes home look stranger than it has any right to. Settle in for the second half of a two-part thought experiment about what it's like to visit the planet everyone else calls home. —— When she's not studying zombie fungus at Harvard or helping us break the universe every week, our very own Gaby Paniccia writes science fiction. Her short story "The Automatic Grocery Store" is now featured on the popular podcast Escape Pod! Listen here: https://escapepod.org/2026/02/19/escape-pod-1033-the-automatic-grocery-store/ —— Check out our membership rewards! Visit us at Patreon.com/Whattheif —— Got an IF of your own? Want to have us consider your idea for a show topic? Send YOUR IF to us! Visit https://whattheif.com/contact and let us know what's in your imagination. No idea is too small, or too big! Keep On IFFin', Philip, Matt & Gaby

The Last DROP Of Gasoline! May 09, 2026

Show notes

Listener Helina asks: what the if we just pumped the last drop of gasoline? The answer goes well beyond empty parking lots and quiet highways. Along the way there's some chemistry, some geology, a detour through ancient history, and a look at how a single resource quietly weaves through agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, and the food on your plate. Join us for this super fun thought experiment with some genuinely surprising science along the way. —— When she's not studying zombie fungus at Harvard or helping us break the universe every week, our very own Gaby Paniccia writes science fiction. Her short story "The Automatic Grocery Store" is now featured on the popular podcast Escape Pod! Listen here: https://escapepod.org/2026/02/19/escape-pod-1033-the-automatic-grocery-store/ —— Check out our membership rewards! Visit us at Patreon.com/Whattheif —— Got an IF of your own? Want to have us consider your idea for a show topic? Send YOUR IF to us! Visit https://whattheif.com/contact and let us know what's in your imagination. No idea is too small, or too big! Keep On IFFin', Philip, Matt & Gaby

Build A Brand New ALPHABET - with Linguist DANNY BATE! Apr 30, 2026

Show notes

What the if you had to invent the alphabet from scratch? The Pharaoh hands you a stone tablet, a chisel, and an impossible assignment: condense every sound a human mouth can make into a handful of squiggles. Where do you even start? How do you decide what makes the cut? And once you do, how do you convince anyone else to use the thing? Linguist Danny Bate, author of "Why Q Needs U", takes us into the chaotic, contingent workshop of the ancient world's most consequential project, and the strange, very human accidents that shaped the 26 symbols you're reading right now. Want more Danny? Visit his home base at https://dannybate.com and grab his book at https://geni.us/WhyQNeedsU. —— When she's not studying zombie fungus at Harvard or helping us break the universe every week, our very own Gaby Paniccia writes science fiction. Her short story "The Automatic Grocery Store" is now featured on the popular podcast Escape Pod! Listen here: https://escapepod.org/2026/02/19/escape-pod-1033-the-automatic-grocery-store/ —— Check out our membership rewards! Visit us at Patreon.com/Whattheif —— Got an IF of your own? Want to have us consider your idea for a show topic? Send YOUR IF to us! Visit https://whattheif.com/contact and let us know what's in your imagination. No idea is too small, or too big! Keep On IFFin', Philip, Matt & Gaby

Moon Babies Meet EARTH! Apr 17, 2026

Show notes

Picture this: you're a moon baby, born and raised underground on Luna, and you've just landed on Earth for the very first time. Meet the loonies, a civilization of moon-born humans who cook up rocket fuel from lunar ice and travel between worlds in spacecraft that might just include a pickleball court. Along the way we dig into the real science of rocket propulsion, tidal locking, G-forces on the human body, and why atmospheric reentry is the single hardest part of coming home. Where will the first crewed mission choose to touch down, and what will they make of a planet where the sky is blue and vast dark patches keep swallowing their probes whole? —— When she's not studying zombie fungus at Harvard or helping us break the universe every week, our very own Gaby Paniccia writes science fiction. Her short story "The Automatic Grocery Store" is now featured on the popular podcast Escape Pod! Listen here: https://escapepod.org/2026/02/19/escape-pod-1033-the-automatic-grocery-store/ —— Check out our membership rewards! Visit us at Patreon.com/Whattheif —— Got an IF of your own? Want to have us consider your idea for a show topic? Send YOUR IF to us! Visit https://whattheif.com/contact and let us know what's in your imagination. No idea is too small, or too big! Keep On IFFin', Philip, Matt & Gaby

Microbe Grudge Match! Apr 03, 2026

Show notes

What the if microbes held a grudge? We're thrilled to welcome Ethan Rappaport, theoretical ecologist at the University of Maryland, to take us inside the tiny turf wars happening in your gut. We imagine bacteria sharing grudges like social media reposts, passing weaponized DNA to their neighbors through tiny genetic pamphlets called plasmids. Before you know it, whole microbial nations could be declaring war on your intestinal lining until you hand over the cotton candy. So maybe skip the diet and keep those gut buddies happy! —— When she's not studying zombie fungus at Harvard or helping us break the universe every week, our very own Gaby Paniccia writes science fiction. Her short story "The Automatic Grocery Store" is now featured on the popular podcast Escape Pod! Listen here: https://escapepod.org/2026/02/19/escape-pod-1033-the-automatic-grocery-store/ —— Check out our membership rewards! Visit us at Patreon.com/Whattheif —— Got an IF of your own? Want to have us consider your idea for a show topic? Send YOUR IF to us! Visit https://whattheif.com/contact and let us know what's in your imagination. No idea is too small, or too big! Keep On IFFin', Philip, Matt & Gaby

Space JUNK! Mar 23, 2026

Show notes

In honor of the 25th anniversary of the MIR SPACE STATION's spectacular farewell reentry, we're featuring an encore of our August 11, 2023 episode about what happens when SPACE JUNK takes over the sky! --- Hey there, fellow Iffers! It's Philip here, and do I have a treat for you. Dive into our latest episode, "Space JUNK!", an electrifying rollercoaster of discoveries and discussions that might just be a tad messier than usual. But as Matt rightly asks, how different is that from our regular antics, right? Well, this episode is special. Not just because we dive deep into the vast expanse of space and the intriguing debris that dances within it, but also because this thrilling topic was suggested by none other than our super-duper iffer, Dan! So, grab your space helmets, make sure your anti-junk shield is activated, and journey with Matt and me into the great cosmic junkyard. And hey, if you've ever wondered if there's a "What The IF?" t-shirt or hoodie floating out there amidst the stars... well, you'll just have to tune in to find out! --- Find out more about Gaby's upcoming science fiction short story publication, coming soon! Here are the links for the anthology. The physical copy can be pre-ordered here : https://www.neonhemlock.com/books/luminescent-machinations-queer-tales-of-monumental-invention The ebook can be pre-ordered here: https://www.neonhemlock.com/ebooks/luminescent-machinations-queer-tales-of-monumental-invention --- Check out our membership rewards! Visit us at Patreon.com/Whattheif Got an IF of your own? Want to have us consider your idea for a show topic? Send YOUR IF to us! Email us at feedback@whattheif.com and let us know what's in your imagination. No idea is too small, or too big! Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe at WhatTheIF.com Keep On IFFin', Philip, Matt & Gaby

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