In this episode of Yackety Science, co-hosts Matt Smith and Brian Cross answer all of the important questions. Why do froggies play possum? Why do monkeys scrump? Why are the Avengers prospecting in South Carolina? Why is NASA turning to the occult? And most important of all, does Princess Ariel sit on a throne of lies?

Got a question, comment, or correction? Yack right back at us at YacketyScience@gmail.com.

Theme music: “Funky Machine” (ID874) by Lobo Loco (Accessed through FreeMusicArchive.org.; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Image Credit: Common toad Bufo bufo mating ball (multiple amplexus) by Dariusz Kowalczyk. (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Production help provided by Scott Gregory.

Yackety Science is recorded at the studios of Public Radio Tulsa, Kendall Hall, University of Tulsa, and at the Center for Creativity at Tulsa Community College.

Links:

Drunken Monkeys

• Our ape ancestors’ taste for fermenting fruit may have paved a boozy evolutionary path (Science; July 31, 2025)

• Hominids adapted to metabolize ethanol long before human-directed fermentation (PNAS; December 1, 2014)

Radioactive Wasps

• Radioactive wasp nest found at SC site where US once made nuclear bombs (South Carolina Public Radio; July 20, 2025)

Thanatosis and Explosive Mating

• Thanatosis in the Gold-striped Frog Lithodytes lineatus (Anura: Leptodactylidae) in the tropical dry forest of northeastern Colombia. (Giovany Díaz; Cuad. herpetol. 39 (1): 37-40; 2025)

• Droop dead! Female mate avoidance in an explosively breeding frog by Carolin Dittrich and Mark-Oliver Rodel (Royal Society Open Science; October 11, 2023)

Occultation of Uranus

• Planteray Alignment Provides NASA Rare Opportunity to Study Uranus by Charles Hatfield (NASA; April 22, 2025)

Disappearing Science (mRNA vaccines)

• Press Release from the Department of Health and Human Services

• Public health experts dismayed by RFK Jr.'s defunding of mRNA vaccine research (NPR; Aug. 6, 2025)