Category
Health & the body
Medicine, nutrition, sleep, longevity, and everything in between. The evidence, minus the wellness noise.
In this category
Interoception: the sense that reads your own body
Beyond the classic five senses lies interoception — your perception of your internal state, from heartbeat to hunger. Explore how it works and its surprising links to emotion, anxiety, and the way we make decisions.
12 min
Fetal microchimerism: the children who stay inside you
During pregnancy, cells pass from fetus to mother and can persist for decades, turning up in her blood, organs, and even her brain. Explore this astonishing biological blurring of self and other, and what science is learning about its effects.
12 min
Hormesis: why a little stress makes the body stronger
Exercise, heat, cold, and fasting are all forms of stress that strengthen the body in small doses and harm it in large ones. Explore the dose-response science of hormesis and what it really says about the popular idea of 'what doesn't kill you.'
12 min
The glymphatic system: how the brain washes itself during sleep
Only discovered in 2012, the brain's waste-clearance network flushes out toxins — including proteins tied to Alzheimer's — most actively during deep sleep. Explore this newly understood plumbing and what it means for why we sleep.
12 min
Original antigenic sin: how your first flu shapes a lifetime of immunity
The immune system is biased toward the first version of a virus it ever met, which can help or badly mislead its response to later strains. Explore this quirk of immune memory and why it complicates flu shots and pandemic response.
12 min
The Science Behind the Mediterranean Diet
Discover how this eating pattern rewires your gut microbiome and fights systemic inflammation for lifelong health.
15 min
The Fluid Behind the Eardrum
Explore why viral ear infections surge after common colds and how new research distinguishes them from bacterial cases.
36 min
The Altruist's Algorithm: How One Kidney Triggers Thirty
An exploration of how graph theory and market design transformed kidney transplantation, turning a single altruistic donation into a chain of dozens of life-saving surgeries.
12 min
About Health & the body
Medicine and the body, minus the wellness noise. Episodes dig into the glymphatic system that washes your brain during sleep, interoception — the sense that reads your own body — why a little stress makes you stronger, and how the first flu you ever caught shapes a lifetime of immunity. Each episode is sized for a walk or a commute, from new findings to the fundamentals your biology class skipped.
Fylom episodes are researched and written by AI. Automated checks help catch inaccuracies, but episodes aren't reviewed by a human and AI can still get things wrong. Treat them as a starting point, not a source of record — more in our accuracy disclaimer.