Can you put someone in a state perched on the knife’s edge between life and death...and bring them back? Cryogenic freezing, suspended animation, human hibernation. The idea has captivated people for ages. What if we could hit pause on ourselves to buy more time as we wait for an organ transplant or treatment after a terrible injury?

Scientists in Seattle are getting closer to making it a reality...if only in lab animals for now.

We talk to Mark Roth, a professor in the basic sciences division at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center and a MacArthur Genius grant recipient about his work with suspended animation.

Pocket Science is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network. It is hosted by Gabriel Spitzer, edited by Jim Gates and produced by Anna Boiko-Weyrauch.

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Correction, October 27, 2026 at 12:20 PM PDT: An earlier version of this story misstated the chemical agent in human heart attack trials. It has also been adjusted to clarify heart attack patients vs cardiac arrest patients.

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Meet your new favorite organ, the thymus. Scientists have since discovered a whole world within this little wad of tissue in your chest – a complex system that trains and equips some of your body's most important fighters against disease.

Jarrod Dudakov, professor of immunology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, explains how the thymus can help us understand why our bodies get worse at fighting disease as we age.

More resources:

• Jarrod Dudakov at the Fred Hutchinson Canter Research Center
• The landmark 1961 research article in The Lancet, “The Immunological Function of the Thymus”

Pocket Science is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network. It is hosted by Gabriel Spitzer, edited by Jim Gates and produced by Anna Boiko-Weyrauch.

We can only make Pocket Science because listeners support us. Tap here to make a gift and keep Pocket Science in your feed.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A full wiring diagram of the brain could show how its different parts work together, and it could potentially reveal new insights into diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Gabe visits the electron microscopy connectomics project at Seattle’s Allen Institute, and learns how they are using AI to parse over 100 million high resolution pictures of a slice of mouse brain the size of a poppyseed.

More resources:

• The Connectomics team at the Allen Institute's brain science accelerator
• Forrest Collman
• Andrew Hickl

Pocket Science is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network. It is hosted by Gabriel Spitzer, edited by Jim Gates and produced by Shane Mehling and Anna Boiko-Weyrauch.

We can only make Pocket Science because listeners support us. Tap here to make a gift and keep Pocket Science in your feed.

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Mud is everywhere…under our shoes, our buildings, our crops. How it behaves affects where we can build, what we can grow and the shape of the land itself. But on a microscopic level we barely understand why it does what it does. Gabriel heads out with mud expert Kendall Valentine who gets ankle-deep in the stuff in order to unlock its mysteries.

Listen to Pocket Science on the KUOW app or wherever you get podcasts.

More resources:

• Kendall Valentine
• Coastal Ecogeomorphology Lab
• UW Sediment Dynamics Lab

Pocket Science is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network. It is hosted by Gabriel Spitzer, edited and produced by Jim Gates.

We can only make Pocket Science because listeners support us. Tap here to make a gift and keep Pocket Science in your feed.

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When you look up at the night sky, it’s easy to think of it as static and permanent, like the stars are painted on up there and never change. But if you look really carefully, sometimes you can catch something dramatic unfolding. Andy Tzanidakis is a PhD candidate in astronomy at the University of Washington. His job is to look through massive amounts of data produced from telescope sky surveys to search out anomalies in space. One time, when he was going through the data he discovered something amazing. It was a rare catastrophic event…two planets colliding.

Pocket Science is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network. It is hosted by Gabriel Spitzer, edited by Jim Gates and produced by Shane Mehling.

We can only make Pocket Science because listeners support us. Tap here to make a gift and keep Pocket Science in your feed.

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Scientists have learned how to edit DNA and reprogram cells to fix a mutation and fight diseases. But the process requires a lab, is expensive and involves rounds of chemotherapy that are grueling for the patient. But Dr. Hans-Peter Kiem is working on a new technology with the goal of delivering the gene therapy directly into the body with a syringe. It has the potential to make the procedure far more accessible especially for those living far from hospitals and in need of the therapy most.

More resources:

• Hans-Peter Kiem
• Kiem Lab

Pocket Science is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network. It is hosted by Gabriel Spitzer, edited by Jim Gates and produced by Shane Mehling.

We can only make Pocket Science because listeners support us. Tap here to make a gift and keep Pocket Science in your feed.

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Therapy with psychedelic drugs has shown remarkable promise in treating depression, PTSD and the terminally ill. But scientists are still unsure how it works – why going on a single psychedelic journey could help to rewire a person’s brain. Dr. Anthony Back is an oncologist who found his way to this research through his work in palliative care. As part of his training, he took his own psychedelic journey and wrote about it in a medical journal. We talk about what captivates him about this therapy, what his own experience was like and how it’s made him think differently about the human mind and body.

More resources:

Anthony L. Back MD

Pocket Science is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network. It is hosted by Gabriel Spitzer, edited by Jim Gates and produced by Shane Mehling.

We can only make Pocket Science because listeners support us. Tap here to make a gift and keep Pocket Science in your feed.

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Our immune systems have evolved to overcome all kinds of flus, plagues and poxes, but the process of adaptation is slow. Harmit Malik is a Professor and Associate Director of the Basic Sciences Division at Fred Hutch. He is part of a team that is working on a way to put evolution into overdrive to fight future diseases. The novel approach uses the remains of dead viruses that have built up in our bodies over the millennia to help quickly create millions of genetic variants in order to find the right combination that can target the next big virus.

More resources:

• Harmik Malik
• Malik Lab

Pocket Science is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network. It is hosted by Gabriel Spitzer, edited by Jim Gates and produced by Shane Mehling.

We can only make Pocket Science because listeners support us. Tap here to make a gift and keep Pocket Science in your feed.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.