Everyday puzzles, handed to the people who study them.
Tai Asks Why starts its questions somewhere ordinary, like a terrible joke about a harpoon and a spoon or a treasure hunt through a Toronto park on a sweltering day. Then Tai hands the explaining to people who study the subject, including a sea turtle researcher and an astrobiologist.
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Tai Asks Why runs on questions, and the titles say so plainly: 'How do we fix recycling?', 'Why do we laugh?', 'Are we alone in the universe?', 'How do animals know where they’re going?', 'Why is math so hard to love?'. That spread is the appeal. Tai is as happy chasing the chemistry of a laugh as the odds of life on other worlds. The episodes here open on a scene, not a definition. In the recycling episode he admits to taking the bins out half-asleep and calls the garbage truck a tooth fairy for trash. For laughter, he tells a joke he knows is awful, about what you get when you mix a harpoon and a spoon, and wonders why he grins at it anyway. For animal navigation, he tests his own sense of direction on a treasure hunt through a Toronto park on a sweltering day. He also remembers finding his way back to a hotel through a subway system in Korea when he could not read Korean. These openings put a listener inside the question before any expert speaks. Then researchers take over the explaining. Ken Lohman, a biology professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, describes baby sea turtles crossing the Atlantic with no parents to guide them, reading the Earth's magnetic field much as people use satellite GPS. An astrobiologist notes that nature makes far more simple things than complex ones: lots of buttes, fewer mountains, one Everest. So every microbe found improves the odds of meeting the big guys. On laughter, an expert explains that it lowers adrenaline and raises endorphins, and that is why pain gets easier to bear afterward. Math gets a more personal hearing. Tai confesses he likes it for its single concrete answer, while others say they hate it, and one describes failing a test after ten hours of studying. An explanation follows of how anxiety uses up the mental energy a test needs. His little brother turns up as well, stargazing beside him at the family cottage and describing a sky polka dotted with stars. The recycling question goes furthest afield. A guest explains how protests against new landfills helped push Taiwan from collecting only seven in ten pieces of trash to a recycling success built on producer responsibility. The feed also carries 'Can our generation make Earth Day cool again? (Bonus from What On Earth)', shared from the CBC climate-solutions podcast hosted by Laura Lynch, which tells the story of the first Earth Day in 1970 through one of its founders. It is a CBC Podcasts production, with Tina Verma credited as senior producer. The regular episodes here all end on the same instruction from Tai: keep asking why.
Made for: Suits a curious young listener who keeps asking follow-up questions. It also suits families who want science explained through jokes, chores and stargazing rather than textbook definitions.
What sets it apart: The questions start in Tai's own life, with a terrible joke, a chore or a night under the stars, before they go to working researchers. That way the science always has a reason to be there.
Fifteen-year-old Tai Poole won’t rest until he’s uncovered the mysteries of the universe, one probing question at a time. In Season 4 of his Webby-winning podcast, Tai talks to everyone from NASA scientists to stand-up comedians to his equally curious little brother Kien. If you’ve ever wondered why nothing feels as good as a deep belly laugh or why it’s impossible not to finish a bag of Doritos, Tai has you covered.
A dog bite only Tai Poole remembers: your invitation to question your most certain memories.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A curbside recycling question opens into Taiwan's reforms and shared responsibility.
Recycling starts in the most ordinary place: a sleepy trip to the curb, bins rolled out, trash gone by morning. From there, the episode opens up a question many households rarely follow past the driveway: where waste goes, how recycling actually works, and who has to make the…
A terrible pun opens into the curious science of laughter, from adrenaline and endorphins to the body going floppy.
Why do we laugh? opens with a groan-worthy har-spoon pun, then follows laughter into the body itself. The episode tracks the social pull of hearing other people laugh, the quick drop in adrenaline, the increased uptake of endorphins, and the odd physical surrender that can leave…
A cottage-sky question opens into a thoughtful search for the kinds of life the universe might hold.
Ty Asks Why begins outside a family cottage, where Ty and his younger brother Kian notice how many more stars they can see away from the city and wonder whether other life could be looking back.
A lost-in-the-park challenge opens into a clear, playful look at magnetic navigation in animals.
Ty Poole turns a hot day in a Toronto park into a small test of human navigation, following a compass toward a fallen tree and a bag of food. His trouble near a pungent lagoon gives the episode an easy comic hook, then widens into a sharper question: why do some animals seem so…
Daily TED and TEDx talks hosted by Elise Hu, spanning science, psychology, and creativity.
Pop culture, personal stakes, and room for a tangent.
What on Earth revisits Earth Day 1970 through Dennis Hayes, the 25-year-old organizer who helped turn a campus teach-in idea into a nationwide event.
Ty Poole opens with two numbers that define the problem: only 60% of what Canadians put in the blue bin gets recycled, and only 9% of Canadian plastic waste does.
["Ty Poole opens Ty Asks Why with a harpoon-and-spoon joke and uses it to ask why people laugh at jokes whose punchlines they already know.", "Sophie Scott, a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, explains that laughter can signal recognition, agreement, memory, stress, or hidden emotion.", "Andrew Fung, known as Kim Chi from Kim's Convenience and Run the Burbs, says improv taught him to fail on stage, stop forcing jokes, and use props as tools.", "The episode also covers forced versus spontaneous laughter, behavioral contagion, animal laughter in chimps, gorillas, dogs, and rats, and the physical effects of lower adrenaline and higher endorphins."]
Ty Poole opens Ty Asks Why at a family cottage with his brother Kian, who says the size of the universe makes alien life seem likely.
Ty Poole opens "Ty Asks Why" by getting lost in Hyde Park, Toronto, with a compass, a "pungent lagoon," and a bag of Doritos as the payoff.
Ty Poole asks why people describe themselves as “not a math person,” while guests Sian Beilock, Daniel Ansari, and Mariam Hajir examine math anxiety and learning difficulties.
Tai Poole asks why foods containing sugar, fat, salt, and umami produce cravings that can feel difficult to control.
Ty Poole investigates a childhood memory of Mopsy, a neighbor’s black dog, allegedly attacking his brother Kian, although Ty’s mother and Kian say it never happened.
In Tai Asks Why, Ty Poole asks why anxiety can persist when school tests and assignments are not physically dangerous.
Ty Poole asks whether cash will disappear as mobile wallets, Bitcoin, and central bank digital currencies reshape payments.
Tai Pool investigates whether people can keep eating meat without worsening climate change, with Brent Kim explaining why beef from cows and bison is especially greenhouse-gas intensive.
Ty Poole asks Rose Eveleth, Tim Chartier, and Sethian Devados whether anyone can predict the future after the unexpected COVID-19 lockdown of 2020.
Ty Poole asks Nicole Staroselsky how a photo travels from Toronto to Australia, and she traces it through cell towers, underground fiber, network exchanges, the Southern Cross Cable Network, and undersea cables.
Ty Poole asks how the planet can replace coal, gas, and oil, noting that some estimates put fossil-fuel depletion at 2060.
Ty Poole asks Madeline George, Cara Baggett, and Jenny O'Dell whether screen time should be measured by hours or by what people do online.
Ty Poole asks what lives at the bottom of the ocean, where Verena Tunnicliffe describes 2-meter purple acorn worms, 10-meter jellyfish tendrils, and fragile white sponges.
Ty Poole investigates how to judge online information after nearly sharing a false headline claiming watermelons can kill you.
Ty Poole asks Frances Jensen of the University of Pennsylvania and Juliette Davido of Northeastern University why adolescence brings stronger emotions, impulsive decisions, and a changing sense of identity.
Ty Poole investigates why songs become earworms, noting that 92% of people experience them at least once a week.
Ty Poole asks how birds, alligators, and tardigrades survived the asteroid strike 66 million years ago that eliminated three quarters of Earth's plant and animal species.
Ty Asks Why examines bullying through Ty Poole’s grade-two experience, Canadian statistics, and interviews with Tony Volk of Brock University and Suparna Choudhury of McGill University.
Tai Poole asks Chris Moulin and Chris Martin why deja vu creates a feeling of familiarity in places experienced for the first time.
Ty Poole asks whether animals such as dogs, ducks, dolphins, and deep-sea creatures have communication systems humans could learn.
Tai explores the question of what happens after death, blending personal reflection with cultural and scientific perspectives.
Tai explores the biological and emotional mystery of why parents would sacrifice their lives for their children.
Host Tai Poole explores the concept of trusting your gut, using a personal anecdote to introduce a scientific inquiry into intuition and decision-making.