Humpty Dumpty Sat On the Science

**Dr. Kiki Sanford** (0:00)
This is Twist. This Week in Science, episode number 1059, recorded on Wednesday, May 20th, 2026, Humpty Dumpty sat on the science. Hey everyone, I am Dr. Kiki, and tonight we are going to fill your head with plastic beaches, urban life, and things in your eye. So fun. But first, thanks to our amazing Patreon sponsors for their generous support of Twists. You can become a part of the Patreon community at patreon.com/thisweek in Science. Disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer.
I was going to read a disclaimer for the guest tonight, but I don't know about this. So I'm going to make one up on the spot right now. Humpty Dumpty sat on the science. Don't you wish that it was an appliance? No, you don't. You just like that it's science. Technology is the application of science, and science is the act of questioning everything in a very well-controlled manner.
I don't know. It's a process. It's a method. Science is not a collection of facts.
If you sit on it, can you break it? Maybe we'll talk about that and more tonight on This Week in Science, coming up next.

**Blair** (1:59)
Good science to you, Kiki.

**Dr. Kiki Sanford** (2:01)
And a good science to you too, Blair. And everyone out there, welcome to another episode of This Week in Science. We're rolling. It's so good to have you here tonight, Blair.

**Blair** (2:12)
I am so happy to be here.

**Dr. Kiki Sanford** (2:14)
I know.
We can get through the week, be able to do all the things and still show up. Sometimes we can't, sometimes when we do, it just is magic and we just get to hang out together. Everyone who's here in the chat, who's watching live or even if you are time shifting and you're coming across this later, you're taking the time and you're being here, you're choosing and this is great. Thank you for being here. I hope that we will have, actually, no, I know that we will have a great show ahead.

**Blair** (2:46)
Yes, we will.

**Dr. Kiki Sanford** (2:48)
Yes. Blair, you've been up to a few things in the last couple of weeks.
Is there anything that you want to tell everyone about?

**Blair** (2:56)
Yes. Aside from just being absent from the show because I was terribly ill for just so long, over the last two years, I've been working on launching a new podcast. It actually did launch a couple of weeks ago. Tomorrow, our third episode drops on Thursday mornings. It's called The Fantastical Field Guide. I originally did it as a pilot during the Daily Tech News Show's Experimentation Week in 2024
We had enough fun that we decided to do it for real. Thanks, Tom.

**Dr. Kiki Sanford** (3:34)
Thanks, Roger.

**Blair** (3:35)
Yes. Tom and Roger said, hey, I feel like you'd have something to do here. I thought about it and it's myself, it's my husband Brian and our friend Jesse, and we talk about fantasy animals. Mostly Pokemon is where we start and then we add in Duchess of Dragons, we had Popplers from Futurama on an episode, Godzilla, Facehuggers, and so they'll tell me all about those animals because they're both mega geeks I say with the most respect. Because it's quite amazing what's in their brain. And then I get to try to find good matches from the animal kingdom for some of the crazy adaptations. Kind of, for one, I think that people get really excited about fantastic animals and the cool adaptations or kind of things that people have written about them and they feel very other worldly. And I'm very excited to tell them about the crazy things that happen in nature. But two, I think a lot of these things actually did take inspiration from some natural animals. And so we have a good time kind of talking about what might have been the inspiration, what things might be similar, and then I usually try to throw them a crazy curveball. So that's always pretty fun.
And we have a great time. It's a 45-minute-long podcast. It's a nice little easy listen.
Check us out wherever podcasts are found or fantasticalfieldguide.com.

**Dr. Kiki Sanford** (5:12)
fantasticalfieldguide.com, but there's also, you have a Fantastical Field Guide. Are you on Instagram? Are you other places?

**Blair** (5:20)
Yeah. Instagram is where I've been posting. We talk about a lot of visuals on the show.
So I post some of the visuals that we talked about on our Instagram. While you're listening, if you want to see what does that look like that she's talking about, you can open up our Instagram and I'll post those on Thursday and Friday. I try to trickle things in there so that you can check them out. So all of our visual aids are there and then our website goes directly to our Acast. So you can find Spotify, Apple Podcasts, All I Heart Radio, like all the other things where we plop.