This story is about a creature with a head like a furry shovel, and a body about the size of a sneaker. By rodent standards, the sandy blind mole rat is huge. But it’s special for another reason too. The sandy blind mole rat is found only in a small area of Ukraine, near the front-lines of Russia’s war against its neighbor. And we wouldn’t know of its existence but for the efforts of a small number of zoologists who, over decades of war and repression, risked their lives working to establish the sandy blind mole rat as a distinct species recognized by science.

The Naked Mole Rat is a podcast by Libo/Libo. Visit our website: https://libolibo.me/

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Contact us: nakedmolerat@libolibo.me

This episode was produced by Andrey Borzenko, Ilya Marritz, Anastasia Medvedeva and Lika Kremer. Our sound editor is Ildar Fattakhov.

People who suffer from retinitis pigmentosa lose their vision as the light-sensitive cells in their eyes start to break down. But what if they could be implanted with light-sensitive cells taken from other organisms, such as algae or coral? A few years ago, a French ophthalmologist was nearly laughed out of a scientific conference when he proposed this idea. But he didn’t lose heart, and his hunch led to a very important breakthrough.

Link to the video, in which the patient takes a bottle of hand sanitizer out of his pocket: https://youtu.be/J7a6-46M4qk

The Naked Mole Rat is a podcast by Libo/Libo. Visit our website: https://libolibo.me/

Follow us and tap the bell for episode notifications

Contact us: nakedmolerat@libolibo.me

This episode was produced by Andrey Borzenko, Ilya Marritz, Danil Astapov, Anastasia Medvedeva and Lika Kremer. Our sound editor is Ildar Fattakhov.

Caution! The holiday season is upon us. Terrible holiday jingles blast out of every speaker and get stuck in your head, there’s so much to do before the end of the year, and then we’ll be stress-eating and washing it all down with alcohol. All that while promising ourselves that we’ll definitely change things in the new year (though we likely won’t). In this special episode, we explore the science of what makes this time of year so…special.

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The Naked Mole Rat is a podcast by Libo/Libo. Visit our website: https://libolibo.me/

Follow us and tap the bell for episode notifications

Contact us: nakedmolerat@libolibo.me

This episode was produced by Andrey Borzenko, Ilya Marritz, Danil Astapov, Anastasia Medvedeva and Lika Kremer. Our sound editor is Ildar Fattakhov.