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Endless Thread

Hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson dig into the internet's vast and curious ecosystem of online communities to find untold histories, unsolved mysteries, and other jaw-dropping stories online and IRL.

LATEST EPISODE

"Giant Forest," by u/Rytelier

Encore: Angel's Glow — From Civil War Folklore To Winning Science Fair Project

In the aftermath of the Civil War's Battle of Shiloh in 1862, something strange happened. Some soldiers' wounds started to glow. Stranger still, those with glowing wounds seemed to have...

Endless Thread

28:32May 26, 2023

Portrait of a conductor in concert. (Getty)

Come to the orchestra

Can you have an orgasm from listening to music? Can you legally own more than six dildos in Texas? Endless Thread digs into several sexy questions that have taken over...

Endless Thread

24:29May 19, 2023

Twyla the Swamp Fae, a Fairy Godauntie. She read Lord of The Rings back in the 1970's and had wished for a community like Black Fae Day (Credit: Jasmine LaFleur)

#BlackFaeDay: When Black fantasy enthusiasts celebrate magic

In this episode of Endless Thread, we look into #BlackFaeDay. What we find isn't a hashtags to riches story, but a fairytale from the internet about the magic of Black...

Endless Thread

30:56May 12, 2023

A movie still from the 2007 film "The Bucket List" starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. (Courtesy Unsplash)

Oranges and Bucket Lists: What language can teach us about our world

This week on Endless Thread, we have two stories about etymology: the histories of the word “orange” and the term “bucket list.”

Endless Thread

27:50May 5, 2023

American Robin male on blue sky taken in southern Minnesota (Stan Tekiela / Getty Images)

The birds and the bugs: questions flying around Reddit's 'Ask Science' community

In this episode of Endless Thread, co-hosts Amory Sivertson and Ben Brock Johnson fly into r/AskScience to explore the question of whether or not our feathered friends are, indeed, musical...

Endless Thread

24:54Apr 28, 2023

Hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson dig into the internet's vast and curious ecosystem of online communities to find untold histories, unsolved mysteries, and other jaw-dropping stories online and IRL.

Got a story for us?

Get in touch!

Email: endlessthread@wbur.org

On Reddit: u/endless_thread

The solar-powered server. (Courtesy Kris De Decker)

Endless Thread presents Outside/In: How to build a solar-powered website

What if the internet was only available most of the time? This week, Endless Thread presents an episode of Outside/In — a podcast from New Hampshire Public Radio — about...

Endless Thread

34:39Apr 21, 2023

A collage featuring Sunil Tripathi (center) with his family and supporters. (Courtesy of the Tripathi family)

They said he was the Boston bomber. He wasn’t.

In the days after the 2013 Boston bombing, an online hunt for the perpetrators falsely accused student Sunil Tripathi. Ten years later, Endless Thread revisits Tripathi's life.

Endless Thread

31:56Apr 14, 2023

The Glo Worm that belongs to Matt's son, Sam. (Matt Reed/WBUR)

Endless Thread gets to the bottom of 'creepy' Glo Worm lullaby

When Endless Thread sound designer Matt Reed discovered an eery, unrecognizable lullaby on his baby son's musical Glo Worm plush toy, he needed to know what it was. When he...

Endless Thread

29:11Apr 7, 2023

(Alexander Spatari/Getty Images)

'Stuff Your 15-Minute Cities!'

What do livable and walkable urban environments have to do with "the real life Hunger Games"? And why are people in Oxford, England and elsewhere coming out in droves to...

Endless Thread

24:21Mar 31, 2023

An infant giraffe at a zoo in Paris. (AP Photo/Kamil Zihnioglu)

The downside of giraffes' long necks

From the days of Charles Darwin, scientists have remarked upon the evolutionary benefits of giraffes' long necks. But after two mysterious deaths, Endless Thread turned to the subreddit AskScience to...

Endless Thread

19:51Mar 24, 2023

An illustration shows a yellow silhouette of a person freefalling against a grunge black and yellow background. (Diego Mallo for The Marshall Project)

'Violation,' Part 1: Two sons, lost

This debut episode of Violation, a podcast from WBUR and The Marshall Project, introduces the story of the crime that has bound two families together for decades.

Endless Thread

34:49Mar 23, 2023

Evan Kail, the owner of SLP Gold and Silver, became the center of an international media frenzy last fall. After he was sent a book of photos from WWII, Evan claimed on TikTok that the photographs were original images taken at the site of the Nanjing Massacre. The TikTok instantly went viral, even capturing the attention of the Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C. Here is Evan with Endless Thread co-host, Amory Sivertson, who interviewed Evan at his shop last September. (Courtesy Evan Kail)

Pawn Man: How a WWII photo album created a 'perfect storm' on social media

Evan Kail is a wise-cracking antique dealer and TikToker. Last September, his world turned upside down when one of his TikToks ignited an international media frenzy.

Endless Thread

39:56Mar 17, 2023

Endless Thread introduces Violation, a new podcast about who pulls the levers of power in the justice system

Violation tells the story of two families bound together by an unthinkable crime. It explores America's opaque parole system and asks: How much time in prison is enough? Who gets...

Endless Thread

03:36Mar 16, 2023

A young owl started visiting students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill last fall. (Courtesy of Barb.)

Owl pursuits: How an owl became part of a campus community

Last fall, freshmen at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill got a new neighbor: an owl. What wasn't clear was whether the owl was trying to befriend them,...

Endless Thread

24:01Mar 10, 2023

People march through downtown Amarillo to protest a lawsuit in federal court to ban the abortion drug mifepristone Saturday, Feb. 11, 2023, in Amarillo, Texas. (Justin Rex/AP)

Return of the Aunties: What online volunteers have learned about abortion access post-Roe

More and more, people are relying on Reddit for help accessing abortion services. Endless Thread revisits r/auntienetwork and looks at how it and other online communities are trying to fill...

Endless Thread

32:06Mar 3, 2023