How Do You Get Pregnant With No Vagina?

Summary

Science Vs: "How Do You Get Pregnant With No Vagina?"

Original Air Date: February 26, 2026
Host: Wendy Zuckerman
Guest/Contributor: Joel Werner, Dr. Neil Shah

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Episode Overview

This episode of Science Vs launches a new segment called "Case Files," exploring bizarre, boundary-pushing stories from medical literature. Today's central question: How could a 15-year-old girl with no vagina become pregnant and give birth? Through a headline-grabbing 1988 case report, host Wendy Zuckerman and science journalist Joel Werner (with OB/GYN Dr. Neil Shah) unravel an extraordinary medical mystery involving anatomy, improbable odds, and the tenacity of life itself.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Case Report: An Unlikely Medical Odyssey

(Starts at 01:33)

• The episode is structured around a real case published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (1988): a 15-year-old girl in Lesotho, Africa.

• Incident: She was injured in a knife fight involving her, an ex, and a new boyfriend (03:09).

  “Who exactly stabbed whom was not quite clear. But all three participants in the small war were admitted with knife injuries.” — Joel Werner (03:41)

• Doctors operate on her stomach and she recovers—but returns about nine months later, in labor.

2. The Twist: Pregnant with No Vagina

(04:44-05:54)

• On examination, doctors discover she has no vagina. The lower part of her vagina never developed—a condition called vaginal agenesis (Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome, or MRKH).

• Dr. Shah explains: although the rest of her external genitalia appeared typical, there was only a shallow dimple where her vaginal opening should have been (06:13).

  “It wasn’t like a Barbie situation ... there was skin with a little dent in it. No hole.” — Wendy Zuckerman (06:13)

• Her uterus was fully formed and functional. She'd never menstruated—likely due to lack of an outflow tract.

3. Medical Mystery: How Did the Sperm Get In?

(07:49-10:45)

• Vaginal intercourse was impossible for her. Doctors interview her post-cesarean: she describes only attempting oral sex (“going down”) on her partner before the altercation.

• The fight ensues mid-act, leading to her being stabbed in the abdomen.

  “It's Chekhov’s knife.” — Joel Werner (08:55)*

• Doctors posit: sperm was swallowed, entered her stomach, then—possibly due to vomiting post-stabbing—it escaped her stomach through the knife wound into her abdominal cavity.

4. The Science: Can Sperm Survive This Journey?

(10:45-15:18)

• Challenge 1: Stomach acid kills sperm.

  • Sperm should die quickly in gastric acid (“within a minute, the sperm could no longer move. And within 10 minutes, all the sperm were dead.” — Wendy Zuckerman (11:21)).
  • Hypothesis: rapid sequence of events and less-acidic conditions (accompanying saliva, seminal fluid, recent meals) may have provided a brief window for survival.

• Challenge 2: Sperm must exit from the stomach into the peritoneal cavity.

  • Dr. Shah suggests the stomach wound briefly connected the stomach interior to the abdominal space; vomiting may have propelled sperm out the wound (13:28).

  "So it basically has to be, like, perfectly positioned anatomically to be near the place where it would exit based on where the stab was ..." — Dr. Neil Shah (13:38)

• Challenge 3: Sperm must travel through the peritoneal cavity to the egg.

  • The peritoneal cavity's environment is similar in pH to vaginal fluid—perhaps allowing sperm to survive and migrate.
  • Cites rare but not unprecedented cases where sperm survived in the peritoneal space.

  "Maybe there's this magic sperm that can ... roller coaster its way through the abdomen and then—magic fertilizer." — Joel Werner (15:18)

5. The 'Double Miracle': Egg Release and Fertilization

(17:37-18:51)

• The young woman had never had a period; thus, this was her first ovulation, perfectly timed with the unlikely sperm journey.

  • No evidence of prior menstruation or blood pooling was found during her C-section.

  "The other extraordinary timing is this is the first time she's ever ovulated in her entire life... and she ovulates at the exact perfect time for fertilization to happen." — Dr. Neil Shah (18:24)

• The baby, delivered by C-section, was healthy and of expected weight.

  "The odds are lower than the odds of one person being struck by lightning a hundred times." — Dr. Neil Shah (19:42)

6. Alternative Explanations & Skepticism

(20:18-22:35)

• Some doctors questioned if a small, undetected vaginal opening might have existed.
• The lack of advanced diagnostic tools 40 years ago means the original report could have missed a minute passage.
• But peer-reviewed publication and thorough surgical examination at the time support the original findings. “Nothing is impossible,” said Dr. Shah (22:28).

7. Resolution: Life Finds a Way

(22:35-23:36)

• The child remained healthy years later; local custom saw “some cattle changed hands to prove there were no hard feelings.”
  • “If this can be true ... it gives you a sort of sense of like, I want to believe. Life will find a way.” — Joel Werner (23:05 & 23:36)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Who exactly stabbed whom was not quite clear. But all three participants in the small war were admitted with knife injuries.” — Joel Werner (03:41)
• “It wasn’t like a Barbie situation ... there was skin with a little dent in it. No hole.” — Wendy Zuckerman (06:13)
• “Not without a knife.” — Dr. Neil Shah on gut/uterus connections (10:13)
• “Magic sperm that can roller coaster its way through the abdomen—magic fertilizer.” — Joel Werner (15:18)
• “The odds are lower than the odds of one person being struck by lightning a hundred times.” — Dr. Neil Shah (19:42)
• "If this can be true ... I want to lean in and just like, believe that life will find a way." — Joel Werner (23:05 & 23:36)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 01:33 — Introduction to "Case Files" and the episode’s story
• 03:09 — The Lesotho knife fight and initial injuries
• 04:44 — Discovery: Teenager is pregnant but has no vagina
• 06:13 — Explanation of vaginal agenesis (MRKH syndrome)
• 07:49 — The investigation: How could sperm have reached her uterus?
• 10:13 — Dr. Shah’s analysis: “Not without a knife…”
• 13:28 — Vomiting and sperm ejected from stomach wound
• 15:04 — Sperm in peritoneal cavity: is it possible?
• 17:37 — Perfect timing: her first ovulation
• 19:42 — Remarkable odds: Is this the medical unicorn?
• 20:18 — Other doctors weigh in, skepticism and alternatives
• 22:28 — Dr. Shah: “Nothing is impossible.”
• 23:05-23:36 — Resolution and the lesson: “Life finds a way.”

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Conclusion

This mind-boggling episode blurs the line between medical miracle and scientific near-impossibility, challenging our understanding of human biology. Whether wholly accurate or slightly flawed, the story is a testament to the strangeness and tenacity of life, and to the value of skepticism—even when the facts seem too wild to be true.

If you seek stories where fact outpaces fiction, this “Case Files” debut delivers in true Science Vs style: curious, cheeky, and always scientific.

Transcript

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[Wendy Zuckerman]

Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman, and you're listening to Science Verses. Today on the show, a new segment that we're calling Case Files. And this is where we take case

[Joel Werner]

reports, which are basically stories from academic literature where really weird things have happened to patients that are often so out of the norm that doctors have to write them down for posterity.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

So think about the kid who went

[Joel Werner]

to the hospital with a case of blue balls. Classic case report.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

But today we have a case report

[Joel Werner]

for you that could perhaps top all case reports. And to process it all, we've got friend of the show and science journalist Joel Werner.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Hello, Joel.

[Joel Werner]

Hey, Wendy. Oh, boy.

Boy, boy.

The case report to top all case reports. Like, you're coming in hot. Let's do it.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Let's do it.

[Joel Werner]

Okay. This story was published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and gynecology in 1988. It begins with a lover's quarrel and ends with what might be one of the unlikeliest events in scientific history. But it's so unlikely that we're wondering if perhaps it is indeed a fairy tale with some nightmarish elements. One doctor told us. It reads like Jerry Springer, quote, you don't see much in medicine that's published in this way.

Wow, that is some hype. All I have to say is, Wendy, Wendy, Wendy, get to it.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

All right, we're in Lesotho, which is a very small country within the borders of South Africa, and the case report

[Joel Werner]

starts off like this. I'm just going to read it to you verbatim, the first few sentences.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Quote, the patient was a 15 year old girl employed in a local bar. She was admitted to hospital after a knife fight involving her, a former lover and a new boyfriend. Who exactly stabbed whom was not quite clear. But all three participants in the small

[Joel Werner]

war were admitted with knife injuries.

Wow. Shit got out of control there, didn't it?

It sure did.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

So this young woman comes into the hospital with a stab wound to the upper part of her stomach. They have a look and it's actually sort of punctured two holes into her stomach. The doctors operate on her, close up the wounds, keep her for observation, but ultimately she gets to go home after about a week and a half, and she's fully recovered. But of course, our story can't end there. Months later, she returns to the hospital with a very different issue. It's about nine months later, actually, and she's complaining of serious stomach pain. It's coming in these very intense waves where the pain gets really bad and then it goes away and then it comes back again. Doctors examine her. What do you think's going on, Joel?

[Joel Werner]

Like, I got two kids and that sounds like contractions.

[Dr. Neil Shah]

Yes.

[Joel Werner]

Yes. Okay.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Yes, she is pregnant.

[Joel Werner]

Wow.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Fully in labor. She didn't know she was pregnant.

[Joel Werner]

She did suspect something was up because her belly was getting bigger.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Now again, you might be thinking, okay, this happens. 15 year olds, they get pregnant sometimes. But here's where things get strange. As the doctors started to get her ready to have this baby, they realized something a little bit different about this woman. She has no vagina.

[Joel Werner]

What?

[Dr. Neil Shah]

Yeah.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

So she's pregnant, she's not into sex, she's not trans, but she has no vagina.

[Dr. Neil Shah]

So.

[Joel Werner]

So what is down there? It's like as a Barbie doll situation.

Yeah, we're gonna get to that just after the break.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Welcome back. Before the break, we told you about a 15 year old who is pregnant

[Joel Werner]

and in labor, but has no vagina.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Okay, so let's just talk about this

[Joel Werner]

no vagina for a moment.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

So basically, when this woman was in

[Joel Werner]

the womb, the lower part of her

[Wendy Zuckerman]

vagina didn't develop properly. And this can sometimes be caused by a condition called vaginal agenesis.

[Dr. Neil Shah]

Right. Okay. Yeah.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

It happens to about 1 in 5,000 people. And this case report said that where her vagina was supposed to be, only a shallow skin dimple was present. So it wasn't like a Barbie situation. We think she had a urethra, the inner and outer lips of the vulva. So all of that looked typical. But then instead of an opening where the vagina was supposed to be, there was skin with a little dent in it. So think about it, like kind of pressing your cheek a little, like a little dimple, so no hole. And this condition is usually brought on by a syndrome with a very long name.

[Dr. Neil Shah]

Mayer Rokatansky Kuster Hauser syndrome. It's a mouthful.

[Joel Werner]

Sounds like a law firm, to be honest.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Right.

[Joel Werner]

Well, this mouthful was said by Dr. Neil Shah.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

He's an OBGYN and the chief medical officer at Maven Clinic. He's based in Massachusetts. Massachusetts. And he's treated people who have this condition before.

[Dr. Neil Shah]

When I was in residency, I took care of people at Boston Children's Hospital that would fly in from all over the world who had this syndrome.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Now, Neil told us that on top of the vagina that hadn't properly formed, people with this condition can also have a uterus that is not fully developed. But in this case, with the pregnant hero of our story, her uterus was fully formed, working perfectly, and could support

[Joel Werner]

a fetus soon to be a baby.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

It just seems there was no vagina. So the big question is, of course,

[Joel Werner]

how did the sperm get in? And I guess part two, how does the baby get out?

Okay, so the baby got out by C section. That's the quick one.

Okay.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Now back at the hospital, doctors and nurses were curious themselves about how the sperm got in there. And actually the case report says that, get this. As they were still closing her up from surgery, from the surgery of the C section, quote, curiosity could not be

[Joel Werner]

contained any longer and the patient was interviewed with the help of a sympathetic nursing sister. End quote. Here's what they found out.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

The young woman had apparently tried multiple times to have sort of garden variety penis vagina sex, but was obviously unsuccessful due to the aforementioned lack of vagina. And so turn to oral sex, which ends up being key here. So, Joel, do you remember that fight that broke out at the start of this story?

[Joel Werner]

Oh, yeah. I can't stop thinking about it. The knife has to be. It's Chekhov's knife.

[Dr. Neil Shah]

Right?

[Joel Werner]

It's Chekhov's knife.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Okay. So it seems that that fight all started because her ex lover caught her going down on her new partner. Ah. And doctors think that wild combination of giving fellatio, swallowing the sperm and the fight might have led to this pregnancy.

[Joel Werner]

What this is like, I'm imagining the cum going on some sort of, like, Hot Wheels roller coaster ride where it, like, shoots out of one hole and dives into a different hole.

And, I mean, so that is the adventure we are about to go on.

[Dr. Neil Shah]

Wow. Okay. All right.

[Joel Werner]

So the first thing we need is some way for the sperm to get to the egg. And normally the sperm has a pretty direct route through the vagina. Sneaky way up the cervix, yada, yada, yada, basically home free. But in this case, when she swallowed the sperm, it would have been stuck in her stomach.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And our producer, Katie Foster Keys asked

[Producer/Additional Contributor]

Neil, are the stomach and the uterus connected in any sort of way?

[Dr. Neil Shah]

Not without a knife,

[Wendy Zuckerman]

but we had a knife.

[Joel Werner]

Right. But maybe we should start our Hot Wheels journey with the sperm inside the stomach. Because she's just swallowed it.

[Dr. Neil Shah]

Right.

[Joel Werner]

Because Neil actually told us that at that point, it should have been game over.

[Dr. Neil Shah]

Wow.

[Joel Werner]

Okay.

[Dr. Neil Shah]

The most extraordinary thing is that sperm does not survive acid. Gastric acid in the stomach is basically as acidic as it gets.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Yeah. So he's just shocked. And other doctors we reached out to as well. Shocked that it would have survived the stomach at all.

[Joel Werner]

Other science journalists as well. Like, I'm just perpetually shocked at the moment.

So those stomach acids are so toxic to sperm.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

In one study, researchers actually looked into

[Joel Werner]

how different acids would affect sperm, whether it would immobilize or kill human sperm.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And so they mixed semen with stuff that is generally less acidic than the contents of our stomach. And what they found was that within

[Joel Werner]

a minute, the sperm could no longer move.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And within 10 minutes, all the sperm were dead. So based on that study, the odds

[Joel Werner]

of the sperm surviving the stomach were perhaps even less than the odds of this woman not having a vagina. Here's Neil.

[Dr. Neil Shah]

I've never seen sperm survive in the stomach in my whole career.

[Joel Werner]

So do they know what length of time there was between her going down on her new lover and her getting stabbed in? Was she caught in the actual. And so the sperm could, like, maybe have just been freshly in the stomach.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Yeah, it appears she was caught in the act. All of this must have happened quickly. It couldn't have just been sitting in the stomach because then sperm would have been dead.

[Joel Werner]

Absolutely.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

It has to have happened very fast, the swallow. And then. So we know saliva is a. Is a nicer ph for Sperm. We also know that seminal fluid is not. Is not acidic.

[Dr. Neil Shah]

Okay.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

It's actually a little bit basic. So maybe the two of them acted like a coating to protect the sperm. On top of that, eating food can lower the acidity in your stomach.

[Joel Werner]

So maybe if she'd had a big meal before all this happened, it's this

perfect storm of, like, eating and swallowing the cum and getting stabbed in the

stomach and that somehow the sperm survives.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And one thing that Neil read in the case report made him think that maybe this did all happen quickly.

[Dr. Neil Shah]

What they say in the case report is that she vomits.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

So what the case report actually says is that her stomach was empty when she had surgery. But Neil, knowing what he knows about medicine, reckons that that could be from vomiting.

[Joel Werner]

So maybe what happens is she swallows the sperm and it's somehow protected in

[Wendy Zuckerman]

the saliva and the seminal fluid. And then maybe she vom. And that act of vomiting propels a

[Joel Werner]

tiny bit of sperm out into the little hole in the stomach that the stab wound created. So here's Neil.

[Dr. Neil Shah]

So it basically has to be, like, perfectly positioned anatomically to be near the place where it would exit based on where the stab was, which, you know,

[Joel Werner]

explains our exit from the stomach. But there's still. This is just the first step of a long journey I'm imagining.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Right.

[Dr. Neil Shah]

And then it gets even wilder.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Right. Because when it exits the stomach, like

[Joel Werner]

you say, it's not as if the egg is just hanging around saying, hello, I'm right here. The egg, it should be in the pelvis and the hole was in the stomach. So we still have a hot wheels ride to go down.

Absolutely, yeah.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Now, once the sperm gets out of the stomach, it moves into this liquidy space that's between the organs in the abdomen. It's called the per cavity. And this peritoneal cavity is actually a

[Joel Werner]

nicer place, we think, for the little fragile spermies to survive and thrive, because

[Wendy Zuckerman]

the ph in the peritoneal cavity is about the same as vaginal fluid.

[Joel Werner]

Ah, okay.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Which is the stuff that protects the sperm as it travels through the vagina.

[Dr. Neil Shah]

Right.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

For those who have a vagina. Now, there have been two other case reports that we found where sperm was found in. In the peritoneal fluid of men, suggesting that maybe it can survive there.

[Joel Werner]

And so from this peritoneal cavity, the

[Wendy Zuckerman]

sperm then would have had to have

[Joel Werner]

swum past the intestine into the pelvis and ultimately to reach the egg.

Look, this is. Do you know those guys who, like, overanalyze the zapruder film of JFK's assassination. And they're like rewinding it and going, oh, the bullet had to have come. Like, Neil reminds me of one of those guys. He's just gone. No, look, it sounds far fetched, but maybe there's this like magic sperm that can like roller coaster its way through the abdomen and then. Magic fertilizer.

Yeah, exactly. So that is one way. Maybe. After the break, the final unbelievable chapter. Welcome back. Today on the show, how the teenager with no vagina got pregnant. Here's where we're at. Based on the facts on the ground, it looks like the only way to this could have happened was that the sperm that she swallowed after giving oral to her boyfriend somehow survived the acids in her stomach, escaped the stomach through a stab wound, and then swam down the obstacle course that is her body and merged with the egg.

Unbelievable.

Unbelievable. And by the way, we looked into this.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

There are a bunch of ways that the sperm is guided towards the egg because of things that the egg is doing. Like it releases certain ch that sort of say, come hither to the sperm. And there's changes to temperature and the flow of fluid in the body that can help guide sperm to the egg. But all of that stuff tends to happen when you're already pretty close to the target. It's not kicking in up in the stomach.

[Joel Werner]

And I imagine that we haven't evolved to help sperm from. Was it the peritoneal?

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Yes, cavity.

[Joel Werner]

The cavity to then find its way. It's not like we usually get sperm, no body.

No, no, no, no. Which takes us to the final, rather unbelievable part of the story, which is the egg.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

What's very curious about what happened here is that we don't think that this young woman ever had a menstrual period before because without a vagina, there'd be no hole for the blood to escape into. And so if she had released an egg and this blood was coming down, the body really doesn't like blood in

[Joel Werner]

places it shouldn't be, sort of.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And so if it was pooling there, it would have caused her a lot of pain and she would have had to go to probably the hospital to deal with it. And plus, when they opened her up to deliver the baby, they would have seen blood from past periods and. And they didn't. He's Neil now.

[Dr. Neil Shah]

When they deliver her, her cervix is completely dilated and it empties into nowhere and there's no blood anywhere. And apparently she's never menstruated before. So the other extraordinary timing is this is the first time she's ever ovulated in her entire life. She's 15, and she ovulates at the exact perfect time for fertilization to happen.

[Joel Werner]

What?

[Producer/Additional Contributor]

What?

[Joel Werner]

The series of coincidences are stacking up.

Yes.

So the first time she's ever. Her body has ever released an egg, there just happens to be sperm that's made its way from oral sex out a wound in her stomach, from a stab fight on a magical journey through her abdominal cavity. And then it fertilizes the only egg that's ever been there to be fertilized.

And by the way, the baby was born healthy. Here's Diel.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Amazing.

[Dr. Neil Shah]

This is. This baby is born at the expected weight and nothing apparently wrong with it because there's a lot of other things that can happen. She doesn't miscarry. So then you're like, in all of human existence, what are the odds that this happened once?

[Producer/Additional Contributor]

So this is like the unicorn of all unicorns of all of medical cases?

[Dr. Neil Shah]

Yeah, yeah, I would say so. You know, the odds are lower than the odds of one person being struck by lightning a hundred times.

[Joel Werner]

Wow. It's sort of. I mean, often when we're talking about these unbelievable stories in science, I think about that amazing documentary Jurassic park and its famous line, life finds a way. But this is like the perfect example of life finding a way. The odds have been completely stacked against this fertilization event ever occurring. And somehow there's a healthy child at the end of it.

It's. Yeah.

[Dr. Neil Shah]

And we.

[Joel Werner]

Look, we reached out to the doctor who wrote the case report several times, but we didn't hear back. He's now retired. We also asked a bunch of other doctors what they made of this report because it is so wild. And a couple of doctors said they just didn't believe it too unlikely.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Others were like, maybe. One told us, quote, sperm are persistent little guys. And that doctor actually described a patient that they had had who had no obvious vaginal opening, who had apparently never had penetrative sex, and also got pregnant and given birth to a kid with C section as well.

[Joel Werner]

Wow.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

So, yeah, she was. She was like, you know, it's unlikely, but stuff happens. Some of the doctors that we heard from also said that there might be another explanation for what's going on here and that maybe that dimple where her vagina sort of should have been wasn't totally closed off. Maybe there was a tiny hole in there that was missed and sperm somehow got in that way. Just sort of the More regular way. And the fact that all of this happened, you know, some 40 years ago, one doctor told us that they didn't have the technology on hand that we use today to diagnose someone with vaginal

[Joel Werner]

agenesis, but still, they took a pretty good look in there and couldn't see a vagina.

[Producer/Additional Contributor]

So.

[Joel Werner]

Well, this is the thing, you know, from the very first time you start studying science, you're told the simplest solution is often the accurate solution. And if this story we're being told is the simplest solution, like, it makes you think, like, are there other mechanisms by which this could have occurred?

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Yeah.

[Joel Werner]

And, you know, but on the other hand, doctors pointed out, you know, this was a case report written in a legit, peer reviewed medical journal. As for Neil, he said, you know, it was extremely unlikely to have happened, but who knows?

[Dr. Neil Shah]

Nothing is impossible. Like, as a physician also, you have to, you know, you see all kinds of extraordinary things.

[Joel Werner]

Wow. Now do we know what happened? Is there any resolution to the love story?

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Yeah. Case report says that about two and a half years later, baby is still perfectly healthy. And in fact, it says, quote, by that time, the son looked very much like the legal father, the new boyfriend. In the story, it says, quote, the young mother, her family, and the likely father adapted themselves rapidly to the new situation, and some cattle changed hands to prove that there were no hard feelings.

[Joel Werner]

I love these stories where they're just completely almost impossible coincidences that lead to an event. And it sort of challenges our notion of kind of like what is likely. You know, like, if this can be true, if this somehow is the way that that sperm and that egg found each other, then, you know, it gives you a sort of sense of like, I kind of like want to believe. Like, I want to lean in and just like, believe that life, we'll find a way.

Thanks, Joel.

Thanks, Wendy.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And Joel Werner has a brand new podcast out. It's a historical thriller called Assassins. It's from the abc, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and it's hosted by Aslan Pahari,

[Joel Werner]

who maybe you know as the hello, my friend guy from TikTok. He's really great.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And each episode of Assassins tells the story of one of history's most shocking assassinations, from Abraham Lincoln to Tupac. And there's some science in some of the episodes too. Like, for 3,000 years, the death of Pharaoh Ramses III was a mystery until some scientists came along and solved the riddle. You can find Assassins wherever you get your podcasts.

[Producer/Additional Contributor]

This episode was produced by Ekedi Foster Keys with help from Wendy Zuckerman, Michelle Dang, Rose Rimmeler and Meryl Horne were edited by Blythe Terrell. Fact checking by Diane Kelly. Mix and sound design by Bobby Lord. Music written by Emma Munger. So Wiley, Peter Leonard, Bumi Hidaka and Bobby Lord. Thank you to all the scientists we spoke to for this episode, including Dr. Sarah Ackroyd, Dr. Sarah Collins, Professor Adam Taylor and Dr. Kathy Flood. Special thanks to Joseph Lavelle Wilson and the Zuckerman family.