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No Such Thing As A Fish
No Such Thing As A Fish

No Such Thing As Sheep Number Five

December 25, 2025 • 52m

Summary

⏱️ 7 min read

Overview

In this special Christmas edition of No Such Thing as a Fish, the hosts take a unique approach by revisiting their favorite news stories from 2025 instead of recent facts. They feature interviews with actual newsmakers from the year, including a psychologist who studied dad jokes, a radio presenter who protested water pollution with music, and members of Team GB's canoe polo squad. The episode blends science, sports, protests, and quirky achievements while celebrating the year's most interesting stories.

The Science of Dad Jokes

Mariel Burnett from the University of Massachusetts Amherst reveals groundbreaking research into who finds dad jokes funny. Her study analyzed over 32,000 dad jokes using machine learning models and hundreds of volunteers. The surprising conclusion confirms that dads themselves find dad jokes the funniest of any demographic group, validating what many suspected but science had never proven.

  • Study titled 'What's Brown and Sticky' analyzed 32,000 dad jokes using machine learning
  • Research concluded that dads find dad jokes significantly funnier than any other group
  • Researcher hates the joke 'Why is a fish my best friend? He keeps it real with me' due to logical inconsistencies
  • Dad jokes are characterized by repetition - saying the same joke whenever a situation arises
" The question we asked was, what's brown and sticky? And the answer, of course, is a stick. Actually, that was just the title of the paper. The thing we really wanted to know is, who finds dad jokes funny? "

Cat Poo and Fertility Crisis

Scientists discovered that cat feces might be contributing to declining fertility rates worldwide. The parasite toxoplasma gondii found in cat poo can decapitate human sperm when they come into contact, potentially acting as a natural spermicide. This finding could help explain the global decline in male fertility, though the mechanism of how exposure occurs remains under investigation.

  • Toxoplasma gondii parasite in cat poo literally decapitates sperm cells
  • Scientists investigating whether cat poo exposure could be causing worldwide male fertility decline
  • Anecdotal evidence: host without cat has three kids, host with cat has one
" If you put human sperm in cat poo then the sperm gets decapitated. They wonder if there might be something in the cat poo that could be a natural spermicide and that could be the cause for the fact that male fertility is going down all over the world. "

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