DARK vs LIGHT

The Rest Is Science

Goalhanger

Science, Physics, Mathematics

4.5 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 17 May 2026

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Why are black cars more dangerous, white chess pieces more successful, and pandas apparently incapable of coping with minor inconvenience? Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens (VSauce) unpack one deceptively simple question - which would win in a fight between black and white? - and end up exploring everything from colour psychology and radioactive frogs to quasars, fantasy literature, and whether the universe itself ultimately sides with darkness. Along the way, Hannah invents a new category of “cool cult members,” Michael explains how light could theoretically form a black hole, and both attempt to avoid turning the entire episode into a Tolkien podcast. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit ⁠⁠https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience⁠⁠ Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ. ------------------- Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠ ------------------- Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley + Jack Meek Animator: Sam Benson Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell Assistant Producer: Lucy Lipscombe Producer: Simona Rata Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter Head Of Digital: Samuel Oakley Exec Producer: Neil Fearn ------------------- Advertise with us: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠partnerships@goalhanger.com⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to The Rest of Science. I'm Hannah Frye. And I'm Michael Stevens. Now today's episode, actually, we're cheating a little bit. We're taking one of the listener questions, which we liked so much that we are not putting it in an episode of Field Notes. We are expanding it out into a whole entire super duper long version of our podcast.
0:19.5	Point is, we love this question.
0:21.3	Adore it.
0:22.1	I think we should get right into reading it.
0:23.9	Okay, here we go.
0:24.6	It's from Kelsey, who asks, hello, Hannah and Michael.
0:27.6	My seven-year-old is a huge fan and just asked me a question which I can't answer.
0:31.8	Which would win in a fight between black and white?
0:40.6	This episode is brought to you by Cancer Research UK.
0:44.1	Here's something strange.
0:45.7	Your DNA contains more ancient viral fragments than genes.
0:52.6	The genes that build our cells make up only 2% of our DNA. And for years,
0:58.9	that is what scientists focused on. They treated the rest, the ancient viruses and stuff,
1:03.4	as junk. But now we know that that hidden majority, sometimes called the dark genome,
1:09.6	influences how our biology works and how diseases
1:13.1	like cancer behave. It's a reminder that...
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