Short Stuff: Yellow Rain

In this episode, Josh and Chuck dive into the mysterious "yellow rain" phenomenon that occurred in Southeast Asia during the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Hmong refugees reported sticky yellow substances falling from the sky that made people sick. The U.S. government initially claimed it was a Soviet-supplied biological weapon, but Harvard biologist Matt Meselson had his doubts and discovered something far more surprising through scientific investigation. It turns out the yellow rain was likely just giant Asian honeybees pooping in massive coordinated swarms to cool down their hives on hot sunny days—a solution that finally solved one of the Cold War era's most perplexing mysteries.