Stuff You Missed in History Class
Oct 23, 2026 · 23 min · 21 segments
Tracy talks about the frequency of news from research institutions getting reported years after the fact. She also clears up a misunderstanding Holly had about a painting that was discussed this week…
Tracy V. WilsonHostHolly FreyHost
It is super, super normal to have outlets pick up a story months or even years later.
Like, sometimes we'll get an email from somebody saying, hey, this is a really cool thing from Unearthed.
And it is a website that has written about something that the actual thing, the paper, was two or three years ago.
What happened that was weird this time was I kept finding news releases from the institutions that, you know, their faculty or their staff or their institute or whatever did this work.
So I kept being like, wait, didn't we already talk about how Utsi's microbiome has cold weather microbes in it? Didn't we already talk about being able to find dates for French cave art because it turned out there was carbon in some of the pigment? didn't we already talk about people taking wolves to an island and raising them there, and we don't really know why? It was odd.
And it was one of those things where the first time it happened, I was like, oh, this is just a weird fluke.
My mental acuity, because I was like, didn't we already talk about this? No, this press release is brand new.
And then I would follow the link to the paper, and the paper would be from sometimes last year, sometimes not even like earlier this year.
What is your terrifying thought? Is this the result of PR being handed over to AI modules?
It is super, super normal to have outlets pick up a story months or even years later.
Like, sometimes we'll get an email from somebody saying, hey, this is a really cool thing from Unearthed.
And it is a website that has written about something that the actual thing, the paper, was two or three years ago.
What happened that was weird this time was I kept finding news releases from the institutions that, you know, their faculty or their staff or their institute or whatever did this work.
So I kept being like, wait, didn't we already talk about how Utsi's microbiome has cold weather microbes in it? Didn't we already talk about being able to find dates for French cave art because it turned out there was carbon in some of the pigment? didn't we already talk about people taking wolves to an island and raising them there, and we don't really know why? It was odd.
And it was one of those things where the first time it happened, I was like, oh, this is just a weird fluke.
My mental acuity, because I was like, didn't we already talk about this? No, this press release is brand new.
And then I would follow the link to the paper, and the paper would be from sometimes last year, sometimes not even like earlier this year.
What is your terrifying thought? Is this the result of PR being handed over to AI modules?
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