A retired cop takes a security job at a classified desert research facility — and discovers something buried far older than humanity was ever meant to find. When a massive stone “wall” is excavated and brought inside, it begins to grow… and assimilate.

After the story, we explore the real science behind biological assimilation — from deep-sea anglerfish that permanently fuse with their mates, to documented cases of human chimerism where two individuals become one body.

What doesn’t kill you doesn’t make you stronger.

It assimilates.

Trigger warning: body horror

(FYI: The name of the anglerfish’s lure is an “esca”.)

Citations:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/bizarre-sex-helped-anglerfish-diversify-and-dominate-the-deep-sea-study-suggests-180984449/

Brownstein CD, Zapfe KL, Lott S, Harrington R, Ghezelayagh A, Dornburg A, Near TJ. Synergistic innovations enabled the radiation of anglerfishes in the deep open ocean. Curr Biol. 2024 Jun 3;34(11):2541-2550.e4. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.04.066. Epub 2024 May 23. PMID: 38788708.

Pietsch, T. Dimorphism, parasitism, and sex revisited: modes of reproduction among deep-sea ceratioid anglerfishes (Teleostei: Lophiiformes). Ichthyol Res 52, 207–236 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10228-005-0286-2

Yu N, Kruskall MS, Yunis JJ, Knoll JH, Uhl L, Alosco S, Ohashi M, Clavijo O, Husain Z, Yunis EJ, Yunis JJ, Yunis EJ. Disputed maternity leading to identification of tetragametic chimerism. N Engl J Med. 2002 May 16;346(20):1545-52. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa013452. PMID: 12015394.

This week, I narrate the opening one and a half chapters of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, setting the stage for Stevenson’s slow-burn descent into duality and dread—no science segment this episode, just the story.

Trailer for the UnnaturalSelectionPodcast