What laws are there to worry about in the moon? And what does space law teach us about Earth law? And what can we learn about societies throughout history from the lens of stuffing dead animals?

Images we Talk About:
Orbiting Space Debris
Fallen Space Debris
Hanging Christian Crocodile
Hanging Christian Crocodile

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:02) International Space Law
(01:03:25) Taxidermy
(01:46:48) Outro

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We also learn about: The splash zone of intro to astronomy, space NCIS, the bedrock of 1967 outer space treaty, the first earthling in space (2 tortoises), countries are responsible for their damage and no WMDs, that big tangible moon in the sky, unprecedented lunar traffic this year, potential water ice on the moon could be the next big space race, there?s no moon water regulation, no nation can own the moon, buuuut can an individual - former ventriloquest and used car salesman own the moon?? god don?t call it ?untapped resources on the moon?, you can?t own the moon but can you own its resources, there?s a legal officer for the UN officer of outer space affairs! we can allll frack the moon (except no one signed the treaty anyway), we can?t even agree to share moon resources One Day, only ?safe and sustainable? space mining allowed, it doesn?t have to be legally binding to make countries want to follow it, a radio telescope on the far side of the moon would be SICK, sorry about all the space junk us 3 put up there, 90 metric tons of re-entry, suing nasa over space debris, if it launched from florida and hit florida it?s actually local state space law, satellite light pollution, satellites don?t die they just crash into a farm upstate, starlink burnt 120 satellites in 1 month alone, there?s no laws about safely deorbiting - no one has to do this, how we treat space is a microcosm of how we treat earth, space law is real, why can?t we bring our optimism from space back to earth instead of the other way around? Ella?s mouse doing drugs, the art of skin arranging, apologies to our ancient Egyptian listeners, the various techniques of Egyptian preservation, arresting from decay, Frederik Ruysch?s wet specimens, crocodiles make a lot of sense for the first taxidermy cause they?re big and leathery - anyway it was hanging in a church?, Tom loses his mind about A SECOND TAXIDERMIED CROCODILE IN A CHURCH, a croc that?s at least from 1623, The Great Italian Taxidermy Crocodile Road Trip, about one third of the british population went to the 1851 great exhibition, the telescope and taxidermy exhibition sounds like a trap for Caroline and Ella, ?whimsy and anthropomorphism in taxidermy of the Victorian era?, anthropomorphic taxidermy was considered grotesque, taxidermy didn?t die we just stuffed it back up, environment taxidermy requires knowing an animal inside and out (pun intended), the degrees of ethical taxidermy, ethical is not a binary, it depends on your personal code of ethics, taxidermy as a lens of moral feelings through history.

Sources:
UNOOSA: Outer Space Treaty
UN: International Space Law Explained
Royal Museums Greenwich: Who Owns the Moon?
Lunar Embassy: Buy Some Moon
Politico: Who Owns the Moon
Guardian: Moon Resources
Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Moon Resources
NASA Moon Mining Contracts
Business Insider: Mining Disrupting Science on the Moon
NASA Artemis Accords
ESA Space Environment Statistics
SpaceWatch: Satellites
Natural History Museum: Space Junk
Guardian: Florida Family Sues NASA
Scientific American: Samantha Lawler, Space X Debirs
Journal of Space Safety Engineering: Uncontrolled Re-entry
UNOSSA: United Nations 2007 Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines
ESA Space Environment Report 2024
Rolling Stone: Space Trash
FCC: Deorbiting Satellites Rule
Scientific American: Space Junk Polluting Stratosphere
---
Britannica: Taxidermy
2019 Paper: Animal Bodies between Wonder and Natural History
BBC: Ancient Egyptian mummification 'recipe' revealed
Book: Practical Taxidermy
2020 Paper: The Animal Body As Medium: Taxidermy And European Expansion, 1775?1865
Museum of Idaho: A brief, Gross History of Taxidermy
Atlas Obscura: Crocodile at the Santuario Madonna delle Lacrime Immacolate
University of Dayton: Crocodile Hunting in the Marian Library
Wandering Italy: Grazie, Italy and the Crocodile Church
2006 Paper: The History of Taxidermy: Clues for Preservation
Journal of Antiques and Collectables: Taxidermy: Exploring one of the Most Complicated Collectibles
The Royal Parks: The Great Exhibition of 1851
2012 Thesis: The Shock Proved Fatal: Whimsy and Anthropomorphism in Taxidermy of the Victorian Era, 1851-1899
Cardiff University: Frequently Asked Questions in Taxidermy
Smithsonian: Why Taxidermy Is Being Revived for the 21st Century
Horniman Museum: Ethical Taxidermy
Guardian: Inside the Female-Led World of Ethical Taxidermy
Sussex Wildlife Trust: Putting the Ethical in Taxidermy

Welcome to the (preview for the) Lab Rat Games! The GAME show where we compete to learn anything and everything interesting! We love putting games into our topics, so what happens when we make a whole show of them, with each of us hosting their own section! Plus! We're joined by friend of the show and competitive chaos combatant, Sabrina Cruz!

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How can scientist's unravel the mystery of what dinosaurs ate? Well the clues are right in front of our eyes, or should I say their teeth! And poop! And listener you may already know what a podcast is, but how did proto-podcasts in a chicken coop give us the DNA for what we love, and how did podcasts even happen?

Images we Talk About:
First Iguanadon Tooth
Puffer Fish Teeth
Fish Teeths
Incisivosaurus
Saurolophus
Dinosaur Stomach Contents Fossil
Ham Comic
Sybil's Baby's Radio Rebut

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro?
(00:04:33) Dinosaur Diet Detectives?
(01:00:51) Support our Show!?
(01:04:27) Proto-Podcasts
?(02:02:49) Bonus Content!
?(02:07:24) Outro

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We also learn about: Deep Dive Discovering Dino Diets, dinosaur time, imagining us discovering a new animal, well we know it doesn?t eat nerds, Ella describes teeth perfectly - ?is that what you meant to say Tom??, the mouth is the first stomach, we found the teeth of the first herbivorous dinosaur before the body - and before we had the word for dinosaur, cinderella/goldilocks teeth, dental microwear, food print, the topography of a grasshopper?s mandible, teeth can be more indicative than stomach content, maybe you just tried in and out for the first time when you got captured by aliens, dinosaur teeth are the old coins of ancient civilizations, egg eating oviraptors, it?s not just us but experts that are confused about oviraptaurs teeth, reconstructing the crime scene of a bit mark, this case has been closed for 70 million years! the tarbosaurus seems to have separated the chicken leg to make eating easier, a tyrannosaur leaving a tooth in the scene of the crime, they not only got bit but lived to tell the tale, this proves tyranosaurs hunted living animals - and weren?t just scavengers, hard foods stay in the stomach longer, some dinosaurs used Gastrolith rocks as stomach teeth, rocks natures teeth, Bromalite can be regurgitalite or coprolite, 580 million year old worm poop, we didn?t think grass was that old then we found it in dinosaur poop,  we put dinosaur poop in a particle accelerator, we?re not looking at poop - we?re constructing the foodchain of dinosaurs, an ancient egyptian podcast, podcasting is NOT an oral tradition, the chicken coop boys, Sybil?s Little Ham Radio Show 20 years before a woman on proper radio, the Titanic sinking sped along radio restrictions, Tom skipped over the cassette before because its science impact was small but its misc impact was huge, explaining cassette tapes at a high frequency so it doesn?t hurt old people to hear, Lou Otten, the syrian cassette archive, mixtapes, Caroline?s family mix CDs, Tom?s custom Jack?s Mannequin Mix CDs, Pacific Horticulture Magazine being delighted that someone?s interested, Tom?s Magic Corner, I knew it was some journalist doing their thing, apple didn?t come up with podcasting - not even the name, journey back to 1999, the dream of RSS, what?s that facebook shaped cloud on the horizon? the dream of hosting your own feed, somehow podcast RSS survived, podcasts are the Horshoecrab of the internet, ?wherever you get podcasts? is amazing, The Lab Rat Games!

Sources:

NHM London: Iguanodon Teeth
NHM London: Beyond Jurassic World- What We Really Know About Dinosaurs and How
NHM London: The Seven Greatest Dinosaur Discoveries of the Last 200 Years
British Ecological Society: What do Grasshoppers Eat?
Phys.Org: Cutting Edge Teeth Study
NPR: Dental Detectives: What Fossil Teeth Reveal About Ancestral Human Diets
University of Tokyo: Dinosaur Teeth Reveal What They Didn?t Eat
BBC: Dinosaur Teeth Reveal Feeding Habits
Incisivosaurus
2022 Paper: Incisivosaura Bite Force
University of Pennsilvania: What Fossils Tell Us About the Dining Habits of Dinosaurs
NHM London: Dinosaur Eating Habit Insights from Stegosaurus stenops
2010 Paper: New information on scavenging and selective feeding behaviour of tyrannosaurids
Dave Hone's Archosaur Musings
2012 Paper: Physical evidence of predatory behavior in Tyrannosaurus rex
Save Our Seas: What Tools do Biologists use to Tell What is on the Menu for Wild Animals?
Scientific America: Tyrannosaur?s Stomach Contents Have Been Found for the First Time
2023 Paper: Exceptionally preserved stomach contents of a young tyrannosaurid reveal an ontogenetic dietary shift in an iconic extinct predator
SN Explores: Fossil Stomach Reveals a Dinosaur?s Last Meal
NHM London: Coprolite
The Bristol Dinosaur Project: The Grass Divide
NPR: Over 500 Fossilized Poops Show How Dinosaurs Came to Rule the Earth
American Museum of Natural History: How Does Studying Dinosaurs Benefit Humanity?
---
MET on Memory Boards and Luba Oral Traditions
OED Broadcast Etymology
The Chicken Coop Ham Radio
Sybil's Little Hame Radio Program
NYTimes on Titanic's Impact on Radio Law
Library of Congress on Recorded Radio
NPR On Lout Otten and the Cassette Tape
Wired on Cassette History
NPR on the Syrian Cassette Archive
Berkeley Audio Tape Retrospective
Carl Malamud on Asynchronous Internet Radio
The Earliest Mention of Podcasts in the Guardian
Two-Bit History on the History of RSS
Kevin Werbach's Vision of the Future of RSS and the Internet
TechCrunch: Rest in Peace RSS

It?s not MaxFunDrive without a wild kickoff spectacular! Former real-life VJ and host of MTV's Spring Break 1999, Dave Holmes, takes your favorite MaxFun hosts through some wacky ?90s- and Spring Break-themed mini games!!

Featuring: Dave Holmes, Jeremy Bent, Oscar Montoya, Dimitry Pompée, Tom Lum, Ellen Weatherford, Alex Schmidt, Brenda Snell, Drea Clark, Alonso Duralde, Dan McCoy, Jordan Morris, Manolo Moreno, Ella Hubber, Caroline Roper, Ella McLeod, John-Luke Roberts, Justin McElroy, Clint McElroy, Mike Cabellon, Sierra Katow, Hal Lublin, Danielle Radford, John Moe, Christian Dueñas, Christian Duguay.

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:22) Tom, Ellen, Alex, and Brenda Trivia
(00:32:47) Tom, Ellen, Manolo, and Jeremy on Party Animals
(00:46:34) Caroline, Ella, Ella, and John-Luke on British Spring Break

Host of Um Actually and nerd of many domains Ify Nwadiwe joins us as Tom helps him deconstruct the infamous Peasant Railgun from D&D. Could it actually work? And can we come up with something even more powerful using real science? We also dig into nerdery old and new, and see if Ify can convince Ella and Caroline to embrace their home country's greatest export: Warhammer.

Images we Talk About:
A Real Railgun Firing

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:06:05) The Peasant Railgun
(00:43:07) Q&A/Nerding Out
(01:12:19) Outro

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We also learn about: After this black hole research I do appreciate my family more! we?re here to game, what is a peasant? stealing science experiments for DnD campaigns, Caroline and Ella are delighted to learn the Peasant Railgun for the first time, convincing peasants to hands across america, pandering to the audience telling them their smart, My Monster Manual is On the Origin of Species, a peasant message system/computer, let people accelerate things to the speed of light! I shouldn?t let my players do WHAT, and remember kids DONT use a bong because it gets you SO HIGH, I?m reading between the lines Gary would want us to do this, the real rail gun, UM ACTUALLY ITS A PEASANT COIL GUN, rail guns are more common in fiction, the strength of a rail gun tears itself apart and creates a fireball, Ify would make each peasant in the line roll, if your players try to make the railgun say yes then show them the picture, the peasants have the means of production and destruction - they should unionize, the fastest manmade object, the manhole cover isnt the fastest object recorded, mission to touch the sun, gravity slingshot, it?s not the mass of the planet its the orbit, its not a magnet - its a magnet on a bullettrain, DMs watch out for artificer space programs, the duke of musk keeps stealing our government funding, Morgan you?re welcome to play beyblades with Ify any time, marrying bratz and digimon, England?s main export is Warhammer, can Ify convince Ella to play Warhammer, should we do a separate zoom just talking about nerd stuff? online writing forums, audio books are real books, be mean in magic, playing DnD on stage vs at home, playing true to your character.

Sources:
First Edition D&D Player's Handbook
Knight's Digest on Peasant Railgun Origins
Earliest Peasant Railgun Mention
PCGamer on D&D 2024 Dungeon Master Guide Update
IEEE Early Railgun Research
Vice "This Is Why the Navy Can?t Have Nice Railguns"
USC on Railgun Feasability
Popular Science Interview on Railgun Test
JPL Chart of Fastest Objects
CNET on Parker Solar Probe
NASA Gravity Assist Primer

Why is math both so easy and so hard for our brains, and how can the psychology of horses, babies, and mathematicians help answer that? And what wild journey did Sudoku take to become the popular puzzle that Ella adores?

Things we Talk About:
The Video of a Child Learning to Count
The Melencolia Painting

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:04:59) The Psychology of Math
(01:00:35) Sudoku
(01:44:59) Outro

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We also learn about: the Wonderful student, it?s not you - it?s math, ?I did biology for a reason?, children can want a lot of complex things, it?s harder in the UK cause its Maths plural, Caroline & Ella?s math journeys, charlie solves the Riemann hypothesis, the horse the myth the legend - clever hans, clever hans was drafted into the military AS A MATHEMATICIAN, real horse math! so many animals seem to have Number Sense, counting is hard for kids, multiplication isn?t counting - it?s memorization and other strategies, Caroline doesn?t have a great Mental Blackboard, kick flipping a chair in our minds to brag to Caroline, overlapping waves, hot or not for equations, hahaha a taylor expansion?? in Lp?? ridiculous! there is no one math organ in the brain, don?t give up on math, ?I don?t treat math as a monolith (I think statistics is the worst math)?, that surprises me because sudoko?s amazing and you?re wrong, the ancient mystical turtle?s magic square, a mathematical warding spell, ?once something is proved true, it is eternally true?, HOW DID ELLA NOT REALIZE THIS WAS A MATH TOPIC, magic squares are unsolved, math divination, wow this is a math?s topic huh, maths in art, Melancholia, the magic square on La Sagrada Familia, wait Magic Squares AREN?T the precursor to sudoku?? I don?t know this child, if not sudoku why sudoku shaped? the Latin square originated in Korea before Euler, my parents are older than sudoku, it was originally called Number Place, even though we call it Sudoku - in Japan it?s often called Number Place for trademark reasons, the 2004 sudoku boom, sudoku is an infectious meme, this topic took so long (because Ella took sudoku breaks), figuring out the question of unique puzzles, so many ways to think about a square, advanced sudoku techniques, x-wing and swordfish, sudoku championships, of course Ella found speed running in this topic, Sudoku doesn?t seem to cure cognitive decline - but it?s also just fun to do! a beautiful sudoku poem, it?s how we learn and it?s calming - a little win, ?I feel like I need to lie down?, let us know if you know the difference between 3 apples and 4 apples.

Sources:
Perfect Pitch Study
Feigenson et al. Core System of Number
The Clever Hans Phenomenon Revisited
NYTimes Berlin's Wonderful Horse
Actual Horse Number Sense Study
Number Sense in Animals
Rat Brain Number Sense Study
NPR Why Big Numbers Break our Brains
Erikson Institute Video of Child Counting
The Development of Mathematical Cognition
Math Expert Brain Activity Study
The Beauty of Math Study
University of MAryland on Math Brain Activity
Keith Devlin Stanford Talk
Katie Steckles: What Do Mathematicians Do All Day?
---
Wikipedia: Magic Square
Royal Institution: Magic Square
University of Cambridge: Magic Square
Magic Squares in Islamic Mathematics
Wiki: Sudoku
The Guardian: History of Sudoku
The Science of Sudoku by BY JEAN-PAUL DELAHAYE
Paper: There Is No 16-Clue Sudoku
Advanced Sudoku Techniques:
Wiki: World Sudoku Championships
Sudoku.com: The Fastest Sudoku Player
Sudoku.com: 4 Reasons that Sudoku is the Perfect Puzzle Game
Working Memory
BBC: Puzzle Slolving and Cognitive Decline
Sudoku 15 year study
Global Council on Brain Health Report
Sudoku Mental Fortitude

Why is the common fruit fly the perfect model organism, and the reason for 6 Nobel Prizes?? And what is the british fascination around the meal deal, lunchtime, and the sandwich?

Images we Talk About:

Map of the Fruit Fly Brain
Rat My Meal Deal
The Sandwich Factory

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:57) Drosophila Melanogaster
(00:49:46) The British Meal Deal
(01:37:48) Outro

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We also learn about: Ella?s former favorite fun fact, are 6 nobel prizes more impressive than long sperm? we need to pause, bolas, Ella?s Virgins, Dew Loving Black Belly, Dros Mel are human commensals - they migrated with us, ?they?re undemanding guests?, first life intentionally put into space, maybe Jeff Goldblum became a fly so seamlessly because they share 60% of their DNA, Tom?s great Jeff Goldblum impression, they share a lot of disease related genes, Thomas Morgan - The Lord of the Flies, Morgan knew about genetics but not DNA yet, genetic redundancy, a fly geneticist?s swiss army knife, the varied list of nobel wins, are they cancelled? wait actually? guess that fly gene, ?the inside jokes are becoming outside jokes?, the golden wild west era of the fruit fly may be over - but not all science, the beautiful fruit fly brain, we COULD end by talking about how this little organism has been so belovedly studied and helpful, Dros Mel has a mini bachelorette organ, the great british everything, is this a sincere answer? rating meal deals, fluctuations of lunch elitism, a beaver and a noonshine, capitalism made workers hours longer - workers rights made lunch, lunch was given by and for women, the earl of sandwich was too much of a gamer, we can?t re-litigate the cube rule, the ?daring? true story of the sandwich, the sandwich storry isn?t about invention it?s about class, food elitism fads, ella invents soup in a tube, 1980s the first pre-packaged sandwich, units of sandwich (UOS), it?s almost like getting separated from the means of production?, the british sandwich association, take your lunch break! you won?t remember doing an extra bit of work - you?ll remember spending time with folks and making a bomb ass sandwich, short lunch breaks make meal deals make sense, drosophola and meal deals cancelled on this episode,

Sources:
Paper: Drosophila - Model Organism of Choice
Paper: Innate Immune Responses of Drosophila melanogaster Are Altered by Spaceflight
NASA: Fruit Flies in Space
Paper: Drosophila ? A Versatile Model in Biology & Medicine
Paper: The Secret Lives of Drosophila Flies
Guardian Article on Drosophila
Paper: Where are Drosphila From
Paper: Gal4 Swiss Army Knife
Nobel Prize: Drosophila
NPR: Fruit Fly Names
Nature News: Troublesome Names Get the Boot
Paper: Fly Brain Map
Fly Brain Image
UKRI: Fruit Fly Neuron Map
Paper Drosophila Sperm Storage

Meal Deal Sources Coming Soon!

What can we learn from the most modern - but overlooked form of pollution? And can mistakes in art be something actually... good?

Images we Talk About:
Navajo Rug Ch'ihónít?i
Ramses II Statue
Ecce Homo
The Original Ecce Homo
3 Versions of Ecce Homo
Lincoln Memorial Mistake

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:25) Light Pollution
(00:48:06) Mistaeks
(01:37:02) Outro

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We also learn about: Auctioning topics, the origins of pollution, pollution is old but light pollution is from the 1960s, the great stink, the biggest light polluter is the sun, old gas street lights used to be more like beacons than lights, the world?s getting 10% brighter each year, 80% of North American can?t see the milky way, Light Trespass, Sky Glow, light pollution makes telescopes worse, Tom?s parents hearing him scream WHY IS THERE BREAST MILK, the strange lights after the 1994 LA earthquake, amateur astronomers are vital to astronomy, light trapped moths, a 1917 study on lighthouses and bird migration, birds waking up 5 hours earlier, turtles also use moonlight navigation, just move your telescope and evolve your species it?s not our fault, ?he glistens you philistine?, the big beautiful glow worm woman in the sky, street lights are like sugar light to plants, light pollution isn?t the biggest issue - but that can make it easy to ignore - and it has some easy wins! it?s solvable at the community level, Tom?s buoyancy broken hand mistake, oops I mixed up my therapy and podcast topic list, the beatles anomalies list, Michelangelo?s beautiful complaint letter poem, we are our own worst critic, the ASMR mistake was just an anomaly, Kintsugi, ?it treats breakage as a part of the object?s history rather than an error or a failure to be covered up?, what?s the japanese word for mud covered boots, only god can make perfect fun facts, Ch'ihónít?i, releasing the thoughts from an object - a way out, the journey of Caroline?s darned jumper, how can you tell an old mistake was a mistake? hieroglyphic typos, oh shit control ankh control ankh, revealing an ancient mistake by mistake, Philadelphia isn?t real it can?t hurt you, the Jesus that was? made an anomaly by Gloria Gimenez, the misremembered story of Ecce Homo, art is this emotional roller coaster, wow don?t take Tom?s summary Caroline, Lincoln memorial myths, 1000 years from now a museum in Neo Egypt will carve out the lincoln memorial fix, I know a great art restoration person in spain if you need one, most mistakes are just forgotten, you need mistakes to learn, the mistake of starting this podcast, verbal kintsugi, anomalous jesus, we didn?t learn today that Ella was a contrarian.

Sources:

Britannica: Light Pollution
2020 Paper: A Chronology of Global Air Quality
Wikipedia: The Great Stink
NHM London: Increasing Light Pollution is Drowning out the Stars
2023 Paper: Light Pollution is Skyrocketing
Scientific America: Light Pollution is Dimming Our View of the Sky
2009 Paper: Missing the Dark: Health Effects of Light Pollution
National Parks Service: Connect with the Galaxy: A case for turning out the lights
CAPE 2023: What are the Effects of Artifical Light on Human Health? An Evidence Brief 
2019 Paper: Effects of Light at Night on Laboratory Animals and Research Outcomes
1918 Paper: The Destruction of Birds at the Lighthouses on the Coast of California
2021 Paper: Characteristics of Light Pollution ? A case study of Warsaw (Poland) and Fukuoka (Japan)
1973 Paper: Light Pollution 
BBC: How light pollution disrupts plants' senses
Dark Sky: Solutions to Light Pollution

---

The Beatles Anomalies List
Michelangelo's "Poem"
Kintsugi
Jill Ahlberg Yohe's Incredible Paper on Ch?ihónít?i
Penn Museum's Ramses II
Ancient Egyptian Literacy
NYTimes on Ecce Homo
The Guardian Ecce Homo Critique
The Art History of Ecce Homo
AP on Ecce Homo a Year Later

As we plan out the new year, please enjoy a recast of one of my (Tom's) favorite guest appearances on Spellbound and Gagged, hosted by the wonderful friend of the show Ellen Weatherford!

It's the start of the new year which means a bunch of new questions submitted by YOU! What are our favorite words from the podcast? What's it like to scrap a topic? Would we still love each other if we were worms?

Things we Talk About:
Contrapoints' Twilight Video
Jenny Nicholson's Star Wars Hotel Video
Shaun's Channel
China's Artifical Sun
XOXO 2024 Videos

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:07:42) Part 1
(01:13:53) Part 2
(01:54:30) Outro

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We also learn about: west our weawy heads, this year we had long topics and a good spread of topics, Jono?s Q&A themes 2.0, next year I?m doing a topic on Caroline, we can neither confirm nor deny it?s the dex we know, Challengers Zone of Interest is the new Barbenheimer, games that show your personality, ahh eating your own poop has been on my list for forever, the use of pseudoscience, Caroline?s favorite word from the podcast is Quantum thanks to Tom (awww), Tom?s favorite is Kleptoparasitism, just ?Light? as a topic, can we sweep Ella off her math?s feet, say hi to us! we clicked with Gretchen TOO well, the format change has been great! someone thought that with the format change one person would just not be there, next year one topic - then zero - then negative topics, Ella?s super secret question section, Head and Shoulders made these lovely locks, being non binary, Ella still collects squashed pennies, learning outside the podcast, you are a clown, actually it turns out we don?t need comedy in this show - huh, tiktok is like matches and podcast are logs, tiktok vs youtube vs podcasts, oh people are listening to this, waiting for the other fun to drop, how we resolved learning everything, 2026 is gonna be a banging year, Ella?s 2 Star review of the year.

It's the HaLearn Days!! We've gathered a whole bunch of fun facts from each other and from friends of the show to share the gift of laughter and learning!

Images we Talk About:
The Rat Car
Rat Car Video

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Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:07:57) Part 1
(00:59:11) Part 2
(01:37:06) Outro  

We also learn about: The Christmas Brussel Sprout Tradition, put christ back in halearn days, Where the Dog Ran, eclipses are more of a ?huh?? moment, you might hear a frog during an eclipse - or more likely a science communicator, the turkey helicopter truth is stranger than fiction, giraffes can?t walk up anything steeper than 20 degrees, topography is important for giraffe reserves, the emu wars, Anatidaephobia, gotta define intimate, I eat and talk with tongue, our most liked tweet was from a jetlag hat, there?s nothing in the rules that says a wormhole can?t exist and a dog can?t play basketball, we got a rejection on our preprint from St Nicholas, Michel Foucault?s Elf on a Shelf, the scale of believability, when we stopped believing in santa, ?Santa knows I can?t speak german?, the child psychology of Santa, William Shatner?s Halloween mask, Sleierton?s Betty Boop ghost mask, Tom finds out he?s driving a rat experiment car, the yuletide tradition of rats, rats would rather drive longer route to get food, alright ?Tom Lum?, rice crispies and taco sauce, bingo bingo prison industrial complex! it?s very human to want to have tasty food, the places I would least like to have taste receptors, taste receptors and buds are different, we just discovered them on our tongues first and called them taste receptors, really our tongue has testicle and urethra receptors, screen-based phones, electronic purgatory, we will all get old, and as we say on the podcast: every year another vagina, should all our fun facts be forgot and never brought to mind, we?ll raise a cup of kindness yet, for everything.

Sources:
Minute Physics video on Animals during Eclipses
Frog Song During Eclipse Study
Wikipedia: WKRP in Cincinnati ?Turkeys Away?
Why Can?t Domesticated Turkeys Fly?
Eureka Alert: Giraffes Struggle with Slopes
The Emu War
Scientific American: 80 million microbes in a Kiss
Microbiome Journal: Kiss study
Nature News: Shared Microbiome
AIP Wormhole Definition & Paper
Astronomy Today on Wormholes
2024 Paper: Children?s Belief in Santa Claus and Moral Behavior
Snopes on Michael Myers Mask
Snopes on Scream Mask
William Shatner interview Entertainment Weekly
Independant: Scientists Taught Rats to Drive
BBC: Rats Taught to Drive Tiny Cars to Lower Their Stress Levels
2020 Paper: Enriched environment exposure accelerates rodent driving skills
Space Shuttle: The First 20 Years
NPR: Ramen Noodle Currency
2013 Paper: Taste perception: From The Tongue To The Testis
NIH In Brief: How Does Our Sense of Taste Work?
1992 NYTimes Article about Cell Phones
CBC Article on the First Text Message

Where are we in the universe? And what can we learn from all the hilariously wrong guesses and bad maps that got us there? And just how much carrot propaganda was there? Well, we'll see a lot of posters and a few myths to debunk!

Images we Talk About:
Dunn's Earth & Moon Maps
Herschel's Milky Way Map
Wright's Island Universes Drawing
The Image of M31 from 1919
First Full Image of Earth
The World Carrot Museum
Carrot Poster 1
Carrot Poster 2
Disney Carrot Characters
Dr Carrot

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:04:44) Where are We?
(00:45:11) Carrot Propaganda
(01:24:04) Outro

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We also learn about: we?re allowed to make up topics I guess, Samuel Dunn?s map of the Earth and moon, subtle thematic forshadowing, galactocentrism, the awkward teenage years of science, every human could see the milky way, the backbone of night, the milky origins of galaxy, Herschel?s heliocentric drawing of the milky way, Cosmic Pride, the zone of avoidance, island universes is multiverses for the middle ages, the great or not so great debate, can you debate something more interesting like moo deng, M31 the little cloud, the person whose telescope proceeds him: Edwin Hubble, ?here is the letter that has destroyed my universe?, years of fighting over terminology, the World Carrot Museum, the moment this turned from a distraction into a topic, we do actually need vitamin A for night vision and eye health, you can only get vitamin A from meat? and vegetables? and fruits, the blackouts in WWII, carrots to help drivers be safer in the dark, incredible  podcasts - they help you see in the blackout, Cat Eyes Cunningham, no official document shows intentionally hiding radar with carrot vision, the myth happened organically, ?the war could be won on the kitchen front?, Walt Disney designed carrot mascots, if you don?t think food is political I have some posters to show you.

Sources:

Yale History of the Center of the Universe
Library of Congress: History of Discovering the Milky Way
NASA Archive of The Great Debate
Hoskin's Amazing "The Great Debate: What Really Happened"
Astronomy of Today Book with the Image of the M31 "Nebula"
Hubble: The Realm of the Nebulae
ESA Bio on Edwin Hubble
NYTimes Hubble Bio
Science Friday Article about Henrietta Leavitt
Kragh's Fantastic "Nebulae or Galaxies? The history of a change in astronomical terminology

---

NHS: Macular Health
American Academy of Opthamology on Vitamin Deficiency
American Optometric Society on Vitamin A Eye Health
Healthline: Are Carrots Good for Your Eyes?
Smithsonian Magazine: A WWII Propaganda Campaign Popularized the Myth That Carrots Help You See in the Dark
Web Archive: World Carrot Museum
NYT 1940: London Urges Carrot Diet For 'Blackout Blindness'
NYT 1942: Blackout Hints -- From a Blackout Veteran
NYT 1942: Disney Family
BBC: How 'Cat's Eyes' helped change the world
Britannica: One Good Fact

It's everyone's favorite holiday: the day we ask you to submit your Q&A questions!!

Go to www.LetsLearnEverything.com/questions and submit your questions about truly anything at all from the science to the serious to the silly!

Why do leaves change color? No... like really?  Like, show-me-the-scientific-literature-really? After all how mysterious could the answer be? And holy frick we're finally doing a topic on swearing!! What are the eras of swearing, and what is swearing actually good for? 

Listen to our episode of Escape this Podcast: Oceananigans pt. 3 - The Bering-toss Strait

Images we Talk About:
Carotenemia Hands

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:34) Autumn Leaves
(00:53:04) Swearing
(01:42:57) Outro

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Congrats to Kelly & Zach on the book prize! We should write a book, chilli peppers are spicy cause mammals digest them before pooping them out, magnesium makes leaves green, it?s worth it to drop leaves because when they do work they?re so efficient, man trees are interesting, carotenemia, ?yeah so if you want an unnecessary amount of detail??, Caroline has an answer for all our questions, anthocyanins, red leaves could be aposematic, finding one explanation for a color doesn?t mean we know for sure, Tom calls the climate change turn, warmer weather keeps leaves greener in autumn (good) but there?s less sunlight to use it (bad), animals use autumn leaf colors to help with migration, wont someone think of the leaf peepers, I don?t know/we don?t know, this might be too much swearing - thats a threat and a promise, the versatility of fuck, ?fuck is good?, may all your teeth fall out except one to give you a toothache, Ella read a book for this of all topics, ?hmm? fuck cunt shit??, determining a historic swear is like jazz - it?s the swear words you don?t see, stop trying to make clit a thing, Ella was totally right to put a swear warning at the top, the nuance of gender roles in ancient rome, Fuck has a beautiful equality to it, shitepokes and windfuckers, cunt used to be just a regular word for vulva, medieval ages didn?t care about shit? literally, the journey of swearing makes dull history exciting, UK US Australia swearing differences, if Ella?s dad saind cunt that?s naughty - if Tom?s dad said it they?d need to have a conversation, our swearing histories, why do we keep swearing? swearing has social benefits, swearing is intimate! swearing for emphasis and believability, we swear without thinking and yet it?s so socially complex, swearing activates different parts of the brain, the ?fuck? region of our brain and the fuck region of our brain are closer than we thought, screaming neutral words as a control, swearing is why Ella is the strongest host, we still don?t know Why swearing is so powerful for us, tell us your favorite swears! review corner breaks the fourth wall.

Sources:
Cleaveland Clinic : Can Eating Too Many Carrots Turn Your Skin Orange?
Harvard Forest: The Process of Leaf Color Change
USDA: Science of Fall Colors
Harvard Forest: The Biological Significance of Leaf Color Change
2022 Paper: The phenomenon of red and yellow autumn leaves: Hypotheses, agreements and disagreements
2004 Paper: Plant coloration undermines herbivorous insect camouflage
Science Direct: Plant coloration undermines herbivorous insect camouflage
2004 Paper: Nature's Swiss Army Knife: The Diverse Protective Roles of Anthocyanins in Leaves
2012: Simulated herbivory advances autumn phenology in Acer rubrum
2002 Paper: Foliage color contrasts and adaptive fruit color variation in a bird-dispersed plant community
CID: How Climate Change Impacts Leaf Pigments
Image: Heam VS Chlorophyll
---
Yiddish Curse
Swearing: A Social History of Foul Language, Oaths and Profanity in English - Geoffrey Hughes
Holy Shit by Mellisa Mohr
Stapleton et al ?The power of swearing: What we know and what we don?t?
Study: Swearing as a Hypoalgesic
Study: Swearing Makes you Stronger

Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch of Lingthusiasm joins us to casually answer all of our pressing linguistics questions with the most mind blowing facts.  Why does science use so much dang latin, and what is so unique about internet linguistics?

Images we Talk About:
Gretchen's Favorite Frogs

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:10:58) Latin in Science
(00:54:49) Misc & Internet Linguistics
(01:22:46) Outro

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We also learn about: Words that change the state of the universe, a promise is a kind of magic, ?people ask me how i make a living doing linguistics and it?s very simple actually? just make podcast wagers, the language of space, space pidgin language, ?that?s a great hypothesis and it?s actually hte opposite of that? sometimes the answer is imperialism! English is being used in science now how Latin was back then, the vulgate bible was latin to reach more people even the ?vulgar?, you?re cousins a scribe learning latin - what are you doing a podcast? ?Writing is a Technology?, writings only been invented like 4 times, writing originated as reciepts and lists, the A is an upside down ox, why invent a new letter when that means having to change the printing press - just double letter! you access computing through programming and programming is linked to language, we don?t know whether the first language was spoken or signed, french linguists once banned the discussion of the origin of language bcause it was deemed ?fruitless?, it?s wild we could retrofit our brains to read and write at all, changing, linguistically accurate sesame street, ?Who would know aught of art must learn, act, and then take his ease?,  Ella you have goregous tripthongs, nice try Gretchen but our 69th episode was a few back, the Mini frogs, isn?t a linguistic podcast niche? you?re saying that to me in a language, Gretchen loses her words and makes perfect sense, Gretchen went back in time to give herself this mystery book, you don?t have to be the version of yourself you imagined when you were twelve, Linguistics loves undergrad researchers to explain the youths, there?s always new linguistics to study, the kids are changing language- and that?s so fascinating, linguists and polyglots are related but not the same, what makes internet language Uniquely internety, is it really internet lingo or just AAE, the internet made people write a lot more than they used to, informal and unmediated writing is uniquely internet linguistics, people have wanted a sarcasm punctuation since at least 1575, emoji are a form of gesture, postcards were sometimes numbered like twitter threads, Gretchen did Sooo much research into the literature of sarcasm, the potential for misunderstanding is the point of sarcasm, ?sarcasm is this linguistic trustfall?, pushing the boundaries of what a language can be, Solresol the musical conlang, language is everything - rainbows are language, whitespace programming language,

Cryptids may be spooky, but what about the spooky animals that turned out to be... real?? And what makes a good spooky story? Could it be something secretly... heartwarming??

Timestamps:
(00:07:15) Intro
(00:04:21) Former Cryptids
(00:54:25) The Art of Spooky Stories
(01:52:33) Outro

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We also learn about: Caroline have you never met a vampire? that was from episode number Four Three, what?s spookier than having to be known, Ella met Tom the true Cryptid, the cryptid museum was research, formerly the cryptic mascot: the Okapi, komodo dragons inspired king kong, 60 iron tipped teeth (like beavers), dragon virgin birth, yes queen life finds a way, squid squads on the hunt, only photographed in 2004, 20 years ago - don?t say that, 8 fully controllable giant tentacles, ?I?m learning!? as it drags you down to the bottom of the ocean, save the whales because we need them on our team for the kraken wars, you know what?s not a cryptid? western hegemony, the head of a fox and the tail of a monkey, so many names for the jackalope across the world, are jackalopes cancer??? the Jackalope and HPV vaccine are zero degress of separation away, Ella writes a sappy ending for Tom, Ella watched The Ring at 6, being retold Evangelion in an art class, a meteor made of vampires, King?s 3 kind of scary, ?don?t you like to feel the shivers??, evangelical horror, Zhiguai - accounts of the strange, a story of a beautiful harp player, creepypastas, Ella formaly apologize for her cocktober misstep, ?I see you sluts out there and I don?t want to do you any disservice, two sentence horror, the artistry of Telling a scary story, maybe the real spooky story was the friends we made along the way who were dead the whole time.

Sources
Guardian: Komodo Dragons
ESA Journals: The Okapi of the Apadana
BBC: Facts About Komodo Dragons
Scientific American: Iron Tipped Teeth
New Yorker: The Squid Hunter
BBC Science Focus: Giant Squid
Wiki: Giant Squid
On the Track of Unknown Animals
The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battell
PBS: Fantastic Creatures
Evolutionary Anthropology: Discovering Gorilla
Cambridge University Press: Hanno and Gorillae
Nature: The First Description of a Kangaroo
National Geographic: The Myth of the Komodo Dragon?s Dirty Mouth
Shope OG paper
Royal Society Paper: Shope Papilloma Virus
The Scientist: On the Trail of the Jackalope
---
NYTimes Story on Exxon and Climate Change
A History of Horror
Timothy Beal Paper on Evangelical Horror
Pliny The Elder's Ghost Story
Liu Ming Ming on Zhiguai
The Story of Liang
Gan Bao In Search of the Supernatural
Retelling Urban Legends Study
SCP Antimemetics Division
JSTOR Daily on Alvin Schwartz's Process
CRR Library on Alvin Schwartz Language Arts Interview

For our birthday this year, we've each gifted a topic for one another! For Caroline, an environmental hot take: can invasive species ever be... good? For Tom, an entire topic about one of his favorite hobbies: rock climbing! And for Ella, interviews from the Ig Nobel Laureates this year.

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Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:09:04) Good Invasive Species
(00:46:31) Rock Climbing
(01:18:05) Ig Nobel Interviews
(02:01:14) Outro

We also learn about: In podcast years we?re 60, Ella?s party hat, what?s your favorite color and least favorite invasive species, it?s my birthday also, the zebra mussel, Humanity: ?Hubris et Brevi Perspicacia?, canetoads that can?t even reach the beatles, maybe Ella is biased being part of the largest invasive species: the brits, not all non-native species are invasive, the neutral long island wall lizards, should I stan or cancel the grass? you can?t get rid of the nonnative birds in hawaii without killing the native plants, knowing beneficial non-native species helps us triage the real problems, Caroline?s thesis was on this??? a traditional LLE answer: It?s Complicated, Tom simply screams, duck roll, GTA IV Trailer, songs when he was born, but how does this involve scientology? what makes us human, Live from the Ig Nobels, ?Don?t Die?, sometimes you need to remember to breathe, ?I mostly just watch clips on Lateral?, Blue Zones, Dr Saul Newman?s Poem, Skinner?s pigeon guided missiles somehow missed Ella, minority report for pigeons, ?I?m from New York Most of the Times?, vortex energy capture, The Water Swims the Fish took years, a long winded way to say just keep swimming, the silly in the science, Tom rips up Caroline?s gift.

Sources:
Canal & River Trust: Zebra Mussles
National Museum Australia Cane Toads in Australia
Wikipedia: Beavers in Patagonia
Scientific American: Hawaiian Birds
The Conversation: Some ?invasive species? can help native ecosystems thrive.
The Hawaii VINE project
Hofstra University: Italian Wall Lizards
Trends in Ecology and Evolution: Valuing the contributions of non-native species to people and nature
Brown University Press Release
Brown Daily Herald: Rebuttal
---
Rock Climbing sources coming soon!
---
Ig Nobel Ceremony 2024
Max Planck Institue on Blue Zones
UCL on Saul Newman's Work
Pre-print of Saul Newman's Paper
Smithsonian Mag on the Pigeon Project
NIH on Operant Conditioning
APA Eminent Psychologists of the 20th Century Survey
Julie Vargas Queens University Belfast Interview
Jimmy Liao's Dead Trout Paper

What's actually going on in the center of the Earth, and just how interesting and useful could it be?  And how did the now ubiquitous Planned Obsolescence start with... bicycles??

Images we Talk About:
An Early Bicycle
Bilhert's Animations

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:05:06) The Core
(00:58:24) Planned Obsolescence
(01:45:52) Outro

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We also learn about: Core Memories, we live on the zest of a lemon, there?s something neapolitan icecreamy about the Earth, Bridgmanite is 38% of the Earth, The Iron Catastrophe sounds metal as hell, an audio journey to the center of the Earth, ?Eat My Ass Out Radiolab?, Earth?s Internal Heat Budget is half original energy and half nuclear, the Earth won?t cool down for at least another 10 years,  the American Miscellaneous Society?s Project Mohole, in 20 years we dug 12 km and escaped the solar system, when you don?t have earthquakes- use grenades! the shadow in the center of the Earth, Inge Lehmann kicks ass, ?the master of a black art?, the inner core wobbles, the core is grainy and grows faster under Indonesia, the 2 most magical things: cold beer and hand warmers, the Inner Core Nucleation Paradox, ?how wonderful that we have been met with a paradox, now we have some hope of making progress? - Niels Bohr, the Earth?s magnetic dynamo, Planetary Habitability is uh pretty important, everyone say thank you to the core, the innermost inner core, sometimes the one you?re looking for has been right below you this whole time, Tom falls hook line and sinker for a sudden 175 page bicycle paper, the first bikes without pedals or steering, the boneshaker, older men used tricycles, only the rich and adventurous used bikes, the safety iphone, you?re still using a bike 8? 10% of ads had a bicycle, Bernard London coined phrase the phrase 100 years ago, Planned Obsolescence was a legal proposal, contrived durability, there?s so many flavors and they all suck, e-waste, fast fashion is a vicious cycle, please I?m so full no more obsolescence words, car scrapping, why can we only help the planet when we also make a ton of money too, I?ve never seen someone so excited over Right to Repair, what do you mean you didn?t check every country??s legal system? 

Source
SEG Wiki on the Layers of the Earth
Forbes: Bridgmanite
?Six ?Must-Have? Minerals for Life?s Emergence?
Olsen Lecture on the Iron Catastrophe
Bureaeu of Economic Geology on Mohole & Kola
Science Article on Bridgmanite
Britannica on Richard Dixon Oldham
AMNH's Wonderful Article on Inge Lehmann & Earthquakes
Don Anderson Paper Review of the Inner Core
Smithsonian Mag on Inge Lehmann
Excellent Review from Harvard on Lehmann's Groundbreaking Paper
Geological Society of America on Super Rotation
Scientific American on Core Slowing
Space on Core Growth
University of Leeds on the Inner Core Nucleation Paradox
Scientific American on Core Paradox
2023 Paper on the Innermost Inner Core
---
Science Direct: Planned Obsolescence
1984 Paper: An Economic Theory of Planned Obsolescence
1998 Paper: The Most Benevolent Machine: A Historical Assessment of Cycles in Canada
2023: A Deep Dive Into Addressing Obsolescence in Product Design: A Review
IndieAuto: 1960's VW Ad
PERC: Planned Obsolescence: The Good and the Bad
BBC: How The Right to Repair Might Change Technology
The Guardian: Planned Obsolescence: The Outrage of Our Electronic Waste Mountain
CBS News: Apple is Sending Out Payments to iPhone Owners iImpacted by "Batterygate." Here's what they are getting.
The Evening Standard: Apple Battery Lawsuit
Iberdrola: Planned obsolescence
UNITAR: Global e-Waste Monitor 2024
BBC: E-waste: Five Billion Phones to be Thrown Away in 2022
European Parliament: The Impact of Textile Production and Waste on the Environment (Infographics)
The Atlantic: The Neurological Pleasures of Fast Fashion
Britannica: Fast Fashion
Ellen MacArthur Foundation: Fashion and the Circular Economy
WRAP: 2022 Press Release
WRAO: 2022 Report
NatGeo: Fast Fashion Goes to Die in the World's Largest Fog Desert.
UK Parliament: Vehicle scrappage schemes
Cars Lost Forever In The 2009 Scrappage Scheme
BBC: 2030 petrol ban
2019 Paper: Consumer Responses to Planned Obsolescence
Right to Repair EU
European Parliament: Right to Repair
BHS: Sewing Skills

Longtime inspiration and friend of the show Hank Green joins us for a very special episode!  How do colonial organisms with just one queen avoid incest? How many Ig Nobels have gone to sex science? Can the team figure out the identity of the Reverse Platypus? When was the first dick grafitti, and could the story actually be... wholesome???

Watch: The video of the unexpected moment

Images we talk about:
MRI of Sex
Rat Pants Diagram
The Phallodeum Image
Venus of Hohle Fels
The Debatable Dick
Hadrian's Wall Dick Graffiti
Vindolanda's SECVNDINVS Dick
The Vindolanda Dick
Nikasitimos's Dick

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:06:40) How Not to Colonial Incest
(00:20:52) Ig Nobel Sex Studies
(00:39:07) The Reverse Platypus
(01:06:31) The First Dick Graffiti
(01:33:10) Hank Questions
(01:53:44) Outro

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We also learn about:

Emmy award winning standup comedian Hank Green, the fellowship of the ning, the literal birds and the bees, the icelandic ant geneology app, icelandians are my favorite colonial organism, breeding flight, slay queen - happy pride everyone it?s when we?re recording this, sperm storage, queens have a life's worth of sperm and eggs inside them, Spermathica that?s my word of the day, the termite queen stores the sperm inside a king, ?he?s not my boyfriend he?s my sperm storage unit?, naked mole rats may do incest but they dont have cancer! the answer is ?all of the strategies somewhere?, after all reproduction is The Thing in evolution, the ribbed condom won all the prizes that year, any topic can be a sex topic if you try hard enough, I think the ancient greeks proved a gay bomb would make them more powerful, MRI Porn is a new fetish, we should study sex more, sex makes you want to pee, whatever you?re doing pee right now, The Sex Live of Pantsed Rats, would rats be sexier if they wore pants like this or this, our google history is fucked, polyester testicle sling contraception, The Awesome Polyester Scrotum Cup Club, if you?re creative they?re all sex numbers, shark live birth is metal, teamwork - what is this the lateral podcast? Jules Howard presents Duck Vagina VR, ?if it?s Caecilians I?m going to be so mad?, Bizarre Beasts gave Tom a heart attack, the Reproduction DLC, Caroline falls in love with Caecilians, ?they come in blue!?, all that matters is How Do They Bone! lots of non mammals give live births sharks to snakes to aphids,  phallodeum: penis day! ?we had to make a whole new peen word!?, phallodeum photo watermark, I haven?t looked at every caecilian penis okay! ?can you make it into cheeeese thoooough?, we?ve invented a new fetish and a new delicacy, Caecillians and Sicillians have a lot in common, why are not talking about this more! ?it?s not surprisingly, maybe I?m just very smart!?, 40,000 year old genital sculptures, Venus Hohle Fels, the debated dick, ah the conclusive slit! ?it?s like looking for a face in a cloud?, the penis test is whether it would be confiscated in school, penis art vs penis graffiti, how many penises on Hadrian?s wall, almost one dick per mile, time to penis, ?are you ready for your next penis?, Secundinus deez nuts, when Nick and Tim have sex so good they carve about it on a wall, ?little special moments all over the world?, Pompeii sex graffiti, eventually this will be historic! we bully Hank into following Caroline, competing on TikTok is hard and also it?s broken, Hank derails us with a mouth coil, Hank?s science journey, counting clams for the science fair, people like seeing real science, Thanks Hank!

Sources:
List of Ig Nobel Prizes
MRI Genitals Study
Vice: MRI Sex Study
Rats Having Sex in Little Outfits Study
The Rat Study but Humans
Sex Improves Breathing Study
---
NatGeo Caecilian Overview
Textbook Caecilian Overview
Excellent Caecilian Reproduction Review
Extensive Paper on the Phalodeum
Various Non-mammal Milks
The Recent Study on Caecilian Milk
NYTimes Interview on Caecilian Milk
---
2009 Paper: A female figurine from the basal Aurignacian of Hohle Fels Cave in southwestern Germany
Smithsonian Magazine: The Cave Art Debate
New Atlas: Scientists Clash Over World's Oldest Penis Carving
2023 Paper- Symbolic innovation at the onset of the Upper Paleolithic in Eurasia shown by the personal ornaments from Tolbor-21 (Mongolia)
IFL Science: Ancient Roman Penis Graffiti Shows Humans Will Never Change
BBC News: Lewd Roman Insult Found on Stone Near Hadrian's Wall
The Guardian: 2,500-Year-Old Erotic Graffiti Found in Unlikely Setting on Aegean Island

It's an infamous pseudoscience, but what haven't we learned from the rise and fall of Phrenology? And Lego are ubiquitous, which means there's a lot to learn and a lot of nuance for our love of these stackable bricks.

Things we Talk About:
The Phrenology Pamphelet
The Lego Cullen House
Lego Seismometer
CERN Lego Device
The Brick Experiment Channel

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:32) Phrenology
(00:56:34) Lego
(01:38:25) Outro

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We also learn about: Get the lego phrenology set now! just listing all the lego sets, academic racism, the head wasn?t always so important, the Cardiocentric Hypothesis, Minds Behind the Brain, ancient egyptians just tossed the brain, Aristotle thought the brain was a radiator to keep the heart from overheating, the brain doesn't Look like it does anything, Galen suggested the brain might be important actually, sperm for brains, Caroline enjoys tricking us by saying a person?s good ideas first, Cephelocentric Hypothesis, mapping the brain in the 1600s, NOT related to the frenulum, buzz feed phrenology quizzes, flexing your brain so hard it breaks your skull, Tom is proven to be not funny, our desire for personality tests and fortune telling, travelling phrenology salesmen, there shouldn?t be medical celebrities, phrenology was a passion of the elites, reading an actualy travelling phrenology sheet, ?differently bumped?, edibnugrh fringe was a lot less fun when it was the phrenology capital, we checked and it?s actually mozambique have the best brains - just gotta take the L on this one, Marie Jean Pierre Flourens kicked ass and helped kill Phrenology with real science, it comes in like a fad and leaves like a fad, I only liked phrenology before it was cool, the scammers are making our racism look bad! we?re not harsh enough about phrenology, ?repoliticizing? phrenology, when it?s built its just one thing but when its pieces it can be anything, shirtless lego jacob, 20,000 lego sets, Play Well - Le go, after enough fires lets just stop using wood, stud and tube design, the lego To Kill a Mockingbird set, mindstorm was ahead of its time, Caroline?s got their lego driver?s license from legoland, lego nerd culture, adults without kids spend more, ?transbranding?, Ella had to read so much corporate jargon but it?s impossible to not talk about their business strategies , lego seismograph outside the eras tour, CERN lego, their story is better than ours dad, instructions for a lego skin cell printer, LEGO: expensive for toys - cheap for science equipment! David Aguilla?s prosthetic project, Tracey Williams? Lego Lost at Sea project, plastic?s resilience is a positive and a negative, lego replay and reuse, this is a trust test of nuance and both things being true at the same time.

Sources:
Minds Behind the Brain: A History of the Pioneers and Their Discoveries by Stanley Finger
The University of Queensland: Understanding the Brain: A Brief hHistory
Brain Beats Heart: A Cross-Cultural Reflection
Merriam Webster: Phrenology
The Antlantic: The Shape of Your Head and the Shape of Your Mind
Britannica: Phrenology
Smithsonian Insider: Study Finds Facial Structure of Men and Women Has Become More Similar Over Time
2005 Paper: The Reliability of Sex Determination of Skeletons From Forensic Context in the Balkans
The Guardian: Archaeology?s Sexual Revolution
2018 Paper: An Empirical, 21st Century Evaluation of Phrenology
Carnegie Mellon University: Phrenology
2021 Paper: Phrenology and the Average Person, 1840?1940
The University of Edinburgh: Phrenology and Edinburgh
Gina Rippon: When Bigger Isn?t Always Better: How History Got The Female Brain Wrong
Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill on Sexual Equality
The Guardian: Django Unchained and the racist science of phrenology
2007 Paper: Marie Jean Pierre Flourens (1794?1867): An Extraordinary Scientist of His Time
---
Lego Twilight Cullen House
Brick Architect: Number of Lego Bricks
Brickset: Number of Lego Sets
Brick Economy Most Valuable
Brick Economy Most Expensive
Wikipedia: Legoland
Lego History Chapter by Lars Konzack
Lego Mindstorms Wikipedia
What is Transmedia? Article
Lego and Transmedia Research
Lego And ?Transbranding? Blogpost
Lego Seismometer Kit
Lego Seismometer Youtube Clip
Guardian Article: David Aguilar Lego Prostheses
Hand Solo Youtube Channel
Lego Table From CERN
Article on Other Lego Scientific Tools!
Cardiff University: Lego Bioprinter
Lego 3D Printer Paper
Lego Inventions Video (Pancake Flipper and Super 8 Projector)
Lego T-Rex Sculpture
Lego Every Day Stuff Ideas
Lego Lost at Sea Twitter
Lego Shark Tweet
Tracey Williams Book: Adrift: Lego Lost at Sea
Tokio Express Crash Context Article
Tracey Williams: Lego at Sea Paper
Statista Lego CO2 Emissions
Lego: 99% Outside Emissions
Lego Replay Initiative
BBC: Lego from Recycled Plastic 2018
Wired: Lego from Recycled Plastic 2024

While we're sending Tom "Well Wissage" and a speedy recovery, enjoy Ella & Caroline on this tremendous episode of one of our sibling shows on the network, Secretly Incredibly Fascinating!

You may have heard Epigenetics used as a buzzword, but what is it really? Is it something we know about, something still new, or... both? And what in the world are the World Games, and what makes them better than the Olympics?

Links we Talk About:
Ella's SciShow Video on X Chromosome Diseases
Sport Casting
Fin Swimming
Haudenosaunee Flag
Christopher Root's Incredible Paper on the Colonization of Lacrosse
The Adorable NYMuseum Haudenosaunee Video

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:04:21) Epigenetics
(00:57:40) The World Games
(01:50:54) Outro

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We also learn about: Ella passes her driving exam Tom?s not bitter about John Oliver, what is y?alls familialarity, epi- meaning on top of, epigentics are like tabs or blacked out text in the book of your DNA, epigentics stop your brain from turning into bone, oh did other people help Rosalind Franklin with the double helix? bases and double helixes and histones, literally blocking DNA from being read, epigentics are less cyberpunk and more exercise is good for you, epigentics is why you go blind from masturbating, it?s simpler in animals, ?I?ve been here the whole time!?, ?you?re enough Tom?, 2 X chromosomes means you have an extra, X Inactivation, Calico Cats are Genetic Mosaics, your epigentic markers are like your browsing cookies: you clear them before giving them to someone, are pollinators plant cucks? Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance, is it nature or nurture? generational trauma doesn?t have to be epigenetic to be real, inherited cherry blossom mouse sensitivity, the effects are subtle, Ella might have a high epigenetic age from her rock and roll lifestyle, this is so new there?s so much we don?t know, the epigenetic advice: healthy diet and exercise, how different could the world games be? casting for sport, wait did you hear me say break dancing is this a bit, the worst SEO for a name ever, Rugby 7s started at the World Games, the World Games are as old as Beyoncé, let?s do our own thing we?ll definitely be more popular than the olympics, tried at the hague? we sure did! at the least the World Games are being honest about it being a bumpy ride, the ?Memorandum of Understanding? reads like a parenting agreement, grouping by sport not nation, the curse of hosting the olympics, reviving forgotten sports like Tug of War, wait who was first?? guys come on have some respect for yourself! breaking records with fins, shark skin suits aren?t biomimicry, tech doping, fin swimming and barebow archery, murderball is an official world game sport, the NYTimes officially called lacrosse ?frat boy? sport, mile long hundred person lacrosse, of course sports are spiritually healing, colonizing lacrosse,  Haudenosaunee - the people of the long house, Tom cut it with the sad voice tell us what happened, ?we wouldn?t be here without their medicine game? they need to be there?,  we?ll have to see if the olympics accept the Haudenosaunee, if your games are as old as beyonce you dont have to worry about breaking tradition, ?nothing is silly, everything should be respected and held up?, Ella goes OFF and takes over the topic.

Sources:
Chromosome Structure
Aboud et al. What Is Epigenetics?
Nature: Types of Epigenetic Modifications
Study on Exercise and Epigenetics
Nature: Diet and Epigenetics
Macdonald: Epigenetic Imprinting
Nature: When Imprinting goes wrong
Basta & Pandya: The Beautiful X Chromosome
Getting the Right Amount of X
Review on X Inactivation
Calico Cat X Chromosome Inctivation
PBS: Lamarckian Evolution
Cell: Transgeneration Epigenetic Inheritence
How Epigenetics are Wiped Clean
Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance Prisoners of War Study
TEI Dutch Famine Study
TEI Study Children of Holocaust Survivers
TEI Cherry Blossom Mice Study
Epigenetic Clock Review
---
Casting Federation Records
World Games Website: About
1993 World Games at The Hague
The Olympic "Memorandum of Understanding"
Reporting on the First World Games
World Games President Interview about Wheelchair Rugby
NYTimes on Indigenous Lacrosse
Onondaga Nation on Lacrosse
Chocktaw Nation on Lacrosse
Christopher Root's Incredible Paper on the Colonization of Lacrosse
Haudenosaunee History
NPR on Haudenosaunee Players at the Olympics

It's a word we say all the time but... what IS a species? How has it been used in the past, and could the different answers all be right?  And how does voting work in the UK?  It starts with voting for knights, and could hopefully end in the future with something even better.

Images we Talk About:
Ella's Zoom Moustache

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:04:23) What is a Species?
(01:01:54) UK Voting
(01:50:46) Outro

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We also learn about: Jenny Lec, the definition we know is wrong, has anyone taken my title On The Origin of Species? This is my favorite! Oh shit?  generic and specific, thinking of species as logical units, Kingdom Phylum Friends Acquaintances Work Friends Genus Species, the anime dewey decimal system, dark fungi, the cognitive dissonance of science at the time, even Darwin didn?t have a good definition of species, 1942 is when the common species definition was popularized, Biological - Evolutionary - Genetic definition of species, species gerrymandering, there is only 1 species of giraffe but should there be 4? policy first science, you don?t need hard definitions to do amazing things, nature is constantly doing kickflips over our no skateboarding signs, you really put your whole polizzy into naming that hybrid, a ring of banging around the himalayans, ring species in actuality look like a biblically accurate angel, let?s just ask what definitions scientists use, you can?t tell if fossils ever fucked, we only knew about human neandrethal interbreeding since 2010, what?s so wrong with having multiple species definitions? there?s a lot to biology! in between ?there?s one answer? and ?there?s no answers? is ?there?s many answers?, Lizzy Poll, you can just call an election early?? in the UK you just vote for your member of parliament, it?s actually really weird to have a separate vote for president, every 2 steps forward is brought 1 step back by ?the monster raving loony party?, Elmo think women no need to vote, the house senate and president, coalitions, tea cups with electoral college members on them, electing knights in the first parliament in 1264, bloc voting lets you pick your top favorites, Cromwell was the first Footloose, we had discovered quantum physics before women could vote, First Past the Post was only establish in 1948 in the UK, what are the positives of First Past the Post and cockroaches? please let us loose to bash FPTP, tactical voting, Australia has a version of Ranked Choice, Tom finally gets to wax poetic about Ranked Choice Voting, france?s 2 round voting, if the definition of species should match the task why not the type of voting system? the 2011 voting reform attempt, it?s been the foundation of this country for generation, try ranked choice voting on smaller scales and locally, Ella falls in love with herself, happy hour gender confusion

Sources
Carl Zimmer for NYT "What is a Species Really?"
Aristotle's Use of Species and Genus
Queiroz on Ernst Mayer and Species Definitions
Montana State on Linneus and Species Definitions
Dark Fungi
Ernst Mayer's Modern Excellent "Systematics And The Origin Of Species"
Paper Debating Darwin's Definition of Species
Bird Interbreeding
Scientific American on Wolf Species
The Greenish Warbler Broken Ring Species
Stankowski and Ravinet's Amazing "Quantifying the use of Species Concepts"
NHM "Are Neandrethals the Same Species as Us"
---
Sky News: General Election Explained
UK Parliament: Voting Systems in the UK
Electoral Reform Party: How Long Have We Used First Past the Post?
2019 Paper: Electoral Systems and Electoral Reform in Historical Perspective by David Klemperer
Parliament UK: Magna Carta
PDF: UK Parliament and the Monarchy
UK Parliament: Women get the Vote
BBC: Voting System in the UK
UK Parliament: Proportional Representation
The Guardian: ?Disproportionate? UK Election Results Boost Calls to Ditch First Past the Post
The Conversation: The Conservatives May Regret Campaigning to Keep First Past the Post in 2011

After much deliberation, the academy (listeners of the podcast) has voted on the best topics from the past year! If this is your first episode, you'll get a sampling of our favorite moments of science and sillyness, and if you're a long time listener, you'll hear some behind the scenes thoughts about the topics, as well as... a secret teaser at the very end??

Images we Talk About:
The Jacobin Pigeon
The Pouter Pigeon

Timestamps:
(00:04:37) Intro
(00:03:59) Part 1
(00:55:00) Part 2
(01:51:28) Outro

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We also learn about: you gotta listen to the best ofs for the rock paper scissors drama, I?m not sure if Ella remembers our names, it?s not the same joke it?s a Call Back, superseding my superseded theories, Tom?s jokes are like the rain - you walk on through and hope it stops quickly, it gets Jalapeno business, I miss Comedy, Ella claimed review corner but keeps forgetting it, the art of topic writing is explaining but also what not to explain, our favorite topics of each others, wrote down the idea for public domain day the year before, Tom goofs up the La La Land Joke, ohh did you just finish episode 50? maybe, thanks everyone for the nice messages, Mum! ?those stupid awards?, they?re all great episodes, we learned who in our family listens to our show, you guys wanna learn about ants??

What happens when a star collapses to a point of near infinite gravity? And just how hard could that be to actually... find? And why do we love tattoos so much, and how long have human beings across the world been loving them too?

Check out Tom's first long form video that's finally out!
Images we Talk About:
The Crab Nebula
First Image of a Black Hole
Photo of OUR Black Hole, Sagiratius A
Ancient Siberian Tattoo

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:47) Black Holes 101
(00:57:51) Tattoos
(01:43:53) Outro

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We also learn about: black holes are massive (mass) but not massive (size), nothing can escape a black hole, supermassive black hole by muse, the closest black hole is 1000 light years away so we don?t need to worry about them too much, matter can?t escape the Plunging Region, does your McDonald also have black holes? stellar evolution, ?they?re just big gassy balls doing nuclear fusion?, the fusion in a star pushes against the gravity keeping it in equilibrium, Caroline?s fear of the sun expanding, stellar corpse, a neutron star is just made of neutrons - that can?t be right, if you add too much flour (mass) this will turn into an atomic bomb (black hole), stop saying massive and start saying voluptuous to avoid confusion, one in every thousand stars could be a blac khole, ?surely that?s not sustainable? ?have I got news for you about the future of all things?, theorizing a black hole in 1783, we only get the word Black Hole in 1964, betting on Signus X1, finding black holes by nearby objects? bright hot death screams, it took 2 years to process the black hole image, sorry I think it looks like a butthole, Sagitarius A - our galaxies butthole, deslicious spaghettification, we?re all being spaghettified, I?m being raviolified here! where do you go in a black hole? into a topic for another day, ?tom saw the topic on me?, no inheritance until you tattoo me onto your butt, Caroline got a tattoo to honor pigeons, the above skin - the skin - and the below skin, phagocytosis, microphages contain and become the tattoo! ?the art is your immune system? and we only knew this in 2018, Ötzi the Iceman had 57 tattoos, ella regrets letting us guess what tattoos he had, ritualistic and therapeutic tattoos, egyptian women tattoos, old preserved siberian tattoo, the painted picts, Tattoo comes from the Tahitian word Tatau, famed tattoo afficianado Charles Darwin, the meaning of polynesian tattoos, sailor tattoos were inspired by polynesians but adapted to things meaningful to them, sailor tattoos were like sailing achievements, shark repeller tattoos, ancient greek tattoos were literally ?skin-stigmas?, stigma affects culture and culture affects stigma in a feedback loop, ?true on all accounts for my case?, gender norms in tattoos,  ?ooh another means by which to put down women don?t mind if I do?, biases in the workplace,?it?s literally only skindeep?, tattoos are so personal and human of course you can?t assume or speak to all of them, they?re an art and they?re universal across cultures.

Sources:

NASA: Black Holes
Science News Explores: What are black holes?
Gravitational Collapse Overview
Goddard Space Flight Centre: The Life Cycles of Stars: How Supernovae Are Formed
Britannica: End States of Stars
Britannica: Evolution of High Mass Stars
Britannica: Origin of Chemical Elements
BBC Bitesize: The Lifecycle of Stars (GCSE Resource)
NASA: Neutron Stars Are Weird
Science News Explores: A Short History of Black Holes
Astronomy: A Brief History of Black Holes
Lind Hall Library: John Michell
American Museum of Natural History: The Country Parson Who Conceived of Black Holes
University of Chicago: Black Holes Explained
Astronomy: Cygnus X-1- The Black Hole that Started it All
Event Horizon Telescope: Astronomers Reveal First Image of the Black Hole at the Heart of Our Galaxy
1978 Article: A Supermassive Object in Galaxy M87
Space.Com: Where do Black Holes Lead To?
SYFY: How Worried Should We Be About Black Holes?
Podcast: The Guardians Science Weekly- White Holes
Image Source: NASA First Image of a Black Hole
Image Source: Event Horizon Telescope: FIrst Image of Black Hole at the Centre of the Milyway
---
Pew Research: How Many People Have Tattoos?
The Science of Tattoos
Mouse Tail Tattoo Study
Wellcome Collection: A Brief History of Tattoos
Smithsonian: More History
Japan?s Tattooing History
Maori Tattoos
Polynesian tattoos
Pazyryk Tattoos (Very Cool)
First Female MP to Wear Moko
Sailor Tattoos
Broussard & Harton's Amazing Tattoo Stigma Study

How fast can a regular human accelerate from 0-60? How can you learn to love roller-coasters? And is there a terrifying experience Ella's done that even Tom Scott hasn't?? After having us on his show for so long, it's finally time for Tom Scott to join us on our show!

Videos we Talk About:
Tom Scott's Amazing Roller Coaster Video
Tom Scott's Failed Video Video

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:04:15) Human Acceleration
(00:50:03) Roller-coasters and Failed Videos
(01:18:05) Outro

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We also learn about: herding cats and children, Thanks for the compliment you can leave now, UK metric is a mess, milk is just a blur cause it?s PastYourEyes, both Tom?s can?t be like this, stopping the angular velocity pedants, what?s so hard about orbital mechanics it?s not rocket science, this is a question full of "um actually"s, the longest second of Tom Scott?s life in the Mythen car, ?would you do it again? ?oh in a heartbeat?, just frame cars as IRL speedrunning, ?oh my god she got sub 1 second?, please prove me wrong so I can ride it, steam catapulting a plane, the Nevis Catapult might win if you believe the hype, all politely saying roller coasters, ?roller coaster nerds are like train nerds but worse?, running coasters at 100%, calibrating the weights of cars, British politeness way under-markets stealth, ?I?ve done something Tom Scott hasn?t done???, the experimental Nürburgring coaster that only operated for 4 days, Do-Dodonpa the ?rattly bastard? that broke bones, dragsters going 0-60 in half a second stunned us to silence, you could buy the nitro X2 for less than a tesla but you do get to drive a tesla more than twice, ?I reserve the right to turn this into a video essay?, our roller coaster journeys, dread and expectation, Ella loves the fear, ?this is the worst thing I?ve ever done, YES?, LLE live episode on a roller coaster, Dick & Dom in da Bungalow sounds like a parody of something british, only americans will remember Raccoon Barrel from the Barrell Brothers! ?It has been a metaphor which is possibly the highest priase I can give something like that?, making a video about failed videos ?you only get to pull that trick once?, Tom?s one shot Netherlands drone video, ?it was a Look How Clever I Am video?, ideally it?s both clever content and cleverly shot, ?the content has to be worth it?, it?s like OKGO - matching content with production, the ratchet of quality, ?the frustration I feel is a compliment to David?, ?i left everything on the table?, 3 of us just mimed sword swallowing, "not a great mime"

It's Pride and Poll-jedice!  For pride month we have some pride merch including an amazing design by Caroline, with proceeds going to Pride in Stem!  Also, toss in your vote to defend the honor of your favorite topic for the next Best Of Everything episode!

All of this is at LetsLearnEverything.com

What can we learn by mimicking animals in nature, and more importantly, what can we learn about the nuance behind the buzzword of biomimicry?  And just how many wild facts are hidden in a simple chess set?

Images we Talk About:
One of the Oldest Shatranj Sets

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:26) Biomimicry
(00:50:25) Chess Chess Evolution
(01:33:41) Outro

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We also learn about: So nice to have a topic taken, biomemetics, the spider grabber is more like bio-stealing, ?nature is a giant pool of ideas?, ?nature is the OG and does it best, organism level, lily leaf umbrella, who remembers davinci? none of his flying machines even worked, a quick lesson on flying, biomimcry was only coines in the 1950s and only become trendy in the 90s, gecko feet, spinning the biomimicry slot machine, sheep wool antidepressants, a biomimicry quiz, oh right we want fewer train sonic booms, whale flipper tubercles, whale power turbines, Ella biomimics Caroline, termite AC, destroying nature to recreate nature, biomimicry 3.8, the ickyness of corporate biomimicry, we?re an organic sustainable biomemetic podcast, a person after our hearts critizing a ted talk, you can biomimic like davinci or the wright brothers, nature is not infallible, pitching our own biomimetic ideas, bumble bees saying oops, ripple, chess chess evolution you know like that game, can?t stop thinking about those anal beads, everything Caroline?s learned about chess is against their will, Tom learns about himself by talking about chess camp, scachs d?amor was so nerdy, the hornets nest of chess historians, chess comes from the indo-persian area, borders are weird why do I need so many modifiers to describe this area, calling it a horsey is more historically accurate, a chariot makes so much more sense than a castle moving across the board, oh wait does no one else call this piece a religious figure? the knight has been unchanged for 1300 years, the chad knight vs the virgin bishop, we codified white goes first after discovering quantum physics, do you want to play a game of king? Your king is in king, shah mat - the king is dead, people say check because ?I won?t let you do the silly thing, we?re gonna keep playing for a little bit?, checkered comes from chess not the other way around, cheque -> exchequer -> checkered -> chess -> shah, why aren?t we talking about this more! Ella?s very good biomimicry review corner 

Sources:

Biomimicry as a Sustainable Design Methodology
How Biomimicry is Inspiring Human Innovation
Types of Biomimicry
History of Biomimicry
Velcro
Biomimicry in Flight and Wing Design
NASA Wing Morphing
NASA Successfully Tests Shape-Changing Wing
Japanese Bullet Train
Whale Turbines
WhalePower
Soft Tobotics
Tentacle Robot
The Planned City of Lavasa
Eastgate Centre
Biomimicry 3.8
The Limitations of Biomimentic Architecture
The Ripple Device
Mosquito Inspired Needles
---
Davidson's Incredible "A Short History of Chess"
Scachs Damor
The Beginnings of Chess
Oldest Shatranj Set
The MET "Chessmen and Chess"
Wired: The Game of Chess had Patch Notes Too
White and Black in Chess
The MET "Shah Mat!"
gov.uk on The Exchequer
Encyclopedia Britannica Chess History

How much real science is there to the Mandela Effect, and how much should we be worried about our faulty memories?  And what's the science and history behind our long love for house plants?

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:31) False Memories
(00:57:30) House Plants
(01:37:47) Outro

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Yes Ella my favorite host of Let?s Learn Everything, Fiona Broome - Paranormal Researcher, Ella is shocked to learn the Mandela Effect was a conspiracy first, repressed memories, the McMcartin Preschool Trial again, the concept of memories at all is bonkers, we shoudl do more experiments, flashbulb memories aren?t as ?unchanging as the slumbering rhinegold?, the original study didn?t even check if the memories were accurate they just assumed, flash bulb memories only Feel more accurate, the concept of false memories can make people believe in the mandela effect MORE, don?t have an existential crisis, rebunking your memories, most memory recalls aren?t adversarial like mandeal effect questions, Metamemory effects, just like memory isn?t so simple false memories aren?t so simple either, ?I wish I hadn?t said yay when you said racism?, does anyone remember the 2 president Obamas? we gave false memories to bees, having false memories makes bees MORE complex not less, false memories aren?t flaws they?re just part of memory, classic meatbrain, ?my brain is a beautiful and complex thing?, movies can exist, The Four Legged Chairs, the art of putting a plant into a pot, egyptians used plants for a ton of stuff, portable plants, gillyflowers for bad breath and paying rent, peppercorn payment, (ayyy), Wes Anderson?s The Winter Hotel for Plants, renting plants for a party, the illegal orchid trade, plant hunters, pteridomania, the World War 2 potted plant boom, the millenial urge to care for plants is more of a historic urge, guilting your cohosts into talking about your plants, you?d need 10 potted plant per square foot in the home to clean the air, just imagine yourself as a Sim you need art and plants, hot or not for plants, there aren?t really huge health benefits from plants, it feels like studies are asking ?why do we like plants so much???, just enjoy plants for the sake of enjoying them, office plants are nice but I feel like work life balance will do better for my health, I just think they?re neat! 

Sources:
Snopes: The Mandela Effect
The Wiley Handbook on The Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory
Ethan Watters: The Forgotten Lessons of the Recovered Memory Movement
The False Memory Syndrome: Experimental studies and comparison to confabulations
The Fallibility of Memory in Judicial Processes
UCLA Med on Memory
Implanting False Memories
Hirst and Phelps Amazing Review of Flashbulb Memories
Predicting Confidence in Flashbulb Memories (re: Michael Jackson)
Fiona Broome: The Mandela Effect is Not False Memories
False memory and COVID-19: How people fall for fake news about COVID-19 in digital contexts
BBC on Mandela Effect
False Memory in Bees Study
Analysis of False Bee Memory Study
Don Hertzfeldt On Memory
---
National Museums Liverpool: Gardens in Ancient Egypt
Britannica: Houseplants
National Trust: A Potted History of Houseplants
Horticultural Reviews, Volume 31, The Foliage Plant Industry
Grace and Thorn: The History of Houseplants
Cobham Museum: Windlesham- Peppercorn Payment
The Plant Runner: A History of Houseplants
The Scotsman: Our Fascination With Indoor Potted Plants has a Long and Colourful History
Architectural Digest: The Most Iconic Houseplant Trends Through the Decades
The Guardian: Indoor Plant Sales Boom, Reflecting Urbanisation and Design Trends
The Telegraph: Houseplant Sales Soar
2019 Paper: Potted Plants Do Not Improve Indoor Air Quality: A Review and Analysis of Reported VOC Removal Efficiencies
University of Reading: Owning Houseplants Can Boost Your Mental Health ? Here?s How to Pick the Right One
2022 Paper: The Appearance of Indoor Plants and their Effect on People's Perceptions of Indoor Air Puality and Subjective Well-Being
RHS: Houseplants: To Support Human Health
2022 Paper: Effects of Indoor Plants on Human Functions: A Systematic Review with Meta-Analyses
BBC: Are Your Houseplants Bad for the Environment?

What happens when the largest living animal becomes the largest dead animal?  Just how complex could a dead whale be?  And what are the differences, flaws, and nuances of the jury system, and can we be studying it better?

Images we Talk About:
The Zombie Worm

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:59) Whale Fall Ecology
(00:52:52) Jury Duty
(01:32:41) Outro

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We also learn about: A bucket of mice, when whales die the people who love them will miss them, a jury of your cohosts will decide if your topic is boring, Tom stretching his arms to measure a 34 meter long whale, marine snow and whale falls, gettin ghastly gassy, a new mussel told us to go check out the whale fall, whales are mortal, deep sea mussel delicacy, how hard could it be to find a whale over 70% of the earth?s surface? let?s just wait for the carcass to come to us? wait actually?? welcome to our automatic zoo of dead things on the beach brought to you by the crown, sinking beached whale carcasses, the 3 stages of whale fall, Denial/Mobile Scavenger Phase can take 2 years, scavengers eat about one (1) Caroline of whale per day, Enrichment Opportunist Phase, Sulfophilic Phase, 7% of a whale is bone lipid, a sulfur bacteria carpet. did we walk into Caroline?s trap? This final phase can last 100 years! It?s not a trap if I?m asking you a question! 690,000 whale falls at any time, never in my wildest dreams would i be so lucky as to know the 12km distance from fall to fall statistic, whaling is deforestation for bacteria, Osedax or the zombie worm or the bone devourer or snot flower, there?s Drama in this whale fall ecosystem, dinosaur fall ecosystems, fossilized bones with fossilized deep sea snails, we got picked to talk about jury duty, UK US differences, a 900 day trial, there?s something wrong with Ella, the US is the only country to have so many civil juries, this topic has become a US UK debate, only the US requires unanimity, juror selection bias, racially diverse juries do a better job, I wish we could be surprised peremptory challenge is biased against women, oops it?s a british colinization topic, you could literally say too many asians, semi-jural systems, is this a philosophy topic about human nature?? our various biases, the confirmation bias against tom?s bad jokes, can we study jury bias? there hasn?t been any research on live jury deliberation.

Sources:
NatGeo: Dead whales are washing up on the East Coast.
NHM: Whale Fall: What Happens When Whales Die?
Review of the Impact of Whale Fall on Biodiversity in Deep-Sea Ecosystems (2022)
The Discovery of a Natural Whale Fall in the Antarctic Deep Sea (2013)
NPR: What Happens After A Whale Dies?
Scientific American: Life at the Bottom: The Prolific Afterlife of Whales
Fish Food in the Deep Sea: Revisiting the Role of Large Food-Falls (2014)
NatGeo: Making a Home on Plesiosaurs
Chemosynthesis-Based Sssociations on Cretaceous Plesiosaurid Carcasses (2008)
---
Cornell Law: What is Jury Duty?
Jury Law UK
Magna Carta
538: Jury Duty is Rare
Jury Service in the UK
Juror Exemptions and Exclusions USA
Differences between US and UK Legal Systems
Jury Duty in UK vs USA
UK Civil Case Info
"Justifying Prohibited
Peremptory Challenges (2007)"
Jury Under Fire: Jury Selection Can Effectively Identify Biased Jurors
NACDL: Bias in Jury Selection
EJI: History of Bias in Jury Selection
Comparison of Juries in Democratic Countries (2007)
Jury Trial in different countries
World Jury Sytems: Exporting the English Jury System (2000)
Monash Law: Do we need juries?
Cognitive and Human Factors in Legal Layperson Decision Making: Sources of bias in Juror Decision Making (2022)
Thomas Lecture on Jury Bias
The Curious Case of the Jury-Shaped Hole (2023)

What are all these rocks hurtling through space? Do we need to worry about them, and what can we learn from them? And what are guitar tabs, why don't people take them seriously, and why does Tom love them so dang much?

Videos we Talk About:
Osiris Boop Gif

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:54) Near Earth Objects
(00:56:58) Guitar Tabs
(01:47:55) Outro

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(tabs via lucamashup)

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E|-6666-8--8--111-

We also learn about:

I thought you were just going to just teach us guitar, still on course to learn everything in a few months! everyone?s favorite part: semantics and exceptions, Tom is a perfectly unmovable object, it?s doxxing myself if people know I?m the center of the universe, the great attractor was my nickname in high school, ?naturally occurring objects traveling through our solar system which are smaller than planets and aren?t moons?, you must be 1 meter tall to be an asteroid, asteroids are metally comets are icy, a song of rock and metal dust and ice, asteroid/comet -> meteoroid -> meteor -> meteorite, 1.3 million known asteroids and only 3,800 comets in our solar system, within 50 million km it becomes a near earth object, obviously we?re all thinking about the Tunguska asteroid asteroid, 80 million trees felled and it didn?t even hit the Earth, one of the oldest meteors we know is from 2 billion years ago, the vredefort dome, 2 billion year old nuclear weapon testing??? the only time the earth makes Shatter Cones is meteors and nuclear explosions, if the meteor had hit the water it might not have been so catastrophic for dinosaurs, but it was going 20 kilometers per SECOND, a force 10,000 times the world nuclear arsenal, the crater has to be DISCOVERED, what does it mean for 50% of species to go extinct, the asteroid also vaporized the ground and water, impact winter, stopping photosynthesis kicks out the base of the foodchain, the meteor that broke the camel?s back, land animals over 25kg went extinct, there were a few lucky ducks, LLE Meteor Insurance, as long as Aerosmith is alive we?re fine, Asteroid Watch via the Center for Near Earth Object Studies, people listening 100 years from now hope you don?t have any asteroids (sucks to suck), Planetary Defense Coordination Office, Double Asteroid Redirct Mission, I cheered when we smashed into that asteroid, activating asteroids, asteroids are loose remaining legos from the formation of the solar system, OSIRIS-REx sample return, a kid named Bennu, tom loses his mind at the video of Osiris booping Bennu, personifying Rex, OSIRIS APEX, Apophis will be closer than some satellites, POV Apophis shots, Astroid Quakes, ?cute is a weird way to describe a spacecraft touching an asteroid?, casual Caroline classical guitar lore drop, Tom learns guitar by accident, ?too bad I picked this up so late?, Ella?s youtube ukulele era, don?t stop believing, tabs aren?t shittier sheet music, Van Halen didn?t invent tabs, tabs feel modern but also obvious, just because words are more efficient doesn?t mean diagrams aren?t useful, I?m just trying to play Don?t Stop Believing I have to worry about context? Guqin tablature dates to the 7th century! music has a lot of racism, rockin out those lute tabs, I knew this was secretly a font topic! monospace fonts revitalized tabs, sheet music software is garbage, god did not want me to use LaTeX they wanted me to use my mortal hands, OLGA, reading Beyonce tabs is not the same as listening to Beyonce, Paul McCartney?s the one who plays Blackbird wrong, let the philosophy professor enjoy his guitar! why punish the people who love your work, tabs are in a gray zone still, ultimate-guitar has a monopoly, the gray zone may benefit publishers, thanks swifties, Thomas Chesney?s tab research, it?s not a million miles away but it?s not right, ooh this song?s so commercially viable! Polphia?s tabs, Pinegrove?s tabs released before the songs, Tom?s guitar tabs, being a part of someone?s music journey in a little way, this could have been a guitar tab podcast, a cozy review corner.

Sources:
The Structure of the Milky Way
The Great Attractor
Nasa on Orbital Debris
Asteroids vs Comets vs Meteors
Nasa on Asteroids
Notable Asteroid Impacts
Tunguska Event
Atomic Asteroid Blasts
Vredefort Impact Structure
NASA on the Dinosaur Extincting Asteroid
NHM: Why did the dinosaurs die out?
Near Earth Objects
DART
Asteroid Watch
Asteroid Watch Dashboard
DART results
Nasa Data on Bennu
OSIRIS REx Touch Down
Bennu Sample Analysis
Nasa Data on Apophis
ESA's Possible RAMSES Mission
---
NPR on Online Tabs
Van Halen Tab Interview
Mick Goodrick's The Advancing Guitarist
Yang Yuanzheng on Ancient Guqin Tablature
Solitary Orchid on the Guqin
Tantacrul's Critique of Sheet Music Software
Laura Gary's Amazing Legal Analysis of Tabs
Paul McCartney on Blackbird
NYTimes on Guitar Tab Legal Troubles
Ultimate-Guitars Licensing
Chesney's Paper Studying Guitar Tab Authors
Polyphia Tabs
Pinegrove Tabs NPR Interview
Tom's Habanero Tabs
Newspeak Dictionary

With Tom as their DM, Ella, Caroline, and Ellen Weatherford team up for a dicey heist in the big apple. Only one catch: they're rats! Can Rex, Tango, and Muriel ratatouille their way to nab the cheddar, or will they crumble like feta?  Believe it or not this is only the first quarter of the full 2 hour episode that you can only get by becoming a member at MaximumFun.org/join

Can Tom finally take on his science communication white whale: Quantum Physics??  And what is gossip, what did it mean in the past, and could it actually be... good??  Find out on a very special MaxFunDrive episode!

See all the MaxFunDrive events, pins, and links here!

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:06:29) Quantum Physics
(01:00:14) MaxFunDrive!
(01:09:08) Gossip
(01:44:14) Outro

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

We also learn about:

One minute of self indulgence, another bit?? when bugs gossip, Moby Dick was warning about the perils of teaching quantum physics, the word quantum is boring,  every grocery list is quantum (except Ella? infinite and continuous grocery list), Ocean?s 11 is a quantum movie, quantum physics is 100 years old, why doesn?t my toaster blast me with radiation, Lord Rayleigh is literally the why is the sky blue guy, Planck really didn?t want to be right, ?an act of desperation?, you?re taught quantum physics in high school chemistry, Heisenberg v Pauli v Schrodinger beef, fully just saying jackass, even smart people hate quantum physics, ?nobody feels perfectly comfortable with it?, YOU ALREADY KNOW QUANTUM PHYSICS, Newton has been redeemed! we almost called photons ?quantums?, some of quantum physics is bullshit but not all of it is, what has quantum physics ever done for us? we do actually have a quantum phone and quantum machines at the hospital, Quantum Nuclear MRI machines, sometimes it?s nice to remember that, Schrodinger's Cat is the worst first thing to learn, ?not a real experiment, does not prove anything, does not match physical reality, and was intentionally designed to be absurd?, it?s like learning about vision through only optical illusions, ?but where?s the weird??, making peace with your whale, as long as you support us we will live forever, no Ella, there?s nothing wrong with you, ?debrief?, gossip can be positive! GODSIB MEANT GOD SIBLING, you wouldn?t bang your godbrother, Tom you don?t have kids, in the 12th century you could leave your kids to watch Dune 2 whenever you wanted, a gossip is someone you can tell anything to, gossips were backup for lecherous men, gossip was a neutral term for an essential supportive community, gossiping about witches gossiping ?that?s gossip as well babe?, spoiler for most social issues it?s about class and power,  scold?s bridle, ?I love idle talk, I?m a witch?, coffee houses are just gossip houses, ?oooh yeah, evolution and gossip, this is good stuff?, we wouldn?t be humans if we weren?t sociable and idle talking, gossiping is like primate grooming, animals would LOVE to gossip if they had language, I don?t care what you think as long as it?s about me, work stopping gossip seems neutral but isn?t, I?m not gossiping I?m receiving evaluative information about a colleague, it?s good the science doesn?t show bullying is cool actually, most gossip is neutral gossip, I wouldn?t compliment my boss - only in gossip, you think it?s not gossip cause it?s about Tom Brady?? It is!! it?s all preamble for review corner.

Sources:
Melville's Book on Quantum Physics
Dan Styer's Amazing Brief History of Quantum Physics
Dan Styer's Textbook "The Strange World of Quantum Mechanics"
Futurama Quantum Joke
Chad Orzel on the Origin of Quantum Physics
Helge Kragh's History of Planck as "The Reluctant Revolutionary"
Heisenberg's Letter to Pauli (s/o to u/restricteddata)
Gilbert Lewis' Naming of the Photon
Chad Orzel "What Has Quantum Mechanics Ever Done For Us?"
Old Computers
Nobel Prize Committee on Bloch's Work
Dr. Baird's Great Analysis of Schrodinger's Cat
---
Gossip and Resistance Among the Medieval Peasantry
From the Whisper Network to #MeToo?Framing Gender, Gossip and Sexual Harassment
Envy, Poison, and Death: Women on Trial in Classical Athens, Chapter 3.2
The Psychological Anatomy of Gossip
Tell Me the Gossip: The Self-Evaluative Function of Receiving Gossip About Others
BBC Worklife: The Surprising Benefits of Gossip
Gossip in Evolutionary Perspective
How the ?Gossip? Became a Woman
Gossip and Gender Differences: a Content Analysis Approach
BBC Worklife: Why Gossiping at Work is Good For You

IT'S THE MAXFUNDRIVE!!!  And we're kicking it off with a network-wide trivia competition with other MaxFun hosts!

You can see all our upcoming events during the drive and become a member at www.LetsLearnEverything.com

This special network wide event is a celebration of the MaxFunDrive! If you?d like to support podcasts you love for just $5 a month and get bonus gifts in the process, go to maximumfun.org/join.

J. Keith van Straaten and Helen Hong from ?Go Fact Yourself? are joined by:
Teresa McElroy - ?Shmanners?
Ross Blocher - ?Oh No, Ross and Carrie!?
Ella Hubber & Tom Lum - ?Let?s Learn Everything!?
Jordan Morris - ?Jordan, Jesse, Go!? and "Free With Ads"

If you?d like to hear more hosts competing for trivia supremacy, visit Maximumfun.org for the full version of this show.

What would a man-made ecosystem look like on mars?  Just how complicated could it possibly be?   And are the human and societal issues just as complicated?  Science communicators and authors Zach and Dr. Kelly Weinersmith ask and answer all of these questions and more!

Check out: 

A City on Mars!
The Weinersmith's article on Frontier Mythology and Space
The Weinersmith's paper in the journal Space Policy on Space Communes
BeaWolf
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:05:30) Mars Ecology
(00:47:28) Space Communes
(01:11:59) Outro

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

We also learn about: The superior Weinersmith, we almost have a Doctorate majority but not quite, having a PHD doesn?t make you smarter it just makes you poor and willing to suffer, back in my day Comic-Con was only 2 pence, we only just learned about high perchlorates on mars soil, all those images of glass habitats on mars would be SO DEAD, ?this doesn?t sound appealing to me? to live under the dirt?, just rinse off all your dirt how hard could it be, the engineer brain thinking ?if a problem is solvable then the problem is solved?, apologies to the rotating space colony community, space waste is a pain in the ass, cows aren?t efficient but BUGS are, Biosphere 1 is Earth, Lunar palace, there aren?t many experiments and we don?t really know how this all scales, if Sarah goes we?re fine and if I go I destroy the colony by BREATHING TOO MUCH, everything?s more complicated in space, Lungs help your facility PVNRT, humanity needs a plan B but ?a backup that loses that much ground on human rights is not a backup i want!?, historiography of space: history of how we think about the history of space, being a wet blanket about frontier mythology - you are speaking to the right people, ?there are beautiful dreams, but I feel like the beautiful dreams tend to crack when you look at them with a little more detail?, ?cows are just a nonstarter in space?, goat cheese pizza was great for morale, finally we can stop poisoning ourselves with taro, vegans are great on mars, the only life threatening scorpion you can find the US makes it onto Noah?s ark, solar is great but not when there?s dust storms, we have dormant nuclear reactors in space, Simpson reactors, in conclusion: we?re not ready, it?s not as easy as making a terrarium, closed loop ecologies are not normal, who knows what happens 10 years in, ?this is the problem with talking to Zach and I?, the superior Weinsersmith has subsumed the other in a violent coup, this isn?t a hypothetical: ?there?s answers to these questions?, mars religion, you can?t take your barbies and go home on mars, literally no one wanted to do dish duty, SELL THEIR HOUSES TO WHO BEN FUCKING AQUAMAN, ?being able to leave is HUGE for so many reasons?, ?so Zach and I are both cowards?, speculating is good to imagine problems to avoid them which is maybe the least funny answer I?ve given, ?you can?t jump back to roman law?, ?I think the book is much better because of our conflicts?, going on research walks,  we don?t have time for space law, ?that?s not a common response Tom?

Sources:
A City on Mars!
The Weinersmith's article on Frontier Mythology and Space
The Weinersmith's paper in the journal Space Policy on Space Communes

Losing your head isn't good, but what actually happens, and what can it tell us about animals, ethics, and bad science? And what is a constructed language, when does it fail, and when can it be use to make great... art? As they say, Ni Lernu ?ion!

Content Warning that today's science topic can be a bit grim, so if you want, you can skip ahead to 54:54

Things we Talk About:
Mike The Chicken
Sea Slug Moving
The Narmer Palette

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:36) Don't Lose Your Head!
(00:54:55) Constructed Languages
(01:36:55) Outro

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

We also learn about:

Pretty clear cut or chopped, did we need to write this down? why do you die when you lose your head? let?s start with a deep philosophical question: are we our brains? Tom clearly doesn?t know Mike the chicken, Mike was the original pitch for Charlotte?s Web, mooching some slugs, The Mystery of the Beheading of Elysia Marginata, capital punishment comes from beheadings, the guillotine could behead 20 people per hour, ?the most gentle of lethal methods?, ?do you guys not have the death penalty? ethics of rat euthanasia, Canavero?s bogus self published head transplants, like the language you?re speaking RIGHT NOW, Auxiliary Engineered and Artistic Languages, Tom falls into Ella?s Esperanto trap, Esperanto was banned and persecuted, the benefit of Esperanto is it has no culture, English is a language of exceptions, 1850 to 1920 people were going WILD constructing languages, none of us had heard of Volapük, ?a language without umlauts sounds monotonous, harsh, and boring?, the language wars, a priest and an eye doctor trying to solve the tower of babel, Esperanto has ?dipthongs - ugly!?, ?rattling an hard bony R?, Artlang POP QUIZ, for Tolkeins the languages came first, english is a tapestry of languages and artlangs can convey that, the use of purposefully meaningless artlangs, soo soo! NOOT NOOT! boyhowdy! nonsense languages have universality, citing the pingu fan wiki, is penguinese more universal than esperanto??? Toki Pona, newspeak, ?and that brings us strangely and sharply to the end of the topic?, appreciating real turtles and robot turtles.

Sources:

BBC: The Chicken That Lived For 18 Months Without a Head
Britannica: How Mike the Chicken Survived Without a Head
Scientific America: Fact or Fiction?: A Cockroach Can Live without Its Head
New York Times: Meet the Sea Slugs That Chop Off Their Heads and Grow New Bodies
NewsWeek: Did Anne Boleyn Really Speak After She Was Beheaded? Here's the Science
American Historical Association: Narmer Palette
2023 Paper: "The Most Gentle of Lethal Methods": The Question of Retained Consciousness Following Decapitation
1975 Paper: EEG Evaluation of Humaneness of Asphyxia and Decapitation Euthanasia of the Laboratory Rat
2013 Paper: Electroencephalographic Evaluation of Decapitation of the Anaesthetized Rat
2011 Paper: Decapitation in Rats: Latency to Unconsciousness and the ?Wave of Death?
1991 Paper: Pain Perception in Decapitated Rat Brain
New Scientist: Head transplant carried out on monkey, claims maverick surgeon
2019 Paper: First Human Head Transplantation: Surgically Challenging, Ethically Controversial and Historically Tempting
The Guardian: First Full Body Transplant is Two Years Away, Surgeon Claims
The Telegraph: First Head Transplant Successfully Carried Out on Monkey, Claims Surgeon
Vice: Head Transplant Surgeon Claims Human Brain Transplants Are 'Technically Feasible'
2017 Paper: Surgical, eEthical, and Psychosocial Considerations in Human Head Transplantation
---
Constructed languages:
Francois Rabelais
International Auxiliary Languages
Esperanto
Esperanto 2: electric boogaloo
Native Esperanto Speakers
Why Learn Esperanto:
English language exceptions
Creating new words in Esperanto
Volapük
Trüth, Beaüty, and Volapük
Quenya
Quenya Course
Klingon Language Institute
TGIF in Simlish
How Simlish was Created
Penguinese
Penguinese example
Animalese
Animalese example
Polygon on Animalese
Toki Pona:
Sapir?Whorf hypothesis
Experimental languages
Newspeak
Newspeak Dictionary

How have human beings evolved, and how could we evolve in the future?  And what are some famous first messages, and what can we learn from looking at them?

Images we Talk About:
Telegram
First Record Image
Second Record Image
Other Record Images

Tom's Ingenuity Comic

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:15) Are We Still Evolving?
(00:52:00) Famous First Messages
(01:38:17) Outro

We also learn about:

DANGER BOO BOO, Ella has her own discord?? homo sapiens were 300,000 years ago but humans were 2.5 million, homo sapiens coexisted with 8 other human species, homo habilis was chilling for a million years, the homo hunger games, neanderthals had sewing needles and clothing, they seem so human because they are, maybe it was our chins, it?s hard enough not to anthropomorphize other animals let alone other humans, humans were the same height 40,000 years ago, humans may have lost height from being shit at farming, we have smaller brains but that doesn?t mean we?re less smart, natural selection & mutation & gene flow & gene drift, the iphone gave us smaller jaws, melanin is about synthesizing that sweet sweet vitamin D, we have evolved the adaptation of diversity, physical appearance is mostly just vitamin D and warmth - that?s it, it?s not good genes vs bad genes, microevolution, ?instead of a mass of clones, we are already starting to see a glorious riot of variations?, this is all speculation, ?we?re very unpredictable?, hello world! I learned it by watching you!! shouting and switching places, Tom live writes fanfic, purpose & imagination & inspiration, no YOU hang up, WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT, hey is your daughter okay? tone poems, Ella bled for her art in *checks notes* We Will Rock You, the dynamic range of the alpine symphony, if found please return littered golden record to Earth, ooh criteria! images on the record are COPYRIGHTED, who knows if they?ll be in the public domain by the time aliens get it, the beauty of the calibration circle, pulsar map, Ella?s not inspired, Caroline inspires Ella a bit, mixing up the golden plaque and golden record, MIR LENIN SSSR, DISREGARD PREVIOUS MESSAGE USA FOREVER

Sources:
Homo Habilis
Natural History Museum on The Origin of Our Species
Other Human Species
The Guardian on Neanderthals
Why were homo sapians the winners?
How have we changed?
When did we become fully human?
Factors Driving Evolution
Factors Driving Evolution 2
The Role of Geography in Human Adaptation
Early Human Height Estimation
Genetic Drift
Has Human Evolution Topped?
What will humans look like in 1 million years
Sickle Cell Anemia 
Scientific American No, humans have not stopped evolving 
---
All Wikipedia's Hello World Programs
Bell's Journals from Library of Congress
Wired on First Phone Call
First Telegram from Library of Congress
First Test Compacy Disc
Stephen Johnson What is a Tone Poem?
Houston Symphony on Strauss's Tone Poems
Boston Sympohony Orchestra on Alpine Symphony
NASA on Voyager Record
NASA on Pioneer Plaque
First MIR Message to Space
Ray Tomlinson's First Email

How did eels evolve electricity? And when is "women's work" neither women's nor work?

Images we Talk About:
Socks
More Socks
Thimble
Bag
Crochet Art

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:26) Evolving Electricity
(00:51:13) "Women's Work"
(01:38:46) Outro

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

We also learn about: 

Happy moisturizer to all who celebrate, Ella?s just here for moral support, when did they put batteries in eels, someone's just statically charging these eels, what did we call electric eels before electricity? why would we think lightning and a fish are the same thing? the necrotizing torpedo and the torpor eel, Aristotle was a shite time traveler, ?in all of humanity, if people think they can pout it up their asshole they will?, Allessandro Volta what a convenient name, electric fish gave us the battery not the other way around, the electric organ, when did electricity evolve? electric organ discharge, electrogenesis, it?s not an eel! get in line with the other animals that need their names fixed, 90% of an eel is electric organ, what does it feel like? turning fish to stone, shocks can function like a neurotoxin, the electric doublet can make fish twitch, Ella has a revelation, the physics is the biology, it?s all electric baby, magnetic animals 2 electric boogaloo, the domestic arts, This Woman?s Work, it was never always women?s work, old socks, but what does this have to do with men?? Ella predicts the British stealing a sock, male knitting guilds, knitting fishermen makes perfect sense, knitting was ?compatible? with many kinds of life, mechanized knitting made it feminized,   of course it?s always intersectionality, you know what?s appropriate for a woman is to do this thing we don?t need anymore, being demoted as an art form, ?male art vs female craft?, Caroline?s just doing this topic to show their crochet is art, weaponizing the male ego to bring back knitting, bequeathing a valuable and symbolic thimble, Tom gets emotional over a salacious thimble, if that?s not art what is, also I can't believe you actually read all these thanks

While we take our January break we're rebroadcasting our appearance on Creature Feature!  Katie pulled out some of the wildest facts for us, so enjoy, thanks for your patience, and see y'all in 2 weeks!

It's our annual Q&A episode where we look back on 2023 and answer your questions to learn about our process, our favorite things, and each other!

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

We also learn about: Ella gets on the album, Dodie is very frog people music, pigeons fruit flies and sloths, our favorite topics of each others,  black holes and microscopes and extinct animals, there?s one whole picture of Ella and Caroline, I need more than 5 seconds of this lady, Nessie Krampus and the Jersey Devil, Who the Hell is Edgar? the cursed 2nd spot in Eurovision, just do it! build a portfolio and experience and find local stuff in your area, alergic reaction to Tom?s joke, Australian Ella, card games, moved to tears by taskmaster, Skip & Loafer and Frieren, Baldur?s Gate is a 10/10, Caroline can read?? Under the Whispering Door and Life isn?t Binary, struggling through house of leaves, DRCL, Barbie and Evil Dead, i hate the sandpaper slide, field common questions, people do actually want to know about methodology, questions that are best answered by a different question, getting your own field explained to you, our school journeys, different kinds of learning, programming decision anxiety, getting to code for a thing you care about helps you learn, FUN! we?re actually ahead of schedule to learn everything, attacking Tom from different angles, seagul-gate, Ella producing with Jono in the studio, listening to Story Break at Lunch, let?s just say the Eras tour is going to be very interesting this year, putting it into the aether, if you want to change something you?ll do it tomorrow, the mellotron and babatone, distance, fun.

It's the HaLearnDays!  The time of year when we share gifts of fun facts from us and friends of the show!

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

We also learn about: 

I wish Katie and Alex were real, pooping every 20 minutes, a human creates 320 pounds of poop a year, when I think about dangerous, ?when I think of dangerous bird boop?, cube pooped saves on the poly count, poopin and pleasin, Watching the Sky and Thinking a Thought, smuggling instruments to space, sonic boooooms, this is obviously a Caroline gift, The National Christmas Tree Association, liberals want you to burn your christmas trees, the ACTA is very different from the NCTA, bury me with my artificial tree  in a cemetery under an artificial lawn, rudely scrutinizing a gift from Hank, Caroline?s read The Grinch who Re-tabulated a Fact they Got, $25 Barns & Noble Gift Card, Caroline and Ella negotiate money from Tom, identifying unwrapped baked goods in Japan, hot cross buns and melanoma, Ella Laterals us, British Scorpios can?t give blood in the US, we all definitely remember Ella was born in Germany, ?destroying? cows, Janet pulled out all the stops with the science, vibrissae, wash bears, Ella ones up her fly sperm fact with Kangaroo Vaginas, whaaat?s the deal with the third vagina, false cloaca, kangaroos can house 3 kids at the same time, Ella?s in her kangaroo vagina era, our first favorite Tom piss on pity, running over Christ Tarrant?s foot, plougs and shootouts, should all our fun facts be forgot and days of old lang syne.

Sources:

Goose Poop
Goose Poop 2 Electric Boogaloo
How much do human poop?
Why do geese poop so much?
Wombat Poop
Guiness World Records on First Song in Space
Pavel Popovych
Nasa Wakeup Calls History
Smithsonian Mag on Schirra & Stafford
Harmonica from Gemini
Cleo's Video on Supersonic Flight
Soil Association: Real VS Fake
Washington Post: Are Real or Artificial Christmas Trees Better for the Environment?
NOAA Sperm Whale Info
UN FAO Data on Human Seafood Consumption
Lower Estimate of Whale Population
Higher Estimate of Whale Population
Sabrina's RomCom Video
People: When Harry Met Sally
New Yorker: The Pastry AI That Learned to Fight Cancer
Varsity: What do Bread and Cancer Cells Have in Common?
FDA Blood Donation Ban
UTexas on Raccoon Brains
Raccoon Brains Compared to Other Animals
PGC on Raccoons
1963 Paper on Dabbling
Kangaroos have 3 vaginas
Bob the Fish Video Essay on ITV Telethon
Barbara Lisicki "The Day we Pissed on Pity"
NDACA on the Block Telethon Protest
Disabled People's Archive on Block Telethon

What are the superheavy elements, and how did we make them?  And what is public domain day, and why is next year's going to be so interesting?

Things we Talk About:

The Mickey Mouse Curve

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:17) Superheavy Elements
(00:37:41) Public Domain Day
(01:19:19) Outro

We also learn about: 

It?s like we?re in school again, ordering the periodic table before discovering the electron, Mendelev didn't even like electrons, the nucleus is an atomic juggling act, atomic high jinks, the Fermi paradox, the Fermi problem, the number of piano tuners in Chicago, smashing elements into new ones, that?s why it?s called nuclear physics, receiving a Nobel and then fleeing Italy then learning your Nobel was wrong, accidentally discovering nuclear fission instead, we all so Barbie we knew this was leading to bombs, uranium neptunium plutonium, nobody cared because they didn?t want to draw attention to this during WORLD WAR 2, how does this keep happening i thought i was smart, the radioactive avengers, metropolis, I only scream about ice cream for anticapitalist purposes, none of this is legal advice, you know the patent stealing guy Edison, trademarks patents and copyright, JK Rowling patented a new kind of transphobia, the US constitution mentions copyright, the Micky Mouse Curve, even Bobel winning economists agree copyright extension is bad, happy hbomberguy video day, YouTube sucks at Fair Use, Mr Boop, Night of the Living Dead on Wikipedia, we?re IP pilled, SO MANY DISNEY MOVIES ARE BASED ON PUBLIC DOMAIN STORIES, it?s not open season on Mickey, ?he can be naughty?, canine enthusiasm is unprotectable by copyright, Pride and Prejudice but Mr Darcy is a Vape God, Frank Capra is proud that It?s a Wonderful Life grew in the public domain, ?battle lines will have to be drawn?, which two elements would YOU smoosh together?

Sources:
Superheavy by Kit Chapman
How to read the periodic table 
Fermi Paradox
Fermi Problem
Timeline of chemical element discoveries 
---
Jennifer Jenkins' Amazing Post on Public Domain Day
Jennifer Jenkins Duke Law Article on Public Domain Day
US Patent and Trademark Office on Definitions
JK Rowling is a Terf
More JK Rowling is a Terf
Association of Research Libraries on Copyright Timeline
NYTimes on Mickey Mouse Entering Public Domain
The Mickey Mouse Curve
Economists Argument Against Copyright Extension
Variety's Review of Steamboat Willie
Nebula Founder Dave Wiskus on Fair Use
EFF on Public Domain
Verge on Enola Holmes Copyright
Argument Presented Against Enola Holmes
The Public Domain Review
Florence Welch Gatsby Musical
Dick Cody Heese Video
BBC: It's a Wonderful Life's Public Domain Journey
Wallace McLean's First Email about Public Domain Day
Karyn Temple on Public Dommain

Submit your questions for our end of year Q&A episode at letslearneverything.com/question or in our discord!

Investigative journalist Amy Westervelt from Drilled asks us:  what is carbon capture and is it good or bad or... complicated?  What is the Atlas Network and why are they comically evil dark avengers of the climate world?  And how do you go from recording a podcast in your car to creating an award winning podcast network?

? See Tom perform comedy in Brooklyn for Earth Alliance! ?

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:05:14) Carbon Capture
(00:39:05) The Atlas Network/Podcasting
(01:08:25) Outro

We also learn about: 

Emailing the local radio station ?Would you like an over-aged intern?, Ella?s a climate change fan, natural carbon capture, compressed carbon is a lot more dangerous than it sounds, fracking with captured carbon, ?there?s a lot of creative math happening?, direct air capture, carbon capture needs to happen WITH decarbonization, warming waters make crabs produce neurotoxins, unfreezing zombie viruses, a silver lining to the climate catastrophe is the worm broth, moving the goalposts to 2050, historian of past futures, people used to think fridges were weird, are we just giving up on eating slightly less meat, greenwashing, if you?re an oil company everything looks like a pipeline or a combustion engine, direct air capture is actually cool! even if I have 0 silver bullets I can kill a werewolf with 100 brass bullets, Anthony Fisher battery farming turtles origin story, reader?s digest version of Friedrich Hayek, having an evil meeting in a chicken battery farm, now they?re cooking with gas, Margaret Thatcher?s cameo,  ?what a horrible avengers this has been?, THEY LITERALLY INVENTED THE OVERTON WINDOW, they?re a real life conspiracy theory, Amy gets in a debate, ?I have a very difficult mother so tense conversations, I?m good at them?, narratives in climate not just look at my chart! podcasts can communicate the people hidden in stories, producing a podcast in a car, ?I want people to come away really pissed off?

Sources:
Mississippi Carbon Capture Accident
IPCC Carbon Capture Report
Latest IPCC Report
Nature: "Carbon dioxide removal is an ineffective time machine"
The New Report on when we?ll Cross the 1.5 Degree Threshold
Thawed Zombie Bug Viruses
Revived Worm Broth
Drilled on The Atlas Network

Are we really all destined to turn into crabs?  Why are there so many animal algorithms, and are they all legit?  And just how many times have we been wrong about the lemming?

Things we talk about:
All the Crabs Caroline mentions
The Big List of Animal Algorithms
Boid Video

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Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:04:03) Carcinization
(00:42:00) The Animal Algorithm Mystery
(01:25:46) The Many Lemming Lies
(01:45:35) Outro

We also learn about: Endless forms most crab-like, the 2020 meme boom of carcinization, what is the extent of the carcinization crisis, watch it buddy you already got eight legs, hamburger style arthropod, BOY CAN I CAROLINE I'M GLAD YOU ASKED, it?s like CNN and Fox agreeing on something, crabs have ten legs my dude, vikavolt, crabs and false crabs and true Christians, its all human labels at the end of the day, crab shapes have evolved at least 5 times, the king, masked, coconut, and hermit crab, Ellen?s thinking like a crab, the leaf eating mangrove crab, the crab shape is good for many niches, guard your tasty bits, decarcinization, we should try decarcinizating our market share, I am THE crab researcher and y?all need to calm down, convergent evolution is like video game controller design, the Brazilian Aardvark, Ellen?s uncovering of this dark underbelly, this algorithm list is just a list of sleeper activation words, what is a metaheuristic swarm optimization algorithm? Craig Reynold?s Boids, the lateral line system, ?ants aren?t smart, any colonies are?, multidimensional ants, coatis moving in the jth dimension, this is all super niche you can?t use multidimensional ants for every problem, no articles are talking about this this is Defunctland niche, Groth and the 2 Fairies, lots of these papers are not at all based on real biology, ?cats do not form swarms?, the bee marriage algorithm is actually good! research for research?s sake is okay, lower your pitchforks but keep your pitchforks at the ready, things are shitty starting out i mean we named everything crabs, political cartoonists went wild for lemmings, we?ve been making shit up about lemmings for year, lemmings falling from the sky, Ole Worm?s pet coati, Popular Science?s lemmings returning to Lemuria, lemming population booms, lemmings are good swimmers, a truck full of the wrong species of lemmings, ALBERTA IS LAND LOCKED, lemmings are fight or fight, lemmings don?t explode, let?s unlearn everything about lemmings

Sources:

TheConversation: Carcinization
Know Your Meme: Carcinization
NPR: Would Aliens Look Like Us?
PBS Eons: Carcinization Video
Natural History Museum: Convergent Evolution
2017 Paper: The Evolution of Eyes: Major Steps.
2019 Paper: A Phylogenomic Framework, Evolutionary Timeline and Genomic Resources for Comparative Studies of Decapod Crustaceans
2021 Paper- How to Become a Crab: Phenotypic Constraints on a Recurring Body Plan
Conservancy.org: The mangrove Tree Crab
Scientific America: Carcinization
1997 Paper: Carcinization in the Anomura - Fact or Fiction?
PopSci: Carcinization
---
The Coati Algorithm Paper
List of Animal Algorithms
Craig Reynold's Boid Paper
Boids in Film
Ant Colony Optimization
Southwest Airlines' Ant Algorithm
The Amazing Review from Tzanetos & Dounias
---
Lemmings from the Sky
Ole Worm
The Museum Wormianum
Popular Science's Lemuria Claims
Snopes on Disney's Lemming Film
More on Diseny's Lemming Film

Why do we get goosebumps when we hear nails on a chalkboard?  Obviously aliens didn't make the pyramids, but how were they made and what does that teach us about humanity?  And what's the story behind nessie and why the queer community loves cryptids?

Things we talk about:
Egyptian painting of using water to pull a statue
Video of modern people pulling a block
The famous Nessie photograph

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Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:05:59) Goosebumps
(00:48:43) Not Alien Pyramids
(01:23:13) Nessie and Cryptids
(01:50:50) Outro

We also learn about: 

The bumpies you get on your skinnies, the gem trade can be pretty shitty!, Tom read 5 books for this, ahhhh! oh wait have I got goosebumps? the many and few names for goosebumps, piloerection, I just got objective chills, animal goosebumps, famous geologist and pigeon lover Charles Darwin, ?I took a stuffed snake to the monkey house?, porcupine piloerection, gustatory stimuli, grima, it?s not ew it?s euggghh, Easy Lovery by Phil collins, Screaming Ape; Loop. the Head Wizard tm, biomimicry, nails on a chalkboard, Scraping Sounds and Disgusting Noises, (SOUNDBITE OF FINGERNAILS ON CHALKBOARD), so is that better or worse? I guess the kids are listening to screeching sounds for music, prehistoric chalkboard monster, ruining Ella?s spooky cold open, 118 pyramids! you?re both racist! when did the ancient aliens theory stated, von Daniken?s racist conspiracy, the racism in believing only wwhite people could make architecture, plumbobs! moving 5000 pound limestone blocks, the genius post ramp system, it took 100 years to realize the painting was showing how to move stuff with water, Gregory Marouard?s demonstration of moving a block, the Nile used to run right by the Giza pyramids, the mundane power of having a lot of people, 20,000 people to build the great pyramids, the oldest papyrus ever found: the diary of merer, the pyramid builders weren?t slaves, the bent pyramid, the plesiosaur, cryptids that turned out to be real like the thylacinem, fake cryptids, cryptid comes from cryptozoology in the 80s, Nessie swimming down the nile, you gotta try Irn Bru, Columba the Monk?s encounter with nessie from the 565 AD, Columba was a dual class monk cleric, Marmaduke?s hoaxes, hippo leg umbrella, the Nessie-sary search, eDNA, you pee you poop you die, eels in the loch, cryptids and the queer community, cyptids are the people?s mythology, token straight scientist friend.

Sources:
The Biology of Fear
Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
Porcupine Piloerection
The Psychological study of Emotional Piloerection
Chills in Different Sensory Domains
The emotion of Grima
Scraping Sounds and Disgusting Noises
NPR Chalkboard Transcripts
Psychoacoustics of a Chilling Sound
Psychoacoustics of Chalkboad Squeaking
Anatomy of the Ear
---
Medium Article on the "impossibility" of Giza Pyramids
The great pyramid of Giza
Pseudoarchaeology and the Racism Behind Ancient Aliens
Tools Used in Ancient Egyptian Construction
Ancient Ramps
Using the Nile for blocks
Sliding Friction on Dry and Wet Sand
The Diary of Merer Papyri
---
Cryptozoology Museum: What is Cryptozoology?
National Catholic Register: Story of the Loch Ness Monster
University of Aberdeen: The Picts
Highland Pictish Trail: Pictish Stones
New York Times: Loch Ness Fiction is Stranger than Truth
Loch Ness Sightings Website
Science Focus: eDNA and Loch Ness
The Guardian: eDNA and giant eels
Daily Mail: Psychology of Loch Ness Monster Believers
Nessie is My Girlfriend! Cryptids and Queer People
Vox "How the Babadook became the LGBTQ icon we didn?t know we needed"
Cryptid Queer Icons

For our 2nd anniversary and our 50th episode (which it definitely is, don't check) we cooperatively tackled a topic folks have been asking us to do for ages: The Ig Nobel Prize!

Check out our new merch! Hats! Posters! Mugs!

Images and Videos we talk about:
The Levitating Frog Video
The Best of Miss Sweetie Poo
Ocean Mixing Anchovy Diagram
The Grabbing Tentacle Robot Video
Necrobotic Spider Diagram
Necrobotic Spider Video
The Juke 8
Daisuke Practicing his Speech

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Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:08:18) The Ig Nobel Prize
(00:45:00) The 2023 Ig Nobel Winners
(01:28:36) The Ig Nobel Peace Prize
(01:59:09) Outro

We also learn about: 

Tom does an evil scientist laugh at Atto Seconds, Ella watch hours of Ig ceremonies, honoring achievements that make people laugh then think, the rotating category, six people have turned down the Nobel, comedy? with a question mark? trying to purposefully win an Ig is like recreating The Room, Limburger cheese, Andre Geim loves his Ig as much as his Nobel, ?if people don?t have a very good sense of humor, they are usually not very good scientists either?, Roy Glauber the keeper of the broom ALSO WON A NOBEL, ?all they wanted to ask about was that damn broom?, the 24/7 Lectures, Mandelbrot goading miss sweetie poo, Ella?s Favorite Ig-ventions, partially unboiling an egg on stage, Chernobyl Bra Face Masks, that laughing and crying human emotion, cadaver nose hairs with surprisingly few nose hair variations, we all stan replication, Tom?s dad was robbed of the Ig, boring teachers, backwards speakers, maybe their neurons work backwards, the taste of rocks, the trick condition, electric taste, sexism in the stanford toilet, statistically significant anchovy boning affecting the water column, the fish kama sutra, how can i turn that dead spider into a robot? necrobotics is surprisingly easy, anti peace prizes, Pauling?s Nobel burn on Teller, Tom gets recognized, Lal Bihari?s schemes to become undead, ?Lal bihari died in 1976 but he is feeling much better?, MAMAAAA OOOoooOOOH, sweet caroline, working as a waitress, karaoke means empty orchestra, Shigeichi Negishi?s first machine, Inoue?s Juke 8 origin story, Inoue is up there with Jonas Salk for not patenting Karaoke, Inoue?s Ig Nobel standing ovation, I?m not going to cry, I just started crying what the fuck, don't tell Ella but Toms my favorite, sometimes three ding dongs can make a podcast

Sources:

About the Ig Nobels
Marc Abrahams articles
Andrew Geim
Limburger Cheese
Keeper of the Broom
Miss Sweetie Poo
Best of Miss Sweetie Poo
Wired Article: A Gala for Weird Science
Mark Hosteetler
2019 Awards - Very Fun Watch
2015 Awards - Even more Fun
24/7 Lectures
Past winners
Michigan Driving Law
The Blaster
Bra Gas Mask
---
Nose Hairs
Crowd Effects of Looking Up
Bored Students and Teachers
Ars Technica on the Igs
Brain Patterns of Speaking Backwards
Eating Fossils
Jamais Vu and Semantic Satiation
Electric Chopsticks
The Stanford Toilet
Ocean Mixing from Spawning Fish
Necrobotic Spider Grippers
---
Marc Abrahams Nobel Thoughts Interview with Linus Pauling
Stanley Cohen Nobel Thoughts Interview
NYTimes on Lal Bihari
Lal Bihari's Ig Nobel Ceremony
Matt Alt on Shigeichi Negishi's First Karaoke Machine for Kotaku
Daisuke Inoue's Story told for Topic Magazine
Time Magazine on Daisuke Inoue
Daisuke Inoue's Ig Nobel Ceremony

We all use Wikipedia, but how did it come to be? What's the first number to not have a Wikipedia page, and what does that say about math and humans? And what on Earth is Perpetual Stew?

Follow Annie and Depths of Wikipedia on Instagam/Twitter/Tiktok!

Images we talk about:
Sloane's Gap
nostalgia.wikipedia.com

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Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:07:33) The History of Wikipedia
(00:50:16) The First Boring Number 
(01:12:09) Wikimania and Perpetual Stew
(01:50:38) Outro

We also learn about: there?s more Wikipedia languages than google translate, Grendel would have loved Blackpink, how often do we think about the roman empire, the first encyclopedia was very wrong, all men think about is present Rome! Pliny?s child piss ab wrinkle cure, fortune did not favor the bold according to Pliny the younger, the encyclopedia Britannica, getting lazy on the later letter installments, door to door encyclopedia salesmen, Annie?s Mom?s excitement for the new encyclopedia, Encarta the forgotten digital encyclopedia, welcome to the 90s baby, webrings, soft core porn is the carcinization of the web, Jimmy Wale?s ?Guy Oriented Search Engine? Bomis.com, the failed boring Nupedia, the wiki prefix from a Hawaiian bus, Cunningham?s Law, Wikipedia?s Bro culture, nostalgia.wikipedia.com, no search or sources on old wikipedia, it?s not easy but people were making this encyclopedia, this human element has always been a part of encyclopedias, Jimmy Wales got his admin privilages revoked by the community, the interesting number paradox, Ramanujan?s Taxi Cab Numbers, the OEIS sequence database, Sloane?s Gap, 20,067 sitting alone at lunch, a surprising recent number update, the notability standard of numbers, the highest negative number to not have a page is only negative 3!!! come to the dark side of the zero, the Wikimania, Annie is Taylor Swift at Wikimania, Ella?s years long Wikipedia War, Annie?s neuroscience journey, Annie?s Perpetual Stew, a stew love.

Sources:

Andrew Lih's Book "The Wikipedia Revolution"
Pliny the Elder's Encyclopedia with Sun Shade Feet People
History of the Encyclopedia Britannica
The Encarta Encyclopedia
The "Decline" of Wikipedia
Jimmy Wales Guy Raz Interview
---
Scientific American The Most Boring Number
Ramanujan's Taxi Cab Numbers
The OEIS
Sloane's Gap Paper
The Notability Requirements for Number Pages
---
Wikimania
NYTimes on Perpetual Stew

What lies below the depths of the sea... and why should we stop being so afraid of it?  Okay we know crystals can't heal you, but could they actually do... something?  And why are time capsules more complicated than you'd think, and why should we love them anyway?

Images/Videos we talk about:
New Yorker Comic about the Deep Sea
The Phantom Jellyfish (warning for Thalassophobia)
The Venus Flow Basket Sponge

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Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:05:04) The Abyssopelagic Zone
(00:54:21) The Crystal Healing Boom
(01:26:19) Time Capsules
(01:54:18) Outro

We also learn about:  The Zones of the Ocean, the midnight zone, the hadal zone in the trenches, Tom forgets that water freezes, cold water and thermal vents, pompeii worm?s bacterial jacket, chemosynthesis, the deep see adaptation alarm, pisolite, it?s a myth that more people have been to space than the bottom of the ocean, the challenger deep, deep sea and moon exploration were happening around the same time, we actually DO know more about the sea than the moon, the abyssal plains is half the planet? but people don?t care, thalassophobia, there are no amateur deep sea explorers, the enigmitization of the deep sea, deep sea gigantism, why not visit the deep and eat delicious foot long shrimp, phantom jellyfish, venus flower baskets symbiosis is WILD, 500 sea pigs facing in the same direction, the burglar alarm atolla jellyfish, artificial E Jelly lure, gelatinous little guys, ?i thought that bit was gonna be way better than it was?, lateral line, the cusk eel is the deepest fish, whales dive deeper to send messages farther, marine snow, Ella pulls a Caroline, deep sea nodule mining, we can still like things and not believe in them scientifically, crystals DON'T date to ancient Egypt, amethyst hangover cure, to be fair they didn?t even know what crystals were, bad economic or healthcare pressures may push folks to crystals, crystals do actually have vibrational properties just not those kinds! the piezoelectric effect, quartz watches and pickups, paranormal powers placebo or priming, a great psych experiment where no one had to take LSD, we love a repeatable study, the real benefits of crystals from placebo and community, confirmation bias is powerful and good, actually harmful crystals, don?t give babies crystals for teething, gems are just shiny, you can ship of theseus the voyager topic from every time we mention it, foundation deposits weren?t exactly time capsule but were cool, leaving notes in houses, Time Capsules are optimistic and kind of silly, the dissappointed norweigan time capsule kids, deciding what to put in a capsule is really really tricky, what is sublime and what is trivial? taking a picture of a polroid, the interesting complications of time capsules, the time travel fever, ?artificial special collections?, Tom?s own time capsule from 6th grade, good teachers are so good. Caroline?s gonna cry again!

Sources:

The Deep Ocean: Life in the Abyss
The Abyssal Zone
How Do Animals Survive in the Deep Ocean?
Chemosynthesis
We Know More About the Moon
We Know More About the Moon 2
Gene Feldman
Fear and loathing of the deep ocean: why don't people care about the deep sea?
"Venus Flower Basket "
Eye in the Sea
How We Found the Giant Squid
Human Impact
Species in the CCZ
---
The Guardian: American Anxiety Drives A Crystal Boom
Oprah Daily: Healing Crystals
Stanford: Understanding People's Obsession with Crystals
Time: Do Crystals Work
Livescience: Crystal Healing
OED: Amethyst
Robert Boyle: An Essay About the Origine & Virtues of Gems
1981 Paper: Piezoelectric Effects in Quartz-Rich Rocks
Piezoelectricity and Its Applications
2008 Paper: Prescribing ?placebo treatments?: results of national survey of US internists and rheumatologists
The New England Journal of Medicine: Why Unconventional Medicine?
2010 Paper: Mystical Stones in Oncology: Crystal Healing Power or Perfect Nonsense?
Stanford Medicine: Patient Mindset Matters in Healing and Deserves More Study
Forbes Health: Healing Crystals
Nationwide Children's: The Dangers of Amber Teething Necklaces
IGS: Gemstone Toxicity Table
---
William E Jarvis Paper on Time Capsules
Egyptian Foundation Deposits
Matt Novak Interview on Time Capsules
Boring Norwegian Time Capsule
Atlantic's "The Paradox of Time Capsules"
History of Westinghouse Time Capsule
The Book Inside the Westinghouse Time Capsule
Science Reporting on the Westinghouse Time Capsule
The Local Michigain Time Capsule

Why are lawns so bad, and what could we grow instead?  How much can we learn from an esoteric word like Psammophile? And why is the Guinness Book of World Records wonderful and terrible at the same time?

Images/Videos we talk about:
Snakes in Sand
The Jerboa/Kangaroo Rat/Kangaroo Mouse

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Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:05:44) Lawn Loathing
(00:45:55) Spelling Psammophile
(01:19:26) Guinness World Records
(01:50:38) Outro

We also learn about:  lawn enjoyer (derogatory), there are 6x more lawn than corn in the US, how we developed our lawn fetish in the 17th century, the pesticide and fertilizer boom after WWII, the more money and knowledge you have the worse lawns get for the environment,  runoff powered sargassum seaweed, 30% of drinking water used for lawns, lawns aren?t even the best greenery for your mental health, ?your granny cant push the lawnmower around? okay I don?t want her too! astroturf is even worse, when the sun engulfs the earth all that will remain is our plastic lawns, the no-mow-movement, the alternative lawn movement, make an animal crossing lawn! Ella and Caroline fail the spelling bee, what makes a word tricky, 3 letter words are the trickiest, Ella steals the word, ventifacts, sand actually holds water better, granular physics in a scorpion paper, sidewinder snakes drifting while doing the worm, snake scale fingerprint, ecomorphological convergence, the adorable Jerboa or Kangaroo Rat are in Dune unchanged, Jerboas can kick sand onto traps, foot drumming, ?the rats would rather drum than fight?, sandy fungi, our childhood obsessions with Guinness records, people are weird! the origin of the Guinness World Records, I?ll prove to them who?s the fastest bird! the eccentric fact finding twin brothers, may we hope to turn heat into light?, the 4 types of Guinness world record, marketing records, the analog to digital downfall, over half of the top 100 brands have records, Guinness is a native advertising company, brands really need empowering, laundering governments apolitcally, most lightning strikes to a person, a good record makes you wonder 

Sources:

Scientific American: The American Obsession with Lawns
BBC: Should People Get Rid of Their Garden Lawns?
Gardens Illustrated: The History of Lawns
Psychology Today: The Strange Pstchology of the American Lawn
The Guardian: Lawns Are Such A Yawn
JSTOR: Your Green Lawn is Harming the Environment
2015 Paper: Lawn as a cultural and ecological phenomenon: A conceptual framework for transdisciplinary research
2020 Paper: Lawns in Cities: From a Globalised Urban Green Space Phenomenon to Sustainable Nature-Based Solutions
2005 Paper: Mapping and modeling the biogeochemical cycling of turf grasses in the United States
NSF: Are Our Lawns Biological Deserts?
2023 Paper: Rewilding in Miniature: Suburban Meadows Can Improve Soil Microbial Biodiversity and Soil Health
Scientific American: How Fertilizers Harm Earth More Than Help Your Lawn
2017 Paper: Is All Urban Green Space the Same? A Comparison of the Health Benefits of Trees and Grass in New York City
The Guardian: Turf It Out: Is It Time to Say Goodbye to Artificial Grass?
PlantLife: No Mow May
BBC: No Mow May Blamed for Rise in Hedgehog Injuries
University of Cambridge: Can An Iconic Meadow Seed Wider Change?
---
538 Article on Spelling Bee Data
Joseph White on Word Selection Process
The Wikipedia Page for Psammophile
Amazing Paper on Psammophile Ecology and Scorpions
Energy Cost of Walking/Running on Sand
NYTimes on Sidewinder Snakes
Sidewinder Ecology
Sidewinder Microscopic Scale Differences
Jerboa Evasiveness
Jerboa Foot Drumming
Kangaroo Rat Ecology
Psammophile Fungi
---
3 Months on a RollerCoaster
Imogen West Knights Guardian Article
Vox Article
Planet Money Podcast: Is Record Breaking Broken
Guinness Marketing
In the Interest of Fairness
Turkmenistan Controversy
Guinness response to John Oliver
Find Guinness Records Here