Let's Learn Everything!

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1. 115: LIVE - Eyevolution III & Fat Bear Week

   22 oktober 2026 · 59 min

   Afspelen
   It's our first ever LIVE SHOW!!! We return to the threequel of eyevolution to look at... eyelids? How interesting could that be? And Caroline teaches us about the competition, the science, and the adorable bears of fat bear week! Lees meer

   Images we talk about:
   (Also available at https://www.letslearneverything.com/115/)
   Tom's Topic Reveal Slide
   Special Guest
   Seal
   Bear 480: Otis 1
   Bear 480: Otis 2
   Bear 480: Otis Comparison
   Bear 132 Cub 1
   Bear 132 Cub 2
   Bear Bracket
   Bear 89 Backpack 1
   Bear 89 Backpack 2
   Bear 89 Backpack 3
   Bear 747 Bear Force One 1
   Bear 747 Bear Force One 2

   Timestamps:
   (00:00:00) Intro
   (00:06:51) Eyevolution III
   (00:28:06) Fat Bear Week
   (00:52:01) Outro

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   Join our Discord!

   We also learn about:

   Sources:
   The origin of blinking in both mudskippers and tetrapods
   Southwest Eye Institue Blinking and Eye Health
   Review of Opthamology on Blinking and Tears
   Review of Lacrimal Gland from Journal of Opthamology
   Advances in Clinical Chemistry: Chapter on Tear Film
   Alaska Department of Fish and Game on Seal Tear Ducts
   ---
   Four Paws: Torpor vs Hibernation
   North American Bear Centre: Bear Activity and Hibernation
   Four Paws: The Brown Bear: Way of Life & Offspring
   Explore: Bear of Fat Bear Week
   DOI: Everything You Want to Know About Katmai National Park’s Fat Bears
   Explore: FBW 2026
   BBC: 'Backpack' declared Alaska's Fat Bear Week winner
   Wiki: Fat Bear Week
   National Park Service: Bears of Katmai
   Explore: FBW Hall of Champions
   Guardian: Backpack Wins Fat Bear Week
   PBS: Gentle Giant Backpack Declared Winner of Alaska's Fat Bear Week
   Friends of Bridger Teton: When You Have to Eat All Day – Hyperphagia
   FWS: Fat Bear Diet Plan
   National Park Service: FBW Past and Present
   Wiki: Hibernation

   Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinlearn

2. 114: La Brea's Bone Count & Giant Pumpkins

   8 oktober 2026 · 1 uur 45 min

   Afspelen
   How many bones are in the La Brea tar pits? And what can that teach us about life, death, and oil? And what's the point of growing giant vegetables? Well, the pure whimsy of it all, as well as some fascinating techniques and tales. Lees meer

   Images we talk about:
   (Also available at https://www.letslearneverything.com/114/)
   Tom's Picture from La Brea
   2nd Picture from La Brea
   Giant Tomatoes
   Giant Carrot
   Giant Zucchini
   Giant Pumpkin
   Eating Pumpkin
   Pumpkin Race

   Timestamps:
   (00:00:00) Intro
   (00:05:37) La Brea's Bone Count
   (00:49:35) Giant Pumpkins
   (01:36:04) Outro

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   Join our Discord!

   We also learn about:

   Good to be back in the bone zone, how many corners does LLE have? wolf skull wall, untangling all the oil words, life uh dies, Coal Oil & Gas, crude oil has over 350 different hydrocarbons, refining oil is just separating different hydrocarbons, the official stance of the podcast is that fossil fuels are cool, hey kids - see what it was like to be in the asphalt’s deathly grip! Kids Yearn for the Tar Pits, La Brea has the bones of Tigers and Lions and Camels, I’m actually an epoch girlie, um actually it’s the La Brea Woman, it’s 10,000 years ago - women can be fossils too, predator traps and carcass domination, the oily stains on bones, fingers crossed the new museum invents new ways to confront my mortality, Summer’s Jumpret response to Michael, what’s y’alls familiarity with vegetables? I have to tell an asparagus story, perhaps Thoreau’s biggest impact was on the large vegetable world, fuck Leaves of Grass - One Big Pumpkin, big pumpkin at the Chicago World’s Fair, we’re going to need a bigger pub, it’s like very slow horse racing, it’s like a drug dealing community, the LLE ruler goes from Big to Fuck Me, seed auctions, the horror that is giant tomatoes, sorry what the fuck is the giant pumpkin common wealth, I love when a number is so preposterous it makes us angry, Ella is disappointed by carrots, pumpkins are an indeterminate plant…

3. 113: Rediscovered Organs & Bird Watching

   24 september 2026 · 1 uur 54 min

   Afspelen
   Wait, how are we rediscovering organs in 2026?? Or... are we? Well let's learn about the history and fads of the insides of our bodies! And what is bird watching, why do we all love it, and how casual and competitive can you get with it? Lees meer

   Images we talk about:
   (Also available at https://www.letslearneverything.com/113/)
   Clay Liver
   Online Terminologia Anatomica
   Salivary Glands
   Bird Study Skins
   A Field guide to Birds Example Page

   Timestamps:
   (00:00:00) Intro
   (00:04:56) Rediscovered Organs
   (01:05:15) Bird Watching
   (01:50:12) Outro

   Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

   Join our Discord!

   We also learn about:
   Huh?? Mesopotamian organ divination, sheep liver phrenology models, everyone needs to talk about this, Al-Razi’s “Doubts about Galen”, the great ignorance time skip, hmm this dead body must be wrong, the dissection fad, the murder act, you don’t know Burke and Hare?? body snatching and anatomy murder, the vestigial craze, Wiedersheim’s minimal viable person, the problem of naming organs, 20 synonyms of organs, Ella goes feral over the online Federative International Programme for Anatomical Terminology, our 3-4, hi Dad and Ella’s mom - hope you enjoyed that clitoris joke, our 4th pair of handlebar moustache salivary glands, the interstitium getting reverse pluto’d, labelling an organ is useful but also not the full picture, gen Z loves birding, FUCK YOU JONO WE’RE DOING THE HISTORY, is paleontology birding if you’re looking at sauricia, ornithomancy, where there have been birds - we have watched birds, study skins, hey what if we looked at them alive? in 1901 Edmund Selous discovers bird empathy, “lay down the gun and take up the glasses”, POWs from WWII publishing their findings, slovenly non scientific bird watchers, it’s a hobby with no proper definition, Merline and ObsIdentify and Birder and Ebird and Rare Bird Alert and Birder’s Interface, it’s pokemon! WHO’S THAT bird, “oh my god I actually cannot do this any more”, apps aren’t perfect, twitchers, the New…

4. 112: Life in Exclusion Zones & Every Single Character

   10 september 2026 · 1 uur 58 min

   Afspelen
   What happens to life inside exclusion zones like Chernobyl? Is it good? Bad? Or something much more interesting? And what happens when you try to codify every single character from human language? Well, it definitely leads to some fascinating linguistic rabbit holes! Lees meer

   Images we talk about:

   Przewalski’s horse (yes that’s how it’s spelled)
   Frogs
   Character U+FDFD
   Arabic Text
   Decorative U+FDFD's
   Tom's Favorite Use of Kashida

   Timestamps:
   (00:00:00) Intro
   (00:03:12) Life in Exclusion Zones
   (01:01:48) Every Single Character
   (01:52:06) Outro

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   Join our Discord!

   We also learn about: Actually defining it made it creepier, the zone rouge, we an area of Earth uninhabitable from war, chernobyl release over 100 radioactive elements, they really need to name the zone of alienation the zone of doing taxes, the liquidators actually did a good job of stopping the spread, is this a rewilding experiment? Ella deleted emails to poach this topic, Przewalski’s horse (yes that’s how it’s spelled), technically feral vs wild horses, I’ve reached the nuance center of my nuance pop, why isn’t it my job so sample chernobyl frogs, nearly all pine trees near chernobyl were wiped out, “the selective pressures of radiation”, bright birds used up their carotenoids for color, we’re doing nuclear ecological biochemistry, god that was an ugly laugh, maybe its counterintuitive for the small things - no this one sucks, the slow horror of a lack of decomposition, the ecosystem is not rewilded it’s entirely new, the Korean DMZ is like an ecological semi permeable membrane, DMZ ecology research institute, the DMZ has 40% of Korea’s endangered species, it’s a pitstop along the east asian australasian flyway, endangered cranes have bounced back in the DMZ, the DMZ crane watch, the cranes and natterjack toad require human farming to thrive, synonyms of nuance and thrive, Baarter economy standing ovation, conflictful chicken, Unicode is the ISO standard for text on comp…

5. Recast: Ella on That's Absurd, Please Elaborate

   27 augustus 2026 · 1 uur 6 min

   Afspelen
   Due to some house woes, we're recasting Ella's excellent appearance on That's Absurd, Please Elaborate, where they actually solve a meme and invent Pee Day. Lees meer

   Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinlearn

6. 111: Astronaut Cady Coleman, Life in Space, and What Astronauts Learn

   13 augustus 2026 · 1 uur 30 min

   Afspelen
   What does an astronaut actually learn in training? And what surprises them about having to live in space? Well, fortunately astronaut Cady Coleman is here to answer these and many more of our questions!! Lees meer

   See us live in London! LETSLEARNEVERYTHING.COM/LIVE

   See Tom live in NYC! OurFindingsShow.com

   Images we talk about:
   Cady's Background Image

   Timestamps:

   (00:00:00) Intro

   (00:05:03) Astronaut Training and Space Life

   (01:10:42) Space Suits

   (01:23:45) Outro

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   Join our Discord!

   We also learn about: Astronaut school, “the mission is exploration and only a part of it is human spaceflight”, the telerobotic surgery was real, living in NEEMO, Cady learned to remove a gallbladder, “what is it that I have to remember is not being simulated well?”, oh the telerobotic surgery was happening under water, it’s about sharing what you’re learning at the same time, spending 11 days underwater, bedrest studies in hawaii are actually a toll and a service, communication is key even in space, trust us space food is going to get old, not every day of training is remove 10 gallbladders, putting yourself in the picture humanizes it, which way is up? sleep flashes from cosmic rays, liquid sensors in our neck make you pee when you lie down and reduce blood volume in space, you can’t cough to hide your pee on the ISS, the future of the ISS, astronaut feet facts, Paolo and Cady’s toenail system, learning to fly in zero g, “you learn to live in 3 dimensions”, losing things in zero g sucks, CO2 buildup for the group photo, not washing clothes upset the balance, it’s all about fluid physics, “it’s all about interfaces between solids and liquids - and up in space it’s the biggest game in town”, peeing in space is easier than camping, how you determine your space order with feet, the domino effect of space suit sizes, your space suit is your space ship, IT’S LESS MATERIAL, there are people who are still waiting their turn, “how do you make sure these voic…

7. 110: Horsepower & Makeup

   30 juli 2026 · 1 uur 47 min

   Afspelen
   What even is horsepower? Is it a silly unit of measurement, or actually an underrated marvel?? And how old is makeup? Why do we do it? And what historic looks can you steal for your next night out? Lees meer

   What are the flaws in scientific publishing, who's responsible, and how can we fix it?

   ALSO SEE US LIVE IN LONDON!!! LETSLEARNEVERYTHING.COM/LIVE

   Images we talk about:

   Papyrus Image
   Fish Palette
   Patch Portrait
   Painting of Two Ladies

   Timestamps:

   (00:00:00) Intro

   (00:03:15) Horsepower

   (00:48:26) Makeup

   (01:39:07) Outro

   Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

   Join our Discord!

   We also learn about: I’m taking horse pills to get their powers, we can answer questions without getting klaxonned, abbreviated for french reasons, the meter is 1 ten millionth the distance from the north to south pole, I’m going to be talking about power “oh god”, power is the movement of a mass over time, you’ll notice nowhere in that definition did I mention horses, James perfects the steam engine, you can’t just say “hey this engine will get us to the industrial revoltuion” you have to sell it in horses, come up with your own unit of power dweeb, a horse can produce 15 horsepower, you’re about to have a lot more nickels, there was a metric and imperial horsepower, all the international names for hosepower, watt SI unit is on first base? the father son and the holy ghost of electronics (the amp, volt, and watt), we didn’t have a unified unit for power before horsepower, Thomas Edison measured lightbulb efficacy by horsepower, IT WASN’T AN IRONIC CHOICE IT WAS CAUSE AND EFFECT, this isn’t a podcast it’s a slumber party, Caroline and Ella’s metallic blue eyeliner/facepaint, webster’s definition is somehow too broad and too narrow, prehistoric pigemtns may have been body paint, Ella’s surprisingly informative ancient egyptian ASMR video, from kohl to green malachite, caroline hiding the sexy bits of the papyrus from us, this makes my tummy hurt, fish palettes, ancient greek prostitues were r…

8. 109: Scientific Publishing

   16 juli 2026 · 1 uur 18 min

   Afspelen
   What are the flaws in scientific publishing, who's responsible, and how can we fix it? Lees meer

   ALSO SEE US LIVE IN LONDON!!! LETSLEARNEVERYTHING.COM/LIVE

   Timestamps:

   (00:00:00) Intro

   (00:02:47) Scientific Publishing Part I

   (00:35:57) Scientific Publishing Part II

   (01:13:07) Outro

   Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

   Join our Discord!

   We also learn about: We almost do the same grim joke, the live show will have 50% more hosts than this, before publications there were societies and books and letters, in 1665 a Henry Oldenburg of the royal society starts “Philosophical Transactions”, the longest continuous journal (ignoring the time Olderburg was put in a tower for criticizing the king), the discovery of Jupiter’s red spot and also a deformed calf, Newton’s Optics was published in Philosophical Transactions first, Science has bad SEO, the doubling time of papers is 14 years since the 1950s, Ella’s peer review process, errors can be missed and biases affected, not paying reviewers is a bug that’s labelled as a feature, government funded research can still be privately owned, we’ve all agreed “processing fee” just means bullshit, there’s some things I don’t want to be “fun”, Elsevier has a 38% profit margin while Alphabet’s is 32%, editorial resignations in protest, I’m excited to add Robert Maxwell to my Arya Stark list of people, Maxwell died on his yes-that-Ghislaine-Maxwell Yacht, the scheme to buyout scientists for their papers, cover upfront costs - own copyright - flood with new journals - reap the subscription costs, “jesus wept”, retractions are growing by about 20% each year, I’m buying Ella a dictionary so she can learn what “fun” means, fool me 239 time shame on me, paper mills, predatory journals are pay to win, the Chinese restaurant metaphor keeps staying accurate, no it’s not nature our journal is nurture, is this finally rock bottom? the public review curate model, the pros and cons of preprints, diamond open access, the nelson memo, “I think the Ghis…

9. 108: Quicksand and Other Childhood Worries & The Undying Game of Pinball

   2 juli 2026 · 2 uur

   Afspelen
   We all thought quicksand would be a bigger deal than it is, but what is the science behind them and all the other worries I had as a kid? And how does pinball reflect the changing cultures of our time, and could now be the best era of pinball? Lees meer

   ALSO SEE US LIVE IN LONDON!!! LETSLEARNEVERYTHING.COM/LIVE

   Things we Talk About:

   Bagatelle
   Redgrave's Pinball
   Humpty Dumpty
   Beat Time
   Lambeth & Sarceni's Amazing Pinball Talk at Magfest
   David Barber's Magfest Pinball Panel
   Technology Connection's Great Pinball Breakdown
   PinballMap.com

   Timestamps:

   (00:00:00) Intro

   (00:06:22) Quicksand and Other Childhood Worries

   (01:05:22) The Undying Game of Pinball

   (01:55:32) Outro

   Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

   Join our Discord!

   We also learn about: Ella’s spoon collection is much more important than our live show, the never ending story, quicksand was in 3% of in the 1960s, the problem with gen z is they’re not afraid of quicksand, quicksand is reverse oobleck (sheer-thinning), the settled sand at the bottom requires the force of lifting a car, quicksand is unfortunate physics circumstances burying you, 11th century quicksand art in the Bayeux Tapestry (also Haley’s comet), we’re less dense than quicksand so you’d float at your waist, you could listen to this podcast twice while hanging out in quicksand, Ella cried so much she couldn’t cross the piranha plank, piranha fear is President Roosevelt’s fault, you know you’re making fun of a ten year old child right now, my main takeaway was what a cogent president he was, piranhas reloading their teeth, piranhas have 10x the relative bite force to size of a crocodile, piranhas aren’t carnivores - they’re opportunistic omnivores and a skittish prey species, the cow just walking out of the piranhas, it’s like two truths and a lie but all three are true, ARE WE DOING SPIDERS GEORG, spiders have acute mechanoceptors, tarantulas aren’t just hairy for fun, debunking the Lisa Birgit Holst debunking, a 50 spiders salute for georg, Bea…

10. Second London Live Show! 1pm Sunday Oct 18th!

    29 juni 2026 · 4 min

    Afspelen
    We've added a SECOND live show in London, and it's a Sunday matinee! See all the details at LetsLearnEverything.com/live Lees meer

    Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinlearn

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