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150 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud

  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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    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

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  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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    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

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    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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    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

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  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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    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

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    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

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    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

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    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

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  11. 107: The Sci Guys, Acupuncture, and THAT Dolphin Story

    18 juni 2026 · 1 uur 25 min

    Afspelen
    Corry and Luke from the Sci Guys podcast join us, at last completing elaborate 4 year scheme to have them on! We learn about whether acupuncture is bullshit, and learn a bit more about That famous dolphin story. We also talk shop about mistakes, debunking, and curiosity! Lees meer

    Timestamps:

    (00:00:00) Intro

    (00:10:51) Acupuncture

    (00:32:27) THAT Dolphin Story

    (00:54:20) Mistakes & Debunking

    (01:21:10) Outro

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    We also learn about:

    I’m biggly judging, the only thing I love more than science is a weird bit, Caroline’s 4 year plan to get in a zoom call with these bozos, kind of feels like you came to the top of the mountain and came down to meet us, Brian Cox does Not follow Tom, I know something that will fix Ella’s connection, the corry-luke scale, the peripheral nervous system, free opiod receptors, endogynous, different kind of needles for that opiod, fake accupuncture, treating sever hiccups, min-maxing heroin, it’s tricky to study pain, maybe therapy works more than accupuncture, by the way I don’t need you to share everything, dolphins weren’t so great at finding land mines, I’ll just leave some dead air, an open bar for editting, the sensory deprivation tank, you’re paying for this open bar Tom, I won’t tell you the name of the paper but I will tell you about lisa simpson, was really hoping the apartment would have a dolphinarium, now do your duolingo, this was all to communicate with aliens, Tom tries to have a teachable moment, well someone was certainly “arriving”, raising a chimp as a human, Bunny’s backlash, weird studies, language is complicated and we don’t even think about it so we underestimate it, did we not all read coco transcripts in college - oh i guess not, Corry’s corona mistake, double checking even when we know someone’s wrong, can you believe there are podcasts where people try to learn everything? a meta message not about being right but about science, QI’s mistake rate, the science deb…

  12. The Best of Everything 2026

    4 juni 2026 · 2 uur

    Afspelen
    It's the Best of Everything! The episode where we look at the topics that YOU thought were our best from the past year, and chat some behind the scenes about them! It's a great place to start and a great time to brush up on things you may have forgotten. Lees meer

    Images we Talk About:
    Etching from the Great Moon Hoax
    Bumble Bee Ocelli

    Timestamps:

    (00:00:00) Intro

    (00:03:51) The Vitamin Saga

    (00:20:55) Why is the Sky Blue?

    (00:33:19) Speech Disfluency

    (00:53:11) The Great Moon Hoax of 1835

    (01:09:07) Superheavy Elements II

    (01:27:33) Eyevolution II

    (01:45:17) Outro

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    We also learn about:

    You wouldn’t marry a husband, oh here comes the vitamin guy, you think we’ll still have history, you missed a spot, literally having to ask for extra time, we don’t learn like computers - relearning is normal, the I’ve just turned 30 pilgramage to Japan, I’ve ruined the algorithm, oh YAY, excited for marriages and reality fracture, 30 seconds of laughter.

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  13. 106: The Polygraph & Dentistry History

    21 mei 2026 · 1 uur 58 min

    Afspelen
    You may know the polygraph is junk science, but what is the real science of lying and what wild turns did the polygraph take to get to today? And how old is dentistry? If ancient cave men didn't brush why do I have to? Well it turns out for good reason, and some fascinating dental science. Lees meer

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

    Images we Talk About:
    Mackenzie's First Polygraph
    Ancient Teeth Image
    Dentistry Tool 1
    Dentistry Tool 2
    Dentistry Tool 3
    Dentistry Tool 4

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:06:38) The Polygraph
    (01:00:33) Dentistry History
    (01:49:19) Outro

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    Go to https://surfshark.com/learneverything or use code LEARNEVERYTHING at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN!

    We also learn about: 2 truths and a lie, the jeremy kyle show, the first lie from the devil to eve (or when children first lie), the official stance of the podcast is lying is good and cool, deontic reasoning and theory of mind, flexible and explicit TOM, Ella aces the Sally-Anne test, discovering new advanced levels of lying, lying is normal for kids it’s not evil, lying is complex… but what if it wasn’t and we could just know, James Mackenzie’s original polygraph, the polygraph actually worked (just not for lying but for cardiology), sphygmomanometers, proto-feminist William Marston, back then just thinking women had a theory of mind made you a proto feminist, Tom falls down the rabbit hole of Marston’s feminism, what’s the difference between a lie you believe and the truth, Marston is the first to bring the polygraph to court in Frye vs the United States, the polygraphs turns into a one band band machine, Marston invented wonder woman and the lasso of truth, table the feminism of wonder woman another time, if corporations are people they should all go to therapy, polygraphs are still a 2 billion dollar industry, police firefighters and paramedics still take polygraphs, Caroline pre-empts the but, a pol…

  14. Vote for the Best Of Everything! LetsLearnEverything.com/vote

    20 mei 2026 · 3 min

    Afspelen
    It's that time of year to vote for the Best Of Everything! Lees meer

    https://www.letslearneverything.com/vote

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  15. 105: The Marine Carnivore Question & Collecting

    7 mei 2026 · 1 uur 59 min

    Afspelen
    Are there more carnivores in the ocean than land? Yes! But... why? And what does that teach us about how we study ecosystems? And what constitutes a collection? Well it goes way back in time, and can cover anything and everything interesting, and maybe even teach us about ourselves and each other. Lees meer

    Images we Talk About:
    Giraffe
    Biomass Pyramid 1
    Biomass Pyramid 2
    Dolphin
    Tiger
    Purple Otter Skull

    Timestamps:

    (00:00:00) Intro

    (00:03:30) The Marine Carnivore Conundrum

    (00:56:33) Collecting

    (01:51:34) Outro

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    We also learn about: Oh yeah that topic’s gonna hit, only 5% of fish are herbivorous compared to 30% of terrestrial animals, zoopharmacognosy, carnivora is not all carnivores and not exclusively carnivores, hypercarnivores eat 70% or more meat, polar bears are some of the most carnivorous animals we know of, grizzly bears only eat 10% meat, osteophagia, suckin on bone, trophic levels, Ella’s clearly an apex predator but are all humans, trying to beat the trophic level high score, let us know your level in the discord, average trophic levels, humans are 2.2 on average, trophic jorg, lopsided biomass pyramids, there are simply less plant diversity in the oceans, land predators hunt animals with at least 45% of their body size whereas whales do .01%, oh yeah aquatic animals don’t have paws or storage, aquatic carnivores have homodont dentition, trophic cascades, sea urchins can turn otter bones purple, hunter collector society, don’t pre-empt my question, the earliest collection we know of is from 105,000 years ago, shell collectors were just like me fr, coin collecting was a hobby of kings, a quick detour for the worst pope, but maybe Pope Boniface VIII is just like me for real, I like collecting 50 and 100 dollar bills actually, the wunderkamer or cabinets of curiosities, the industrial revolution ignited collecting, Americans turned British spoons into collecting, Ella’s love spoon, say the line Ella, t…

  16. Preview: Frogs & Improv

    30 april 2026 · 58 min

    Afspelen
    Caroline's Frogs campaign and our improv class were some of our favorite bonus episodes we've done, so we wanted to share a sample of what they sound like! Lees meer

    If your interest is piqued, you can hear the rest AND support the show at www.LetsLearnEverything.com/join

    Sources:
    JSTOR: Portmaneau Origins

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  17. MaxFunDrive Bonus: Tom's Casters on Casters

    27 april 2026 · 23 min

    Afspelen
    Folks we're halfway through the MaxFunDrive! And to keep the celebration we have Tom chatting behinds the scenes with other Max Fun hosts! Lees meer

    For all the details about MFD perks, the livestream, and how to support the show, go to LetsLearnEverything.com!

    Timestamps:

    (00:00:00) Intro

    (00:01:26) Casters on Casters

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  18. 104: The Anthropocene Argument & Sound Effects

    23 april 2026 · 2 uur 26 min

    Afspelen
    What is the Anthropocene? No really, who came up with it, when does it start, and why does that matter? Well it involves nuance, scientific beef, and a surprising amount of freaky little guys. And we all know of some sound effects we love, but what is their history, where are the weird places they've shown up, and what can they teach us about art? Lees meer

    Images we Talk About:
    The International Chronostratigraphic Chart
    Opabinia
    Graptolite
    Sound Effect Rooms
    Picture 1
    Picture 2
    Picture 3
    Picture 4
    Picture 5
    Picture 6

    Timestamps:

    (00:00:00) Intro

    (00:05:37) The Anthropocene

    (01:21:57) Sound Effects

    (02:16:15) Outro

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    We also learn about: The human dominated geological time frame, this is actually a geology topic, let’s get our rocks off, the geological timescale, clues in the rock layers, the geologic calendar, the international chronostraographic chart, Eons Eras Periods Epochs Ages, GSSPs are physical places, a long cambrian tangent, the burgess shale was a rare cambrian preserver, trilobites are the alpha male body plan, opabinia had 5 eyes and one claw, hallucigenia actually makes Tom recoil, index fossils, Ella just loves these little freaks, Ella literally has a graptolite fossil, the SPICE extinction, title drop halfway through the topic, wait nvm we have to talk about the holocene, in 2024 they declined the anthropocene proposal, are we covering the anthropocene or the 24 years of its proposal? Jan Zalasiewicz ignobel lick, heavily acronymized science beef, a person dabbing is the anthropocene GSSP (or fossilized air bubbles in ice), Jan vs Jan, maybe the anthropocene is just an Event, insects are the canary in the mass extinction coal mine but they’re also not in the record, humans make up a third of the mass of large vertebrates - and the rest are mostly things we eat, a t-rex wishes to be the most abundant species and a monkeys paw curls, chicken bones in the fossil record, we’ve pushed back the next …

  19. MaxFunDrive Kickoff! Ella's Casters on Casters

    20 april 2026 · 26 min

    Afspelen
    IT'S THE MAX FUN DRIVE!!! We kickoff with a crossover "Casters on Casters" with Ella chatting behinds the scenes with other Max Fun hosts! Lees meer

    For all the details about MFD perks, the livestream, and how to support the show, go to LetsLearnEverything.com!

    Timestamps:

    (00:00:00) Intro

    (00:01:40) Casters on Casters

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

  20. 103: Sage The Bad Naturalist & The Frog Mushroom Mystery

    9 april 2026 · 1 uur 23 min

    Afspelen
    Why aren't mushroom animals? Why is this mushroom growing out of a frog?? WHAT KIND OF MUSHROOM IS TOAD?!?! Well Sage the Bad Naturalist is here to answer all our festering fungus questions! Lees meer

    Things we Talk About:

    Sponge Lifecycle
    Fungus Lifecycle
    Mushroom Growing out of Frog
    Bunashimeji Mushroom
    Blewit Mushroom

    Timestamps:

    (00:00:00) Intro

    (00:06:50) Why Aren't Fungi Animals

    (00:24:55) This is Planet Chitin

    (00:30:01) The Frog Mushroom Mystery

    (00:52:47) Questions for Sage

    (01:19:16) Outro

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    We also learn about: Maybe some day I’ll get to be on this podcast, don’t ask scicomm dad! fungal anatomy, mushrooms are just the short lived fruiting body, fungi don’t have seeds or leaves or photosynthesize, Fungi were just the weird plant for a while - just Jerry, fungi don’t have vasculature their more spongy, fungi are genetically closer to animals so why didn’t Jerry come to our family? coral are animals, coral and fungal reproduction cycles, you’re going to learn so much in this one Tom, “that’s cant be the reason why”, consequences of the divergence aren’t the reason - the divergence is the reason, we should have been wrong more right!, this is planet chitin, dark fungi, fungus is made of bug, oh we’ve found the thing that actually makes me want to throw up on the podcast, protect our chitinous brethren, the mystery of the mushroom growing out of a frog, sage’s frog theory whiteboard, no one has ever seen this before, first time we’ve seen it does not mean first time it’s happened, mucusy coincidence, the return of amphibian chytrid fungus, the scientists have moved on but Sage hasn’t, botanical anarchy, slowly dropping out of grad school, odd jobs, its fucked up that make up affects views, Toad is a bunashimeji, remember toad with legs is made of bugs, blewits are underrated, drawing on the artist’s conk mushroom.

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

  21. 102: The Vitamin Saga & The Evolution of Fairies

    26 maart 2026 · 1 uur 55 min

    Afspelen
    Why are there so many vitamins, what even IS a vitamin?? Well Tom finally understands, and takes us on a tour through their infuriating past. And how did the cheerful fairy we know and love today, evolve into its current form? Well we'll only tell if you can answer our riddles three and- or you can just listen to the episode. Lees meer

    Things we Talk About:
    James Lind Scurvy Painting
    The Various Vitamin Bs
    Vitamin Map
    Brownie
    First Fairy Image
    Cicely Mary Barker Fairies
    Cottingley Fairies 1
    Cottingley Fairies 2
    Illusion Spinners
    Bitterbloom Bearer

    Timestamps:

    (00:00:00) Intro

    (00:03:05) The Vitamin Saga

    (00:57:54) The Evolution of Fairies

    (01:48:20) Outro

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    We also learn about: Will vitamin c cure me or murder me? more people died of scurvy than combat on the seas, Lind’s biblical scurvy experiment painting, vitamin Pee, maybe oranges are the fifth humor, beri beri, the gelatin comission, come onnn man it’s the 1800s give me a break, we know proteins carbs fats and minerals but something’s missing, STUDY MINERALS THEY SAID - YOU’LL WIN A NOBEL PRIZE THEY SAID, vital amines but they’re not amines, wait are vitamins like fish?? drop the e just vitamin, *mymymymy* all the vitamins are completely different?, some vitamins only exist for a few picoseconds in a supercollider, a bunch of vitamins got pluto’d, Vitamins are like a title, vitamer, VITAMIN D IS A HORMONE, wait maybe hormones are vitamins too, we haven’t talked about how vitamins work because they do Too Many Things, “we’re trying our best but sometimes our best isn’t good enough”, lifting the shadow of death, fitnessgirl250 actually has a PhD, food science is an applied science, the LLE supplement has all the dropped vitamins, vitamins are perfect for capitalism, there is not silver bullet, you can’t supplement your way into a healthy life, an appearance from she/her Caroline, the rainbow magic fairy books, we support evil fairies, the fickle house brownies…

  22. 101: Why is the Sky Blue & Speech Disfluency

    12 maart 2026 · 1 uur 46 min

    Afspelen
    For episode 101, we're challenging ourselves to make a technically family friendly, swear free episode! Why is the sky blue? Well it turns out it took a lot of science to understand why! And what is speech disfluency? Well it's like... um... you'll see! Lees meer

    Images we Talk About:
    Green Flash
    Sunset

    Timestamps:

    (00:00:00) Intro

    (00:06:43) Why is the Sky Blue

    (00:54:28) Speech Disfluency

    (01:40:45) Outro

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    We also learn about: it’s like playing mozart for children, mystery spires, atmospheric optics is responsible for all the bangers, they didn’t have a word for blue but they could perceive it, davinci and newton were on the right track, and thus the liberal lie of the greenhouse effect was born, Tyndell was just trying to clean an air sample and saw it turn blue, Baron’s used to be useful at least, Tom’s mind gets rocked by Rayleigh scattering, why isn’t the sky purple, When was the sky blue? the great oxidation event, sky is atmosphere, why is the sun so tiny OH ITS FAR AWAY, Ella pulled a Tom at the intro, Ella’s filler montage, no swearing no fillers challenge, there’s no fillers in the speech we watch on TV and movies, we actually um-dope our podcast in post, people used filler words in the past too, it’s found in poems and the earliest recorded sounds, the valley girl like, natural language corpuses, the 2 genders are uh and um, fillers in other languages, parasite words, uh is almost universal, the function of filler, backchanneling, measuring um reaction times, a visit from Gretchen, um is like a swiss army knife, like as quotation marks or hedging, right *slaps knees*, the power of saying something which technically means nothing.

    StellarNet: A Brief History of the Sky’s Blueness
    Blog: The bizarre myth that Ancient Greeks couldn't see blue
    2023 Paper: Revisiting the question “Why is the sky blue?”
    Wiki- John Tyndall
    The Conversation: John Tyndall: the forgotten co‑founder of climate science
    Wiki: Ray…

  23. Out Sick Recast: SciShow Tangents w/ Tom!

    26 februari 2026 · 53 min

    Afspelen
    Tom & Ella are out sick! So enjoy this recast of when Tom was healthy and on SciShow Tangents! Lees meer

    OR enjoy our 2 hours on the Project 4 Awesome livestream, basically a video podcast!

    OR check out all our other stuff at https://www.LetsLearnEverything.com/

    Thanks for your patience y'all! - Tom, Ella, & Caroline

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

  24. 100: Everything

    12 februari 2026 · 2 uur 17 min

    Afspelen
    You asked, and we finally answered, today we are Finally, actually learning everything! Something that is definitely possible and easy to do. Caroline covers infinity, which can include basically anything, Ella covers what everything is made of, and Tom does the rest! Simple, right? Lees meer

    Images we Talk About:
    Cantor's Diagonal Argument
    The Bullet Cluster

    Timestamps:

    (00:00:00) Intro

    (00:04:28) Infinity

    (00:49:09) What's Everything Made Of?

    (01:29:52) Everything Else

    (02:08:54) Outro

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    We also learn about:

    Infinity is the amount I love you guys - oh I made such a noise of disgust, my infinity could beat your infinity, quoting The Fault in Our Stars, ancient Greeks had a horror for the infinite, Euclid refused to use infinity, we have no physical proof that any item can be infinite, turning water into wine and counting to infinity, next time someone says I love you infinity plus one call them a number annihilator, pre-scowling, we ask Caroline a million questions about sets, sets offer a new language for math, “actually Ella they use the word transfinite”, Caroline rage baits Ella, Ella loves Cantor’s diagonal argument but people at the time HATED it, Cantor was a “corrupter of youth”, the universe is everything, god dammit is there more than matter, pigeons and pizza and Ella’s giant gengar plush are made of quarks and leptons, ordinary matter is just 5% of the universe, 26.8% is dark matter and the rest is dark energy, dark energy and matter are not interchangeable - dark just means we can’t observe them, your MOM is massive, 1933 dark matter is theorized to make the math work, dark matter is not a theory it is an observation of missing mass, the differing mass of the bullet cluster, halos of dark matter around galaxies, red shift in every direction, don’t @ me about the accelerated expansion of the universe, dark energy is the mysterious force that keeps the universe expanding, heat death or re-contractio…

  25. 99.5: Iszi Lawrence, Getting to Ancient Egyptian Heaven, and Storytelling

    29 januari 2026 · 1 uur 15 min

    Afspelen
    The author, historian, and person of many fascinations Iszi Lawrence teaches us how to get into ancient Egyptian heaven! Plus we learn about a bit of everything else from dinosaurs to medieval almond milk! Lees meer

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:06:14) Getting Into Ancient Egyptian Heaven
    (00:45:31) Questions for Iszi
    (01:08:59) Outro

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    Images we talk about:
    Anurognathus
    The Tring Tiles

    We also learn about: Todays question is how to take on two attackers, “I really recommend violence if you have neurodiversity”, Ma’at, getting into the Egyptian afterlife is an escape room, why Egypt was geographically perfect, I’m going to put a mastaba on my mastaba, there were ancient Egyptian archaeologists of ancient Egypt, you don’t think with your brain that’s weird, Allan’s mummified body in the King’s College London library, the mummification industry, dodgy ibis mummy dealers, pyramids were a giant sign that said “ROB ME IM RICH”, King tut also packed too much underwear, Anubis guides you through a video game level of challenges, the hall of two truths and a lie, weighing your heart in court, Ammit has the head of crccodile body of a tiger legs of a hippo my perfect woman, your heart has to way no more and no less than a feather, the scarab is a pay to win heart silencer, pubs were public houses when you brewed too much beer and it was women’s work! almond milk was around during the medieval times, we are story brained and we pay attention to the weird things not the boring ones, he showed me his whip scorpion, nanotyrannus, why do you like dinosaurs - why do you like eating? Anurognathus, toddlers comes from drunken walking, sad means not sober, the suffragette jiu jitsu dojo, the tring tiles was teen jesus.

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

  26. Recast: Escape This Podcast - Oceananigans

    15 januari 2026 · 1 uur 51 min

    Afspelen
    While we take some time to rest and plan out the new year, enjoy our episode of Escape This Podcast as the three of us use cleverness and chaos to solve this escape room! Lees meer

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:01:05) The Escape Room
    (01:20:19) Puzzle Talk Back

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    Images we talk about:
    The Spa Controls
    The Spa Sign
    Ring Toss
    The Spa Sign with Sun
    The Full Room Write Up

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

  27. New Year Q&A 2026

    1 januari 2026 · 1 uur 49 min

    Afspelen
    It's the new year! Which means it's time to learn about the most interesting thing... ourselves?? We answer YOUR questions with OUR answers, so learn a bit more about us, science, and the show! Lees meer

    Links we Talk About:
    Our Top Songs Playlist
    Magnetic Fields Tiny Desk
    Anni DiRusso Tiny Desk
    Doechii Tiny Desk
    Dr.Cal Whale Cancer TikTok

    Timestamps:
    (00:07:06) Welcome to the Q&A
    (00:31:45) Science
    (00:52:28) Fun
    (01:04:26) Making the Podcast
    (01:27:06) Personal
    (01:45:55) Outro

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    We also learn about:

    I was in the recording I know how long it took, tick correction corner, Caroline you gotta wrangle us, the ugly stepsister, City the Animation, Superman, playlist linked above, The Mars House, Levinia, Peak, Megabonk, Animal Crossing, Despelote, duck wraps, I’m an anytime burrito fan, falling out of and back in love with sciences, the Vera Rubin Observatory, lysosome mitochondria and ribosome, organelle astrology, AI and carbon pedantry, Ella’s PhD journey, solar system chocolate bar, our horror movie archetypes, experimenting on our cohosts, pride and prejudice romance, centaur anatomy, researcher blogs rock, scheduling and actually starting, what we hate and love about the show, we don’t have to be friends, podcasting is good for the brain actually, dream guests, Caroline runs, the rhythm game search, burnout planning and accepting mistakes and communal burnout watch, collecting magnets and yarn and weird pokemon figures, Dalek on a trampoline, why Tom wears a hat, bingo cards over resolutions, Ella’s getting marri- WELL TOM’S GOING TO MAGIC CON VEGAS BABY.

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

  28. 99: The HaLearnDays! 2025

    18 december 2025 · 1 uur 48 min

    Afspelen
    The HaLearnDays are here!! And with it come learning, laughs, and fun facts from us and friends of the show, as well as a few surprise new friends! Lees meer

    Images we Talk About:
    Bat Carrying
    Bristol Stool Chart
    Lego Head Diagram
    The Praise the Lord Show

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:08:10) Bats
    (00:19:45) Livingston's Body
    (00:25:18) Pi & PIE
    (00:34:45) Lego Head Passage
    (00:44:02) Bird Brains
    (00:56:04) Tomatoes
    (01:10:35) Alpha-gal
    (01:16:27) Rice to Riches
    (01:26:37) Mission Impossible & Backmasking
    (01:42:29) Outro

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    We also learn about:

    As Hank always says: wah wah wah wah wah, it says that I should complain in the script but I like it, Egg nog is just raw eggs right? redacted is such a beautiful name, rock paper scissors video content, drunk bats slur their echolocation, bats carrying bats, weekend at burniesing Livingston, I’d carry any of you for nine months, Pi and PIE from father and son, do you think J and Gretchen got their gifts at the same store? philology, proto-indo-european, the FART of the lego head, Ella’s heart grows 3 times its size for bacronyms, lego heads pass in about 2 days, chickadees growing and shrinking their brain connections, testing bird barcoding in the chickadome, I wish I could delete part of my brain to watch eternal sunshine again, davinci would have made that flying machine earlier if he had red sauce, tomatl is nahuatl not even proto-indo-european, we can all agree tomatoes smell evil, 150 years before tomatos and pasta combined, alphagal syndrome from ticks, once bitten twice allergic, Tom Scott gifts a can of rice pudding for us to open, allegedly LLE is a money laundering scheme, Mission Impossible morse code, the hidden code in LLE’s theme, Edison was the first to notice backmasking, the Eligibles Car Trouble, here’s to my sweet satan, winners don’t do drugs, raise a cup to our sweet satan.

    Sources:

    Bats Flying Drunk Paper
    NYTimes Tomato History
    Smithsonian Mag Toma…

  29. 98: Extremophiles & Astrology

    4 december 2025 · 2 uur 3 min

    Afspelen
    What are the most EXTREME lifeforms on Earth, and how are they surprisingly important to study? And what is the long yet recent history of astrology, and why do we reach for it? Lees meer

    Things we Talk About:
    The Seal Stream
    Sea lion running
    Paper Clipping: Female Astrologer
    Paper Clipping: Suffragette Books
    Paper Clipping: WW2 and Astrology
    Paper Clipping: Pimms Ad

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:04:23) Extremophiles
    (00:57:55) Astrology
    (01:43:59) Outro

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    We also learn about:

    We’ve put tardigrades through every red bull task imaginable but they’re NOT extremophiles, extremotolerant vs extremophiles that thrive, thermophiles at 122 celsius, anglophiles, what would it suck to experience, psychrophiles, acidophiles and alkaliphiles, hypobarophiles experiencing 500x our pressure, oligatroph, polyextromophiles, life has found a way in so many extreme places, the chernobyl black mold, not just growing towards radiation but eating Hot Particles, fungi have survived harsh radiation in the Earth’s past, melanin lets the fungi handle and perceive radiation safely, it’s similar to photosynthesis though in the same way a tsunami is similar to a glass of water, conan the bacterium can live inside nuclear reactors, DNA redundancy, krill that makes antifreeze proteins, osmoconfromers, acidophile taken to a lab and finally thriving at .7 ph, it’s also hard as hell to capture and study and keep these extremophiles alive, extremophiles gave us PCR, we also us extremophile e coli, bioremediation is what I took when I failed bio and was tutored by an extremophile, we have so much to do-actually that was pretty funny, bioplastics, what extreomophiles teach us about astrobiology, letting some bacteria chill on the outside of the ISS for 3 years, damn girl you’re making me re-evaluate the limits of life, our nuanced and conflicting feeling on astrology, yay we get to read our horoscopes- wait fuck why am I happy about that? babylonian…

  30. Submit your Q&A Questions!

    1 december 2025 · 3 min

    Afspelen
    http://www.LetsLearnEverything.com/q Lees meer

    It's time to submit your questions for our annual Q&A episode!

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

  31. 97: Sneezing & Parable MythBusters

    20 november 2025 · 1 uur 51 min

    Afspelen
    What, when, where, why, and how... do we sneeze? There's a surprising amount of mystery to the thing we do all the time, and a lot to learn about! And how many parables and metaphors that we use are actually true? Let's actually dig in to the research and bust some myths!! I mean... break some... falsehoods!! Lees meer

    Images we Talk About:
    The Rat Diagram
    Caseids
    Diplodocus Bones
    Plane Diagram
    Moai Walking

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:03:26) Sneezing
    (00:57:55) Parable Mythbusters
    (01:43:59) Outro

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    We also learn about:

    Caroline was inspired by being sick, theories of sneezing, sneezing in the odyssey, Aristotle said burping and farting are not divine, 25 sextillion molecules in every breath, it’s a wonder we’re not sneezing all the time, sneezing only goes to your brain stem, a sneeze can send particles 8 meters, what ion channel? last year we made sneezless mice, le petite mort and le petit orgasm, the incredible mid-sneeze mouse diagram, we’re gonna talk about - ghoooosts, A.C.H.O.O or the photic sneeze reflex, our explanations for sneezing reflect our understanding of science at the time, snatiation, S.N.A.T.I.A.T.I.O.N, sneezing from getting horny, pee chills, a sneeze is just a more obvious indicator that wires get crossed, diagnostic sneeze testing, finding the first sneezing animal, the earliest diaphgram, chickens sneeze, African wild dogs voting by sneeze, dolphins chuffing, bugs aren’t part of the sneeze club, unlike the mythbusters we won’t be blowing up cars, okay maybe a few, if you put a frog into boiling water it won’t jump out it will die, boiling frogs in search of the soul, the climate change metaphor works for brain dead leaders, the survivorship bias meme plane, the image is fictitious but Abraham Wald is even cooler, America’s Bletchley - The Statistical Research Group, some people believe the heads had bodies, oh my god they did, the walking Moai, the deforestation happened before the peo…

  32. 96: Fossoriality & Movie Censorship

    6 november 2025 · 1 uur 42 min

    Afspelen
    How have animals adapted to the digging lifestyle, and can that help us explain the Devil's Corkscrew? And what are the various ways movies can be censored across the world, and what does that tell us about the world itself? Lees meer

    Images we Talk About:
    The Devil's Corkscrew
    Mole Skeleton Comparison
    Mole Digging Video
    Monitor Lizard Burrow
    Monitor Lizard Burrows

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:02:30) Fossoriality
    (00:52:58) Movie Censorship
    (01:36:53) Outro

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    We also learn about:

    Daemonelix or the Devil’s Corkscrew, well Tom I hope one of your facts beats Ella’s giant sloth fact, only nerds know the word fossorial, why dig is easy - how dig is harder, mole skeletons are hyper specialized, moles are herd to catch and keep, I dig holes for me, is that couscous? the silica gel of pasta, x-ray videos of moles digging in couscous, devil’s corkscrew deja vu, first and deepest lizard burough, one of the most stable egg environments for an 8 month incubation, it turns out helixes are more common than we thought, Put! Lizards! In! Couscous! Peter Jackson’s braindead, video nastys, wow blaming media for crime we’ve never heard that before, video nastys were an easy ban because politicans didnt care about them, a microcosm of the moral panics of the time, the military entertainment complex, the US doesn’t have any outright movie bans… but they do have the hayes code, self censorship, no picture show lower the moral standard of those who see it, the commercial influence on self censorship, charlie shackleton’s paint drying film, poilitical movie bans reflect real alliances and tensions, denmark’s only ever banned the disney skeleton dance, Denmark’s freedom of speech is what the US thinks it is, don’t be mean to the military uwu, only 34 foreign films can be shown in china every year, the censorship is coming from inside the house, a Bohemian Rhapsody without mention of sexuality, Tilda Swinton played an asian character to …

  33. 95: 🎂 Superheavy Elements 2, Craftivism 2, and Tom's List

    23 oktober 2025 · 2 uur 22 min

    Afspelen
    It's the podcast's birthday!! So Tom has a few ideas he wants to pitch to Caroline and Ella... but first! Ella and Caroline finally revisit the topics they promised! What are the WILD stories behind the race to discover new elements, and what are the real nuancy nuances of craftivism? Lees meer

    Images we Talk About:
    William Morris' Print
    Terrero's Hankie
    Hankie Given to Terrero
    Madres de Plaza de Mayo
    Pussyhat
    Tom's Gifts

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:06:43) Superheavy Elements 2
    (01:17:58) Craftivism 2
    (02:01:28) Tom’s List

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    We also learn about: How do we prove this is real, we pinky promise, a refresher in the form of a pop quiz, we didn’t make the elements - except for some we did make, is the gift plutonium? we never thought we’d have another element heavier - and then you happened! the quizkids element reveal, the increasing specificity of Stan’s Apartmentium, just keep adding and smashing its just math - really expensive math, the long island ice tea of nuclear materials is in the bomb, scraping new elements off the filters of flying through a mushroom cloud, the edge of the periodic table was a cold war battle field, the feuds of the transfermium wars, perhaps sodium seaborgate, while they were bickering over naming Germany discovered 5 new elements, it’s like a railgun you nerd, linear vs circular accelerators, it’s like hotwheels tracks, we could’ve designed this! “how can we differently smash this stuff?”, I’m hype about a filter, only Victor Ninov could run GOOSY, “the most audacious fraud in scientific history”, lying about discovering an element and then discovering it before people catch on to the lie, 3 elements wasn’t enough, Oganessian co discovered 14 elements - the most of anyone, I mean really we all co-discovered this topic, “we hit this wall of super heavy elements being bastards”, Goosy 2 Electric Goosyloo, you’re smashing billions of particles per second over months to hopefully get 1 atom…

  34. 94: Paranormal Psychology & Defunct Halloween Traditions

    9 oktober 2025 · 1 uur 41 min

    Afspelen
    We know ghosts aren't real, but what is real is the way our brains make us imagine the creepy things that go bump in the night. What about our psychology makes it so easy to be spooked? And we've all heard of costumes and pumpkin carving, but what are the weirdest old Halloween traditions, and what can we take into our own traditions? Lees meer

    Things we Talk About:
    Mooney Faces
    Games for Halloween
    Snap Dragon Video 1
    Snap Dragon Video 2
    Caramel Pronunciation Map
    Mischief Night Map
    Cabbage Card 1
    Cabbage Card 2
    The Bobbing for Apples Video

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:03:36) Paranormal Psychology
    (01:03:06) Defunct Halloween Traditions
    (01:36:21) Outro

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    We also learn about: Skeleton Shattering Science Topic, anomalistic psychology is the science of ghost busting, NOT parapsychology, the first step to a ghost is someone who believe in ghosts, following the format of ghost hunting shows, spooky believers are often predisposed pattern recognizers, the Australian sheep goat scale, suggestion not priming, creepyness via agent detection, a haunted house is evolutionarily designed to be spooky to us, the scary feedback loop, no infrasound does not vibrate your eyeballs, pattern recognizing apophenia, it’s a wonder humans aren’t scared all the time, it’s actually good we don’t consciously perceive every single thing, wait the static says subscribe to the podcast?? I think she’s saying her hips DO lie, the yeti, hiring a magician on halloween, Ella’s pattern recognizing brain can sense Tom’s bit voice, all the names Halloween goes by, Samhain was basically new years eve, Mary Blain’s Games for Halloween and her caveat, Silent Supper or Reverse Dinner, don’t play snap dragon, imagine risking third degree burns for a RAISIN, the heat map of words for the night before Halloween, mischief night or Halloweeneen, youth honor day, the worst boy police, did you pull a bisexual cabbage? why is everything so romantic?? silent supp…

  35. 93: Unsolved Math Problems & Video Game Controllers w/ Ellen Weatherford

    25 september 2025 · 1 uur 54 min

    Afspelen
    Wait... ELLA is doing a math topic?? Not only that but she finds the beauty in searching for answers among the toughest math problems. Then, friend of the show Ellen Weatherford takes us through a tour of video game controllers. My favorite is the- wait how did we end up talking about World War 2?? Lees meer

    Images we Talk About:
    Tesseract Gif
    Tennis for Two Controllers
    Magnavox Odyssey
    Game.com

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:03:05) Unsolved Math Problems
    (00:54:47) Video Game Controllers
    (01:46:42) Outro

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    We also learn about:

    Today Caroline is played by Tom and Tom is played by Ellen, I’ll fall on the bad british accent sword for our guests, Ellen speed runs failing math, famous bad lawyer Fermat, I’m learning about math?? from Ella??? Ellen’s Last Theorem: lentil’s cure cancer, “mathematics like any science requires advancements and research and discovery”, basic math starts as early as mesopotamia, a brief history of mathematics, I gotta make math to describe this apple, math begets math, new ways to solve old problems, is this problem hard or will it take thousands of years to solve, the oldest unsolved math problem is 2000 years old, you’re scientifically wrong that all numbers are perfect, we know of 52 perfect numbers, merseene primes and perfect numbers, we don’t know if odd perfect numbers exist, Hilbert’s 23 unsolved math problems, it’s not the answers to the questions - its the tools built to solve them, new list just dropped - the millenium prize problems, the million dollar prize doesn’t account for inflation, the power of an interesting question, multidimensional play-doh, bumblebee - the tesseract! the poincare conjecture had only not been solved in the third dimension, perelman turns down the fields medal, they can offer a million cause if you solve it you’re only thinking about play-doh and 10 dimensions, is the mellenium prize problematic? eh, after researching a lot… the Riemann hypothesis actu…

  36. 92: The Chemistry of Computers & The Great Moon Hoax of 1835

    11 september 2025 · 1 uur 54 min

    Afspelen
    What does chemistry have to do with computers? Well it might just be the best way to understand what's actually going on inside a CPU! And how could there have been a moon hoax back in 1835? Well it involves cosmic pluralism and Edgar Allen Poe so buckle up! Lees meer

    Images we Talk About:
    Vaccuum Tubes in Computers
    The First Integrated Circuit
    Another early Integrated Circuit Prototype
    People Etching a Circuit Mask
    TED How are Microchips Made Video
    Etching from the Great Moon Hoax

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:02:23) The Chemistry of Computers
    (01:04:27) The Great Moon Hoax of 1835
    (01:49:15) Outro

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    We also learn about:

    BOOOO, a first time interview for this podcast, tom tries to define an integrated circuit, semiconductors, being mid at conducting is vital, silicon silica and silicone, quartz is one of the most abundant minerals and it’s just silica, the metalloids, transistors are so important but so vague, Caroline and Ella were not expecting a trans rights joke, for once of your jokes deserved more appreciation, the quest to make the smallest switch, semiconductors or on the edge of flipping between conductive or not, vacuum bulbs, The Tyranny of Numbers, photo-lithography, etching shrinking then stenciling a circuit, then computers would help make computers, Moore’s predictions of the future of computing, wait did you just explain Moore’s Law? my new graphics card comes with a new unified theory of physics, transistors are now the width of a few strands of DNA, quantum troubles, relying on moor’s law can stifly creativity, but also making transistor’s smaller is interesting science! Ella & Caroline never thought they’d understand computers like this, it’s almost like they’re going to announce they’re discovering aliens, cosmic pluralism, Sir William Herschel discovered Tom’s Anus, we were in a way disproving life on other planets, Gruithuisen sees roads on the moon, “the power of imagination on the man is …

  37. 91: Lauren Gawne, Is Pointing Rude, and Gestures Studies

    28 augustus 2025 · 1 uur 29 min

    Afspelen
    Is pointing rude? I'm sure it's a simple question with a simple answer that won't completely break our brains in rethinking all we take for granted about gesture. Also, what is Lauren’s holy grail lost media of gesture studies? Lees meer

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:05:01) Is Pointing Rude?
    (00:48:11) Questions for Lauren
    (01:25:26) Outro

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    We also learn about:

    Diverse but incredibly niche interests is the sweet spot, studying the holes in emoji, Tom wasn’t a rude pointer child like Ella, the Disney point, when you point you don’t direct to the end of your finger - you psychically project forward, dogs and horses are great points - cats not so much, we are the only primate that points in the wild, you likely pointed before you spoke, ITS CALLED THE INDEX FINGER BECAUSE IT POINTS LIKE AN INDEX, non index pointing, “that is one lens through which we could consider this”, lip pointing in Encanto, travel guides will simplify to pointing is rude because it’s complex and nuanced where it’s rude, we haven’t even gotten to rainbows, taboos for pointing at specific things, who dude watch where you’re pointing it’s threatening, what if hypothetically a host just went to japan and pointed a lot, Japan is often on the linguistics bingo card, pointing is the pronoun system in ASL, spacial pronoun tracking, you can be a better pointer than someone, gesture and speech have different strengths, Tom’s gestures are more honest than his words to his cohosts, pointing was some of the earliest emoji, “medieval illuminated manuscript marginalia creators would be disappointed with you Ella”, the finger pointing came before the arrow, “we had hands before we had writing”, gesture studies is still new and very interdisciplinary, the way you study gesture is every way, you gesture bigger in loud environments, computers are good at reading hands but not hands in context, the only thing Tom can correct Lauren on is that it was Just Dance no…

  38. 90: Octopuses & The Paralympics

    14 augustus 2025 · 1 uur 47 min

    Afspelen
    How strange are octopuses really? We're going to be debunking some claims, then rebunking them with some real, amazing facts about our fellow earthlings. And what the history of the paralympics? What can we learn from its attempts and its failures and its importance in sports? Lees meer

    See Tom's Science Game Show in NYC!

    Things we Talk About:
    Octopus Virus Diagram
    Snail Nervous System Diagram
    Octopus Maze Image
    Video of Octopus Opening a Jar
    Video of Octopus Camouflage
    Paralympics Ad

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:02:56) Octopuses
    (00:55:08) The Paralympics
    (01:41:44) Outro

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    We also learn about: Censoring octopussy, 3 science communicators get rabid over a dubious study, octopi are so smart they could only have come about from fertilized eggs aboard an asteroid, cephalopods evolved a central nervous system independently with ganglia, the “head” of an octopus is where there other organs are, octopi don't have 5 brains but they do have a lot of distributed neurons, each sucker is a finger-nose-tongue that can make decisions on its own, octopi have terrible hand eye coordination but can learn to be better at it, Ella thinks “man this would be a great topic for the podcast”, octopi are aliens in the metaphorical sense - and maybe it’s a bad metaphor, I’m not a playing I’m developing flexible behavioral strategies, octopuses play pully downy rather than keepy uppy, the criteria of play, we thought Ella was going to compliment Tom but of course that wasn’t it, octopus cities have populations between 2 and 11, Ella’s gerrymandering octopus city, its more about shared resources and cheaper rent than grand designs, octopus color changing is way more than just pixel cells, but… octopuses are colorblind, their sucker opsins sense color and send directly to chromatophores, octopuses can know a color without seeing it, these are amazing earthling behaviors, Ella was looking for a simple un-nuanced not heavy misc topic, the f…

  39. 89: Understanding Blood & Peculiar Percussion

    31 juli 2025 · 1 uur 30 min

    Afspelen
    Blood! We all have it, but how much do we know about it? And more importantly, what was the journey of understanding to get there? And just how deep can the history of these peculiar percussion instruments go? Well we'll be criss-crossing across the planet today to find out! Lees meer

    Images we Talk About:
    The Quijada
    Son Jarocho Quijada Video
    The Clapper
    The Clapper in Performance

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:01:35) Understanding Blood
    (00:49:38) Peculiar Percussion
    (01:24:41) Outro

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    We also learn about: 5 liters of blood over 60,000 miles, humoral theory, phlegm - yellow bile - black bile - blood, I’m from house sanguine - our fire is strongest in our season of spring, humoral theory was around for 1500 YEARS, blood letting, a leeches detour just for Caroline, very few leeches actually suck blood, the exportation of leeches for blood letting made them endangered, we nearly killed the leeches in nearly killing us, leeches are sometimes used today after reconstructive surgery for their enzymes, Nafis’ circulatory system would not be believed for 400 YEARS, these time skips are killing me, Harvey was ALSO NOT BELIEVED, we stan Harvey cause he got witches acquitted, the government and church’s ban on blood transfusions, 1818 was the first recorded successful transfusion, 1658 Jan Swammerdam first saw “oval particles” but this was 7 years before the word “cell” was used, pop quiz on what the parts of blood do, don’t draw your blood while driving, blue and green blood in crustaceans and leeches, antigens and antibodies, “I hope this will be of some use to mankind”, sodium citrate helped blood stay fresh for transfusion, god medicine fucking rules, we reinvented humors with blood personality types, the humors are stored on the antigens obviously, “do you know what my blood type is, for no reason, I’m fine, it’s a podcast thing”, Tom has a slumdog millionaire moment because he was working on another video, there are 4…

  40. 88: The Evolution of the Placebo & Postage Stamp Art

    17 juli 2025 · 1 uur 47 min

    Afspelen
    Chances are you know what a placebo is, but... how does it really work? And what can its evolution teach us about science, medicine, and ethics? And how much art can fit a tiny postage stamp? Well enough to fill a whole history of debate, drama, and ducks. Lees meer

    Images we Talk About:
    Drafts of England's First Stamp
    Sydney Views Stamp
    The Train Stamp
    2025 Duck Stamp Winners
    McBroom's Spite Duck

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:02:20) The Evolution of Placebos
    (00:57:13) Postage Stamp Art
    (01:41:17) Outro

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    We also learn about:

    The word placebo has escaped academic containment, fake mourners saying “I will please the lord”, placebo paint on birds wings, placebo as sham, The Royal Commission on Animal Magnetism, not that kind of animal magnetism, placebo as psychology, is this going to be a running bit, defining placebo not in reference to something else, “a person’s psychological response to being treated”, things like healing through time or pressure to answer are Not placebo effects, placebo effects are tricky to study, animals can get the placebo effect, goo goo ga ga am I in the contwal gwoup? conditioning rats that a smell means reduced pain, the internal and external factors of placebo, the placebo effect is actually doing things in your brain, of course we talked about that before on episode TWENTY EIGHT, Ella loves brain action, you can consciously fail a placebo but unconsciously pass it, the nocebo effect, it may be just in your head but your head is a lot of things, the murky ethics of placebos, doctors are mostly prescribing harmless placebos when patients ask for one, Caroline & Ella’s sleeping pill and recovery position placebos, HOLY SHIT PLACEBO EVOLVED INTO CHARIZARD HELL YEAH, some placebos work when you tell people it’s a placebo, placebo pills take 2 twice daily, wait is this actually just about the importance of transparent and accessible and trustworthy medical care?? the American Philatelic …

  41. 87: Mating Rituals & True Crime

    3 juli 2025 · 1 uur 51 min

    Afspelen
    Just how complicated can animal mating rituals be, and why did they even evolve them at all? And why is true crime Everywhere, and what can we learn from breaking down what makes it feel so icky? Lees meer

    Also see Tom's new Game Show in NYC this Sunday! www.OurFindingsShow.com

    Things we Talk About:
    Deathwatch Beetle
    Red-Winged Blackbird
    House Finch
    Lesser Florican Video
    Dance Analysis Video 1
    Dance Analysis Video 2
    Cruell Step-Dames
    Carolina Buddies Murder Ballad

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:04:04) Mating Rituals
    (01:03:01) True Crime
    (01:46:08) Outro

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    We also learn about: the adorable death watch beetle, the deep sea “ah fuck it - you’re here” approach, of course the man on the podcast thinks reproduction is easy, why are people on hinge so picky, hermaphrodite sea bunnies, there’s plenty of fish in the sea and the sea is fucking huge, sexual ornaments, peacock feathers made Darwin SICK, sexual ornaments to identify you’re doing it with the right species, you can hang your sexual ornaments all year long for other purposes, finch dating shows, carotenoids from skilled foraging make a brighter pigment is an indicator trait, or just go to a tanning salon, going to the gym is the same - false muscles, active at night - gives you a fright - active at day - wants to get laid, wow flies give eye contact during courting - that’s better than a lot of humans, the fly cha cha slide, drosophila simlish, nuptial gifts, Women! Want! Regurgitated Nutrient Liquid! the arms race of jumping birds, the “I’ll have what she’s having theory”, dancing mannequins, intermediate level of asymmetric arm movement, if anything the study shows how comical it is to try to boil down human mating, the famous shirt smelling study, what are you trying to show with a human mating study? we shouldn’t be reductive for human mating or for animal mating either, ascribing the gender binary to worms, there is no one easy tip to dating in nature, a do…

  42. The Best of Everything 2025

    19 juni 2025 · 1 uur 46 min

    Afspelen
    Listeners voted for their favorites topics of the past year, so join us as we chat and relearn the best of everything! Lees meer

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    The best awards in podcasting that feature hosts named Tom, Ella and Caroline, the best cohost award is a tie (for Charlie and Teddy) actually introducing ourselves again, Tom is the hot one and the funny one, everyone loves dinosaurs, satisfying questions I never thought to ask, no one at the Igs knows Tom, the nuanced story of the propoganda of the propaganda, hey they happen to be some great topics we’re talking about, I had to put jokes about how bad we are so that we could compliment each other later, you can go back and discover Ella’s, we love an experimental episode as well as a classic episode, we love the quirky younger sibling of things, the World Games are coming up soon - get hype!

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  43. 86: Eyevolution 2 Eyelectric Boogeyeloo & Digital Piracy w/ Sabrina Cruz

    5 juni 2025 · 1 uur 50 min

    Afspelen
    How many eyes do these animals have, and more importantly what are they doing with them? And how long has copyright piracy been around, and would YOU download a car? Also Ella finally drops her fake british accent. Lees meer

    Images we Talk About:
    Bullfrog Parietal Eye
    Bumble Bee Ocelli
    Scallop Eyes
    Scallop Eye Mirrors
    The Home Taping is Killing Music Logo

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:04:01) Eyevolution II
    (00:56:16) Digital Piracy
    (01:45:06) Outro

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    We also learn about:

    How many jingles does this man have up his sleeve?? 2 eyes or not 2 eyes, what do you need glasses for - to see boobs? why have an odd number of eyes when it’s a BOGO deal developmentally, even more amazing than his eye of agamoto - Dr Strange has 2 camera eyes, “I grow fearful of the untrue eye”, bull frogs can’t doom scroll, the pineal eye is a skylight to the pineal gland, ommatidia means little eye, each compound eye only sees one image from the thousand of ommatidia, this is Caroline’s first eyevolution rodeo - we can’t answer all the questions, now you can be annoying correcting people about bug vision, ocelli are also called little eyes, triangular ocelli flight stabilization, Robobee, ocelli are useful because they’re auxiliary, they’re a fast different readout, there are so many more interesting sci fi choices for eyes, maybe they evolved ocelli to not crash when they see a sexy bug, having zero eyes would be going to far, oh wait nevermind, where we’re going we don’t need eyes, “not the implications”, well I’ll answer one of those questions, what do you need eyes for looking at boobs? YEAH I DO ACTUALLY, he complex eyes like a telescope of scallops, THEY DON’T EVEN HAVE A BRAIN, have we gone too far? the living square mirrors in scallop eyes, no one believed scallop TV would work, fair use and fair dealings, early book sellers were book copiers, authors did not make profits on early copies, Martial was the first person to be reposted on…

  44. Vote for the Best Of Everything 2025!

    29 mei 2025 · 3 min

    Afspelen
    Vote for your favorite topics at LetsLearnEverything.com/bestof before Sunday June 8th!!! Lees meer

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  45. 85: David Bennett & Why Humans Like Harmony in Music

    22 mei 2025 · 1 uur 29 min

    Afspelen
    What is it about harmonies in music that just sounds so good? Can science (and our amazing musical guest David Bennet) help us get to the bottom of it? Lees meer

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:06:24) Why do we like Harmony?
    (00:56:10) Our Music Theory Questions
    (01:24:04) Outro

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    We also learn about:

    Listening to Carly Rae Jepsen academically, the musical expert said Caroline has good music taste, I’m down hereeeeee, harmony is just the interaction of any two notes, Tom thinks about high school choir harmony all the time, even babies like harmony, even the oldest flutes have the same holes in them, octaves are so similar we call them the same note, watchmojo ranking of intervals, Carly Rae Jepsen - It Has Many Notes!, a spicy dissonant interval can be good in moderation - like a spicy seasoning in food, Tom is just grinning getting to ask these music questions, we invited you as a guest and you bring this dissonance to our home?? the messy sounding tones match to messy looking ratios, why can we even distinguish pitch? we use pitch in communication so much, animal sounds are the only things that make pitch, animals can recognize intervals, we call bird song song - but to them it’s probably more like language, it sounds cheesy - but in every human voice there’s a harmony, we’re asking the question backwards - we needed to understand harmony to be able to decipher a pitch, hearing the difference between notes IN YOUR HEAD, what we hear in our head is different than the world around us, harmonies are audio cheesecake - something we evolved to enjoy pumped to the max, “we can make cheesecake with our mouths”, cheesecake is just molecules, did you not have to learn human evolution in music school? oh my guilty pleasures are Tchaikovsky’s later works, Ella humble bragging about her spotify wrapped, this is going to come off as hostile but hasn’t enough already been said about the Beatles, how different generations experi…

  46. 84: Tree Talk & Trading Card Art

    8 mei 2025 · 1 uur 40 min

    Afspelen
    Can trees talk to each other? And how does that personifying metaphor square with the actual science behind it? And what can we learn from the stories of art on trading cards throughout history? Lees meer

    Images we Talk About:
    Trade Cards
    3 Modern Trading Cards
    Yuka Morii's Cards
    Terror
    Hyalopterus Lemure
    Preposterous Proportions

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:02:08) Tree Talk
    (00:52:16) Trading Card Art
    (01:33:47) Outro

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    The answer is yes maybe sometimes and no, talking tree folklore, communication as transferring information, The Secret Life of Trees, Caroline WAS vegan, plants feel pain - GOOD, tree self defense, secondary metabollites, you got me AND Ella to write that down, tannin defense mechanism, volatile organic compounds, giraffes avoiding nearby leaves after eating, maybe trees are eavesdropping, mycorrhizal networks, could it be diffusion or a baby tree suckling on its mother, do a stanford prisoner experiment for trees, that tree is giving mother, mother trees - altruistic fungi - and the perils of plant personification, literally talking to trees, your first priority shouldn’t be to not be boring - maybe second, respect for the organisms that are fundamentally unlike us - their unfathomable lives, the modern boom of trading cards, trade cards, mass produced color images were cool and novel, how many credits for that chromo? absurd advertising from the 1800s, anthropomorphic fruits and veggies were all the rage, trade cards were a microcosm of marketing-invention-and collecting, Ella’s baseball impression, looking at a mainstream sport through the nerdiest lens imaginable, cigarette baseball cards, Doug McWilliams photographed 8% of all major league baseball players, oh right photography is an art, and so is building relationships with players, cards began to stand on their own, Richard Garfield wanted baseball cards for nerds, Magic and Pokemon credit their artists - but YuGiOh does not, Yuka Morii’s…

  47. 83: The Most Boring Element & Solving Shakespeare's Accent

    24 april 2025 · 1 uur 33 min

    Afspelen
    What is the most boring element, and just how boring could it possibly be? Turns out: VERY! And how can we decipher what Shakespeare sounded like, and who among us can lay claim to his accent? Lees meer

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:03:52) The Most Boring Element
    (00:48:53) Solving Shakespeare's Accent
    (01:26:37) Outro

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    We’re not going for the easy sappy answer, what makes something boring? all the oxygen stans updating wikipedia, the most boring is obviously bohrium, thulium is used in lasers and x-rays, about 24 grams of astatine per planet, shout out Sir Martin Poliakoff, the 4 elements that came from pitchblende, Caroline stop anthropomorphizing protactinium, the isotope brevium, you could have been called abracadabra and instead your legal name is Actinium’s dad, wow what a fascinating [Rn]5f 26d7s2 ground state electron configuration! give me more random letters and numbers Tom! protactinium is there if your smoke detector is old, the global ocean conveyor belt, THC (Thermal Haline Circulation), that’s the ocean bit- anyway here’s something completely different about protactinium, paleoclimatology sounds a lot like protactinium, Ella realizes the turn, HE DID IT, whoa Caroline doing thumbs up to climate change, they’re de-extincting William Shakespeare, where better to waste my time pursuing this than Let’s Learn Everything, shakespeare is typically performed in received pronunciation, wait this is secretly a UK vs US topic! I’m surprised it took you 3 years to figure out we just keep you for your American accent, Americans have vestigial roticity, the universal beauty of two dudes yapping, what a strange elitism to claim to have Elizabethan English, Appalachian claims of shakespearean accents as a way to boost image, if you want to know what people sounded like back then… look at what people wrote about it! more one to one spellings like “philome” for film, we can deduce the accent from rhymes and puns, I l…

  48. 82: International Space Law & Taxidermy

    10 april 2025 · 1 uur 52 min

    Afspelen
    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? Lees meer

    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…

  49. Preview: The Lab Rat Games

    27 maart 2025 · 38 min

    Afspelen
    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! Lees meer

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  50. 81: Dinosaur Diet Detectives & Proto-Podcasts

    20 maart 2025 · 2 uur 13 min

    Afspelen
    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? Lees meer

    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 …