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150 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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Tom, Ella, and Caroline join MFD Spring Break
17 maart 2025 · 1 uur 20 min
It’s not MaxFunDrive without a wild kickoff spectacular! Former real-life VJ and host of MTV's Spring Break 1999, Dave Holmes, takes your favorite MaxFun hosts through some wacky ‘90s- and Spring Break-themed mini games!! Lees meer
Featuring: Dave Holmes, Jeremy Bent, Oscar Montoya, Dimitry Pompée, Tom Lum, Ellen Weatherford, Alex Schmidt, Brenda Snell, Drea Clark, Alonso Duralde, Dan McCoy, Jordan Morris, Manolo Moreno, Ella Hubber, Caroline Roper, Ella McLeod, John-Luke Roberts, Justin McElroy, Clint McElroy, Mike Cabellon, Sierra Katow, Hal Lublin, Danielle Radford, John Moe, Christian Dueñas, Christian Duguay.
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:22) Tom, Ellen, Alex, and Brenda Trivia
(00:32:47) Tom, Ellen, Manolo, and Jeremy on Party Animals
(00:46:34) Caroline, Ella, Ella, and John-Luke on British Spring BreakHelp support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinlearn
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80: Ify Nwadiwe, The Science of the Peasant Railgun, and a Panoply of Nerdery
13 maart 2025 · 1 uur 16 min
Host of Um Actually and nerd of many domains Ify Nwadiwe joins us as Tom helps him deconstruct the infamous Peasant Railgun from D&D. Could it actually work? And can we come up with something even more powerful using real science? We also dig into nerdery old and new, and see if Ify can convince Ella and Caroline to embrace their home country's greatest export: Warhammer. Lees meer
Images we Talk About:
A Real Railgun FiringTimestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:06:05) The Peasant Railgun
(00:43:07) Q&A/Nerding Out
(01:12:19) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
We also learn about: After this black hole research I do appreciate my family more! we’re here to game, what is a peasant? stealing science experiments for DnD campaigns, Caroline and Ella are delighted to learn the Peasant Railgun for the first time, convincing peasants to hands across america, pandering to the audience telling them their smart, My Monster Manual is On the Origin of Species, a peasant message system/computer, let people accelerate things to the speed of light! I shouldn’t let my players do WHAT, and remember kids DONT use a bong because it gets you SO HIGH, I’m reading between the lines Gary would want us to do this, the real rail gun, UM ACTUALLY ITS A PEASANT COIL GUN, rail guns are more common in fiction, the strength of a rail gun tears itself apart and creates a fireball, Ify would make each peasant in the line roll, if your players try to make the railgun say yes then show them the picture, the peasants have the means of production and destruction - they should unionize, the fastest manmade object, the manhole cover isnt the fastest object recorded, mission to touch the sun, gravity slingshot, it’s not the mass of the planet its the orbit, its not a magnet - its a magnet on a bullettrain, DMs watch out for artificer space programs, the duke of musk keeps stealing our government funding, Morgan you’re welcome to play beyblades with Ify any time, marrying bratz and digim…
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79: The Psychology of Math & Sudoku
27 februari 2025 · 1 uur 51 min
Why is math both so easy and so hard for our brains, and how can the psychology of horses, babies, and mathematicians help answer that? And what wild journey did Sudoku take to become the popular puzzle that Ella adores? Lees meer
Things we Talk About:
The Video of a Child Learning to Count
The Melencolia PaintingTimestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:04:59) The Psychology of Math
(01:00:35) Sudoku
(01:44:59) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
We also learn about: the Wonderful student, it’s not you - it’s math, “I did biology for a reason”, children can want a lot of complex things, it’s harder in the UK cause its Maths plural, Caroline & Ella’s math journeys, charlie solves the Riemann hypothesis, the horse the myth the legend - clever hans, clever hans was drafted into the military AS A MATHEMATICIAN, real horse math! so many animals seem to have Number Sense, counting is hard for kids, multiplication isn’t counting - it’s memorization and other strategies, Caroline doesn’t have a great Mental Blackboard, kick flipping a chair in our minds to brag to Caroline, overlapping waves, hot or not for equations, hahaha a taylor expansion?? in Lp?? ridiculous! there is no one math organ in the brain, don’t give up on math, “I don’t treat math as a monolith (I think statistics is the worst math)”, that surprises me because sudoko’s amazing and you’re wrong, the ancient mystical turtle’s magic square, a mathematical warding spell, “once something is proved true, it is eternally true”, HOW DID ELLA NOT REALIZE THIS WAS A MATH TOPIC, magic squares are unsolved, math divination, wow this is a math’s topic huh, maths in art, Melancholia, the magic square on La Sagrada Familia, wait Magic Squares AREN’T the precursor to sudoku?? I don’t know this child, if not sudoku why sudoku shaped? the Latin square originated in Korea before Euler, my parents are older than sudoku, it was originally called Number Place, even though we call it Sudoku - in Japan it’s often ca…
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78: Drosophila Melanogaster & The British Meal Deal
13 februari 2025 · 1 uur 43 min
Why is the common fruit fly the perfect model organism, and the reason for 6 Nobel Prizes?? And what is the british fascination around the meal deal, lunchtime, and the sandwich? Lees meer
Images we Talk About:
Map of the Fruit Fly Brain
Rat My Meal Deal
The Sandwich FactoryTimestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:57) Drosophila Melanogaster
(00:49:46) The British Meal Deal
(01:37:48) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
We also learn about: Ella’s former favorite fun fact, are 6 nobel prizes more impressive than long sperm? we need to pause, bolas, Ella’s Virgins, Dew Loving Black Belly, Dros Mel are human commensals - they migrated with us, “they’re undemanding guests”, first life intentionally put into space, maybe Jeff Goldblum became a fly so seamlessly because they share 60% of their DNA, Tom’s great Jeff Goldblum impression, they share a lot of disease related genes, Thomas Morgan - The Lord of the Flies, Morgan knew about genetics but not DNA yet, genetic redundancy, a fly geneticist’s swiss army knife, the varied list of nobel wins, are they cancelled? wait actually? guess that fly gene, “the inside jokes are becoming outside jokes”, the golden wild west era of the fruit fly may be over - but not all science, the beautiful fruit fly brain, we COULD end by talking about how this little organism has been so belovedly studied and helpful, Dros Mel has a mini bachelorette organ, the great british everything, is this a sincere answer? rating meal deals, fluctuations of lunch elitism, a beaver and a noonshine, capitalism made workers hours longer - workers rights made lunch, lunch was given by and for women, the earl of sandwich was too much of a gamer, we can’t re-litigate the cube rule, the “daring” true story of the sandwich, the sandwich storry isn’t about invention it’s about class, food elitism fads, ella invents soup in a tube, 1980s the first pre-packaged sandwich, units of sandwich (UOS), it’s almost like getting separated from the mean…
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77: Light Pollution & Mistaeks
30 januari 2025 · 1 uur 44 min
What can we learn from the most modern - but overlooked form of pollution? And can mistakes in art be something actually... good? Lees meer
Images we Talk About:
Navajo Rug Ch'ihónít’i
Ramses II Statue
Ecce Homo
The Original Ecce Homo
3 Versions of Ecce Homo
Lincoln Memorial MistakeTimestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:25) Light Pollution
(00:48:06) Mistaeks
(01:37:02) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
We also learn about: Auctioning topics, the origins of pollution, pollution is old but light pollution is from the 1960s, the great stink, the biggest light polluter is the sun, old gas street lights used to be more like beacons than lights, the world’s getting 10% brighter each year, 80% of North American can’t see the milky way, Light Trespass, Sky Glow, light pollution makes telescopes worse, Tom’s parents hearing him scream WHY IS THERE BREAST MILK, the strange lights after the 1994 LA earthquake, amateur astronomers are vital to astronomy, light trapped moths, a 1917 study on lighthouses and bird migration, birds waking up 5 hours earlier, turtles also use moonlight navigation, just move your telescope and evolve your species it’s not our fault, “he glistens you philistine”, the big beautiful glow worm woman in the sky, street lights are like sugar light to plants, light pollution isn’t the biggest issue - but that can make it easy to ignore - and it has some easy wins! it’s solvable at the community level, Tom’s buoyancy broken hand mistake, oops I mixed up my therapy and podcast topic list, the beatles anomalies list, Michelangelo’s beautiful complaint letter poem, we are our own worst critic, the ASMR mistake was just an anomaly, Kintsugi, “it treats breakage as a part of the object’s history rather than an error or a failure to be covered up”, what’s the japanese word for mud covered boots, only god can make perfect fun facts, Ch'ihónít’i, releasing the thoughts from an object - a way out, the journey of Caroline’s darned jumper, how ca…
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Recast: The Funcanny Valley - Spellbound and Gagged
16 januari 2025 · 1 uur 16 min
As we plan out the new year, please enjoy a recast of one of my (Tom's) favorite guest appearances on Spellbound and Gagged, hosted by the wonderful friend of the show Ellen Weatherford! Lees meer
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New Year Q&A 2024/25
2 januari 2025 · 1 uur 59 min
It's the start of the new year which means a bunch of new questions submitted by YOU! What are our favorite words from the podcast? What's it like to scrap a topic? Would we still love each other if we were worms? Lees meer
Things we Talk About:
Contrapoints' Twilight Video
Jenny Nicholson's Star Wars Hotel Video
Shaun's Channel
China's Artifical Sun
XOXO 2024 VideosTimestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:07:42) Part 1
(01:13:53) Part 2
(01:54:30) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
We also learn about: west our weawy heads, this year we had long topics and a good spread of topics, Jono’s Q&A themes 2.0, next year I’m doing a topic on Caroline, we can neither confirm nor deny it’s the dex we know, Challengers Zone of Interest is the new Barbenheimer, games that show your personality, ahh eating your own poop has been on my list for forever, the use of pseudoscience, Caroline’s favorite word from the podcast is Quantum thanks to Tom (awww), Tom’s favorite is Kleptoparasitism, just “Light” as a topic, can we sweep Ella off her math’s feet, say hi to us! we clicked with Gretchen TOO well, the format change has been great! someone thought that with the format change one person would just not be there, next year one topic - then zero - then negative topics, Ella’s super secret question section, Head and Shoulders made these lovely locks, being non binary, Ella still collects squashed pennies, learning outside the podcast, you are a clown, actually it turns out we don’t need comedy in this show - huh, tiktok is like matches and podcast are logs, tiktok vs youtube vs podcasts, oh people are listening to this, waiting for the other fun to drop, how we resolved learning everything, 2026 is gonna be a banging year, Ella’s 2 Star review of the year.
Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinlearn
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76: The HaLearnDays Spectacular! 2024
19 december 2024 · 1 uur 44 min
It's the HaLearn Days!! We've gathered a whole bunch of fun facts from each other and from friends of the show to share the gift of laughter and learning! Lees meer
Images we Talk About:
The Rat Car
Rat Car VideoSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:07:57) Part 1
(00:59:11) Part 2
(01:37:06) OutroWe also learn about: The Christmas Brussel Sprout Tradition, put christ back in halearn days, Where the Dog Ran, eclipses are more of a “huh?” moment, you might hear a frog during an eclipse - or more likely a science communicator, the turkey helicopter truth is stranger than fiction, giraffes can’t walk up anything steeper than 20 degrees, topography is important for giraffe reserves, the emu wars, Anatidaephobia, gotta define intimate, I eat and talk with tongue, our most liked tweet was from a jetlag hat, there’s nothing in the rules that says a wormhole can’t exist and a dog can’t play basketball, we got a rejection on our preprint from St Nicholas, Michel Foucault’s Elf on a Shelf, the scale of believability, when we stopped believing in santa, “Santa knows I can’t speak german”, the child psychology of Santa, William Shatner’s Halloween mask, Sleierton’s Betty Boop ghost mask, Tom finds out he’s driving a rat experiment car, the yuletide tradition of rats, rats would rather drive longer route to get food, alright “Tom Lum”, rice crispies and taco sauce, bingo bingo prison industrial complex! it’s very human to want to have tasty food, the places I would least like to have taste receptors, taste receptors and buds are different, we just discovered them on our tongues first and called them taste receptors, really our tongue has testicle and urethra receptors, screen-based phones, electronic purgatory, we will all get old, and as we say on the podcast: every year another vagina, should all our fun facts be forgot and never brought to mind, we’ll raise a cup of kindness yet, for everything.
Sources:
Minute Physics video on… -
75: Where are We? & Carrot Propaganda
5 december 2024 · 1 uur 29 min
Where are we in the universe? And what can we learn from all the hilariously wrong guesses and bad maps that got us there? And just how much carrot propaganda was there? Well, we'll see a lot of posters and a few myths to debunk! Lees meer
Images we Talk About:
Dunn's Earth & Moon Maps
Herschel's Milky Way Map
Wright's Island Universes Drawing
The Image of M31 from 1919
First Full Image of Earth
The World Carrot Museum
Carrot Poster 1
Carrot Poster 2
Disney Carrot Characters
Dr CarrotTimestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:04:44) Where are We?
(00:45:11) Carrot Propaganda
(01:24:04) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
We also learn about: we’re allowed to make up topics I guess, Samuel Dunn’s map of the Earth and moon, subtle thematic forshadowing, galactocentrism, the awkward teenage years of science, every human could see the milky way, the backbone of night, the milky origins of galaxy, Herschel’s heliocentric drawing of the milky way, Cosmic Pride, the zone of avoidance, island universes is multiverses for the middle ages, the great or not so great debate, can you debate something more interesting like moo deng, M31 the little cloud, the person whose telescope proceeds him: Edwin Hubble, “here is the letter that has destroyed my universe”, years of fighting over terminology, the World Carrot Museum, the moment this turned from a distraction into a topic, we do actually need vitamin A for night vision and eye health, you can only get vitamin A from meat… and vegetables… and fruits, the blackouts in WWII, carrots to help drivers be safer in the dark, incredible podcasts - they help you see in the blackout, Cat Eyes Cunningham, no official document shows intentionally hiding radar with carrot vision, the myth happened organically, “the war could be won on the kitchen front”, Walt Disney designed carrot mascots, if you don’t think food is political I have some posters to show you.
Sources:
Yale History of the Center of the Universe
Library of Congr… -
Submit Your Q&A Questions!
28 november 2024 · 4 min
It's everyone's favorite holiday: the day we ask you to submit your Q&A questions!! Lees meer
Go to www.LetsLearnEverything.com/questions and submit your questions about truly anything at all from the science to the serious to the silly!
Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinlearn
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74: Autumn Leaves & Swearing
21 november 2024 · 1 uur 49 min
Why do leaves change color? No... like really? Like, show-me-the-scientific-literature-really? After all how mysterious could the answer be? And holy frick we're finally doing a topic on swearing!! What are the eras of swearing, and what is swearing actually good for? Lees meer
Listen to our episode of Escape this Podcast: Oceananigans pt. 3 - The Bering-toss Strait
Images we Talk About:
Carotenemia HandsTimestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:34) Autumn Leaves
(00:53:04) Swearing
(01:42:57) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
Congrats to Kelly & Zach on the book prize! We should write a book, chilli peppers are spicy cause mammals digest them before pooping them out, magnesium makes leaves green, it’s worth it to drop leaves because when they do work they’re so efficient, man trees are interesting, carotenemia, “yeah so if you want an unnecessary amount of detail…”, Caroline has an answer for all our questions, anthocyanins, red leaves could be aposematic, finding one explanation for a color doesn’t mean we know for sure, Tom calls the climate change turn, warmer weather keeps leaves greener in autumn (good) but there’s less sunlight to use it (bad), animals use autumn leaf colors to help with migration, wont someone think of the leaf peepers, I don’t know/we don’t know, this might be too much swearing - thats a threat and a promise, the versatility of fuck, “fuck is good”, may all your teeth fall out except one to give you a toothache, Ella read a book for this of all topics, “hmm… fuck cunt shit…”, determining a historic swear is like jazz - it’s the swear words you don’t see, stop trying to make clit a thing, Ella was totally right to put a swear warning at the top, the nuance of gender roles in ancient rome, Fuck has a beautiful equality to it, shitepokes and windfuckers, cunt used to be just a regular word for vulva, medieval ages didn’t care about shit… literally, the journey of swearing makes dull history exciting, UK US Australia swearin…
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73: Linguist Gretchen McCulloch, Latin in Science, and Internet Linguistics
7 november 2024 · 1 uur 26 min
Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch of Lingthusiasm joins us to casually answer all of our pressing linguistics questions with the most mind blowing facts. Why does science use so much dang latin, and what is so unique about internet linguistics? Lees meer
Images we Talk About:
Gretchen's Favorite FrogsTimestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:10:58) Latin in Science
(00:54:49) Misc & Internet Linguistics
(01:22:46) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
We also learn about: Words that change the state of the universe, a promise is a kind of magic, “people ask me how i make a living doing linguistics and it’s very simple actually” just make podcast wagers, the language of space, space pidgin language, “that’s a great hypothesis and it’s actually hte opposite of that” sometimes the answer is imperialism! English is being used in science now how Latin was back then, the vulgate bible was latin to reach more people even the “vulgar”, you’re cousins a scribe learning latin - what are you doing a podcast? “Writing is a Technology”, writings only been invented like 4 times, writing originated as reciepts and lists, the A is an upside down ox, why invent a new letter when that means having to change the printing press - just double letter! you access computing through programming and programming is linked to language, we don’t know whether the first language was spoken or signed, french linguists once banned the discussion of the origin of language bcause it was deemed “fruitless”, it’s wild we could retrofit our brains to read and write at all, changing, linguistically accurate sesame street, “Who would know aught of art must learn, act, and then take his ease”, Ella you have goregous tripthongs, nice try Gretchen but our 69th episode was a few back, the Mini frogs, isn’t a linguistic podcast niche? you’re saying that to me in a language, Gretchen loses her words and makes perfect sense, Gretchen went back in time to give herself this mystery book, you don’t h…
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72: Former Cryptids & The Art of a Scary Story
24 oktober 2024 · 1 uur 57 min
Cryptids may be spooky, but what about the spooky animals that turned out to be... real?? And what makes a good spooky story? Could it be something secretly... heartwarming?? Lees meer
Timestamps:
(00:07:15) Intro
(00:04:21) Former Cryptids
(00:54:25) The Art of Spooky Stories
(01:52:33) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
We also learn about: Caroline have you never met a vampire? that was from episode number Four Three, what’s spookier than having to be known, Ella met Tom the true Cryptid, the cryptid museum was research, formerly the cryptic mascot: the Okapi, komodo dragons inspired king kong, 60 iron tipped teeth (like beavers), dragon virgin birth, yes queen life finds a way, squid squads on the hunt, only photographed in 2004, 20 years ago - don’t say that, 8 fully controllable giant tentacles, “I’m learning!” as it drags you down to the bottom of the ocean, save the whales because we need them on our team for the kraken wars, you know what’s not a cryptid? western hegemony, the head of a fox and the tail of a monkey, so many names for the jackalope across the world, are jackalopes cancer??? the Jackalope and HPV vaccine are zero degress of separation away, Ella writes a sappy ending for Tom, Ella watched The Ring at 6, being retold Evangelion in an art class, a meteor made of vampires, King’s 3 kind of scary, “don’t you like to feel the shivers?”, evangelical horror, Zhiguai - accounts of the strange, a story of a beautiful harp player, creepypastas, Ella formaly apologize for her cocktober misstep, “I see you sluts out there and I don’t want to do you any disservice, two sentence horror, the artistry of Telling a scary story, maybe the real spooky story was the friends we made along the way who were dead the whole time.
Sources
Guardian: Komodo Dragons
ESA Journals: The Okapi of the Apadana
BBC: Facts About Komodo Dragons
Scientific American: Iron Tipped Teeth
New Yorker: The Squid Hunter
BBC Science Focus: Giant Squid
Wiki: Giant Squ… -
71: 🎂 Good Invasive Species, Rock Climbing, and Ig Interviews
10 oktober 2024 · 2 uur 6 min
For our birthday this year, we've each gifted a topic for one another! For Caroline, an environmental hot take: can invasive species ever be... good? For Tom, an entire topic about one of his favorite hobbies: rock climbing! And for Ella, interviews from the Ig Nobel Laureates this year. Lees meer
Support us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:09:04) Good Invasive Species
(00:46:31) Rock Climbing
(01:18:05) Ig Nobel Interviews
(02:01:14) OutroWe also learn about: In podcast years we’re 60, Ella’s party hat, what’s your favorite color and least favorite invasive species, it’s my birthday also, the zebra mussel, Humanity: “Hubris et Brevi Perspicacia”, canetoads that can’t even reach the beatles, maybe Ella is biased being part of the largest invasive species: the brits, not all non-native species are invasive, the neutral long island wall lizards, should I stan or cancel the grass? you can’t get rid of the nonnative birds in hawaii without killing the native plants, knowing beneficial non-native species helps us triage the real problems, Caroline’s thesis was on this??? a traditional LLE answer: It’s Complicated, Tom simply screams, duck roll, GTA IV Trailer, songs when he was born, but how does this involve scientology? what makes us human, Live from the Ig Nobels, “Don’t Die”, sometimes you need to remember to breathe, “I mostly just watch clips on Lateral”, Blue Zones, Dr Saul Newman’s Poem, Skinner’s pigeon guided missiles somehow missed Ella, minority report for pigeons, “I’m from New York Most of the Times”, vortex energy capture, The Water Swims the Fish took years, a long winded way to say just keep swimming, the silly in the science, Tom rips up Caroline’s gift.
Sources:
Canal & River Trust: Zebra Mussles
National Museum Australia Cane Toads in Australia
Wikipedia: Beavers in Patagonia
Scientific American: Hawaiian Birds
The Conversation: Some ‘invasive species’ can help native ecosystems thrive.
The Hawaii VINE project… -
70: The Core of the Earth & Planned Obsolescence
26 september 2024 · 1 uur 52 min
What's actually going on in the center of the Earth, and just how interesting and useful could it be? And how did the now ubiquitous Planned Obsolescence start with... bicycles?? Lees meer
Images we Talk About:
An Early Bicycle
Bilhert's AnimationsTimestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:05:06) The Core
(00:58:24) Planned Obsolescence
(01:45:52) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
We also learn about: Core Memories, we live on the zest of a lemon, there’s something neapolitan icecreamy about the Earth, Bridgmanite is 38% of the Earth, The Iron Catastrophe sounds metal as hell, an audio journey to the center of the Earth, “Eat My Ass Out Radiolab”, Earth’s Internal Heat Budget is half original energy and half nuclear, the Earth won’t cool down for at least another 10 years, the American Miscellaneous Society’s Project Mohole, in 20 years we dug 12 km and escaped the solar system, when you don’t have earthquakes- use grenades! the shadow in the center of the Earth, Inge Lehmann kicks ass, “the master of a black art”, the inner core wobbles, the core is grainy and grows faster under Indonesia, the 2 most magical things: cold beer and hand warmers, the Inner Core Nucleation Paradox, “how wonderful that we have been met with a paradox, now we have some hope of making progress” - Niels Bohr, the Earth’s magnetic dynamo, Planetary Habitability is uh pretty important, everyone say thank you to the core, the innermost inner core, sometimes the one you’re looking for has been right below you this whole time, Tom falls hook line and sinker for a sudden 175 page bicycle paper, the first bikes without pedals or steering, the boneshaker, older men used tricycles, only the rich and adventurous used bikes, the safety iphone, you’re still using a bike 8? 10% of ads had a bicycle, Bernard London coined phrase the phrase 100 years ago, Planned Obsolescence was a legal proposal, contrived durability, there’s so many flavors and they all suck, e-waste, fast fashion is a v…
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69: Hank Green, Sex Science, Reverse Platypi, and the First Dick Drawing
12 september 2024 · 2 uur 1 min
Longtime inspiration and friend of the show Hank Green joins us for a very special episode! How do colonial organisms with just one queen avoid incest? How many Ig Nobels have gone to sex science? Can the team figure out the identity of the Reverse Platypus? When was the first dick grafitti, and could the story actually be... wholesome??? Lees meer
Watch: The video of the unexpected moment
Images we talk about:
MRI of Sex
Rat Pants Diagram
The Phallodeum Image
Venus of Hohle Fels
The Debatable Dick
Hadrian's Wall Dick Graffiti
Vindolanda's SECVNDINVS Dick
The Vindolanda Dick
Nikasitimos's DickTimestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:06:40) How Not to Colonial Incest
(00:20:52) Ig Nobel Sex Studies
(00:39:07) The Reverse Platypus
(01:06:31) The First Dick Graffiti
(01:33:10) Hank Questions
(01:53:44) OutroOur Tea Affiliate Link!
Support us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
We also learn about:
Emmy award winning standup comedian Hank Green, the fellowship of the ning, the literal birds and the bees, the icelandic ant geneology app, icelandians are my favorite colonial organism, breeding flight, slay queen - happy pride everyone it’s when we’re recording this, sperm storage, queens have a life's worth of sperm and eggs inside them, Spermathica that’s my word of the day, the termite queen stores the sperm inside a king, “he’s not my boyfriend he’s my sperm storage unit”, naked mole rats may do incest but they dont have cancer! the answer is “all of the strategies somewhere”, after all reproduction is The Thing in evolution, the ribbed condom won all the prizes that year, any topic can be a sex topic if you try hard enough, I think the ancient greeks proved a gay bomb would make them more powerful, MRI Porn is a new fetish, we should study sex more, sex makes you want to pee, whatever you’re doing pee right now, The Sex Live of Pantsed Rats, would rats be sexier if they wore pants like this or this, our google history is fucked, polyester testicle sling contraceptio…
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68: Phrenology & Lego
29 augustus 2024 · 1 uur 43 min
It's an infamous pseudoscience, but what haven't we learned from the rise and fall of Phrenology? And Lego are ubiquitous, which means there's a lot to learn and a lot of nuance for our love of these stackable bricks. Lees meer
Things we Talk About:
The Phrenology Pamphelet
The Lego Cullen House
Lego Seismometer
CERN Lego Device
The Brick Experiment ChannelTimestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:32) Phrenology
(00:56:34) Lego
(01:38:25) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
We also learn about: Get the lego phrenology set now! just listing all the lego sets, academic racism, the head wasn’t always so important, the Cardiocentric Hypothesis, Minds Behind the Brain, ancient egyptians just tossed the brain, Aristotle thought the brain was a radiator to keep the heart from overheating, the brain doesn't Look like it does anything, Galen suggested the brain might be important actually, sperm for brains, Caroline enjoys tricking us by saying a person’s good ideas first, Cephelocentric Hypothesis, mapping the brain in the 1600s, NOT related to the frenulum, buzz feed phrenology quizzes, flexing your brain so hard it breaks your skull, Tom is proven to be not funny, our desire for personality tests and fortune telling, travelling phrenology salesmen, there shouldn’t be medical celebrities, phrenology was a passion of the elites, reading an actualy travelling phrenology sheet, “differently bumped”, edibnugrh fringe was a lot less fun when it was the phrenology capital, we checked and it’s actually mozambique have the best brains - just gotta take the L on this one, Marie Jean Pierre Flourens kicked ass and helped kill Phrenology with real science, it comes in like a fad and leaves like a fad, I only liked phrenology before it was cool, the scammers are making our racism look bad! we’re not harsh enough about phrenology, “repoliticizing” phrenology, when it’s built its just one thing but when its pieces it can be anything, shirtless lego jacob, 20,000 lego se…
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Recast: LLE on SIF - Eeny, meeny, miny, moe
15 augustus 2024 · 1 uur 6 min
While we're sending Tom "Well Wissage" and a speedy recovery, enjoy Ella & Caroline on this tremendous episode of one of our sibling shows on the network, Secretly Incredibly Fascinating! Lees meer
Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinlearn
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67: Epigenetics & The Overlooked World Games
1 augustus 2024 · 1 uur 56 min
You may have heard Epigenetics used as a buzzword, but what is it really? Is it something we know about, something still new, or... both? And what in the world are the World Games, and what makes them better than the Olympics? Lees meer
Links we Talk About:
Ella's SciShow Video on X Chromosome Diseases
Sport Casting
Fin Swimming
Haudenosaunee Flag
Christopher Root's Incredible Paper on the Colonization of Lacrosse
The Adorable NYMuseum Haudenosaunee VideoTimestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:04:21) Epigenetics
(00:57:40) The World Games
(01:50:54) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
We also learn about: Ella passes her driving exam Tom’s not bitter about John Oliver, what is y’alls familialarity, epi- meaning on top of, epigentics are like tabs or blacked out text in the book of your DNA, epigentics stop your brain from turning into bone, oh did other people help Rosalind Franklin with the double helix? bases and double helixes and histones, literally blocking DNA from being read, epigentics are less cyberpunk and more exercise is good for you, epigentics is why you go blind from masturbating, it’s simpler in animals, “I’ve been here the whole time!”, “you’re enough Tom”, 2 X chromosomes means you have an extra, X Inactivation, Calico Cats are Genetic Mosaics, your epigentic markers are like your browsing cookies: you clear them before giving them to someone, are pollinators plant cucks? Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance, is it nature or nurture? generational trauma doesn’t have to be epigenetic to be real, inherited cherry blossom mouse sensitivity, the effects are subtle, Ella might have a high epigenetic age from her rock and roll lifestyle, this is so new there’s so much we don’t know, the epigenetic advice: healthy diet and exercise, how different could the world games be? casting for sport, wait did you hear me say break dancing is this a bit, the worst SEO for a name ever, Rugby 7s started at the World Games, the World Games are as ol…
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66: What is a Species & What is UK Voting?
18 juli 2024 · 1 uur 56 min
It's a word we say all the time but... what IS a species? How has it been used in the past, and could the different answers all be right? And how does voting work in the UK? It starts with voting for knights, and could hopefully end in the future with something even better. Lees meer
Images we Talk About:
Ella's Zoom MoustacheTimestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:04:23) What is a Species?
(01:01:54) UK Voting
(01:50:46) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
We also learn about: Jenny Lec, the definition we know is wrong, has anyone taken my title On The Origin of Species? This is my favorite! Oh shit… generic and specific, thinking of species as logical units, Kingdom Phylum Friends Acquaintances Work Friends Genus Species, the anime dewey decimal system, dark fungi, the cognitive dissonance of science at the time, even Darwin didn’t have a good definition of species, 1942 is when the common species definition was popularized, Biological - Evolutionary - Genetic definition of species, species gerrymandering, there is only 1 species of giraffe but should there be 4? policy first science, you don’t need hard definitions to do amazing things, nature is constantly doing kickflips over our no skateboarding signs, you really put your whole polizzy into naming that hybrid, a ring of banging around the himalayans, ring species in actuality look like a biblically accurate angel, let’s just ask what definitions scientists use, you can’t tell if fossils ever fucked, we only knew about human neandrethal interbreeding since 2010, what’s so wrong with having multiple species definitions? there’s a lot to biology! in between “there’s one answer” and “there’s no answers” is “there’s many answers”, Lizzy Poll, you can just call an election early?? in the UK you just vote for your member of parliament, it’s actually really weird to have a separate vote for president, every 2 steps forward is brought 1 step back by “the monster raving loony party”, Elmo think women no …
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The Best of Everything 2023-2024
4 juli 2024 · 2 uur
After much deliberation, the academy (listeners of the podcast) has voted on the best topics from the past year! If this is your first episode, you'll get a sampling of our favorite moments of science and sillyness, and if you're a long time listener, you'll hear some behind the scenes thoughts about the topics, as well as... a secret teaser at the very end?? Lees meer
Images we Talk About:
The Jacobin Pigeon
The Pouter PigeonTimestamps:
(00:04:37) Intro
(00:03:59) Part 1
(00:55:00) Part 2
(01:51:28) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
We also learn about: you gotta listen to the best ofs for the rock paper scissors drama, I’m not sure if Ella remembers our names, it’s not the same joke it’s a Call Back, superseding my superseded theories, Tom’s jokes are like the rain - you walk on through and hope it stops quickly, it gets Jalapeno business, I miss Comedy, Ella claimed review corner but keeps forgetting it, the art of topic writing is explaining but also what not to explain, our favorite topics of each others, wrote down the idea for public domain day the year before, Tom goofs up the La La Land Joke, ohh did you just finish episode 50? maybe, thanks everyone for the nice messages, Mum! “those stupid awards”, they’re all great episodes, we learned who in our family listens to our show, you guys wanna learn about ants??
Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinlearn
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65: Black Holes 101 & Tattoos
20 juni 2024 · 1 uur 48 min
What happens when a star collapses to a point of near infinite gravity? And just how hard could that be to actually... find? And why do we love tattoos so much, and how long have human beings across the world been loving them too? Lees meer
Check out Tom's first long form video that's finally out!
Images we Talk About:
The Crab Nebula
First Image of a Black Hole
Photo of OUR Black Hole, Sagittarius A
Ancient Siberian TattooTimestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:47) Black Holes 101
(00:57:51) Tattoos
(01:43:53) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
We also learn about: black holes are massive (mass) but not massive (size), nothing can escape a black hole, supermassive black hole by muse, the closest black hole is 1000 light years away so we don’t need to worry about them too much, matter can’t escape the Plunging Region, does your McDonald also have black holes? stellar evolution, “they’re just big gassy balls doing nuclear fusion”, the fusion in a star pushes against the gravity keeping it in equilibrium, Caroline’s fear of the sun expanding, stellar corpse, a neutron star is just made of neutrons - that can’t be right, if you add too much flour (mass) this will turn into an atomic bomb (black hole), stop saying massive and start saying voluptuous to avoid confusion, one in every thousand stars could be a blac khole, “surely that’s not sustainable” “have I got news for you about the future of all things”, theorizing a black hole in 1783, we only get the word Black Hole in 1964, betting on Signus X1, finding black holes by nearby objects’ bright hot death screams, it took 2 years to process the black hole image, sorry I think it looks like a butthole, Sagitarius A - our galaxies butthole, deslicious spaghettification, we’re all being spaghettified, I’m being raviolified here! where do you go in a black hole? into a topic for another day, “tom saw the topic on me”, no inheritance until you tattoo me onto your butt, Caroline got a tattoo to honor pige…
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64: Tom Scott, Human Acceleration, and Failed Videos
6 juni 2024 · 1 uur 22 min
How fast can a regular human accelerate from 0-60? How can you learn to love roller-coasters? And is there a terrifying experience Ella's done that even Tom Scott hasn't?? After having us on his show for so long, it's finally time for Tom Scott to join us on our show! Lees meer
Videos we Talk About:
Tom Scott's Amazing Roller Coaster Video
Tom Scott's Failed Video VideoTimestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:04:15) Human Acceleration
(00:50:03) Roller-coasters and Failed Videos
(01:18:05) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
We also learn about: herding cats and children, Thanks for the compliment you can leave now, UK metric is a mess, milk is just a blur cause it’s PastYourEyes, both Tom’s can’t be like this, stopping the angular velocity pedants, what’s so hard about orbital mechanics it’s not rocket science, this is a question full of "um actually"s, the longest second of Tom Scott’s life in the Mythen car, “would you do it again” “oh in a heartbeat”, just frame cars as IRL speedrunning, “oh my god she got sub 1 second”, please prove me wrong so I can ride it, steam catapulting a plane, the Nevis Catapult might win if you believe the hype, all politely saying roller coasters, “roller coaster nerds are like train nerds but worse”, running coasters at 100%, calibrating the weights of cars, British politeness way under-markets stealth, “I’ve done something Tom Scott hasn’t done??”, the experimental Nürburgring coaster that only operated for 4 days, Do-Dodonpa the “rattly bastard” that broke bones, dragsters going 0-60 in half a second stunned us to silence, you could buy the nitro X2 for less than a tesla but you do get to drive a tesla more than twice, “I reserve the right to turn this into a video essay”, our roller coaster journeys, dread and expectation, Ella loves the fear, “this is the worst thing I’ve ever done, YES”, LLE live episode on a roller coaster, Dick & Dom in da Bungalow sounds like a parody of something british, only americans will …
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Pride Merch & Voting for the Best of Everything!
30 mei 2024 · 4 min
It's Pride and Poll-jedice! For pride month we have some pride merch including an amazing design by Caroline, with proceeds going to Pride in Stem! Also, toss in your vote to defend the honor of your favorite topic for the next Best Of Everything episode! Lees meer
All of this is at LetsLearnEverything.com
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63: Biomimicry & The Evolution of Chess
23 mei 2024 · 1 uur 38 min
What can we learn by mimicking animals in nature, and more importantly, what can we learn about the nuance behind the buzzword of biomimicry? And just how many wild facts are hidden in a simple chess set? Lees meer
Images we Talk About:
One of the Oldest Shatranj SetsTimestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:26) Biomimicry
(00:50:25) Chess Chess Evolution
(01:33:41) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
We also learn about: So nice to have a topic taken, biomemetics, the spider grabber is more like bio-stealing, “nature is a giant pool of ideas”, “nature is the OG and does it best, organism level, lily leaf umbrella, who remembers davinci? none of his flying machines even worked, a quick lesson on flying, biomimcry was only coines in the 1950s and only become trendy in the 90s, gecko feet, spinning the biomimicry slot machine, sheep wool antidepressants, a biomimicry quiz, oh right we want fewer train sonic booms, whale flipper tubercles, whale power turbines, Ella biomimics Caroline, termite AC, destroying nature to recreate nature, biomimicry 3.8, the ickyness of corporate biomimicry, we’re an organic sustainable biomemetic podcast, a person after our hearts critizing a ted talk, you can biomimic like davinci or the wright brothers, nature is not infallible, pitching our own biomimetic ideas, bumble bees saying oops, ripple, chess chess evolution you know like that game, can’t stop thinking about those anal beads, everything Caroline’s learned about chess is against their will, Tom learns about himself by talking about chess camp, scachs d’amor was so nerdy, the hornets nest of chess historians, chess comes from the indo-persian area, borders are weird why do I need so many modifiers to describe this area, calling it a horsey is more historically accurate, a chariot makes so much more sense than a castle moving across the board, oh wait does no one else call this piece a religious figure? the knight has been unchanged for 1300 years, the chad knight…
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62: False Memories & House Plants
9 mei 2024 · 1 uur 42 min
How much real science is there to the Mandela Effect, and how much should we be worried about our faulty memories? And what's the science and history behind our long love for house plants? Lees meer
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:31) False Memories
(00:57:30) House Plants
(01:37:47) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
Yes Ella my favorite host of Let’s Learn Everything, Fiona Broome - Paranormal Researcher, Ella is shocked to learn the Mandela Effect was a conspiracy first, repressed memories, the McMcartin Preschool Trial again, the concept of memories at all is bonkers, we shoudl do more experiments, flashbulb memories aren’t as “unchanging as the slumbering rhinegold”, the original study didn’t even check if the memories were accurate they just assumed, flash bulb memories only Feel more accurate, the concept of false memories can make people believe in the mandela effect MORE, don’t have an existential crisis, rebunking your memories, most memory recalls aren’t adversarial like mandeal effect questions, Metamemory effects, just like memory isn’t so simple false memories aren’t so simple either, “I wish I hadn’t said yay when you said racism”, does anyone remember the 2 president Obamas? we gave false memories to bees, having false memories makes bees MORE complex not less, false memories aren’t flaws they’re just part of memory, classic meatbrain, “my brain is a beautiful and complex thing”, movies can exist, The Four Legged Chairs, the art of putting a plant into a pot, egyptians used plants for a ton of stuff, portable plants, gillyflowers for bad breath and paying rent, peppercorn payment, (ayyy), Wes Anderson’s The Winter Hotel for Plants, renting plants for a party, the illegal orchid trade, plant hunters, pteridomania, the World War 2 potted plant boom, the millenial urge to care for plants is more of a historic urge, guilting your cohosts into talking about your plants, you’d need 10 potted plant per square foot in the home to cl…
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61: Whale Fall Ecology & Jury Duty
25 april 2024 · 1 uur 38 min
What happens when the largest living animal becomes the largest dead animal? Just how complex could a dead whale be? And what are the differences, flaws, and nuances of the jury system, and can we be studying it better? Lees meer
Images we Talk About:
The Zombie WormTimestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:59) Whale Fall Ecology
(00:52:52) Jury Duty
(01:32:41) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
We also learn about: A bucket of mice, when whales die the people who love them will miss them, a jury of your cohosts will decide if your topic is boring, Tom stretching his arms to measure a 34 meter long whale, marine snow and whale falls, gettin ghastly gassy, a new mussel told us to go check out the whale fall, whales are mortal, deep sea mussel delicacy, how hard could it be to find a whale over 70% of the earth’s surface? let’s just wait for the carcass to come to us… wait actually?? welcome to our automatic zoo of dead things on the beach brought to you by the crown, sinking beached whale carcasses, the 3 stages of whale fall, Denial/Mobile Scavenger Phase can take 2 years, scavengers eat about one (1) Caroline of whale per day, Enrichment Opportunist Phase, Sulfophilic Phase, 7% of a whale is bone lipid, a sulfur bacteria carpet. did we walk into Caroline’s trap? This final phase can last 100 years! It’s not a trap if I’m asking you a question! 690,000 whale falls at any time, never in my wildest dreams would i be so lucky as to know the 12km distance from fall to fall statistic, whaling is deforestation for bacteria, Osedax or the zombie worm or the bone devourer or snot flower, there’s Drama in this whale fall ecosystem, dinosaur fall ecosystems, fossilized bones with fossilized deep sea snails, we got picked to talk about jury duty, UK US differences, a 900 day trial, there’s something wrong with Ella, the US is the only country to have so many civil juries, this topic has become a US UK debate, only the US requires unanimity, juror selection bi…
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60: Near Earth Objects & Guitar Tabs
11 april 2024 · 1 uur 54 min
What are all these rocks hurtling through space? Do we need to worry about them, and what can we learn from them? And what are guitar tabs, why don't people take them seriously, and why does Tom love them so dang much? Lees meer
Videos we Talk About:
Osiris Boop GifTimestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:54) Near Earth Objects
(00:56:58) Guitar Tabs
(01:47:55) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
e|-----------------|-----------------|-----------------|-----------------| B|-----------------|-----------------|-----------------|-----------------| G|-----------------|-----------------|-----------------|-----------------| D|-----------------|-----------------|-----------------|-----------------|
A|---------------2-|-----------4-6-4-|-----------6-7-0-|-----------6-7---| E|-0---------2-4---|-----------------|-----------------|---------------0-|(tabs via lucamashup)
e|----------------
B|----------------
G|----------------
D|-8888-10-10-333-
A|-8888-10-10-333-
E|-6666-8--8--111-We also learn about:
I thought you were just going to just teach us guitar, still on course to learn everything in a few months! everyone’s favorite part: semantics and exceptions, Tom is a perfectly unmovable object, it’s doxxing myself if people know I’m the center of the universe, the great attractor was my nickname in high school, “naturally occurring objects traveling through our solar system which are smaller than planets and aren’t moons”, you must be 1 meter tall to be an asteroid, asteroids are metally comets are icy, a song of rock and metal dust and ice, asteroid/comet -> meteoroid -> meteor -> meteorite, 1.3 million known asteroids and only 3,800 comets in our solar system, within 50 million km it becomes a near earth object, obviously we’re all thinking about the Tunguska asteroid asteroid, 80 million trees felled and it didn’t even hit the Earth, one of the oldest meteors we know is from 2 billion years ago, the vredefort dome, 2 billion year old nuclear weapon te…
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Preview: Rats! Cheddar Heist!
28 maart 2024 · 35 min
With Tom as their DM, Ella, Caroline, and Ellen Weatherford team up for a dicey heist in the big apple. Only one catch: they're rats! Can Rex, Tango, and Muriel ratatouille their way to nab the cheddar, or will they crumble like feta? Believe it or not this is only the first quarter of the full 2 hour episode that you can only get by becoming a member at MaximumFun.org/join Lees meer
Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinlearn
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59: Quantum Physics & Gossip
21 maart 2024 · 1 uur 52 min
Can Tom finally take on his science communication white whale: Quantum Physics?? And what is gossip, what did it mean in the past, and could it actually be... good?? Find out on a very special MaxFunDrive episode! Lees meer
See all the MaxFunDrive events, pins, and links here!
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:06:29) Quantum Physics
(01:00:14) MaxFunDrive!
(01:09:08) Gossip
(01:44:14) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
We also learn about:
One minute of self indulgence, another bit?? when bugs gossip, Moby Dick was warning about the perils of teaching quantum physics, the word quantum is boring, every grocery list is quantum (except Ella’ infinite and continuous grocery list), Ocean’s 11 is a quantum movie, quantum physics is 100 years old, why doesn’t my toaster blast me with radiation, Lord Rayleigh is literally the why is the sky blue guy, Planck really didn’t want to be right, “an act of desperation”, you’re taught quantum physics in high school chemistry, Heisenberg v Pauli v Schrodinger beef, fully just saying jackass, even smart people hate quantum physics, “nobody feels perfectly comfortable with it”, YOU ALREADY KNOW QUANTUM PHYSICS, Newton has been redeemed! we almost called photons “quantums”, some of quantum physics is bullshit but not all of it is, what has quantum physics ever done for us? we do actually have a quantum phone and quantum machines at the hospital, Quantum Nuclear MRI machines, sometimes it’s nice to remember that, Schrodinger's Cat is the worst first thing to learn, “not a real experiment, does not prove anything, does not match physical reality, and was intentionally designed to be absurd”, it’s like learning about vision through only optical illusions, “but where’s the weird?”, making peace with your whale, as long as you support us we will live forever, no Ella, there’s nothing wrong with you, “debrief”, gossip can be positive! GODSIB MEANT GOD SIBLING, you wouldn’t bang your godbrother, Tom you don’t have kids,…
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Go Fact Yourself MaxFunDrive Kick-off Spectacular featuring Ella Hubber, Tom Lum, Teresa McElroy, Ross Blocher, and Jordan Morris
18 maart 2024 · 21 min
IT'S THE MAXFUNDRIVE!!! And we're kicking it off with a network-wide trivia competition with other MaxFun hosts! Lees meer
You can see all our upcoming events during the drive and become a member at www.LetsLearnEverything.com
This special network wide event is a celebration of the MaxFunDrive! If you’d like to support podcasts you love for just $5 a month and get bonus gifts in the process, go to maximumfun.org/join.
J. Keith van Straaten and Helen Hong from “Go Fact Yourself” are joined by:
Teresa McElroy - “Shmanners”
Ross Blocher - “Oh No, Ross and Carrie!”
Ella Hubber & Tom Lum - “Let’s Learn Everything!”
Jordan Morris - “Jordan, Jesse, Go!” and "Free With Ads"If you’d like to hear more hosts competing for trivia supremacy, visit Maximumfun.org for the full version of this show.
Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinlearn
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58: Kelly & Zach Weinersmith, Mars Ecology, and Space Communes
14 maart 2024 · 1 uur 16 min
What would a man-made ecosystem look like on mars? Just how complicated could it possibly be? And are the human and societal issues just as complicated? Science communicators and authors Zach and Dr. Kelly Weinersmith ask and answer all of these questions and more! Lees meer
Check out:
A City on Mars!
The Weinersmith's article on Frontier Mythology and Space
The Weinersmith's paper in the journal Space Policy on Space Communes
BeaWolf
Saturday Morning Breakfast CerealTimestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:05:30) Mars Ecology
(00:47:28) Space Communes
(01:11:59) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
We also learn about: The superior Weinersmith, we almost have a Doctorate majority but not quite, having a PHD doesn’t make you smarter it just makes you poor and willing to suffer, back in my day Comic-Con was only 2 pence, we only just learned about high perchlorates on mars soil, all those images of glass habitats on mars would be SO DEAD, “this doesn’t sound appealing to me… to live under the dirt”, just rinse off all your dirt how hard could it be, the engineer brain thinking “if a problem is solvable then the problem is solved”, apologies to the rotating space colony community, space waste is a pain in the ass, cows aren’t efficient but BUGS are, Biosphere 1 is Earth, Lunar palace, there aren’t many experiments and we don’t really know how this all scales, if Sarah goes we’re fine and if I go I destroy the colony by BREATHING TOO MUCH, everything’s more complicated in space, Lungs help your facility PVNRT, humanity needs a plan B but “a backup that loses that much ground on human rights is not a backup i want!”, historiography of space: history of how we think about the history of space, being a wet blanket about frontier mythology - you are speaking to the right people, “there are beautiful dreams, but I feel like the beautiful dreams tend to crack when you look at them with a little more detail”, “cows are just a nonstarter in space”, goat cheese p…
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57: Don't Lose Your Head! and Constructed Languages
29 februari 2024 · 1 uur 40 min
Losing your head isn't good, but what actually happens, and what can it tell us about animals, ethics, and bad science? And what is a constructed language, when does it fail, and when can it be use to make great... art? As they say, Ni Lernu Ĉion! Lees meer
Content Warning that today's science topic can be a bit grim, so if you want, you can skip ahead to 54:54
Things we Talk About:
Mike The Chicken
Sea Slug Moving
The Narmer PaletteTimestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:36) Don't Lose Your Head!
(00:54:55) Constructed Languages
(01:36:55) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
We also learn about:
Pretty clear cut or chopped, did we need to write this down? why do you die when you lose your head? let’s start with a deep philosophical question: are we our brains? Tom clearly doesn’t know Mike the chicken, Mike was the original pitch for Charlotte’s Web, mooching some slugs, The Mystery of the Beheading of Elysia Marginata, capital punishment comes from beheadings, the guillotine could behead 20 people per hour, “the most gentle of lethal methods”, …do you guys not have the death penalty? ethics of rat euthanasia, Canavero’s bogus self published head transplants, like the language you’re speaking RIGHT NOW, Auxiliary Engineered and Artistic Languages, Tom falls into Ella’s Esperanto trap, Esperanto was banned and persecuted, the benefit of Esperanto is it has no culture, English is a language of exceptions, 1850 to 1920 people were going WILD constructing languages, none of us had heard of Volapük, “a language without umlauts sounds monotonous, harsh, and boring”, the language wars, a priest and an eye doctor trying to solve the tower of babel, Esperanto has “dipthongs - ugly!”, “rattling an hard bony R”, Artlang POP QUIZ, for Tolkeins the languages came first, english is a tapestry of languages and artlangs can convey that, the use of purposefully meaningless artlangs, soo soo! NOOT NOOT! boyhowdy! nonsense languages have universality, citing the …
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56: Are We Still Evolving? & Famous First Messages
15 februari 2024 · 1 uur 43 min
How have human beings evolved, and how could we evolve in the future? And what are some famous first messages, and what can we learn from looking at them? Lees meer
Images we Talk About:
Telegram
First Record Image
Second Record Image
Other Record ImagesTom's Ingenuity Comic
Support us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:15) Are We Still Evolving?
(00:52:00) Famous First Messages
(01:38:17) OutroWe also learn about:
DANGER BOO BOO, Ella has her own discord?? homo sapiens were 300,000 years ago but humans were 2.5 million, homo sapiens coexisted with 8 other human species, homo habilis was chilling for a million years, the homo hunger games, neanderthals had sewing needles and clothing, they seem so human because they are, maybe it was our chins, it’s hard enough not to anthropomorphize other animals let alone other humans, humans were the same height 40,000 years ago, humans may have lost height from being shit at farming, we have smaller brains but that doesn’t mean we’re less smart, natural selection & mutation & gene flow & gene drift, the iphone gave us smaller jaws, melanin is about synthesizing that sweet sweet vitamin D, we have evolved the adaptation of diversity, physical appearance is mostly just vitamin D and warmth - that’s it, it’s not good genes vs bad genes, microevolution, “instead of a mass of clones, we are already starting to see a glorious riot of variations”, this is all speculation, “we’re very unpredictable”, hello world! I learned it by watching you!! shouting and switching places, Tom live writes fanfic, purpose & imagination & inspiration, no YOU hang up, WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT, hey is your daughter okay? tone poems, Ella bled for her art in *checks notes* We Will Rock You, the dynamic range of the alpine symphony, if found please return littered golden record to Earth, ooh criteria! images on the record are COPYRIGHTED, who knows if they’ll be in the public domain by the time aliens get it, the b…
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55: Evolving Electricity & What's "Women's Work"?
1 februari 2024 · 1 uur 44 min
How did eels evolve electricity? And when is "women's work" neither women's nor work? Lees meer
Images we Talk About:
Socks
More Socks
Thimble
Bag
Crochet ArtTimestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:26) Evolving Electricity
(00:51:13) "Women's Work"
(01:38:46) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
We also learn about:
Happy moisturizer to all who celebrate, Ella’s just here for moral support, when did they put batteries in eels, someone's just statically charging these eels, what did we call electric eels before electricity? why would we think lightning and a fish are the same thing? the necrotizing torpedo and the torpor eel, Aristotle was a shite time traveler, “in all of humanity, if people think they can pout it up their asshole they will”, Allessandro Volta what a convenient name, electric fish gave us the battery not the other way around, the electric organ, when did electricity evolve? electric organ discharge, electrogenesis, it’s not an eel! get in line with the other animals that need their names fixed, 90% of an eel is electric organ, what does it feel like? turning fish to stone, shocks can function like a neurotoxin, the electric doublet can make fish twitch, Ella has a revelation, the physics is the biology, it’s all electric baby, magnetic animals 2 electric boogaloo, the domestic arts, This Woman’s Work, it was never always women’s work, old socks, but what does this have to do with men?? Ella predicts the British stealing a sock, male knitting guilds, knitting fishermen makes perfect sense, knitting was “compatible” with many kinds of life, mechanized knitting made it feminized, of course it’s always intersectionality, you know what’s appropriate for a woman is to do this thing we don’t need anymore, being demoted as an art form, “male art vs female craft”, Caroline’s just doing this topic to show their crochet is art, weaponizing the male ego to bring back knitting, bequeathing a valuable and symbolic thimble, Tom gets emotional ov…
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Recast: LLE on Creature Feature - The Bird Pee Technique
18 januari 2024 · 1 uur 2 min
While we take our January break we're rebroadcasting our appearance on Creature Feature! Katie pulled out some of the wildest facts for us, so enjoy, thanks for your patience, and see y'all in 2 weeks! Lees meer
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New Year Q&A
4 januari 2024 · 1 uur 47 min
It's our annual Q&A episode where we look back on 2023 and answer your questions to learn about our process, our favorite things, and each other! Lees meer
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Join our Discord!
We also learn about: Ella gets on the album, Dodie is very frog people music, pigeons fruit flies and sloths, our favorite topics of each others, black holes and microscopes and extinct animals, there’s one whole picture of Ella and Caroline, I need more than 5 seconds of this lady, Nessie Krampus and the Jersey Devil, Who the Hell is Edgar? the cursed 2nd spot in Eurovision, just do it! build a portfolio and experience and find local stuff in your area, alergic reaction to Tom’s joke, Australian Ella, card games, moved to tears by taskmaster, Skip & Loafer and Frieren, Baldur’s Gate is a 10/10, Caroline can read?? Under the Whispering Door and Life isn’t Binary, struggling through house of leaves, DRCL, Barbie and Evil Dead, i hate the sandpaper slide, field common questions, people do actually want to know about methodology, questions that are best answered by a different question, getting your own field explained to you, our school journeys, different kinds of learning, programming decision anxiety, getting to code for a thing you care about helps you learn, FUN! we’re actually ahead of schedule to learn everything, attacking Tom from different angles, seagul-gate, Ella producing with Jono in the studio, listening to Story Break at Lunch, let’s just say the Eras tour is going to be very interesting this year, putting it into the aether, if you want to change something you’ll do it tomorrow, the mellotron and babatone, distance, fun.
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54: The HaLearnDay Extravaganza! 2023
21 december 2023 · 1 uur 41 min
It's the HaLearnDays! The time of year when we share gifts of fun facts from us and friends of the show! Lees meer
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Join our Discord!
We also learn about:
I wish Katie and Alex were real, pooping every 20 minutes, a human creates 320 pounds of poop a year, when I think about dangerous, “when I think of dangerous bird boop”, cube pooped saves on the poly count, poopin and pleasin, Watching the Sky and Thinking a Thought, smuggling instruments to space, sonic boooooms, this is obviously a Caroline gift, The National Christmas Tree Association, liberals want you to burn your christmas trees, the ACTA is very different from the NCTA, bury me with my artificial tree in a cemetery under an artificial lawn, rudely scrutinizing a gift from Hank, Caroline’s read The Grinch who Re-tabulated a Fact they Got, $25 Barns & Noble Gift Card, Caroline and Ella negotiate money from Tom, identifying unwrapped baked goods in Japan, hot cross buns and melanoma, Ella Laterals us, British Scorpios can’t give blood in the US, we all definitely remember Ella was born in Germany, “destroying” cows, Janet pulled out all the stops with the science, vibrissae, wash bears, Ella ones up her fly sperm fact with Kangaroo Vaginas, whaaat’s the deal with the third vagina, false cloaca, kangaroos can house 3 kids at the same time, Ella’s in her kangaroo vagina era, our first favorite Tom piss on pity, running over Christ Tarrant’s foot, plougs and shootouts, should all our fun facts be forgot and days of old lang syne.
Sources:
Goose Poop
Goose Poop 2 Electric Boogaloo
How much do human poop?
Why do geese poop so much?
Wombat Poop
Guiness World Records on First Song in Space
Pavel Popovych
Nasa Wakeup Calls History
Smithsonian Mag on Schirra & Stafford
Harmonica from Gemini
Cleo's Video on Supersonic Flight
Soil Association: Real VS Fake
Washington Post: Are Real or Artificial Christmas Trees Better for the Environment?
NOAA Sperm Whale Info
UN FAO Data on Human Seafo… -
53: Making Superheavy Elements, and Celebrating Public Domain Day
7 december 2023 · 1 uur 24 min
What are the superheavy elements, and how did we make them? And what is public domain day, and why is next year's going to be so interesting? Lees meer
Things we Talk About:
The Mickey Mouse Curve
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Join our Discord!
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:17) Superheavy Elements
(00:37:41) Public Domain Day
(01:19:19) OutroWe also learn about:
It’s like we’re in school again, ordering the periodic table before discovering the electron, Mendelev didn't even like electrons, the nucleus is an atomic juggling act, atomic high jinks, the Fermi paradox, the Fermi problem, the number of piano tuners in Chicago, smashing elements into new ones, that’s why it’s called nuclear physics, receiving a Nobel and then fleeing Italy then learning your Nobel was wrong, accidentally discovering nuclear fission instead, we all so Barbie we knew this was leading to bombs, uranium neptunium plutonium, nobody cared because they didn’t want to draw attention to this during WORLD WAR 2, how does this keep happening i thought i was smart, the radioactive avengers, metropolis, I only scream about ice cream for anticapitalist purposes, none of this is legal advice, you know the patent stealing guy Edison, trademarks patents and copyright, JK Rowling patented a new kind of transphobia, the US constitution mentions copyright, the Micky Mouse Curve, even Bobel winning economists agree copyright extension is bad, happy hbomberguy video day, YouTube sucks at Fair Use, Mr Boop, Night of the Living Dead on Wikipedia, we’re IP pilled, SO MANY DISNEY MOVIES ARE BASED ON PUBLIC DOMAIN STORIES, it’s not open season on Mickey, “he can be naughty”, canine enthusiasm is unprotectable by copyright, Pride and Prejudice but Mr Darcy is a Vape God, Frank Capra is proud that It’s a Wonderful Life grew in the public domain, “battle lines will have to be drawn”, which two elements would YOU smoosh together?
Sources:
Superheavy by Kit Chapman
How to read the periodic table
Fermi Par… -
Submit Your Q&A Questions!
30 november 2023 · 1 min
Submit your questions for our end of year Q&A episode at letslearneverything.com/question or in our discord! Lees meer
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52: Amy Westervelt, Carbon Capture, and the Cartoonishly Evil Atlas Network
23 november 2023 · 1 uur 12 min
Investigative journalist Amy Westervelt from Drilled asks us: what is carbon capture and is it good or bad or... complicated? What is the Atlas Network and why are they comically evil dark avengers of the climate world? And how do you go from recording a podcast in your car to creating an award winning podcast network? Lees meer
🎤 See Tom perform comedy in Brooklyn for Earth Alliance! 🎤
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Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:05:14) Carbon Capture
(00:39:05) The Atlas Network/Podcasting
(01:08:25) OutroWe also learn about:
Emailing the local radio station “Would you like an over-aged intern”, Ella’s a climate change fan, natural carbon capture, compressed carbon is a lot more dangerous than it sounds, fracking with captured carbon, “there’s a lot of creative math happening”, direct air capture, carbon capture needs to happen WITH decarbonization, warming waters make crabs produce neurotoxins, unfreezing zombie viruses, a silver lining to the climate catastrophe is the worm broth, moving the goalposts to 2050, historian of past futures, people used to think fridges were weird, are we just giving up on eating slightly less meat, greenwashing, if you’re an oil company everything looks like a pipeline or a combustion engine, direct air capture is actually cool! even if I have 0 silver bullets I can kill a werewolf with 100 brass bullets, Anthony Fisher battery farming turtles origin story, reader’s digest version of Friedrich Hayek, having an evil meeting in a chicken battery farm, now they’re cooking with gas, Margaret Thatcher’s cameo, “what a horrible avengers this has been”, THEY LITERALLY INVENTED THE OVERTON WINDOW, they’re a real life conspiracy theory, Amy gets in a debate, “I have a very difficult mother so tense conversations, I’m good at them”, narratives in climate not just look at my chart! podcasts can communicate the people hidden in stories, producing a podcast in a car, “I want people to come away really pi…
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51: Carcinization, The Animal Algorithm Mystery, and The Many Lemming Lies w/ Ellen Weatherford
9 november 2023 · 1 uur 51 min
Are we really all destined to turn into crabs? Why are there so many animal algorithms, and are they all legit? And just how many times have we been wrong about the lemming? Lees meer
Things we talk about:
All the Crabs Caroline mentions
The Big List of Animal Algorithms
Boid VideoSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:04:03) Carcinization
(00:42:00) The Animal Algorithm Mystery
(01:25:46) The Many Lemming Lies
(01:45:35) OutroWe also learn about: Endless forms most crab-like, the 2020 meme boom of carcinization, what is the extent of the carcinization crisis, watch it buddy you already got eight legs, hamburger style arthropod, BOY CAN I CAROLINE I'M GLAD YOU ASKED, it’s like CNN and Fox agreeing on something, crabs have ten legs my dude, vikavolt, crabs and false crabs and true Christians, its all human labels at the end of the day, crab shapes have evolved at least 5 times, the king, masked, coconut, and hermit crab, Ellen’s thinking like a crab, the leaf eating mangrove crab, the crab shape is good for many niches, guard your tasty bits, decarcinization, we should try decarcinizating our market share, I am THE crab researcher and y’all need to calm down, convergent evolution is like video game controller design, the Brazilian Aardvark, Ellen’s uncovering of this dark underbelly, this algorithm list is just a list of sleeper activation words, what is a metaheuristic swarm optimization algorithm? Craig Reynold’s Boids, the lateral line system, “ants aren’t smart, any colonies are”, multidimensional ants, coatis moving in the jth dimension, this is all super niche you can’t use multidimensional ants for every problem, no articles are talking about this this is Defunctland niche, Groth and the 2 Fairies, lots of these papers are not at all based on real biology, “cats do not form swarms”, the bee marriage algorithm is actually good! research for research’s sake is okay, lower your pitchforks but keep your pitchforks at…
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49: Goosebumps, (Not) Alien Pyramids, and Nessie & Cryptids
26 oktober 2023 · 1 uur 56 min
Why do we get goosebumps when we hear nails on a chalkboard? Obviously aliens didn't make the pyramids, but how were they made and what does that teach us about humanity? And what's the story behind nessie and why the queer community loves cryptids? Lees meer
Things we talk about:
Egyptian painting of using water to pull a statue
Video of modern people pulling a block
The famous Nessie photographSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:05:59) Goosebumps
(00:48:43) Not Alien Pyramids
(01:23:13) Nessie and Cryptids
(01:50:50) OutroWe also learn about:
The bumpies you get on your skinnies, the gem trade can be pretty shitty!, Tom read 5 books for this, ahhhh! oh wait have I got goosebumps? the many and few names for goosebumps, piloerection, I just got objective chills, animal goosebumps, famous geologist and pigeon lover Charles Darwin, “I took a stuffed snake to the monkey house”, porcupine piloerection, gustatory stimuli, grima, it’s not ew it’s euggghh, Easy Lovery by Phil collins, Screaming Ape; Loop. the Head Wizard tm, biomimicry, nails on a chalkboard, Scraping Sounds and Disgusting Noises, (SOUNDBITE OF FINGERNAILS ON CHALKBOARD), so is that better or worse? I guess the kids are listening to screeching sounds for music, prehistoric chalkboard monster, ruining Ella’s spooky cold open, 118 pyramids! you’re both racist! when did the ancient aliens theory stated, von Daniken’s racist conspiracy, the racism in believing only wwhite people could make architecture, plumbobs! moving 5000 pound limestone blocks, the genius post ramp system, it took 100 years to realize the painting was showing how to move stuff with water, Gregory Marouard’s demonstration of moving a block, the Nile used to run right by the Giza pyramids, the mundane power of having a lot of people, 20,000 people to build the great pyramids, the oldest papyrus ever found: the diary of merer, the pyramid builders weren’t slaves, the bent pyramid, the plesio…
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50: 🎂 The Ig Nobel Prize, The 2023 Ig Nobel Winners, and the Ig Nobel Peace Prize
12 oktober 2023 · 2 uur 6 min
For our 2nd anniversary and our 50th episode (which it definitely is, don't check) we cooperatively tackled a topic folks have been asking us to do for ages: The Ig Nobel Prize! Lees meer
Check out our new merch! Hats! Posters! Mugs!
Images and Videos we talk about:
The Levitating Frog Video
The Best of Miss Sweetie Poo
Ocean Mixing Anchovy Diagram
The Grabbing Tentacle Robot Video
Necrobotic Spider Diagram
Necrobotic Spider Video
The Juke 8
Daisuke Practicing his SpeechJoin our Discord!
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:08:18) The Ig Nobel Prize
(00:45:00) The 2023 Ig Nobel Winners
(01:28:36) The Ig Nobel Peace Prize
(01:59:09) OutroWe also learn about:
Tom does an evil scientist laugh at Atto Seconds, Ella watch hours of Ig ceremonies, honoring achievements that make people laugh then think, the rotating category, six people have turned down the Nobel, comedy? with a question mark? trying to purposefully win an Ig is like recreating The Room, Limburger cheese, Andre Geim loves his Ig as much as his Nobel, “if people don’t have a very good sense of humor, they are usually not very good scientists either”, Roy Glauber the keeper of the broom ALSO WON A NOBEL, “all they wanted to ask about was that damn broom”, the 24/7 Lectures, Mandelbrot goading miss sweetie poo, Ella’s Favorite Ig-ventions, partially unboiling an egg on stage, Chernobyl Bra Face Masks, that laughing and crying human emotion, cadaver nose hairs with surprisingly few nose hair variations, we all stan replication, Tom’s dad was robbed of the Ig, boring teachers, backwards speakers, maybe their neurons work backwards, the taste of rocks, the trick condition, electric taste, sexism in the stanford toilet, statistically significant anchovy boning affecting the water column, the fish kama sutra, how can i turn that dead spider into a robot? necrobotics is surprisingly easy, anti peace prizes, Pauling’s Nobel burn on Teller, Tom gets recognized, Lal Bihari’s schemes to become undead, “Lal bihari died in 19…
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48: Wikipedia w/ Annie Rauwerda, The First Boring Number, and Perpetual Stew
28 september 2023 · 1 uur 35 min
We all use Wikipedia, but how did it come to be? What's the first number to not have a Wikipedia page, and what does that say about math and humans? And what on Earth is Perpetual Stew? Lees meer
Follow Annie and Depths of Wikipedia on Instagam/Twitter/Tiktok!
Images we talk about:
Sloane's Gap
nostalgia.wikipedia.comSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:07:33) The History of Wikipedia
(00:50:16) The First Boring Number
(01:12:09) Wikimania and Perpetual Stew
(01:50:38) OutroWe also learn about: there’s more Wikipedia languages than google translate, Grendel would have loved Blackpink, how often do we think about the roman empire, the first encyclopedia was very wrong, all men think about is present Rome! Pliny’s child piss ab wrinkle cure, fortune did not favor the bold according to Pliny the younger, the encyclopedia Britannica, getting lazy on the later letter installments, door to door encyclopedia salesmen, Annie’s Mom’s excitement for the new encyclopedia, Encarta the forgotten digital encyclopedia, welcome to the 90s baby, webrings, soft core porn is the carcinization of the web, Jimmy Wale’s “Guy Oriented Search Engine” Bomis.com, the failed boring Nupedia, the wiki prefix from a Hawaiian bus, Cunningham’s Law, Wikipedia’s Bro culture, nostalgia.wikipedia.com, no search or sources on old wikipedia, it’s not easy but people were making this encyclopedia, this human element has always been a part of encyclopedias, Jimmy Wales got his admin privilages revoked by the community, the interesting number paradox, Ramanujan’s Taxi Cab Numbers, the OEIS sequence database, Sloane’s Gap, 20,067 sitting alone at lunch, a surprising recent number update, the notability standard of numbers, the highest negative number to not have a page is only negative 3!!! come to the dark side of the zero, the Wikimania, Annie is Taylor Swift at Wikimania, Ella’s years long Wikipedia War, Annie’s neuroscience journey, Annie’s Perpetual S…
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47: The Abyssopelagic Zone, The Crystal Healing Boom, and Time Capsules
14 september 2023 · 2 uur
What lies below the depths of the sea... and why should we stop being so afraid of it? Okay we know crystals can't heal you, but could they actually do... something? And why are time capsules more complicated than you'd think, and why should we love them anyway? Lees meer
Images/Videos we talk about:
New Yorker Comic about the Deep Sea
The Phantom Jellyfish (warning for Thalassophobia)
The Venus Flow Basket SpongeSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:05:04) The Abyssopelagic Zone
(00:54:21) The Crystal Healing Boom
(01:26:19) Time Capsules
(01:54:18) OutroWe also learn about: The Zones of the Ocean, the midnight zone, the hadal zone in the trenches, Tom forgets that water freezes, cold water and thermal vents, pompeii worm’s bacterial jacket, chemosynthesis, the deep see adaptation alarm, pisolite, it’s a myth that more people have been to space than the bottom of the ocean, the challenger deep, deep sea and moon exploration were happening around the same time, we actually DO know more about the sea than the moon, the abyssal plains is half the planet… but people don’t care, thalassophobia, there are no amateur deep sea explorers, the enigmitization of the deep sea, deep sea gigantism, why not visit the deep and eat delicious foot long shrimp, phantom jellyfish, venus flower baskets symbiosis is WILD, 500 sea pigs facing in the same direction, the burglar alarm atolla jellyfish, artificial E Jelly lure, gelatinous little guys, “i thought that bit was gonna be way better than it was”, lateral line, the cusk eel is the deepest fish, whales dive deeper to send messages farther, marine snow, Ella pulls a Caroline, deep sea nodule mining, we can still like things and not believe in them scientifically, crystals DON'T date to ancient Egypt, amethyst hangover cure, to be fair they didn’t even know what crystals were, bad economic or healthcare pressures may push folks to crystals, crystals do actually have vibrational proper…
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46: Lawn Loathing, Spelling Psammophile, and Guinness World Records
31 augustus 2023 · 1 uur 55 min
Why are lawns so bad, and what could we grow instead? How much can we learn from an esoteric word like Psammophile? And why is the Guinness Book of World Records wonderful and terrible at the same time? Lees meer
Images/Videos we talk about:
Snakes in Sand
The Jerboa/Kangaroo Rat/Kangaroo MouseSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:05:44) Lawn Loathing
(00:45:55) Spelling Psammophile
(01:19:26) Guinness World Records
(01:50:38) OutroWe also learn about: lawn enjoyer (derogatory), there are 6x more lawn than corn in the US, how we developed our lawn fetish in the 17th century, the pesticide and fertilizer boom after WWII, the more money and knowledge you have the worse lawns get for the environment, runoff powered sargassum seaweed, 30% of drinking water used for lawns, lawns aren’t even the best greenery for your mental health, “your granny cant push the lawnmower around” okay I don’t want her too! astroturf is even worse, when the sun engulfs the earth all that will remain is our plastic lawns, the no-mow-movement, the alternative lawn movement, make an animal crossing lawn! Ella and Caroline fail the spelling bee, what makes a word tricky, 3 letter words are the trickiest, Ella steals the word, ventifacts, sand actually holds water better, granular physics in a scorpion paper, sidewinder snakes drifting while doing the worm, snake scale fingerprint, ecomorphological convergence, the adorable Jerboa or Kangaroo Rat are in Dune unchanged, Jerboas can kick sand onto traps, foot drumming, “the rats would rather drum than fight”, sandy fungi, our childhood obsessions with Guinness records, people are weird! the origin of the Guinness World Records, I’ll prove to them who’s the fastest bird! the eccentric fact finding twin brothers, may we hope to turn heat into light”, the 4 types of Guinness world record, marketing records, the analog to digital downfall, over half of the top 100 brands have records, Guinness is a native…
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45: Superseded Science, why is TB Still a Thing, and the Radium Girls
17 augustus 2023 · 1 uur 55 min
What previous scientific theories would turn into the ones we know today, and what can they teach us? Why is Tuberculosis still a thing in the modern age? And who were the Radium girls, and what did they give us? Lees meer
Support us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
We also learn about:
Oh Fuck Tom and Ella and Caroline, theory vs pseudoscience, scientific glow up, the LLE game show theme, any time Tom isn’t talking he’s doing a little dance, preformationism, tiny growing dinosaur gametes, miasma, spontaneous generation, the amber effect, Darwin couldn’t sleep thinking about geology, what a nerd, the expanding earth, every theory can be explained by little expanding dinosaurs, Marie Tharp’s “Girl Talk, revisiting Vulcan, planet mnemonics, Ella snipes the answer, an actual Einstein name drop, Einstein was so excited to think he could solve the mercury problem, my topic superseded yours, what is Tuberculosis, TB is at least 9,000 years old, when TB was romanticized (by the wealthy), “how interesting he looks in dying”, TOM STOP DANCING!, people think this is a disease of old but it’s not, antibacterial resistance could be as big a threat as climate change, 1 Billion people have latent TB, the real enemy once again is capitalism, novel’s rapid test, there’s no Return on Investment with TB research, unless you patent the cure, J&J COULD SELL IT FOR A QUARTER AND STILL MAKE A PROFIT, only 40,000 people have received bedaquiline in 11 years, evergreening a patent is Sinister, amnesty period of science in the misc topic, even with nobel prizes scientists didn't realize how dangerous this stuff was, the Curies are buried in led coffins, Curie’s legacy is “literally untouchable”, Will It Radium? Radium Schokolade, it’s rejuvenating! radium quackery, radium silk, the government said it MUST have radium if you’re advertising it does, alpha radiation mostly hurts when ingested, glowing radium dust dresses, surely THIS is how they got poisoned right?? touching the brush t…
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44: Katie Goldin & Alex Schmidt, Space Birds, and the Bison Emoji 🦬
3 augustus 2023 · 1 uur
Special guests Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin from Secretly Incredibly Fascinating and Creature Feature answer: Have birds ever been to space? Why does Katie love birds so much? And how did Alex bring about the bison emoji to everyone's phones? Lees meer
Things we Talk About:
The Quails in Space video we watched over and over
The Club Winged Manakin's "Call"
Katie's Snoopy Comics
Support us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:07:13) Space Birds
(00:38:46) Birds & Bison Emoji
(00:54:59) OutroWe also learn about:
Birds have home field advantage here, DIY animal behavior major, baby elephant soccer coach, a big podcast stew, why can’t birds just fly to space, we all share one brain cell, the Karman line, Ruppell's griffon vulture once flew into a jet engine, or rather the engine ate the bird, vultures are actually clean birds, high altitude vultures have blood adaptations, don’t dope vulture blood, USA lost the birds in space race, space farming, cloacal docking with the ISS, the quails in space video breaks us, who will teach the first generation of space quails? Chernobyl birds, stop doing unjustified wars and send chernobyl birds to space, Chix in Space, Katie wants to put a hummingbird in space, Canadian goose alien, Katie’s childhood Wile E Cayoe trap, birds relatable alien adorably arrogant dinosaurs, club winged manakin stridulation calls, Alex’s 18 page bison proposal, bird aliens return to the feet of a bison emoji statue, how Katie met Alex, Katie’s Peanuts comics, all great friendships start with an amazing bit.
Sources:
Audubon: The Amazing Story of the Cold War Space-Egg Race
Audubon's Initially Mistaken Blog on Space Birds
Smithsonian on Bird Flight Height
Smithsonian Zoo on Ruppell's Griffon Vulture
Nasa on the Edge of Space
Cornell Bird Lab on Japanese QuailHelp support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinlearn
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43: Gravitational Waves, The Loneliest Animal, and Graffiti
20 juli 2023 · 1 uur 50 min
How long have we been searching for Gravitational Waves? What is the loneliest animal, and what does it mean to be lonely? And what really makes graffiti... graffiti? Lees meer
Support us with a Max Fun Membership!
Join our Discord!
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:04:26) Gravitational Waves
(00:41:01) The Loneliest Animal
(01:14:17) Graffiti
(01:45:21) OutroWe also learn about:
Invisible ripples in spacetime that move at the speed of light and squeeze and stretch spacetime, Aristotle would have lost his mind at gravitational waves, Einstein’s theory of general relativity, gravity is bends in spacetime, Einstein’s 1915 prediction, gravitational waves are stupid… unless? pulsars are cosmic lighthouses, binary pulsars are two bowling balls dropped in a lake that we think are big enough to ripple to our shore, Einstein predicted them and then we found them, I found a math drawing in space, LIGO finding gravitational waves 100 years after Einstein’s theory, thank you Yano, gravitational waves click with Caroline, LIGO can measure 1/10,000th the width of a proton, measuring the collision of 2 black holes 1.3 billion years ago, International Pulsar Timing Array, the hum of the universe, the background hum of hundreds of thousands of black holes merging, hypothetical one dimensional cosmic strings, i thought you said this was silly, have you ever been alone in a crowded room, "I want to know what loneliness is to you Ella”, the elusive snow leopard, “just tell me how snow leopards fuck Caroline”, lonely ants live 11 times shorter, giving mirrors to make cows less lonely, the song of the Kauai Oo, lonesome George sold out, Albert the Albatross’s theme song, Albie the Albatross, finding 52 Blue the whale from declassified hydrophones, capitalism isolates animals too! are we projecting and processing loneliness onto conservation, Tom’s contractual Carly Rae Jepsen mention, graffiti used to only mean ancient graffiti, farts for the old man, I am Hiyya! Lysias is Handsome, is graf…