Month: August 2016

  • The Prime Sinister

    For the most part, numbers are simply cold indicators, unable of expressing menace or guile, but then there’s Belphegor’s Prime, a supposedly sinister numeric palindrome that has a number of odd qualities. Or at least that’s what one mathematician would …

    [more]

    Episodes

  • And the Beasts Shall Inherit the Earth

    What if every animal on the planet has suddenly woken up a rational, self-aware being? Would one creature come to rule all others, much as we humans have done, or would our varied kind arrive at some sort of peaceful, …

    [more]

    Episodes

  • Cash Out

    Sweden is largely a cashless society, with consumers relying on mobile phone payments or plastic. While the U.S. is still far from achieving the same level of cash-free existence, increasing numbers of restaurants and retailers are now refusing to accept …

    [more]

    Episodes

  • The Net Results

    Luke Aikins plummeted from 25,000 feet above the desert landscape of California’s Simi Valley without a parachute, landing squarely in a 100 feet x 100 feet, two-tiered net set up to catch him. He nailed the landing at 120 mph …

    [more]

    Episodes

  • Leader of the Pachyderm

    Despite reported differences in appearance and behavior, DNA evidence finds that Namibian desert elephants share the same DNA as African savanna elephants. But differences in behavior show that they pass on their unique knowledge and survival skills to future generations …

    [more]

    Episodes

  • The Bore Ultimatum

    A Frenchman is suing his former employer for “bore out” – boredom’s equivalent of burnout – which he says turned him into a “professional zombie”. Frederic Desnard wants 360,000 euros for being “killed professionally through boredom” by his 80,000-euro-a-year job …

    [more]

    Episodes

  • Crash Man Be Cute

    Melbourne-based artist Patricia Piccinini has created a life-sized sculpture of what a human being would have to look like in order to survive a car crash. The result is a grotesquely mutated human with numerous internal and external changes to …

    [more]

    Episodes

  • Not Milk?

    There’s a cockroach that gives birth to live young, and it produces a “milk” that scientists want humans to drink. Jeff and Anthony talk about drinking human milk, drinking cow’s milk, and the potential of drinking cockroach milk, and try …

    [more]

    Episodes

  • Finger Print

    Police in Michigan have a new tool for unlocking phones: 3D printing. Law enforcement officers approached a professor at Michigan State earlier this year to reproduce a murder victim’s fingerprint from a prerecorded scan. Once created, the 3D model would …

    [more]

    Episodes

  • Check Yourself in Store You Wreck Yourself

    Research from the United Kingdom found self-service checkouts allowed people to normalize and excuse stealing, even among those who would never consider theft in any other setting. Anthony and Jeff discuss the role technology takes in illegal behavior, and consider …

    [more]

    Episodes

Do NOT join our secret society. You’ll just wind up with a bunch of cool stuff. It’s gross.