Episodes
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Owe de Toilette
Fed up with the theft of toilet paper from public bathrooms, tourist authorities in China’s capital have begun using facial recognition technology to limit how much paper a person can take. Jeff and Anthony discuss toilet paper usage, and determine …
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Starscraper
Architecture firm Clouds Architecture Office has proposed a building that, instead of being supported by the ground and reaching up into the sky, would instead hang suspended from an asteroid. Named Analemma, the proposed skyscraper would be the tallest building …
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Tyrannosaurus Sex
Tyrannosaurus Rex had a snout as sensitive to touch as human fingertips, say scientists. Experts believe that males and females rubbed their sensitive faces together in a prehistoric form of foreplay. Jeff and Anthony discuss dinosaur mating, and the need …
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Owner and Operator
Leonid Rogozov was a Soviet general practitioner who took part in the sixth Soviet Antarctic Expedition in 1960–1961. He was the only doctor stationed at the Novolazarevskaya Station and, while there, developed appendicitis, which meant he had to perform an …
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Never, Never Land
Scientists have long suspected that the common swift remains airborne for extraordinary amounts of time during its annual migration. Now, a team of scientists in Sweden has proved that these birds can spend almost their entire 10-month nonbreeding period on …
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A Snack-na Phobia
Scientists Martin Nyffeler and Klaus Birkhofer published their estimate of the amount of spiders in the world, and the amount of biomass they would consume, in the journal the Science of Nature earlier this month, and the number they arrived …
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Creative Comeons
Creativity is highly prized in Western society—much touted by cultures that claim to value individualism and the entrepreneurial spirit. But scratch beneath the surface, and it turns out that a lot of schools and businesses aren’t actually all that excited …
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Your Heart Will Grow On
Scientists have found a way to use spinach to build working human heart muscle, potentially solving a long-standing problem in efforts to repair damaged organs. This opens up an entire field of vegetable-based human hybrids, and it has Jeff and …
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Take Your Peak
Aging can seem like a scary prospect, but a wealth of scientific studies have found that youth isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. There are plenty of cases in which human beings peak well into middle and old age. …
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