Tag: science
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The Hottest Fashion
The mid-19th century vogue for flowing, diaphanous women’s garments made from open-weave fabrics, combined with gas lighting, candles, and open fires meant that it was extremely common for women to literally burst into flames: on stage, at parties, at home. …
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Heroes of Blight and Tragic
At first glance, Miles Traer seems like any other scientist, but this Stanford University geologist has an alter ego. He beats back the forces of environmental destruction and holds the super-powerful to account. Traer and two colleagues have calculated the …
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Quantity Time
Despite not being at the end of your life, you may very well be nearing the end of your time with some of the most important people in your life. The majority of the time spent with your parents is …
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Fool Poisoning
The year was 1902. With funding and consent from Congress, Harvey Washington Wiley was about to embark on an experiment he dubbed the “hygienic table trials,” but the Washington news media called his volunteers “the Poison Squad.” Wiley’s staff would …
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Halve A Seat
At the University of Chicago in the early 1920s, psychology grad student William Blatz built a remote-controlled trick chair that would collapse when he pressed a switch. (It was padded to avoid injury.) Then he had subjects sit in the …
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I’ll Have What She’s Having
Marine biologists from the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of Portsmouth in the UK published a study on the feeding preferences of nudibranches, a kind of sea slug that might be targeting prey with full bellies. They coined …
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Host in the Shell
For Hermit crabs, suitable shells are hard to come by. So they have come up with an ingenious scheme. When a crab happens upon a shell, it scopes it out – and when it is too big, the crab sits …
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Discovery Kids!
Using an unprecedented technique of matching stars to the locations of temples on Earth, a 15-year-old Canadian student says he’s discovered a forgotten Mayan city in Mexico. Anthony and Jeff talk about what it takes to be a young person …
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What Concerns Brock Wilbur?
This double-length episode was recorded back in August of 2015, and was originally released as a Patron-only bonus episode. In it, special guest Brock Wilbur relates his experience volunteering at Planned Parenthood. In light of the recent attack in Colorado, …
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Birth Control Control
The Bill Gates Foundation has funded research on an implantable remote-controlled contraceptive microchip that can last up to 16 years. Anthony and Jeff try to wrap their minds around the ramifications of a long-lasting birth control device that can be …
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