At 11:30 AM on May 12, 1913, a man was taken from his cell at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City and lead out into the prison yard. There, he was strapped into a chair in front of a wall of sandbags and prepared for execution by firing squad. But instead of a group of trained marksmen, the man […]
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When we think of weapons of war doing damage to physical things, we tend to think of solid objects, whether they be spears, swords, guns, bombs, tanks, or aircraft. But in June of 2010, a group of computer programmers stumbled on one of the most innovative of a new type of weapon that had recently emerged: one made up of […]
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The name Albert Einstein has become a byword for genius – and rightly so. The German physicist’s theories of Special and General Relativity fundamentally reshaped our understanding of the uni-verse to a degree not seen since Isaac Newton, while his groundbreaking 1905 papers on Brownian Motion and the Photoelectric Effect laid the groundwork for modern atomic and quantum theory. Yet […]
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The six Apollo missions that landed on the moon between 1969 and 1972 left an extraordinary amount of equipment behind on the lunar surface. This included Lunar Module descent stages, Lunar Roving Vehicles, ALSEP experiment packages, American flags, and over 800 items jettisoned to save weight – from EVA boots to cameras to waste bags. But among these thousands of […]
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Joseph Stalin was born in December 1878 to a Georgian family and served as the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union between 1922 and 1952. After the death of Lenin, he initially shared power over the Soviet Union with other officials, but he managed to gradually consolidate his position and by the 1930s became the country’s […]
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Childhood development is largely defined by vertical growth. For generations, parents have kept a story pole or even marked a door jamb with their kid’s height every birthday, or perhaps even several times per year. Whatever your height may be, and whatever height you’d like to be, one thing is certain: we can lose weight, we can dye our hair, […]
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A popular perception of our far distant ancestors is that they lived in caves. But did humans ever really live in caves en masse or is this just something that exists only in popular consciousness and not in reality? To begin with, when you think of cavemen, you probably picture thick browed simpletons clad in tattered furs, sitting around a […]
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In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we are start out with an appetizer looking at how soap actually works to get rid of microbes. Next up we have a brief message from our sponsor NordVPN. Get 68% off NordVPN! Only $3.71/mo, plus you get an additional month FREE at https://nordvpn.com/brainfoodshow Or use coupon code: brainfoodshow Next up, we […]
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The rules are simple. All that is needed is a revolver, some cartridges, and one or more players. The revolver is opened, a single cartridge loaded, and the cylinder spun. The players then take turns placing the revolver against their heads and pulling the trigger. Depending on the rules, the cylinder is either re-spun after each play or left as-is. […]
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In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we are start out looking at why the toilet is called the “Crapper” and the “John”. Next up we have a brief message from our sponsor Skillshare. For a limited time, use the following link to get a free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership: http://skillshare.com/brainfood Next up, we discuss all about what […]
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A good hat can be very hard to come by. A good example of this comes from H.G. Wells, who once stole the Mayor of Cambridge’s hat, leaving a note that said: “I stole your hat. I like your hat. I shall keep your hat”. This all brings us to 9th century Scandinavia and a king called Erik Anundsson, sometimes […]
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When one thinks of Roman Emperors, often two kinds come to mind- the heroic generals and brilliant philosophers, like Caesar Augustus and Marcus Aurelius, or the insane and depraved despots like Nero and Commodus. The latter two are well known for their long list of antics, for a video on Nero’s famous fiddle incident and the truth about all that, […]
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Hitler. Himmler. Goering. Goebbels. Even the most casual student of history knows this roster of infamous Nazis that were responsible for some of the greatest evils the world has ever known. Of the millions that were killed by German hands during World War II, countless thousands were prisoners of war. Often massive numbers of prisoners were killed at a time […]
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After World War II, the German state was utterly destroyed. It was split in four parts, and to top it all, coming face to face with the scale of the atrocities their government and armies committed through public events like the Nürnberg trials. This in combination with the process of de-nazification, which can be seen as a large-scale rehabilitation program, […]
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In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we are start out looking at the rather interesting way the couple hundred million dollar Hope Diamond has been transported a couple times. Next up we have a brief message from our sponsor Skillshare for 2 months for free here: http://skillshare.com/brainfood Next up, we discuss how diamonds went from a mostly worthless […]
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On June 7, 1912, Lieutenant Roy Kirtland took off from a field outside College Park, Maryland in a Wright Model B, the first aircraft ever purchased by the American Army Air Services. To his right sat Captain Charles Chandler, a Lewis light machine gun cradled between his legs. As Kirtland banked the aircraft 300 feet over the field, Chandler took […]
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We’ve all heard the story of Jonah being swallowed by the whale, and then, along with his father Geppetto, creating a fire so that the whale sneezes them out … Or something like that. Whatever the case, being swallowed whole is a fate that has permeated our mythology and stories throughout time. But what is the actual typical progression to […]
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“Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!” Well, of course Superman could hurdle skyscrapers. He can fly after all. Compared to the kind of aerial self-propulsion that Daedalus couldn’t have conceived of, jumping over even the Burj Khalifa seems hardly worth mentioning. Super-vaulting seems more along the lines […]
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