Mindy N. asks: After a long run my leg muscles are tired, but my heart is not. Why doesn’t the heart need any rest? An average of around 60 to 100 times every minute of every day of every year of your ultimately meaningless life, your heart beats… until it doesn’t. Not long after it stops, all knowledge of your […]
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In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start off looking at that time the United States government banned pre-sliced bread… Really. Next up, we have a brief message from a sponsor, Blinkist, which gives you the key ideas from more than 3,000 bestselling nonfiction books in just 15 minutes instead of having to listen to the full audiobook […]
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In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start off looking at the surprisingly interesting origin of the paperclip and why a person who had nothing to do with its design commonly gets all the credit for it, including having a giant statue of it made in his honor only a couple decades ago. 🙂 Next up, we have […]
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Born on August 22, 1930 in Temple, Texas, Forrest Fenn did not begin his life wealthy, with his father working to support the family via a job as a principal at a local school. Things would change, however, during the latter half of his life thanks to a love of exploring and collecting various artifacts. His first such object was […]
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Macuzila asks: Why does everyone only drink wine out of wine glasses? For a lot of people, a nice glass of wine is used to enhance enjoyment of things like the four F’s that make life worth living- friends, family, food, and… one other thing… Regardless of when or where you’re drinking that wine, it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll be […]
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Throughout the 1930s pilots around the world were continually trying to push the limits of anything that had been done before in the air. While the likes of Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart are more familiar names in the Western World, the Soviets had their own equivalents such as Mikhail Gromov who, in 1937 along with his two man crew, […]
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Trunksme32 asks: How do outdoor vending machines keep the coke from freezing in the winter? Vending machines of some form or another have been around at least since the 1st century AD, with the first known of such being supposedly made by Hero of Alexandria, a Greek engineer who invented, among many other remarkable machines, one to automatically dispense holy […]
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In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start off looking at 19th century practical joke that occurred in London that is arguably the greatest of the century. Next up, we have a brief message from a new sponsor, Blinkist, which gives you the key ideas from more than 3,000 bestselling nonfiction books in just 15 minutes instead of […]
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In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start off looking at how “Dick” came to be short for “Richard”. Next up, we have a brief message from one of our favorite and most useful sponsors- Backblaze! Backblaze really is super cheap and takes almost no time or effort to get setup and working. Unlimited automatic backups for your […]
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MarcoDerp asks: You covered who started the flat earth and moon landing conspiracy theories. What about the lizard people? People have been referencing sentient reptilian entities, sometimes humanoid, sometimes not, going back to some of the earliest written works and legends known to man. In more modern times, according to a survey done by the firm Public Policy Polling approximately […]
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In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start off looking at why superheroes wear their underwear on the outside. Next up, we have a brief message from our sponsor, Jeremy Scott, perhaps best known for his work on CinemaSins, but also the author of the books “The Ables” and the sequel that just came out, “Strings”, both of […]
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HailCaesoo asks: What all happens when the queen of England dies? Queen Elizabeth II has reigned over the UK and the Commonwealth for almost seven decades, but it turns out what happens when she sheds this mortal coil has been planned out in detail going all the way back to shortly after she ascended the throne in the 1950s, with […]
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Joyme asks: Who first came up with the “little green men” stereotype for aliens? Flying saucers, little green men, and anal probes have been a staple of our perception of aliens for as long as most of us have been alive. The reasoning behind the latter is a obvious- human scientists also can and do learn a lot about an […]
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While you’ve probably never heard of Maspro Denkoh, a Japanese company founded in 1952 that makes various TV reception equipment, among other things, they will likely forever be remembered in the annals of business lore thanks to a rather oddball decision made by Takashi Hashiyama- the man who would head the company for a little over half a century before […]
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Diego Berri: Why is the all seeing eye on the dollar bill? A long standing bit of fodder for conspiracy theorists of the American persuasion includes various imagery found on the United States’ one dollar bill, with the most infamous of graphics on said nefarious item being the so-called “All-Seeing Eye”, more properly titled the “Eye of Providence”. To add […]
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*Just an addendum to one of the tangents I forgot to mention- pulling up like crazy in a plane while rapidly hurtling towards the ground is a phenomenal way to ensure the wings of the plane cease to remain attached to it. 😉 In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start off looking at the little known much […]
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Mark R. asks: Why didn’t people in the middle ages ever bathe? There are a variety of commonly held ideas about what it was like to live in Medieval times in Europe from a hygienic standpoint- from the idea that people chucked the contents of their chamber pots out their windows on to the streets to that they rarely, if […]
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In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start with the rather curious way in which George Eastman, founder of Kodak, died. Next up, we have a brief message from our sponsor, Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of amazing classes covering dozens of creative and entrepreneurial skills. You can take classes in everything from photography […]
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