Some of the first stories humans ever deemed worthy of writing down inevitably included tales of a man or men rushing to the aid of some damsel in distress, from Perseus rescuing Andromeda, to the Achaeans assembling to go rescue, or at least reclaim, Helen. As the centuries passed, this basic theme has never gone out of style, even still […]
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MasaC asks: Why do fingernails on a chalkboard make us cringe? Few sounds cause humans to cringe more than nails across a chalkboard, a fork scraped on a plate, or a heavy metal chair dragged across a tiled floor. But what exactly is it about this sort of scraping noise that is so offensive to our brains that many even […]
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The origin of the keyboard starts, unsurprisingly with the first typewriters. There were a variety of type-writer-like devices around going back the 18th century, before one Christopher Latham Sholes, with some help from a few other guys, came up with one that would become the first commercially successful typewriter in the 1870s. Much like many typewriters since, Shole’s device used […]
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Milesperawesome asks: Could you get in trouble legally if you murdered someone in space? Asking for a friend. While it might seem like something out of science fiction, given that humans are presently in space and soon enough mass space tourism is going to open up the possibility for many, many more, it’s only a matter of time before someone […]
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Nohomers asks: Can police officers actually commandeer your vehicle like in movies? Inevitably in any film that has some member of law enforcement as the protagonist at some point said individual will wave their badge, and potentially their gun, at a passing car and demand to commandeer the vehicle. But if you’re ever driving along and some police officer does […]
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In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we are looking at the man Frank Capra based the character of George Bailey on in It’s a Wonderful Life, and how this rather remarkable individual went on to shape quite a bit of history in a certain region of America, in a very positive way despite that almost nobody has ever […]
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In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start off looking at why Fox tried so hard to trick people into thinking Miracle on 34th Street was not a Christmas movie when it came out. We then look at why movie trailers are called that and a bit on the evolution of them, and then look at why Miracle […]
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Natapixie asks: Has a non-pilot passenger ever managed to land an airplane? A common Hollywood trope when dealing with commercial airline-centric plots is inevitably at some point the pilot or pilots will become incapacitated and the lead character, who may or may not have any piloting experience, will be forced to take over, lest they die a fiery death when […]
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While many a news outlet regularly reports when Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates flip-flop as to who is the richest person in the world, with Bernard Arnault and Warren Buffet nipping at their heals, as we previously noted in our article on the richest people in history, Bezos and Gates’ combined wealth barely matches that of the known fortune of […]
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Historically, written language has always been rather limited in its ability to adequately represent the nuance of in-person communication, which comes with a whole slew of gesticulations, facial expressions, subtle shifts in tone and the like. As such, humans have been attempting to find ways around this problem seemingly as long as we’ve been writing stuff down. Going back to […]
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In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start off looking at the interesting reason why milk is white, yet cheddar cheese is yellow/orange. Next up, we have a brief message from our 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 […]
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A common thing you’ll hear monolingual adults saying whenever discussing potentially learning a second language is that they lament not having done so as a child when it is easier. But the truth is, while the notion that kids learn languages faster and more easily is an almost universally held belief, even among some linguists, it turns out adults actually […]
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*Sorry the audio is a little funky on this one. But don’t skip it, it’s one of our best content-wise, in my opinion. 🙂 As to the audio, we had multiple technical issues that ended up resulting in us having to use the combined live, streamed audio (rather than our local recordings), which in turn had issues beyond the normal […]
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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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