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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
*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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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, […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more