How Your World Works

On today's show, we talk to our good friend Rachel Rothman, Chief Technologist at the Good Housekeeping Institute. Working on a specialized floor a few levels up from Popular Mechanics, she and a team of engineers test stoves, clothes, food, cars--pretty much everything you encounter in day-to-day life. She explains how she got into such an exacting line of work, how it's heightened her neuroses (and given her new ones), and why it's ultimately so rewarding.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's show, Steve Abraham, a long time air traffic controller at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, tells us about his job--everything from how he get into it (and how that's changed), to the time he had two airplanes flying one on top of the other, to the fact that, yes, dangerous situations like that are very rare, even if delays aren't. Musical thanks this episode to minusbaby for "Flying." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

BioLite is an interesting company. Their signature product is a camp stove that burns wood and uses some of the heat to charge a battery, which can, in turn, charge small electronic devices. It's great for camping. But it's also great for people who don't have easy access to electricity or clean-burning fires (which turns out to be a lot of people). On today's show, CEO Jonathan Cedar explains how his company went from simply trying to improve combustion to having offices in India and Africa. Special musical thanks this episode to Jahzzar for "Fire Ahead." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's episode, guest host and Popular Mechanics Contributing Editor Dan Dubno takes us inside the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to learn about new technology that can allow a man to climb anywhere. Until he falls, which may or may not have happened to Dan Dubno. Musical thanks for this episode goes to The Crypts! for their song Marie Curie. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The preparators of the American Museum of Natural History's Exhibitions Department are artists and craftsmen by trade who become scientists by practice as they build the museum's famed traveling exhibitions. In what may be the coolest workshop in the whole of New York City, they use wood, metal, epoxy, paint, and hundred-year-old death masks to build dioramas that transport visitors to settings all over the natural world. As they undertake final preparations for their latest exhibition, Cuba!, which opens November 21, we visit the workshop to see what they've built. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For today's episode, Popular Mechanics' political correspondent Mark Warren joins to interview Dana DeBeauvoir, County Clerk of Travis County, Texas (It's where Austin is). She discusses the preparations Travis County is undertaking for a record-breaking 2016 general election, and helps Mark address some of the concerns we've heard about polling places. Let this episode be your reminder to go out and vote. Musical thanks for today's episode goes to Podington Bear for their tracks "60s Quiz Show" and "Just Watching." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With Halloween fast approaching, we talk to Leonard Pickel of Hauntrepreneurs - a company that designs haunted attractions from the ground up. An architect by training, Pickel explains how he distorts the stuff he did in the studio to create spaces that put people on edge. He also explains the hardest type of person to scare, the scariest room he's ever designed, and the worst scare he's ever received. The music in this episode is "Soundtrack 2, Act 3" by Tim Nelson, from "Caligari: An Exquisite Corpse - The Visitant, by The Tunnel." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tonight, Friday, October 7th, is the LA Lakers' first home game of the NBA preseason. After their game is over, the crew at LA's Staples Center will have to get the arena ready to host a concert on Saturday. By Monday they'll have to get it into shape as a basketball court again, as the Clippers, their other NBA tenant, have a game--which they play on their own distinct hardwood floor.  When the next Friday rolls around, it's time for an LA Kings ice hockey game. How does the arena shape-shift for every new event? Where does the ice go when it's not a hockey rink? How many boards are there in a basketball court? On today's show, Staples Center operations manager Ed Flewelen calls in to explain. Musical thanks this week to Tricky Diesel for their track, "Still Balling." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you read the October 2016 issue of Popular Mechanics, you may have noticed a section of the Breakthrough Awards devoted to competitors from Major League Hacking, the competition circuit for college and high school-aged hackathons. And you may also have noticed that Danny Yim and Jake Kaplan of the Bergen County Academies in New Jersey took home a prize at their hackathon for making one soldering iron to rule them all. And then, if you're still with me, you probably found yourself wondering: What's a hackathon actually like? What's it like solving problems when you haven't slept and have nothing in your body but soft drinks and processed carbs? Well, on today's show, Danny and Jake drop by the studio to fill you in. Special musical thanks this week goes to Hackerblinks for their song "Eighth."  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's show, IDEO's Dav Rauch and Peter Hyer talk about their work designing the interfaces in everything from ATMs to Tony Stark's Iron Man suit. It turns out that thinking about how people use stuff is a pretty fun job, full of insights into the quirks of human behavior, even--or especially--when you get to try things like using beach balls to compose music, or a burrito as a video game menu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's episode, fantasy football addict (and Popular Mechanics Executive Editor) Peter Martin joins the show as a guest interviewer when we talk to Matthew Berry, ESPN's senior fantasy sports analyst. Everyone envies the job, but Berry put in serious work to get it: He's been playing fantasy sports since the days when the week's results had to be faxed out by the league commissioner. He explains how the game has changed, how he keeps up with so many different leagues, and how his wife handles him watching every single NFL game, every single week. And then Peter petitions him for a lightning round of draft advice. Music in this episode includes the tracks "Penalty Shot" and "Leave Me On The Sub Bench" from the album World of Football 14 by Keshco, available under a Creative Commons license. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's episode, we talk to Glenn Hiemstra, the founder of Futurist.com. To start with, he explains what it even means to be a futurist. Then he tells us a little more about what it takes to peer into the unformed times that await, breaks down the things he's been right and wrong about, and discusses what he sees coming in our near future. The good news: We all might have a lot more leisure time. The bad news: We all might not have cars. Special musical thanks for this episode go to Jonas for "The future?" Cullah for "Rocket Into The Future," and Cory Gray for "Tell The Future." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's episode, Jeremy Bennett from Filson and Matt Bressler from Wickett & Craig - one of the nation's few tanneries that specialize in high-quality vegetable tanning - stop by the studio to discuss working with leather. By the time this episode is over, you'll know what a splitter is, what a skiver is, and the how many square feet of skin cover a jumbo heavy native steer. Thanks to Kevin Bewersdorf for his composition "The Last Seinfeld," used on today's show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Among the many ideas that have been floated for slowing down climate change, carbon capture and sequestration is one of the easiest to understand: When carbon dioxide is produced - say, by a factory - you find a way to trap it, then bury it someplace where it can't get into the atmosphere and contribute to the intensifying greenhouse effect. But CO2 shoved into storage as a gas or liquid can leak, especially if, at some point in the future, we manage to lose track of all the places we put it. On today's show, Professor Martin Stute of Barnard College joins the show to talk about an alternate technique his team has already gotten working at a power plant in Iceland: through a chemical reaction, they turn the CO2 into harmless rock. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In honor of the 100th Anniversary edition of the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, competitive eating lifer Crazy Legs Conti comes on the show to talk about the sport. Aside from explaining how he got started in professional engorging (hint: it involves oysters), he gives us a rundown of eating strategies, ruminates on the hardest foods to eat fast, and officiates a Popular Mechanics eating competition between host Kevin Dupzyk and producer Katie Macdonald. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's show, we talk to Pecos Davis and Chance Parsons, firefighters with the Malaga Volunteer Fire Department in Eddy County, New Mexico. Working with few resources in the southwest corner of the state, they've ridden one-to-a-truck to fires sparked by wind-borne static electricity and built their own foam-dispensing equipment. Also, they regularly use a tool called a "Snozzle." And as we find out, they wouldn't have it any other way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you’ve ever seen a Cirque du Soleil show, or perhaps Marvel Universe Live, there’s a good chance you’ve seen the work of Brett Copes. He’s a rigger—one of the guys who sets up the complicated stage apparatus that lets performers fly through the air—safely—while looking supremely cool. On today’s show, he explains the technical details that make it possible, including the reason a 150 pound acrobat may in practice weigh half a ton. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today’s show, Travis Law and Trevor Lacasse of Team Penske – mechanics for Helio Castroneves and Juan Pablo Montoya, who’ve won a combined five Indianapolis 500 races – talk about what they’ll be doing this weekend, when the race celebrates its centennial. While an individual pit stop lasts less than 10 seconds, it’s the result of painstaking practice, heavy strategizing, and the whim of weather and luck on the oval. We get the lowdown. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today’s episode, Chelsea Miller and Michael Zieba – both master knife makers, albeit with very different origin stories – come to the studio to explain what it takes to make a knife. It’s hard work: there’s a forge involved, belt sanders, and the occasional knife through the hand or foot. That’s why they adamantly agree on one thing—you can’t take up knife making if you don’t love it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today’s show, we try to find out what actually happens inside a craft brewery. It’s not just brewing beer, and even when it is, that doesn’t always go smoothly—have you ever heard of a beer bomb? Three members of the New York brewing community – Matt Monahan of Other Half Brewing, Anthony Accardi of Transmitter Brewing, and Keir Hamilton of Sixpoint Brewery – come to the studio to to explain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today’s show, we go from exciting to concerning: First, we discuss whether the future of cars is a Lincoln Navigator with the doors of a DeLorean and the stylings of a Range Rover, or Tesla’s Model 3, which aims to be the sleek electric car of the common man. Then we talk about a movie that tries a whole new method of filmmaking. It might make you queasy, for all the wrong reasons. Finally, we make a game of finding out which countries are members of the nuclear club. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There are 121, 362 people currently on the organ transplant list and not all of them will get the organs they need in time. On this episode of How Your Word Works, we learn about a new medical procedure that can reduce organ rejection and potentially save many more of these people. Jacob Pomrenke of the Society for American Baseball Research explains what sabermetrics is and how Major League Baseball will continue to use it, and on Stupid or Amazing, we debate the future of Amazon.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It was 40 degrees out at the start of this year’s Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. The dogs prefer –10. We find out how warmer temperatures are causing mushers to try different strategies to make sure they meet the requirement of having at least six of their dogs finish the race (They start with 16). Then we learn about new technologies in the worlds of distilling and personal hygiene. One involves boiling and one involves dirt—you might be surprised which is which.   Music credits: Intro: "Toot! Toot!" by Spectre Folk (http://www.myspace.com/spectreflux) Exit: "Aurora borealis (instr.)" by Nafta (http://www.myspace.com/naftaspace) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's show, we talk to the guys who turn science and technology into movie magic. Then we hear from astronaut Mike Hopkins about life on the International Space Station--the little things, like chewing, swallowing, and sneezing. Finally, we tell you if auto lease swapping programs that can put you in a Bentley for the price of a Honda are stupid, or amazing." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire primary in the books, election season is in full swing. In this week’s episode we asked professional pollster Nick Gourevitch the question on everyone’s mind in the run up to the election: Are polls all they're cracked up to be? Then an epidemiologist tells us what we need to know about the Zika virus, and what we can expect from it here in the US. Then we give you an inside look at what it takes to make convincing visual effects with the help of Jonathan Rothbart, the VFX Supervisor on the most profane and hilarious superhero movie yet, Deadpool. And finally, Brian Kelly of thepointsguy.com helps us determine if a new innovation in air travel is amazing or stupid. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On January 28, 1986, when the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds into its mission, America changed in a profound way. The schoolchildren of America had been watching the launch with keen excitement, a schoolteacher among the crew. NASA was pursuing an ambitious launch schedule. Spaceflight was routine, regular, and something America was good at. Then came the Challenger tragedy. On this episode, we hear the voices of journalists, NASA staff, and civilians that lived through the disaster as author Margaret Lazarus Dean, an expert on the shuttle program, explains it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the waning days of 2015, kick your Christmas Tree to the curb and get started thinking about the new year. On today’s episode, we tell you what happens to your tree after you part with it, and suggest an unconventional choice of drink for toasting the next trip around the sun. Then we evaluate an upgrade you might consider in 2016 and decide if it’s stupid, or amazing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today’s show, we take a look at the craftsmanship that was required to shoot Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight in Ultra Panavision 70mm and project Star Wars: The Force Awakens in IMAX 70mm on quaint, old film. Then we decide if today’s luxury movie theater experience is stupid, or amazing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week on How Your World Works, New York Times bestselling author A.J. Jacobs drops by the studio to to discuss, germs, healthy living, and why he once let his son lick ice cream off the sidewalk. Plus: Dr. Christopher Mason of Weil Cornell Medical College explains whether or not you should be worried about touching the subway pole, and Dr. Joseph Bresee, chief of the Epidemiology and Prevention Branch of the CDC’s Influenza Division, reminds you of the best ways to avoid the flu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Editor Sean Manning talks with writer Elliott Woods about a cadre of Iraqi fighter pilots training in Tucson, Arizona with the 162nd Wing of the Arizona Air National Guard. The pilots are learning to fly F-16 jets, which the Iraqi government purchased from the US and is using to launch air strikes against ISIS. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this round table episode we talk to contributing writer Kira Peikoff about her story on a new form of cancer treatment that finds promise in patients with abnormally positive responses to otherwise unsuccessful trial drugs. Then we float theories on helium, save Neil Armstrong's space suit from disintegration, and consider the merits (or folly) of The Drinking Jacket. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We investigate the spector of young girl at the Brooklyn Public library, talk to an expert in the field of ghost hunting, Dr. Karen Stollznow, the author of Haunting America; and we speak with the Visual Effects Supervisor of Ghostbusters, Richard Edlund. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the tense and thrilling new documentary Meru (in theaters now) mountaineers Jimmy Chin, Conrad Anker, and Renan Ozturk attempt to become the first group to successfully summit the Himalayas’ Meru Peak via the Shark’s Fin, one of the hardest climbs in the world. To make things even more challenging, they decided to shoot a beautiful movie as they climbed. Although your cinematic ambition may not involve hanging off a mountain 21,000 feet in the air, Chin says that many of the principles are the same. He offered the following tips. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When Andy Weir wrote The Martian, his science puzzler about an astronaut marooned on Mars with only his wits (read: scientific knowledge) to save him, he timed it to come out before the Curiosity Rover launched in 2011. So there’s no way he could have known what the world would be like in September 2015, as the release of the film adaptation is imminent. But, diving into the science behind the movie with NASA’s Dr. Jim Greene, who was a technical advisor, we discovered Mars is quite like Earth in several unexpected ways. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The NFL season kicks off this weekend, and while a lot of the focus may be on Tom Brady's revenge and Arian Foster's groin, we wanted to look at the game from a technology standpoint. As the efforts to protect players have become more and more high tech, so have other things, like the smoothies they drink after practice. We're seeing drones in training camp, quarterbacks using virtual reality, and players outfitted with everything from gyroscopes to accelerometers to GPS. Here are a few of the more interesting technologies we discovered. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In a special round table edition of the show, our editors discuss how architectural design can build better jails, and better outcomes for inmates and society. We'll consider whether a computer that costs $9 and is the size of a credit card might change the world. Then we'll unwind with a drink, and learn how bartenders are using new methods (like blow torches and centrifuges) to manipulate classic flavours. And lastly we'll play Stupid or Amazing, and put the question to a new self-editing camera called Graava. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today on the show, in honor of the recent launch of the most advanced submarine ever built, the USS John Warner, we take a deep dive on submarines. We’ll learn a little about their history, how they work, as well as what’s new and what’s different on this modern submarine. And we’ll also answer this riddle for you, why is it that you gain weight on a submarine? Plus we’re going to take a trip to the Suez canal in Egypt. That canal just under went a massive expansion and was just opened to traffic. And we’ll play a game of Stupid or Amazing, wherein we look at a new product on the market and ask ourselves that very important and surprisingly complicated question. Today we consider a product that could actually bee really useful on a submarine come to think about it, The D-Link wi-fi-water-sensor that detects water and leaks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Do you remember the late 90’s? During that time there were a few things that you just couldn’t escape: Celen Dion’s My Heart Will Go on was mandatorily played every 12 minutes across all stations.  There was the TMI of the Lewinski scandal. And there was this other weird thing that you couldn’t stop hearing about, El Nino.   El Nino, was—and is--- a weather pattern that forms every 2-7 years, but in 1997-98 it was having its most powerful year on record. So much so that the force of nature became a cultural one as well. Inspiring bits on SNL, and becoming the nations favorite scape-ghoat, something to blame not just bad weather on, but virtually anything from the market to a missed fly ball.  Since then El Nino has dissipated both as wheatear and as cultural icon, but this year scientists suspect that “The Boy” may could be due for a come back.   So we wanted to look at not just what El Nino was and how it worked, (What is it anyways?) but what it might mean for the areas of the country that have become defined by another force of nature, drought. El Nino after all, if it is a strong one, could deposited a lot of rain on the California, and that could be a game changer for a region plagued by forest fires and water shortages. But how this will effect California and whether or not the wet weather will come at all is still an open question. So on todays show we wanted to ask, is El Nino friend, or foe?    Plus later in the show, we try our a flame thrower in the show (at least the idea of one.) and muse, is this Stupid or Amazing?    Please subscribe to How Your World Works podcast on iTunes, and let us know what you think of the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Whether you believe Pluto to be a planet or not, the pictures that NASA has been releasing since Wednesday are a stunning reminder that even a dwarf planet can be beautiful and awe-inspiring.  Also awe-inspiring: the work it took to get the New Horizons probe, which took the pictures, to the far reaches of our solar system—3.5 billion miles from home.  On this episode of the How Your World Works podcast, we explain how the New Horizons mission worked.  Hint: It started way before the blastoff nine years ago.   Plus, Paul Rudd becomes the first smaller than life superhero in Marvel’s newest vehicle, Ant-Man. With Rudd measuring only half an inch tall for much of the movie, a lot of visual effects and computer imaging was needed to create the film. We spoke with Ant-Man’s Visual Effects Supervisor, Jake Morrison, to learn the secrets of the Ant-Man.    Plus, are they all pipes?    This episode was sponsored by Casper.  For $50 toward any mattress purchase, visit www.casper.com/WORLD and use the promo code WORLD. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gary Souza is the Show Designer for the Macy’s Annual 4th of July Fireworks Display in New York. The 25 minute fireworks show is choreographed to music, involves 5 barges at different positions in the East River, and is watched by millions on shores and over television. He explains to us just what goes in to the designing, planning and executing of this years event. And what it feels like like to fire off over 54 thousand explosives into the air, all to music, and sometimes in the shape of a happy face. And, in honor of the 4th, HYWW dives into that most American of past times, baseball, and looks at new motion capture technology that can measure the bio-mechanics of a pitch. And we’ll take a road trip down the black tops of America as we consider a proposed new safety feature for trucks, and ask ourselves, is this Stupid, or Amazing?  You can subscribe to the  How Your World Works podcast on iTunes, and hear a new episode every two weeks. Leave a comment or review of the show and tell us what you think, or find us on Spotify, Soundcloud, Stitcher and TuneIn.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For our first podcast ever we needed some help, so we asked an expert for tips. Podcasting legend Marc Maron, the host of “WTF with Marc Maron”, joined us to talk about what you can do with a garage, a good microphone, and some ugly linoleum tiles. Plus, useful tips in nation building: if being the third largest country in the world still leaves you wanting more, try making your own Islands! And join us for a game of “Stupid or Amazing?” where we examine the latest that technology and innovation have to offer, including an umbrella that refuses to be left behind and the very latest in smoking jackets.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices