Stuff You Should Know

Now that it’s been 250 years since America split from England, we figure enough time has passed that we can finally learn the difference between the UK, Great Britain, and  the British Isles.

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During the Cold War all eyes were on the Space Race between the US and USSR. But there was another, overlooked race too and it went in the opposite direction. 

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In this classic episode, Chuck and Josh sit and converse on the simple, elegant chopstick.

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When a 9.2 quake shoook Alaska in 1964 it was the 2nd largest earthquake ever recorded. This is that story.

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Those are three words you probably never thought you’d see together. And the true story is just as interesting as it sounds.

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When a crush of football fans killed 97 people in England in 1989, police and officials engaged in a massive cover-up to blame it on drunken fans. Today we tell that story.

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Until 2007, the largest single corporate bankruptcy was Enron, a $67 billion energy trading company. Its decline was breathtaking, and while it’s a fascinating story of corporate malfeasance and greed, it’s also about the lives of ruined workers. Learn all about it in this classic episode.

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The sort of commune of Freetown Christiania in Denmark may not be what it used to be, but it's still true to many of its original values. Learn all about this unique neighborhood today.

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Fear is different than being scared, most notably because fear is generally a negative thing and being scared can cause an enjoyable thrill. We'll get into the difference in today's episode.

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Even though curses aren’t real – and we go to great pains to make that clear – they are pretty interesting, especially ones you haven’t heard of before. So we dug deep and found some of the curses that don’t always hog the spotlight for this fun episode.

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It’s a pretty safe assumption that people have been born with birthmarks since humanity began, and between then and now we’ve come up with some wacky, even dangerous, explanations for them – even a few that survive still today. Learn all about them in this classic episode.

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It's a confusing part of climate change when it seems winter is as cold as ever, but as global temperatures creep ever so slightly higher, a cascade of catastrophic events will almost surely follow. The ball is in humanity's court.

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Like many huge discoveries, X-rays were accidentally stumbled upon. That serendipity led to a medical breakthrough still in use today. Learn about how X-rays are created and why they make such delightful images of our bones.

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You could be forgiven for thinking the story behind elastics was boring. You’d still be wrong, though. The story of what’s holding up your underwear is a global drama, replete with war, industrial espionage, colonialism, destitute inventors – everything!

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The world's energy consumption is ruining the planet but for decades physicists have been working on what could solve the world's energy and climate change woes for centuries to come - nuclear fusion. Learn about building stars on Earth in this episode.

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You know the rule that says the simplest explanation is probably the correct one? That’s called a razor and it’s meant to guide logic. But over time it’s become a broadsword used to disprove opposing arguments. Learn how to spot a faux skeptic in this episode.

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It’s easy to think of people in the distant past as kinda dumb for believing things like that mice could spontaneously generate from old grain. But if you look a little deeper, you’ll find there was a sensibility to the odd beliefs that came before science.

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There are a number of theories for how the universe evolved but none are more widely accepted than the Big Bang theory. Learn about the mind-boggling details of the early universe and hear Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson talk about what it will take for us to know its origins.

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It evolved over centuries to become the gold standard for conducting scientific inquiry. Yet many people - including some scientists - don't fully understand it. Learn about the basis of how we explore our world in this episode.

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If you’ve ever wanted to listen to two totally untrained, non-chemists who are fully unqualified to explain how the periodic table works nervously explain how the periodic table works, then this episode is for you. Chemistry majors, be warned.

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Chuck loved M*A*S*H. Josh didn't. Listen in as they fight to the death.

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Does singing make you happy? Yes, yes it does.

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You can make a pretty good case that the rise of opinion “news” and filter bubbles on cable tv created the current cultural and political schism that plagues American society. How did it start? Where did it come from? And what the heck can we do about it?

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Back in the day, broadcasters were bound by law to provide contrasting opinions on political matters. Why? Because of the Fairness Doctrine. What happened to it? Listen to this classic episode and find out.

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Today we dive into the unremorseful life of NYC Subway vigilante Bernhard Goetz.

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Harvesting rainwater has tons of upsides and not many downsides – you just need to take a few precautions first. Don’t miss this episode, which features some Josh Math™.

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They say that smiling requires fewer muscles than frowning, so why not smile? That doesn’t seem to be true, or at least unproven, and there is lots more about smiling that will keep you glued to your earbuds in this fun episode.

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Josh and Chuck delve into the world of 911 in this classic episode.

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The disaster at Three Mile Island thankfully did not cost any lives directly, but the notion that it didn't harm people is very much up in the air. Learn all about the worst nuclear disaster in the history of the United States today.

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In 1955, the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance motor race took a very dark turn when a terrible accident on the track continued into the crowd.

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Van Gogh lived a troubled life and did not garner attention as a painter until after his death by suicide. Today we dive into this complicated journey as an artist.

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The question of Shakespeare's authorship has been around since at least the mid-1800s. Is there anything to it? In this classic episode, we dig in to this dense topic to find out.

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From 1968 to 1972 Howard Hughes holed up in a suite in the Desert Inn casino in Las Vegas. Addicted to morphine and living on candy bars and milk, he was in bad shape. When he was told to leave, he bought the hotel and stayed. Soon he owned half of Vegas.

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Does knuckle cracking give you arthritis? It doesn't appear to. But that doesn't mean it's harmless.

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There are quacks and then there is Linda Hazzard. Not only did she starve her patients to death, but she took their family fortunes as she did it. This is the story of Starvation Heights.

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Flight attendants have come a long way. From having to put up with rampant sexism, to the current incarnation as your first line of defense in case of an incident, they are valued airline employees. Learn all about this cool job in this classic episode.

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One of the darkest days in the history of American law enforcement came on April 19, 1993, when the FBI’s 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian religious sect’s compound in Waco, Texas ended with a fire and 75 men, women, and children dead inside.

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Are BPAs safe? Of course not. Does the FDA care? Of course not. Learn all about what and why today.

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Eels are pretty much objectively unsettling. They’re not quite fish (although they are) and if they’re snakes, they’re messed up snakes (they aren’t). But they’re fascinating too! There are even little cute eels. It’s time you got acquainted with eels!

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George Mallory was a member of the first three European expeditions to Everest, world’s tallest mountain. He wanted to summit it so badly, he gave his life trying. Since that fateful day in 1924, climbers have wondered – was Mallory the first to summit? Listen as Josh and Chuck explore that question and lots more in this classic episode.

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Hard to believe we haven't covered this one yet, but here we are. Why did the Hindenburg crash and burn? We still don't really know.

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Strange but true, actor Tippi Hedron kickstsarted the Vietnamese manicure industry in the United States in the 1970s. This is that story. 

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If you don’t believe in any kind of god or afterlife - or even that there’s a meaning to life – does that mean you’re doomed to a life of gloom and doom? Heck no!, say humanists. Their philosophical movement says you can make your own meaningful life.

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First of all, movies can't be cursed because curses aren't real. However, that can't stop Josh and Chuck from taking a look at some movies throughout history that have had a disturbing number of bad things surrounding their production and release. Dive into the world of cursed movies in this very fun classic episode.

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Camp David is awesome. But not all presidents have liked it. We'll dig into this historic property in today's episiode.

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Kangaroos are the only marsupial to hop, which is pretty weird. We'll investigate why. 

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Boeing used to be one of the most respected engineering firms in the world. Then it changed its focus from making great airplanes to increasing its stock value. The result was the 737-MAX, a plane that took the lives of 346 people in two avoidable crashes.

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Psychologist Julian Jaynes came up with a stunning hypothesis in 1976, that human consciousness only developed in the last 3000 years. And he seemed to have proof in ancient texts. Scholars have been picking it apart ever since and in this classic episode we join the club.

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Of course we're talking all about maple syrup today - the tapping, the processing, the eating.

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By all rights there should be three sets of molars in your mouth. But it turns out that our skulls aren’t really set up to accommodate that many anymore. Exactly why depends on who you ask.

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In the 1970s, conservation groups around the world rose up to protect dwindling whale populations, some on the verge of extinction. They all worked under the same banner: Save the Whales! It turned out to be one of the most successful campaigns ever.

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Fever dreams can be unsettling experiences. These ramped up nightmares are vivid, detailed and only happen when the human body experiences a fever. What is it about the combination of fevers and dreams that make these night terrors so hellish? Learn all that and more in this classic episode.

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Humanity’s created a lot of neat things over the eons and starting in the 1940s, the UN created an agency focused on preserving those things for the whole world and future people. But that mission is in danger of becoming only about branding and money.

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There’s a kind of bird that lots of people think is a real jerk. And it kind of is. But in the brown-headed cowbird’s defense, it’s just evolved that way. Find out why it has such a bad reputation among bird lovers in this Short Stuff.

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Once in a while someone comes up with a solution for a problem we didn’t know we had, and maybe even a problem that didn’t even exist. Even more rarely, the stars align just right so that some crackpot invention captures everyone’s imagination.

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In this classic episode Josh and Chuck sit down and detail the complicated life of the late, great Sammy Davis Jr.

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In 2014 a ferry carrying hundreds of South Korean high school students on a field trip sunk, killing almost everyone on board. Hauntingly, their deaths were fully avoidable: everyone from the dock inspector to the Coast Guard to the president failed them.

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The Japanese Cherry Blossom is a sight to behold. But how did they get to Washington D.C.?

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We all love to tour our generation's superiority, but who decides where the split occurs and what to name it? And is this even a thing or just an arbitrary division?

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If you think secretly coded messages sent via short wave radio is Cold War relic, think again. In this classic episode, Chuck and Josh are here to dispel that myth, along with many others relating to numbers stations, including why they might still be operational.

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The worker co-op has a rich tradition and can work a variety of ways. Join us as we dig into the nuts and bolts.

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If you think Spring Break started with northern college kids heading to Florida to party, you'd be correct. But there's slightly more to it than that. 

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Jump in today to hear all about the disaster that was the movie ROAR.

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If you live in the Northeastern U.S. then you may know someone who has had Lyme disease. But it's spreading all over the country and parts of the world. Learn all about this tick-borne disease in this classic episode.

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Deciding how to share water is pretty important stuff when there isn't much of it around. Today we dive into the Colorado River Compact.

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Pretty much everyone agrees that English is a chaotic language. There are nutso rules of grammar and spelling other languages don’t have. More than once, movements have emerged to simplify English and each time they were beaten back with a vengeance. 

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Lots of nations gauge the health of their country by how the middle class is doing. There’s just one issue with that – no one can say exactly what defines the middle class. But even when you take a guess, it seems like the health isn’t so good these days.

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In 2014, a young German man walked into an airport in Bulgaria with a flight booked, then suddenly ran out leaving all his posessions behind, never to be heard from again. This classic episode tells the story of Lars Mittank.

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Malcolm X was one of the most revered, feared leaders of the civil rights movement. In contrast to Martin Luther King, Jr., X advocated black self-reliance and separateness in American society and that equal rights should obtained by any means necessary.

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In 1876 it rained meat out of the clear blue sky on a homestead in Bath County, Kentucky. While the mystery of what happened will never be solved, the best explanation makes the story even weirder than it seems.

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The first fires came from lightning strikes. After that, no one is super sure when we started controlling it and then later, starting our own. But it's sure fun to speculate!

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If there's one thing we've learned about Chuck over the years it's that he loves his gin. And he loves it even more now that understands it. Pour yourself a martini and cozy up to the classic gin-cast. 

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Caterpillars are simply the best. Don't think so? Well listen in and you'll soon agree.

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If you thought caterpillars were awesome, just wait until you see them with colorful, iridescent wings!

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They seem gross and bothersome at first, but once you get down to ground level and get to know snails, we’ll bet you’ll grow quite fond of them. They are living in a whole world we’re largely unaware of.

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Dandelions are way more interesting than you think. Trust us and click play.

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Permaculture is a growing trend in the world of farming and home landscaping. It's basically a design principle that emphasizes sustainability and the would-be, natural ecosystem of an area. Simple concepts like planting downhill from a pond and using gravity to feed plants to planting native plants and vegetation that work well together are hallmarks of permaculture. Learn all about this eco-friendly trend today.

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Unless you have an arcane disorder from a lesion on a very specific spot on our medulla, the chances are you sneeze. Turns out most animals do it, even lizards! Learn the whys and hows of this most interesting involuntary reflex.

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It’s time to get jazzed up for some Earth science of the waterlogged variety. Join Chuck and Josh as they tour some of the most interesting ecosystems on the planet and learn why we need to stop destroying them post haste.

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You may think composting is just a bunch of old banana peels rotting away into dirt but, friend, you're not looking closely enough. Inside that compost pile is a microcosmic universe doing some magical stuff.

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Squirrels are rodents, sure, but they’re rodents with personalities the size of Las Vegas and Detroit put together. Get to know your bushy-tailed (and sometimes not so bushy) neighbors who live interesting hidden lives right out in the open.

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Honey is an amazing thing. Just ask any bee. They make a ton of it. So much that humans get what bees can't use and that's a lot of honey.

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If you could put your leg behind your head, would you? Of course you would! You might even make a career out of it, amazing people around the world with your flexibility. That’d make you a contortionist! But first you’d better get started with stretching.

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The Jeddah Tower is set to be the tallest building in the world. If it ever gets finished. 

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Ruth Lyons basically invented the daytime talk show, yet she doesn't get the credit. Why is that? Probably because she was a woman in a man's industry. Today we tell her story.

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Mangroves are incredible survivors and adapters. They're also amazing at lessening the impact of tropical storms and climate change. And heck, they're cool looking. So jump into the brackish waters and have a listen to this classic episode all about these beauts.

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From the 1970s to the early 1990s a patch of land in Hong Kong the size of just a few football fields was the most densely-populated area in the world – and by a longshot. Even more remarkable, it was an outlaw land that somehow formed a tight community.

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Movies on planes have changed a lot in the last couple of decades. Today, we'll go over how this stuff works. 

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What happens when a career grifter tries to throw a "luxury" music festival in only six months? Not much it turns out.This was the Fyre Festival.

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Something spooky was born on the American frontier in the mid-19th century: the idea that people’s personalities survive death and that some gifted individuals can communicate with them. It developed into a religion that some still practice today.

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Before the internet could show you anything in the universe - including stuff it made up - people had few opportunities to have their minds blown. But every few years, somewhere in the world nations would gather and show off the cool stuff they invented.

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You might be familiar with the outlaw Johnny Ringo from the movie Tombstone. He was indeed a real-life black hat gunslinger, and a tragic figure at that.

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There was a time less than 100 years ago when you could exchange your paper currency at the bank for actual gold. Gave folks a sense of stability, it did. Depending on your view, we either ruined or built our economies when money became just paper.

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Dopamine is perhaps the most talked-about, most misunderstood biochemical in our bodies. It’s linked to not only addiction and depravity, but also focus, motivation, and living a productive life. How can one molecule be so many things to so many people? Find out all about it in this classic episode.

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Back in 1973 a male chauvinist played tennis against champion Billie Jean King. This is that story.

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What’s a MacGuffin? We don’t know. No one knows. But it has to do with movies and that’s fun to talk about.

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Stanford University was co-founded by Jane Stanford. Not long after she was murdered and it was covered up. We'll probably never know what really happened. Listen in today.

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Free range parenting is all about giving your child the freedom to play and explore life on their own. Are there benefits? Sure. Do some people hate the concept? Yes! Listen to this classic episode and learn right here. 

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