About this podcast
Whether the topic is popcorn or particle physics, you can count on BrainStuff to explore -- and explain -- the everyday science in the world around us.
Episodes
The newest 50 of 2,746 episodes
- Where Did Zippers Come From? · 15 minThe zipper as we know it is barely over 100 years old, but it's the closure of choice for thousands of everyday products. Learn the history and physics behind the zipper (and why…
- What Was Terrible About Ivan the Terrible? · 9 minIvan IV Vasilyevich wasn't called 'the Terrible' during his lifetime, but he lived up to the name. Learn how he became Russia's first tsar, expanded his power, and terrorized his…
- How Does the Thymus Work (and What Can Happen When It Doesn’t)? · 12 minThe thymus is a small organ in the center of your chest that's responsible for getting your immune system's T cells ready to protect you from germs. Learn what we know and don't…
- BrainStuff Classics: How Does Venus Work? · 7 minVenus is the hottest planet, its years are shorter than its days, and its atmospheric pressure is 92 times greater than that on Earth. Learn how researchers think Venus got this…
- Why Do We Eat Three Meals a Day? · 13 minThe concept of eating three square meals a day only goes back about 150 years. Learn how technology, marketing, and other factors have shifted our meals and mealtimes in today's…
- How Do Walkie-Talkies Work? · 15 minThis technology is going on a hundred years old, but for reliable voice communication across relatively short distances, walkie-talkies are still relevant -- and sometimes…
- Dimetrodon Wasn't a Dinosaur -- So What Was It? · 10 minThis four-legged prehistoric animal had a bony sail on its back and was probably scaly, but it was more closely to related to mammals than it was to dinosaurs. Learn about…
- BrainStuff Classics: How Does Samhain Work? · 6 minSamhain is a pagan holiday -- celebrated between the fall equinox and winter solstice -- that helped form modern, secular Halloween celebrations. Learn about Samhain in today's…
- What Really Happened at the 'Amityville Horror' House? · 14 minAfter a tragic set of murders in 1974, the next residents at a grand old house in Amityville, New York, claimed the home was demonically haunted. Their story spawned a horror…
- How Is Chocolate Made? · 14 minFrom the seed of a tropical tree to creamy candies, it takes a lot of science to turn cacao into chocolate. Learn how cacao is farmed, fermented, and processed into cocoa…
- Was James Dean's Final Car Cursed? · 11 minAfter James Dean died in a car crash at 24 years old, the remains of that car -- a silver Porsche 550 Spyder -- were implicated in a series of other accidents before the car…
- BrainStuff Classics: Does the Community of Lily Dale Reconnect the Living and the Dead? · 7 minSpiritualism is a 19th-century belief system that holds that the living can communicate with spirits of the dead through mediums. Learn about the community where spiritualism is…
- How Did the Philadelphia Experiment Work? · 14 minThe Philadelphia Experiment is a fringe theory that says a secret military project made a WWII ship disappear (or time travel, or eat some of its crew). Learn about the hoax that…
- Can Your Hair Really Turn White Overnight? · 14 minTales of some great shock or fright suddenly turning a person's hair white go back thousands of years. Learn what researchers think is really going on -- and how our hair…
- Why Are Brown Recluse Spiders Not All That Scary? · 11 minBrown recluse spiders rarely bite humans, and when they do, it only causes a reaction in about 10 percent of cases. Learn how to identify brown recluses and what their bites do…
- BrainStuff Classics: When Has a Single Vote Decided an Election? · 8 minVoting is an incredibly important way to make your voice heard, but it's very rare for a candidate to win or lose by just one vote. Learn how rare -- and about a few times that…
- How Do You Grow a 3,000-Pound Pumpkin? · 12 minThe largest pumpkins in the world now weigh well over a ton, and the record gets broken just about every year. But how (and why) would you go about growing one? Learn how…
- How Do Your Nerves Tell Your Muscles to Function? · 14 minEvery movement our bodies make -- from waving at a friend to pumping blood -- is goverened by complex electrochemical handshakes among our nerves and our muscles. Learn how…
- Why Did the Massive Maginot Line Fail to Stop Hitler? · 12 minAfter years of trench warfare in WWI, France built a line of massive underground bunkers and other defensive fortifications along hundreds of miles of its border. Learn how the…
- BrainStuff Classics: Why Are Some Americans Cancelling Columbus Day? · 7 minSome U.S. cities and states have officially changed Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples' Day. Learn why -- and why some Americans disagree with the change -- in this classic…
- American Versus British English: What Are Biscuits, Muffins, and Pudding? · 10 minThe English-language terms for different baked goods vary based on where English is being spoken. Learn why an American cookie is a British biscuit, an American biscuit is a…
- How Do Sunspots Work? · 14 minWhen dark spots appear on the surface of the Sun, we're actually seeing the result of massive distortions in solar magnetic fields caused by roiling plasma -- and they appear in…
- Did the Lost Continent of Lemuria Really Exist? · 11 minA sunken continent called Lemuria was first proposed as a scientific explanation for lemur populations in the mid-1800s, but it quickly became part of the mythology of…
- BrainStuff Classics: How Did a Mad King Design Disney's Castle? · 8 minWalt Disney based Sleeping Beauty's castle -- the centerpiece of Disneyland and the Disney logo -- on a real castle in the Bavarian Alps of Germany. Learn about Neuschwanstein…
- Could the Bird Flu Cause a Human Pandemic? · 15 minSince the early 2000s, the H5N1 bird flu has sickened wild and domestic birds around the world -- and sometimes humans and other mammals, too. Learn how this strain of avian…
- Where Do Butternut Squash Come From? · 10 minHumans started domesticating edible gourds thousands of years ago, but one of today's most popular varieties has been around for less than a century. Learn about the history and…
- How Did the Great Stink of London Work? · 12 minIn London in the summer of 1858, a Great Stink settled over the city. The sewage from its growing population was baking in the streets -- and infiltrating the city's water…
- BrainStuff Classics: How Do Blue Whales Work? · 9 minIt's a good question. The blue whale is the largest known animal to ever grace the planet (they may be twice as big as Megalodon was! Their tongues are as heavy as elephants!)…
- Do Political TV Ads Really Change Minds? · 12 minEvery U.S. election cycle, political campaigns bombard American televisions with advertisements for candidate X versus Y. But can these ads really make a difference, especially…
- How Does Myasthenia Gravis Work? · 14 minWhat happens when your immune system attacks the point of communication between your nerves and muscles? That's an autoimmune condition called myasthenia gravis, and it leads to…
- What Is It Like In Our Asteroid Belt? · 13 minThe asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is made up of sparse, tiny bodies of rock, ice, and metal that give us a window into our solar system's early days. Learn how Jupiter…
- BrainStuff Classics: How Did Fish & Chips Become England's National Dish? · 7 minLight and tender fried fish plated with crisp fried potatoes is a classic English comfort meal, but it's only a little over a century old. Learn the history of fish and chips in…
- Do Lemmings Really Jump Off Cliffs? · 13 minLemmings are small, fierce rodents that make their home in Arctic environments -- and (spoiler alert) the idea that they kill themselves by following each other off cliffs is a…
- What Would Happen If You Drank Saltwater? · 12 minOur bodies need salt and our bodies need water, so why is drinking saltwater not good for you? Learn what salt does in our bodies and why seawater will actually dehydrate you in…
- How Is Tungsten So Hard and Heat-Resistant? · 9 minTungsten's boiling point is over 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and as tungsten carbide, it's one of the hardest materials we know. Learn how it's used for everything from…
- BrainStuff Classics: How Does the Hippocampus Work? · 7 minWithout the hippocampus, our brains have serious trouble recalling and recording certain types of long-term memories. Learn how this brain structure works in today's classic…
- What Happened During Agatha Christie's Mysterious Disappearance? · 14 minIn 1926, detective novelist Agatha Christie disappeared for 11 days under strange circumstances. Learn about her life and record-setting, best-selling works (second only to the…
- How Does Escargot Work? · 12 minEscargot is just one of many ways that humans enjoy eating land snails -- and we've been eating them for 30,000 years. Learn about the snails in question, how they're farmed, and…
- How Does a Geiger Counter Work? · 12 minThe Geiger counters we use to detect harmful radiation today are 100-year-old technology that works based on simple behaviors of electrons and ions. Learn about ionizing…
- BrainStuff Classics: How Do Starling Murmurations Work? · 8 minStarlings flock in swooping, harmonious groups of thousands of birds called murmurations. Learn how these birds pull off such an amazing feat through simple actions in this…
- Why Was Rome's Emperor Commodus So Hated? · 12 minYou may know him as the villain in the film 'Gladiator', but the real-life Emperor Commodus is said to have been even more cruel and megalomaniacal. Learn about his unusual…
- What If Earth Had Rings? · 13 minPlanetary rings are gorgeous, temporary structures created when a planet's gravity captures and tears apart smaller objects. Learn why Earth doesn't have rings (right now!) and…
- Why Do We Blush When We're Embarrassed? · 10 minBlushing is an involuntary reaction that can seem to draw more attention to yourself at exactly the worst moment. Learn why this embarrassing response to embarrassment can…
- BrainStuff Classics: How Are Ethnicity and Race Different? · 10 minThe concepts of ethnicity and race are both human inventions with no basis in science, but these concepts have huge impacts on us and our world. Learn the difference between…
- How Does Butter Get Its Texture, Flavor, and Color? · 14 minTurning cream into a stick of butter involves some complex chemistry, crystallization, and (traditionally) fermentation. Learn more -- plus the difference between sweet cream…
- Why Do We Call Dibs and Shotgun, and Who Was the Real McCoy? · 9 minSome idioms have a fairly clear origin, but others have been lost to time and legend. Learn about the game that inspired calling dibs, the media that created calling shotgun, and…
- Why Is Siberia's Batagaika Crater Known as the Doorway to Hell? · 11 minThe Batagaika crater (or, technically, megaslump) is a massive pit caused by thawing permafrost -- and it's only getting bigger. Learn what paleontologists have found there (and…
- BrainStuff Classics: How Would Authorities Handle a Murder in Space? · 8 minInvestigating murders right here on planet Earth can be tricky -- how would it be handled in space? Who would even be in charge? Learn what current and future laws may apply in…
- How Does Taste Work? · 14 minYour sense of taste isn't just a chemical catalog of what's in a food or drink -- it's a complex physiological and psychological process. Learn what we know (and don't know!)…
- How Did Weasels Get a Bad Rap? · 16 minWeasels have a bad reputation among bird farmers and have been cast as literal villains in books and cartoons, but they can actually help control vermin populations -- and…
