Menu
Sign In Search Podcasts Libraries Charts People & Topics Add Podcast API Blog Pricing
Podcast Image

Stuff To Blow Your Mind

Science

Episodes

Showing 2201-2300 of 3109
«« ← Prev Page 23 of 32 Next → »»

From the Vault: Sexbots

07 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Sex between humans and machines is nothing new in the world of science fiction. Their forms range from angelic mechanoids to victimized humanoids, but...

The Dark Side of Neuroplasticity

05 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

When you hear the word “neuroplasticity,” you probably think of it in terms of a young brain’s ability to learn or an older brain’s struggles ...

Listener Mail: Dreams, Subs and Goddesses

03 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Once more, Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick turn to Karnie the Mailbot for listener reactions and commentaries on recent episodes. Strap in for discussio...

From the Vault: The Inca Kingdom of Fibers

30 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to the Kingdom of the Inca, where hundreds of rope bridges connect an imperial highway system and fiber-armored soldiers wield woven slings ag...

Chariots of the Gods

28 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Chances are, you’re already quite familiar with the notion the ancient astronauts visited the earth and gave humans the tech support they needed to ...

Black Holes, Part 3: The Future

26 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Nothing can escape the pull of a black hole, not even Stuff to Blow Your Mind. Join Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick for a three-part exploration of thes...

From the Vault: Humanzee

23 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Chimpanzees are humanity's closest living relative, but there's both wonder and existential horror in that closeness. A species barrier separates us f...

Black Holes, Part 2: Detection

21 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Nothing can escape the pull of a black hole, not even Stuff to Blow Your Mind. Join Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick for a three-part exploration of thes...

Black Holes, Part 1: Phantom

19 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Nothing can escape the pull of a black hole, not even Stuff to Blow Your Mind. Join Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick for a three-part exploration of thes...

From the Vault: The Substance of Silence

16 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

We all have a pretty good notion of noise, but what exactly is silence? Is it a substance or an absence? Between the mindflaying quiet of soundless ro...

Interview: Carl Zimmer on Heredity's Power

14 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Why does heredity hold such power over us? How did the ancients contemplate it and how is genetic technology changing the shape of future heredity? Ro...

World Science Festival 2018 Field Report

12 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Robert Lamb attended the 2018 World Science festival in New York City and had the chance to chat with its founder, physicist Brian Greene -- as well a...

From the Vault: P vs. NP

09 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

What does it mean to solve a problem in our universe? That's a trickier question than you might think, with some fairly high-stakes ramifications in t...

Sleep and Creativity

07 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

What roles does sleep play in human creativity? Can we learn in our dreams? Join Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick for a look at famous accounts of dream ...

Troubled Sleep in the Arks of Doom

05 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

It’s hard enough to sleep just knowing that dozens of nuclear ballistic missile submarines haunt the oceans, each containing the means to rain nucle...

From the Vault: Early Days Electric, Part 2

02 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Electricity lost its magic over the course the 18th and 19th centuries. The "invisible fire" steadily transitioned from a mysterious force of wonder t...

Finite and Infinite Games

31 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

How do you play the game of life? Do you play it as a finite game or an infinite one? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert Lamb and Joe ...

Quantum Immortality

29 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

What is quantum immortality? How do we get from quantum physics to thought experiment suicide machines and what does it all say about the nature of ou...

From the Vault: Early Days Electric, Part 1

26 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Electricity lost its magic over the course the 18th and 19th centuries. The "invisible fire" steadily transitioned from a mysterious force of wonder t...

The Alphabet and the Goddess, Part 2

24 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

What happened to the worship of goddesses? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick explore Leonard Shlain’s hypoth...

The Alphabet and the Goddess, Part 1

22 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

What happened to the worship of goddesses? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick explore Leonard Shlain’s hypoth...

From the Vault: Techno-Religion, Part 2

19 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

We often think of technology and religion as distinct and separate worlds, but what happens when they converge? Join Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick in ...

Life on Venus

17 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The planet Venus might seem a hellish destination and an unlikely place to find extraterrestrial life. And yet, many experts agree that life may have ...

Crazy Ants and Electricity

15 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Do crazy ants crave electronics? Do they feast on that sweet, sweet juice? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick d...

From the Vault: Techno-Religion, Part 1

12 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

We often think of technology and religion as distinct and separate worlds, but what happens when they converge? Join Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick in ...

Listener Mail: Of AI Minds and Human Farts

10 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Once more, Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick consult recent offerings of listener mail for your thoughts on artificial intelligence, demonic flatulence an...

Boltzmann Brains Revisited

08 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Space brains. Religious models of infinity. Join Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick as they revisit the topic of Boltzmann brains and discuss the general h...

From the Vault: Animal Sex Cannibals

05 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Sexual cannibalism is a rarity in the natural world, and scientists are still attempting to understand the act as practiced by mostly arachnids and in...

Unicorns of the Natural World

03 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

While the unicorn itself is a creature of fantasy and legend, one-horned and one-tusked animals do reside in the natural world. Join Robert Lamb and J...

Unicorns of the Mythic World

01 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Jorge Luis Borges tells us that the oldest unicorn legends are nearly identical to the most recent ficitonal treatments -- but why is that? Why is the...

From the Vault: Jumping Fish

28 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Fish belong in the water, right? What business do they have leaping out of their world and into ours? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robe...

Evolution and the City: The Birds

26 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

How have birds adapted to the artificial environments of human cities? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick sit d...

Evolution and the City: The Beasts

24 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Human cities are the ultimate artificial environments -- and we're not the only organisms to call them home. In this episode of the Stuff to Blow Your...

From the Vault: Library of Babel

21 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In Jorge Luis Borges' masterful short story "The Library of Babel," librarians and cultists wander a vast honeycomb library of hexagonal rooms -- room...

Listener Mail: Kingdom of the Face Blind

19 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

What's it like to live with prosopagnosia or face blindness? Join Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick as they devote an entire Stuff to Blow Your Mind episo...

The Fartonomicon

17 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

What is a fart? From what foul bodily depths does it arise? Join Stuff to Blow Your Mind hosts Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick as the crack open the Far...

From the Vault: Hollywood Acid

14 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

From the corrosive blood of the "Alien" xenomorph to the various Bond and Batman villains' use of the iconic acid vat, popular media presents us with ...

Machine Consciousness and P-Zombies

12 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

If a machine told you it was conscious, how could you tell if it was lying? Indeed, how can you tell that any random human in your life is lying when ...

The Singing Colossus of Memnon

10 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The twin Egyptian statues erected by Amenophis III were already ancient relics when Roman travelers visited them in the first century CE. One stood ta...

From the Vault: Myth-Fleshed Fossil

07 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Are the fossilized monsters of paleontology and the fantastic monsters of myth one and the same? Join Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick as they discuss th...

Face Blindness

05 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

It’s easy to take the human brain’s facial recognition powers for granted, unless there’s a malfunction. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your M...

The Cambodian Stegosaurus

03 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Do Cambodian temple ruins speak to a time when humans and dinosaurs coexisted? Absolutely not, but it’s a great excuse for Robert Lamb and Joe McCor...

From the Vault: Saturn's Brood

31 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The planet Saturn offers far more than rings to those who venture within its gravitational influence. This wind-swept gas giant also holds sway over n...

The Bathysphere: William Beebe Descends

29 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In 1930, American naturalist William Beebe began his descent in a spherical, unpowered submarine known as a Bathysphere -- and in doing so visited a w...

The Bathysphere: Life in the Deep

27 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In 1930, American naturalist William Beebe began his descent in a spherical, unpowered submarine known as a Bathysphere -- and in doing so visited a w...

From the Vault: Jupiter’s Children

24 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Of all the moons of Jupiter, Callisto, Ganymede, Europa and Io tantalize us the most. These alien worlds of ice, fire, desolation and hidden oceans ta...

Leviathan: The Wolf of Whale Street

22 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Canst thou draw out Livyatan melvillei with a hook? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick explore the awesome unde...

Life Beyond The Shield

20 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Life on Earth depends on the planet’s natural shielding, otherwise solar and cosmic radiation would ravage our small blue world. In this episode of ...

From the Vault: Bird Intelligence

17 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Just what are the upper limits of avian cognitive ability? Various studies reveal how certain bird species engage in mental time travel, tool use, sel...

The Nuts and Bolts of Boltzmann Brains

15 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Do your ever have the feeling that your entire reality is just a momentary hallucination inside a randomly formed space brain? If so, then this is the...

I Ching: The Book of Changes

13 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The Book of Changes stands as one of the most important divination texts in human history -- and a foundational text of Chinese culture in general. In...

From the Vault: Tip of the Tongue

10 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Your know the feeling. You're trying to recall the name of a time-keeping musical device or the the actor who played Fredo in 'The Godfather' and all ...

Listener Mail: Crab Faces, Anus Myths and More

08 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Once again, Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick read listener mail related to recent episodes. You'll hear myths about the anus, reflections on samurai crab...

War, Pain and the Super Soldier

06 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The history of war is filled with examples of soldiers who, in the heat of battle, fail to register the full extent of their injuries. In fact, some o...

From the Vault: Hyper-Real Religion

03 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

When does a protest religion become an actual faith? What happens when purely fictional modes of belief leak off the page or screen? Join Robert Lamb ...

The Great Eyeball War, Part 2

01 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Are apps, smart phones and social media sucking us dry? As Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick discuss in this two-part Stuff to Blow Your Mind exploration,...

The Great Eyeball War, Part 1

27 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Are apps, smart phones and social media sucking us dry? As Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick discuss in this two-part Stuff to Blow Your Mind exploration,...

From the Vault: The Science of Whining

24 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Unless you've lived your life in a childless fortress of seclusion, you've likely encountered the maddening, high-pitched whine of a complaining child...

The Proteus Effect

22 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

What effect does a virtual reality avatar have on the user? Can it alter your identity? Can it change how you behave in the real world? In this episod...

Carl Sagan and the Samurai Crabs

20 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Legend has it that a variety of crabs contain the ghosts of a drowned samurai army -- and each bears a grimacing warrior face on their backs to prove ...

From the Vault: Dune Biology

17 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Frank Herbert's 1965 novel 'Dune' is a game-changing saga of space-age feudalistic intrigue, rampaging sandworms and prescient mind drugs on a desert ...

The Chinese Typewriter (with Tom Mullaney)

15 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Where the technolingustic systems of the west meet the non-alphabetic written characters of the east, the Chinese typewriter emerges. It’s a story o...

Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor

13 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

You’ve seen the photos of the famed terracotta warriors, but no one in over 2200 years has glimpsed inside the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first empe...

From the Vault: Dune Technology

10 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Frank Herbert's 1965 novel 'Dune' is a game-changing saga of space-age feudalistic intrigue, rampaging sandworms and prescient mind drugs on a desert ...

Animal Lies: Six Tales of Mimicry and Deception

08 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

What are the shadiest lies in the animal kingdom? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, join Robert and Joe as they explore six different organi...

Anchor in the Mind

06 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Anchoring bias is one of the most powerful and easily exploited vulnerabilities in the human mind. Throughout your life, people, companies and organiz...

From the Vault: Tears of Re

03 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, enter a kingdom within a kingdom: the remarkable honey-and-wax monarchy within a beehive and the organizat...

Evolution of the Anus

01 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Chances are, you take the anus for granted -- at least so long as it’s behaving itself. Yet this fascinating anatomical feature has a deep evolution...

Miasma Theory and the Evil Air

30 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Prior to the germ theory of disease, miasma theory ruled the day -- the notion that bad air, full of destructive particles, wafted out from the foul p...

From the Vault: Techno-Telepathy

27 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

You've always wanted to meet a sensitive alien telepath who could understand you like no one else, but SETI is really dropping the ball on your galact...

Aquatic Humanoids, Part 2

25 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

From the sirens of 'The Odyssey' to 'The Creature From the Black Lagoon' and beyond, humans have always imagined their underwater doubles. In this two...

Aquatic Humanoids, Part 1

23 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

From the sirens of 'The Odyssey' to 'The Creature From the Black Lagoon' and beyond, humans have always imagined their underwater doubles. In this two...

From the Vault: Better Living Through Tetris

20 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In their previous episode, Robert and Joe explored the geometric hallucinations of Tetris syndrome. Now they're back for a serious look at the ways in...

Listener Mail: Talos, Homunculi, Winter and More

18 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Join Robert and Joe for another round of Stuff to Blow Your Mind listener mail, in which they read and attend to your thoughts and insight on recent e...

Don't Drink the Salt Water

16 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Whether you draw your wisdom from 18th century poems or experience in the surf, you probably know that drinking seawater is a terrible idea. But exact...

From the Vault: Tetris Syndrome

13 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

To play a game of “Tetris” is to invite a geometric invasion into your mind. After hours of intense block manipulation, you finally set aside your...

Meditation Lab: Empathy and Energy

11 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

We all know what meditation looks like, and many of us know what it feels like. But what does it provide us in return for these brief periods of menta...

Where’s my eternal youth? Part 2

09 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Throughout history, humans have faced the inexorable process of aging and death. We’ve dreamt up countless myths to explain why we age and what come...

From the Vault: Aphantasia

06 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Mental images play an important role in our daily experience of reality, from thoughts of the past to daydreams, fantasies and entire worlds of the im...

Where’s my eternal youth? Part 1

04 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Throughout history, humans have faced the inexorable process of aging and death. We’ve dreamt up countless myths to explain why we age and what come...

Talos: The Bronze Automaton

02 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Among the many humanoid gods and bestial monsters of Greek mythology, one finds a peculiar outlier: Talos the bronze automaton. Said to stalk the shor...

From the Vault: The Forer Effect

30 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

From palm-reading fortune tellers to professionally-administered Myers Briggs test, everyone’s a sucker for a an ego-stroking personality assessment...

The Winter People, Part 2

28 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Do you feel like a different person during the winter? In this two-part Stuff to Blow Your Mind exploration, Robert and Joe examine the extent to whic...

The Winter People, Part 1

26 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Do you feel like a different person during the winter? In this two-part Stuff to Blow Your Mind exploration, Robert and Joe examine the extent to whic...

From the Vault: The Stone of Madness

23 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Madness has always intrigued artists, and medieval paintings sometimes presented this malady's treatment via the surgical removal of cranial stone. Wh...

Baby Jesus and the Homunculus

21 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve all marveled at the grotesque, oddly-proportioned old man babies in medieval art -- but why did artists of the period pain such creatures? In ...

First Messenger From an Alien Star

19 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In recent weeks, the first recorded object from another star system appeared in our solar neighborhood. Dubbed 'Oumuamua,' the interloper stirs both o...

Machine God: Artificial Superintelligence

14 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Voltaire famously postulated that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. As humanity approaches the technological singularity, thi...

Ophiocordyceps: Fungal Puppet Masters

12 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis is the Mona Lisa of mind control parasites. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss ...

This Present Moment: Philosophy & Neuroscience

07 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

What is now? What is the present moment? These questions continue to stagger us, for nothing is so simultaneously familiar and alien than the passage ...

This Present Moment: Experience and Physics

05 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

What is now? What is the present moment? These questions continue to stagger us, for nothing is so simultaneously familiar and alien than the passage ...

Tree of Life

30 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Sacred trees. World trees. Holy trees of wisdom, immortality and the soul. They seem to grow from every culture on Earth and their roots dig deep into...

Listener Mail: Leary, Bicameralism and Monsters

28 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Once more, Stuff to Blow Your Mind powers up the mailbot and considers YOUR comments, stories, insights and questions on recent episodes. In this inst...

Dangerous Foods III: A Festival of Pain

23 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Thanksgiving is a time of feasting and the wages of feasting, and so Robert and Joe are here to dish up a third installment of Stuff to Blow Your Mind...

When will the Earth become uninhabitable?

21 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Earth is our home, but how much longer can it remain so? In this episode of the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast, Robert and Christian explore the many...

An Attempt to Understand Zoophilia

16 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Human culture emerges from a legacy of lives lived in close proximity to wild and domesticated animals. We see it in our myths and, in its most taboo ...

Ig Nobels 2017: Vampires, Vaginal Music & Cheese

14 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Each year, the Ig Nobel prizes celebrate the most absurd and humorous efforts in legitimate scientific research – and 2017’s winners do not disapp...

Ig Nobels 2017: Crocodile Slots, Twins & Old Ears

09 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Each year, the Ig Nobel prizes celebrate the most absurd and humorous efforts in legitimate scientific research – and 2017’s winners do not disapp...

Ig Nobels 2017: Liquid Cats, Didgeridoos & More

07 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Each year, the Ig Nobel prizes celebrate the most absurd and humorous efforts in legitimate scientific research – and 2017’s winners do not disapp...

From the Vault: Mind Flayers

03 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

If you've watched Stranger Things 2, then you know another beloved Dungeons and Dragons monster pops up as an analogy for an extra-dimensional menace:...

«« ← Prev Page 23 of 32 Next → »»