Stuff To Blow Your Mind
Episodes
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:...