How Fire Breathing Works
26 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
As part of their strange, ongoing suite on circus arts, Chuck and Josh discuss one of the more dange...
Josh and Chuck's Warm and Cozy Christmas Extravaganza 2013
24 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
It's finally here, the best episode of the year! It's time to settle in by a nice fire, wrap up in a...
Is lethal injection humane?
19 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Since the Supreme Court's ban on capital punishment was reversed, states have sought a humane method...
How Manhunts Work
17 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
When a suspect or prisoner goes on the lam there are plenty of ways to hide: in plain sight, in the ...
How Underwater Tunnels Work
12 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
It's a pretty amazing feat to dig a tunnel beneath a body of water that's big enough (and safe enoug...
How Maglev Trains Work
05 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to the amazing properties of magnets, clever engineers have figured out how to make entire tr...
How Castration Works
03 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Josh and Chuck teach you everything you ever wanted to know but were too freaked ou...
How Black Friday Works
28 Nov 2013
Contributed by Lukas
On the day after Thanksgiving, Americans go kind of crazy for the deep discount sales that kick off ...
Is there a scientific formula for funny?
26 Nov 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Recorded live at the Los Angeles PodFest, this episode of SYSK delves into the longstanding attempt ...
Who killed JFK?
21 Nov 2013
Contributed by Lukas
For the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Josh and Chuck...
How Chocolate Works
19 Nov 2013
Contributed by Lukas
People have been consuming chocolate for at least a couple thousand years, but it's only been in the...
How Werewolves Work
14 Nov 2013
Contributed by Lukas
If you've ever been bitten by a wolf, you're probably familiar with the anxiety of waiting for the n...
Some Interesting Things You Didn't Know About Stephen Hawking
12 Nov 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Everybody knows that cosmologist Stephen Hawking has an enormous brain, but did you also know he has...
How Lewis and Clark Worked
07 Nov 2013
Contributed by Lukas
They may be the most famous explorers in U.S. history, but there are plenty of interesting details t...
How Chess Works
05 Nov 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Despite its knights, bishops and castles, the game of chess has been around a lot longer since the M...
What's with the Winchester Mystery House?
31 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
After her daughter and husband died, heiress Sarah Winchester became obsessed with the idea that spi...
The Empty House
30 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
It's Halloween, and Josh and Chuck are ready to creep you out with this year's spooky story, Algerno...
How Ouija Boards Work
29 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Although most people who've used Ouija boards don't think they're communicating with the beyond, the...
How Guide Dogs Work
22 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
You know how when you see a guide dog leading a blind person to their destination and you think, "Th...
10 Easy Ways to Save Money
17 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Times are still kind of tough, but there are some time-tested and easy ways to get ahead and in this...
How the Maori Work
15 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
It's a familiar theme, an indigenous group's culture falls apart when exposed to European ideals, we...
Did Archimedes build a death ray?
08 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
During the siege of Syracuse in 214 BCE, the city-state's resident genius, Archimedes, built a numbe...
Can NASA predict natural disasters?
03 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The US has developed some great equipment for peering into deep space that can also be used to great...
What's the deal with diplomatic immunity?
01 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
You've heard all about diplomatic immunity, but we'll bet you don't really know how it works. Take s...
Does owning a gun change your behavior?
26 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Back in the 1990s, Congress effectively banned the scientific study of gun violence. Still, a handfu...
How Crack Works
24 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Back in the mid-1980s a new and extremely potent drug hit the scene: crack cocaine. In short order, ...
How Dying Works
19 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Chuck and Josh have covered just about every aspect of death except dying itself. Here, they fulfill...
How IEDs Work
17 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Improvised explosive devices were the primary killer of American troops in Iraq and continue to top ...
How much money is in the world?
05 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
There are few things more futile than trying to count all of the money in the world. Even many gover...
How the Rosetta Stone Works
03 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Sometimes providence smiles on historians. Thus is the case with the Rosetta stone, an ancient Egypt...
How did 168 conquistadors take down the Inca empire?
29 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Just before Francisco Pizarro arrived in South American in 1532, the Inca empire covered 350,000 squ...
How Broken Bones Work
27 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
It's a pretty miserable thing to break a bone. There's the initial blinding pain, all of the medical...
History's Greatest Traitors
22 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The annals of history hold a special place for people who have carried out treachery and betrayed th...
How Ejection Seats Work
20 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
When the Jet Age came about, pilots found they had a brand new problem with their brand new planes: ...
How Cockroaches Work
15 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
You've seen them in your home and probably squealed in terror, but now it's time to learn all about ...
Why was Davy Crockett king of the wild frontier?
13 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
If there is an American legend who is both real-life and larger-than-life it is Davy Crockett. While...
How does a diving bell work?
08 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
About 2,400 years ago Aristotle mentions the use of diving bells, apparatuses that convey divers to ...
The Shark Diaries
07 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In this special episode of Stuff You Should Know, Chuck and Josh tip their hats to Shark Week with a...
How Horseshoes Work
06 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
That laziest of backyard games, horseshoes, is also a very ancient one, developed by people followin...
How Fingerprinting Works
01 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The Babylonians, one of the earliest civilizations, were the first to use fingerprints to differenti...
How LARP Works
30 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Dressing up in duct tape-covered cardboard suit of armor and pretending you're an elf warrior for a ...
Why should you never scare a vulture?
23 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Being ravenous eaters of decaying flesh, vultures have long been shunned by humans. But because of t...
Who owns an abandoned house?
18 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Ever since the real estate bubble in the U.S. burst in 2008, American cities have had to deal with a...
How Building Implosions Work
16 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
When you need to take down a 20-story building, a wrecking ball won't do. Instead, you'll need to tu...
How Hip-hop Works
11 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In this week's SYSK Select, what you hear is not a test, instead it's Chuck and Josh discussing the ...
10 Medieval Torture Devices
09 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Warning: This episode on instruments designed solely to produce extreme human suffering during the M...
How Miranda Rights Work
04 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Back in 1966, the Supreme Court decided that suspects in criminal cases had the right to be reminded...
How Pollen Works
02 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
For about 375 million years, plants have been using pollen (aka plant sperm) to propagate their spec...
How Burning Man Works
27 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
You've probably heard about Burning Man, it's a week-long party in the middle of a desert made of 50...
How Ghosts Work
20 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
According to a 2009 poll, more Americans believe in ghosts than don't. But what are ghosts exactly? ...
How Bitcoin Works
17 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In 2008 Bitcoin, the world's first decentralized, anarchistic all-digital currency, was introduced t...
Capgras Syndrome: You Are Not Who You Think You Are
11 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
There is an extremely rare condition where the sufferer is convinced that everyone around him is an ...
How Drag Queens Work
11 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
You can trace the origin of men dressing as women in public back to classic Greek theater, but moder...
How do trees affect the weather?
06 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Sure, you know that trees have an impact on climate change: to wit, fewer trees mean more atmospheri...
What happened to the lost colony at Roanoke?
04 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Before Jamestown became the first successful English colony in the New World, an entire group of set...
How Coffins Work
28 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Sure, you've probably laid in one at the store or a funeral home, but how much do you know about rec...
How Police Chases Work
28 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Entire TV shows are dedicated to them and Americans love to watch a live one, but police chases aren...
How PTSD Works
23 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
With Post-traumatic Stress Disorder the sufferer relives, over and over again, the worst moment of h...
How Cicadas Work
21 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Cicadas are crawling out from underground, where they have been hiding in the darkness for almost tw...
How Aerosol Cans Work
16 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In the 87 years since they were invented aerosol cans have protected soldiers, temporarily fixed fla...
How Electroconvulsive Therapy Works
14 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
With the exception of lobotomies, no other psychological treatment has a worse reputation. But thank...
How Foot Binding Worked
09 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Once in a while, all the necessary factors converge to produce a peculiar nationalized sexual fetish...
How Fair Trade Works
07 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The West has gotten rich off the backs of underpaid labor living elsewhere; people who are dedicated...
How Dungeons and Dragons Works
02 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Despite what you've heard, Dungeons and Dragons isn't just for geeks, it isn't satanic and it's actu...
What makes us yawn?
25 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
What is it that makes us suddenly draw in a deep breath through a wide-open mouth? The beautiful thi...
How Magnets Work
23 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
You can stick them to the fridge or use them to transpose sound to tape, whatever they are used for ...
Uses of the Insanity Defense
18 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The idea that a person who can't understand the crime they've committed is wrong lets them off the h...
How Marriage Works
16 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
You can tell a lot about a culture through marriage statistics: what age people get married, how man...
Do men and women have different brains?
11 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
It's a pretty touchy subject because of the possible implications - if you find differences between ...
What's the deal with duckbill platypuses?
09 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
It is pretty much impossible to describe duckbill platypuses without using the word "hodgepodge" and...
How Grief Works
04 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
You can probably name the five stages of grief - from denial to acceptance - they've become pretty w...
How the Panama Canal Works
02 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
It's on more than one list of the Seven Wonders of the World and for good reason - the Panama Canal ...
How No-fly Zones Work
28 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
They have become such a ubiquitous tool used by the UN and NATO to intervene in international crises...
How Apartheid Worked
19 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
After WWII, while the rest of the world grew more socially progressive, the government of South Afri...
How the U.S. Postal Service Works
14 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The USPS is currently teetering on the edge of going under and there are a lot of plans to save it, ...
How Police Sketches Work
12 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Creating composite drawings of suspected criminals from eyewitness accounts has been around since a ...
Can We Build an Elevator to Space?
09 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
With the end of the shuttle program and an International Space Station still in need of supplies, th...
Do People Really Run Off to Join the French Foreign Legion?
07 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Anyone who knows anything about Jean-Claude Van Damme knows he played a French legionnaire in the mo...
What Makes a One-hit Wonder?
05 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The term "one-hit wonder" gets thrown around a lot, and - yes - you probably are using it correctly,...
How the Papacy Works
28 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In February 2013, Pope Benedict said he would become the first pope to retire in 600 years. Check ou...
How CPR Works
26 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
You have a golden opportunity to make yourself into a worthwhile human being simply by learning how ...
How Spies Work
23 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Psst. You want to know how governments and corporations get the drop on one another? The frontline o...
What Would Happen If the World Stopped Spinning?
21 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Over the last 400 million years, the day has grown longer by two full hours thanks to a slowing of t...
How Surfing Works
19 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
You know the Beach Boys and you've seen those Hang Ten shirts with the little feet emblem, but there...
Myths About the Brain
14 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
As is usual for SYSK, Josh and Chuck go over some, but not all, of the entries in this list of ten c...
How Jet Lag Works
12 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
It was only since 1958 that the Jet Age began, and jet lag became a real condition. Also known as de...
How Weather Modification Works
09 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
It began with old-timey guys dropping dry ice on clouds. Since then weather modification was used to...
How Willpower Works
07 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
You use it every day to overcome your lower self (which wants you to eat cake until your vision blur...
How Garbage-powered Cars Could Work
05 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
We're not so far off from being able to power our cars using beer and banana peels, like Doc in Back...
How Gold Works
31 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Only 161,00 metric tons of gold has been mined in the entire history of the world. Considering about...
How Stuntmen (and -women) Work
29 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
They get blown up, shot, drowned and thrown out of windows on the silver screen - and we don't even ...
How Bees Work
26 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
With less than a million neurons in their tiny heads, bees shouldn't be able to do much more than ea...
How the Frick Fracking Works
22 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Fracking, the process of breaking trapped resources like natural gas and oil from shale, has led to ...
Does the five-second rule work?
17 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
You know when you drop a piece of food and if you pick it up within five seconds it's still good to ...
How Death Masks Work
15 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
One of the earliest civilizations we've detected, the Myceneans, kicked off the habit of creating a ...
Can you outrun an alligator in a zig-zag?
08 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
You've heard the warning before: If you're being chased on land by an alligator, run in a zig-zag. O...
What was America's first terrorist threat?
03 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
From the moment it was established, the United States had headaches with terrorism of the pirate var...
How Bigfoot Works
01 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
For centuries North American tribes have told stories of a hairy wild giant in the wilderness, and o...
How Dog Shows Work
27 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
You know those shows where people wearing sensible shoes jog dogs around in circles? They actually r...
Josh and Chuck's Christmas Extravaganza 2012
21 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Kick back and raise a glass of eggnog to Josh and Chuck as they carry on a new holiday tradition of ...