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Maximum Fun

Science communicators Ella Hubber, Tom Lum, and Caroline Roper learn about anything and everything interesting! Each episode they teach each other about a science topic, and learn about a miscellaneous topic. Whether it's bugs on drugs, temporal illusions, or fanfiction, there's so much out there, so let's learn everything! Join our Discord, email us, and follow us everywhere at www.LetsLearnEverything.com

Let's Learn Everything!

What, when, where, why, and how... do we sneeze? There's a surprising amount of mystery to the thing we do all the time, and a lot to learn about! And how many parables and metaphors that we use are actually true? Let's actually dig in to the research and bust some myths!! I mean... break some... falsehoods!!

Images we Talk About:
The Rat Diagram
Caseids
Diplodocus Bones
Plane Diagram
Moai Walking

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:26) Sneezing
(00:57:55) Parable Mythbusters
(01:43:59) Outro

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Join our Discord!

We also learn about: 

Caroline was inspired by being sick, theories of sneezing, sneezing in the odyssey, Aristotle said burping and farting are not divine, 25 sextillion molecules in every breath, it’s a wonder we’re not sneezing all the time, sneezing only goes to your brain stem, a sneeze can send particles 8 meters, what ion channel? last year we made sneezless mice, le petite mort and le petit orgasm, the incredible mid-sneeze mouse diagram, we’re gonna talk about - ghoooosts, A.C.H.O.O or the photic sneeze reflex, our explanations for sneezing reflect our understanding of science at the time, snatiation, S.N.A.T.I.A.T.I.O.N, sneezing from getting horny, pee chills, a sneeze is just a more obvious indicator that wires get crossed, diagnostic sneeze testing, finding the first sneezing animal, the earliest diaphgram, chickens sneeze, African wild dogs voting by sneeze, dolphins chuffing, bugs aren’t part of the sneeze club, unlike the mythbusters we won’t be blowing up cars, okay maybe a few, if you put a frog into boiling water it won’t jump out it will die, boiling frogs in search of the soul, the climate change metaphor works for brain dead leaders, the survivorship bias meme plane, the image is fictitious but Abraham Wald is even cooler, America’s Bletchley - The Statistical Research Group, some people believe the heads had bodies, oh my god they did, the walking Moai, the deforestation happened before the people, invasive rats without a natural predator, pretending we’re surprised about colonialism being the culprit, we didn’t need to do carbon dating to find some of these answers guys.

Sources:
1990 Paper: The History of Sneezing
2013 Paper: The Omen of Sneezing
2009 Paper: Sneeze reflex: Facts and fiction
Smithsonian: Why Do We Sneeze?
National Geographic: The Air You Breathe Is Full of Surprises
Wiki: Sneeze
2025 Paper: The Sneeze Reflex in Physiological and Pathological states: a mini review
2024 Paper: Mouse Sneezing Study
Nature: Cough or sneeze? How the brain knows what to unleash
Scientific American: Looking at the Sun Can Trigger a Sneeze
2010 Paper: When the Sun Prickles Your Nose: An EEG Study Identifying Neural Bases of Photic Sneezing
ScienceLine: Why Do People Sneeze When They Look at the Sun?
OMIM: Gastric Sneezing
2009 Paper: Arousal and Sneezing
2017 Article: An Ancient Origin for the Diaphragm
2022 Paper: Lung Evolution in Vertebrates and the Water-to-Land Transition
National Geographic: Animal Sneezing
National Geographic: African Wild Dogs Vote by Sneeze
Oceanbites: Sneeze, Cough, Chuff: Respiratory Irritation in Dolphins
Natural History Museum: Hagfishes
Smithsonian: 14 Fun Facts About Hagfish
Sci-Show- Aquatic Sneezing
2022 Paper: Sponges Sneeze
2022 Paper: Dinosaur Sickness
National Geographic: First Dinosaur Found with a Respiratory Disease
---
Atlantic on The Boiling Frog
Know Your Meme: Survivorship Bias Plane
Cameron Moll Blog Post about Original Drawing
Abraham Wald's Plane Statistic Memorandum
Terry Hunt's Incredible "Rethinking the Fall of Easter Island"
The Walking Moai Paper

97: Sneezing & Parable MythBusters

How have animals adapted to the digging lifestyle, and can that help us explain the Devil's Corkscrew? And what are the various ways movies can be censored across the world, and what does that tell us about the world itself?

Images we Talk About:
The Devil's Corkscrew
Mole Skeleton Comparison
Mole Digging Video
Monitor Lizard Burrow
Monitor Lizard Burrows

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:30) Fossoriality
(00:52:58) Movie Censorship
(01:36:53) Outro

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Join our Discord!

We also learn about: 

Daemonelix or the Devil’s Corkscrew, well Tom I hope one of your facts beats Ella’s giant sloth fact, only nerds know the word fossorial, why dig is easy - how dig is harder, mole skeletons are hyper specialized, moles are herd to catch and keep, I dig holes for me, is that couscous? the silica gel of pasta, x-ray videos of moles digging in couscous, devil’s corkscrew deja vu, first and deepest lizard burough, one of the most stable egg environments for an 8 month incubation, it turns out helixes are more common than we thought, Put! Lizards! In! Couscous! Peter Jackson’s braindead, video nastys, wow blaming media for crime we’ve never heard that before, video nastys were an easy ban because politicans didnt care about them, a microcosm of the moral panics of the time, the military entertainment complex, the US doesn’t have any outright movie bans… but they do have the hayes code, self censorship, no picture show lower the moral standard of those who see it, the commercial influence on self censorship, charlie shackleton’s paint drying film, poilitical movie bans reflect real alliances and tensions, denmark’s only ever banned the disney skeleton dance, Denmark’s freedom of speech is what the US thinks it is, don’t be mean to the military uwu, only 34 foreign films can be shown in china every year, the censorship is coming from inside the house, a Bohemian Rhapsody without mention of sexuality, Tilda Swinton played an asian character to get around mentioning Tibet, World War Z was changed even though it never aired in China, why are you making me defend these bad movies, censorship is as strong as the weakest link in the chain that’s profitable, “it’s all just crazy and some food for thought, thank youuu”

Sources:
NPCA on the Devil's Corkscrew
Smithsonian Mag Devil's Corkscrew
Mole Forlimb Morphology
Mole Senses Paper
Fossorial Ventilatory Response
Mole Rat Lung Comparison Paper
NWF Mole Facts
NYTimes Mole Motion
Yi Fen Lin Mole Walking Paper
Yi Fen Lin Mole Burrowing Paper
Deep Nesting in a Lizard: Deja Vu Devil's Corkscrew: First Helical Reptile Burrow and Deepest Vertebrate Nest.
Helical Burrows Across the Animal Kingdom Paper
---
BBFC: Video Nasties
Wiki: Video Nasty
BFI: Unspooling the Video Nasties
Wiki: Film Censorship in the United States
Guardian: Top Gun for Hire
Wiki: List of films banned in the United States
Screen Online: Hayes Code
Vice: Why I’m Making British Film Censors Watch Paint Dry
Wiki: Paint Drying
Wiki: List of Banned Films
BBC: Cambodia Bans Thai Movies
BBC: Russia Bans Death of Stalin
Reuters: Lightyear Banned
Wiki: The Skeleton Dance
EBSCO: History of Censorship in Denmark
English Translation of the Danish Constitution
Wiki: Denmark Motion Picture Content Rating System
Variety: Foreign Titles Squeezed in China Film Market
Harvard: Disney censorship in China
Pen: Made in Hollywood, Censored by Beijing

96: Fossoriality & Movie Censorship

It's the podcast's birthday!! So Tom has a few ideas he wants to pitch to Caroline and Ella... but first! Ella and Caroline finally revisit the topics they promised! What are the WILD stories behind the race to discover new elements, and what are the real nuancy nuances of craftivism?

Images we Talk About:
William Morris' Print
Terrero's Hankie
Hankie Given to Terrero
Madres de Plaza de Mayo
Pussyhat
Tom's Gifts

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:06:43) Superheavy Elements 2
(01:17:58) Craftivism 2
(02:01:28) Tom’s List

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

We also learn about: How do we prove this is real, we pinky promise, a refresher in the form of a pop quiz, we didn’t make the elements - except for some we did make, is the gift plutonium? we never thought we’d have another element heavier - and then you happened! the quizkids element reveal, the increasing specificity of Stan’s Apartmentium, just keep adding and smashing its just math - really expensive math, the long island ice tea of nuclear materials is in the bomb, scraping new elements off the filters of flying through a mushroom cloud, the edge of the periodic table was a cold war battle field, the feuds of the transfermium wars, perhaps sodium seaborgate, while they were bickering over naming Germany discovered 5 new elements, it’s like a railgun you nerd, linear vs circular accelerators, it’s like hotwheels tracks, we could’ve designed this! “how can we differently smash this stuff?”, I’m hype about a filter, only Victor Ninov could run GOOSY, “the most audacious fraud in scientific history”, lying about discovering an element and then discovering it before people catch on to the lie, 3 elements wasn’t enough, Oganessian co discovered 14 elements - the most of anyone, I mean really we all co-discovered this topic, “we hit this wall of super heavy elements being bastards”, Goosy 2 Electric Goosyloo, you’re smashing billions of particles per second over months to hopefully get 1 atom, calcium beam of milk, the theoretical island of stability, superstable superheavy elements, disappointment on the horizon, domestic arts for political and social change, I sure wish someone had done research into this nuance, oh fuck that was supposed to be me! the arts and crafts movement was activism for crafts not crafts for activism, fucking up golf courses for women’s suffrage, some suffragettes didn’t want to include working class women, imprisoned women were given sewing needles to reform but they just made incredible protest art, Madres de Plaza de Mayo, a sense of solidarity through craft, lets tonally tokyo drift this episode baby, comparing and contrasting with the pussy hat, craft ins and yarn bombing, craftivism defies expectations and engages community, “appealing” activism, craftivism is a piece of the puzzle not the whole solution, it’s a useful tool in the toolkit, Hoisin Duck Wrap - Irn Bru - Yogurt, Tom gets a tattoo and regrets it, stopping by Tom Scott’s spinoff podcast show, Tom’s gifts, putting it to the test who’s the strongest cohost, the podcast can officially hop!

Sources:

Kit Chapman's "Super Heavy: Making and Breaking the Periodic Table"
Ella's Superheavy Documentary
---
Britannica: Arts and Crafts Movement
Textile Society of America: The benefits and pitfalls of craftivism
Museum of English Rural lift: Suffrage and the Sewing Machine
American Golfer 1912: The British Suffragettes Attack Golf Courses
Textile Society of America: The Political Stitch: Voicing Resistance in a Suffrage Textile
The Thread Blog: Historical Craftivism: From Suffragettes to Gandhi to Argentina
The Association of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo
Learning for Justice: Madres de Plaza de Mayo
V&A: The Pussyhat
The Morning Crafter Blog: Craftivism: Empowerment, Resistance, and Activism Through History
Book: How To Be A Craftivist by Sarah Corbett
2022 Paper: Negotiating the Art of Protest through Craftivism
2017 Paper: KNIT + RESIST: placing the Pussyhat Project in the context of craft activism
2018 Paper: Knitting Activism, Knitting Gender, Knitting Race
J. Feliz: An Open Letter to the Craftivism Movement
BBC: Police to get broader powers to restrict repeated protests

95: 🎂 Superheavy Elements 2, Craftivism 2, and Tom's List

We know ghosts aren't real, but what is real is the way our brains make us imagine the creepy things that go bump in the night. What about our psychology makes it so easy to be spooked? And we've all heard of costumes and pumpkin carving, but what are the weirdest old Halloween traditions, and what can we take into our own traditions?

Things we Talk About:
Mooney Faces
Games for Halloween
Snap Dragon Video 1
Snap Dragon Video 2
Caramel Pronunciation Map
Mischief Night Map
Cabbage Card 1
Cabbage Card 2
The Bobbing for Apples Video

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:36) Paranormal Psychology
(01:03:06) Defunct Halloween Traditions
(01:36:21) Outro

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

We also learn about: Skeleton Shattering Science Topic, anomalistic psychology is the science of ghost busting, NOT parapsychology, the first step to a ghost is someone who believe in ghosts, following the format of ghost hunting shows, spooky believers are often predisposed pattern recognizers, the Australian sheep goat scale, suggestion not priming, creepyness via agent detection, a haunted house is evolutionarily designed to be spooky to us, the scary feedback loop, no infrasound does not vibrate your eyeballs, pattern recognizing apophenia, it’s a wonder humans aren’t scared all the time, it’s actually good we don’t consciously perceive every single thing, wait the static says subscribe to the podcast?? I think she’s saying her hips DO lie, the yeti, hiring a magician on halloween, Ella’s pattern recognizing brain can sense Tom’s bit voice, all the names Halloween goes by, Samhain was basically new years eve, Mary Blain’s Games for Halloween and her caveat, Silent Supper or Reverse Dinner, don’t play snap dragon, imagine risking third degree burns for a RAISIN, the heat map of words for the night before Halloween, mischief night or Halloweeneen, youth honor day, the worst boy police, did you pull a bisexual cabbage? why is everything so romantic?? silent supper seems cute until you’re sprinting over a fence and smashing a window, bobbing for apples is FERAL, our tradition of a spooky episode.

Sources:

2021 Paper- Super-natural fears
2022 Paper- Believing is seeing: The link between paranormal beliefs and perceiving signal in noise
Psychology Today: Why Some People See Ghosts But Others Never Do
2018 Paper: The Australian sheep-goat scale: An evaluation of factor structure and convergent validity
Wiki- Australian Sheep-Goat Scale
2003 Paper- An investigation into alleged ‘hauntings’
1997 Paper- Context-Induced Paranormal Experiences: Support for Houran and Lange's Model of Haunting Phenomena
2010 Paper- It's still bending: Verbal suggestion and alleged psychokinetic ability
Smithsonian Magazine- On the Science of Creepiness
2016 Paper- On the nature of creepiness
2022 Paper- Why Some People See, Hear, Or Feel “Ghosts”
2020 Paper- Things That Go Bump in the Literature: An Environmental Appraisal of “Haunted Houses”
2009 Paper- The “Haunt” project: An attempt to build a “haunted” room by manipulating complex electromagnetic fields and infrasound
BBC- The science behind seeing ghosts
2022 Paper- Paranormal experiences, sensory-processing sensitivity, and the priming of pareidolia
2014 Paper- Auditory Pareidolia
Michael Nees Interview with The Conversation
Digicult: Joe Banks: Rorschach Audio
---
Smithsonian Mag Halloween Traditions
Mary E. Blain's Games for Halloween
Midwest Folklore: Silent Supper
Journal of the Folklore Institute: Silent Supper
Atlas Obscura: Silent Supper
NYTimes Dialect Quiz
Smithsonian Mag: Mischief Night
Smithsonian Mag: Old Halloween Pranks
Atlantic: Halloween Pranks and the Worst Boy Police
Robert Burns Halloween Poem
NJ.com Mischief Night
NPR Apples & Halloween

94: Paranormal Psychology & Defunct Halloween Traditions

Wait... ELLA is doing a math topic?? Not only that but she finds the beauty in searching for answers among the toughest math problems. Then, friend of the show Ellen Weatherford takes us through a tour of video game controllers. My favorite is the- wait how did we end up talking about World War 2??

Images we Talk About:
Tesseract Gif
Tennis for Two Controllers
Magnavox Odyssey
Game.com

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:05) Unsolved Math Problems
(00:54:47) Video Game Controllers
(01:46:42) Outro

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

We also learn about: 

Today Caroline is played by Tom and Tom is played by Ellen, I’ll fall on the bad british accent sword for our guests, Ellen speed runs failing math, famous bad lawyer Fermat, I’m learning about math?? from Ella??? Ellen’s Last Theorem: lentil’s cure cancer, “mathematics like any science requires advancements and research and discovery”, basic math starts as early as mesopotamia, a brief history of mathematics, I gotta make math to describe this apple, math begets math, new ways to solve old problems, is this problem hard or will it take thousands of years to solve, the oldest unsolved math problem is 2000 years old, you’re scientifically wrong that all numbers are perfect, we know of 52 perfect numbers, merseene primes and perfect numbers, we don’t know if odd perfect numbers exist, Hilbert’s 23 unsolved math problems, it’s not the answers to the questions - its the tools built to solve them, new list just dropped - the millenium prize problems, the million dollar prize doesn’t account for inflation, the power of an interesting question, multidimensional play-doh, bumblebee - the tesseract! the poincare conjecture had only not been solved in the third dimension, perelman turns down the fields medal, they can offer a million cause if you solve it you’re only thinking about play-doh and 10 dimensions, is the mellenium prize problematic? eh, after researching a lot… the Riemann hypothesis actually probably won’t break cryptography, pure mathematics deserves the benefit of the doubt for its purpose, go forth with Ella’s blessing, new Ella loves math and libertarianism, I don’t know if the convergent evolution argument for controllers holds up in court, Ellen’s radical definition of a game, I don’t think the gate should be closed but don’t push me through it, the murky search for the first video game, Birdy the Brain - the Tic Tac Toe machine, controllers transmit human intention into a computer, some of the first controllers used dials, I was going to say the manhattan project as a joke, a brief and unexpected nuclear disarment detour, Higinbotham doesn’t like being remembered for tennis for two, Space War! the Magnavox Odyssey, some controllers were tabletop not handheld, Atari stole pong, the anatomy of a controller, stolen valor for logitech controllers piloting submarines, kids and parents learning to use controllers, Ella thought RT and RB meant top and bottom, rumble is purely for experience not input, the game.com had the first touch screen, a urinal controlled driving game, interviewing resident elderly expert Donna Jones.

Sources:
MacTutor: Pierre Fermat Biography
Wiki: Fermat's Last Theorem
MacTutor: History of Mathematics
Simon Fraser University: A Brief History of Mathematics
Medium:The Oldest Unsolved Problem in Math
Pillars Taylor University: Odd Perfect Numbers
Royal Society: David Hilbert
Simons Foundation: Hilbert’s Problems
Clay Institute: The Millennium Prize Problems
Nature News: Maths 'Nobel' Prize Declined By Russian recluse
Anatoly Vershik: Thoughts on the Clay Millennium Prizes
BBC In Our Time: The Poincare Conjecture
Medium: The Poincaré Conjecture
[BBC News: Russian Maths Genius Perelman Urged to Take $1m Prize](BBC News - Russian maths genius Perelman urged to take $1m prize)
Clay Mathematics Institute: Riemann Hypothesis
---
Probably the Oldest Interactive Electronic Game - Jeremy Norman’s History of Information
“Bertie the Brain Still Lives” - Popular Mechanics
“Tennis for Two – A Pioneer in the Video Game Industry” - GameSpeak Mag
“Who was Willy Higinbotham?” - Federation of American Scientists
“Spacewar!” - Museum of Play
“The Magnavox Odyssey: The Forgotten Pioneer of Gaming Consoles” - Slashgear
Bad Game Hall of Fame
“Place to pee: new Belgian urinal-based video game” - Ars Technica
“Sega Begins Sales of Urine-Powered 'Toylet' Videogame” - Wired
Perifit Care, Original Kegel Exerciser

93: Unsolved Math Problems & Video Game Controllers w/ Ellen Weatherford

What does chemistry have to do with computers? Well it might just be the best way to understand what's actually going on inside a CPU! And how could there have been a moon hoax back in 1835? Well it involves cosmic pluralism and Edgar Allen Poe so buckle up!

Images we Talk About:
Vaccuum Tubes in Computers
The First Integrated Circuit
Another early Integrated Circuit Prototype
People Etching a Circuit Mask
TED How are Microchips Made Video
Etching from the Great Moon Hoax

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:23) The Chemistry of Computers
(01:04:27) The Great Moon Hoax of 1835
(01:49:15) Outro

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

We also learn about: 

BOOOO, a first time interview for this podcast, tom tries to define an integrated circuit, semiconductors, being mid at conducting is vital, silicon silica and silicone, quartz is one of the most abundant minerals and it’s just silica, the metalloids, transistors are so important but so vague, Caroline and Ella were not expecting a trans rights joke, for once of your jokes deserved more appreciation, the quest to make the smallest switch, semiconductors or on the edge of flipping between conductive or not, vacuum bulbs, The Tyranny of Numbers, photo-lithography, etching shrinking then stenciling a circuit, then computers would help make computers, Moore’s predictions of the future of computing, wait did you just explain Moore’s Law? my new graphics card comes with a new unified theory of physics, transistors are now the width of a few strands of DNA, quantum troubles, relying on moor’s law can stifly creativity, but also making transistor’s smaller is interesting science! Ella & Caroline never thought they’d understand computers like this, it’s almost like they’re going to announce they’re discovering aliens, cosmic pluralism, Sir William Herschel discovered Tom’s Anus, we were in a way disproving life on other planets, Gruithuisen sees roads on the moon, “the power of imagination on the man is large”, alien theories sold papers, Edgar Allen Poe’s SciCom satire, quoth the lunarian - nevermore, the daily drops escalated the and on the fifth day we got moon racism, the etchings of lunar life, lets get bibles and colonialism on the moon baby, Richard Adams Locke is the true author, Herschel was on a research trip while this was going down, it sounds like we’re the perfect team for a hoax, aside from being a critique of science communication it also made bank and made the sun the most bought newspaper in the world, Locke’s non denial denial, selling property on the moon, this changed journalistic standards, the occasional hoax actually isn’t okay but fine, Herschel actually thinks it’s hilarious, Locke X Poe collab balloon hoax, this sparked a trend of science fiction.

Sources:
Cornell History of Semiconductors
Euro Physics News 100 Years of Semiconductor Science
Royal Society of Chemistry on Silicon
PBS History of Transistors
PBS Invention of the Integrated Circuit
IEEE Historhy of the Integrated Circuit
Moore's Original Paper: Cramming more Components onto Integrated Circuits
UPenn: Is Moore's Law Really Dead?
MIT: The Death of Moore's Law
---
Wiki: Lunar Pareidolia 
Book- The Moon in the Greek and Roman Imagination
Wiki- Anaxagoras 
Futurism: Franz von Paula Gruithuisen's Venus Science Fiction
Smithsonian Blog- The Great Moon Hoax
Library of Congress: Blogs 
Paper- The "Great Moon Hoax" of 1835
Linda Hall Library: Richard Adams Locke
Britannica: The Great Moon Hoax of 1835
Library of Congress: Blogs : Belief, Legend, and the Great Moon Hoax
Library of Congress: The Sun (New York) 1833-1916
Internet Archive: Great Moon Hoax Papers
Edgar Allen Poe Society: Richard Adams Locke

92: The Chemistry of Computers & The Great Moon Hoax of 1835

Is pointing rude? I'm sure it's a simple question with a simple answer that won't completely break our brains in rethinking all we take for granted about gesture. Also, what is Lauren’s holy grail lost media of gesture studies?

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:05:01) Is Pointing Rude?
(00:48:11) Questions for Lauren
(01:25:26) Outro

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

We also learn about: 

Diverse but incredibly niche interests is the sweet spot, studying the holes in emoji, Tom wasn’t a rude pointer child like Ella, the Disney point, when you point you don’t direct to the end of your finger - you psychically project forward, dogs and horses are great points - cats not so much, we are the only primate that points in the wild, you likely pointed before you spoke, ITS CALLED THE INDEX FINGER BECAUSE IT POINTS LIKE AN INDEX, non index pointing, “that is one lens through which we could consider this”, lip pointing in Encanto, travel guides will simplify to pointing is rude because it’s complex and nuanced where it’s rude, we haven’t even gotten to rainbows, taboos for pointing at specific things, who dude watch where you’re pointing it’s threatening, what if hypothetically a host just went to japan and pointed a lot, Japan is often on the linguistics bingo card, pointing is the pronoun system in ASL, spacial pronoun tracking, you can be a better pointer than someone, gesture and speech have different strengths, Tom’s gestures are more honest than his words to his cohosts, pointing was some of the earliest emoji, “medieval illuminated manuscript marginalia creators would be disappointed with you Ella”, the finger pointing came before the arrow, “we had hands before we had writing”, gesture studies is still new and very interdisciplinary, the way you study gesture is every way, you gesture bigger in loud environments, computers are good at reading hands but not hands in context, the only thing Tom can correct Lauren on is that it was Just Dance not DDR, gesture is ephemeral to study, a huge reason we have gesture study now is video exists, the holy grail lost tapes of gesture, using gesture studies to prove the nazis wrong, are gestures are both for you and the person you’re talking to, I’m not analyzing your gestures if what you’re saying is interesting, metaphorical gesture space, we move ideas around like little apples, you’ll never be able to watch a ted talk again, the archery V myth, exploiting the ambiguity of gesture, we’ve been gesturing with communicating for so long and only reading and writing so recently - so of course we yearn for emoji, “we’re adding the body straight back in the moment we get the chance to”, the rate of literacy is weird, Lauren insisted no emotion on the head shake emoji because it’s not universally negative, sign language has gesture, for the Aymara language the future is behind you - i cant see whats going to happen, iconic resources, cognitive linguistics is obsessed with our meat puppets, we all experience the same gravity and that influences how we think, part of the joy is being the meat puppet.

91: Lauren Gawne, Is Pointing Rude, and Gestures Studies

How strange are octopuses really? We're going to be debunking some claims, then rebunking them with some real, amazing facts about our fellow earthlings. And what the history of the paralympics? What can we learn from its attempts and its failures and its importance in sports?

See Tom's Science Game Show in NYC!

Things we Talk About:
Octopus Virus Diagram
Snail Nervous System Diagram
Octopus Maze Image
Video of Octopus Opening a Jar
Video of Octopus Camouflage
Paralympics Ad

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:56) Octopuses
(00:55:08) The Paralympics
(01:41:44) Outro

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

We also learn about: Censoring octopussy, 3 science communicators get rabid over a dubious study, octopi are so smart they could only have come about from fertilized eggs aboard an asteroid, cephalopods evolved a central nervous system independently with ganglia, the “head” of an octopus is where there other organs are, octopi don't have 5 brains but they do have a lot of distributed neurons, each sucker is a finger-nose-tongue that can make decisions on its own, octopi have terrible hand eye coordination but can learn to be better at it, Ella thinks “man this would be a great topic for the podcast”, octopi are aliens in the metaphorical sense - and maybe it’s a bad metaphor, I’m not a playing I’m developing flexible behavioral strategies, octopuses play pully downy rather than keepy uppy, the criteria of play, we thought Ella was going to compliment Tom but of course that wasn’t it, octopus cities have populations between 2 and 11, Ella’s gerrymandering octopus city, its more about shared resources and cheaper rent than grand designs, octopus color changing is way more than just pixel cells, but… octopuses are colorblind, their sucker opsins sense color and send directly to chromatophores, octopuses can know a color without seeing it, these are amazing earthling behaviors, Ella was looking for a simple un-nuanced not heavy misc topic, the first Stoke Manderville games, fuck you we’re doing our games on the same day, the organizer of that first game had uhhhhh bad views on disabled people, the Paralypics grew really fast because there was a huge demand for it, Ella loves murderball, goalball and boccia are Paralympic unique sports, the classification system of the Paralympics, the work that goes into the classification system and the flaws and harms it can sometimes have on the athletes, as human as it is to run fast it’s human to cheat, the Spanish ID baseball scandal halted ID sports for 10 years, how the Paralympics and the public views the Paralympians, Ella unfortunately doesn’t solve ableism by the end of the topic, I hear enough of Tom on the show already.

Sources:
The Infamous Octopuses from Space Paper
Live Science: Octopi are Not Aliens
SciAm: Are Octopuses Smart?
Octopus Neuroecology
How Octopuses Control their Body
Discover Mag: Octopus Intelligence
The Amazing Octopus Maze Study
OPB: Octopus Intelligence
Convergent Evolution of Brains
Experimental Evidence for Spatial Learning in Octopuses
SciAm: The Mind of an Octopus
Octopus Problem Solving
Play in Octopuses
Octopus City Study
BBC: Octopus City
Neural Control of Cephalopod Camouflage
Octopus Camouflag Study
Octopus Aging and Evolution Paper
---
Sage: Deaf History of Sport
Olympedia: George Eyser
Wiki: George Eyser
Olympics: Oliver Halassy 
Paralympic.org: History 
International Wheelchair & Amputee Sports Federation: Paralympic Games 1960 - 1992
Paralympic.org: Paralympic Games
BBC: Stoke Mandeville Games
Paralympic.org: Who We Are
Paralympic.org: Paris 2024 Sports
Washington Post: Wheelchair Rugby 
Top End Sports: Discountinued Paralympic Sports
SBS News: Sports that Don't Have an Olympic Equivalent
Olmypics: Boccia
Paralympic.org: Classification
BBC Inside Science: Classification
BAA.org: Parathletics Divisions
BBC: Tully Kearney 
Paralympics GB: Classification
BBC: Spain ID Basketball and ID in Paralympics
The Conversation: When Paralympic Atheletes Fake the Extent of their Disability
Vice: Spain ID Basketball (translanted)
The Conversation: Why somne Disabled People are Critical of the Paralympics 
Dis(Empowering) Paralymoics Histories by Danielle Peers
Guardian: Channel 4 Superhuman Ad
Guardian: Channel 4 New Ad
Blog: Paralympics, Good or Bad for Disabled People

90: Octopuses & The Paralympics

Blood! We all have it, but how much do we know about it? And more importantly, what was the journey of understanding to get there? And just how deep can the history of these peculiar percussion instruments go? Well we'll be criss-crossing across the planet today to find out!

Images we Talk About:
The Quijada
Son Jarocho Quijada Video
The Clapper
The Clapper in Performance

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:01:35) Understanding Blood
(00:49:38) Peculiar Percussion
(01:24:41) Outro

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Join our Discord!

We also learn about: 5 liters of blood over 60,000 miles, humoral theory, phlegm - yellow bile - black bile - blood, I’m from house sanguine - our fire is strongest in our season of spring, humoral theory was around for 1500 YEARS, blood letting, a leeches detour just for Caroline, very few leeches actually suck blood, the exportation of leeches for blood letting made them endangered, we nearly killed the leeches in nearly killing us, leeches are sometimes used today after reconstructive surgery for their enzymes, Nafis’ circulatory system would not be believed for 400 YEARS, these time skips are killing me, Harvey was ALSO NOT BELIEVED, we stan Harvey cause he got witches acquitted, the government and church’s ban on blood transfusions, 1818 was the first recorded successful transfusion, 1658 Jan Swammerdam first saw “oval particles” but this was 7 years before the word “cell” was used, pop quiz on what the parts of blood do, don’t draw your blood while driving, blue and green blood in crustaceans and leeches, antigens and antibodies, “I hope this will be of some use to mankind”, sodium citrate helped blood stay fresh for transfusion, god medicine fucking rules, we reinvented humors with blood personality types, the humors are stored on the antigens obviously, “do you know what my blood type is, for no reason, I’m fine, it’s a podcast thing”, Tom has a slumdog millionaire moment because he was working on another video, there are 48 recognized blood groups each with dozens of antigens, having your own bloodtype means having your own bespoke horoscope, we’re averaging one blood group discovered a year, the journey of understanding blood is the journey of science, it’s hard to tell if rocks were used for a cup song routine, Caroline & Ella fall in love with the quijada, it’s a literal death rattle, “play my bones when I die”, make a jawbone that won’t break, the much sillier vibraslap can still sound good, vibraslap on All Along the Watchtower, the whip/clapper/slap stick, comedia dell’arte, the slap stick was a literal stick to make a slap sound, the christmas rise in slapsticks, the armenia alchemist Avedis Zildjian, since we were working with metal we went listen to this taaah tah tah taaah, a perfeclty clear cymbal is just a bell, a cymbal is crafted chaos to sound good, mmm this wine is very trash but not pingy, now we know Ella’s partner wasn’t just making shit up about cymbal sounds, confirming our sources for this wild Zildjian story, what do you think about this instrument?? I can’t stop making chocolate cymbals! Ringo made people want to drum, finding out Sabian is from the Zildjian family is like finding out Wendy’s last name is McDonald, a percussionist can literally touch history from all across the world, it’s about the reviews we don’t read.

Sources:
Science Museum: Blood
J Thromb Haemost: Discovery of the Cardiovascular System
Contagion - CURIOSity Digital Collections: Humoral Theory
MedicineNet: Is Bloodletting Still Used Today?
Fresh Water Habitats Press Release: Medicinal Leech Breeding
The New Yorker: The History of Blood
NCBI Book: The ABO Blood groups
Annals of Clinical and Laboratory Science: The Discovery of Blood Cells
Red Cross Blood Services: History Of Blood Transfusions 1628 To Now
NCBI Bookshelf: Blood and the Cells it Contains
The Conversation: Essays on blood: why do we actually have it?
Blood at 70: its roots in the history of hematology and its birth
PMC: A Brief History of Human Blood Groups
Japan Experience: Blood Types in Japan
The Conversation: More Blood Types than you Think
CBS News: New Blood Type
The Conversation: Gwada-negative
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Kabeleh Bah Playing the Quijada
Salsa Blanca on the Quijada
John Jeremiah Sullivan on the Quijada
Son Jarocho Quijada Video
History of the Vibraslap
Boston Symphony Orchestra on Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No 2
Britannica on Slapstick's Etymology
The AMNH's Slap Stick
The Cymbal Test Video
NPR on Zildjian's History
NYT on Zildjian's History

89: Understanding Blood & Peculiar Percussion

Chances are you know what a placebo is, but... how does it really work? And what can its evolution teach us about science, medicine, and ethics? And how much art can fit a tiny postage stamp? Well enough to fill a whole history of debate, drama, and ducks.

Images we Talk About:
Drafts of England's First Stamp
Sydney Views Stamp
The Train Stamp
2025 Duck Stamp Winners
McBroom's Spite Duck

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:20) The Evolution of Placebos
(00:57:13) Postage Stamp Art
(01:41:17) Outro

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Join our Discord!

We also learn about: 

The word placebo has escaped academic containment, fake mourners saying “I will please the lord”, placebo paint on birds wings, placebo as sham, The Royal Commission on Animal Magnetism, not that kind of animal magnetism, placebo as psychology, is this going to be a running bit, defining placebo not in reference to something else, “a person’s psychological response to being treated”, things like healing through time or pressure to answer are Not placebo effects, placebo effects are tricky to study, animals can get the placebo effect, goo goo ga ga am I in the contwal gwoup? conditioning rats that a smell means reduced pain, the internal and external factors of placebo, the placebo effect is actually doing things in your brain, of course we talked about that before on episode TWENTY EIGHT, Ella loves brain action, you can consciously fail a placebo but unconsciously pass it, the nocebo effect, it may be just in your head but your head is a lot of things, the murky ethics of placebos, doctors are mostly prescribing harmless placebos when patients ask for one, Caroline & Ella’s sleeping pill and recovery position placebos, HOLY SHIT PLACEBO EVOLVED INTO CHARIZARD HELL YEAH, some placebos work when you tell people it’s a placebo, placebo pills take 2 twice daily, wait is this actually just about the importance of transparent and accessible and trustworthy medical care?? the American Philatelic Society, Tom used stamps as stickers, Ella’s friend’s giant mimic stamp, the public was aroused by post office reform - not just us! every contestant of the first stamp contest was revoked, it took 4 artists to design the first stamp, no monarch stamps unless they’re hot, the Universal Postal Union is the second oldest international organization, the absolutely HATED train stamp, philatelic propaganda, Operation Cornflakes, the Citizen Stamp Advisory Committee’s incredible process, so you’re saying we can’t make an Iraq War stamp, so you’re saying the UK can make a 9/11 stamp, stamps are of the most visible pieces of art, the duck stamp is the only art competition sponsored by the government, the super bowl of wild life art, are you a celebrity if oyu haven’t won a DEGOT? stamp advisors with reduction glasses, duck stamp royalty, Broome’s incredible spite art, stamps didn’t have to be art - but we’re glad they are.

Sources:
The Americal Philatelic Society
The Postal Museum London: The Penny Black
Swiss National Museum: Stamps
Wiki: Postage Stamp Design
Linns Stamps: New South Wales Pictorial Stamp
Smithsonian Postal Museum: International Philately
Universal Posta Union
2011 Book: Book of History of the Postage Stamps of the United States of America
US Postal Service: Creating U.S. Postage Stamps
The Postal Museum London: Stamp Design
WWT: Duck Stamps
Scientific America: The Duck Stamp
Fish and Wildlife Service: 2024 Duck Stamp Winner
Million Dollar Duck Video- Taylor and McBroom Rivalry
New York Times: Rising to Glory on the Wings of Ducks
Print Magazine: The Extraordinary Design Journey of a Stamp—From Quasi-Secret Society to Perforated Perfection
Image: The First Stamp Design Evolution
Image: 1869 Pictorial Stamp- 3 Cent Train Stamp
2024 Duck Stamp Entries
Image: McBroom: Comrade Tim Taylor
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Etymology of Placebos & Placebo History
Placebo Review
Wikipedia Placebo in History
Beecher's The Powerful Placebo
The Powerful Placebo: Fact or Fiction?
Nature Overview: Placebo - Honesty Fakery
Textbook Chapter: Placebo Analgesia in Rodents
The Neuroscience of Placebo Effects
Benedetti's Great 2 Placebos Experiment
NPR on Prescribing Placebos
Guardian on Prescribing Placebos
Kaptchuk's Great Open Label Placebo Study
Finniss et al. Placebo Review

88: The Evolution of the Placebo & Postage Stamp Art

After much deliberation, the academy (listeners of the podcast) has voted on the best topics from the past year! If this is your first episode, you'll get a sampling of our favorite moments of science and sillyness, and if you're a long time listener, you'll hear some behind the scenes thoughts about the topics, as well as... a secret teaser at the very end??

Images we Talk About:
The Jacobin Pigeon
The Pouter Pigeon

Timestamps:
(00:04:37) Intro
(00:03:59) Part 1
(00:55:00) Part 2
(01:51:28) Outro

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

We also learn about: you gotta listen to the best ofs for the rock paper scissors drama, I’m not sure if Ella remembers our names, it’s not the same joke it’s a Call Back, superseding my superseded theories, Tom’s jokes are like the rain - you walk on through and hope it stops quickly, it gets Jalapeno business, I miss Comedy, Ella claimed review corner but keeps forgetting it, the art of topic writing is explaining but also what not to explain, our favorite topics of each others, wrote down the idea for public domain day the year before, Tom goofs up the La La Land Joke, ohh did you just finish episode 50? maybe, thanks everyone for the nice messages, Mum! “those stupid awards”, they’re all great episodes, we learned who in our family listens to our show, you guys wanna learn about ants??

The Best of Everything 2023-2024

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