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    Science

    Let’s Learn Everything!

    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

    Advertise

    Copyright: © Tom Lum, Caroline Roper, and Ella Hubber

    • Apple Podcasts
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    Latest Episodes:
    113: Rediscovered Organs & Bird Watching Sep 24, 2026
    Show notes

    Wait, how are we rediscovering organs in 2026?? Or... are we? Well let's learn about the history and fads of the insides of our bodies! And what is bird watching, why do we all love it, and how casual and competitive can you get with it?

    Images we talk about:
    (Also available at https://www.letslearneverything.com/113/)
    Clay Liver
    Online Terminologia Anatomica
    Salivary Glands
    Bird Study Skins
    A Field guide to Birds Example Page

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:04:56) Rediscovered Organs
    (01:05:15) Bird Watching
    (01:50:12) Outro

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    The Name Website
    Study skins,

    We also learn about:
    Huh?? Mesopotamian organ divination, sheep liver phrenology models, everyone needs to talk about this, Al-Razi’s “Doubts about Galen”, the great ignorance time skip, hmm this dead body must be wrong, the dissection fad, the murder act, you don’t know Burke and Hare?? body snatching and anatomy murder, the vestigial craze, Wiedersheim’s minimal viable person, the problem of naming organs, 20 synonyms of organs, Ella goes feral over the online Federative International Programme for Anatomical Terminology, our 3-4, hi Dad and Ella’s mom - hope you enjoyed that clitoris joke, our 4th pair of handlebar moustache salivary glands, the interstitium getting reverse pluto’d, labelling an organ is useful but also not the full picture, gen Z loves birding, FUCK YOU JONO WE’RE DOING THE HISTORY, is paleontology birding if you’re looking at sauricia, ornithomancy, where there have been birds - we have watched birds, study skins, hey what if we looked at them alive? in 1901 Edmund Selous discovers bird empathy, “lay down the gun and take up the glasses”, POWs from WWII publishing their findings, slovenly non scientific bird watchers, it’s a hobby with no proper definition, Merline and ObsIdentify and Birder and Ebird and Rare Bird Alert and Birder’s Interface, it’s pokemon! WHO’S THAT bird, “oh my god I actually cannot do this any more”, apps aren’t perfect, twitchers, the New Jersey World Series of Birding, Big Year, the first book specifically for birding, the first big year was just some guy who wrote how many birds he saw one year and told people about it, a big year is a physical and mental trial for glory, it’s for the birds, has their love curdled or have they unlocked a true kind of love? why do we do anything at all? I do love birds but man do I love humans.

    Sources:

    NIH: Organ Definition
    2024 Paper: The Most Ancient Sources of Anatomic Knowledge
    2025 Paper: Galen’s Typology of Organs
    2013 Paper: The Air of History (Part IV): Great Muslim Physicians Al Rhazes
    BBC Bitesize: Medieval Medicine
    Wellcome Collection: Getting Under the Skin
    2011 Paper: The Study of Anatomy in England From 1700 to the Early 20th Century
    Book: Dissecting the Criminal Corpse: Staging Post-Execution Punishment in Early Modern England by Hurren ET, Chapter 7.
    Wiki: Vestigiality
    Britannica: Anatomy
    Terminologia Anatomica 2019 (TA2) Official
    BearBoat Terminologia Anatomica 2019 (TA2)
    Cleveland Clinic: Organs
    Wiki: List of Organs
    2021 Paper: The tubarial salivary glands: A potential new organ at risk for radiotherapy
    Article: The tubarial salivary glands: A newly recognized organ with dental significance
    CORDIS: Did scientists just discover a secret organ in your head?
    Netherland Cancer Institute: Cancer researchers discover new salivary gland
    2021 Paper: The tubarial salivary glands: A potential new organ at risk for radiotherapy
    Cleveland Clinic: Interstitium
    SciAm: Meet Your Interstitium, a Newfound "Organ"
    2024 Paper: A comprehensive analysis of the tubarial glands
    2018 Paper: Another new organ! is this a golden age of discovery in anatomy?
    BBC: Scientists just discovered the largest ever human organ – and we all have it
    Independant: Human brain is actually two separate organs, scientists find
    2026 Paper: Two parallel neural ectoderm progenitors contribute to the developing brain
    2005 Paper: Gastrulation Movements: the Logic and the Nuts and Bolts
    Neuroscience News: The Brain Is Two Separate Organs Joined by Evolution
    LiveScience: 'Useless' female organ discovered over a century ago may actually support ovaries, study finds
    Uni of Colorado: Rediscovering the Rete Ovarii: The “Antennae” of the Ovary
    2024 Paper: Rediscovering the Rete Ovarii: the Development, Role, and Function of a Secreting Auxiliary Structure to the Ovary
    ---
    BBC: Why Gen Z Birdwatchers Are Flocking to Reserves
    CNN: Why Gen Z is going bonkers for birding
    Wikipedia: Ornithomancy
    Smithsonian Magazine: How Bird Collecting Evolved Into Bird-Watching
    My Bird Buddy: History of Bird Watching
    Haikubox: Evolution of Birdwatching
    Pitville History: Edmund Selous
    British Birds: Best Bird Watching Apps
    10000 Birds: Can I rely on Merlin
    Science Base: Bird ID Apps
    Sussex Wildlife Trust: The Good the Bad and the Middling ID Apps
    Reddit: Pokemon Go is Basically Birding
    Reddit: Ever Wanted to Catch Em All IRL?
    Reddit: Why is Gen Z Suddenly Obsessed with Birdwatching
    Youtube: Listers
    New Jersey Audubon Society: World Series of Birding
    Wikipedia: Big Year
    Smithsonian Library and Archive: A Field Guide to Birds
    American Bird Association: Big Year Rules
    Audubon: The Big Year According to Birders
    Birding (American Birding Association): The Next Big Thing
    Surfbirds (Wayback Machine): Alaska, The Last Frontier Attu Island
    NPR: The Real Birdwatchers Behind Hollywood's 'Big Year'

    Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinlearn


    112: Life in Exclusion Zones & Every Single Character Sep 10, 2026
    Show notes

    What happens to life inside exclusion zones like Chernobyl? Is it good? Bad? Or something much more interesting? And what happens when you try to codify every single character from human language? Well, it definitely leads to some fascinating linguistic rabbit holes!

    Images we talk about:

    Przewalski’s horse (yes that’s how it’s spelled)
    Frogs
    Character U+FDFD
    Arabic Text
    Decorative U+FDFD's
    Tom's Favorite Use of Kashida

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:03:12) Life in Exclusion Zones
    (01:01:48) Every Single Character
    (01:52:06) Outro

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    We also learn about: Actually defining it made it creepier, the zone rouge, we an area of Earth uninhabitable from war, chernobyl release over 100 radioactive elements, they really need to name the zone of alienation the zone of doing taxes, the liquidators actually did a good job of stopping the spread, is this a rewilding experiment? Ella deleted emails to poach this topic, Przewalski’s horse (yes that’s how it’s spelled), technically feral vs wild horses, I’ve reached the nuance center of my nuance pop, why isn’t it my job so sample chernobyl frogs, nearly all pine trees near chernobyl were wiped out, “the selective pressures of radiation”, bright birds used up their carotenoids for color, we’re doing nuclear ecological biochemistry, god that was an ugly laugh, maybe its counterintuitive for the small things - no this one sucks, the slow horror of a lack of decomposition, the ecosystem is not rewilded it’s entirely new, the Korean DMZ is like an ecological semi permeable membrane, DMZ ecology research institute, the DMZ has 40% of Korea’s endangered species, it’s a pitstop along the east asian australasian flyway, endangered cranes have bounced back in the DMZ, the DMZ crane watch, the cranes and natterjack toad require human farming to thrive, synonyms of nuance and thrive, Baarter economy standing ovation, conflictful chicken, Unicode is the ISO standard for text on computers, ASCII’s 128 characters is surely enough right? why do you have a period accurate phone? it turns out other cultures want to use the computer, there are 159,801 characters in unicode, the basic multilingual plane sounds like startrek shit and it kind of is, I mean it’s not like it has cuneiform except it does, braille unicode exists for a reason, braille doesn’t just map one to one with letters it also has contractions, contracted braille is a stenography, tweeting more in japanese, 101,996 CJK characters, Max Woolf’s Big List of Naughty Strings, after Mamdani was elected I had to learn how to pronounce the bismillah, “Bismillah is the Przewalski’s Horse of this topic”, I said we shouldn’t dive into the history of a language halfway through a topic but fuck it, LR0’s terrific Arabic typography essay, arabic script can be perfectly justified, “the justification lives inside the words”, Kashidas stretching across a map made it click for Tom, maing the bismillah beautiful, we all just want to make text look cool, the ottoman printing press ban myth, the cursed lost printed quran, oh my god is this the unifying thing, weirdly internet explorer had kashida justification for 1 year? Inshallah you find on the internet what you’re exploring for.

    Sources:

    Chernobyl Frogs Image
    Wikipedia: Exclusion Zones
    World Nuclear Association
    Wikipedia: Zone Rouge
    Explorers Web: Montserrat and its Exclusion Zone
    Guardian: UN Buffer Zone in Cyprus
    International Atomic Energy Agency: Chernobyl
    United Nations Development Programme: Chernobyl Recovery Development
    BBC Future: Chernobyl’s Wildlife
    Royal Society Proceedings B: The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone as a Wildlife Refuge
    Wikipedia: Red Forest
    Current Biology: Long-term Census Data Reveal Abundant Wildlife Populations at Chernobyl
    Science: Chernobyl Hits Birds Hard
    Microorganisms: Soil Microbes and Plant-Associated Microbes in Response to Radioactive Pollution
    The Conversation: The Mystery of Chernobyl’s Wild Horses
    San Diego Zoo: The Last Wild Horse
    Animals: Endangered Przewalski’s Horse, Equus przewalskii, Cloned from Historically Cryopreserved Cells
    San Diego Zoo: Birth of Cloned Przewalski’s Foal
    Korean Konsult: DMZ - Demilitarized Zone
    DMZ: The Civilian Control Line (CCL) towns of the Korean Peninsula
    Reuters: South Korea to Shift Civilian Restricted Line
    South China Morning Post: The Korean DMZ
    Guardian: How Wildlife is Thriving in the Korean DMZ
    Royal Society Notes and Records: From Warzone to Bioreserve
    Zooniverse: DMZ Crane Watch
    Biological Conservation: Winter Foraging of Threatened Cranes in the Demilitarized Zone of Korea
    Cultural Anthropology: Toward an Anthropology of Landmines
    KNews: Nature Thrives in Cyprus’ Forgotten Buffer Zone
    UFZ EuMon conference: Monitoring Biodiversity of the Buffer Zone in Cyprus
    Satoyama Initiative: The Cyprus Buffer Zone as a Socio-Ecological Landscape
    ---
    UC Berkley Unicode Overview
    Unicode's History
    Unicode on Braille
    RNIB Contracted Braille
    Buzzfeed on Japanese Tweets
    LR0's Incredible Arabic Type Essay
    Design Principles of Kashida Justification: A Unique Technique in Arabic and Persian Mapping
    The Lost Quran's Discovery
    Kathryn Schwartz's "Did Ottoman Sultans Ban Print?"

    Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinlearn


    Recast: Ella on That's Absurd, Please Elaborate Aug 27, 2026
    Show notes

    Due to some house woes, we're recasting Ella's excellent appearance on That's Absurd, Please Elaborate, where they actually solve a meme and invent Pee Day.

    Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinlearn


    111: Astronaut Cady Coleman, Life in Space, and What Astronauts Learn Aug 13, 2026
    Show notes

    What does an astronaut actually learn in training? And what surprises them about having to live in space? Well, fortunately astronaut Cady Coleman is here to answer these and many more of our questions!!

    See us live in London! LETSLEARNEVERYTHING.COM/LIVE

    See Tom live in NYC! OurFindingsShow.com

    Images we talk about:
    Cady's Background Image

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:05:03) Astronaut Training and Space Life
    (01:10:42) Space Suits
    (01:23:45) Outro

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    We also learn about: Astronaut school, “the mission is exploration and only a part of it is human spaceflight”, the telerobotic surgery was real, living in NEEMO, Cady learned to remove a gallbladder, “what is it that I have to remember is not being simulated well?”, oh the telerobotic surgery was happening under water, it’s about sharing what you’re learning at the same time, spending 11 days underwater, bedrest studies in hawaii are actually a toll and a service, communication is key even in space, trust us space food is going to get old, not every day of training is remove 10 gallbladders, putting yourself in the picture humanizes it, which way is up? sleep flashes from cosmic rays, liquid sensors in our neck make you pee when you lie down and reduce blood volume in space, you can’t cough to hide your pee on the ISS, the future of the ISS, astronaut feet facts, Paolo and Cady’s toenail system, learning to fly in zero g, “you learn to live in 3 dimensions”, losing things in zero g sucks, CO2 buildup for the group photo, not washing clothes upset the balance, it’s all about fluid physics, “it’s all about interfaces between solids and liquids - and up in space it’s the biggest game in town”, peeing in space is easier than camping, how you determine your space order with feet, the domino effect of space suit sizes, your space suit is your space ship, IT’S LESS MATERIAL, there are people who are still waiting their turn, “how do you make sure these voices are heard when their presence is not missed?”, how to work for change collaboratively, you shouldn’t have to work so hard to participate, “oh that’s going on the website Cady”, one small step for you and one big step for democracy.

    Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinlearn


    110: Horsepower & Makeup Jul 30, 2026
    Show notes

    What even is horsepower? Is it a silly unit of measurement, or actually an underrated marvel?? And how old is makeup? Why do we do it? And what historic looks can you steal for your next night out?

    What are the flaws in scientific publishing, who's responsible, and how can we fix it?

    ALSO SEE US LIVE IN LONDON!!! LETSLEARNEVERYTHING.COM/LIVE

    Images we talk about:

    Papyrus Image
    Fish Palette
    Patch Portrait
    Painting of Two Ladies

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:03:15) Horsepower
    (00:48:26) Makeup
    (01:39:07) Outro

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    We also learn about: I’m taking horse pills to get their powers, we can answer questions without getting klaxonned, abbreviated for french reasons, the meter is 1 ten millionth the distance from the north to south pole, I’m going to be talking about power “oh god”, power is the movement of a mass over time, you’ll notice nowhere in that definition did I mention horses, James perfects the steam engine, you can’t just say “hey this engine will get us to the industrial revoltuion” you have to sell it in horses, come up with your own unit of power dweeb, a horse can produce 15 horsepower, you’re about to have a lot more nickels, there was a metric and imperial horsepower, all the international names for hosepower, watt SI unit is on first base? the father son and the holy ghost of electronics (the amp, volt, and watt), we didn’t have a unified unit for power before horsepower, Thomas Edison measured lightbulb efficacy by horsepower, IT WASN’T AN IRONIC CHOICE IT WAS CAUSE AND EFFECT, this isn’t a podcast it’s a slumber party, Caroline and Ella’s metallic blue eyeliner/facepaint, webster’s definition is somehow too broad and too narrow, prehistoric pigemtns may have been body paint, Ella’s surprisingly informative ancient egyptian ASMR video, from kohl to green malachite, caroline hiding the sexy bits of the papyrus from us, this makes my tummy hurt, fish palettes, ancient greek prostitues were required to wear lipstick, modern man or ro-man, a woman buys lotions and perfumes with cheating in mind, Elizabeth I’s lead and vinegar makeup, painting on fake veins, plucking hairs to match the queen’s forhead, the optical illusion dot, Caroline’s favorite fad: beauty patches, it’s so wild how excluded darker complexions are in the market when this topic started in ancient egypt, perhaps makeup imitates the moment of an orgasm, im inventing new sexism: men are blurry, we finally just asked women why they wear makeup, wearing makeup because we have to vs we want to, for other or ourselves, the ro-manosphere.

    Sources:
    History of the SI Units
    History of Imperial Units
    The Fan-Tastic paper: The Origin of the Horsepower Unit
    James' Encyclopedia Britannica Biography
    Horserpower From a Horse Paper
    Siemen's Address for the Watt Unit
    Edison Papers Measuring Lightbulbs in Horsepower
    NOAA Lightning Stats
    ---
    Merriam Webster
    Makeup Definition
    Blog: Bodypainting
    Why Do We Do That? Makeup
    Archeology Journal: Prehistoric Body Painting- 2000
    Independant: 300000 year old body art
    Smithsonian: Evidence of Fur and Leather Clothing, Among World’s Oldest, Found in Moroccan Cave
    2017 Paper: Painted in red: In search of alternative explanations for EuropeanPalaeolithic cave art
    Britannica: Makeup
    Blog: History of Makeup
    Wiki: Beauty and Cosmetics in Ancient Egypt
    NHM Utah: Makeup in Ancient Egypt
    Blog: Ancient Egyptian make-up
    Book: Ovid on Cosmetics
    University of Kent: The Painful Art of Being a Roman Woman
    Wiki: Cosmetics in Ancient Rome
    The Guardian: Medieval Christian Misogyny Shapes How We Judge Women Today, Says Scholar
    Royal Museums Greenwich: Elizabeth I: Fashion and Beauty
    DMDA: You Must Get a Patch
    Auction Listing: Portrait of two ladies. Patch marks to their faces
    Wiki: Allegorical Painting of Two Ladies
    Smithsonian: Make-up
    Preston Park: The History of Victorian Makeup
    YouGov: One in Six Women Wear Makeup at the Gym
    YouGov: How Often - and why - American Women wear makeup
    YouGov: One in Twenty British Men Now Wear Makeup
    2022 Paper: The contrasting effects of body image and self-esteem in the makeup usage
    Blog: Why Do We Chase The Post-O Glow?
    2015 Paper: Facial coloration tracks changes in women's estradiol
    2015 Paper: Cosmetics Alter Biologically-Based Factors of Beauty: Evidence from Facial Contrast
    ABC News: Makeup Makes Women Seem More Competent, Study Says
    2024 Paper: The Influence of Makeup on Individual Self-Identity: An Exploratory Study
    2016 Paper: Does make-up make you feel smarter? The “lipstick effect” extended to academic achievement

    Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinlearn


    109: Scientific Publishing Jul 16, 2026
    Show notes

    What are the flaws in scientific publishing, who's responsible, and how can we fix it?

    ALSO SEE US LIVE IN LONDON!!! LETSLEARNEVERYTHING.COM/LIVE

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:02:47) Scientific Publishing Part I
    (00:35:57) Scientific Publishing Part II
    (01:13:07) Outro

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    We also learn about: We almost do the same grim joke, the live show will have 50% more hosts than this, before publications there were societies and books and letters, in 1665 a Henry Oldenburg of the royal society starts “Philosophical Transactions”, the longest continuous journal (ignoring the time Olderburg was put in a tower for criticizing the king), the discovery of Jupiter’s red spot and also a deformed calf, Newton’s Optics was published in Philosophical Transactions first, Science has bad SEO, the doubling time of papers is 14 years since the 1950s, Ella’s peer review process, errors can be missed and biases affected, not paying reviewers is a bug that’s labelled as a feature, government funded research can still be privately owned, we’ve all agreed “processing fee” just means bullshit, there’s some things I don’t want to be “fun”, Elsevier has a 38% profit margin while Alphabet’s is 32%, editorial resignations in protest, I’m excited to add Robert Maxwell to my Arya Stark list of people, Maxwell died on his yes-that-Ghislaine-Maxwell Yacht, the scheme to buyout scientists for their papers, cover upfront costs - own copyright - flood with new journals - reap the subscription costs, “jesus wept”, retractions are growing by about 20% each year, I’m buying Ella a dictionary so she can learn what “fun” means, fool me 239 time shame on me, paper mills, predatory journals are pay to win, the Chinese restaurant metaphor keeps staying accurate, no it’s not nature our journal is nurture, is this finally rock bottom? the public review curate model, the pros and cons of preprints, diamond open access, the nelson memo, “I think the Ghislaine Mawell death yacht is fun”.

    Sources:
    Royal Society: History of Scientific Journals
    Royal Society: Philosophical Transactions The Early Years
    Royal Society: Philosophical Transactions Issue 1
    University College London: A History of Scientific Journals
    Philosophical Transactions A: Newton Shows the Light
    Royal Society Notes and Records: 350 Years of Scientific Periodicals
    Broad Research Communication Lab: Peer Review - a Historical Perspective
    Nature Humanities and Social Sciences Communications: Growth Rates of Modern Science
    JSTOR: The History of Peer Review is More Interesting Than You Think
    British Journal of Biomedical Science: The Peer Review Process: Past, Present, and Future
    Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine: Peer Review: A Flawed Process at the Heart of Science and Journals
    The Conversation: Academic Publishing is a Multibillion Dollar Industry
    New Scientists: Time to Break Academic Publishing’s Stranglehold on Research
    The Lancet: Should Peer Reviewers Be Paid?
    Guardian: Is the Staggeringly Profitable Business of Scientific Publishing Bad for Science? (Robert Maxwell Longread)
    Research Professional News: Elsevier Profit
    Guardian: George Monbiot on Academic Publishers
    Retraction Watch: Statistics and Computing Resignation
    Guardian: The Murky Life of Robert Maxwell
    Journal of the Academy of Public Health: The Rise and Fall of Scientific Journals and a Way Forward
    EBSCO Research: Publish or Perish Paradox
    University of Technology Sydney: The ‘Publish or Perish’ Mentality is Undermining Science
    Retraction Watch: COVID Retractions
    Retraction Watch: Most Cited
    Retraction Watch: Retractions by Nobel Prize Winners
    Retraction Watch: Most Retractions
    British Medical Journal: Boldt the Great Pretender
    Nato Strategic Communication Centre: Disinformation and Scholarly Communications
    The Conversation: Paper Mills
    Toxicologic Pathology: Predatory Journals: What They Are and How to Avoid Them
    The Lancet: Lessons From the Influx of Preprints During the Early COVID-19 Pandemic
    The Conversation: Diamond Open Access
    San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA)

    Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinlearn


    108: Quicksand and Other Childhood Worries & The Undying Game of Pinball Jul 02, 2026
    Show notes

    We all thought quicksand would be a bigger deal than it is, but what is the science behind them and all the other worries I had as a kid? And how does pinball reflect the changing cultures of our time, and could now be the best era of pinball?

    ALSO SEE US LIVE IN LONDON!!! LETSLEARNEVERYTHING.COM/LIVE

    Things we Talk About:

    Bagatelle
    Redgrave's Pinball
    Humpty Dumpty
    Beat Time
    Lambeth & Sarceni's Amazing Pinball Talk at Magfest
    David Barber's Magfest Pinball Panel
    Technology Connection's Great Pinball Breakdown
    PinballMap.com

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:06:22) Quicksand and Other Childhood Worries
    (01:05:22) The Undying Game of Pinball
    (01:55:32) Outro

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    We also learn about: Ella’s spoon collection is much more important than our live show, the never ending story, quicksand was in 3% of in the 1960s, the problem with gen z is they’re not afraid of quicksand, quicksand is reverse oobleck (sheer-thinning), the settled sand at the bottom requires the force of lifting a car, quicksand is unfortunate physics circumstances burying you, 11th century quicksand art in the Bayeux Tapestry (also Haley’s comet), we’re less dense than quicksand so you’d float at your waist, you could listen to this podcast twice while hanging out in quicksand, Ella cried so much she couldn’t cross the piranha plank, piranha fear is President Roosevelt’s fault, you know you’re making fun of a ten year old child right now, my main takeaway was what a cogent president he was, piranhas reloading their teeth, piranhas have 10x the relative bite force to size of a crocodile, piranhas aren’t carnivores - they’re opportunistic omnivores and a skittish prey species, the cow just walking out of the piranhas, it’s like two truths and a lie but all three are true, ARE WE DOING SPIDERS GEORG, spiders have acute mechanoceptors, tarantulas aren’t just hairy for fun, debunking the Lisa Birgit Holst debunking, a 50 spiders salute for georg, Beans Britain is a statistical outlier and should not be counted, spiders georg as a stats teaching tool, spiders georg was NOT an outlier, the moment Tom and pinball fell in love, we’ve been throwing balls at pins since ancient Egypt, indoor parlor games were for the aristocracy, fixing the pins to the table with bagatelle, the depression sparked the start of pinball’s craze, evolving their legs back, truly pinball is what caused the depression, pinball was the avocado toast of the time, pinballs were literally turned into billy clubs and bullets, pinball was banned for 34 years in new york city, the historic humpty dumpty machine first gave us flippers in 1947, pinball was cooler than porn, the bootles, it’s games sex and games AGAIN - but this time it’s bad, Suzanne Ciani’s digital design for Xenon, guess the pinball cabinet from the sound, the sopranos’ profanity filter, NBA fastbreak isn’t a basketball themed pinball - you are playing basketball, Dave demonstrating a Tap Pass, pinball is the most open it’s ever been, finding cabinets is a somehow even nerdier version of birdwatching, oh nooo don’t send me pictures of pinball cabinets.

    Sources:
    2021 Fibromyalgia Acupuncture Review
    Wildland Trekking: Is Quicksand Real?
    EBSCO: Non Newtonian Fluid
    Wiki: Shear Thinning
    Slate: The Rise and Fall of Quicksand
    Getty: Bayeux Tapestry Quicksand Scene
    BBC Future: Can Quicksand Suck You to Your Death?
    Nature Comms: Liquefaction of Quicksand Under Stress
    Europhysics News: Quicksand!
    National Geographic: Quicksand
    Greater Cleveland Aquarium: How a President Propagated a Myth
    Zootaxa: Molecular Systematics of Serrasalmidae
    Nature Scientific Reports: Extreme Jaw Forces of Living and Extinct Piranhas
    University of Washington News: Piranha Fish Swap Old Teeth
    Evolution and Development: Heterodonty and Dental Replacement in Piranhas
    BBC: Piranha 'less deadly than feared'
    Studies on Neotropical Fauna and Environment: Attacks on Humans by the Piranha Serrasalmus rhombeus in Suriname
    The Harvard Gazette: Piranha Lab
    BBC: Do People Really Swallow Spiders in their Sleep
    Snopes: Do People Swallow Eight Spiders Per Year?
    Scientific American: Fact or Fiction? People Swallow 8 Spiders a Year While They Sleep |
    Springer Nature: The Vibrational Sense of Spiders
    Wiki: Fried Spider
    r/HelloInternet Reddit: Lisa Birgit Holst Doesn't Exist
    Snopes: Lisa Birgit Holst
    Tumblr: Spiders Georg
    Wiki: Spiders Georg
    Journal of Interdisciplinary Science Topics: View of How Many Spiders Would Spiders Georg Have To Eat?
    Medium: The Spiders Georg Problem
    ---
    Lambeth & Sarceni's Amazing Pinball Talk at Magfest
    David Barber's Magfest Pinball Panel
    Clive Thompson for Smithsonian Mag on Pinball
    National Museum of American History on Pinball and Bagatelle
    Montague Redgrave's Pinball Patent
    Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science on Pinball and Gambling
    Technology Connection's Great Pinball Breakdown
    Suzanne Ciani's Audio Design for Xenon

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    Second London Live Show! 1pm Sunday Oct 18th! Jun 29, 2026
    Show notes

    We've added a SECOND live show in London, and it's a Sunday matinee! See all the details at LetsLearnEverything.com/live

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    107: The Sci Guys, Acupuncture, and THAT Dolphin Story Jun 18, 2026
    Show notes

    Corry and Luke from the Sci Guys podcast join us, at last completing elaborate 4 year scheme to have them on! We learn about whether acupuncture is bullshit, and learn a bit more about That famous dolphin story. We also talk shop about mistakes, debunking, and curiosity!

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:10:51) Acupuncture
    (00:32:27) THAT Dolphin Story
    (00:54:20) Mistakes & Debunking
    (01:21:10) Outro

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    Join our Discord!

    We also learn about:

    I’m biggly judging, the only thing I love more than science is a weird bit, Caroline’s 4 year plan to get in a zoom call with these bozos, kind of feels like you came to the top of the mountain and came down to meet us, Brian Cox does Not follow Tom, I know something that will fix Ella’s connection, the corry-luke scale, the peripheral nervous system, free opiod receptors, endogynous, different kind of needles for that opiod, fake accupuncture, treating sever hiccups, min-maxing heroin, it’s tricky to study pain, maybe therapy works more than accupuncture, by the way I don’t need you to share everything, dolphins weren’t so great at finding land mines, I’ll just leave some dead air, an open bar for editting, the sensory deprivation tank, you’re paying for this open bar Tom, I won’t tell you the name of the paper but I will tell you about lisa simpson, was really hoping the apartment would have a dolphinarium, now do your duolingo, this was all to communicate with aliens, Tom tries to have a teachable moment, well someone was certainly “arriving”, raising a chimp as a human, Bunny’s backlash, weird studies, language is complicated and we don’t even think about it so we underestimate it, did we not all read coco transcripts in college - oh i guess not, Corry’s corona mistake, double checking even when we know someone’s wrong, can you believe there are podcasts where people try to learn everything? a meta message not about being right but about science, QI’s mistake rate, the science debunking complex can get toxic, when we debunk it’s not with antagonism but curiosity, the mould effect saga, I think what you were trying to say correy is that it’s important to foster curiosity.

    Sources:
    Harvard Medical School, Science of Acupuncture
    Review: Is Acupuncture Placebo?
    Review: Acupuncture for Fibromyalgia Treatment
    Guardian: NASA's Dolphin Project
    Atlantic: Margaret Lovatt's Dolphin Experiment

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    The Best of Everything 2026 Jun 04, 2026
    Show notes

    It's the Best of Everything! The episode where we look at the topics that YOU thought were our best from the past year, and chat some behind the scenes about them! It's a great place to start and a great time to brush up on things you may have forgotten.

    Images we Talk About:
    Etching from the Great Moon Hoax
    Bumble Bee Ocelli

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:03:51) The Vitamin Saga
    (00:20:55) Why is the Sky Blue?
    (00:33:19) Speech Disfluency
    (00:53:11) The Great Moon Hoax of 1835
    (01:09:07) Superheavy Elements II
    (01:27:33) Eyevolution II
    (01:45:17) Outro

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    Join our Discord!

    We also learn about:

    You wouldn’t marry a husband, oh here comes the vitamin guy, you think we’ll still have history, you missed a spot, literally having to ask for extra time, we don’t learn like computers - relearning is normal, the I’ve just turned 30 pilgramage to Japan, I’ve ruined the algorithm, oh YAY, excited for marriages and reality fracture, 30 seconds of laughter.

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