Let's Learn Everything! - TopPodcast.com

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24: Self Experimentation, Amputation Archaeology, and Learning to Love PowerPoint Sep 22, 2022

Show notes

What are the pros and perils of self experimentation? What archaeological clues do we have to the first human amputation? And why should we actually learn to love PowerPoint?

See Tom Perform PowerPoint Comedy on October 4th at Caveat NYC! (or stream it!)

Go to Ella's Women in Science Photography Exhibition in London October 25th!

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We also learn about: Santorio Santorio, sitting in a chair for 30 years, two pieces of toast, 1500s diet culture, insensible perspiration, basal metabolism, the origin of sleep studies, cave dwellers and time perception, he likes caves a little too much, sleep cycle, stomach ulcers, rats in straight jackets taking ice baths like david blaine, drinking bacteria broth and winning a nobel prize, scientists will literally drink rotten milk to get a paragraph in a paper, reaching 631mph in a rocket chair, shout out to David Hunter, setting research back several decades, venereal disease, tropical hookworm, giving yourself worms for science, do not try this at home, Caroline always starts with Egypt, ancient prosthetics, Egyptian healthcare, what is a human, 1.8 million year old tooth, Georgia is a state not a country, tackling misinformation, human remain hotspot, the earliest surgery, trepanation, ancient community care, “7 days ago, that was the end of my script”, modern humans, medical knowledge is older than we realise, we’re still figuring anthropology out, Ella loves powerpoint, sweating bullets, God named powerpoint, overhead transparencies, Caroline doesn’t know what an overhead projector is, Tom and Ella are getting old, Edward Tufty is evil, Tom Lumperson is coming for Edward Tufty, everyone is a presenter, accessibility, an unfeasible culture of productivity, David Burn, Tufty vs Burn, Powerpoint Art, Powerpoint theatre, Powerpoint comedy, Tiktok is actually Powerpoint, Powerpoint as a programming language, beautiful things in the wildest places.

Sources:

Santorio Santorio
Insensible persirpiation
Weighing chair replica
Mammoth Cave Study
Michel Siffre Cave Experimenter
Michel Siffre Cabinet Interview
H. Pylori Stomach Ulcer Timeline
Barry Marshall Discover Magazine Interview
Infective dose of Campylobacter jejuni in milk
John Paul Stapp
Stewart Adams
Pritchard and Hookworms
Jasper Lawrence
Jimmy Bernot Twitter
Whipworm Clinical trials
Hookworms for multiple sclerosis

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Limb Amputation in Ancient Egyptians (2010 Paper)
The Guardian - Archeologists unearth 1.8 million Year Old Human Tooth
A Short History of Surgery by K. M. Begelman
The Oldest Amputation on a Human Skeleton in France (2007 Paper)
Upper Palaeolithic Hand Images with Missing Phalanges (2018 Paper)
Surgical amputation of a limb 31,000 years ago in Borneo (2022 Paper)

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Robert Gaskins on Naming PowerPoint
NYTimes Reporting on Microsoft Buying PowerPoint
Tufte's Article "PowerPoint is Evil"
NYTimes Teacher Interview on PowerPoint
David Byrne's Learning to Love PowerPoint
David Byrne's UC Berkley Presentation
David Byrne's Blog about the Presentation
Vulture's "Why is PowerPoint Having a Comedy Moment?"
Neil Cicierega's SlideShare Gems
The Lorde and Jack Antonoff PowerPoint
Tom Wildenhain's Paper "On the Turing Completeness of MS PowerPoint"
Tom Wildenhain's Presentation "On the Turing Completeness of MS PowerPoint"

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23: Plastic's Past, Imperfect Pitch, and the Dumb History of Generation Naming Sep 08, 2022

Show notes

What is the history of plastic, and what could the future hold? Why is perfect pitch, not so perfect, and do any animals have it? And how on Earth did we end up with these meaningless names for generations?

Support us on Maximum Fun!

Join our Discord!

Catch Sidney Gish on Tour!

We also learn about: what is plastic? plastics are an invasive species, natural plastics, explosions are at the root of a lot of science, guncotton, oops we made it explosive, should have bought those 666 horses, patent drama, ella slumdog millionaires celloid tennis balls, flammable films, pronouncing bakelite, carrier bags vs plastic bags, the great pacific garbage patch, plastic quiz, all plastics made still exist, the future of plastics, testing our perfect pitch, Tom interviews Sidney Gish, being able to tell home depot paint swatches doesn’t make you a master architect, my brain is wet wet mud, the 1 in 10,000 number is bogus, guessing sine waves vs pianos, the Levitan Effect, more people have pitch memory than perfect pitch, perfect pitch in animals, dolphin octave mirroring, mosquitos matching pitch to mate, let’s bone doooooown, playing happy birthday for rats, describing happy birthday like an alien, perfect pitch RAMPANT among birds, birds understand spectal vocoder music, what is a generation? the origins of generation names, Strauss-Howe generational theory, retrofitting a logical system from a random idea, backfilling generations to arthurian times, THEY WERE PLAYWRIGHTS, there should never just be One center for research, a london doctor once said…, generational character archetypes, social theory shouldn’t sound like a D&D campaign, millennial and their avocado toast, why don’t millennials like Blue’s Clues anymore? people have always been complaining about “lewd wicked children”, scientists vs the pew research center.

Sources:

The Science Museum: The Age of Plastic

Essentials of Polymer Science and Engineering

UN: From Birth to Ban: A History of the Plastic Shopping Bag

Nat Geo: Great Pacific Garbage Patch

The Ocean Clean Up: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Plastic Bag Statistics

Earth Day: Fact Sheet- Single Use Plastics

Climate Foresight: The Future of Plastics is Uncertain

University of Birmingham: The Fate and Sustainable Future of Plastic

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Carden & Cline's Excellent Review of the Myth's of Perfect Pitch

Marisa Hoeschele's Amazing Review of Animal Pitch Perception

Guessing Sine Waves vs Piano Notes Experiment

Pitch Memory TV Theme Experiment

The Levitin Effect

Mating Mosquitos Hamonize

Singing Happy Birthday to Rats

Songbird Hearing Anatomy

Starling Spectral Shape Experiment

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Pew Research: The Whys and Hows of Generations Research

Millennial Means Nothing

Open Letter to the Pew Research Center on Generation Labels

The Avocado Toast Article

BBC History on Complaining about the Youths

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A Big Announcement...! Sep 06, 2022

Show notes

A very special announcement!

Episodes we recommend for new listeners:

1: Time Illusions, Electric Bees, and Fakespeares

5: The History of Pregnancy Tests, The Middlest Size, and FanFiction

19: The Science of Gay, How Many Songs Fit in DNA, and Niche Sports

Support us on Maximum Fun!

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

22: Magnetic Mysteries, The Real Trolley Problem, and Hitchbot Aug 25, 2022

Show notes

How do animals sense magnetic fields? Why was the first Trolley Problem written? And who was Hitchbot?

Images we talk about:

- Hitchbot with Santa

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Join our Discord!

We also learn about: the first compasses, captain McDonalds, “epistemologically unacceptable”, magnetic bacteria, magnetic dip, pooping north, the table of good boys, let’s do a study, it’s more intersting that dogs Sometimes poop north, alignment during excretion, I’d rather study dogs than leopards, we don’t know how animals sense magnetism, the beaks of birds the brains of seaturtles the tummies of honeybes and the nasal passages of rainbowtrouts, four years from landing on the moon and we haven’t put a magnet on a bird yet, quantumn eyeballs, the European Robin is famously racist, Phillipa Foot, putting hypotheticals to the test, mice actors, hypotheticals don’t predict real behavior, Foot’s paper was about abortion, you know the hippocratic oath is pretty cool actually, do no harm is not in the oath, the self driving trolley problem, dogs vs cats, ethics boards on hypotheticals, the real car trolley problem is more nuanced, a robot with a thumb, Ella beats Tom to the joke, can robots trust humans, hitchbot meets santa, hitchbot loves Ten Bundy, have you seen this robot? how do we feel when a robot dies, so thoughtful of review corner to be at the end, and… some exciting news???

Sources:

Myths in Magnetosensation

Magnetic Bacteria

Aviation Skybrary on Magnetic Dip

Dogs Poop North

Leopards Poop North

The Arctic Tern's Migration

Magnetoreception remains a Mystery

Finding the Magnetoreception Organ

Quantumn Eyeballs

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The First Trolley Problem

Britannica on the Trolley Problem

Of Mice, Men, and Trolleys: Hypothetical Judgment Versus Real-Life Behavior in Trolley-Style Moral Dilemmas

Medical Ethics and the Trolley Problem

Self-driving Car Trolley Problem

MIT's Moral Machine Experiment

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Web Archive of hitchBOT's Website

The Vessel on hitchBOT

Servo Mag on hitchBOT

Innovation Heroes Podcast: The Hitchhiking Robot’s Guide to the Universe

DW The hitchhiking robot's guide to Germany

McMaster University hitchBOT in the Netherlands

International Journal of Social Robotics

Smith and Zeller the death and lives of hitchBOT

Fraser et al How do we feel when a robot dies?hitchBOT’s destruction

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21: Paleontologist Evelyn Vollmer, Figuring out the Age of the Earth, and What Defines a Dinosaur Aug 11, 2022

Show notes

How old did Aristotle think the Earth was? What makes a dinosaur a dinosaur? And how did our guest get into paleontology?

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We also learn about: getting started in paleontology, shooting lasers at fossils, artistotle thought the earth was infinitely old, getting the 6,000 number from bible family tree math, it’s infinitely old because because, melting rocks is science, Lord Kevlin’s real name was William Thompson??? every big name in science wanted to answer this question, Darwin was embaressed and deleted his tweet about the age of the Earth, “there’s so much we don’t know, it’s hilarious”, the rock cycle, Patteron fought for lead safety, thousands millions and billions, it took 4 billion years for a species to know the age of the Earth, what is a dinosaur? “cladistics is confusing as hell”, we were naming dinosaursas as we were discovering them, rebranding dinosaurs, aquatic and flying reptiles aren’t dinosaurs, Taphonomy, who hasn’t fused their vertebra during a mating ritual, coprolite, this poop is going to inspire the shit out of someone, being okay with not using absolutes on tiktok, the new jurassic parks are trash.

Sources:

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Aristotle's Age of the Earth

Kevlin's Age of the Earth

Clair Patterson And The Age Of The Earth

How to Calculate the Age of the Earth

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Evelyn's TikTok Recommendations

Ariel

Myria Perez

Holly Simon

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Test Ep 2: Bugs on Drugs, How Much Pi do we Need, and the Blackest Black Jul 28, 2022

Show notes

What happens when you gives bugs drugs? How many digits of pi do we actually need? And what is the drama behind the blackest black?

Images we talk about:

- Spider Webs on Various Drugs

- Graph of Pi Approximations Across History

- The Redemption of Vanity, MIT's Blackest Black

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Join our Discord!

We also learn about: how do you give a bee cocaine? cocaine is a natural insecticide, the waggle dance, actually im not going to dance it’s embaressing, “I want to be a bee so badly”, bees get withdrawl, some caterpillars are insensitive to cocaine, weaponizing caterpillars, giving spiders drugs because you’re lazy, charlotte’s web blood spider drug tests, caffeine isn’t really that bad for us, “morals will not stop humans from doing stupid things”, maybe giving elephants 3,000x LSD is bad science, cheap date flies, some animals want to get high, my favorite drug is math, what is pi? ancient pi estimates, 62.8 trillion digits of pi, how many digits of pi do nasa use? we could work at nasa as a package deal, by the 1400s we had enough pi to get us to space, and by the 1600s enough for the universe, selfish of pi to have so many numbers, why do we keep counting, tom gets an existential crisis, we all get an existential crisis, the bean, vantablack, how can you have a color?, the pinkest pink, paying someone to flip them off, the new blackest black, 99.995% light absorption, the power of productive spite, um thaaanks.

Sources:

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Bees on Cocaine

Caterpillar Cocaine

Weaponizing Caterpillars

The Spider Web Drug Study

Giving an Elephant Too Much LSD

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How Much PI Nasa Uses

Approximations of Pi over Time

How Much PI Nasa Uses

Record Number of Pi Digits

NPR on Record Pi Count

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Vantablack's Copyright Controversy

The Pinkest Pink

Anish Kapoor's Middle Finger

The NEW Blackest Black from MIT

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20: The Math of Conspiracy Theories, Why is Pluto not a Planet, and Animal Art Jul 14, 2022

Show notes

If all these conspiracy theories were real, what are the statistical odds they'd be kept secret? Why did Pluto get demoted from planethood? And can animals make art?

Images we talk about:

- Pierre’s Brassau’s Art

- Erased Dekooning Drawing

- Sean Thomas’ “Case Study”

- Monkey Selfie

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We also learn about: planes fly over Ella’s house? coincidence??, the conspiracy leak formula, gish gallop, the Tom & Caroline Show conspiracy, moon landing photos, the real conspiracy of climate change is with Exxon and Shell, pluto didn’t change - the definition of a planet changed, pluto is half the width of the US, what is a planet???, planets need a cleared orbit, the IAU assembly, it’s neptune’s fault! Ella quietly having an existential crisis, Mike Brown - the man who killed Pluto, why aren’t we talking about Eris?, what if we had 12 planets?, Ceres was also demoted like Pluto 200 years ago, the 8 planets are what aliens would want to visit, the kuiper belt isn’t packed with objects like you might imagine, Mike Brown’s humbleness of giving up Eris’ planethood, dwarf planet pokerap, what is animal art? what is art? Ella and Caroline write this topic apparently, Pierre Brassau, Erased DeKooning Drawing, enrichment, Naruto vs. Slater vs. Wikipedia, Lynda Barry and Howard Ikemoto on children’s art, everything is art!

Sources:

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On the Viability of conspiratorial beliefs

Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures

The PRISM Conspiracy

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study

The FBI Foresnic Scandal

Study on Disbelief of Moon Landing Photos

Climate Change

Shell and Exxon Climate Change Conspiracy

HBomberGuy's Vaccine Video

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Library of Congress: Why is Pluto No Longer a Planet?

BBC: Why is Pluto No Longer a Planet?

Washington Post: Ever wondered why Pluto is no longer a planet?-

NASA: Pluto Overview

IAU 2006 General Assembly

Mike Brown, Pluto Killer

Metzger’s Thoughts on Pluto and what makes a Planet

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Pierre Brassau's Art

Jackson Pollock

Erased de Kooning Drawing

Animal Enrichment

Do Elephants Enjoy Painting?

Ars Technica on the Monkey Selfie

NYT On Monkey Selfie

US Copyright Office Compendium of Practices

Lynda Barry's Making Comics

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19: The Science of Gay, How Many Songs Fit in DNA, and Niche Sports Jun 30, 2022

Show notes

What is the nuanced science behind homosexuality in animals and humans? Is there a single gay gene? No. No absolutely not. But how many songs could you fit into a gram of DNA, and why would you want to? And what are some of the most niche sports and why are they still so great?

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We also learn about: Tom is an ally, 1500 observed gay animals from shrimps to apes, the adelie penguin story hidden for 100 years, dynamic region translation, dolphins are messed up, it’d be weird NOT to talk about gay animals, how is gay behavior evolutionarily beneficial? nuanced questions and bad actors, the myth of the gay gene, genes are complicated and so is being gay, the rage inducing paper that inspired this topic, Caroline’s brain is loading big numbers, what would you put write into dna?, making 70 billion copies of your own book, what’s a floppy drive?, the first iPod, the cost of DNA storage, the double but, different types of memory, storing data for longer than ipods will be remembered, we’re not allowed to take the piss out of these sports, roller derby, is throwing a goat any weirder than a sheep’s bladder or pig skin?, reaching your peak in your 40s, the sport popes have played, tickles that jiggly knowledge thing in my skull.

Sources:

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Homosexual Behaviour in Animals: An Evolutionary Perspective

An Alternative Hypothesis For the Evolution of Same-Sex Sexual Behaviour in Animals

A Genetic Study of Male Sexual Orientation

The Gay Gene?

The Proof Against the Gay Gene

Genetics of Sexual Behavior

The Bad Article that Inspired this Topic

Pink News Analysis of The Bad Article that Inspired this Topic

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DNA Data Review

The First DNA Data, Microvenus

The First Book in DNA

Additional Review of DNA Data

200MB of DNA Storage with OK GO

The OK GO Music Video Stored in DNA

NYTimes on the First iPod

Testing the Stability of DNA Data

DNA Data Storage for 2 Million Years

The Time it Takes to Write DNA Data

Computerphile Explaining Reed-Solomon Compression

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Calcio Fiorentino/Storico

Calcio Fiorentino Nat Geo Interview

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18: Radiocarbon Revolution, Space Babies, and Nail Polish Jun 16, 2022

Show notes

You've probably heard of Carbon Dating, but how are Astronomy, Biology, and Nuclear Physics involved? What are the problems with having babies in space, and how many animals have had babies in space? (surprisingly more than you'd think!) And what is the history of nail polish, and more importantly, our relationship with painting nails?

Videos we talk about:

- Mice in Space

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We also learn about: counting the rings in a carbon atom, Dendrochronology, Space & Life & Radioactivity, unstable tennis balls, a surprise callback to last episode, shoutout to baltimore! oh shit we can carbon date anything!! Ella is good at guessing, a rewrite of history??? OES, the real carbon dating was friendship, definitely points, what do you name a space baby? the ISS is not a safe form of contraception, sea urchin space sex, freeze dried mouse sperm resembling instant coffee, space sushi, space babies look cuter, jellyfish that don’t know the right way up, but snails do! how humans might evolve in space, Disney’s Moon Mouse Colony, what the moon teaches about Earth, Polish vs Varnish, our favorite color, fashion always goes in cycles, mummified pharaohs with nail polish, Van Gogh wasn’t color blind, he just had cheap paints, Mary Cobb was a girl boss if you will, car paint gave us nail polish, wear nail polish if you want to!

Sources:

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History of Radiocarbon Dating

Radiocarbon Revolution

Janet Ambers on Chronological Methods

Dendrochronology

Fritz Schweingruber on Dendrochronology

Cosmic Rays and Carbon Dating

Libby's Nobel Address

Libby Carbon Dates Everything

Carbon Dating going 75,00 years Back

Overly Dramatic Carbon Dating Error Article

OES (Ostritrch Egg Shell)

Carbon Dating gets Updated

IntCal20 Calibration Curve

Emilie Jager on Geochronology

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Fertilization in Microgravity

Sea Urchin Space Sperm

Freeze Dried Mouse Sperm

Sperm Count in Space Rats

Mouse Space Baby Development

Jellyfish in Space

Snails in Space

Dizzy Space Rats

Space and Bone Density

Space Adaptations

Russian Space Cockroach

Mice Adapting to Microgravity

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The History of Nail Polish

Cleopatra and Nailpolish

Nail Polish History

How Stuff Works Nail Polish

Hagley History of Nailpolish

History of Cosmetics

Nail Polish Trends

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17: Cosmic Rays, Eye Colors, and the Most Disliked Instrument Jun 02, 2022

Show notes

What exactly are cosmic rays and how do they affect us? Why do humans have so many different eye colors? And why does everyone hate the triangle so much?

Images we talk about:

- The Sistrum

- The Angel Battle of the Bands

- The Triangle in the Painting

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We also learn about: pions and tiny particles with delightful names, see the rave of space, OMG particle or the What What What particle, galactic cosmic rays, anomalous cosmic rays, shower of particles, lighting a lightbulb in space, highschool physics, auroral lights, lightning scientists, speedrunning glitches, DOTA_Teabag's single event upset, airplane failure, voter fraud, red eyes, albinism, squirrels with big ol’ baby blues, America vs the rest of the world, purple eyes, epithelium, collagen, melanin, the tingle effect, ella’s piercing blue eyes, Tom’s calming brown eyes, turn your eyes blue by drinking ocean water, climate, eye colour is a new adaptation, get that paternity test guys, everyone hates the triangle, triangle historian debate, angel music battle, Garden of Earthly Delights Where’s Waldo? the triangle belongs in hell, mmm this triangle sure sounds good, the sneaky triangle concerto, you can fill violin with 1,000 baked beans! Braham’s triangle drop, creole and brazilian folk triangle music I’m not like other girls I like the triangle, find the triangles in the world.

Sources:

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Cern on Cosmic Rays

Make your own Cosmic Ray Detector

The OMG Particle

Clive Saunders' Cosmic Ray Lightning Theory

DOTA_Teabag's Super Mario Speed Run

Flight Report for Cosmic Ray Incident

Cosmic Ray Election Error

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American Association of Opthamology on Eye Colors

Percentages of Eye Colors