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You’ll Die Smarter — Education
You’ll Die Smarter

If you ever wanted to know why you should drink before telling a lie, why Disney characters wear white gloves, or what is the ideal vacation length, then look no further.

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Copyright: © Choses à Savoir

Latest Episodes:

Why do we sometimes take pleasure in the misfortune of others? Feb 25, 2021

Show notes

This strange feeling, this "sick joy" that we may feel when seeing the misfortune of others, has a name: Schadenfreude. This German word literally means "joy of harm". Having been adopted into the English language, it means "to rejoice in the misfortune of others". At first glance, this feeling may appear dangerously close to sadism. Thankfully, we are not all secret psychopaths, as Schadenfreude has a key difference: it’s purely passive.

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Why should you eat using large forks? Feb 24, 2021

Show notes

Perhaps should is a strong word. Of course, you can do whatever you want when it comes to eating. Chopsticks, small forks, your hands, whatever. But, if you want to lose weight, the size of your fork just might matter. At least, that's the conclusion reached by researchers at the University of Utah. Not unlike many of the questions we answer on You’ll Die Smarter, human psychology is behind this phenomenon.

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Why isn't the British police armed? Feb 23, 2021

Show notes

To begin, the title of our podcast is a generalization many of us are familiar with. Some British police officers actually do carry weapons beyond the traditional police baton. So exactly what is the situation? Let’s start with some numbers. In the UK, less than 5% of the police are armed. And these weapons are rarely used. For example, in 2017, out of 15,000 armed police operations, shots were fired only 7 times.

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Why are there upper and lower case letters? Feb 22, 2021

Show notes

To put it briefly, it saved money. But I think that answer is a little short for us. Let’s look a little deeper into the nitty gritty of why that is. To begin with, you should know that writing dates back to approximately 3300 years BC. This is the period from which the first traces of writing have been found in the temples of the cities of Uruk, now in present-day Iraq. At that time, the Sumerians wrote on clay tablets. But this writing was composed of pictograms or symbols representing a word or concept, not like the alphabetic writing we use today.

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Why are cats afraid of cucumbers? Feb 21, 2021

Show notes

If you have a cat you may have seen this strange but hilarious reaction. House cats seem to have an irrational fear of the ever-threatening cucumber. When this common vegetable is placed next to a cat or they discover it by happenstance, they’ll often leap in the air in startlement.

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Why was the movie Titanic banned? Feb 18, 2021

Show notes

The RMS Titanic, known as the unsinkable ship, struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912 and sank, causing the deaths of over 1,500 passengers. You are probably familiar with James Cameron’s famous 1997 film depicting this event. But this was not at all the first film devoted to this tragedy!

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What is "Venetian blonde"? Feb 17, 2021

Show notes

You may recognize this hair color from popular media. Sitting between the realms of golden blonde and coppery red, this hair color is also referred to as “strawberry blonde.” But why do some people call it Venetian? How does it relate to city of lovers? Could it be a reference to the color of a Palace at La Serenissima? Or is Venetian a reference to the famous boats that sail the Grand Canal?

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Why do some people have a fear of clowns? Feb 16, 2021

Show notes

The fear of clowns has a name: coulrophobia. While we don’t know the exact origins of the prefix “coulro”, there are some suggestions that it comes from an Ancient Greek word meaning “acrobat on stilts.” But this doesn’t explain the fear, does it?

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Where do the 7 deadly sins come from? Feb 15, 2021

Show notes

Let's start by getting the elephant out of the room: the Bible has nothing to do with this list. The fact that the 7 deadly sins come from Bible is a misconception. The 7 deadly sins, also known as the 7 capital sins, came into existence far after the books of the Bible were written. The most modern portions of the Bible date around 165 BC, but the deadly sin are more recent, finding their beginnings in the 4th century. The first deadly sins were established by Evagra the Pontic, a monk and ascetic theologian living as a hermit in Egypt...

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Why are songs getting shorter and shorter? Feb 14, 2021

Show notes

If you look at the duration of the top 10 best-selling titles in the United States, you'll see that their average duration is 3.5 minutes. It may not sound like much, but in reality, it averages 20 seconds less than songs released merely 5 years ago. And if we go back further to the 1970s it was not uncommon for 7- or 8-minute tracks to come out. For example, Led Zeppelin’s 1971 "Stairway to Heaven" comes out at 8 minutes and 2 seconds. So what happened?

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