Zero Percent Scared

Latest Episodes:

16: You can curse anything, especially dolls Jun 03, 2019

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This is more of a medium-sode but whatever, right? There are a lot of cursed things out there, people.

Dolls are creepy AF. Apparently so are giant diamonds. Kelly will take all the cursed diamonds off your hands (but none of your haunted dolls! Send those to Sarah).

References:

The Busby Chair: Sit in the chair and DIE!

The cursed Hope diamond

The cursed Dehli purple sapphire

Valentino's cursed ring

The curse of the Ice Man!

Annabelle (the scariest raggedy ann doll in the world)

Robert the (creepy horrible) Doll

Greg and Dana Newkirk (curators of the traveling museum of the occult, also week in weird)

Crone of the Catskills (this is truly frightening)

Billy the Idol of Nightmares

15 - The Curse of Bathsheba Ruggles May 27, 2019

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Has Kelly been cursed by her murderous ancestor, Bathsheba? And if so did her over the top witch ceremony lift the curse for her and all the Ruggles women? For once we both agree - definitely real! Also, we spill the tea on epigenetics!

References:

Bathsheba Ruggles Spooner!

Noah the creepy drunken grandpa

Nepalese royal family curse - seriously WTF!!

The Kennedy Family Curse

Lore (the TV version) lobotomy episode (Season 1, Episode 2), "Echos"

Bruce Lee's Curse

Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance: Bowers and Yehuda 2016 review: Intergenerational Transmission of Stress in humans

Horstheemke 2018 A critical view on transgenerational inheritance in humans

Luck of the Irish...and that one Croatian dude (ep 14, Minisode 6) May 20, 2019

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Do you think you're a lucky person? Apparently, we both think we are! Sarah is clearly lucky because of her commitment to superstitions and lucky charms and Kelly's luck is I guess is just because she's Irish?

Stuff we discuss:

Irish people and luck: Apparently it comes from the fact that many of the most successful minors during the gold and silver rush were Irish and Irish American. Also apparently the phrase is meant to ridicule Irish folks since it had to be luck and not smarts. Screw you 19th-century racists!

Bill Morgan and his crazy luck rollercoaster.

Luck lab and the lottery

Roy Sullivan Human Lightning Rod (so weird and also sad).

Frane Selak, is he lucky, unlucky, we can't figure it out?!?

Superstition Science! Damisch et al. 2010

Hot hand fallacy: Xu and Harvey 2014

The Luck Factor: The Scientific Study of the Lucky Mind (Richard Wiseman)

Why are these people lucky?

It's A SIMULATION! Well at least this one is. Luck simulation science!

13 - Riot Girls at Sea May 13, 2019

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GUYS. This is SO exciting. Mermen, mermaids, dugongs, manatees. This is the topic that started it all people.

Join us today as we discuss Sarah's real life Merman sighting, plus all the evidence for or against aquatic humanoids!!!

Email us: stories@zeropercentscared.com

Little St. Simons Island

Merpeople folklore

Mermaids & Mermen: Facts & Legends by Benjamin Radford

Are Mermaid's Real? By Joseph Castro

Myths in the Museum: The Dugong and the Mermaid

Marine Mammals

FAKE DOCUMENTARY: Mermaids: The Body Found

Guinness world record for breath holding by Tom Sietas

Underwater Sight: Gislen et al., Superior Underwater Vision in a Human Population of Sea Gypsies

Dolphin Sex

Professional mermaids

Watch Bray Road Beast with us (ep 12, Minisode 5) May 06, 2019

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This experimental minisode has us live watching the documentary "The Bray Road Beast". We have a cute dog in attendance and wine on hand, so listen up then go get the dang thing and watch!

We'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode (like it, hate it, love it, never do it again?) so email us: stories@zeropercentscared.com

Link to the documentary:

https://smile.amazon.com/Bray-Road-Beast-Lyle-Blackburn/dp/B07H9C6BHL

Lyle Blackburn, kind of a big deal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyle_Blackburn

Linda Godfrey links: Her blog And her Amazon page

What do Americans believe about Satan? https://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/10/us/is-satan-real-most-people-think-not.html

11 - Real Life Incredibles Apr 29, 2019

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Email us, stories@zeropercentscared.com

This week, we try and recover from the bummer of satanic panic with superpowers! Super smellers, folks who are strong AF, bones that never break, perfect memories and mega-athletes to name a few. We also talk about a whole mess of genetics, get excited people.

Stuff we talked about:

Melissa McCracken: Songs as Paintings
Strongman Louis Cyr, real life superman
Liam Hoekstra and Myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy
Daniel Kish, Bat Man!
Wallmeier and Weigrebe "Self-motion facilitates echo-acoustic orientation in humans" 2014
Joy Milne, Woman who can smell Parkinson's Disease
Gene Editing on Last Week Tonight
Radio Lab, Limits
Radio Lab, CRISPR
The Myth of Genetic Superbabies
Josiah Zayner - biohacker and CRISPR experimenter
Kim Peek, the Human Microfiche!
Veronica Seider, Eagle Eyes!

The Total Absurdity of the Satanic Panic (ep 10, Minisode 4) Apr 21, 2019

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This episode was sort of a bummer, sorry folks.

Major take homes: the Satanic Panic was bonkers, go nuts with the heavy metal and DnD, and our memories, for the most part, suck.

On this minisode, we talk about the 80s Satanic Panic and how insane and unjust it was. Also, some deeply cool science about memory and the risks of listening to smooth jazz.

Stuff we discussed:

Vox article on the Satanic Panic

Heartbreaking Texas Monthly article on Dan and Fran Keller

The Satanic Temple (a political advocacy group)

Totally ridiculous videos of backmasking

Enstrom and Schmaltz "A walk on the Wild Side: The Impact of Music on Risk-Taking Likelihood"

Baker and Brown "Suicide, self harm and survival strategies in contemporary heavy metal music: a cultural and literary analysis" 2016

The Devil Wears Headphones: A Brief History of Baskmasking by Bill Demain

A Short History of the Rise, Fall and Rise of Subliminal Messaging by Victoria Stern

False Memory of Dr. Elizabeth Loftus and Human Memory by Lindsay Dogson

9 - Love Spells are a Hard No Apr 15, 2019

Show notes

Sorry for the technical difficulty, our episode was screwed up, but it's all fixed now -- redownload it if you need to!

Email us, stories@zeropercentscared.com

Everyone wanted to be a witch in middle school, am I right? Also, who wants to help design a science experiment to measure the global consciousness effects on reality? Come on! You know you want to.

This episode Sarah and Kelly discuss magical spells and whether they have any effect on reality. Sarah uses science words to prove MAYBE!

4:57 -- it's called a paper fortune teller, chatterbox or cootie catcher (what!?). Here's how to make em!

Witches binding Trump: https://www.vox.com/2017/6/20/15830312/magicresistance-restance-witches-magic-spell-to-bind-donald-trump-mememagic

Real Magic by Dr. Dean Radin: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/551604/real-magic-by-dean-radin-phd/9781524758820/

Drowning with Gillyweed: https://journals.le.ac.uk/ojs1/index.php/jist/article/view/809

Magic of Skelegrow: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/27/scientists-test-reality-of-harry-potter-magic-university-leicester-gillyweed-skele-gro

The Global Consciousness Project: http://noosphere.princeton.edu/

Shutulman and Morgan. 2017 The explanatory structure of unexplainable events: Causal constraints on magical reasoning https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28176291

Police arresting a big goat!

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/goat-escapes-brooklyn-mali-goat-herder-helps-capture-article-1.1258184

8 - Don't Buy Haunted Houses, Nic! (Minisode 3) Apr 08, 2019

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New episodes every sunday!

Email us, stories@zeropercentscared.com

What do Nicolas Cage and serial killer Delphine LaLaurie have in common? A shared (haunted) residence in New Orleans, of course!

On Today's minisode, hear a recap of Sarah's spooky trip, the best of New Orleans paranormal and quality Nic Cage trivia.

Stuff we discussed:

Nic Cage terrorized by a fudgesicle

Nic Cage's weird Letterman interview (please don't dose pets, people, for the love)

Great tours in New Orleans! Highly recommended!