Podcast Transcript February is the shortest month of the year. It is the flex month, where we stick extra days to make the calendar work. Depending on what hemisphere you are in, it can be a month of warmth and sunshine or a month of short days and cold weather. But it is also a …
Podcast Transcript Organized crime wasn’t always so organized. In the early 20th century, in New York, what we would call the mafia was rather unorganized. There were competing groups, and while the individual groups had an organization, there was anarchy among them. From 1929 to 1931 there was a war between some of the crime …
Podcast Transcript One of the most popular categories of beverage in the world today is soft drinks. Soft drinks can be found almost everywhere in every country, from corner stores to restaurants to vending machines. Unlike other popular beverages, soft drinks are a rather recent invention, despite there being early antecedents to soft drinks that …
Podcast Transcript On November 4, 1979, a group of Iranian Revolutionaries stormed the American Embassy in Tehran, Iran, and took 66 American diplomats and citizens hostage. Over the next 444 days, the hostage crisis dominated the news and became the single biggest foreign policy issue for both the United States and Iran. Even after the …
Podcast Transcript Since its creation, the Central Intelligence Agency has been tasked with gathering intelligence on foreign adversarial governments. Exactly how they were to go about doing this was not exactly spelled out in advance. This gave them an enormous amount of leeway and creativity in how to go about their mission. Some of their …
Podcast Transcript Airplanes are wonderful things. They fly through the air and move people and goods at rapid speeds around the world. However, they have some downsides. In order to take off and land, an airplane requires an enormous amount of land for runways. So, for over a century, aeronautical engineers have been trying to …
Podcast Transcript Malaria is one of the oldest known infectious diseases, with a history spanning thousands of years. It has shaped human civilization, influenced wars, and driven scientific advancements in medicine and public health. However, humanity has been making strides against this ancient disease over the last 250 years. We have learned what causes it …
Podcast Transcript Every twelve years, one of the greatest gatherings of people on Earth takes place in India. As many as a hundred million people will converge on the banks of sacred rivers to engage in one of the most important rites in the Hindu Religion. But what are the reasons so many people undertake …
Podcast Transcript One of the biggest controversies in the world of sports over the last several decades has been the use of performance-enhancing drugs and substances, or PEDs. It seems as if there hasn’t been a single sport that hasn’t been touched in some way by the use of PEDs. But what exactly are PEDs, …