Podcast Transcript The largest single killer of human beings throughout history has been disease. With the advent of modern medicine and the understanding of how bacteria, viruses, and parasites work, we’ve made enormous strides in reducing incidents of disease. In a few cases, we have completely or almost completely eradicated diseases from the Earth. Learn …
Podcast Transcript There is one substance that makes up 98% of the observable matter in the universe, yet you will almost never encounter it in its native form. It is inside your body right now and life wouldn’t be possible without it, yet it is an extremely dangerous substance that could kill you if handled …
Podcast Transcript Classical music aficionados are not usually associated with rowdiness and mayhem. They tend to be rather well-behaved and if anything, they might express their disapproval by simplifying not clapping loudly enough. However, there was one major exception to this. On a single night in Paris about 110 years ago, a crowd erupted into …
Podcast Transcript Located 1,500 miles south of the nation of Cote d’Ivoire and about 2,500 miles east of Rio de Janeiro, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, lies one of the most remote human settlements on Earth: The island of St Helena. Given its remote location, St. Helena has had a history unlike most …
Podcast Transcript Almost every single person listening to this podcast right now is doing so on some sort of personal computing device. Many of the things that we consider part of a modern personal computer, windows, hyperlinks, a mouse, and a text editor, all were released upon the world in a single 90-minute demo in …
Podcast Transcript On January 23, 1968, the USS Pueblo, a US Navy intelligence-gathering ship was on a routine surveillance mission in international waters off of the coast of North Korea. While on surveillance duty, it was intercepted by North Korean patrol boats. Shots were fired, the crew was captured, and it set off one of …
Podcast Transcript 2,046 years ago one of the most notorious political assassinations in world history took place. Julius Caesar, the dictator for life of the Roman Republic, was killed by a group of Senators just before a session of the senate was to start. The murder famously took place on the Ides of March. Learn …
Podcast Transcript Every year on March 14, the world celebrates one of the most important mathematical constants: pi. It is a number which appears all over nature, even in places you wouldn’t expect it. It is also a number that has been known, or at least had been approximated, by civilizations for thousands of years. …
Podcast Transcript Scientists love to classify things. Archeologists are no exception. One of the very first classifications systems that were developed, classified ancient history into three broad eras. This system was crude and it isn’t really used among professionals anymore, but its simplicity has ensured that it still survives in casual use. Learn more about …