One-Armed Bandits: The Science of Slot Machines
You may call it a slot machine, a fruit machine or a one-armed bandit, but the reality is the same: an algorithmically precise machine designed to drain the human gambler of all his or her earnings. W...
7 Maalis 20171h 1min
Mandala: Memory Palace and Simulated Worlds
The mandalas of Tibetan Buddhism entice us as artistic expressions, meta symbols and conscience expressions of a complex spiritual cosmology. In this episode of the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast, Ro...
2 Maalis 201748min
Books of Flesh: Anthropodermic Bibliopegy
The libraries of horror fiction typically offer many a dark tome bound in human flesh, but do books like the ‘Necronomicon Ex-Mortis’ of ‘Evil Dead’ really exist? They do, and the true story of skin-c...
28 Helmi 201757min
The Secret Intellect of Animals, Part 2
In the second of two episodes, Christian and Joe continue their discussion of animal cognition, including animal morality, tool use, mental time travel, culture, and other strange clues to the intelle...
23 Helmi 20171h 16min
The Secret Intellect of Animals, Part 1
In the 18th century, David Hume wrote that “no truth appears to me more evident than that beasts are endow’d with thought and reason as well as men.” Yet animal cognition has remained a controversial ...
21 Helmi 20171h 5min
The Holy Black Stone of Mecca
The Kaaba marks the geographic center of the Islamic world, and here one finds Al-Hadjar Al-Aswad, the Holy Black Stone of Mecca. Islamic traditions hold that the once white white stone blackened with...
16 Helmi 20171h 14min
The Mystery of Crab Boxing
Boxer crabs stand out amid their crustacean brethren due to their amazing tool use -- a mutualistic relationship between these tiny crabs and the living sea anemones they employ as weapons. In this ep...
14 Helmi 201735min
Jump Into The Void
Ever wrestle with the illogical quasi-compulsion to throw yourself off a cliff or building? Don’t worry! You’re probably not suicidal, but merely touched by the 'call of the void' or 'high place pheno...
9 Helmi 201743min
