Correlation vs Causation
You have probably heard the old saying that there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. There are several reasons why statistics are often misinterpreted. One of the biggest is the confusion between...
23 Touko 202212min
The Thirty Mile Zone (Encore)
Hollywood is known the world over for being the center of the motion picture industry. But did you ever wonder why the movie business is centered there or why it hasn’t moved somewhere else? Well, ...
22 Touko 20228min
Was the Holy Roman Empire, Holy, Roman, or an Empire?
In the 18th century, the French writer and philosopher Voltaire said, "This body which was called, and which still calls itself, the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire." ...
21 Touko 202212min
The History of Rice
For thousands of years, rice has been one of the most important agricultural crops in the world. It has fed billions of people, has been crossbred into tens of thousands of variants, and is now grow...
20 Touko 202211min
Trofim Lysenko and Lysenkoism
In the early 20th century, a Soviet agronomist named Trofim Lysenko developed some unique theories of biology and genetics. He rose to the top of the Soviet hierarchy in his field, and Stalin himsel...
19 Touko 202212min
The Petrodollar System
On August 15, 1971, US President Richard Nixon ended the gold convertibility of the US Dollar and simultaneously ended the Bretton Woods System, which had governed international monetary policy since ...
18 Touko 202211min
How Worried Should We Be About Asteroids?
About 66 million years ago, a massive asteroid collided with the Earth near the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. This impact ended the era of the dinosaurs and resulted in one of the greatest species exti...
17 Touko 202213min
Saint Peter's Basilica
In the early 4th century, the Roman Emperor Constantine ordered the construction of a church on the burial site of Saint Peter. It was the greatest church in Christianity. Centuries later, that build...
16 Touko 202213min
