The Dunbar Number
There is a number, a very special number, which is inside all of us. It is inside you, inside me, and inside every person on Earth. It dictates our social interactions. It has determined the size of c...
14 Jan 20218min
D.B. Cooper
On November 24, 1971, a man who identified himself as Dan Cooper purchased a $20 ticket for a short 30-minute flight from Portland to Seattle. He had with him a briefcase filled with dynamite and want...
13 Jan 202111min
Surströmming: The World's Smelliest Food
There are many foods that are considered an acquired taste. Foods that might not be very palatable the first time you try it, or something that just doesn’t sit right with most people. It could be som...
12 Jan 20218min
Hispania
Before Spain became Spain, it was part of the Roman province of Hispania. To understand the language, and geography of not just Spain but of the entire Iberian Peninsula, you have to understand Hispan...
11 Jan 20218min
The Nuclear Football
Odds are, if you have ever seen a photo of the president of the United States over the last 60 years, there has been someone in the background or walking a few steps behind, who had in their hand a le...
10 Jan 20219min
The McRib
The musical Brigadoon is about a Scottish village which appears for one day every 100 years. The village can be thought of as a metaphor for things that are fleeting, or why we must take advantage of ...
9 Jan 20218min
The Erfurt Latrine Disaster
In the year 1184 in the Dutchy of Thuringia, in what is today the country of Germany, a conflict raged between the Count of Thuringia and the Archbishop of Mainz. To resolve this dispute, the German K...
8 Jan 20217min
The Golden Record
In the 1970s NASA embarked on a mission it had never attempted before. Due to a fortunate alignment of planets, they were going to attempt to send robotic probes on a flyby mission to Jupiter, Saturn,...
7 Jan 202110min
