The London Beer Flood
Early 19th century London was a dangerous, dirty, dingy place with tons of poverty and a lot of drinking. Alcoholism was common and excessive drinking, especially amongst lower-income people in London...
23 Feb 20217min
Base Units of Measurement
Every day we are constantly using measurements. We have ways of measuring distance, temperature, time, light, pressure, energy….everything. Yet, why do we measure everything the way we do? Why is a se...
22 Feb 202111min
Mitochondrial Eve
On January 1, 1987, a paper was published in the journal Nature which rocked the world of anthropology. Researchers Allan Wilson, Mark Stoneking, and Rebecca Cann used the then-new science of genetic ...
21 Feb 202110min
The Elevator
Some of the things we use every day were invented in the distant past. Other things were invented quite recently. However, there is a category of inventions that have been known forever, but no one ev...
20 Feb 202110min
Space Junk
In 1957, Sputnik was launched into orbit as the world’s first artificial satellite. Today, 64 years later, there are more than 1,000,000 objects larger than 1 centimeter floating around the Earth. Alm...
19 Feb 202110min
Who Was the Richest Person in History? (Encore)
Jeff Bezos, the founder, and CEO of Amazon was recently named the richest person in the world. This is primarily a function of the stock he owns in the company and the company’s valuation in the stock...
18 Feb 202112min
Why are French Fries called French Fries? (Encore)
Everyone loves french fries. It is one of the few things which most people can agree on in the world today. The average American consumes over 16 pounds of them every year, and they have become a stap...
17 Feb 20219min
Why Doesn't the US Use the Metric System? (Encore)
Of the 193 countries in the United Nations, exactly three haven’t adopted the widespread use of the metric system: Myanmar, Liberia, and the United States of America. Of those three, the US is the cou...
16 Feb 202112min
