Flatulence is one of the body's most universal and least discussed functions. But behind every burst of gas lies a complex ecosystem of trillions of microbes working around the clock inside your digestive tract. In this episode, we explore why flatulence happens, why it smells, and how new "smart underwear" may help researchers better understand digestive issues like irritable bowel syndrome.

We'll unpack:

How and why the body converts food into flatulence. 

The surprising history of flatulence in art and entertainment. 

Why scientists study intestinal gas alongside other digestive signals.

What “smart underwear” is and how it works.

Guest: Brantley Hall, microbiologist at the University of Maryland and leader of the Human Flatus Atlas project.

Additional resources: https://join1440.com/t/gut-microbiome

About 1440: 1440 is a community for the knowledge-obsessed that helps curious people stay informed and inspired every day. We live in an age of limitless information but limited understanding. Algorithms decide what we see. Misinformation spreads faster than truth. And the tools meant to expand knowledge now distort it.

FIFA started as a handful of Europeans who wanted to play soccer across borders. It became one of the most powerful and corrupt organizations in sports history, controlled by 22 men voting behind closed doors.

For nearly two decades, one man sat at the center of it all: Sepp Blatter. He wasn't the richest official in the room. He didn't need to be. He had something better: the votes. And he knew exactly how to keep them.

So how does a Swiss bureaucrat become the most powerful man in the world's most popular sport?

This is a story about soccer, but also about power, money, and how global systems quietly get built ... and then break under their own weight.

Guest: Simon Kuper, journalist at the Financial Times and author of "World Cup Fever."

Join the knowledge collective: https://www.join1440.com

Check out 1440's video deep-dives: https://youtube.com/@1440explores https://youtube.com/@1440originals

More resources: https://join1440.com/t/the-american-presidency

Credits:

A production of Rhyme Media for 1440 Media

Host: Sony Kassam

Producer: Nicolo Majnoni

Editor: Dan Bobkoff

Fact Checker: Alice Jones

Sound Designer: Jay Cowit

Executive Producers (1440): Sony Kassam and Drew Steigerwald

Executive Producer (Rhyme): Dan Bobkoff

About 1440: 1440 is a community for the knowledge-obsessed that helps curious people stay informed and inspired every day. We live in an age of limitless information but limited understanding. Algorithms decide what we see. Misinformation spreads faster than truth. And the tools meant to expand knowledge now distort it.

Follow us:

https://www.instagram.com/1440daily

https://www.facebook.com/1440Daily/

https://www.tiktok.com/@1440daily

America's founders were so afraid of concentrated power that they spent three months designing Congress, but only three days on the presidency. They thought that was enough. It wasn't.

Today, one office controls 4 million federal employees, the world's most powerful military, and the ability to reshape the lives of every American ... all while the founders are, presumably, spinning in their graves.

So what happened? How does a job description that fits on half a page become the most powerful office on earth? And is there any way back?

Guest: HW Brands, historian and author of "American Patriarch: The Life of George Washington," professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist

Join the knowledge collective: https://www.join1440.com

Check out 1440's video deep-dives: https://youtube.com/@1440explores https://youtube.com/@1440originals

More resources: https://join1440.com/t/the-american-presidency

Credits:

A production of Rhyme Media for 1440 Media

Host: Sony Kassam

Producer: Nicolo Majnoni

Editor: Dan Bobkoff

Fact Checker: Alice Jones

Sound Designer: Jay Cowit

Executive Producers (1440): Sony Kassam and Drew Steigerwald

Executive Producer (Rhyme): Dan Bobkoff

About 1440: 1440 is a community for the knowledge-obsessed that helps curious people stay informed and inspired every day. We live in an age of limitless information but limited understanding. Algorithms decide what we see. Misinformation spreads faster than truth. And the tools meant to expand knowledge now distort it.

Follow us: https://www.instagram.com/1440daily https://www.facebook.com/1440Daily/ https://www.tiktok.com/@1440daily

Silicon Valley wasn’t supposed to happen.

A stretch of California orchard land somehow became the place that built the modern world: chips, PCs, the internet, the smartphone, and now AI. But the real story isn’t the garage myth. It’s a series of contradictions hiding in plain sight. So what actually built Silicon Valley, and what does that tell us about where it’s going next?

We'll unpack:

Guest: Margaret O’Mara, historian, professor at the University of Washington, and author of "The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America."

Join the knowledge collective:
https://www.join1440.com

Check out 1440's video deep-dives:
https://youtube.com/@1440explores
https://youtube.com/@1440originals

Credits:
A production of Rhyme Media for 1440 Media
Host: Sony Kassam
Producer: Nicolo Majnoni
Editor: Dan Bobkoff
Sound Designer: Jay Cowit
Executive Producers (1440): Sony Kassam and Drew Steigerwald
Executive Producer (Rhyme): Dan Bobkoff

About 1440: 1440 is a community for the knowledge-obsessed that helps curious people stay informed and inspired every day. We live in an age of limitless information but limited understanding. Algorithms decide what we see. Misinformation spreads faster than truth. And the tools meant to expand knowledge now distort it.

Follow us:
https://www.instagram.com/1440daily
https://www.facebook.com/1440Daily/
https://www.tiktok.com/@1440daily

It’s Tax Day in the US, and the system behind it isn’t as straightforward as it looks. You earn money. Taxes get taken out. Case closed … right? Not exactly. In this episode of "1440 Explores," we break down how the US tax system actually works, from confusing deductions and misunderstood tax brackets to why the wealthiest Americans often end up paying a very different tax than everyone else.

We'll unpack:

Guest:
Michael Linden, senior policy fellow at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth and former executive associate director at the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Join the knowledge collective:
https://www.join1440.com

Check out 1440's video deep-dives:
https://youtube.com/@1440explores
https://youtube.com/@1440originals

Credits:
A production of Rhyme Media for 1440 Media
Host: Sony Kassam
Producer: Nicolo Majnoni
Editor: Dan Bobkoff
Sound Designer: Jay Cowit
Executive Producers (1440): Sony Kassam and Drew Steigerwald
Executive Producer (Rhyme): Dan Bobkoff

About 1440: 1440 is a community for the knowledge-obsessed that helps curious people stay informed and inspired every day. We live in an age of limitless information but limited understanding. Algorithms decide what we see. Misinformation spreads faster than truth. And the tools meant to expand knowledge now distort it.

Follow us:
https://www.instagram.com/1440daily
https://www.facebook.com/1440Daily/
https://www.tiktok.com/@1440daily

Every day, we throw things away. But "away" isn't a place, it's a system. From curbside pickup to landfills, trash shapes cities, public health, and the environment in ways most of us never see. Host Sony Kassam sits down with anthropologist Robin Nagle, who spent years riding garbage trucks in New York City, to help trace the hidden life of what we throw out—and asks the question that's harder to answer than it sounds: if garbage tells the story of who we are, what does ours say?
Guest:
Robin Nagle, anthropologist, clinical professor at New York University, and author of Picking Up: On the Streets and Behind the Trucks with the Sanitation Workers of New York City
Join the knowledge collective:
https://www.join1440.com
Check out 1440's video deep-dives:
https://youtube.com/@1440explores
https://youtube.com/@1440originals
Credits:
A production of Rhyme Media for 1440 Media
Host: Sony Kassam
Producer: Nicolo Majnoni
Editor: Dan Bobkoff
Fact-Checker: Alice Jones
Sound Designer: Jay Cowit
Executive Producers (1440): Sony Kassam and Drew Steigerwald
Executive Producer (Rhyme): Dan Bobkoff
About 1440: 1440 is a community for the knowledge-obsessed that helps curious people stay informed and inspired every day. We live in an age of limitless information but limited understanding. Algorithms decide what we see. Misinformation spreads faster than truth. And the tools meant to expand knowledge now distort it.
Follow us:
https://www.instagram.com/1440daily
https://www.facebook.com/1440Daily/
https://www.tiktok.com/@1440daily

College tuition can hit $90,000 a year at private schools, but most students never pay that price. So why does college seem so expensive, and who actually foots the bill? Host Sony Kassam sits down with economist Dr. Sandy Baum to untangle the mystery. From the GI Bill to the Higher Education Act of 1965, we explore how college access expanded, costs rose, and financial aid became central to the system. 

Guest: Dr. Sandy Baum, economist and senior fellow at the Urban Institute

A court designed to be the least powerful branch became one of the most influential institutions in American life. 1440 Explores host Sony Kassam dives inside the Supreme Court of the United States, with help from Yale Law professor Akhil Reed Amar, to uncover how it gained extraordinary authority, what really happens behind closed doors, and why its power has become one of the most fiercely contested questions in modern democracy. 

Guest: Akhil Reed Amar, Yale Law professor and legal scholar

Learn more about the Supreme Court: https://join1440.com/t/supreme-court-of-the-united-states

Credits:

About 1440: 1440 is a community for the knowledge-obsessed that helps curious people stay informed and inspired on a daily basis. We live in an age of limitless information but limited understanding. Algorithms decide what we see. Misinformation spreads faster than truth. And the tools meant to expand knowledge now distort it.

Join the knowledge collective: https://www.join1440.com

Follow us: https://youtube.com/@1440explores

A planet that learned to burn. A century of fire suppression. A warming world primed to ignite. 1440 Explores host Sony Kassam sits down with fire historian Stephen Pyne to trace how humans turned fire from our greatest tool into our most dangerous threat—and what it would take to live with fire again.

Guest:

Stephen J. Pyne, fire historian and emeritus professor at the Center for Biology and Society at Arizona State University

Credits:

A production of Rhyme Media for 1440 Media

Host: Sony Kassam

Producer: Kim Nederveen Pieterse

Editor: Dan Bobkoff

Fact-Checker: Sanam Skelly

Sound Designer: Jay Cowit

Executive Producers (1440): Sony Kassam and Drew Steigerwald

Executive Producer (Rhyme): Dan Bobkoff

About 1440:

1440 is a community for the knowledge-obsessed that helps curious people stay informed and inspired on a daily basis. We live in an age of limitless information but limited understanding. Algorithms decide what we see. Misinformation spreads faster than truth. And the tools meant to expand knowledge now distort it.

Join the knowledge collective: https://www.join1440.com

Follow us:

https://youtube.com/@1440explores

https://www.instagram.com/1440daily

https://www.facebook.com/1440Daily/

https://www.tiktok.com/@1440daily

A battle with a telecom giant. A stunt call on a New York sidewalk. A forgotten memo that rewired the world. Host Sony Kassam sits down with Marty Cooper, the father of the cell phone, and Arlene Harris, the first lady of wireless, to explore the innovation, politics, and high-stakes battle that pried connectivity out of corporate control and built the always-on world we live in today.

Guests:

Marty Cooper, engineer, entrepreneur, and "father of the cell phone."

Arlene Harris, wireless entrepreneur, pioneer of prepaid cellular, and the "first lady of wireless.”

Credits: 1440 Explores is a production of Rhyme Media for 1440 Media. This episode was produced by Nicolo Majnoni and edited by Dan Bobkoff. Our fact-checker is Meher Qazilbash, and our sound designer is Jay Cowit. The executive producer at Rhyme is Dan Bobkoff, and the executive producers at 1440 are Sony Kassam and Drew Steigerwald.

Follow us for more curiosity-driven stories:

About 1440: 1440 is a community for the knowledge-obsessed, helping curious people stay informed and inspired daily. We live in an era of limitless information, yet limited understanding. Algorithms decide what we see. Misinformation spreads faster than the truth. The tools meant to expand knowledge often distort it. Enter 1440: a knowledge collective built on curiosity, connection, and care for the truth. Here, facts matter, thinking is valued, and people come together to understand the world. Curiosity isn’t just a trait—it’s a muscle. Exercised daily, it sharpens the mind, fuels discovery, and drives lifelong growth.

Join the movement: https://www.join1440.com

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