What could the Assyrian Empire, the largest and most brutal of its day, possibly have to do with contemporary politics? 

What do you do when your world dies around you? This was the question millions faced when a Pandora's box of troubles brought down the Mediterranean World at the end of the Bronze age. Join Lance, William and L.B. as they strive to crack one of the great mysteries of the human story.

University of Texas philosophy professor Devin Stauffer joins the show to discuss one of history's most consequential wars–a war that pitted Sparta against Athens and triggered the decline of Ancient Greece.

A new civilization rises in the East, bringing sophisticated organization, profound philosophy, and bodies buried in city walls. 

The Indus Valley Civilization and the Minoan Civilization were both highly advanced, highly influential nations of the ancient world, yet our knowledge of them is obscured by our inability to decipher their writing systems (Indus Valley Script and Linear A). Hear Lance Fever Myers, William Gold, and L.B. Deyo struggle to draw deep knowledge from limited archaeological evidence. They will fail and so, dear listener will you!

The splendor of life, death and rebirth in the Old Kingdom of unified Egypt. Life on the banks of the Nile and in the shadow of the pyramids, amid the wealth and power of the early dynasties. Imhotep, the first great genius of history, who started as a common man but became a vizier, a god, and then a monster. 

Cities. Writing. The wheel. The plow. Literature and epic poetry. Irrigation systems. The sailboat. Beer. The concept of time. These are all inventions of the first great civilization, Mesopotamia, and all of them were to be found in the first city of history, Uruk. Join Lance, L.B. and producer William Gold for a discussion of how the story of history began. 

Was the prehistoric human a rough beast crouching in the forest primeval, capable only of subsistence and superstition? Or were early homo sapiens brave, adventurous, and rich in culture? What distinguishes the human species? 

The primordial Earth. The age of planetesimal bombardment. The origins and nature of life. Cosmic rays and plate tectonics, watery asteroids and organic chemicals. The Fermi Paradox, the Drake Equation, and the mystery of our apparently unique existence as living things in the universe. Join L.B. and Lance as they grapple with the seemingly incomprehensible.

In the second episode, Lance and L.B. follow a single quark through its 9 billion year journey into the expanding universe.