Brain Junk

We don’t know about y’all, but 2020 and 2021 have been a whole thing. Right?! So Trace and Amy are taking the month of December to recharge their love of facts and weirdness. We’ll be back on Jan 4, 2022 with new episodes! Until then, this episode has some fun facts about winter.

Also, here’s where you can find us until we’re back! Click on the buttons to visit our socials

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brainjunkpodcast.substack.com

Those of you with a thick beard, that hair does more than make you look suave or rugged. Turns out, a beard might be protecting your face. There’s even an Ig Nobel winning study to prove it.

Feeling super scientific? Read the study: Impact Protection Potential of Mammalian Hair: Testing the Pugilism Hypothesis for the Evolution of Human Facial Hair

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brainjunkpodcast.substack.com

Brain Junk
189: Disco Clams




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Forget raccoons digging into your trash cans, Australia has giant parrots snacking out of trash bins. Some family groups of Sulfur-crested cockatoos are teaching each other how to hack people’s trash.

“bin chickens” from CNN.com

See one of these wily birds in action!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brainjunkpodcast.substack.com

In an unexpected turn of events, two predators with very different hunting styles work cooperatively. During the summer months, badgers and coyotes will sometimes team up during the summer months to find and catch more food than they could by themselves.

image: US Fish and Wildlife Service

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brainjunkpodcast.substack.com

Imagine waking up from a nap to discover that you can compose music in your head. What a shock that would be! There are people who are born with savant type art or mathematics abilities, but there is also the amazing possibility that someone’s brain might suddenly unlock an out-of-the-blue talent. Scientist have theories as to what causes Sudden Savant Syndrome, but no one is exactly sure what is happening inside the brain of a person who can do something remarkable almost overnight.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brainjunkpodcast.substack.com

In September of 1896, the town of Crush was created for the sole purpose of crashing two steam trains together. Things did not go according to plan.

Image: Baylor Collections

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brainjunkpodcast.substack.com

It’s fall now, but we recorded this episode during the dog days of August. The sky wore a blanket of wildfire smoke and daytime lows were in the mid 90s. All that heat got Amy thinking about the reason why we call these hot days, dog days. We love a good phrase origin story.

Sirius, also called Alpha Canis Majoris or the Dog Star, brightest star in the night sky, with apparent visual magnitude −1.46. It is a binary star in the constellation Canis Major. The bright component of the binary is a blue-white star 25.4 times as luminous as the Sun.

Barking dogs at the end by: Girlwithsoundrecorder on FreeSound CC0

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brainjunkpodcast.substack.com

The last episode with wonky sound. We got all the bugs out. (get it…bugs. cause its an episode about bees. *nudges in dad joke*

Many cultures have long believed the humble honeybee was more than just a honey-making factory. It was thought those little bees might also be messengers to the Gods. The bee’s important position in society as providers of food and medicine made them more than mere livestock. It became tradition to tell them when important life events occurred.

US poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote Telling the Bees in 1858:

Went drearily singing the chore-girl small,

Draping each hive with a shred of black.

Trembling, I listened: the summer sun

   Had the chill of snow;

For I knew she was telling the bees of one

   Gone on the journey we all must go!

Painting: The Widow by Charles Napier Hemy 1895

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brainjunkpodcast.substack.com

We had four episodes where the sound quality was…odd (and this was one of them). Pretend you’re listening to a NASA broadcast and that we’re coming to you live from the International Space Station.

On June 3, 2021 an intrepid group of baby bobtail squid hopped a ride on SpaceX and became tiny squid-stronauts! These bioluminescent critters glow blue with the help of a special bacteria. They aren’t born with this bacteria so once in space, ISS researchers will introduce them to bioluminescent bacteria to see if their microbiome is affected the same way our human astronauts’ biome is affected by space.

Baby bobtail squid (Jamie S. Foster, University of Florida)

image: NASA

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brainjunkpodcast.substack.com