Brain Junk

Apologies–we had sound quality issues. We did not record from the bottom of a metal trash can while hiding from mystery blobs falling from the sky; we promise.

In a place that gets rain up to 275 days a year, Oakville, WA. knows their precipitation. But on this day in 1994, Instead of the other 275 days a year that water falls from the sky, a torrent of jelly like blobs fell. No one knows for sure what they were.

Mystery blobs image: BBC

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On September 12, 1992, Dr. Mae Carol Jemison became the first Black female astronaut. She’s an engineer, a scientist, a physician, and an educator. We figure she can do anything she sets her mind to.

Check out her Instagram! @therealmaejemison

image: NASA

Her book: Find Where the Wind Goes

Dr. Jemison on Star Trek!

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

This episode is marked explicit because we go into details that might lead to a person catching on fire. It’s interesting science and we don’t get graphic, but it might be too much for a younger listener.

If you are interested in the science of all things pyrophoric and don’t want the spontaneous human combustion content, listen until the 3:25 second mark.

Warning label for pyrophoric materials. Don’t cut off a truck with this on the side.

Image: Sodium metal in oil.

Check out the Department of Energy (DOE) handbook for Spontaneous Heating and Pyrophoricity (something that ignites on exposure to air) https://www.standards.doe.gov/standards-documents/1000/1081-bhdbk-2014-cn1/@@images/file

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

You know what happens when Amy and Trace are finally back in the same recording studio? We talk about farts. Our inner twelve-year-old selves love all things gross and we had the best time laughing about animals that pass gas and those that don’t. The very beginning of this podcast started out three years ago with the two of us giggling about whale farts–this episode is classic Brain Junk!

Manatees

image by @AHEARN zoodrawscomic

Show Notes:

This episode is brought to you by my brother-in-law, Ryan Stewart. Come for the manatee farts, but stay for the ferrets, who are surprised by their own farts. 

Mental Floss Facts About Animal Farts

Note: Trace and I had some discussion about animals who “can’t fart” we decided that perhaps a better way to say it is that certain animals have the physical set up to fart, but expel their excess gas in other ways, so rather than can’t, we’d say they generally don’t.

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

Stop snickering Americans, it’s not what you think. Starting with the industrial revolution in the UK, people were employed as human alarm clocks, waking people up for their shifts at work. It was a job that was particularly popular with women and elderly men as a way to make extra pocket money and help to support their families.

Mary Anne Smith with her pea shooter

A helpful fellow “knocking people up”

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

If you’re like Trace, the thought of math makes you want to run and hide; that anxiety, that tightness in your chest, the weird shooting pains (wait, is that just Trace?!). You’ll be relieved to know that those pains aren’t a figment of your freaked out imagination! We’ve got the science to prove it.

Show Notes: 

Math, or anxiety about math, really can cause physical pain!

Wireless.com: Painful Math

Plos One: When Math Hurts

 

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 the Civil War and you're in the medical tent. In the darkness the man next to you has wounds glowing an eerie blue. Turns out, the men who had the glow were more likely to survive. The curious reason for Angel's Glow won two high school students an international science award in 2001. It's so gross. Your inner twelve-year-old will love it.

The Battle of Shiloh 1862 & nematodes with bioluminescent bacteria inside. image: from All That's Interesting

It’s the Civil War and you’re in the medical tent. In the darkness the man next to you has wounds glowing an eerie blue. Turns out, the men who had the glow were more likely to survive. The curious reason for Angel’s Glow won two high school students an international science award in 2001. It’s so gross. Your inner twelve-year-old will love it.

The Battle of Shiloh 1862 & nematodes with bioluminescent bacteria inside. image: from All That’s Interesting

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

Tues August 30th, 1904: Why NOT start an Olympic marathon in the middle of a hot summer afternoon? Because people aren't going to finish. It was a complete disaster.

Some of the marathon contestants before the 1904 race.

Show Notes: 

Wikipedia: 1904 Summer Olympics Marathon-The Facts

Buzzfeed.com: Weird Historical Events

Smithsonian.com: 1904 Olympic Marathon May Have Been The Strangest Ever (they're not wrong. It was a disaster.)

Tues August 30th, 1904: Why NOT start an Olympic marathon in the middle of a hot summer afternoon? Because people aren’t going to finish. It was a complete disaster.

Some of the marathon contestants before the 1904 race.

Show Notes: 

Wikipedia: 1904 Summer Olympics Marathon-The Facts

Buzzfeed.com: Weird Historical Events

Smithsonian.com: 1904 Olympic Marathon May Have Been The Strangest Ever (they’re not wrong. It was a disaster.

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