Brain Junk

We're officially pros now right?!?! We dug deep into the internet's brain junk drawer for a random smash-up of whatever facts tickled our fancy. Thank you for listening and loving this show as much as we do.

Show Notes:

Check out our shop for fun stuff SHIRTS, CUPS, & MORE

Guinness book of World Records: Most hugs, fastest 300km cycle, 300 pound dead weight hang

Bones in a baby's body

Julia Child Mastering the Art of French Cooking page 300

EF5 Moore Tornado

On This Day things that happened

Wootz steel

The Measure of Things website if you're like Amy and want to know random measurements

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We might quit Brain Junk and run off to the University of Exeter for their brand new Masters program in MAGIC. Not Hogwarts (darn) but you'd be studying the role of magic in society. Listen to our podcast while you apply!!!!

Show Notes:

University of Exeter Magic and Occult Science MA

NPR interview with Prof. Sajjad Rizvi

Fun book recommendation (that is not for young kids): The Magicians

A second fun book rec because Trace cannot be stopped: The Lefthanded Booksellers of London

Transcript

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to Brain Junk. I'm Trace Kerr.

[00:00:05] Speaker B: And I'm Amy Barton. And this is everything you never knew you wanted to know about getting a master's degree in magic and occult science.

[00:00:17] Speaker A: Oh, this is. Okay, I'm going to shut up. You start talking. I'm interested. Let's go.

[00:00:22] Speaker B: Okay. This caught my eye and I'm like, I would like to talk with trace about how we could actually have a degree in magic and magical things and all because trace and I both, I think you a little bit more than me, love that magical world and books are magical to begin with. But then that just magic within books as part of the plot is completely delightful. And I thought, oh my gosh, we can talk about that. It's going to be great.

[00:00:50] Speaker A: Yes. And then just the weird and the odd and the things where you're like, did I see that out of the corner of my eye? Is this, you know, magic being a concept?

[00:00:59] Speaker B: Yes, exactly.

So you have to go to the University of Exeter in England.

[00:01:05] Speaker A: Fancy this.

[00:01:07] Speaker B: But it is a master's degree. It does have parameters. It's housed in their Arabic and Islamic studies department, which I think is really interesting and not Eurocentric of them and acknowledges the age of our world and that magic is ancient, ancient, ancient this. It's pretty much always existed with people because there's things we couldn't explain.

So I like that it acknowledges that because we're always going to come back around to Europe. Don't worry, we're going to get back there. But we are going to get to Merlin. But we don't need to start with Merlin.

[00:01:40] Speaker A: No.

[00:01:41] Speaker B: And just a quick definition for those of you that hear words but haven't really thought you operationally use them but haven't defined them. Esotericism is secret knowledge for a small group of people. Also describes mystical, spiritual or occult points of view. And occult is supernatural, mystical or magical beliefs, practices or phenomena. Just in case you need a refresher there.

[00:02:03] Speaker A: Esotericism, yes.

[00:02:06] Speaker B: That is part of the wording of their degree. So when people get a little bit oogie boogie about magic and the occult and religion comes into play, they're kind of hand in glove. They are historically. So I just thought it's worth defining those things in case you're like, I'm not talking about converting over to the dark side. Although of course there's always that somebody is going to use magic for evil.

[00:02:32] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:02:33] Speaker B: But let's talk about the educational background first. Exeter was founded in 1855 by Sir Stafford Northcott. It is such a good name and he started a school of arts. He envisioned that as a cultural cente...

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Apologies for the sound quality. Trace solemnly swears this is our last Zoom recorded episode.

In 1886, the US government decided it was time we cataloged every fruit. Lacking the ability to take color pictures, a small group of artists, led by a talented female painter, began to create a record of over 6,000 fruits.

Show Notes:

USDA Pomological Watercolors

United States Dept of Agriculture: Ag magazine article on pomological watercolors

Daily "old fruit pictures" bot on that site formerly known at twitter

Deborah Griscom Passmore's lovingly written obituary Page 1 of 4 and Page 4 of 4.

P.S. We mention a mangosteen and then never explain what it is. Mangosteen is an evergreen tree from Central Asia (Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, etc.) The ripe fruits are purple and considered a food and a medicinal item.

Transcript

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Should we do a different one? Welcome, Brain Junk. I'm Amy Barton. I'm here with my cozy cup of tea. And today we have with us Trace Kerr. Trace, tell us a little about yourself.

[00:00:13] Speaker B: I hate everything about that.

[00:00:15] Speaker A: Today we're going to be talking about muffin tops. We're never going to talk about that. We're never going to. I'll circle back. I'm going to try it one more time, but I'll do it properly and won't say Amy Bart like it's a question. I'm going to be decisive that that's my name. Okay.

Welcome to Brain Junk. I'm Amy Barton.

[00:00:34] Speaker B: And I'm Trace Kerr. And today is everything you never knew you wanted to know about pomology.

I didn't think we were going palm P-A-M-P-O-P-O-M. Pomo.

Pomology.

[00:00:48] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:00:49] Speaker B: Yeah.

It's the science of fruit breeding and production.

[00:00:53] Speaker A: Most things I've heard of a little. I've never heard of that.

[00:00:56] Speaker B: Me neither. And the reason why I know about it, actually, we're not really specifically talking about that, but we are going to be talking about a whole bunch of paintings that were done in what Anson dubbed ye oldie seed catalog, volume one.

[00:01:12] Speaker A: I love that style.

[00:01:15] Speaker B: I do, too.

[00:01:15] Speaker A: My favorite tattoo artist also is an illustrator for botanical books and does a lot of that cool stuff. Anyway, side road.

[00:01:23] Speaker B: Let's get to these botanicals. I am going to send you a couple to look at. I'm going to text them to you. Did the pictures come through? Have you seen them?

[00:01:36] Speaker A: Yes. They're amazing.

The first apple. You all out there, look them up too. It looks like you could pick it up. And it's a screedoesn't it? Does 7497 hand drawn pictures.

[00:02:18] Speaker A: Wow. How many different artists?

[00:02:21] Speaker...

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Hold onto your top hats, we're striding into the historical world of competitive race walking! Can you even imagine walking 1000 miles in 1000 hours (FYI 1000 hours is nearly 42 days)

Image: Emma Sharp

Show Notes:

BBC: The strange 19th century sport that was cooler than football

Wikipedia: Foster Powell

National Galleries of Scotland: Captain Robert Barclay-Allardyce

Ultrarunninghistory.com: The Barclay Match

Old Weird Scotland: The Celebrated Pedestrian

Atlas Obscura: How competitive walking captivated Georgian England

Wiki: Emma Sharp and her very fancy walking suit

Ada Anderson

The Pedestriannes: America's Forgotten Superstars

Wikipedia: Pedestrianism

Edward Payson Weston

Ultrarunning history: The first Astley belt

First Women's six day footrace

Smithsonian: The terrible 1904 Olympic marathon

Transcript

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to Brain Junk. I'm Trace Kerr.

[00:00:05] Speaker B: And I'm Amy Barton. And today we are going to talk about the exciting world of competitive walking.

[00:00:18] Speaker A: Okay, so you said pedestrianism, and I was like, is it politics?

Is it some sort of social, cultural construct? I didn't look it up, though.

[00:00:29] Speaker B: It's 18th and 19th century competitive walking.

[00:00:35] Speaker A: I'm out there with my top hat. I have my monocle. Watch out.

[00:00:39] Speaker B: Yes. Oh, drat. What's the show called? Brian Cranston was the Malcolm in the middle, and there is an episode where he does some trace walking. So if you haven't checked that out in a while, it's worth looking up because Brian Cranston has some sweet moves. But that is not the direction we're going today. Let's return back to the main trail here.

So let's talk about what it is.

Indeed. It was foot wagers, which actually started in the 17th century, when terrible rich people would wager to see whose footmen could keep up with the carriage. No. Yeah, people are terrible.

Let's see how fast the poor people can walk.

That's exactly what it sounds like. And the dudes inside are bedding. It's just like in the fast and furious where they lean their heads out of the carriage and they trash talk a little bit and then they go, and then their guys have to walk. I'm not sure if that's exactly what it's like, but that's what I'm imagining. So that's kind of the start. Foster Powell is supposedly one of the early proponents. He walked 100 miles in 21 hours and 35 minutes, which is wild.

[00:01:51] Speaker A: Go, Forest, go.

[00:01:53] Speaker B: Yeah, and I was doing the math on some of these mileages, and they're pretty fast miles. Like, I toot along and I feel pretty happy and just a l...

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Go look up the Carl Straat diving bell ship. It's insane to think that it's possible for people to walk on the bottom of a river in regular clothes and rubber boots. There's no special equipment except for the boat and compressed air.

Show Notes:

Carl Straat diving bell ship (the video Amy watches during the episode): https://www.tiktok.com/@machinepix/video/7255824577534725418

wocomoMOTORS video short

Ship technology magazine article on the Carl Straat

How the ship works, interview with the captain: https://www.damen.com/insights-center/articles/your-questions-answered-the-german-diving-bell-vessel

Need more weird ships? Check out this wiki of the now decommissioned R/P FLIP

Transcript

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to Brain Junk. I'm Amy Barton.

[00:00:05] Speaker B: And I'm Trace Kerr. And today is everything you never knew you wanted to know about diving bell ships.

[00:00:13] Speaker A: I am delighted by swimming, but terrified of drowning. So I'm sort of morbidly fascinated with anything with the word diving. And then this gives me those old timey. Yeah, I'm curious.

[00:00:25] Speaker B: Yeah. This is going to give you the heebie gajibis.

This all takes place on the Rhine river, which goes from Switzerland through Germany and the Netherlands out to the North Sea. You know what a river through so many developed cities needs? A riverbed cleaning crew.

[00:00:42] Speaker C: Yes.

[00:00:43] Speaker B: So I'm going to send you a TikTok of the Carl strot diving bell ship doing its job.

[00:00:48] Speaker A: Oh, this is much more modern than I expected. I expected old timey.

[00:00:53] Speaker B: Right.

[00:00:54] Speaker A: This is going to scare me more.

[00:00:57] Speaker B: It's going to.

[00:00:59] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh! I can't wait to hear about the things they have found.

Does it make a pressurized cabin on the floor?

[00:01:07] Speaker B: It does.

[00:01:11] Speaker A: Okay. I might have to conquer my fear and get an internship there.

[00:01:15] Speaker B: That is wild. Yeah.

[00:01:19] Speaker B: So what Amy's looking at there is a floating tugboat. It's quite long, very flat, just above the surface of the water. It looks almost like a floating rectangle as opposed to a boat, and has a huge boom, almost like a crane that splits down the middle of the boat. And it reminds me of like a vacuum cleaner attachment with a rectangular room on that far end. And that room that's on the end is open at the bottom and compressed air is pumped into the arm to keep water out of the room. Have you seen it touch down on the riverbed?

[00:01:52] Speaker A: But it's wild.

[00:01:53] Speaker A: It's like a dry river bottom.

[00:01:55] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:01:56] Speaker A: And they're just roaming around, picking up like an old plate.

I wonder how much effort it takes to move it. Or if they can kind of slowly cook along, or if they have to lift up and pressurize. Sit down and pressurize every time.

[00:02:14] Speaker B: I have so many answers to your questions. Okay.

[00:02:17] Speaker A: I'm going to stop talking.

[00:02:18] Speaker B: So this is in the show notes.

[00:02:20] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:02:20] Speaker B: So go and watch the TikTok. So the boat picks a spot and th...

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Up until 2020, If you loved cats but your allergies didn't love them back, you had to live with runny eyes, hop yourself up on Benadryl, or live a sad cat free life. Now there's something that might reduce the amount of Fel d1 that cats produce! The less Fel d1 in your environment, the less severe your allergic response. Stay tuned at the end for Amy's recap of how Thanksgiving and Christmas went with her allergenic eldest kiddo!

Show Notes:

NIH National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biological Information: Anti-Fel d1 immunoglobulin Y antibody-containing egg ingredient lowers allergen levels in cat saliva by Ebenezer Satyaraj et al.

Very Well Health overview of the paper

In case you're curious, here's the Purina cat food (not sponsored)

Transcript

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to Brain Junk. I'm Trace Kerr.

[00:00:05] Speaker B: And I'm Amy Barton. And today we're going to talk all about cat allergies and the people you love who get mucusy and how to solve that problem.

[00:00:18] Speaker A: Okay. Because we need to do this because Beckett's person, Cam, who comes over to visit quite a lot, is slightly allergic, although I think they're improving. And I think I might have read this study. So I have some theories. So let's go.

[00:00:32] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm excited, because this is the thing. So, for those of you who don't have cat allergies, which is 80% to 90% of the population, so high five for you. So ten to 20% of the global population do have an allergy to dogs or cats, cat allergies are twice as common. For those of you blessed with not allergies, it manifests as sneezing, runny nose, sore throat, wheezing skin. My eyes get itchy. Oh, it's not great. And the solutions in these modern times are antihistamines and immunotherapy, which is you go in once a week and you get a shot, and you slowly build up an immunity. So it's just exposure therapy is what it sounded like. Oh, long and slow can take a really long time, and it's expensive. Insurance is like, you could take Benadryl.

[00:01:19] Speaker A: You could just not have a cat.

[00:01:22] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.

Well, and this would be, too, for, like, if you have a pine allergy and those kinds of things. But their insurance is, maybe it's better, but mine has never been like, oh, yeah, we support that. They're like, benadryl.

Anywho, there is a solution, so here's why the problem happens. There is an allergen that cats have. It's found on their skin, in their urine and saliva. So it's not actually initially their hair that is the problem. The allergen is called. It's a protein called feld one, and they get it on their fur because they lick. And so there's saliva. That sticky allergen sticks everywhere, and it also can be fluffy and airborne and stays in the air for a long time. That dander. So it's not great if you have a cat allergy. Just not being in the room with the cat is not really enough.

[00:02:19] Speaker A: At the height of my catness, we had three, and I have sat next to people out in public who have turned to me and gone, do you have cats? Because I'm stuffy.

[00:02:31] Speaker B: And what's happening there? Their body is responding to the felD1one with an antibody known as IgY.

I didn't look up how to say this. I tried with one, and I'm like, they don't pronounce this, so I'm going to assume. They say IgY. Shall we assume that?

[00:02:49] Speaker A: I feel confident.

[00:02:51] Speaker B: Good....

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

Up until 2020, If you loved cats but your allergies didn't love them back, you had to live with runny eyes, hop yourself up on Benadryl, or live a sad cat free life. Now there's something that might reduce the amount of Fel d1 that cats produce! The less Fel d1 in your environment, the less severe your allergic response. Stay tuned at the end for Amy's recap of how Thanksgiving and Christmas went with her allergenic eldest kiddo!

Show Notes:

NIH National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biological Information: Anti-Fel d1 immunoglobulin Y antibody-containing egg ingredient lowers allergen levels in cat saliva by Ebenezer Satyaraj et al.

Very Well Health overview of the paper

In case you're curious, here's the Purina cat food (not sponsored)

Transcript

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to Brain Junk. I'm Trace Kerr.

[00:00:05] Speaker B: And I'm Amy Barton. And today we're going to talk all about cat allergies and the people you love who get mucusy and how to solve that problem.

[00:00:18] Speaker A: Okay. Because we need to do this because Beckett's person, Cam, who comes over to visit quite a lot, is slightly allergic, although I think they're improving. And I think I might have read this study. So I have some theories. So let's go.

[00:00:32] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm excited, because this is the thing. So, for those of you who don't have cat allergies, which is 80% to 90% of the population, so high five for you. So ten to 20% of the global population do have an allergy to dogs or cats, cat allergies are twice as common. For those of you blessed with not allergies, it manifests as sneezing, runny nose, sore throat, wheezing skin. My eyes get itchy. Oh, it's not great. And the solutions in these modern times are antihistamines and immunotherapy, which is you go in once a week and you get a shot, and you slowly build up an immunity. So it's just exposure therapy is what it sounded like. Oh, long and slow can take a really long time, and it's expensive. Insurance is like, you could take Benadryl.

[00:01:19] Speaker A: You could just not have a cat.

[00:01:22] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.

Well, and this would be, too, for, like, if you have a pine allergy and those kinds of things. But their insurance is, maybe it's better, but mine has never been like, oh, yeah, we support that. They're like, benadryl.

Anywho, there is a solution, so here's why the problem happens. There is an allergen that cats have. It's found on their skin, in their urine and saliva. So it's not actually initially their hair that is the problem. The allergen is called. It's a protein called feld one, and they get it on their fur because they lick. And so there's saliva. That sticky allergen sticks everywhere, and it also can be fluffy and airborne and stays in the air for a long time. That dander. So it's not great if you have a cat allergy. Just not being in the room with the cat is not really enough.

[00:02:19] Speaker A: At the height of my catness, we had three, and I have sat next to people out in public who have turned to me and gone, do you have cats? Because I'm stuffy.

[00:02:31] Speaker B: And what's happening there? Their body is responding to the felD1one with an antibody known as IgY.

I didn't look up how to say this. I tried with one, and I'm like, they don't pronounce this, so I'm going to assume. They say IgY. Shall we assume that?

[00:02:49] Speaker A: I feel confident.

[00:02:51] Speaker B: Good. It activates an inflammatory response. Your body is saying, oh, problem. And it's trying to isolate that and uses mucus to do that.

[00:03:01] Speaker A: Mucus.

[00:03:01] Speaker B: Lots of mucus. So the way that I learned about this was a picture of cats and chickens. And people have figured out that when their cats lived with their chickens, they were less allergic to their cats. And so there clearly was enough evidence there, or there was some other scientific way. They're like, we think,

Are you team killer whale or team crab eating seal? We're cheering for both... Watch the movies in the show notes if you dare. There's no blood and guts but the hunting style of the B1 pod is still a complete horror show.

image: AlKalenski from pixabay, Antarctic seal and iceberg

Show Notes:

Lindblad Expedition with national Geographic movie

More National Geographic

Research Gate diagrams of wave washing

CBS 8 San Diego, killer whales attacking boats in Spain

We mentions sharks hunting seals in a very sneaky way: Marine Dynamics Shark and Whale Tours

Top 10 animals that kill people. Hippos are top of the list

Transcript

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to Brain Junk. I'm Amy Barton.

[00:00:05] Speaker B: And I'm Trace Kerr. And today is everything you never knew you wanted to know about wave washing.

[00:00:13] Speaker A: Um, is this going a laundry direction or are we tumbling rocks?

[00:00:18] Speaker B: I know. You're like, it's a wave. Why do we need to clean it? We're not talking about that.

[00:00:23] Speaker A: That's good.

[00:00:24] Speaker B: This is the western Antarctic Peninsula. We're going cold. We're going, you know, a big sea with lots of little chunks of ice floating on it.

[00:00:33] Speaker A: No, thank you.

[00:00:34] Speaker B: Crab eater and Waddell seals versus killer whales. This one is not for the faint of heart.

[00:00:41] Speaker A: Ooh, this sounds like the Oatmeal is doing a cartoon.

[00:00:46] Speaker B: Who would win versus. Okay, so they look like the cute harbor seals you see in reels or TikToks, the ones where they're in the zoo. They got their cute little faces. They're about 600 pounds. Like I said, miles and miles of ice chunks floating on water ten to 20ft across. Crab eater seals or the Waddell seals, they rest on this ice. I would not want to lay on a giant floating ice cube like a crouton. But they're blubbery. They can do it. Okay.

[00:01:17] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:01:17] Speaker B: I've sent you a video.

[00:01:22] Speaker A: Okay. We're going to have a nice commercial first.

[00:01:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. And what Amy's going to be watching is how these killer whales hunt.

[00:01:32] Speaker A: Oh, I can skip the ad now.

[00:01:34] Speaker B: Yeah. And you're going to have a couple of seconds of preamble and then you'll.

[00:01:39] Speaker A: See this is the sort of place that has those beautiful big ice structures, too, that have, like, holes through them. Okay. And I'm watching an angry seal get sassy at some orcas. Okay.

Four orcas just swam under a chunk of ice and swamped the seal off of it. Yeah.

[00:01:59] Speaker B: That is wave washing.

[00:02:02] Speaker A: Is this what they also do to the boats now? This is a coordinated effort. That looks like a horror movie. Y'all.

[00:02:10] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's four of them. They're in a line. They come out underneath, like the boat that's watching.

[00:02:16] Speaker A: That's horrifying.

[00:02:17] Speake...

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From Sugar the long lost Australian sheep to an unfortunate Bulgarian man who became mummified way faster than scientists would expect, Amy's bringing it with a fact double header!

P.S. Sugar the sheep had 28 pounds of wool shorn off. That'd make a lot of sweaters!

Show Notes:

Brain Junk Merch

Sugar the Sheep article on UPI with a great link to an Instagram video of Sugar getting sheared

LittleCreekMontana.com history of why sheep need to be sheared

Trigger warning on this scholarly article on precocious mummification; there are full on color photos of an autopsy. Cureus article: A Rare Phenomenon of Natural Precocious Mummification

A less juicy review of the Cureus paper on IFLscience.com

Transcript

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to Brain Junk. I'm Trace Kerr.

[00:00:05] Speaker B: And I'm Amy Barton. And today on brain junk, we are going to talk about a couple little shorties that I'm just excited about and that have absolutely no relationship to one another. Oh, I feel like this is the true spirit of brain junk. Like, just, I'm interested in this and you might be, too.

[00:00:26] Speaker A: Okay, I'm ready.

[00:00:27] Speaker B: I have one very tenuous connection, but we'll let you decide at the end. Our first one is about sheep or a sheep. This fall, late fall, a sheep was found in Australia to be living with a herd of kangaroos. Are they a herd? What's a group of kangaroos called?

[00:00:44] Speaker A: Isn't it a mob?

[00:00:46] Speaker B: Probably. That sounds about right there. Yes, it's a mob.

[00:00:50] Speaker A: Aha.

[00:00:51] Speaker B: Okay, so let's get back on track here. A sheep was observed, and actually it's been for about a year. This sheep has been observed with a mob of kangaroos in the sugarloaf reservoir nature area in Australia. And for those of you who want to know where it's at on the map, it's a little northeast of Melbourne. Looks like maybe about an hour from the bay. Oh, southern central Australia is where this guy is hanging out. And they think sugar ran away about five years ago and has been living with this mob of kangaroos that whole time. And so somebody finally corralled sugar and brought him in because these modern sheep need to be sheared.

[00:01:35] Speaker A: I was going to say, how much wool was on that sheep?

[00:01:38] Speaker B: Quite a lot. But if you look at pictures, that was one of the noteworthy things is sugar was actually in pretty good shape. They sheared him and his skin looked good still, and he seemed to be in good health underneath his overgrown coat. And so apparently, the kangaroo life was good for sugar. And now sugar's living out his days in peace on a sanctuary, joined by other rescue farm animals. So he will still have community. It just won't be kangaroos anymore.

[00:02:13] Speaker A: Wow, that is so much I'm watching.

I don't know where I am. I'm on instagram. So much wool.

[00:02:21] Speaker B: Yeah, it looks so thick. And so that got me to wondering, what did sheep do before modern farming when we sheared the sheep? And the answer to that is pretty simple, that we, over time, have bred shaggy sheep, and that has been...

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First off, we recorded on Zoom ( I KNOW it's ). Sorry about the sound quality. Trace is working on a new platform for us. But okay, magnets! You asked & we are here to demystify those wacky magnets you've got stuck all over your fridge.

Show notes:

US Energy Information Administration magnetism explanation with diagrams

Magnets and repelling sharks!

YouTube sharks vs magnets!

Jenny Lawson and her experience with transcranial magnetic stimulation

More info on the science of magnets and your brain from the Mayo Clinic

Frontiers in Zoology: Dogs and pooping on the north south axis...maybe

NASA archive on the history of magnetism

Advanced Functional Materials paper on magnets used to clean oil spills

Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) collab on Another paper on magnets and oil

Transcript

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to Brain junk. I'm Amy Barton.

[00:00:05] Speaker B: And I'm Trace Kerr. And today is everything you never knew you wanted to know about how magnets work.

[00:00:13] Speaker A: Magnets, how they work.

[00:00:15] Speaker B: My eldest, Anson, his friend Rand, we were talking and he's like, I've listened to the podcast and I want to know, how do magnets work?

[00:00:22] Speaker A: It does the long pause here. Usually I've got banter, there's a gear grind here. I'm like, I feel like I've heard before and there's repelling and attracting, but no, I'm just going to go along for the ride with this one.

[00:00:37] Speaker B: Makes you feel any better. So I googled magnets how, and it was how do magnets get their energy? How does a magnet attract metal? And my favorite, why do magnets exist?

[00:00:52] Speaker A: Feel like they're created too, right?

[00:00:54] Speaker B: I went straight to the US Energy information Administration. Didn't know we had it, but we do same. Let's go back to like 8th and 7th grade. We're heading back to middle school for just a second. So in the middle of an atom, you've got your nucleus and electrons are spinning around it and they're going randomly. It's like a rave, there's music playing, they're going wherever they want to go. And as they spin, each of them is creating a little tiny magnetic field. But because they're all going in random directions, they kind of cancel each other out. Okay, but when you have a magnet, all the atoms have joined into molecules. The molecules make a thing and all of their electrons are spinning in the same direction. So it's like a line dance instead of a mosh pit.

[00:01:39] Speaker A: Yes.

Thank you.

[00:01:42] Speaker B: Okay, and when they're all going in the same direction, it creates a magnetic field and it flows from one end to the other. There's a lot of drawings where they'll have like a rectangle and one end has an n on it and one end has an s on it, north and south, they just kind of say that they're not necessarily...

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