Curious State

We humans love law and order. But what happens when non-humans go mucking around and chewing on our rules? Can animals actually break the law? Renowned science writer and raccoon super-fan Mary Roach has the answers. 

A few curiosities you’ll uncover in this episode:

• Do seagulls have it out for the pope?
• What are laws for, anyway?
• Laser scarecrows? Say what??

Did You Know?

In 1451, a Swiss bishop took some leeches to court. His reason? There were too many of them in the local pond.

Curious State is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast hosted and produced by Doug Fraser.

Find Curious State on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates.

Podcast Manager - Adam Cecil 
Podcast and Advertising Operations Specialist - Morgan Christianson
Marketing and Publicity Assistant - Davina Tomlin
Intern - Brendan Picha 

The Quick and Dirty Tips network is a division of Macmillan Publishers in partnership with Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Have a question? Or a topic you’d like covered on the show? Maybe you just love sending emails? Whichever shoe fits, tie it on and send me a message at [email protected].

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What do a crow and a glossy-eyed harbor seal named Monty have in common? 

Us.

Oftentimes, human interaction with animals is for the worse. But when it comes to animal rehabbers, the interaction is meant to get the animal back on its feet—or paws or claws or flippers—and release them back into the wild. Chip Harshaw, VP of Animal Care at The Virginia Aquarium, takes us on a behind-the-scenes tour to meet Monty and dives into the good, the bad, and the downright heart-melting aspects of human/animal relationships.

A few curiosities you’ll uncover in this episode:

• What it takes to rehabilitate animals like Monty
• How Monty wound up at the aquarium
• Monty’s favorite fish
• The real reason why you should never feed a wild seal

Did You Know?

Harbor seals enjoy posing on coastal rocks like blubbery land bananas—Google “harbor seal banana” to experience the full glory.

Curious State is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast hosted and produced by Doug Fraser.

Find Curious State on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates.

Podcast Manager - Adam Cecil 
Podcast and Advertising Operations Specialist - Morgan Christianson
Marketing Publicity Assistant - Davina Tomlin
Intern - Brendan Picha 

The Quick and Dirty Tips network is a division of Macmillan Publishers in partnership with Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Have a question? Or a topic you’d like covered on the show? Maybe you just love sending emails? Whichever shoe fits, tie it on and send me a message at [email protected].

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Five years ago, Dylan Marron (creator and host of Conversations with People Who Hate Me) started engaging his internet detractors in long-form conversations over the phone. What started as a coping mechanism has turned into a hit podcast, lessons from which he’s shared in his new book.

A few curiosities you’ll uncover in this episode:

• The four-word idea that’ll change how you approach all conversations
• How you can apply what Dylan’s learned from internet haters to any relationship in your life
• What’s the point of trying to empathize with internet haters?

Did You Know?

Do you avoid conflict at all costs? Maybe society should thank you. Research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham suggests that conflict avoidance is how societies overcome violence.

Curious State is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast hosted and produced by Doug Fraser.

Find Curious State on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates.

Podcast Manager - Adam Cecil 
Podcast and Advertising Operations Specialist - Morgan Christianson
Marketing Publicity Assistant - Davina Tomlin
Intern - Brendan Picha 

The Quick and Dirty Tips network is a division of Macmillan Publishers in partnership with Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Have a question? Or a topic you’d like covered on the show? Maybe you just love sending emails? Whichever shoe fits, tie it on and send me a message at [email protected].

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Journalist SuChin Pak (co-host of Add to Cart) has been reporting on TV since she was 16 years old. If you watched MTV in the early 2000s, you saw her just about every day, interviewing the who's who of pop culture and music.

Those celebrities, the ones who grace the silver screen and flood the airwaves with catchy tunes that burrow into your brain and never ever leave—are those people actually more interesting than the rest of us?

A few curiosities you’ll uncover in this episode:

• What it’s really like at the MTV Video Music Awards exclusive after party
• How fame distorts a person’s reality (and the reality of those around them)
• Does fame stunt a person’s personal growth?

Did You Know?

Sean Combs (aka Puff Daddy, aka Puffy, aka Diddy) is one of the richest musicians, with a net worth of over $820 million. Now that’s someone who knows how to work their fame.

Curious State is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast hosted and produced by Doug Fraser.

Find Curious State on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates.

Podcast Manager - Adam Cecil 
Podcast and Advertising Operations Specialist - Morgan Christianson
Marketing Publicity Assistant - Davina Tomlin
Intern - Brendan Picha 

The Quick and Dirty Tips network is a division of Macmillan Publishers in partnership with Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Have a question? Or a topic you’d like covered on the show? Maybe you just love sending emails? Whichever shoe fits, tie it on and send me a message at [email protected].

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Mark Freestone, author of Making a Psychopath: My Journey into Seven Dangerous Minds, takes us into the mind of an infamous female psychopath—and the finicky, outdated, and often untrustworthy system that attempts to diagnose women like her.

A few curiosities you’ll uncover in this episode:

• The antiquated diagnosis process for psychopaths
• The differences between how psychopathy manifests in male and female patients
• Gritty details of the murder committed by Angela the Remorseless
• How a bias toward male patients is a symptom of a much larger issue

Did You Know?

James Bond is a psychopath. He scores around a 27 on the PCL-R, which in the UK is past the threshold for a psychopath.

Get a copy of Dr. Freestone's book on Amazon, Audible, or Bookshop.org.

Curious State is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast hosted and produced by Doug Fraser.

Find Curious State on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates.

Podcast Manager - Adam Cecil 
Assistant Manager - Emily Miller
Podcast and Advertising Operations Specialist - Morgan Christianson
Marketing Publicity Assistant - Davina Tomlin
Intern - Brendan Picha 

The Quick and Dirty Tips network is a division of Macmillan Publishers in partnership with Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Have a question? Or a topic you’d like covered on the show? Maybe you just love sending emails? Whichever shoe fits, tie it on and send me a message at [email protected].

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Regret is our constant companion, tugging at our ears to remind us of our mistakes. Our follies. The kind of stuff we shove to the back of our brain fridge and hope it doesn’t stink up the house.

But what if regret isn’t what we think?

What if it’s actually the way to a happier, more fulfilling life?

Daniel Pink, the author of such insightful classics as To Sell is Human and A Whole New Mind, rolled up his sleeves and mined the deep, dingy trenches of regret. What he found just might change your life.

As part of the World Regret Survey, Daniel collected regrets from around 16,000 people in 105 countries to try to crack the code of what people regret. He put together his findings in his new book, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward. “The four core regrets operate as a photographic negative of the good life,” Daniel says. “If we know what people regret the most, we can reverse that image to reveal what they value the most.”

The curiosities you’ll uncover in this episode:

• The four core regrets
• What a social experiment on a subway taught us about reaching out to estranged friends and family
• What we regret at a young age versus what we regret when we’re older
• How regret can become a compass for a well-lived life

Did You Know?

Silver medalists tend to be the least happy person on the podium. According to a study by David Matsumoto of San Francisco State University, they smiled one-quarter less than first and third place. While the gold medalist shines with happiness for their win and the bronze medalist is happy to have made the podium, the silver medalist is often plagued with “if only” regrets.

Curious State is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast hosted and produced by Doug Fraser.

Find Curious State on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates.

Podcast Manager - Adam Cecil 
Assistant Manager - Emily Miller
Podcast and Advertising Operations Specialist - Morgan Christianson
Marketing Publicity Assistant - Davina Tomlin
Intern - Brendan Picha 

The Quick and Dirty Tips network is a division of Macmillan Publishers in partnership with Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Have a question? Or a topic you’d like covered on the show? Maybe you just love sending emails? Whichever shoe fits, tie it on and send me a message at [email protected].

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The mafia and violence go together like a fist and brass knuckles. But is the mafia really as violent as pop culture would have us believe? Or are we being conned?

Nicknamed "organized crime's worst nightmare," former federal and state prosecutor Elie Honig earned his stripes through the prosecution of John Gotti Jr and other major mafia players. He’s here to set the record straight.

A few curiosities you’ll discover in this episode:

• The mind games of mafia violence
• Why murder is bad for business
• The strong appeal of unions
• Why the Italian mob could lose all its power

Check out Elie's podcast Up Against the Mob.

Did You Know?

The mafia has captured our collective imagination—which can cause problems in the courtroom. “There is such a thing as the jury becoming enamored with the defendant, becoming charmed by the bad guy,” says Elie. “It's the same way you sit there and you root for Tony Soprano. It’s part of the reason I wanted to be a mafia prosecutor, for the outrageous stories and the personalities of these guys. But I was concerned about this when I was arguing a mafia trial to a jury.”

Curious State is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast hosted and produced by Doug Fraser.

Find Curious State on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates.

Podcast Manager - Adam Cecil 
Assistant Manager - Emily Miller
Podcast and Advertising Operations Specialist - Morgan Christianson
Marketing Publicity Assistant - Davina Tomlin
Intern - Brendan Picha 

The Quick and Dirty Tips network is a division of Macmillan Publishers in partnership with Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Have a question? Or a topic you’d like covered on the show? Maybe you just love sending emails? Whichever shoe fits, tie it on and send me a message at [email protected].

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Somewhere in the rows and rows of office cubicles that make up the emotional business of our brains, there’s one employee hellbent on burning the whole place down. Her name…is childhood. Is it possible to pry ourselves from her fiery grasp? Or are we destined to live with one hand on the fire extinguisher? Psychotherapist and bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, Lori Gottlieb, offers a way to set our childhoods free: changing the stories we tell ourselves.

A few of the curiosities you’ll uncover in this episode:

• Why we’re all unreliable narrators of our life
• The long-term impacts of talking our kids out of feeling what they’re feeling
• The 3 questions to ask ourselves to help rid of negative self-talk

To learn more about Lori’s book, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone (in both written and audio form), and to check out the podcast she co-hosts called “Dear Therapists,” visit www.lorigottlieb.com. 

Curious State is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast hosted and produced by Doug Fraser.

Find Curious State on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates.

Podcast Manager - Adam Cecil 
Assistant Manager - Emily Miller
Podcast and Advertising Operations Specialist - Morgan Christianson
Marketing Publicity Assistant - Davina Tomlin
Intern - Brendan Picha 

The Quick and Dirty Tips network is a division of Macmillan Publishers in partnership with Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ah, the T-Rex. King of the tyrant lizards. Ruler of children’s imaginations the world over. With its savagery and you-look-tasty-enough-to-eat smile…could we have domesticated it? Dr. Richard Kissel is here to help us figure it all out. He’s the VP of Education at The DoSeum in San Antonio, Texas, and a total T-Rex fanboy.

A few of the curiosities you’ll uncover in this episode:

• The 3 questions to ask yourself before domesticating a T-Rex
• How much it would cost to feed a T-Rex over its lifetime
• What a T-Rex’s personality might have been like
• Could we have made a teacup T-Rex? *fingers crossed*

To learn more about Dr. Richard Kissel and the DoSeum in San Antonio, Texas, visit www.thedoseum.org

Curious State is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast hosted and produced by Doug Fraser.

Find Curious State on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates.

Podcast Manager - Adam Cecil 
Assistant Manager - Emily Miller
Podcast and Advertising Operations Specialist - Morgan Christianson
Marketing Publicity Assistant - Davina Tomlin
Intern - Brendan Picha 

The Quick and Dirty Tips network is a division of Macmillan Publishers in partnership with Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can animals break the law? Why do some fonts just feel so good? Can a "friend with benefits" relationship last? Could we have domesticated a T-Rex? Dive into what you didn’t know you needed to know on Curious State with Doug Fraser. First two episodes drop on March 29.

Curious State is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast hosted and produced by Doug Fraser. Have a question you want Doug to find the answer to? Leave a voicemail at (757) 541-8471 or email us at [email protected].

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Quick and Dirty Tips is a division of Macmillan Publishers.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.