How Your World Works

How Your World Works episodes:

• 01.30.2017

  Episode 42: How to Make the Super Bowl

  On today's show, Kevin Dupzyk and James Lynch talk to Fox NFL Director Rich Russo and Producer Richie Zyontz. The pair have been producing sporting events together for years, and on February 5 they'll be the men behind the curtain...

  
• 01.14.2017

  Episode 41: How to Test Everything

  On today's show, we talk to our good friend Rachel Rothman, Chief Technologist at the Good Housekeeping Institute. Working on a specialized floor a few levels up from Popular Mechanics, she and a team of engineers test stoves, clothes, food,...

  
• 12.30.2016

  Episode 40: How to Avoid Flight Delays

  On today's show, Steve Abraham, a long time air traffic controller at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, tells us about his job--everything from how he get into it (and how that's changed), to the time he...

  
• 12.17.2016

  Episode 39: How to Make a Camp Stove (For Good)

  BioLite is an interesting company. Their signature product is a camp stove that burns wood and uses some of the heat to charge a battery, which can, in turn, charge small electronic devices. It's great for camping. But it's also...

  
• 12.03.2016

  Episode 38: How to Run A Super Secret Defense Project

  On today's episode, guest host and Popular Mechanics Contributing Editor Dan Dubno takes us inside the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to learn about new technology that can allow a man to climb anywhere. Until he falls, which may or...

  
• 11.19.2016

  Episode 37: How to Make a Museum Exhibit

  The preparators of the American Museum of Natural History's Exhibitions Department are artists and craftsmen by trade who become scientists by practice as they build the museum's famed traveling exhibitions. In what may be the coolest workshop in the whole...

  
• 11.04.2016

  Episode 36: How to Run An Election

  For today's episode, Popular Mechanics' political correspondent Mark Warren joins to interview Dana DeBeauvoir, County Clerk of Travis County, Texas (It's where Austin is). She discusses the preparations Travis County is undertaking for a record-breaking 2016 general election, and helps...

  
• 10.24.2016

  Episode 35: How to Design a Haunted House

  With Halloween fast approaching, we talk to Leonard Pickel of Hauntrepreneurs - a company that designs haunted attractions from the ground up. An architect by training, Pickel explains how he distorts the stuff he did in the studio to create...

  
• 10.07.2016

  Episode 34: How to Make A Basketball Court Into a Hockey Rink

  Tonight, Friday, October 7th, is the LA Lakers' first home game of the NBA preseason. After their game is over, the crew at LA's Staples Center will have to get the arena ready to host a concert on Saturday. By...

  
• 09.23.2016

  Episode 33: How to Win a Hackathon

  If you read the October 2016 issue of Popular Mechanics, you may have noticed a section of the Breakthrough Awards devoted to competitors from Major League Hacking, the competition circuit for college and high school-aged hackathons. And you may also...

  
• 09.14.2016

  Episode 32: How to Design How Your World Works

  On today's show, IDEO's Dav Rauch and Peter Hyer talk about their work designing the interfaces in everything from ATMs to Tony Stark's Iron Man suit. It turns out that thinking about how people use stuff is a pretty fun...

  
• 08.26.2016

  How to Dominate Fantasy Football. For a Living.

  On today's episode, fantasy football addict (and Popular Mechanics Executive Editor) Peter Martin joins the show as a guest interviewer when we talk to Matthew Berry, ESPN's senior fantasy sports analyst. Everyone envies the job, but Berry put in serious...

  
• 08.12.2016

  How to Tell The Future

  On today's episode, we talk to Glenn Hiemstra, the founder of Futurist.com. To start with, he explains what it even means to be a futurist. Then he tells us a little more about what it takes to peer into the...

  
• 07.29.2016

  How to Make Leather

  On today's episode, Jeremy Bennett from Filson and Matt Bressler from Wickett & Craig - one of the nation's few tanneries that specialize in high-quality vegetable tanning - stop by the studio to discuss working with leather. By the time...

  
• 07.15.2016

  How to Make Carbon Dioxide Into Stone

  Among the many ideas that have been floated for slowing down climate change, carbon capture and sequestration is one of the easiest to understand: When carbon dioxide is produced - say, by a factory - you find a way to...

  
• 07.01.2016

  How To Eat A Hot Dog... Fast

  In honor of the 100th Anniversary edition of the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, competitive eating lifer Crazy Legs Conti comes on the show to talk about the sport. Aside from explaining how he got started in professional engorging...

  
• 06.17.2016

  The Life of a Volunteer Firefighter

  On today's show, we talk to Pecos Davis and Chance Parsons, firefighters with the Malaga Volunteer Fire Department in Eddy County, New Mexico. Working with few resources in the southwest corner of the state, they've ridden one-to-a-truck to fires sparked...

  
• 06.03.2016

  How to Make Acrobats Fly Through The Air

  If you’ve ever seen a Cirque du Soleil show, or perhaps Marvel Universe Live, there’s a good chance you’ve seen the work of Brett Copes. He’s a rigger—one of the guys who sets up the complicated stage apparatus that lets...

  
• 05.25.2016

  Life on an Indy 500 Pit Crew

  On today’s show, Travis Law and Trevor Lacasse of Team Penske – mechanics for Helio Castroneves and Juan Pablo Montoya, who’ve won a combined five Indianapolis 500 races – talk about what they’ll be doing this weekend, when the race...

  
• 05.07.2016

  How to Make a Knife

  On today’s episode, Chelsea Miller and Michael Zieba – both master knife makers, albeit with very different origin stories – come to the studio to explain what it takes to make a knife. It’s hard work: there’s a forge involved,...

  
• 04.23.2016

  How to make Beer

  On today’s show, we try to find out what actually happens inside a craft brewery. It’s not just brewing beer, and even when it is, that doesn’t always go smoothly—have you ever heard of a beer bomb? Three members of...

  
• 04.09.2016

  The Future of Automobiles, Hardcore Henry, and Nuclear Proliferation

  On today’s show, we go from exciting to concerning: First, we discuss whether the future of cars is a Lincoln Navigator with the doors of a DeLorean and the stylings of a Range Rover, or Tesla’s Model 3, which aims...

  
• 03.25.2016

  Sabermetrics, Organ transplant, and the Amazon Brick and Mortar

  There are 121, 362 people currently on the organ transplant list and not all of them will get the organs they need in time. On this episode of How Your Word Works, we learn about a new medical procedure that...

  
• 03.12.2016

  The Iditarod Heats Up

  It was 40 degrees out at the start of this year’s Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. The dogs prefer –10. We find out how warmer temperatures are causing mushers to try different strategies to make sure they meet the requirement...

  
• 02.27.2016

  Popular Mechanics Goes to the Oscars. And Space.

  On today's show, we talk to the guys who turn science and technology into movie magic. Then we hear from astronaut Mike Hopkins about life on the International Space Station--the little things, like chewing, swallowing, and sneezing. Finally, we tell...

  
• 02.12.2016

  Deadpool Effects, Air Travel Tips, and the Art of Political Polling.

  With the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire primary in the books, election season is in full swing. In this week’s episode we asked professional pollster Nick Gourevitch the question on everyone’s mind in the run up to the election:...

  
• 01.27.2016

  The Challenger Disaster, 30 Years Later

  On January 28, 1986, when the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds into its mission, America changed in a profound way. The schoolchildren of America had been watching the launch with keen excitement, a schoolteacher among the crew. NASA was...

  
• 12.31.2015

  The End of the Year

  In the waning days of 2015, kick your Christmas Tree to the curb and get started thinking about the new year. On today’s episode, we tell you what happens to your tree after you part with it, and suggest an...

  
• 12.20.2015

  Holiday Movie Season

  On today’s show, we take a look at the craftsmanship that was required to shoot Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight in Ultra Panavision 70mm and project Star Wars: The Force Awakens in IMAX 70mm on quaint, old film. Then we decide if...

  
• 12.04.2015

  Germs!

  This week on How Your World Works, New York Times bestselling author A.J. Jacobs drops by the studio to to discuss, germs, healthy living, and why he once let his son lick ice cream off the sidewalk. Plus: Dr. Christopher...

  
• 11.20.2015

  Baghdad, Arizona

  Editor Sean Manning talks with writer Elliott Woods about a cadre of Iraqi fighter pilots training in Tucson, Arizona with the 162nd Wing of the Arizona Air National Guard. The pilots are learning to fly F-16 jets, which the Iraqi government...

  
• 11.06.2015

  Cancer, Space Suits, Balloons

  In this round table episode we talk to contributing writer Kira Peikoff about her story on a new form of cancer treatment that finds promise in patients with abnormally positive responses to otherwise unsuccessful trial drugs. Then we float theories on helium, save Neil Armstrong's...

  
• 10.24.2015

  Ghostbusting

  We investigate the spector of young girl at the Brooklyn Public library, talk to an expert in the field of ghost hunting, Dr. Karen Stollznow, the author of Haunting America; and we speak with the Visual Effects Supervisor of Ghostbusters, Richard...

  
• 10.09.2015

  Meru

  In the tense and thrilling new documentary Meru (in theaters now) mountaineers Jimmy Chin, Conrad Anker, and Renan Ozturk attempt to become the first group to successfully summit the Himalayas’ Meru Peak via the Shark’s Fin, one of the hardest...

  
• 09.25.2015

  The Martian

  When Andy Weir wrote The Martian, his science puzzler about an astronaut marooned on Mars with only his wits (read: scientific knowledge) to save him, he timed it to come out before the Curiosity Rover launched in 2011. So there’s...

  
• 09.11.2015

  NFL Tech: Money Ball 2.0

  The NFL season kicks off this weekend, and while a lot of the focus may be on Tom Brady's revenge and Arian Foster's groin, we wanted to look at the game from a technology standpoint. As the efforts to protect...

  
• 08.28.2015

  Prisons, Cheap Computers, and Drinking Acid

  In a special round table edition of the show, our editors discuss how architectural design can build better jails, and better outcomes for inmates and society. We'll consider whether a computer that costs $9 and is the size of a...

  
• 08.15.2015

  A Deep Dive on Subs

  Today on the show, in honor of the recent launch of the most advanced submarine ever built, the USS John Warner, we take a deep dive on submarines. We’ll learn a little about their history, how they work, as well...

  
• 08.01.2015

  El Nino VS the California Drought

  Do you remember the late 90’s? During that time there were a few things that you just couldn’t escape: Celen Dion’s My Heart Will Go on was mandatorily played every 12 minutes across all stations.  There was the TMI of the Lewinski scandal. And...

  
• 07.19.2015

  Neil DeGrasse Tyson on Pluto and the Probe

  Whether you believe Pluto to be a planet or not, the pictures that NASA has been releasing since Wednesday are a stunning reminder that even a dwarf planet can be beautiful and awe-inspiring.  Also awe-inspiring: the work it took to...

  
• 07.03.2015

  Blowing Up The Sky

  Gary Souza is the Show Designer for the Macy’s Annual 4th of July Fireworks Display in New York. The 25 minute fireworks show is choreographed to music, involves 5 barges at different positions in the East River, and is watched...

  
• 06.19.2015

  Marc Maron Helps us Start a Podcast

  For our first podcast ever we needed some help, so we asked an expert for tips. Podcasting legend Marc Maron, the host of “WTF with Marc Maron”, joined us to talk about what you can do with a garage, a...