As part one of serial killer March, we're kicking things off by talking about who serial killers are - the available statistics, some of the common misconceptions, and the psychological commonalities of those who become serial killers. 

 

If you're interested in looking at the statistics yourself, you can look at the Florida Gulf Coast University and Radford University database mentioned in the episode here. Or you can check out the information available from the FBI.

We've talked about burial before, but we haven't actually covered when humans decided to do that and how it worked. Fear not! This week, that's exactly what we're doing - the how, when, what, and maybe why of humans deciding to bury their dead.

 

Interested in reading more? Check out:

Pettitt, P. 2011. The Palaeolithic Origins of Human Burial. London: Routledge.

Why were the Grimm stories so... well, grim? There are several very good reasons for it. Let's unpack it together. And maybe then we can start to unpack some of the childhood trauma we endured from reading them.

 

If you're interested in some collections outside of The Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen, might we suggest the following authors (by no means an exhaustive list) who wrote collected fairytales. Many of their collections can be found on the Gutenburg Project. 

Joseph Jacobs (Celtic)

Samuel Lover (Irish)

Wolfram Eberhard (Chinese)

Friedrich Kreutzwald (Estonian)

Giambattista Basile (Italian)

Americo Paredes (Mexican)

Alexander Afanasyev (Russian)

Peter Henry Emerson (Welsh)

J. C. Poestion (Finland)

Vishnu Sharma (India)

Do dead bodies have rights? Are they people or things? Well, in the US at least, it entirely depends on your state. But we're rounding up the general overview of what rights a corpse has and how they work this week because... well, why not?

Well, this is a weird one. We've got some questionable hotel staffing practices in the 1930s, a strange hotel guest, and a lot of mysterious phone calls that leave much to be desired. On the positive side, we've got some great old-timey names like The Kansas City Journal-Post, Artemus Ogletree, and Della Ferguson.

The chilling, thrilling, and ultimately unfortunate conclusion of Scott's attempt to get to the South Pole before anyone else. On an unrelated note, proper preparation is important, kids.

 

For further reading, check out:

Huntford, Roland. 1999. The Last Place on Earth. Scott and Amundsen’s Race to the South Pole. New York: Modern Library.

 

Cherry-Garrad, Apsley. 1922. The Worst Journey in the World. London: Penguin Books.

(Not so) Great Scott! This week we're jumping into another journey that didn't quite go so great. Was it bad luck or just incompetence? Find out as we walk through the preparation phase of Scott's attempted journey to the South Pole.

 

If you want to see the maps and timeline of Scott and Amundsen's respective journeys, you can see them on this incredibly detailed website.

 

For further reading, check out:

Huntford, Roland. 1999. The Last Place on Earth. Scott and Amundsen’s Race to the South Pole. New York: Modern Library.

 

Cherry-Garrad, Apsley. 1922. The Worst Journey in the World. London: Penguin Books.

There are a lot of movies and video games about survival (or murder) in space, but what's the deal with actual death in the final frontier? Has anyone died up there? What's the plan if someone does? What are we thinking about body disposal for longer term missions? Get your space nerd pocket protectors out and let's go!

 

If you'd like to read more about the Body Back system, check out this article from Slate. Or if you'd like to listen to the entire Apollo 13 mission comms, you can find those here in NASA's archives.

We know what you're thinking. Well, we might know what you're thinking. But, as is so often the case, common mythos and popular media have largely done this disease a disservice. This week we're delving into the facts (and, of course, the unsettling realities) of Hansen's disease.

 

For further reading:

Tayman, John. 2006. The Colony. New York: Scribner.

Edmond, Rod. 2007. Leprosy and Empire. A Medical and Cultural History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ki Che Leung, Angela. 2009. Leprosy in China. A History. New York: Columbia University Press.

Almost everyone has a plan for the zombie apocalypse and maybe you've watched the "Thriller" video in celebration of the spooky season, but this week we're going to talk about how the idea of zombies originated and how it developed into the media craze we see today.

 

If you're interested in a more detailed history of the origin story of zombies, we highly recommend listening to the Throughline podcast's episode ZOMBIES from 2019.