Interesting Nuggets

Roxanne shares the divisive topic of pineapple on pizza — invented not in Hawaii, but Canada by a chef with no connection to Hawaii at all. Join us to chat about how a 1962 diner experiment turned into one of the worlds most heated food fights.

Kendall tells Roxanne about the surprising origins of modern dog breeds . As a devoted dog lover, Roxanne is delighted to dive into the history behind her favorite four-legged friends. From herding, hunting, retrieval, and pest control to spiritual protection and portable hot water bottles, dogs have been bred to be our best mates and our best helpers.

Kendall tells Roxanne about "The Sleeping Sickness" — encephalitis lethargica, a mysterious illness that swept the globe from 1917 to 1928. Over a million people fell ill. More than 500,000 died. Roxanne is horrified — and unsettled to learn how little we still understand about it, even now, a century later.

Roxanne tells us all about the most successful pirate of all time... Ching Shih. Who was (cue the gasp) a woman! She rose from poverty to command 1,800 ships and 80,000 pirates. Rox gets into the strict rules that kept her crew loyal (cheat on your spouse...walk the plank) and how she retired undefeated to live out her days in opulence...running gambling houses and brothels.

Kendall gets all jazzed up about crows. Part of the corvid family and notoriously devious, clever, and cunning... or perhaps just greatly misunderstood. Crows have been vilified for millennia, but research now shows they're simply incredibly smart—and fiercely loyal, too.

Join us on today's episode where Kendall tells us about inventions created by kids. Kids with their never ending creativity and imagination have bought us things we use on the daily... calculators, popsicles, flippers and well...guns.

Lets pump up the next generation of young inventors because you can't beat a fresh, novel and youthful idea.

On this episode of Interesting Nuggets, Roxanne is feeling the love. She sits down with Kendall to share some of the most influential inventions ever made — all with one thing in common: they were inspired by someone's loved one.

On this episode, Kendall crashes into the ridiculous delay of the Female Crash Test Dummy Delay. The first male dummy was introduced in 1949. The first female one? 2023. Just a small 74-year wait. And even now, its use is rarely mandatory. Despite years of evidence showing women are significantly more likely to be seriously injured in crashes because cars are designed and tested around the "average male" body, safety standards still haven't caught up. Roxanne spends the episode frustrated with the patriarchy.

Today Kendall talks perfume — even though she refuses to wear it. What's actually in that bottle you're spritzing on your pulse points? From whale vomit to beaver glands, the occasionally stomach-turning ingredients of fragrance — and why humans have never, ever stopped wanting to smell good.

You've probably forgotten a face before. But what if you couldn't remember any face — ever?

Roxanne shares the debilitating and mind-boggling neurological condition of Face Blindness (prosopagnosia) with Kendall. A condition where the brain can't hold onto faces, not even your closest friends, not even yourself in a mirror. Join us while we learn about the wild neuroscience behind why some brains just can't make faces stick.