Smartest Year Ever

Do dolphins drink water—or do they get hydrated another way? Gordy dives into the fascinating world of dolphin biology, osmoregulation, and marine mammal physiology to answer a surprisingly tricky question: how do dolphins survive surrounded by salt water? This episode explores metabolic water, reniculate kidneys, and the unique strategies dolphins use to stay hydrated in the ocean. Along the way, you’ll learn why drinking seawater is deadly for humans, how dolphins process salt differently, and why their hydration strategy has more in common with kangaroo rats than with us.

If you’ve ever wondered about dolphins, marine life, seawater drinking myths, or animal physiology, this episode will give you a science-packed answer you’ll want to share. Perfect for ocean lovers, biology buffs, and anyone looking for a conversation starter about the strange adaptations of life at sea.

So—what do dolphins drink? Watch to find out.

Sources

• Ortiz, R. M. (2001). Osmoregulation in marine mammals. The Journal of Experimental Biology.
  

• Davis, R. W., et al. (2019). Marine Mammals and Water Balance. Wiley.
  

• Pabst, D. A., et al. (2017). Marine Mammal Anatomy and Physiology. Johns Hopkins University Press.
  

• Schmidt-Nielsen, K. (1997). Animal Physiology: Adaptation and Environment. Cambridge University Press.
  

• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (n.d.). Do dolphins drink seawater? NOAA Educational Resources.
  

Kooyman, G. L. (1989). Diverse Divers: Physiology and Behavior. Springer. #Dolphins #MarineBiology #AnimalFacts #OceanLife #DailyFacts #DidYouKnow #WeirdFacts #funfacts #dailyfacts  Music thanks to Zapsplat.

How could a simple eating utensil be branded as effeminate, foreign, and Satanic? In this Food Week episode of Smartest Year Ever, Gordy explores the surprising history of the fork—from its scandalous debut in Byzantine courts to the fiery backlash of Italian clergy, who claimed God gave humans fingers for a reason.

Discover why forks were linked to the Devil’s pitchfork, how a Venetian noblewoman’s utensil habits were blamed for divine punishment, and why early travelers mocked anyone who dared adopt the strange little prongs. From Thomas Coryat (the man who brought the fork to England and got ridiculed for it) to the rise of etiquette and hygiene in the 18th century, the fork’s journey is as sharp and scandalous as the utensil itself.

By the end, you’ll see every bite with a fork in a new light—one part table manners, one part centuries-old controversy.

Sources

• Albala, K. (2003). Food in Early Modern Europe. Greenwood Press.
  

• British Library. (2016). Thomas Coryat: The Man Who Brought the Fork to England.
  

• Smith, A. F. (2009). Eating History: Thirty Turning Points in the Making of American Cuisine. Columbia University Press.
  

• Visser, M. (1992). The Rituals of Dinner: The Origins, Evolution, Eccentricities, and Meaning of Table Manners. Grove Press.
  

• Wilson, B. (2012). Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat. Basic Books.
  

#FoodHistory #WeirdFacts #CulturalHistory #HistoryFacts #DailyFacts #DidYouKnow #culinaryhistory #funfacts #foodfacts #forks

Music thanks to Zapsplat.

It’s the first day of Food Week on Smartest Year Ever—and we’re starting with one question: what’s the oldest food in the world that’s still edible?

Gordy explores the wild history of ancient food preservation: from a 3,000-year-old jar of Egyptian honey, to mysterious lumps of bog butter, to carbonized loaves of Pompeii bread and even Civil War hardtack that soldiers once chewed like stone.

These foods reveal more than just survival—they show us the chemistry of preservation, the archaeology of food, and the lengths people went to keep their meals from spoiling. Along the way, you’ll hear stories of ancient recipes, food rituals, and edible artifacts that span thousands of years.

So what do the world’s oldest foods taste like? And why do some never go bad? Stick around—you might be surprised.

Sources:

• Evershed, R. P., et al. (2017). Archaeological Chemistry of Organic Residues. Chemical Reviews, 117(13).
  

• Crane, E. (1983). The Archaeology of Beekeeping. Duckworth.
  

• Collins, B. (2016, June). 2,000-Year-Old “Bog Butter” Found in Irish Peat. National Geographic.
  

• Wilford, J. N. (1992, Feb). Meat Stew 2,400 Years Old Found in Chinese Tomb. New York Times.
  

• Rupp, R. (2013, Aug). The Sweet Science of Honey’s Eternal Shelf Life. National Geographic.
  

• Pliny the Elder. Natural History, Book 11.
  

• Lavelle, M. (2013, Nov). World’s Oldest Wine Cellar Found in Canaanite Palace. National Geographic.
  

#FoodWeek #OldestFood #FoodHistory #WeirdFoodFacts #DailyFacts Music thanks to Zapsplat.

 What if the words you speak every day were secretly following a mathematical law? In this episode of Smartest Year Ever, Gordy explores Zipf’s Law, a strange and consistent pattern that shows up not just in language, but in city populations, company sizes, website traffic, and even earthquakes.

Discovered by linguist George Zipf in the mid-20th century, this power-law distribution reveals how some words (like the) dominate language while others appear rarely—yet the ratio follows a clear mathematical order. The same uncanny structure emerges in networks, feedback systems, and growth dynamics, making Zipf’s Law one of the most fascinating examples of hidden order in human society.

Why does it happen? Theories range from the principle of least effort in communication, to network dynamics that favor concentration at the top while leaving space for a long tail of diversity. But here’s the mystery: no one fully understands why this pattern is so universal.

If you’ve ever wondered how math, linguistics, and human behavior intersect in ways no one taught you in school, this episode is for you.

Sources:

• Zipf, G. K. (1949). Human Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort. Addison-Wesley.
  

• Piantadosi, S. T. (2014). Zipf’s word frequency law in natural language: A critical review and future directions. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 21(5), 1112–1130.
  

• Newman, M. E. J. (2005). Power laws, Pareto distributions and Zipf’s law. Contemporary Physics, 46(5), 323–351.
  

• Ferrer i Cancho, R., & Solé, R. V. (2003). Least effort and the origins of scaling in human language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100(3), 788–791.
  

#MathFacts #Linguistics #ZipfsLaw #DailyFacts #DidYouKnow #WordNerds #Language Music thanks to Zapsplat.

In November 1983, NATO staged a military exercise called Able Archer ’83—and the world came closer to nuclear war than almost anyone realized at the time. During this heightened moment of the Cold War, miscommunication, paranoia, and cutting-edge espionage collided in ways that could have ended life as we know it.

From the KGB’s Operation RYaN, to the paranoia fueled by Reagan’s “Star Wars” Strategic Defense Initiative, to the inside intelligence from double agent Oleg Gordievsky, this near-miss remains one of history’s most dangerous moments. And yet, unlike the Cuban Missile Crisis, it stayed hidden for years.

This episode explores the secrets behind Able Archer, the rising tensions after the Korean Air Lines Flight 007 shootdown, and the life-or-death decision by Stanislav Petrov just weeks earlier that already saved the world once in 1983. Historians now rank this period as one of the most dangerous nuclear standoffs of all time.

So how did a “routine NATO drill” almost convince the Soviets that nuclear war was imminent? And what does it teach us about the razor’s edge of global survival?

Stay tuned.

Sources:

• Jones, N. (2016). Able Archer 83: The Secret History of the NATO Exercise That Almost Triggered Nuclear War. National Security Archive.
  

• National Security Archive. (2016). The 1983 War Scare [Declassified documents collection].
  

• Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). (1996). Soviet Reactions to NATO Exercises [Historical Review Program release].
  

• Downing, T. (2018). 1983: Reagan, Andropov, and a World on the Brink. Da Capo Press.

  Macintyre, B. (2018). The spy and the traitor: The greatest espionage story of the Cold War. Crown Publishing Group.

  
  

#ColdWarHistory #NuclearWar #WorldWarThree #WW3 #AbleArcher #HistoryFacts #MilitaryHistory #HistoryFacts #coldwar #soviets #Espionage

Music thanks to Zapsplat.

The World’s Tallest Unclimbed Mountains are some of the last great mysteries of exploration. While Everest is packed with climbers every season, a handful of towering Himalayan and Karakoram peaks remain completely untouched by human footsteps.

In this episode of Smartest Year Ever, Gordy dives into the fascinating mix of reasons why these giants are still unclimbed—ranging from sacred bans in Bhutan, to political frontiers in Pakistan and China, to sheer technical impossibility. From Gangkhar Puensum, the world’s tallest virgin peak, to remote outliers like Labuche Kang III East and Summa Ri, these mountains are a reminder that even in the age of GPS, drones, and satellite imagery, some places remain beyond reach.

If you’ve ever wondered what peaks still stand unconquered, and why the world’s strongest climbers haven’t planted a flag there, this is your chance to learn.

Sources:

• Himalayan Masters. (n.d.). Tallest unclimbed mountains in the world. Retrieved from https://himalayan-masters.com
  

• Times of India. (2021, December 11). International Mountain Day: A look at 8 unclimbed peaks of the world.
  

• Wikipedia contributors. (2025). Highest unclimbed mountain [Entries: Gangkhar Puensum, Labuche Kang III East, Kabru North, Karjiang I, Apsarasas Kangri I]. In Wikipedia. Retrieved August 2025.
  

• ExplorersWeb. (2024, July 8). Muchu Chhish finally summited.
  

#Mountains #UnclimbedPeaks #MountEverest #AdventureFacts #FunFacts #exploration #DailyFacts #geography

Music thanks to Zapsplat.

Tattoos might seem like a modern trend, but the story of Ötzi the Iceman shows that humans have been marking their skin for thousands of years. Gordy explores the fascinating history of the world’s oldest tattoos—from soot-inked lines on a 5,000-year-old mummy in the Alps, to intricate animal designs preserved on Siberian warriors, to ritual tattoos found on Egyptian mummies.

Why did ancient cultures tattoo their bodies? Were they for medicine, ritual, identity, or art? And how far back can we trace the tools of tattooing? This episode dives into the origins of tattoo culture across the globe—spanning Europe, Egypt, Polynesia, Africa, and the Americas—and reveals just how ancient the impulse to ink really is.

Join Gordy on Smartest Year Ever as he uncovers the science, archaeology, and cultural meaning behind tattooing—plus why Ötzi’s tattoos may have been the world’s first acupuncture experiment.

So there you have it: the history of tattoos stretches far deeper than you think.

Sources:

• Capasso, L., Michetti, E., & D’Anastasio, R. (1999). The tattoos of the Tyrolean Iceman: A light and electron microscopic study. Journal of Archaeological Science, 26(12), 1131–1137.
  

• Friedman, R. (2018). Earliest evidence for figural tattoos on a mummified body from predynastic Egypt. Journal of Archaeological Science, 92, 116–125.
  

• Polosmak, N.V. (1994). A Mummy Unearthed from the Pastures of Heaven. National Geographic, 185(4), 80–103.
  

• Krutak, L. (2014). Spiritual Skin: Magical Tattoos and Scarification. Edition Reuss.
  

#TattooHistory #OtziTheIceman #AncientHistory #Archaeology #HumanOrigins #Tattoos #Didyouknow #funfacts #dailyfacts #anthropology

Music thanks to Zapsplat.

Why does your brain get completely fooled by a simple upside-down face? The Thatcher Effect—discovered in 1980 by psychologist Peter Thompson—remains one of psychology’s most famous illusions. It reveals how the fusiform face area in the brain processes upright faces differently from inverted ones, and why we sometimes miss the grotesque hiding in plain sight.

In this episode of Smartest Year Ever, Gordy explores the history of the illusion, what it tells us about facial recognition, configural processing, and prosopagnosia (face blindness), and how it connects to everything from evolutionary psychology to AI facial recognition systems.

Whether you’re fascinated by optical illusions, neuroscience, or the psychology of perception, this one is guaranteed to give you a new perspective on how the human mind works.

So why does your brain shrug off the bizarre until you flip the photo upright? Watch to find out.

Sources:

• Thompson, P. (1980). Margaret Thatcher: A new illusion. Perception, 9(4), 483–484.
  

• Yin, R. K. (1969). Looking at upside-down faces. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 81(1), 141–145.
  

• Bartlett, J. C., & Searcy, J. (1993). Inversion and configuration of faces. Cognitive Psychology, 25(3), 281–316.
  

• Rossion, B. (2009). The Thatcher illusion revisited. Perception, 38(2), 227–239.
  

• Dahl, C. D., et al. (2013). Face inversion reveals species differences in the configural processing of faces. PLoS ONE, 8(11), e80902.
  

#Illusions #Psychology #Neuroscience #BrainFacts #CognitiveScience #DailyFacts #FunFacts #ThatcherIllusion #ThatcherEffect Music thanks to Zapsplat.

Why are 9 out of 10 people right-handed? Gordy digs into the science, history, and evolution of handedness—exploring why right-handed dominance has persisted for hundreds of thousands of years. From brain lateralization and language evolution to archaeological evidence in Neanderthal teeth, this episode reveals how our species developed a powerful bias toward the right hand.

Along the way, Gordy uncovers how chimpanzees, gorillas, and other primates show similar preferences, how genes and culture have influenced handedness across generations, and why left-handedness has both been stigmatized and celebrated. From evolutionary cooperation and combat strategies to surprising modern advantages in sports, this story goes far beyond which hand you use to write.

If you’ve ever wondered why most people are right-handed, this episode will change how you think about something as ordinary as picking up a pen.

Sources:

• Corballis, M. C. (2014). Left Brain, Right Hand: The Origins of Handedness. Scientific American, 311(1), 36–41.
  

• Steele, J., & Uomini, N. (2009). Can the Archaeology of Manual Specialization Tell Us Anything about Language Evolution? Brain and Language, 108(3), 140–151.
  

• Lozano, M., et al. (2011). Right-Handedness in Neandertal Populations: Archaeological Evidence from the Iberian Peninsula. Laterality, 16(1), 51–69.
  

• Faurie, C., & Raymond, M. (2005). Handedness, Homicide, and Negative Frequency-Dependent Selection. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 272(1558), 25–28.
  

• McManus, I. C. (2009). The History and Geography of Human Handedness. In Language Lateralization and Psychosis. Cambridge University Press.
  

#Handedness #RightHanded #LeftHanded #BrainScience #Evolution #DailyFacts #DidYouKnow

Music thanks to Zapsplat.

Why do we say “on cloud nine”? Gordy dives into the fascinating history of this strange expression, tracing its journey from meteorology to slang dictionaries to jazz, radio, and pop culture. Along the way, you’ll hear about the International Cloud Atlas of 1896, the rise of “cloud seven” and “cloud eight” in early 20th-century slang, and how The Temptations’ hit “Cloud Nine” helped solidify the phrase in everyday language.

This episode of Smartest Year Ever explores how a simple phrase became one of the most popular idioms for happiness—and why nine ended up beating out all the other clouds.

If you’ve ever wondered about the origins of idioms, the language of weather, or how slang drifts into mainstream speech, this episode is for you.

So why cloud nine, and not cloud seven—or thirty-nine? Stick around to find out.

Sources

• Metcalf, A. (2010). OK: The Improbable Story of America’s Greatest Word. Oxford University Press.
  

• Partridge, E. (Various editions). A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. Routledge.
  

• The Phrase Finder. (n.d.). On Cloud Nine. Retrieved from https://www.phrases.org.uk
  

• Online Etymology Dictionary. (n.d.). Cloud Nine. Retrieved from https://www.etymonline.com
  

• Arnold, S. (n.d.). Origin Stories: On Cloud Nine. Retrieved from https://suzannearnold.com
  

#WordOrigins #LanguageHistory #Etymology #DailyFacts #DidYouKnow #idioms #cloud9 

 Music thanks to Zapsplat.