Stuff To Blow Your Mind

By iHeartRadio & HowStuffWorks

Natural Sciences Science & Medicine Social Sciences

What's Stuff To Blow Your Mind about?

Deep in the back of your mind, you’ve always had the feeling that there’s something strange about reality. There is. Join Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick as they examine neurological quandaries, cosmic mysteries, evolutionary marvels and our transhuman future.

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Flares from Infinity: Sagit...

09.17.2019

A super massive black hole broods at the center of our galaxy. In this Stuff to Blow Your Mind two-parter, Robert and Joe discuss just what that means -- and doesn’t mean -- for humanity, our solar system and our ...

Stuff To Blow Your Mind episodes:

09.17.2019 Flares from Infinity: Sagittarius A* Part 2 A super massive black hole broods at the center of our galaxy. In this Stuff to Blow Your Mind two-parter, Robert and Joe discuss just what that means -- and doesn’t mean -- for humanity, our solar system and our ...
09.14.2019 From the Vault: John Dee, Part 2 Elizabethan scholar Dr. John Dee was one of the most learned men of the 16th century, applying his intense mathematical intellect to matters scientific, political, alchemical and occult. He advised Queen Elizabeth, sought communion with angelic beings, advocated British expansion ...
09.12.2019 Flares from Infinity: Sagittarius A* Part 1 A super massive black hole broods at the center of our galaxy. In this Stuff to Blow Your Mind two-parter, Robert and Joe discuss just what that means -- and doesn’t mean -- for humanity, our solar system and our ...
09.10.2019 Summer Reading 2019 It's never too late for Summer Reading! In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe welcome back former co-host Christian Sager, host of the podcast Supercontext for a discussion of recent reads. Jump on it before ...
09.07.2019 From the Vault: John Dee, Part 1 Elizabethan scholar Dr. John Dee was one of the most learned men of the 16th century, applying his intense mathematical intellect to matters scientific, political, alchemical and occult. He advised Queen Elizabeth, sought communion with angelic beings, advocated British expansion ...
09.05.2019 The Voynich Manuscript, Part 2 Browse the libraries of the world and you’ll find nothing stranger and perplexing than the so-called Voynich Manuscript, a 15th century tome that has perplexed linguists and codebreakers for hundreds of years -- and remains a mystery. In this episode ...
09.03.2019 The Voynich Manuscript, Part 1 Browse the libraries of the world and you’ll find nothing stranger and perplexing than the so-called Voynich Manuscript, a 15th century tome that has perplexed linguists and codebreakers for hundreds of years -- and remains a mystery. In this episode ...
08.31.2019 From the Vault: Illusory Truth Effect, Part 2 If a lie is repeated often enough, are we more likely to believe it? Sadly, the answer is yes. Psychologists call it the illusory truth effect and it influences both our daily lives and the larger movements of politics and ...
08.29.2019 Listener Mail: That's a Bummer Yes, it's listener mail time once more, this time with e-mails about B.U.M.M.E.R. social media platforms, planetary defense, the Tingler, psychedelics and more. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers
08.27.2019 Surfing Neanderthals What do recent studies about surfer’s ear and neanderthals reveal about their relationship with the ocean? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss the condition and some recent findings regarding the neanderthals. Learn more ...
08.24.2019 From the Vault: Illusory Truth Effect, Part 1 If a lie is repeated often enough, are we more likely to believe it? Sadly, the answer is yes. Psychologists call it the illusory truth effect and it influences both our daily lives and the larger movements of politics and ...
08.22.2019 School Dreams Have you ever experienced dreams of forgotten classes, impossible exams and other examples of school-age anxiety? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe explore the pervasive nature of the school dream. Learn more about your ...
08.20.2019 Lot's Wife: Flesh into Salt You’ve probably heard the Biblical tale of Lot’s wife, in which a trio of angels destroy a couple of ancient cities and the resulting blast turns a woman into a pillar of salt. In this episode of Stuff to Blow ...
08.17.2019 From the Vault: The Dark Side of Neuroplasticity When you hear the word “neuroplasticity,” you probably think of it in terms of a young brain’s ability to learn or an older brain’s struggles to rebound from injury. The possibility of a neuroplasticity-boosting drug remains one of medicine's true ...
08.15.2019 How to Survive a Great Fall Anticipating a fall from 10,000 feet or more? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss your chances of survival. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers
08.14.2019 The Weird World of Prehistoric Transylvania This episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind takes listeners to Transylvania, where a rogue baron made important early strides in the field of paleobiology and where, during the Late Cretaceous period, giant pterosaur dubbed “Dracula” feasted on pony-sized dwarf ...
08.10.2019 From the Vault: Chariots of the Gods Chances are, you’re already quite familiar with the notion the ancient astronauts visited the earth and gave humans the tech support they needed to climb the ladder of civilization. There's no true proof to back it up, yet ancient astronaut ...
08.08.2019 Asteroid 2019 OK: The Little Doomsday The near-Earth object (NEO) known as Asteroid 2019 OK just made an unexpected close pass, raising the hair on the back of humanity’s collective neck. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe weigh the risks ...
08.07.2019 Bonus Episode: Ephemeral's Alex Williams Former Stuff to Blow Your Mind producer and host of the podcast Ephemeral drops in for a chat about the media of yesteryear and related topics. Listen in and learn more at www.ephemeral.show Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers
08.06.2019 Social Media Is a B.U.M.M.E.R. How will you feel the day you finally delete all your social media accounts? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss some of the arguments for doing just that in Jaron Lanier’s book “Ten ...
08.03.2019 From the Vault: The Gods Must Be Counterintuitive What’s the key to a lasting myth, a captivating religion or a sensational film pitch? Some cognitive scientists and anthropologists argue that the key is a minimally counterintuitive narrative: the right balance of the mundane with just a dash of ...
08.01.2019 The Tingler It’s time for another movie episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and you might be surprised to discover all the weird and wonderful themes at work in the often-dismissed 1959 Vincent Price film “The Tingler.” Not only does it ...
07.31.2019 Introducing Sleepwalkers If there's one thing that sets people apart from machines, it's creativity, right? Automation may take over certain jobs, but what happens when algorithms start to learn from our work to create their own? This episode, we speak with people ...
07.30.2019 Listener Mail: The Psychedelic Experience It’s listener mail time again, this time devoted entirely to feedback on Stuff to Blow Your Mind’s five-part series on psychedelics. Join Robert and Joe as they read everyone’s submitted thoughts and experiences. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers
07.27.2019 From the Vault: MDMA, Part 2 Some of you have tried the ecstasy. Others have merely heard about the drug on a TV sitcom, or heard about it in a news report. Either way, MDMA's power resonates through our culture -- and sometimes it's hard to ...
07.25.2019 Electric Microbe Land It’s easy to think of electricity as the domain of Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla and Street Fighter’s Blanka. But as Robert and Joe explore in this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, it’s also the domain of microbes -- ...
07.23.2019 TEETH: Dental Evolution and Marching Molars Where do teeth come from and how do different dental variations in the animal world force us to rethink our glorious chompers? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe explore dental evolution and the wondrous ...
07.20.2019 From the Vault: MDMA, Part 1 Some of you have tried the ecstasy. Others have merely heard about the drug on a TV sitcom, or heard about it in a news report. Either way, MDMA's power resonates through our culture -- and sometimes it's hard to ...
07.18.2019 TEETH (with Katie Goldin) Katie Goldin is back with a new season of Creature Feature, so she joins Robert and Joe on Stuff to Blow Your Mind for a chat about strange and amazing teeth in the animal kingdom. Learn more about your ad-choices ...
07.16.2019 Psychedelics: The Manifested Mind, Part 5 What are psychedelics? How have these substances influenced human minds and culture? What exactly do they invoke in the brain and how could a renaissance of scientific study into their properties improve our lives? In this series of Stuff to ...
07.13.2019 From the Vault: Timothy Leary, Part 2 Idolized by some and reviled by others, Timothy Leary remains an icon of 1960s counterculture and psychedelic self-exploration. But who was this rebel, psychologist and celebrity? What did he reveal about LSD’s power and potential? Join Robert and Christian for ...
07.11.2019 Psychedelics: The Manifested Mind, Part 4 What are psychedelics? How have these substances influenced human minds and culture? What exactly do they invoke in the brain and how could a renaissance of scientific study into their properties improve our lives? In this series of Stuff to ...
07.09.2019 Psychedelics: The Manifested Mind, Part 3 What are psychedelics? How have these substances influenced human minds and culture? What exactly do they invoke in the brain and how could a renaissance of scientific study into their properties improve our lives? In this series of Stuff to ...
07.06.2019 From the Vault: Timothy Leary, Part 1 Idolized by some and reviled by others, Timothy Leary remains an icon of 1960s counterculture and psychedelic self-exploration. But who was this rebel, psychologist and celebrity? What did he reveal about LSD’s power and potential? Join Robert and Christian for ...
07.04.2019 Psychedelics: The Manifested Mind, Part 2 What are psychedelics? How have these substances influenced human minds and culture? What exactly do they invoke in the brain and how could a renaissance of scientific study into their properties improve our lives? In this series of Stuff to ...
07.02.2019 Psychedelics: The Manifested Mind, Part 1 What are psychedelics? How have these substances influenced human minds and culture? What exactly do they invoke in the brain and how could a renaissance of scientific study into their properties improve our lives? In this series of Stuff to ...
06.29.2019 From the Vault: The Science of Holy Butter There's more to butter than meets the eye. Each yellow pat of fatty goodness is nothing short of processed solar energy, and its long history entails many a magical and sacred rite. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your ...
06.27.2019 Roman Extinctions Humans are capable of amazing technological and societal feats, but we’ve also brought much misery, death and destruction to our world. We are currently in the midst of the sixth great extinction event -- the Holocene extinction -- and the ...
06.25.2019 Listener Mail: Fatberg City It's time for another listener mail and this time we have field reports from the war on fatbergs in the world's sewers -- plus various other e-mails related to recent episodes. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers
06.22.2019 From the Vault: The Fartonomicon What is a fart? From what foul bodily depths does it arise? Join Stuff to Blow Your Mind hosts Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick as they crack open the Fartomicon. Explore the fascinating chemistry of flatus, recoil in horror at ...
06.20.2019 The Facial Feedback Hypothesis To what extent does the act of smiling generate happiness in the mind of the smiler? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss the Facial Feedback Hypothesis and what it means for our complex ...
06.18.2019 Silent Running It’s time for another movie episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and this time Robert and Joe are talking about 1972’s “Silent Running,” in which Bruce Dern and his robot pals are caught in an endless chase. It’s a ...
06.15.2019 From the Vault: Life on Venus The planet Venus might seem a hellish destination and an unlikely place to find extraterrestrial life. And yet, many experts agree that life may have existed in the planet's ancient oceans -- and may thrive yet within the upper atmosphere. ...
06.13.2019 Against ‘Survival of the Fittest’ Is natural selection REALLY survival of the fittest? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss where the phrase comes from and how well it actually matches up with our understanding of evolution. Learn more ...
06.11.2019 Brain Soup and Liquid Brains Is there ever a good scientific reason to turn brains into soup? What does all of this have to do with the concept of “liquid brains?” Robert and Joe explore on Stuff to Blow Your Mind. Learn more about your ...
06.08.2019 From the Vault: Finite and Infinite Games How do you play the game of life? Do you play it as a finite game or an infinite one? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss the 1986 philosophy book “Finite and Infinite ...
06.06.2019 Q2: Bones of the Plumed Serpent In the Stuff to Blow Your Mind episode “Quetzalcoatl: The Winged Serpent,” Robert and Joe discussed the feathered snake god of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica -- as well as the giant pterosaur named after it. In this episode, fossils and myth come ...
06.04.2019 The Soap Dragon What monsters of fatty flesh lie slumbering in the sewer guts of our great cities? Join Robert and Joe as they venture into the dark to discover the beast we all made together. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers
06.01.2019 From the Vault: Neurosecurity: Dawn of the Brain Hackers While hackers and malware can certainly cause a great deal of damage and misery, these dangers can’t hurt us physically, right? In this episode of the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast, Robert and Joe are sorry to say you’re ...
05.30.2019 The Great Wave For centuries, sailors have told stories of mountainous killer waves that rise out of the ocean without warning. Join Robert and Joe for a discussion of the history and science of rogue waves. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

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