Stuff You Should Know

Haint Blue is a kind of robin's egg color that you might commonly find on porches of the low country of the Southeastern United States. But what does it have to do with ghouls and ghosts? Listen and learn!

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The Seven Countries Study was a fairly impressive, long-term study on the effects of fat in our diet, among other things. But it was very flawed and launched the misguided "War on fat." Learn all about today, then make up your own mind.

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Who first decided that it would be a great idea to shoot flame at other people from a distance? Josh and Chuck talk about the (very) early origins, history and technology of the flamethrower in this classic episode.

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There’s a persistent insistence that you can ingest a tapeworm and as the parasite hijacks a lot of the calories you eat, the pounds will fall right off. In theory this could be true, but it’s also extremely dangerous. And has anyone ever really done it?

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Foie gras means “fatty liver” in French, which makes sense because it’s made from the overripe livers of force-fed ducks and geese. 

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In yet another testament to how amazingly great the 70s were, in 1975 the US started a program that tried to harness the powers of clairvoyance to remotely spy on the Soviet Union. Since clairvoyance doesn’t seem to exist, it wasn’t super successful.

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The Black Panther Party was a complex political movement that was unfairly painted as a militant group who hated white people. Far from it, they were actually men and women trying to affect change in their community. Their history is one of the more interesting American stories, from the early stages of policing the police to their community service efforts to their inevitable fall. Learn all about the Black Panther Party in this classic episode.

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Tank Man. An indelible image burned in our brains. But what led to this extraordinary event? Chuck and Josh walk you through the days and weeks leading up to the massacre at Tiananmen Square, which is more of a cautionary tale than we realized.

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The lake from one of the all-time great movies (search your feelings, you’ll find that it’s true) is turning into a dried up mudhole. Turns out it has some unusual features.

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We've covered a lot of drugs in our history, and today we tackle heroin, one of the most dangerous of all.

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