Stuff You Should Know

In this week's SYSK Select episode, Grigori Rasputin, the Russian charismatic cleric and political adviser to the ruling Romanovs, is said to have been poisoned, shot, shot again, bludgeoned and drowned. Exactly how did he die and how would such a legend grow around a modern figure?

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America loves to go nuts over new food trends and it turns out that the 20th century was a boon time for them.

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Are laws that are meant to protect the sanctity of the polling place in reality designed to make it harder for groups that traditionally vote Democrat to cast their ballots?

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In this week's SYSK Select episode, at long last, Josh and Chuck take on perhaps their most important topic ever. Learn about the history of beer, how it's made -- the whole shebang, basically -- in this watershed episode of Stuff You Should Know.

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Schoolhouse Rock is possibly the best children's program of all time. Join Josh and Chuck as they tell the story of SR, featuring an interview with Pavement's Bob Nastanovich, contributor to the '90s Schoolhouse Rock tribute record.

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"Head transplant" is a bit of a misnomer, because it's more like a body transplant. But either way, the idea is that one human will wake up from surgery with a decidedly different look. Is it possible? Probably not. But there are a couple of surgeons who are making a lot of news in their bid to find out. Learn all about this grisly potential procedure in today's episode.

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In this week's SYSK Select episode, for thousands of years, humans have used hallucinogenic mushrooms for spiritual reasons. Today, however, having them can get you thrown in prison. How do magic mushrooms do what they do? Can they help the mentally ill? Find out in this far out episode.

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It wasn't too long ago that humans thought the polar lights were signs from the afterlife. Thanks to a 19th century Norwegian, we now understand that they are a fascinating interplay with Earth's magnetic field and wind from the sun.

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Sure we can all agree that champagne is probably the greatest thing humans have or ever will invent, but how much do we understand how it's made?

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In this week's SYSK Select episode, about 30-40 percent of humans suffer from some sort of allergy. The big joke, though, is that every sufferer is the victim of mistaken identity. Allergies are the result of a hypersensitive immune system mistaking a harmless protein for a foreign invader.

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