Stuff You Should Know

It's finally here, the best episode of the year! It's time to settle in by a nice fire, wrap up in a blanket, heat up a toddy and gather your loved ones around the mp3 player to hear Chuck and Josh talk about all of the things that make Christmas so merry and bright.

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Since the Supreme Court's ban on capital punishment was reversed, states have sought a humane method of killing sentenced criminals. They settled on lethal injection, but is this quasi-medical means of killing as quick and painless as we think?

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When a suspect or prisoner goes on the lam there are plenty of ways to hide: in plain sight, in the mountains, in another country. There are as many types of ways law enforcement uses to track wanted people as their are ways to go on the lam, but there are some founding principles to carrying out a successful manhunt and they actually include you. Learn about how the fuzz tracks down fugitives and how it's evolving in the age of social media in this episode.

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It's a pretty amazing feat to dig a tunnel beneath a body of water that's big enough (and safe enough) to drive a train through. While humans have been digging underwater tunnels for thousands of years, it wasn't until the late 19th century that it became viable on a large scale. In this episode, Chuck and Josh explore the ins and outs of the engineering triumph that is digging below water.

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Thanks to the amazing properties of magnets, clever engineers have figured out how to make entire trains levitate above their tracks, letting them move frictionlessly and allowing them to reach incredible speeds. Learn about how maglev trains work and what's taking so long for us to get aboard in this episode.

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In this episode, Josh and Chuck teach you everything you ever wanted to know but were too freaked out to ask about castration. Learn about the history of removing male genitalia, why some parents had it done to their sons, how the state has become the main agent of castration in the last several decades, and why some people who are not crazy decide to become castrated themselves.

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On the day after Thanksgiving, Americans go kind of crazy for the deep discount sales that kick off the holiday shopping season in stores. So crazy, in fact, at least four people have lost their lives and as many as 63 others have been injured during Black Friday sales. But as profitable as Black Friday is, some retailers are thinking about discontinuing the tradition to find ways to make even more money. Learn all about this bizarre, uniquely American holiday custom in this episode.

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Recorded live at the Los Angeles PodFest, this episode of SYSK delves into the longstanding attempt to break down what humans find funny into a scientifically reproducible formula. Join Josh and Chuck as they examine just why this extremely unfunny quest will (thankfully) never be realized.

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For the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Josh and Chuck delve into the killing, the investigations and the conspiracy theories to get to the bottom of an enduring national question.

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People have been consuming chocolate for at least a couple thousand years, but it's only been in the last hundred that humanity has arrived at its crowning achievement: the smooth, creamy milk chocolate bar. Find out about the history of chocolate, how it's made and how it affects your mood in this episode.

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