The BrainFood Show

The BrainFood Show

By Cloud10EducationHistory
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The BrainFood Show episodes

  • WTF is Up with the McDonald's McRib?

    The McRib is a food with both a devout following and many detractors.

    But what is the genesis of the world’s most popular fast food chain’s
    most mysterious menu item? And why, oh why, is it not available all the
    time like the majority of the rest of the McDonald’s menu?
    Cooking ribs in the Americas predates the colonial period. But the
    earliest records of Europeans cooking foods near what we would call
    barbeque were in colonial Virginia. Settlers observed a native way to
    cook meat, and they adapted it to their tastes. Later, as slaves were
    brought in from Caribbean plantations, the food genre we know as
    barbeque developed.
    In fact, the word barbeque is a loan word from the Taino language of the
    Caribbean. It was originally called barbacoa. It is unclear whether the
    name comes from the native islander's method of cutting the meat or the
    wooden frame on which the food was smoked. In any case, after it
    arrived in the North American colonies, it spread wherever pork was
    plentiful.
    Important here to the story of the McRib is that barbeque, in the proper
    sense, is any meat that is slow-cooked over indirect heat, usually
    wood, and not merely meat with barbeque sauce on it. It can take up to
    eighteen hours to turn raw meat into barbeque for it to reach
    perfection. If brined first, it can take an additional day.
    That is part of what makes the McRib a surprise. Rib joints usually
    slow-cook. Many places brine it before smoking. Additionally, cooking
    with a wood fire is inherently messy. Barbeque meat is also often hand
    butchered. None of this lends itself to a fast food chain that in 2011
    had to abandon the idea of using celery root in one of its food items
    because to offer the item, McDonald's would have had to buy all of the
    world’s celery root supply, and there still would not have been enough
    celery to meet the projected demand. A frequent problem for the
    restaurant chain that annually serves 1/27th of all restaurant food
    consumed in the world, and caters to about 1 percent of the world’s
    population on any given day.


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    19 min
  • Are the Odds of Successfully Navigating an Asteroid Field Really Approximately 3,720 to 1?

    ⁠⁠In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we begin by discussing the real origin of Tang and what that has to do with Pop Rocks and how they work. We then move on to the interesting story behind the invention of Velcro and how it works.

    Next up we look at whether NASA really spent many millions of dollars developing the famous “space pen” instead of just using a pencil like the Russians.

    Moving on from there we discuss the fascinating reason why only one side of the moon faces the Earth and how this happened and is still happening, with the Earth itself slowing down such that in theory at some point only one side of it will face the moon.

    Moving on, we look at what the actual odds of navigating a typical asteroid field in space would be and whether the depictions in movies here are actually accurate.

    Finally, we respond to some user feedback, including on initial attempts listeners of the female persuasion have made to pee standing up without peeing all over themselves (which sounds even weirder to write, but is in reference to a previous space episode ;-)), and the interesting phenomenon of people using the show to fall asleep every night and whether we should take that as a good thing or a bad thing…


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    1 hr 4 min
  • Why Don't Plane Windows and Seats Line Up?

    While airplane manufacturers do design the planes with general row

    positioning and pitch (the measurement from one seat to the same exact
    point on the seat in front or behind it) in mind, with the windows often
    lining up with the seats, the designers' exact recommended arrangement
    is rarely, if ever, followed. You see, the final placement of seats is
    left up to the individual airlines that purchase the plane.
    To make the seating arrangement as flexible as possible for airlines,
    there are multiple tracks on the floors that the seats are mounted on.
    This allows the seats to easily be moved closer together or farther
    apart. The airlines can even switch the aisle arrangement via moving a
    line of seats to a completely different track.
    For example, on some versions of the Boeing 777, Boeing recommends a
    layout of 3+3+3 with a 32 inch (81.2 cm) pitch for economy passengers.
    In this layout, you need a passenger density of 67% before a passenger
    may be required to sit next to someone else. And if some passengers
    choose to sit next to one another, the percentage is even higher before
    other passengers must sit next to someone. Boeing recommends this layout
    because, in internal studies they've conducted, they claim that one of
    the biggest factors in passenger perception of comfort on a flight is
    whether there is someone directly next to them or not.
    Nevertheless, disregarding the manufacturer recommendation, pitch on
    a...


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    19 min
  • What was It Really Like to Be a Gladiator?

    Gladiatorial combat may seem outdated and barbaric, but it is, at its

    heart, a combat sport like mixed martial arts, boxing, and even
    professional wrestling, with very similar appeal. There were clearly
    defined rules, a sense of dramatic flair with costumes, and even
    character archetypes. It was indeed bloody, but not as nearly as fatal
    as many think today. Not every gladiator died in the arena, and those
    who made it past their first handful of matches even less so beyond.
    That isn’t to say that gladiator fights didn’t also come with many
    deaths. For example, gladiator combat was usually accompanied by other
    events such as parades, animal hunts, glorified prisoner executions
    dressed up as combat practice for gladiators, and even occasional
    audience fatalities. But how did the games get started, what was life
    actually like for a typical gladiator, and how did these ubiquitous
    games rather suddenly cease to be a thing after so many centuries of
    widespread extreme popularity?


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    21 min
  • WTF is Up with Breathable Liquids?

    At the end of James Cameron’s 1989 underwater thriller The Abyss, oil

    rig diver Bud Brigman, played by Ed Harris, dons an experimental diving
    suit in which instead of air he breathes a special oxygenated liquid.
    This allows him to avoid the lethal effects of extreme water pressure
    and descend to the bottom of a deep ocean trench to defuse a nuclear
    warhead. While certainly a memorable plot device, surely such a
    technology is pure science fiction, right?
    Well, not as much as you might think. The breathing fluid depicted in
    the film, oxygenated perfluorocarbon, actually exists, and while scenes
    with the diving suit were filmed with Ed Harris holding his breath, an
    earlier scene in which a rat is immersed in breathing fluid was filmed
    for real. While The Abyss is certainly the most famous depiction of
    liquid breathing, the technology has been experimented with for over a
    century, and while it might not be quite ready for use in deep-sea
    diving, it may have lifesaving applications in the field of medicine.


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    13 min
  • The U.S. Plan to Nuke the Moon, Why People Thought the Moon was Made of Cheese and Much More

    ⁠⁠In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we begin by discussing the first space walk in which the cosmonaut in question very nearly got stuck out there and his adventures thereafter. We then move on to discussing how the idea that the moon is made of green cheese got started.

    Next up we discuss the late 1950s plan the United States had to nuke the moon, which interesting enough involved a young Carl Sagan.  Failing in that endeavor we then look at that time the U.S. accidentally nuked Britain’s first satellite… That time the U.S. dropped four nuclear bombs on Spain accidentally, and then discuss the best thing that happened to Simon in the last year, which it turns out is not (apparently) getting married a couple weeks ago, but rather something else.

    Also for reference, ⁠here is a picture of the Russian spacecraft mentioned in the episode⁠ and ⁠here is a link⁠ to the Tom Kirby song.


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    1 hr 26 min
  • The Classiest Plane Hijacking of All Time

    At 9:15 A.M. on November 10, 1961, a Lockheed Super Constellation of Portugal’s TAP airlines lifted off from Casablanca, Morocco. Aboard were nineteen passengers - mostly American tourists - bound for Lisbon. The skies that day were clear, and the flight looked to be smooth and uneventful. But just 45 minutes after takeoff, the pilot, Captain José Siqueira Marcelin, felt the cold barrel of a gun pressed against the back of his neck. The gun’s owner, a 39-year-old antifascist terrorist named Hermino da Palma Inácio, ordered Captain Marcelin to divert and fly over the cities of Lisbon, Barreiro, Beja, and Faro. Marcelin protested, arguing that the plane did not have enough fuel. But Inácio, a pilot and onetime aircraft mechanic himself, wasn’t fooled, and after glancing at the flight plan determined that the diversion was indeed possible. Out of options, Captain Marcelin had no choice but to obey. While in the early 1960s aerial terrorism was still a relatively new phenomenon, nothing could have prepared Marcelin and his passengers for what happened next. This is the outlandish story of history’s classiest hijacking.

    Author: Gilles Messier
    Editor: Daven Hiskey
    Host: Daven Hiskey
    Producer: Caden Nielsen


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    20 min
  • Murphy’s Law in Action

    It has been called the “silent service.” Since their introduction in the early 20th century, service aboard submarines has been among the deadliest military occupations, with a full 70% of German U-boat crews during WWII never returning from patrol. But the hazards faced by submariners go well beyond enemy guns, depth charges, and torpedoes; submarines are complex machines operating in an extremely hostile environment, and can prove just as deadly in peacetime as in war. So the crew of the British submarine HMS Thetis was to discover in June 1939 when a seemingly routine shakedown cruise ended in tragic accident where Murphy’s Law was proven an immutable rule of the universe. (By the way, if you’ve not seen our video on Who was the Murphy in Murphy’s Law, we strongly suggest you go watch it. Go ahead, we’ll wait. The man behind it, Dr. John Paul Stapp, is the unsung hero and saver of millions of lives since his incredibly badass work and balls of solid steel did what he did to give us Murphy’s Law.)


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    15 min
  • How to Scratch an Itch in Space, the Surprisingly Long Time You Can Survive in Space Without a Spacesuit, Why the Apollo 13 Astronauts Got Cold, and Much, Much More

    In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we begin by following up on a previous discussion on Daimler and what exactly a little girl named Mercedes had to do with things. We then jump into the surprisingly oft’ requested follow up on Simon’s first ranch dressing experience.

    Next up we move into the meat of the episode, discussing how astronauts scratch an itch in their space suits, followed by looking at the surprisingly long time you can survive in space without a space suit or any other protection, with no long term damage.

    During that discussion we get side tracked talking about why the Apollo 13 crew got so cold on their trip when space is not cold at all, but rather a great insulator, and why they didn’t simply put on their space suits to keep warm.

    We then discuss at length the amazingly fascinating way in which airline planes get oxygen to passengers when there is no central oxygen store aboard the plane, outside of the pilot’s emergency supply. Then we look at the equally interesting way in which they get oxygen to passengers when there is a loss of cabin pressure- again, given there is no central oxygen store aboard the plane for passengers.


    Sponsor: Incogni - Use code BRAINFOOD and get 60% off an annual plan using the link https://incogni.com/brainfood

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    1 hr 21 min
  • The Incredible Black Arrow Rocket

    When it comes to technological achievement and national prestige, few feats can compare to launching a satellite into space. Since the Soviet Union launched the world’s first satellite, Sputnik I, on October 4, 1957, 11 other government bodies have developed indigenous orbital launch capability: the United States, France, Japan, China, India, Israel, Ukraine, Iran, North Korea, South Korea, and a group of 22 nations represented by the European Space Agency. Conspicuously absent from the list is the United Kingdom, which in the late 1960s succeeded in developing this capability only to immediately abandon it. This is the story of the tragically brief British space program.

    At the end of the Second World War, Britain was well-positioned to start its own advanced rocketry program. Like the United States and the Soviet Union, the victorious ally had captured dozens of the German V2 rockets which had rained down on Southern England and Belgium at the end of the war - along with many of the scientists and technicians who had built and fired them. In October 1945, the British Army launched Operation Backfire, in which three captured V2s were assembled, launched, and filmed near Cuxhaven in Northern Germany. These experiments gave the British a wealth of knowledge and experience on the workings of the German terror weapon. One year later, on December 23, 1946, R.A. Smith and H.E. Ross of the British Interplanetary Society submitted to the Ministry of Supply a design for a modified V2 that could carry a man into space. Their concept replaced the rocket’s one-ton explosive warhead with a pressurized capsule that would detach at apogee and parachute to earth. Alas Britain, shattered both physically and financially by the war, could not afford to fund such a project, and all plans for military and civilian rocketry were quietly shelved...
    Author: Gilles Messier
    Editor: Daven Hiskey
    Host: Simon Whistler
    Producer: Samuel Avila


    Sponsor: Incogni - Use code BRAINFOOD and get 60% off an annual plan using the link ⁠https://incogni.com/brainfood

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    19 min

About The BrainFood Show

From the publisher's feed

In this show, the team behind the wildly popular TodayIFoundOut YouTube channel do deep dives into a variety of fascinating topics to help you feed your brain with interesting knowledge.

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