The BrainFood Show

The BrainFood Show

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The BrainFood Show episodes

  • The Real Life Expendables

    The years 2010 to 2014, saw the release of the three Expendables films,

    throwback action romps starring a roster of aging 1980s action stars
    including Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Bruce Willis, Chuck
    Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Arnold Schwarzenegger as retired
    mercenaries back for one final job - and, presumably, easy
    nostalgia-fuelled paycheques. While the notion of assembling a team of
    60-year-olds to carry out a dangerous mission might seem like pure
    Hollywood nonsense, it is not as outlandish as it might appear. Faced
    with a potential diplomatic crisis, during the Second World War British
    Intelligence called upon a team of real-life Expendables to carry out a
    daring commando raid in neutral Portuguese India. This is the incredible
    story of Operation Creek, the last ride of the Calcutta Light Horse.
    The Battle of the Atlantic, which raged from the very first day of WWII
    to the very last, has been covered extensively on this channel. But the
    desperate struggle between Allied shipping and German U-boats was not
    confined to the frigid waters of the North Atlantic. U-boat operations
    ranged as far afield as the Indian Ocean, where the marauding submarines
    wreaked havoc on ships sailing in and out of British India. And this
    deadliness only increased thanks to an unexpected helping hand.
    Author: Gilles Messier
    Editor: Daven Hiskey
    Host: Simon Whistler
    Producer: Samuel Avila


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    16 min
  • Is Nuclear Winter Actually a Possibility or Just Pseudoscience?

    As horrific as a nuclear war would be in the immediate, a common idea is

    that the real troubles for humanity, and the world, would actually
    occur in the long aftermath, triggering what is now commonly known as
    nuclear winter- a nightmarish scenario in which atmospheric temperatures
    would drop dramatically, crops would fail, and widespread famine,
    disease, and unrest would follow, leading to a catastrophic reduction in
    the global population, or even the end of human civilization. But just
    what is ‘nuclear winter’ anyway? Who came up with it, and is it actually
    a real possibility, or just some scientists with way too much time on
    their hands and a news media who loves them some good doomsday
    scenarios, whether they are valid possibilities or not.
    Well, put on your gas mask and lead-lined underwear as we dive into the
    controversial history and science of one of the most frightening
    doomsday scenarios ever conceived.
    Surprisingly, the first published suggestion that a nuclear war could
    alter the global climate appeared not in an official scientific
    publication, but rather in fiction. In the post-apocalyptic short story
    Tomorrow’s Children by American science fiction writer Poul Anderson,
    first published in the March 1947 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, a
    team of scientists hunt down mutated humans in the wake of a nuclear
    war. At one point, the story’s protagonist High Drummond observes that:
    “Winter lay heavily on the north, a vast grey sky seeming frozen solid
    over the rolling white plains. The last three winters had come early and
    stayed long. Dust, colloidal dust of the bombs, suspended in the
    atmosphere and cutting down the solar constant by a deadly percent or
    two. There had even been a few earthquakes, se off in geologically
    unstable parts of the world by bombs planted right. Half of California
    had been ruined when a sabotage bomb started the San Andreas Fault on a
    major slip. And that kicked up still more dust. Fimbulwinter, thought
    Drummond bleakly. The doom of the prophecy.”
    Anderson later adapted this story into a full-length novel titled
    Twilight World, first published in 1961. The same phenomenon also
    appears in Christopher Anvil’s short story Torch, published in the April
    1957 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. In this story, a Soviet
    nuclear ballistic missile test in Siberia accidentally sets fire to an
    oil field, releasing large amounts of oily soot into the atmosphere that
    blots out the sun and triggers a global ice age.
    The term Fimbulwinter or “mighty winter” in Anderson’s original 1947
    story is drawn from Norse Mythology, and refers to a series of three
    particularly harsh winters preceding Ragnarök, the apocalyptic battle of
    the Gods that will destroy and cleanse the world. While the origins of
    any mythological concept are hard to pin down, it has been speculated
    that Fimbulwinter may have been inspired by the Volcanic Winter of 536,
    in which a series of simultaneous volcanic eruptions ejected vast
    amounts of particulates - especially sulfur dioxide - into the upper
    atmosphere. They lingered there for years, blocking out the sun’s rays
    and causing global temperatures to drop by as much as 2.5 degrees
    Celsius or 4.5 degrees. As Roman historian Precopius recorded:
    “And it came about during this year that a most dread portent took
    place. For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the
    moon, during this whole year, and it seemed exceedingly like the sun in
    eclipse, for the beams it shed were not clear nor such as it is
    accustomed to shed. And from the time when this thing happened men were
    free neither from war nor pestilence nor any other thing leading to
    death.”
    Author: Gilles Messier
    Host / Editor: Daven Hiskey
    Producer: Samuel Avila


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    49 min
  • The Stories of WWII

    In the video today, we're looking at a variety of fascinating stories

    from WWII, everything from what the German public actually knew about
    the holocaust during WWII to the biggest POW camp breakout, to that time
    the U.S. government teamed up with the mafia against the Germans, to
    the young war gamers who changed the course of the war with their games
    and much, much more.
    0:00 What Did the German Public Know About the Holocaust During WWII?
    53:37 How Do the Japanese Teach About WWII?
    1:05:53 The Wild Story of the Biggest POW Camp Breakout of World War II
    1:19:45 A Dinner Jacket, the Nazis, the “British” Accent, and What This All Has to Do With the BBC News
    1:26:13 How a WWII Famine Helped Solve a 2,000 Year Old Major Medical Mystery
    1:35:10 That Time the US Government Teamed Up with the Mafia to Defeat the Nazis
    1:47:26 That Time the British Pitted a Few Canoeing Commandos against a Fleet of Nazi Ships... And Won
    2:01:13 Argentina's Secret Nazi Fusion Lab
    2:16:46 The Forgotten Nazi Holocaust Plan Before They Decided On the Holocaust
    2:28:02 The Young War Gamers Who Changed the Course of WWII
    2:40:24 That Time British Witches Tried to Stop a Nazi Invasion Using Magic
    2:49:57 The Nazi Interrogator Who Killed Them with Kindness


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    3 hr 4 min
  • The Quest for the Recoilless Gun

    If you’ve ever shot a gun, then you will have quickly learned the first

    fundamental rule of shooting: recoil sucks. Depending on the calibre,
    weight of the firearm, and your technique, just a few minutes of
    shooting something like a hunting rifle can quickly leave your shoulder
    bruised and sore. And the bigger the firearm, the worse the problem
    becomes, with large-calibre military artillery pieces requiring
    elaborate systems of hydraulic cylinders to absorb their prodigious
    recoil. This, in turn, makes these weapons extremely heavy and difficult
    to move around the battlefield. There are two basic solutions to this
    problem: mount the artillery on heavy armoured vehicles… or somehow
    eliminate the recoil itself. Over the last century, engineers around the
    world have devised dozens of ingenious methods to achieve just that,
    creating weapons that are simultaneously powerful and long-ranged while
    being light and compact enough to be moved around the battlefield by
    regular troops or light vehicles. This is the fascinating technology
    behind recoilless weapons.
    To begin with, let’s first examine the physics behind recoil. One way to
    understand this phenomenon is via Newton’s Third Law - that is, “For
    every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” A more useful
    principle, however, is conservation of momentum. Momentum, defined as an
    object’s ability to resist changes in motion, is given by the simple
    formula mass times velocity. When an object is split into pieces and
    those pieces propelled in different directions - such as in the case of a
    bomb exploding or, more relevant to our discussion, a firearm shooting a
    projectile - the momentum of the overall system is conserved. In other
    words, if you add up the momentum - mass times velocity - of every
    individual piece, they will sum up to the original momentum - in the
    case of a stationary object, zero. Most firearms shoot a projectile
    significantly lighter than themselves; however, as this projectile is
    travelling at a very high velocity, its momentum equals that of the
    firearm, which, being much heavier, will recoil at a significantly lower
    velocity. The heavier the firearm, the slower it recoils and
    vice-versa. This, along with surface area in contact with your shoulder,
    is why, despite sometimes being quite painful, the recoil of most
    firearms is nowhere near strong enough to actually rip your shoulder off
    - unlike the projectile being fired downrange.
    Based on this physical analysis, it stands to reason that if you placed
    two identical firearms back-to-back and fired them in opposite
    directions, their recoil would cancel out and the whole assembly would
    remain stationary. This is known as the counter-shot or counter-weight
    principle, and was the operating principle of the first recoilless
    firearm to see combat: the Davis Gun. Patented by U.S. Navy Commander
    Cleland Davis in 1914, the Davis gun was specifically intended for use
    aboard aircraft.
    During the First World War more conventional small-calibre cannons were
    experimentally fitted to various aircraft for use against balloons,
    zeppelins, ships, submarines, ammunition dumps, and other specialized
    targets; however, aircraft of the period were rather flimsy
    constructions of wood, wire, and canvas, and were easily damaged by the
    recoil of such weapons. Thus, by the end of the war both the American
    and British navies and flying services showed great interest in Davis’s
    design. The Davis Gun effectively comprised two gun barrels mounted
    back-to-back and fired a special double-ended cartridge. On firing, a
    conventional shell was propelled out the forward barrel towards the
    target, while an equivalent mass of lead shot and grease was expelled
    out the rear, the recoil of the two barrels cancelling each other out.
    Of course, standing directly behind what is effectively a gigantic
    shotgun is a good way to have a very bad day, meaning the Davis gun had
    to be rather awkwardly mounted at the very front of the aircraft with
    its barrel pointing downward at a steep angle so that the counter-shot
    was propelled safely up and over the top wing. There were other problems
    as well. Since the gun had to propel two projectiles at equal velocity,
    the propellant charge - and thus the cartridge - was much larger than
    usual, making it awkward to handle.
    Author: Gilles Messier
    Host/Editor: Daven Hiskey
    Producer: Samuel Avila


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    42 min
  • Creating the Terminator

    “They could have fired me on the spot. But you know, they’re idiots”

    That’s a quote from James Cameron about the reaction of gathered
    executives to the first screening of The Terminator, which according to
    the director, really didn’t go all that well. However, largely due to
    Cameron’s background working on cheesy B-Movies, there was nobody else
    in Hollywood the studio could bring in to finish the movie. In fact, the
    success of Terminator and by extension the career of James Cameron owes
    a lot to the director’s B-movie chops, connections and experience. Oh,
    and a vicious bout of food poisoning that left him delirious and on the
    verge of shitting himself for like 5 whole days.
    On this, there is a long-standing industry legend that the genesis of
    The Terminator was a nightmare Cameron had whilst working on the
    cinematic turd that is, Piranha II: The Spawning, a film about
    genetically engineered flying piranha that is largely only noteworthy
    for being the directorial debut of Cameron, outside of a little film he
    made funded by his dentist. The legend posits that Cameron had to take a
    break from tossing rubber piranha at his actors when he came down with
    food poisoning. Whilst recovering in a cheap Italian hotel, Cameron is
    said to have had a nightmare about a chrome skeleton attempting to stab
    him with a kitchen knife and that that image was so terrifying he was
    convinced it could be a great hook for a film. Cameron then immediately
    sketched out the basic design of what would become the Terminator.
    Which is a great story, but it’s not the whole story and there are
    several details James Cameron himself has dismissed or clarified over
    the years.
    Author: Karl Smallwood
    Editor: Daven Hiskey
    Producer: Samuel Avila
    Host: Simon Whistler


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    29 min
  • The Actual Most Painful Sting and How Did They Figure That Out?

    Who among us hasn’t had this experience? You are eating a lovely outdoor

    meal or working peacefully in the garden when unexpected guests arrive.
    Dressed in menacing yellow and black, they buzz annoyingly around you,
    coming between you and your juicy steak or prized roses. You try to
    gently shoo them away, but they just grow more and more aggravated
    until, suddenly, you feel it: that sharp, searing pain, flashing up your
    hand, as if you’ve just been stabbed with red-hot poker. If you’re
    lucky, your finger will swell up and you will have to endure that
    throbbing agony for an hour or two. If, however, you happen to be among
    the unlucky 0.5-7% of the general population that is allergic to insect
    stings, you can look forward to the delights of anaphylactic shock: a
    sudden drop in blood pressure, itchy hives, and difficulty breathing
    which, in severe cases, can lead to death without immediate medical
    intervention. Whether we like it or not, venomous creatures like bees,
    wasps, scorpions, spiders, snakes, and jellyfish are a part of everyday
    life for nearly every human on earth, with hundreds of thousands of
    species worldwide being capable of delivering some kind of painful or
    toxic bite or sting. Thankfully, however, as is often the case in
    nature, most of these organisms will not attack unless directly
    provoked. And, if you happen to live in a part of the world where the
    worst stings you have to face are those of bees, paper wasps, and
    yellowjackets, consider yourself very, very lucky, for mother nature
    holds far greater horrors in her arsenal, from ants with bites so
    painful they are used as tests of manhood, to wasps whose stings have
    been likened to being thrown into a live volcano, and fish with venom so
    excruciating it can literally stop your heart. But which bite or sting
    is the absolute worst? Which organism on this planet is, as the English
    rock band The Police might have put it, the “King of Pain”? Well, let’s
    find out as we dive into the agonizing world of the worst bites and
    stings in nature.
    Author: Gilles Messier
    Host/Editor: Daven Hiskey
    Producer: Samuel Avila
    0:00 Intro
    6:00 Schmidt Theory and His Wine Lover-esk Index
    17:20 The Starr Sting Pain Scale
    20:00 Nathaniel "Coyote" Peterson's BSI and Looking Beyond Insects
    25:30 The Ultimate Stings- The Platypus and Stonefish


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    34 min
  • What was It Actually Like to be a Gladiator, History's Literal Deadliest Fart Killing 1000s, & More

    In the podcast today, we're looking at what it was really like to be a

    gladiator in Ancient Rome, how corrupt the roman senate was, what's the
    deal with roman gods and much, much more.
    0:00 What was It Like to Be a Gladiator in Ancient Rome?
    18:13 How Corrupt was the Roman Senate Really?
    32:50 What's the Deal with the Roman Gods?
    46:51 The Roman Emperor Who Tried to Make His Horse Consul
    59:46 Julius Caesar and His Pirate Adventure
    1:06:22 History's Literal Deadliest Fart and the Origin of Mooning
    1:20:49 Intentionally Removing People From History (Damnatio Memoriae)
    1:24:45 Did Nero Really Fiddle When Rome Burned?
    1:32:23 That Time the Title 'Emperor of Rome' was Up for Auction (and the Sorry Soul Who Won)
    1:43:42 The Colosseum's Big Brother, The Circus Maximus
    1:49:35 Are C-Sections Really Named After Julius Caesar?
    2:00:12 Where Did Goth Teen Subculture Come From and Why is it Associated With Roman Invaders?


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    2 hr 19 min
  • The Rock WWII Turned On

    At the southern tip of Spain, jutting out into the Mediterranean Sea,

    lies Gibraltar, a narrow peninsula measuring only 6.8 square kilometres
    or 2.6 square miles in area and dominated by a 426 metre or 1,298 foot
    high limestone monolith: the legendary Rock of Gibraltar. A British
    overseas territory and naval base since 1713, Gibraltar has long been of
    vital strategic importance, controlling the narrow passage between the
    Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean. And at no time was this truer than
    during the Second World War, when the Axis powers plotted to capture
    Gibraltar in a bid to cut Britain off from its overseas Empire and
    starve her into submission. And though the heavily-defended enclave
    would be a tough nut to crack, the very real threat of invasion led
    British military planners to take elaborate precautions should the“Rock”
    ever fall. And perhaps the most extreme of these contingencies was an
    utterly bonkers plan to seal six men into a secret network of tunnels
    and chambers carved into the Rock of Gibraltar. Provided with several
    years’ worth of food and water, these volunteers were to spy on the
    occupying Axis forces and report their movements back to Britain,
    secretly keeping Gibraltar in the fight. This is the bizarre tale of
    Operation Tracer.
    What is now known as the Rock of Gibraltar was formed during the early
    Pliocene Epoch around 5 million years ago, when the collision of the
    African and Eurasian tectonic plates lifted up and inverted a large slab
    of the Eurasian plate, composed of the 200-million-year-old Catalan Bay
    Shale, Gibraltar Limestone, Little Bay Shale, and Dockyard Shale
    formations. The ongoing movement of these plates continues to push the
    Rock of Gibraltar steadily skyward, with the monolith growing in height
    at a rate of around 0.05 millimetres or 0.002 inches per year. The area
    has been inhabited for at least 125,000 years, with the bones, tools,
    and other remnants of both neanderthals and modern Homo sapiens being
    found in numerous caves dotting the peninsula. In antiquity the Rock of
    Gibraltar, then known as Mons Calpe, was frequently visited by
    Phoenician, Greek, and Roman mariners, with the Greeks recognizing the
    mountain as one of the two “Pillars of Heracles.” According to Greek
    mythology, while trying to obtain the Cattle of Geryon - the 10th of his
    12 Labours - the legendary hero smashed his way through the Atlas
    Mountains, forming the Straits of Gibraltar and connecting the Atlantic
    Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. The identity of the other pillar has been
    lost to history and is heavily debated among classicists, though it is
    now widely believed to be either Monte Hacho or Jebel Musa in
    Morocco....
    Author: Gilles Messier
    Editor: Daven Hiskey
    Host: Daven Hiskey
    Producer: Samuel Avila


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    37 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.