The BrainFood Show

The BrainFood Show

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The BrainFood Show episodes

  • The Forbidden Ancient Roman Scrolls That Shaped History

    When we think of the most influential books in history, we often think of books that have a wide readership. Something that if not most literate people read, surely, many of the elite did. But it turns out, some of the most influential books in ancient history were only read by, quite literally, a handful of people. You see, Rome had a set of holy books, divinely revealed to a mysterious prophetess, that were kept under lock and key by a college of Roman priests never numbering more than 15 at a time. These books were only read by this select few, and were used by the Roman Senate to help decide all manner of things important to the management of Rome. This is the story of the mysterious Sibylline Books, the books not even the Roman senate were allowed to read.

    The Sibylline Books were three volumes of Greek hexameter poems, the same meter used in the Greek epics of Homer. We don’t actually know where the Sibylline Books came from other than the Romans' own mythology about them. The story goes that the last of Rome’s seven kings, Tarquinius Superbus who died in 495 BCE, was approached by an old woman with nine books written in Greek that told Rome’s future. She offered these books at an exorbitant price, so Tarquinius refused. The old woman then burned three of the books and offered the remaining books at the same price. Tarquinius, who is portrayed as arrogant in Roman literature, refused her a second time. The old woman burned three more books and offered the remaining three at again the same price. It was at this point that Tarquinius approached his priests to figure out if any of this was a sign from the gods. The priests advised him to buy the remaining books at whatever price the old woman named. Upon purchasing the books from the woman, she disappeared, never to be seen again. The name Sibylline refers to the woman in question, as she is thought of as a Sibyl, or a prophetess in the Greek tradition.
    Author: Yehia Amen
    Editor: Daven Hiskey
    Host: Simon Whistler
    Producer: Samuel Avila

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    14 min
  • Why the Heck Couldn't Doc Brown Have Just Made Gasoline in Back to the Future III?

    In the 1990 sci-fi comedy sequel Back to the Future Part III, intrepid time travelling late 20th century duo Marty McFly and Dr. Emmett Brown find themselves trapped in Hill Valley, California, back in the year 1885. With their DeLorean time machine out of gas and it being, well, 1885, Doc and Marty are forced to take creative measures to accelerate their ride up to the required 88 miles per hour and get back to the future.

    Doc Brown’s solution for this? An elaborate plan involving hijacking a moving train, pushing its boiler to the absolute limit and beyond of its structural capabilities as it careened towards a ravine, and then if it happened to all go well, the car would get up to 88 mph, thereby sending it back to the future. If not, well… the pair’s futures would officially be something neither would ever need to worry about again after they plummeted to their deaths.
    But while this certainly makes for an awesome climax to one of the greatest trilogies of all time, 1885 was not that far removed from the age of the automobile; indeed, that very same year German inventor Karl Benz unveiled his Patent Motorwagen, widely considered history’s first practical, mass-produced car. Or, at least the Model 3 version was when 3 years later his wife Bertha Benz snuck out of the house before her husband got up, stole the car, and took the world’s first road trip- all to save her husband’s company, and rid him of his incessant self doubt. Along the way, she even invented the world’s first brake pad, among other tweaks she came up with along the way that were needed to improve the design for long distance travel. Much more on the genuinely incredible story of the world’s first road trip and the extreme gumption and ingenuity of Bertha Benz in the Bonus Facts later.
    But back to Doc Brown- surely a man of his intellect and resourcefulness, a self proclaimed “student of all sciences” to the extent that when recruited to the Manhattan Project, the General who did so questioned why Doc Brown had a book on needlepoint, to which Doc replied he didn’t like to dismiss anything, as any bit of knowledge could lead to a breakthrough… sure this man of all men could simply have made his own gasoline and gotten back to 1985 the regular way… right?
    Well, put on your life preserver and crank up the Power of Love as we go Back to the…origins of the petroleum industry, the first usable gas for automobiles, and figure out whether doc brown should have been able to figure all this one out in the few days he had to work with.
    Author: Gilles Messier
    Editor: Daven Hiskey
    Host: Daven Hiskey
    Producer: Daven Hiskey
    0:00 Intro
    4:10 Origins of the Petroleum Industry
    8:38 A World Changing Breakthrough
    12:08 The Fuel Doc Brown Had Access to in 1885 Hill Valley
    13:17 The Octane Issue
    15:19 Could Doc Brown Have Solved the Octane Issue?
    20:37 The Easiest Octane Solution of All
    22:30 Summing Up Whether Doc Brown Could Have Just Made Usable Gasoline
    23:41 The OG Car and the First Road Trip That Saved It

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    35 min
  • How Did J.R.R. Tolkien Die?

    J.R.R. Tolkien created one of the greatest and most influential works of fiction in history. But how did he come up with it, what was his life like, and how did it end? This is the story of the man behind the Lord of the Rings.

    John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892, in South Africa. His family returned to their native England when he was a small child. Tolkien’s parents had died by the time he was 12, so he and his younger brother Hilary were raised by their family’s priest, Father Francis Morgen.
    Ronald, as he was called, remained a devout Catholic his entire life. Tolkien was gifted with an exceptional knack for linguistics. While attending King Edward’s School in Birmingham, he was adept at Latin and Greek, and later learned Anglo-Saxon and Finnish.
    He also developed his own languages, complete with grammar rules and guidelines for usage. During his studies, he became enchanted with the old stories of ancient races with their awesome gods and fated heroes on epic adventures. While he was in school, he also met a young lady named Edith Bratt...

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    15 min
  • Introducing: Hidden History with Dr. Harini Bhat | The Mary Celeste: The Ghost Ship of the Atlantic

    Dr. Harini Bhat is a clinical pharmacist and storyteller obsessed with the moments in history that still can't be fully explained. Every week she investigates real events that defy easy explanation. Mass hysterias. Vanished civilizations. Medical oddities. Strange signals. Unexplained phenomena that keep repeating across centuries, as if history is trying to tell us something.

    Hidden History doesn't dismiss ancient events as myth or superstition. It treats them as open case files, shaped by the limits of knowledge, technology, and record-keeping. Because the unknown isn't a failure of explanation. It's a constant in human experience, one that evolves, repeats, and sometimes deepens the more we learn.

    Follow Hidden History with Dr. Harini Bhat now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or watch on YouTube @hiddenhistorypod. Listen here:  https://pod.link/1895066656


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    10 min
  • A Vampire and a Real Life Truly Horrific Love Story

    In today's episode, we start by looking at whether it’s actually safer to use a crosswalk instead of a just jaywalking as well as the actual origin of the word “jaywalk”.

    Next up, we jump into the main part of the show on the horrific tale of the dashingly handsome Bella Kiss, the Vampire of Cinkota, and the many, many women he murdered.

    Following that, we move on to a sickly sweet and more than a little morbid love story we’re calling A Rose for Carl.

    Relevant Pictures:

    • ⁠Dear sweet Alive Helen⁠
    • ⁠Helen’s Crypt⁠
    • ⁠Helen’s Spaceship⁠
    • ⁠Helen really let herself go after she died apparently…⁠

      • On another note, if you could do us a huge favor and rate and review this show in whatever podcasting platform you’re using (including hopefully giving us some feedback related to the new format), we would be extremely grateful. Thanks!

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      45 min
    • Why Americans Refrigerate Eggs and Most Countries Don't, How Much Caffeine Can a Human Take and More

      In the video today, we're looking at why Americans refrigerate eggs and most other countries don't, the Canadian who invented Hawaiian Pizza, why people say twice boiled water is bad for you, why pineapple kills jello, how much caffeine the human body can take, and much, much more.

      0:00 Why Do Americans Refrigerate Their Eggs and Most Other Countries Don’t
      12:38 The Very Canadian Origin of “Hawaiian” Pizza
      23:59 Why Are You Not Supposed to Use Twice Boiled Water for Tea?
      37:50 Why Can’t You Put Pineapple in Jello?
      43:38 How Much Caffeine Would It Take To Kill You?
      54:55 Why is Ham Traditionally Eaten on Easter?
      58:07 How Were Raisins Made Before Seedless Grapes?
      1:02:59 Why Some Cheeses Come in Wheels and Others in Blocks
      1:07:14 The Surprisingly Heartwarming Story of the Man Who Invented Sriracha Sauce
      1:16:23 That Time Campbell’s Put Marbles in Their Soup
      1:28:57 An Ode to Glorious Chips (And Who Invented Nachos)
      2:02:12 What Happens to Big Food Made to Break World Records?

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      2 hr 13 min
    • Incredible Engineering- Inventing the Transistor

      The tiny transistor revolutionized modern electronics, from radios to supercomputers. Discover its fascinating origins, unexpected twists, and the minds behind this world-changing invention. Watch now!

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      27 min
    • The Greatest Act of Political and Economic Spite in History

      Nations can often be petty and spiteful when it comes to post-war relations, but rarely, if ever, in history did one nation get more petty with not an enemy, but their former ally than when the U.S. military created what is known today as "Million Dollar Point" out of sheer spite.

      1,750 kilometres or 1,090 miles off the coast of Australia in the South Pacific Ocean lies the island nation of Vanuatu. Just off the southeast coast of the island, on the outskirts of the main settlement of Luganville, lies a truly remarkable sight: a giant underwater junkyard containing thousands upon thousands of pieces of WWII American military equipment, from tanks, artillery pieces, and bulldozers down to rifles, pistols, food tins and Coca-Cola bottles- all slowly rusting away on the ocean floor. Known as “Million Dollar Point”, every year this submerged museum of wartime logistics attracts hundreds of curious snorkelers and scuba divers from around the world. But what is all this abandoned equipment doing here? Are these the remains of an epic naval battle? A tragic shipwreck? Some gigantic whoopsie-doodle? Nope! The origins of Million Dollar Point are far, far sillier - and pettier - than that! This is the story of one the greatest acts of political and economic spite in modern history and how it helped inspire a Naked Cult that in turn helped lead this region to independence.
      The islands that make up modern Vanuatu, formerly New Hebrides, were first settled around 1300 BCE by peoples from Melanesian islands to the west such as New Guinea and the Solomons, followed by successive waves of migration by Polynesian peoples from the East, with later European overlords arriving and variously controlling the islands. For example, at one point the region had a complex and unwieldy bureaucracy, with separate British and French police forces and a judicial system presided over by a neutral judge appointed by the King of Spain - and by the way, while most commonly used today to describe a building with multiple individually-owned living units, the term condominium can also refer to a geographic area where multiple sovereign powers agree to share administrative duties.
      But for most of its history, Vanuatu remained a quiet colonial backwater, subsisting mainly on the trade of coconut meat, fish, sandalwood, and other natural resources. However, in the wake of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941 and the subsequent Japanese blitzkrieg across southeast Asia and the Pacific, the archipelago suddenly found itself in danger of invasion. In May 1942, American forces arrived on the islands, setting up a command post on Efate.
      Engineers from the U.S. Navy’s 1st Construction Batallion - better known as the Seabees - were soon dispatched to Espiritu Santo to construct a crushed-coral airstrip to support the then-ongoing battle on Guadalcanal.
      In an incredible feat of wartime logistics the Seabees, working round-the-clock, constructed Turtle Bay Airfield in only 20 days. Soon more CB detachments arrived and constructed three more airstrips, one of which is Santo International Airport today. Throughout the war, thousands of bombers, fighters, and other aircraft from the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Army Air Corps as well as the Royal New Zealand Air Force operated from these airfields in support of operations throughout the South Pacific.
      In addition to the airstrips themselves, the Seabees also built extensive supporting infrastructure including barracks, repair shops, hangars, hospitals, fuel and ammunition depots, and water desalination plants. Espiritu Santo also served as a major supply and repair depot for U.S. Navy ships, stocking millions of tons of the fuel, food, ammunition, spare parts, and other materiel needed to fuel the gruelling island-hopping campaign against Imperial Japan. In particular, Espiritu Santo Naval Base was home to USS AFD-1, one of four Auxiliary Floating Dry Docks stationed in the South Pacific to repair and maintain U.S. Navy ships.
      Author: Gilles Messier
      Host/Editor: Daven Hiskey
      Producer: Caden Nielsen

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      19 min
    • The Nightmare Nurse

      ⁠⁠In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we’re looking at the story of an intelligent, sweet little girl who was given up to an orphanage and then grew up to have a rather successful career as a nurse… and just so happens to be one of the most notorious female serial killers in history.

      On another note, if you could do us a huge favor and rate and review this show in whatever podcasting platform you’re using (including hopefully giving us some feedback related to the new format), we would be extremely grateful. Thanks!

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      1 hr 29 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.