The Cracked Podcast

In Ron Howard's 1985 movie 'Cocoon,' a group of elderly people living in a Florida retirement community become magically rejuvenated by aliens. It plays out as a fantasy, a hilarious what-if scenario about old people acting young. The movie seems more fiction than science, but in the 30 years since the film's release, the branch of medicine devoted to curing aging has grown into possibly the next big thing.Aging has only been a problem since the beginning of time, a disease born into us by the very nature of being alive, but scientists believe we're not far off from therapies that could extend our lifespan by decades and keep us feeling like we're in our 30s the whole time.Jack O'Brien is joined by Laura Deming, a 21-year-old venture capitalist, who is funding the therapies of the future that will slow the process of aging. They discuss some of the breakthroughs in the field and Laura debunks some myths about current life extension treatments.Jack is then joined by Fiona Ginty, a principal scientist at GE working on the microimaging of cells. Fiona shares how this technology will aid in the fight against aging as that process might be built into our DNA.

Going back all the way to our very first episode, one of the topics that we've discussed most on this podcast is the Flynn Effect: the inevitability that each generation will be smarter than the last. We're smarter than a generation of people from the early 1900s and the future-people of the 2100s who ride driver-less cars and get wi-fi implanted into their eyelids will laugh at how dumb we are.Knowing this, the Flynn Effect would actually make time travel a bit more problematic than you thought. If you travel to the past, like Marty in 'Back to the Future III', in all likelihood you'd probably be burned as a witch or drawn and quartered for insisting the Earth traveled around the sun. If you go to the future, you'd be considered slow and thick-witted, that's if the people could understand you at all. You'd be Fry.Recorded live at the UCB Sunset theatre in Hollywood, Jack O'Brien is joined by Cracked's Dan O'Brien and Soren Bowie to analyze the horrifying intricacies of 'Back to the Future', and then move onto why time travel as a whole is probably not a good idea.

Going back all the way to our very first episode, one of the topics that we've discussed most on this podcast is the Flynn Effect: the inevitability that each generation will be smarter than the last. We're smarter than a generation of people from the early 1900s and the future-people of the 2100s who ride driver-less cars and get wi-fi implanted into their eyelids will laugh at how dumb we are.Knowing this, the Flynn Effect would actually make time travel a bit more problematic than you thought. If you travel to the past, like Marty in 'Back to the Future III', in all likelihood you'd probably be burned as a witch or drawn and quartered for insisting the Earth traveled around the sun. If you go to the future, you'd be considered slow and thick-witted, that's if the people could understand you at all. You'd be Fry.Recorded live at the UCB Sunset theatre in Hollywood, Jack O'Brien is joined by Cracked's Dan O'Brien and Soren Bowie to analyze the horrifying intricacies of 'Back to the Future', and then move onto why time travel as a whole is probably not a good idea.

Search through the DVD extras of 'Back To The Future' and you'll come across one of the greatest what-ifs of movie history. The part of Marty McFly was originally played by Eric Stoltz (John Travolta's drug dealer from 'Pulp Fiction'), and they shot the movie for 5 weeks before ultimately replacing him with Michael J. Fox. The deleted scenes with Stoltz reveal a dour, contemplative Marty and the whole tone of the movie is off - like watching a Twilight Zone version of a movie you've seen 100 times before.This one casting change completely revamped the voice and quality of the movie for the better. In this vein, Jack O'Brien is joined by Cracked editors Dan O'Brien and Soren Bowie to discuss the one simple change they would make to movies like 'The Dark Knight Rises' and 'Pacific Rim' that would make them infinitely better.

Search through the DVD extras of 'Back To The Future' and you'll come across one of the greatest what-ifs of movie history. The part of Marty McFly was originally played by Eric Stoltz (John Travolta's drug dealer from 'Pulp Fiction'), and they shot the movie for 5 weeks before ultimately replacing him with Michael J. Fox. The deleted scenes with Stoltz reveal a dour, contemplative Marty and the whole tone of the movie is off - like watching a Twilight Zone version of a movie you've seen 100 times before.This one casting change completely revamped the voice and quality of the movie for the better. In this vein, Jack O'Brien is joined by Cracked editors Dan O'Brien and Soren Bowie to discuss the one simple change they would make to movies like 'The Dark Knight Rises' and 'Pacific Rim' that would make them infinitely better.

Let's talk about 'Inception': Christopher Nolan's least realistic movie up until 'Interstellar'. While commercially and critically loved, you got the sense watching it that this was something to suspend your disbelief for; that this world of shared dreaming, dreams within dreams and implanting false memories surely had no basis in fact or science. But what if we told you Nolan's half-baked ideas about the fallibility of memory were actually close to how the brain works? What if planting false memories in people was actually the most realistic part about 'Inception'?On this bonus episode of The Cracked Podcast, Jack O'Brien is joined by Steve Ramirez, a PhD student at MIT who actually incepted mice! With laser beams! They talk about that experiment and how it will shape the future of treating mental disorders. Jack is then joined by Dr. William Hirst, Professor of Psychology at the New School for Social Research, to talk about how utterly unreliable our memories are, even when trying to recall the most important moments of our lives.

Let's talk about 'Inception': Christopher Nolan's least realistic movie up until 'Interstellar'. While commercially and critically loved, you got the sense watching it that this was something to suspend your disbelief for; that this world of shared dreaming, dreams within dreams and implanting false memories surely had no basis in fact or science. But what if we told you Nolan's half-baked ideas about the fallibility of memory were actually close to how the brain works? What if planting false memories in people was actually the most realistic part about 'Inception'?On this bonus episode of The Cracked Podcast, Jack O'Brien is joined by Steve Ramirez, a PhD student at MIT who actually incepted mice! With laser beams! They talk about that experiment and how it will shape the future of treating mental disorders. Jack is then joined by Dr. William Hirst, Professor of Psychology at the New School for Social Research, to talk about how utterly unreliable our memories are, even when trying to recall the most important moments of our lives.

America is great at gentrification. Liberal oases like Portland and Austin are quickly being renovated to cover up their quirky charms, we knock down and rebuild stadiums to revitalize urban areas like it's our job and the city of San Francisco is basically one giant wifi-enabled Starbucks. But to think the organized displacement of low-income and minority communities is a 21st century invention is foolish. America has been the Lebron James of that game since the Mayflower!This week on the podcast Jack O'Brien is joined by Cracked editors Adam Tod Brown and Alex Schmidt to talk about America's history of forced gentrification, assimilation and deportation. The guys look at some of of the unique cultural communities completely wiped off the map by the course of history and examine the mechanism by which some populations are remembered and others are forgotten.

America is great at gentrification. Liberal oases like Portland and Austin are quickly being renovated to cover up their quirky charms, we knock down and rebuild stadiums to revitalize urban areas like it's our job and the city of San Francisco is basically one giant wifi-enabled Starbucks. But to think the organized displacement of low-income and minority communities is a 21st century invention is foolish. America has been the Lebron James of that game since the Mayflower!This week on the podcast Jack O'Brien is joined by Cracked editors Adam Tod Brown and Alex Schmidt to talk about America's history of forced gentrification, assimilation and deportation. The guys look at some of of the unique cultural communities completely wiped off the map by the course of history and examine the mechanism by which some populations are remembered and others are forgotten.

In the last few years 'Edge of Tomorrow' and 'Elysium' showed near-futures where soldiers weren't limited by their physical capabilities, but instead were enhanced by mech-suits. It's a concept that provides for very entertaining movies, but considering we have no plans to fight hordes of aliens or wage a class war on the Lamborghini of space stations, can mech-suits have any real-life applications to us in the coming years? Or are they strictly limited to warfare? Let's say mech-suits do become a routine part of daily life. Will they help us for the better or just turn us into the soft and doughy humans like those aboard the starship Axiom in 'Wall-E'? Jack O'Brien ask all of these questions and more of Oliver Mayer, Principal Engineer at GE Global Research and an expert in robotics, who believes we're all a little bit cyborg already. Jack is then joined by Scott Novich, the co-founder and CTO of NeoSensory, Inc., a company helping the deaf hear by harnessing an underused sense: touch. From there, they talk about how this technology could potentially lead to humans gaining new senses.