The Cracked Podcast

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.

Last year's worldwide Ebola outbreak brought into harsh reality the kind of imagery we typically only see in movies like 'Outbreak' or 'Contagion': the faceless officials in hazmat suits, the quarantine tents, the sudden fear of anyone who sneezes on an airplane. Though over 10,000 lives have been lost worldwide, it bears reminding the amount of US lives lost to the virus: one. So despite being bombarded with this cinematic imagery, it's clear in retrospect that we weren't in that much danger after all.Was our hysteria overblown? Or was the awareness brought on by the media panic the driving force behind the virus' containment?When our perception of pandemics has only ever been framed in the visual language of movies, it's hard to grasp the actual science behind how these things spread. In this special bonus episode of The Cracked Podcast, Jack O'Brien and Jason Pargin (aka David Wong) are joined by GE's chief medical officer Dr. David Barash to discuss Ebola's outbreak and containment, and the relationship between Hollywood pandemics and real ones.

Last year's worldwide Ebola outbreak brought into harsh reality the kind of imagery we typically only see in movies like 'Outbreak' or 'Contagion': the faceless officials in hazmat suits, the quarantine tents, the sudden fear of anyone who sneezes on an airplane. Though over 10,000 lives have been lost worldwide, it bears reminding the amount of US lives lost to the virus: one. So despite being bombarded with this cinematic imagery, it's clear in retrospect that we weren't in that much danger after all.Was our hysteria overblown? Or was the awareness brought on by the media panic the driving force behind the virus' containment?When our perception of pandemics has only ever been framed in the visual language of movies, it's hard to grasp the actual science behind how these things spread. In this special bonus episode of The Cracked Podcast, Jack O'Brien and Jason Pargin (aka David Wong) are joined by GE's chief medical officer Dr. David Barash to discuss Ebola's outbreak and containment, and the relationship between Hollywood pandemics and real ones.

Last year we covered in a podcast how truth is stranger and often scarier than fiction, especially when it comes to the history genre. Case in point: the story of Henry Rathbone. You're probably thinking, who's Henry Rathbone? That's kind of the point. Henry Rathbone and his wife Clara were sitting next to Abraham Lincoln the night of the assassination, and despite the decades of conspiracy theories and ghost stories surrounding the Lincoln family, the craziest and bloodiest story of the night belongs to Mr. Rathbone.See, in the years following Lincoln's assassination, Rathbone's mental state declined as he blamed himself for not being able to prevent the president's death. Soon after that, he started to believe his walls were talking to him. Then he went full Shining and murdered his wife, tried to murder his children and stabbed himself 5 times in the chest. He spent the rest of his life in an insane asylum. This is an absolutely bonkers story edited from the margins of history, yet we choose not remember it because it doesn't read like a textbook.This sort of historical amnesia also applies to how we look at the horror genre. There are countless unsolved murders, disappearances and mass hysterias that we don't know how to classify just because their details are too strange to swallow, the leads go nowhere and eventually we give up.So in honor of Halloween, Jack O'Brien and Jason Pargin (aka David Wong) share 12 creepy and macabre unsolved mysteries that are just too weird to fit into our cookie-cutter version of the horror genres.

Last year we covered in a podcast how truth is stranger and often scarier than fiction, especially when it comes to the history genre. Case in point: the story of Henry Rathbone. You're probably thinking, who's Henry Rathbone? That's kind of the point. Henry Rathbone and his wife Clara were sitting next to Abraham Lincoln the night of the assassination, and despite the decades of conspiracy theories and ghost stories surrounding the Lincoln family, the craziest and bloodiest story of the night belongs to Mr. Rathbone.See, in the years following Lincoln's assassination, Rathbone's mental state declined as he blamed himself for not being able to prevent the president's death. Soon after that, he started to believe his walls were talking to him. Then he went full Shining and murdered his wife, tried to murder his children and stabbed himself 5 times in the chest. He spent the rest of his life in an insane asylum. This is an absolutely bonkers story edited from the margins of history, yet we choose not remember it because it doesn't read like a textbook.This sort of historical amnesia also applies to how we look at the horror genre. There are countless unsolved murders, disappearances and mass hysterias that we don't know how to classify just because their details are too strange to swallow, the leads go nowhere and eventually we give up.So in honor of Halloween, Jack O'Brien and Jason Pargin (aka David Wong) share 12 creepy and macabre unsolved mysteries that are just too weird to fit into our cookie-cutter version of the horror genres.

Screws, in some form or another, have been around since the 3rd century BC, and it wasn't until the 1500s that screws began to start appearing in what we now accept as their modern form. They're a great, simple piece of technology that helps solve the problem, 'how do we secure this to that?'Throughout all that time, however, there was just one problem: no one had invented the screwdriver yet. It's true. People would spend entire lifetimes - generations would come and go - and all they could do to tighten a screw was use a coin or a flat piece of wood or something. It was like society as a whole had left their toolbox in the car but was too lazy to go out and get it.For every screwdriver we also get an iPhone: a device that, in an instant, crammed the future into the present and forever changed the course of human history.So there are screwdrivers, and then there are iPhones. Some came 300 years too late and others surprise us 300 years before we expect them. Jack O'Brien is joined by Cracked editors Tom Reimann and Alex Schmidt to discuss the many screwdrivers and iPhones of history that you may not know about.

Screws, in some form or another, have been around since the 3rd century BC, and it wasn't until the 1500s that screws began to start appearing in what we now accept as their modern form. They're a great, simple piece of technology that helps solve the problem, 'how do we secure this to that?'Throughout all that time, however, there was just one problem: no one had invented the screwdriver yet. It's true. People would spend entire lifetimes - generations would come and go - and all they could do to tighten a screw was use a coin or a flat piece of wood or something. It was like society as a whole had left their toolbox in the car but was too lazy to go out and get it.For every screwdriver we also get an iPhone: a device that, in an instant, crammed the future into the present and forever changed the course of human history.So there are screwdrivers, and then there are iPhones. Some came 300 years too late and others surprise us 300 years before we expect them. Jack O'Brien is joined by Cracked editors Tom Reimann and Alex Schmidt to discuss the many screwdrivers and iPhones of history that you may not know about.

Sometimes finding the presidential candidate that's right for you comes down to the endorsements. Are they supported by the teachers union or local firefighters? Maybe the endorsement of the New York Times means something to you.What if a major candidate this year, a certain blustery, orange-haired TV personality, had the endorsements of The Daily Stormer, American Renaissance and the League of the South, organizations whose political leanings fall somewhere between John Wilkes Boothe and Michael Fassbender in 12 Years A Slave? Why hasn't the Donald Trump bullet-train to the White House come to a screeching halt with the revelation that many of his advocates would rather it be 1850 than 2015?This week on the podcast, Jack O'Brien is joined by Cracked editors Adam Tod Brown and Robert Evans to discuss Donald Trump, the seeming rise of white supremacy around the globe, and secret Nazi dog-whistles. Later, Stephanie Georgopulos from Paper Magazine sits down with Jack for a one-on-one about Michael Jackson's racial identity and what it's like to grow up biracial in America.

Sometimes finding the presidential candidate that's right for you comes down to the endorsements. Are they supported by the teachers union or local firefighters? Maybe the endorsement of the New York Times means something to you.What if a major candidate this year, a certain blustery, orange-haired TV personality, had the endorsements of The Daily Stormer, American Renaissance and the League of the South, organizations whose political leanings fall somewhere between John Wilkes Boothe and Michael Fassbender in 12 Years A Slave? Why hasn't the Donald Trump bullet-train to the White House come to a screeching halt with the revelation that many of his advocates would rather it be 1850 than 2015?This week on the podcast, Jack O'Brien is joined by Cracked editors Adam Tod Brown and Robert Evans to discuss Donald Trump, the seeming rise of white supremacy around the globe, and secret Nazi dog-whistles. Later, Stephanie Georgopulos from Paper Magazine sits down with Jack for a one-on-one about Michael Jackson's racial identity and what it's like to grow up biracial in America.

Newsflash: You only have 407 days until the 2016 presidential election. Do you think you'll have enough time to make an informed decision? We think so. In fact, you could bury your head in the sand on Mars for another full year and still have enough time to suss out which candidate you think should be the leader of the free world.But why, over 13 months out, is every news outlet leading with an election story like it's coming up tomorrow and we still have approximately 45,000 candidates? Why are no serious Republican candidates calling out Trump for being a rodeo clown in a fancy suit? And why do people think Donald Trump can win when -- spoiler alert -- he's not going to become President?Dan O'Brien is joined this week by Cracked editors Kristi Harrison and Alex Schmidt to answer these burning questions and remind you that what's going on with the presidential election right now is a total farce; you can go back to your normal business until February 2016 at the earliest.