Sometime around eight to nine thousand years ago, ancient people in Asia Minor found a very dull grey metal that turned out to be easy to manipulate when it was heated.
For thousands of years, it was used for a variety of purposes, including as a food additive.
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With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, even more uses were found for this unique metal. ... Show More
Today
The Spanish Flu Pandemic
In 1918, as the world was nearing the end of the First World War, another disaster was already spreading across the globe. It was so lethal that someone could be dead within a single day after seeing the first symptoms. It moved through army camps, cities, ships, and villages, in ... Show More
16m 26s
Yesterday
Stablecoins: What They Are and How They Work
One of the most talked-about topics in finance today is stablecoins. Stablecoins have the potential to totally upend the world of banking and finance. Banks, governments, and tech companies are looking at stablecoins and how they might use them in the future. However, most people ... Show More
15m 17s
May 15
Larry Doby and Breaking the American League Color Barrier
If you ask anyone to name the athlete who broke the color line in baseball, they will immediately answer Jackie Robinson. If you ask who broke the color line in the American League, there may be a long pause. The answer is Larry Doby, who became a seven-time All-Star, a two-time ... Show More
13m 44s
Jun 2024
The history of light (classic)
For thousands of years, getting light was a huge hassle. You had to make candles from scratch. This is not as romantic as it sounds. You had to get a cow, raise the cow, feed the cow, kill the cow, get the fat out of the cow, cook the fat, dip wicks into the fat. All that--for no ... Show More
21m 23s
May 2019
Dinopocalypse Redux
<p>Using high-powered ballistics experiments, fancy computer algorithms, and good old-fashioned ancient geology, scientists have woven together a theory about the extinction of the dinosaurs that is so precise, so hot, so <em>instantaneous</em>, as to seem unimaginable. Today, we ... Show More
45m 22s
Jul 2020
What We’ve Learned This Month
In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we are start out looking at the rather curious phenomenon of the average of your friends being happier, wealthier, and more successful than you.
Next up we have a brief message from our sponsor Backblaze and unlimited automatic backup serv ... Show More
1h 18m
Oct 2019
The Fascinating Origins of Everyday Things (Part 2)
In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start off looking at that time the United States government banned pre-sliced bread… Really.
Next up, we have a brief message from a sponsor, Blinkist, which gives you the key ideas from more than 3,000 bestselling nonfiction books in j ... Show More
48m 6s