Fascinating Gadgets, Gizmos, and Gear Based Technologies

If you ever happen to find yourself in a battle royale style fight to the finish, then this is the episode for you.  Inspired by The Hunger Games, The Brain Trust walk through the essential survival strategies that will ensure you end up in first place.  Remember, there is no second place.  So what should you do first?  Do you team up with others or go it alone?  Do you partner with the psychopath...

Here is our first year end wrap up, the half-decade edition!  The Brain Trust gets together to discuss some of the things we left unexplored in previous episodes.  It is an extravaganza of information!  We talk about getting stuck on a far away planet, Polaroid pictures, shoreline cities, unsolvable problems, Dungeons and Dragons, Goober spread, and the unique life path that makes us, well, us. Po...

Last week we discussed a world before exploration, one where you could hide your most valuable possession and it wouldn’t be found for centuries.  Now imagine that same world, but the place you are exploring is the freezing Arctic, and the possession you are hiding is your life?  That is pretty much what we are talking about in this episode as we discuss being trapped in the arctic ice for y...

Who doesn’t love a good scavenger hunt?  You take a team and race all over a city taking pictures, getting items, and visiting cool places.  But how much MORE fun would it be to race all over the world, collect treasure, and visit ancient hidden rooms?  Now add the chance of death, and you have a pretty exciting adventure on your hands.  But what would it take to put something like this toge...

We have discussed aliens and UFO’s on the show several times, thanks to Dr. Dennin’s expertise in ancient aliens.  But we haven’t discussed the possibility that the disc shaped objects in our skies are NOT spaceships, but actually biological creatures.  Luckily that is EXACTLY what Jordan Peele explores in his latest movie “Nope”.  We answer some of the obvious questi...

In 1947, something crashed in the New Mexico desert, just outside Roswell New Mexico.  Many said it was an extraterrestrial craft carrying the bodies of several alien creatures.  Whether or not you believe the story, this event kicked off the modern UFO movement as we know it today.  What if this happened 100 years earlier?  How would wild west frontiersmen deal with first contact?  We explore thi...

Our previous episode was on merfolk (mermaid/merman), but what if the human race doesn’t have time to evolve before the glaciers melt and we are all underwater.  What should we do?  We need to get moving on building underwater cities, is what I say.  This week we go over all the essentials for your underwater habitat:  Where it should be located (not too deep, not too shallow), how to make o...

A wise crab once said “Under the sea, darling it’s better down where it’s better, take it from me”.  While we shouldn’t go taking advice from random crustaceans, this one might be on to something.  What would life be like for humans if we evolved to live underwater?  Would we have been able to create vast technological cities, or would we still be hunter-gatherers?  W...

Ever since 1969, we have been a space faring race, that is if you happened to be one of rare few who were selected to fly into orbit.  Not anymore!  Several companies are offering top flight service into the stratosphere, provided you are a bazillionaire.  As with all things, the price will come down, but it begs the question:  Should ANYONE get to go into space?  That is one of the questions we a...

If the deluge of paranormal shows tells us one thing, it is that America has a serious ghost problem.  They don’t just live in abandoned psychiatric hospitals or old mansions, they can be anywhere, which is why you have to be prepared.  Enter The Ghostbusters.  With their PKE meters and electromagnetic traps, they set the standard in apparition annihilation.  But what is the secret to their...

This is one episode where science and religion combine, so get ready for a ride.  Moon Knight is a story about a guy who is bestowed the power of an Egyptian god, and becomes his avatar on Earth.  What does that mean?  Can someone be both human and divine at the same time?  Most people reading this are probably yelling “JESUS!”, and yes, they would be correct.  We take a look at what t...

This is one episode where science and religion combine, so get ready for a ride.  Moon Knight is a story about a guy who is bestowed the power of an Egyptian god, and becomes his avatar on Earth.  What does that mean?  Can someone be both human and divine at the same time?  Most people reading this are probably yelling “JESUS!”, and yes, they would be correct.  We take a look at what t...

Besides those with a crippling fear of heights, who among us hasn’t wanted to fly a fighter jet over majestic mountains?  Maybe even get into a dogfight with a MiG or two, possibly going at speeds surpassing the sound barrier?  This may sound like a good time (and I am sure it is), but you have to be careful when making turns at mach speed: It could crush your spine and turn your insides int...

We once again take a look at our favorite anthology series Love Death + Robots, and choose three fantastic stories to analyze, including how zombies are made (and the gut bacteria that control them), as well as a discussion on the typical caloric intake would be per day.  Then we take a look at human survival strategies, and hypothesize what would happen if humans employed a hive mind strategy ins...

This episode is inspired by the Netflix series Dark, a show about time loops that is almost as complicated as time loops themselves.  In it we have a town that is built around a cave that has a series of tunnels that lead to very three specific time periods, that are exactly 33 years apart.  We also have a gear-based time travel device that can also go forwards and backwards in increments of 33 ye...

In the quantum multiverse theory, every possible version of you exists.  There is a version of you that can play guitar, or can run a marathon, or even solve a Rubik’s cube.  This week we explore the possibility of tapping into this phenomenon by jumping from body/brain to body/brain, Quantum Leap style utilizing extremely low probability events.  We also discuss Glenn’s Constant, vide...

This is the time of year where millions of people pretend to own a football team, and spend the next 5 months obsessing over it.  Wouldn’t it be more fun to manage your own superhero team?  We think so!  For our Season 7 premiere, each member of The Brain Trust drafted their own super-powered faction, using the rules set forth by Fantasy Football.  Check out the draft, then hop on social med...

The Joker from the 1989 film Batman said it best:  “Where does he get those wonderful toys?”  This is a question that is quintessential to Batman, as no matter the iteration, he has an amazing array of gadgets and gizmos to help him fight crime in Gotham City.  The latest movie version, The Batman, is no exception.  He flies through the city in an impressive gliding suit, races the Bat...

We have done a LOT about the science of time travel, but what about the ramifications of time travel? We all know about the grandfather paradox, but what about the puberty paradox? That states that you shouldn’t go back and visit yourself as a kid for fear of altering your life course forever. Well in this episode inspired by The Adam Project, we debate whether or not that is a good idea, an...

Inspired by the latest Spider-Man movie No Way Home, this week we discuss how you could make the world forget that you exist.  This is no easy task, but believe it or not, it can be done.  We are going to go over how you can disappear from public view, much like spies or people in Witness Protection, but also how you could alter memories on a mass scale and delete yourself from history.  It is pos...

The bow and arrow is one of man’s very first technologically advanced projectile weapons. Throwing a rock was probably first, but archery was leaps and bounds ahead of that. Gunpowder made the bow basically obsolete by replacing it with the significantly more accurate and deadly boomstick. Or did it? As it turns out, archery is alive and well, and not just relegated to renaissance fairs and...

The land of Hyrule is like no other:  It is filled with monsters that both can kill our main character Link, but they also hold key items that ensure his survival such as hearts and rupies.  Guiding from behind the scenes is the powerful Princess Zelda who seems to know a lot about the inner workings of this world.  The question we have before us is this:  Is Princess Zelda a benevolent overlord w...

Every superhero has an origin story, and Mario is no exception.  Back in 1981 he was just a carpenter minding his own business until a large gorilla saw King Kong one too many times and stole his girlfriend Pauline.  Thrust into the spotlight, Mario was forced to use his carpentry skills to destroy barrels being chucked at him by an angry ape while climbing a destroyed skyscraper to rescue his lov...

The goal of nature is always to reach equilibrium, whether it is the ratio of predator to prey, or the proper amount of salt in the ocean.  Three seems to be the magical number of balance, and nowhere is that more apparent than the classic game Rock-Paper-Scissors.  The key is that no one choice is all powerful:  They all beat one other option, and are defeated by the other.  Perfect harmony.  Thi...

Let’s say you find yourself on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean, and your entire life has been spent playing Minecraft and watching Gilligan’s Island reruns.  Will you survive?  After listening to this episode, of course you will!  This week, you will learn the importance of following (not planting) a tech tree, how to make simple tools out of your environment without the n...