Fascinating Nouns

Barry Levenson, AKA Capt. Mustard, is a Wisconsin lawyer who became enthralled with U.S. food laws.  So much so, that he tried a case in front of the Supreme Court with a jar of mustard in his pocket (he won 5-4).  From the famous Stella Liebeck 'Hot Coffee' case, to the legal definition of ketchup, he covers it all in his book Habeas Codfish.  We discuss those topics, as well as The Great Cookie...

The original Alien movie had the immortal tagline "In space, no one can hear you scream".  Thanks to Extraterrestrial Audio Engineer Jason Achilles, that may no longer be true.  Hired by NASA in 2017, he was tasked with finding the perfect microphone to capture the landing sequence of the new Mars Rover.  That is no small feat.  The microphone has to be rugged enough to survive extreme temperature...

Implanting False Memories Most of us believe what our memory says.  If we remember being lost in a mall as a kid, then we probably were.  The details may not be exactly how we remember them, but the broad strokes are there.  Or at least that is what we believe.  The truth is memories can be implanted pretty easily in our brains.  IN one of her experiments, Dr. Loftus successfully convinced people...

The Inaccuracies of Eyewitness Testimony Dr. Elizabeth Loftus is world renowned for her work in the field of eyewitness testimony.   Before her work in the 70’s, eyewitness testimony was considered rock solid.  Her experiments proved that not only does memory NOT work like a tape recorder, it is in fact routinely altered before, during, and after an event!  In her words, it is like a Wikiped...

More Design Flaws of the Human Body In this bonus episode, Dr. Lents walks me through our backwards eye, a nerve that takes the three foot scenic route instead of going 3 centimeters, and why we need to eat a varied diet while our dogs can eat the same thing every day and live long, healthy lives. Nathan Lents on Social Media Facebook Twitter Tumblr Website Human Errors Nathan Lents Fascinating No...

Human beings are pretty confident by nature.  As a species, we are pretty sure that we are at the top of the evolutionary scale.  It turns out, this is not true at all.  While we are without a doubt at the top of the food chain, there are several species that have remain unchanged for millions of years (the cockroach is a great example).  We have changed a lot in the couple hundred thousand years...

*Bonus*  Cheerleading’s Greatest Rivalry In this episode, Natalie and I discuss the rivalry between Lawerence “Herkie” Herkimer and his protege Jeff Webb.  Herkie is credited as the father of cheerleading, while Jeff is consider the modernizer of the sport.  Not only that, but we get into the origin and correct spelling of the Pom Pons (not POM POM), the Spirit Stick, fake unifor...

At first glance, cheerleading can be mistaken for a trivial, vapid, activity that not only creates "mean girls" at the top of the social hierarchy, but it perpetuates the stereotype of women holding secondary roles to men, literally cheering them on.  The reality is, nothing could be further from the truth. Dr. Natalie Adams, the world's foremost expert of cheerleading, explains how the sport went...

*Bonus* Alien Phenomena Derrel and I continue our conversation and get into some of the more fringe topics including cattle mutilations, Greek Conquerors, RFID chips, the 1880’s, abductions, and the idea of ancient aliens. For background on Cattle Mutilations, listen to my episode with Linda Moulton-Howe . For background on paleocontact/ancient aliens, listen to my episode with Erich von Dan...

There are people in this world who have unidentifiable pieces of metal inside their bodies, metal that is literally not of this world.  Their chemical composition is similar to meteorites, and they appear to be wrapped in a biological sheath.  Most of the people with this phenomenon state that they have been visited by beings not of this Earth.  There are no scars, and none can remember any trauma...

When Scott inherited his grandfather's estate, with it came all sorts of strange and unusual artifacts.  We discuss several of these one-of-a-kind items, including a shrunken head, an Egyptian mummy, pig with one head, two snouts, and three eyes, a rare Edison prototype and a killer doll named Waldo.

At the turn of the century, the circus sideshow was one of the main attractions.  Typically they featured superhuman feats such as sword swallowing and glass walking, as well as rare objects of wonder including shrunken heads, two-headed animals, wax figures.  These collections fell out of fashion during the 1960's, and subsequently, most went out of business. Scott McClelland's grandfather N. P....

Besides mayors, presidents, and strange fossils, Braidwood has had its share of celebrities.  Even though it has always been a small town, surprisingly it has spawned quite a few world class athletes.   They had a world class soccer team that competed at the 1893 World's Fair and took second place.  Les Norman and Brian DuBois are two professional baseball players that came out of the high school...

The United States was built on small towns. Every city you see now had a humble beginning as a small community. There are countless songs, movies, tv shows proclaiming the superiority of growing up in a small town. This is the story of Braidwood Illinois. I believe that this tiny community located 60 miles south of Chicago is the template for small towns across the US. Growing up, I had no idea wh...

For almost a year, Shaughnessy lived with a group of homeless squatters on a vacant lot in Canada.  Their shanty town was called Tent City, and every day was an act of survival.  He chronicles this endeavor in a book called Down To This.  We discussed all sorts of things, including the use of violence as a method of communication, the spectrum of unique personalities he encountered, what the most...

The Hangover Cure Since the dawn of time, and the discovery of alcohol, Man has been is search of a cure for the hangover. Finally that man has arrived, and his name is Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall. In his latest book ‘Hungover’, Shaughnessy analyzes the effects of alcohol on the human body, then chronicles his adventures trying every cure known to man, both past and present. From Pliny th...

Stephen Wynne is the CEO of DeLorean Motor Company, a business you probably thought went bankrupt in 1983.  Technically it did, and  Stephen, a life-long DMC-12 advocate, went from servicing DeLoreans in the early 80's to owning the entire stock of more than 3.5 million new DeLorean parts today.  It was an incredible journey that went from Liverpool to Los Angeles, and we get into all the nooks an...

What goes up, must come down, and DeLorean Motor Cars was no exception. Listen as Barrie recounts his story in the waning days of the company, from firebombings, car crashes, to harsh winters, and a sagging economy. All of these factors, as well as a surprise cocaine smuggling charge, lead to inevitable bankruptcy.

When most people think of The DeLorean, they immediately think of the time machine from Back to the Future. In reality that car (called the DMC-12), was the center of an amazing story albeit having nothing to do with time travel. It was the vision of John Z. DeLorean to build an ethical and eco-friendly sports car, complete with a stainless steel exterior and plastic gas tank. That short lived dre...

If you are an animal person, there is nothing worse than your pet running away.  When this happens, who would you call?  Sherlock Holmes?  Batman?  Both are amazing detectives, yet nether one of them are real.  You are in luck because The Planet's Premiere Pet P.I. Tom Watkin's is real, and he will find your pet!  Using highly sophisticated equipment such as thermal cameras, drones, and even a sea...

In this bonus episode, Jeff and I discuss a superstition that almost lead to a riot in 1928 Massachusetts, a three state battle over the right to use the phrase "First In Flight" on their license plates, and a story of vanity plates gone wrong.

License plates are probably the one thing we stare at for hours a week, and never give them any thought. Occasionally you may see a funny vanity plate and chuckle to yourself, but other than that, they are pretty transparent. Well it turns out, the history of license plates is pretty incredible. From the first homemade plates in New York, to the state sponsored auctioning of low number plates in D...

We are taught that psychopaths are dangerous individuals who should be avoided at all costs. This is probably good advice. Dr. James Fallon is a neuroscientist at UC Irvine who has been studying the brains of killers for over a decade...including his own. Dr. Fallon is a psychopath by definition, although he is not dangerous by any means (or so he says). It turns out psychopathy is pretty common,...

As we discussed, card counting is perfectly legal, but that doesn't mean that casinos allow it. As a matter of fact, they actively prohibit it. When they start to figure out what you are up to, they will start to pay close attention to you. This is called "heat", and you want to avoid it at all costs. Listen as The Axe Man and I discuss his many disguises including wigs, fake teeth, little ponytai...

Josh 'The Axe' Axelrad was one such card counter. Over a five year stretch, he won hundreds of thousands of dollars, much to the chagrin of the casinos. They hate fair play so much, that he's been threatened, detained or kicked out of almost every casino he's ever played in. Listen as he regales me with his adventures as a professional gambler. We discuss his aspirations of being an art thief, his...