The BrainFood Show

Thanks to Hollywood, as well as words written on the mangled inked corpses of the leafy fellow occupants of our little planet we’ve successfully subjugated, there are a number of common ideas about how an alien invasion of Earth would go. From clandestine infiltration where our celestial enemies walk among us undetected, to these brothers from another primordial goop mother coming with energy weap...

We don’t mean to alarm you, but it turns out, despite how much we all fight it like a toddler who’s just been told it’s bedtime, sleeping is a basic, and critical human need. All animals known to man sleep. Humans, however, are seemingly the only ones who voluntarily forgo it, outside of cases like if an animal is starving or the like… And to our extreme detriment. We’ll dive into all the ways and...

For anyone sitting in gridlocked traffic on the way to a soul crushing job surrounded by other humans nattering on all day about their TPS reports as you truly internalize the pointlessness of everything because we’re all going to die and everything we ever said or did will be forgotten someday, you may at some point find yourself daydreaming about the life of a lighthouse keeper- kicking back, en...

On a snowy, blustery morning in March 1968, a two-man MiG-15 UTI jet took off from Chkalov air force base outside Moscow on a routine training flight. Barely ten minutes later, the aircraft’s pilot radioed air traffic control, announcing it was cutting its flight short and requesting permission to land. Then, the transmission went dead. At nearby Kirzhach airfield, a group of cosmonauts undergoing...

We live in, shall we say, politically divisive times… which, contrary to some’s belief, is no different than really any other point since humans started humaning. From Ancient Rome to relatively more modern times in the likes of Thomas Jefferson secretly bankrolling Scottish scandalmonger James Callender to attack Jefferson’s presidential opponent and former best friend, John Adams. And things hav...

Ah, McDonald’s French Fries. According to a poll we recently ran here, 48% of about 42,000 of you prefer this restaurant’s slender tan starch sticks to all the other restaurant tuber cutting offerings, with this percentage more than double the next runner up which was a blanket choice of “Other”- i.e. nearly all other restaurant french fries combined. While many view McDonald’s as a hamburger join...

As humans continue to rapidly accelerate to replacing ourselves with robot overlords or otherwise see if we can’t make Wall-E into a prophetic mocumentary, one group of homosapiens refuses to go quietly into the night. And, while it may come as a surprise to you, this group is seemingly set to inherit the Earth, given their population is exploding, whilst birth rates for the rest of us are declini...

In the pantheon of worst humans to ever human you will find no shortage of bastions of awful. Hitler probably has the most collective conscious panache, but at least he had the decency to bravely, and with no regard for his personal safety, infiltrate the Hitler bunker and then put a bullet through the cranium of Hitler. But individuals like Hitler did their killing via proxy. As for those who wer...

In this episode of The BrainFood Show, we're looking at that time the British tried to replace parachutes with rockets, that time the United States tried sending U.S. Postal Service mail via missiles, and the origins and interesting stories surrounding NASA's Steely Eyed Missile Man expression, and why the rocket launch countdown is stupid. Corrections- Star Spangled Banner was written during the...

If there’s two things the internet knows about Nikola Tesla, it’s that he was a genius scientist vastly ahead of his time, and that thanks to a many decades long feud with Thomas Edison which included Edison stealing some of his work and otherwise keeping his former employee on the black balled list, Tesla died in poverty and was largely forgotten by history until relatively recently… The thing is...

In this episode, Simon delves into the historical and archaeological records, exploring theories and debates surrounding one of history's most significant religious figures. Author: Daven Hiskey Host: Simon Whistler Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During the Cold War, the U.S. government was hell-bent on one upping the commies in any way possible. In the process, they came up with a number of outlandish plans, such as that time they proposed literally nuking the moon, interestingly enough a project a young Carl Sagan worked on and broke some laws with. More on this later. While it’s probably for the best that that project didn’t ultimately...

Ah America, filled with gun toting rednecks wearing their flag as a t-shirt and pondering what Jesus would do while chowing down on Mexican food, greasy burgers, partially hydrogenated corn syrup cubes, and washing it all down with Budweiser, the king of beers… for those who’ve never tasted real beer… And Europe, full of a homogeneous group of people who spend most of their time measuring things i...

In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we are start out with an appetizer looking at how chopsticks came to be and why they became so popular in certain parts of the world vs things like spoons and forks. Next up we have a brief message from our sponsor… Ourselves! Go check out our new-ish channel Highlight History, an upcoming re-launch / re-think of Fact Quickie, a new upcoming one in Ancient M...

In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we are start out with an appetizer looking at whether chastity belts were ever actually a thing in medieval times or if it is just a Hollywood invention. Next up we have a brief message from our sponsor… Ourselves! Go check out our new-ish channel Highlight History, an upcoming re-launch / re-think of Fact Quickie, a new upcoming one in Ancient Marvels,  and...

In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we are start out with an appetizer looking at the film The Knight’s Tale and the very real historic knight Ulrich von Liechtenstein and what the real guy actually got up to. Next up we have a brief message from our sponsor… Ourselves! Go check out our new-ish channel Highlight History and Simon’s latest attempt to host all YouTube channels- Side Projects. Ne...

In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we are start out with an appetizer looking at how the slipping on a banana peel comedy gag got started. Next up we have a brief message from our sponsor NordVPN. Get 68% off NordVPN! Only $3.71/mo, plus you get an additional month FREE at https://nordvpn.com/brainfoodshow Or use coupon code: brainfoodshow Next up, we have the main course discussing what it w...

In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we are start out with an appetizer looking at how soap actually works to get rid of microbes. Next up we have a brief message from our sponsor NordVPN. Get 68% off NordVPN! Only $3.71/mo, plus you get an additional month FREE at https://nordvpn.com/brainfoodshow Or use coupon code: brainfoodshow Next up, we have the main course discussing whether or not Medi...

In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we are start out looking at why the toilet is called the “Crapper” and the “John”. Next up we have a brief message from our sponsor Skillshare. For a limited time, use the following link to get a free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership: http://skillshare.com/brainfood Next up, we discuss all about what Medieval Europeans did with all their bodily expulsi...

In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we are start out looking at the rather interesting way the couple hundred million dollar Hope Diamond has been transported a couple times. Next up we have a brief message from our sponsor Skillshare for 2 months for free here: http://skillshare.com/brainfood Next up, we discuss how diamonds went from a mostly worthless item throughout the majority of human h...

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 service for just $6 a month. Try it for free for 15-days! http://backblaze.com/brainfoodshow Next up, we discuss how much caf...

In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we are start out looking at whether there is actually any difference between various men’s and women’s bathroom products like shaving cream, razors, etc and why women pay more for basically everything. We also have a brief message from a sponsor, Skillshare. Help support this show and learn a lot of interesting new skills, as well as TWO MONTHS FREE using th...

In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we are looking at the difference between a number of things, kicking it off with the difference between BCE/CE and BC/AD systems of dating and the rather fascinating story of how those systems came to be. We also have a brief message from a sponsor, Skillshare. Help support this show and learn a lot of interesting new skills, as well as TWO MONTHS FREE using...

In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we are looking at the difference between a number of things, kicking it off with the difference between hardwood and softwood…. which you’d think you already know, but we’re guessing for most, you don’t actually know the difference. We also have a brief message from a sponsor, Skillshare. Help support this show and learn a lot of interesting new skills, as w...

In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start by looking at the first woman in the United States to cast a political vote who for reasons we’ll get into did it with her feet… We also have a brief message from a sponsor, Skillshare. Help support this show and learn a lot of interesting new skills, as well as TWO MONTHS FREE using the following link https://www.skillshare.com/brainfood Up next we...