Brain Gains: 6 Podcasts Guaranteed To Teach You Something New
By Diana Brown
August 17, 2020
The end of summer only means one thing: Back to school. But even if you aren’t preparing your kids or yourself for education this fall, it’s never a bad time to learn something new. And these six podcasts make it easy, engaging, and entertaining to learn a lot about things you never explored before: The culture of salt and pepper shakers, the mechanics of flamethrowers, the swimming skill of the plesiosaur, the history of the Harlem Hellfighters, the science of popcorn, and so much more. Whatever the topic, these podcasts promise a treasure trove of trivia, true stories, and eye-popping information guaranteed to get your brain boiling.
Josh and Chuck are a little bit interested in pretty much everything, so on their humorous and endlessly fascinating podcast Stuff You Should Know, they tackle far-ranging subjects with excellent research and conversational delivery that ensures you learn something without even realizing it. Find out everything you didn’t know you never knew about juggling and jigsaw puzzles, matcha and mini golf, fire and flea circuses, soap and cell phones, hummingbirds and heroin, and so much more.
How did the Black Plague lead to the Renaissance? What exactly was the impact of the Irish Famine? What were “practice babies”? History is full of interesting anecdotes and information that school just doesn’t get to, so Stuff You Missed In History Class fills in those gaps, diving into the details and legacies of uprisings and rebellions through history, the sometimes dark origins of pop culture fads, and covering overlooked but important historical figures like Robert Smalls or the Harlem Hellfighters. This podcast makes sure you don’t miss any of the action – or reaction – of history.
What if animals are more intelligent than we give them credit for? Where did the concepts of heaven and hell originate? What do teeth and eggs tell us about various species? What if volcanoes aren’t mechanisms of destruction but necessary breaths of life? Stuff To Blow Your Mind explores all these intellectual puzzles and many more, getting into the practicality of horned helmets, how super-strong ice called “pykrete” is formed, and even describing epic wars between ant colonies. You’ll appreciate our weird world in a whole new way.
Have you always wanted to know more about the technology that makes your favorite theme park rides work? What about satellites or storms, or streaming video? Sounds like it’s time to check out TechStuff. Whether it’s looking into the origins of the tattoo gun, figuring out if human workers will really be overtaken by robots, or how the technology in some of our favorite movies would work in real life, this podcast provides an engaging and interesting look under the covers of not only the tech itself, but how it affects our lives and culture.
There’s some extraordinary science behind everyday things, and BrainStuff is here to explain it to you, making the world around you more magical and fascinating than you could have imagined. With episodes exploring druids, dinosaurs, sunscreen, and spiders, how the planet Mercury works, why we call dogs “Fido” so frequently, where the phrase “grandfathered in” came from, and how scientists are preserving smells for posterity, this podcast is sure to make anyone a little bit smarter, and that much more interested in the little things.
There’s nothing on earth to unite people more than food and drink – but why do we eat what we eat? Savor digs deep into all things delectable, exploring the science, history, and culture of what we consume. With episodes about the serious science of marshmallows, the kitschy culture around salt and pepper shakers, the food in popular television shows like The Simpsons and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or the medicinal history of tasty herbs like oregano, this podcast is a full plate of brain nourishment that will have you seeing your entrees with new eyes.
If you want to be sure you're listening to the podcasts everyone else is checking out, iHeartRadio has you covered. Every Monday, iHeartRadio releases a chart showing the most popular podcasts of the week. Stay up to date on what's trending by checking out the chart here. There's even a chart just for radio podcasts here, featuring all your favorite iHeartRadio personalities like Bobby Bones, Elvis Duran, Steve Harvey and dozens of others.
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