Stuff You Should Know

Black sci-fi writers were shut out of their genre in the 20th century so they created their own vision of the future. That sentiment spread to music and film and today it’s so engrained in pop culture it doesn't need its own label. 

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It has arrived, the most important podcast episode in the history of the world. 

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There is a good chance that in March of 2023, humans crossed a threshold into a transformative new era when a new, smarter type of AI was let loose in the wild and an AI arms race began.  

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For this special live benefit episode recorded in Atlanta, Josh and Chuck go back to the 70s and look at the decidedly ungroovy course of events that led to Ford recalling its Pinto after people started burning up in them.

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Humans made it through the Bronze Age and Iron Age, then we dabbled in steel, and now we are living in the Aluminum Age. The metal is so ubiquitous it seems like it’s been around forever, but we’ve only been really using it since the 20th century.

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The suicide forest in Japan is a beautiful place with a checkered reputation. Trigger Warning: This episode features a discussion of suicide. If you or anyone you know needs help, please call 988.

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Ever wondered when and why people started caring about body odors and cleanliness? Well look no further than today's episode. 

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Did you know some of our most beloved movies originally had different, sometimes better, endings? That is until they were tested in front of focus groups. Learn all about the how, what, and why of audience testing in this classic episode.

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Philosophers have been wondering whether we experience reality as it is for millennia now. They’ve pretty much settled on no, no we don’t. Now science has taken up the investigation and it’s proving the philosophers correct. So what is reality then?

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One of the more futuristic things around right now on Earth is research into encoding data into strings of genetic code.

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Keeping your elbows off the table, keeping your fingers out of the gravy boat – at some point these became very important rules of etiquette. But what purpose do manners serve? It turns out they just may be the glue that prevents society from unraveling.

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Almost everything you know about pterosaurs is wrong. They weren't birds, they weren't flying dinosaurs and they weren't all pterodactyls. Which makes this classic episode a great one for you to learn some new and amazing stuff about terrifying prehistoric beasts! 

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Could eating at only certain times of the day lead to weight loss? Possibly! 

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Everyone knows what a Rube Goldberg machine is, but what do you know about the cartoonist who they're named after?

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For a moment Milli Vanilli was the hottest musical act in the world. Then came the news that it was just that, an act, and the fall came swiftly and humiliatingly. Now, 30 years on, a look back yields not so much a cautionary tale as a very sad story.

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Science doesn't have a good explanation for why we sense color, yet it is everywhere and affecting us all the time. But why should minutely different wavelengths of light have such an impact on our moods and motivations? Explore these questions and more with Josh and Chuck in this classic episode.

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Humans exercising for better health has not been around that long. Today we dive into this fun history as we cover why and when we started this now commonplace pastime. 

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If you watch the news and hear the pollen count is high for some particular type of plant then it’s high time you learned how they do that.

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The Bechdel Test is a is a measure of the representation of women in film. You'd be surprised how many movies fail. 

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