BrainStuff
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BrainStuff
Whether the topic is popcorn or particle physics, you can count on BrainStuff to explore -- and explain -- the everyday science in the world around us.
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2682 episodi
How Did Mastodons Defend the Legitimacy of America?
In the 1700s, fossil finds along the Ohio and Hudson Rivers indicated that North America was home to mysterious beasts. Learn how mastodon bones prove...
BrainStuff Classics: Why Do Some People Eat Dirt?
The craving for and practice of eating earth is more widespread than you might think. Learn why researchers think people engage in this form of pica (...
What Advice About Lightning Is Wrong?
A lot of sayings and ideas about how to avoid getting struck by lightning are misguided. Learn how to stay storm safe in a building, a vehicle, or out...
How Did Wild Bill Hickok Become America's First Gunslinger?
In the mid-1800s, the archetype of the gentleman gunslinger emerged through tall tales of real people like James Butler 'Wild Bill' Hickok. Learn how...
What Colors Are Impossible?
All colors only really exist in the mind of the beholder -- and there are colors that we can't perceive, or can only perceive under particular circums...
BrainStuff Classics: What's the Controversy Behind 'Mary Had a Little Lamb'?
No, it's not the lyrics -- the author of this nursery rhyme is what's in question. Learn why (and how Henry Ford was involved) in today's classic epis...
What Was the World's Largest Nuclear Weapon?
In 1961, the USSR set off a 57-megaton atomic bomb, nicknamed the Tsar Bomba. It's still by far the most powerful nuclear weapon ever built. Learn how...
How Do Red-Tailed Hawks Work?
This large, loud hawk is probably North America's most common because it's so adaptable. Learn more about red-tailed hawks in today's episode of Brain...
How Does Ketchup Work?
This all-American condiment got its start as a fermented fish sauce and featured in the formation of the Food and Drug Administration. Learn about the...
BrainStuff Classics: How Can You Help a Friend with Depression?
We all know we're supposed to reach out to friends and family experiencing depression, but it's an intimidating prospect. Learn how to get a conversat...
How Does the Myth of the Minotaur Work?
The Minotaur -- a monstrous half man, half bull -- has raged through stories for millennia. But where did he and his labyrinth come from? Learn the an...
How Do Manatees Work?
Manatees swim the calm waterways of tropical Atlantic coastlines with no worries of natural predators. Learn why humans are their only real danger --...
Why Do We Put Diamonds on Engagement Rings?
The tradition of putting diamonds on engagement rings is less than a century old, but some 80% of engagement rings in the U.S. now bear them. Learn ho...
How Did the Stonewall Riots Work?
The police raid and ensuing riots at the Stonewall Inn in June of 1969 became a turning point in queer civil rights because of the larger movement tha...
How Did the Smallest Primates Get Such Big Eyes?
Tarsiers are our palm-sized primate cousins that evolved in the forests of Southeast Asia to have long limbs and huge, round eyes. Learn how we've lea...
What Would Happen If You Swallowed a Leech?
This isn't just the least-fun thought experiment, it's a medical malady common enough to have its own name. Learn how internal hirudiniasis works (and...
How Can Rhubarb Grow in the Dark?
We know rhubarb as a tart fruit that looks like pink celery, but it also has a bulbous underground storage unit that was used medicinally for millenni...
How Does the Blue-Footed Booby Work?
This marine bird carries the color of the ocean in its webbed feet, was named after an insult, and uses its excrement in creative ways. Learn about th...
Who Was Helen of Troy?
Helen is a figure from Greek myth -- a daughter of Zeus with a mortal woman, and said to have been the most beautiful woman in the world. Learn more a...
How Does Your Heart Get Blood?
Your heart needs blood as much as any other muscle in your body, and it receives it the same way -- just a little earlier than anyone else. Learn how...
How Do Butterflies Get Their Brilliant Colors?
Butterfly wings often come in striking, iridescent colors -- but it's not from pigments (or not entirely). Learn how microscopic structures give butte...
How Did William the Conquerer Transform England?
In the year 1066, the illigitimate son of a Norman duke conquered England and became its king, changing English history (and language!) forever. Learn...
Could Dilophosaurus Really Spit Poison?
OK, we're almost sure the answer is no. But there was a fossil-based reason that 'Jurassic Park' included this detail. Learn about the real-life Dilop...
Do Our Pinky Toes Serve a Purpose?
Your pinky toes are actually powerhouses of locomotion. Learn how they help us move -- and what can go wrong if they get injured -- in today's episode...
Where Did the At Symbol Come From?
The @ sign goes by many names today, but it's only so commonplace because of medieval merchants and one 1970s programmer. Learn more about the at sign...
BrainStuff Classics: What Can Babies See in the Womb?
A human fetus doesn't develop retinas until around gestational week 28. Learn how researchers have tried to figure out what babies can see in the few...
Can You Really Escape an Alligator by Running Zigzag?
You could probably outsprint an alligator no matter what pattern you ran in -- but it's extremely unlikely that you'd ever need to. Learn how alligato...
What Fueled the Feud of the Hatfields and McCoys?
The 30-year feud between these two families is more dramatic than fiction -- and may be the starting point of negative stereotypes about Appalachia. L...
How Does Mayonnaise Work?
Love it or hate it, mayo achieves a creamy texture without any dairy thanks to the science of emulsions. Learn how it works -- and why it's not the re...
How Did a Wisconsin Woman Lead a German Resistance to Nazis?
Mildred Harnack was an American literature professor living in Berlin when the Third Reich took control. Learn how she and her husband led a resistanc...
Are Lobsters Functionally Immortal?
It's true that lobsters don't age, but that doesn't quite make them immortal, and it's far from the only fabulously weird thing about them. Learn abou...
Is It 'Jerry-Rigged' or 'Jury-Rigged'?
Both of these terms are actually valid, though they have slightly different meanings, and only one of them is based in sailors' slang. Learn the histo...
How Did Beer Help Sell the Myth of Custer's Last Stand?
The idea of General George Custer's deadly military blunder being a heroic last stand was constructed over decades to encourage U.S. colonization of t...
How Does Bioluminescence Work?
When organisms like fireflies, fungi, and fish glow with cold light, there's chemistry at work. Learn what we know (and don't know!) about bioluminesc...
How Is Maillardet's Automaton Still Wowing Us After 200 Years?
Around the year 1800, Swiss clockmaker Henri Maillardet created a mechanical doll that moves like a person as it produces drawings and poems with a pe...
How Do Tiny Capers Pack Such a Big Flavor Punch?
Capers are the flower buds of a spiny shrub, and though they have a lot of flavor on their own, they're often amped up by being pickled or packed in s...
What Do A.M., P.M., and SOS Stand For?
OK, this is a trick question -- 'SOS' doesn't stand for anything at all. Learn the history of these three terms, including what astronomy and telegrap...
How Do Fainting Goats Work?
Fainting goats don't really faint -- their muscles just lock up for a few extra seconds when they startle or get excited. Learn how myotonia works and...
Does Smog Make Sunsets More Beautiful?
Although a little air pollution can bring out brilliant colors in sunsets, most of it just causes a washed-out haze. Learn how both sunsets and smog w...
Why Does Albania Have Hundreds of Thousands of Bunkers?
When Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha started building concrete bunkers during the Cold War, it was part paranoia and part propaganda. Learn more about t...