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WBUR

Untold histories, unsolved mysteries, and other jaw-dropping stories online and IRL. Hosted by Ben Brock Johnson & Amory Sivertson.

Endless Thread

Ben can make a roaring, rumbling sound with his ears that no one else can hear. He never thought much about it — whether only he could do this, or whether everyone could do this — until he discovered a subreddit called Ear Rumblers Assemble: a whole community devoted to the mysterious and understudied ability to voluntarily tense one of the miniscule muscles in our ears. 

We go into Ben's ear with Dr. Anand Devaiah, and raise questions about how everyone experiences the world differently and the enduring mysteries of the human body.

 

Show notes:

 • r/earrumblersassemble (
Reddit • )

 • Thanks to Reddit, a New Diagnosis Is Bubbling Up Across the Nation (
KFF Health News • )

This episode was produced by Grace Tatter and edited by Dave Shaw. It was co-hosted by Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson. Mix and sound design by Paul Vaitkus.

Ear rumblers assemble!

This episode was originally published on March 10, 2023. 

In 2022, freshmen at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill got a new neighbor: an owl. What wasn't clear was whether the owl was trying to befriend them, or catch them.

Sometimes the owl seemed to be chasing students. Other times, it seemed to come in peace. A popular campus Instagram account reported that a woman had actually raised the owl herself. After she was spotted feeding it, the owl sightings stopped, much to the disappointment of students who'd come to consider it as a sort of mascot. Where had the owl come from, and where did it go?

Endless Thread host Ben Brock Johnson and producer Grace Tatter talk about how the owl gained online campus fame, and get a surprise update from the person who knows the owl best.

Show notes

 • "
Animal Instincts • " (
Criminal • )

 • "
The Real Killer in The Staircase Might Be … an Owl • ?" (
Vulture • )

 • "
Column: Hinton hears a hoot — the Class of 2026 vs. the HoJo Owl • " (
The Daily Tar Heel • )

 Instagram post of owl chasing student Kaleigh Wilhite • (UNC Chicks)

 Instagram post of owl confrontation at a basketball court • (UNC Chicks)

 Instagram post with other campus owl sightings • (UNC Chicks)

 Instagram post of Barb with the owl • (UNC Quirks)

 Reddit post on r/wellthatsucks • about an owl attack

 "An owl twice attacked a Washington woman. A biologist says it's becoming more common • " (NPR)

This content was originally created for audio. An auto-generated transcript is available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Heads up that some elements (i.e. music, sound effects, tone) are harder to translate to text.

Encore: Owl pursuits

Grab your telescopes because this week on Endless Thread Ben and NPR Short Wave host Emily Kwong take us down two science-related internet wormholes. First, Emily introduces us to the intergalactic world of astronaut fan fiction, starring the crew of the 2026 Artemis II moon mission. Then, Ben takes us through the r/Science discourse on a new LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) study mapping an ancient Amazonian civilization.

Show notes:

 Short Wave • (NPR)

 Between change and upgrade • (Artemis II fan fiction, Wattpad)

 Scientists Uncover Hundreds of Hidden Structures Beneath The Amazon • (r/Science)

This content was originally created for audio. An auto-generated transcript is available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Heads up that some elements (i.e. music, sound effects, tone) are harder to translate to text.

Emily Kwong takes us to science camp

The 190 passengers of a United Airlines flight from Newark, New Jersey to Palma de Mallorca, Spain had settled into their seats for their overnight flight when the captain gave an announcement: everyone had to turn off their Bluetooth devices — or he was going to turn around the plane. This confounded passengers, because Bluetooth is safe for airplanes. It stays enabled when devices are on airplane mode. United even encourages using Bluetooth headphones to connect to in-flight entertainment.

What was going on? The flight crew couldn't say. So the passengers took to...where else? Reddit.

Show notes:

 • 

 • UA flight - 'turn bluetooth off or we're turning around' (
Reddit • )

 • 

This episode was reported and produced by Grace Tatter, and co-hosted by Grace Tatter, Amory Sivertson and Ben Brock Johnson. It was edited by Dave Shaw. Mix and sound design by Emily Jankowski and Paul Vaitkus.

'Turn Bluetooth off, or we're turning around.'

The brand Fruit of the Loom is almost ubiquitous in the world of underwear and casual wear. You have likely seen its logo, if not on your own body, on store racks or at least in ads. Now, in your mind's eye, picture it. What do you see?

For years, countless people have been taking to the internet to share their memory of the Fruit of the Loom logo. A lot of them have the same memory – a basket, rather, a cornucopia of fruit.

But they're all wrong. At least, Fruit of the Loom claims that is has never had a cornucopia in its logo and there is little concrete evidence to suggest that the brand is lying. So what could be behind this collective misremembering?

This week on Endless Thread, Ben and Amory embark on a quest for answers: Is the Fruit of the Loom cornucopia simply an example of the Mandela Effect (a pervasive mass-misremembering of a fact or event), or has someone pulled the woolen underwear over our eyes?

Show notes:

 Has the 'Fruit of the Loom' Logo Ever Contained a Cornucopia? • (Snopes)

 Black T-Shirt logo • (Reddit)

 Alan's Reddit post 

This episode was produced by Frannie Monahan and co-hosted by Amory Sivertson and Ben Brock Johnson. It was edited by Dave Shaw. Mix and sound design by Paul Vaitkus.

Fruit of the Loom: Horn of Lies

This week on Endless Thread it's a producer takeover with Grace Tatter and Kalyani Saxena serving up some delicious online stories. First, Kalyani digs into why the internet is so hungry for perpetual stews (a stew that is simmered and added on to in perpetuity). Then, Grace dishes on a listener conundrum about whether salty Reddit posts are worse for us than sweet ones.

Show notes:

 ZAQ_Makes' Stewtheus • (TikTok)

 Want to try perpetual stew? Some tips for avoiding foodborne illness • (NPR)

 r/GirlDinnerDiaries • (Reddit)

 Does Venting Your Feelings Actually Help? • (Greater Good Magazine)

 Endless Thread Subreddit 

This episode was produced by Frannie Monahan and co-hosted by Kalyani Saxena and Grace Tatter. It was edited by Dave Shaw. Mix and sound design by Paul Vaitkus.

The internet is a perpetual stew

Long before TikTok dances, there was the Dougie.

In 2010, Cali Swag District’s “Teach Me How to Dougie” went worldwide, and for the decade-plus since, people have been trying to learn the viral moves.

More than 15 years later, a Korean TikTok creator went viral for doing the Dougie… badly. He claimed to be learning how to do the Dougie day-by-day – but his moves were so stiff and awkward, viewers from around the world – including Endless Thread producer Kalyani Saxena — were suspicious. Was @JBStarMax faking being bad at the Dougie? Kalyani presents her investigation to Ben and Amory.

Show notes:

 • “Day 1 of learning to do the Dougie until I can do it smoothly” (@JBStarMax on 
TikTok • )

 • Breakdancing (@JBStarMax on 
TikTok • )

 • Know Your L.A. Hip-Hop Dances: The Controversial Origin Story of The Dougie (
LA Weekly • )

 • Ben does the crabwalk, and Amory does the worm (
WBUR • )

This episode was produced by Grace Tatter and co-hosted by Kalyani Saxena, Ben Brock Johnson, and Amory Sivertson. It was edited by Dave Shaw. Mix and sound design by Emily Jankowski.

Teach us how to Dougie

Kurt Gödel was a genius mathematician and logician, considered by many scholars to be as influential as Aristotle. He was also buddies with fellow geniuses Albert Einstein and Oskar Morgenstern, the co-creator of Game Theory.

In 1947, Gödel told Morgenstern and Einstein he had identified an inner contradiction in the U.S. Constitution while studying for his citizenship test: the type of loophole that could plunge the United States into a dictatorship not unlike the Nazi regime Gödel had escaped when he immigrated from Austria.

So, what was the loophole? Over the years, everyone from Constitutional law scholars to laypeople on Reddit have wondered. Endless Thread plumbs the depths of Gödel's galaxy brain with the help of philosopher, writer and Gödel expert Rebecca Newberger Goldstein — and learns some surprising lessons about artificial intelligence, a German shorthand called Gabelsberger, and democracy along the way.

Show notes:

 • Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel, by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (
Amazon • )

 • Oskar Morgenstern's account of Kurt Gödel's naturalization (
Institute of Advanced Study • )

This episode was produced by Grace Tatter. It was co-written by Grace Tatter and Ben Brock Johnson, co-hosted by Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson, and edited by Meg Cramer and Dave Shaw. Mix and sound design by Paul Vaitkus.

The Lost Loophole

The climate crisis is escalating. We have to decarbonize our economy, but we’re moving too slowly. So, what’s the backup plan? This season of How We Survive is about engineering nature: large-scale interventions that could be our last hope. We’ll explore technology that could alter our weather patterns, transform our planet, and possibly save us all from the worst outcomes of the climate crisis. Or lead to catastrophic, unintended consequences. 

In this episode, host Amy Scott travels to the Bay Area to learn about a controversial solution to the climate crisis. It’s called solar geoengineering, and it’s basically a way to dim the sun to cool the planet. Some proponents view this as a necessary intervention, while others are not convinced. And while solar geoengineering is happening at a small scale, what happens if a rogue nation…or a rogue billionaire…makes the decision for us?

Listen to How We Survive wherever you get your podcasts: https://link.podtrac.com/kobh1a3u

How to Dim the Sun, from Marketplace's How We Survive

Most of us know the internet isn't a particularly private place. Yet there's a certain feeling of anonymity that comes with sharing online — our words and stories mixed in with millions of others. It's easy to think no one is watching.

But your data isn't just vulnerable to prying eyes. It's for sale. And the government is buying it up to keep a closer eye on you — and all of us.

This week, hosts Amory and Ben take a chilling look at how our social media is used for surveillance with Dell Cameron, an investigative reporter with WIRED covering privacy and national security.

 ICE Wants to Build Out a 24/7 Social Media Surveillance Team • (WIRED)

 Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts • (The New York Times)

 ICE has spun a massive surveillance web. We talked to people caught in it • (NPR)

 • To reach Endless Thread on Signal: 
646-456-9095
 

This episode was written and produced by Kalyani Saxena and co-hosted by Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson. It was edited by Dave Shaw and Meg Cramer. Mix and sound design by Marquis Neal

Socials for Sale

Anybody old enough to remember life before cutting the cord has probably seen the work of TV pitchman Billy Mays. But people much younger still know his face and squeaky OxiClean personality. While Mays died years ago, he’s lived on in meme form, from the famous product launches of Apple to more obvious image macros with Impact font. Why? We ask his son Billy Mays III, his biggest frenemy, and a host of others to explain why someone who was squarely in the age of television continues to appear online in strange and provocative ways. It’s the story of an American staple whose consumerist existence belies a personality that, in the end, was surprisingly wholesome.

MEMES, Part 9: I'm Not Done Yet

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