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Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst 

Maximum Fun

Science communicators Ella Hubber, Tom Lum, and Caroline Roper learn about anything and everything interesting! Each episode they teach each other about a science topic, and learn about a miscellaneous topic. Whether it's bugs on drugs, temporal illusions, or fanfiction, there's so much out there, so let's learn everything! Join our Discord, email us, and follow us everywhere at www.LetsLearnEverything.com

Let's Learn Everything!

What happens to life inside exclusion zones like Chernobyl? Is it good? Bad? Or something much more interesting? And what happens when you try to codify every single character from human language? Well, it definitely leads to some fascinating linguistic rabbit holes!

Images we talk about:

Przewalski’s horse (yes that’s how it’s spelled)
Frogs
Character U+FDFD
Arabic Text
Decorative U+FDFD's
Tom's Favorite Use of Kashida

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:12) Life in Exclusion Zones
(01:01:48) Every Single Character
(01:52:06) Outro

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Join our Discord!

We also learn about: Actually defining it made it creepier, the zone rouge, we an area of Earth uninhabitable from war, chernobyl release over 100 radioactive elements, they really need to name the zone of alienation the zone of doing taxes, the liquidators actually did a good job of stopping the spread, is this a rewilding experiment? Ella deleted emails to poach this topic, Przewalski’s horse (yes that’s how it’s spelled), technically feral vs wild horses, I’ve reached the nuance center of my nuance pop, why isn’t it my job so sample chernobyl frogs, nearly all pine trees near chernobyl were wiped out, “the selective pressures of radiation”, bright birds used up their carotenoids for color, we’re doing nuclear ecological biochemistry, god that was an ugly laugh, maybe its counterintuitive for the small things - no this one sucks, the slow horror of a lack of decomposition, the ecosystem is not rewilded it’s entirely new, the Korean DMZ is like an ecological semi permeable membrane, DMZ ecology research institute, the DMZ has 40% of Korea’s endangered species, it’s a pitstop along the east asian australasian flyway, endangered cranes have bounced back in the DMZ, the DMZ crane watch, the cranes and natterjack toad require human farming to thrive, synonyms of nuance and thrive, Baarter economy standing ovation, conflictful chicken, Unicode is the ISO standard for text on computers, ASCII’s 128 characters is surely enough right? why do you have a period accurate phone? it turns out other cultures want to use the computer, there are 159,801 characters in unicode, the basic multilingual plane sounds like startrek shit and it kind of is, I mean it’s not like it has cuneiform except it does, braille unicode exists for a reason, braille doesn’t just map one to one with letters it also has contractions, contracted braille is a stenography, tweeting more in japanese, 101,996 CJK characters, Max Woolf’s Big List of Naughty Strings, after Mamdani was elected I had to learn how to pronounce the bismillah, “Bismillah is the Przewalski’s Horse of this topic”, I said we shouldn’t dive into the history of a language halfway through a topic but fuck it, LR0’s terrific Arabic typography essay, arabic script can be perfectly justified, “the justification lives inside the words”, Kashidas stretching across a map made it click for Tom, maing the bismillah beautiful, we all just want to make text look cool, the ottoman printing press ban myth, the cursed lost printed quran, oh my god is this the unifying thing, weirdly internet explorer had kashida justification for 1 year? Inshallah you find on the internet what you’re exploring for.

Sources:

Chernobyl Frogs Image
Wikipedia: Exclusion Zones
World Nuclear Association
Wikipedia: Zone Rouge
Explorers Web: Montserrat and its Exclusion Zone
Guardian: UN Buffer Zone in Cyprus
International Atomic Energy Agency: Chernobyl
United Nations Development Programme: Chernobyl Recovery Development
BBC Future: Chernobyl’s Wildlife
Royal Society Proceedings B: The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone as a Wildlife Refuge
Wikipedia: Red Forest
Current Biology: Long-term Census Data Reveal Abundant Wildlife Populations at Chernobyl
Science: Chernobyl Hits Birds Hard
Microorganisms: Soil Microbes and Plant-Associated Microbes in Response to Radioactive Pollution
The Conversation: The Mystery of Chernobyl’s Wild Horses
San Diego Zoo: The Last Wild Horse
Animals: Endangered Przewalski’s Horse, Equus przewalskii, Cloned from Historically Cryopreserved Cells
San Diego Zoo: Birth of Cloned Przewalski’s Foal
Korean Konsult: DMZ - Demilitarized Zone
DMZ: The Civilian Control Line (CCL) towns of the Korean Peninsula
Reuters: South Korea to Shift Civilian Restricted Line
South China Morning Post: The Korean DMZ
Guardian: How Wildlife is Thriving in the Korean DMZ
Royal Society Notes and Records: From Warzone to Bioreserve
Zooniverse: DMZ Crane Watch
Biological Conservation: Winter Foraging of Threatened Cranes in the Demilitarized Zone of Korea
Cultural Anthropology: Toward an Anthropology of Landmines
KNews: Nature Thrives in Cyprus’ Forgotten Buffer Zone
UFZ EuMon conference: Monitoring Biodiversity of the Buffer Zone in Cyprus
Satoyama Initiative: The Cyprus Buffer Zone as a Socio-Ecological Landscape
---
UC Berkley Unicode Overview
Unicode's History
Unicode on Braille
RNIB Contracted Braille
Buzzfeed on Japanese Tweets
LR0's Incredible Arabic Type Essay
Design Principles of Kashida Justification: A Unique Technique in Arabic and Persian Mapping
The Lost Quran's Discovery
Kathryn Schwartz's "Did Ottoman Sultans Ban Print?"

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112: Life in Exclusion Zones & Every Single Character

Due to some house woes, we're recasting Ella's excellent appearance on That's Absurd, Please Elaborate, where they actually solve a meme and invent Pee Day.

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Recast: Ella on That's Absurd, Please Elaborate

What does an astronaut actually learn in training? And what surprises them about having to live in space? Well, fortunately astronaut Cady Coleman is here to answer these and many more of our questions!!

See us live in London! LETSLEARNEVERYTHING.COM/LIVE

See Tom live in NYC! OurFindingsShow.com

Images we talk about:
Cady's Background Image

Timestamps:

 (00:00:00) Intro

 (00:05:03) Astronaut Training and Space Life

 (01:10:42) Space Suits

 (01:23:45) Outro

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

We also learn about: Astronaut school, “the mission is exploration and only a part of it is human spaceflight”, the telerobotic surgery was real, living in NEEMO, Cady learned to remove a gallbladder, “what is it that I have to remember is not being simulated well?”, oh the telerobotic surgery was happening under water, it’s about sharing what you’re learning at the same time, spending 11 days underwater, bedrest studies in hawaii are actually a toll and a service, communication is key even in space, trust us space food is going to get old, not every day of training is remove 10 gallbladders, putting yourself in the picture humanizes it, which way is up? sleep flashes from cosmic rays, liquid sensors in our neck make you pee when you lie down and reduce blood volume in space, you can’t cough to hide your pee on the ISS, the future of the ISS, astronaut feet facts, Paolo and Cady’s toenail system, learning to fly in zero g, “you learn to live in 3 dimensions”, losing things in zero g sucks, CO2 buildup for the group photo, not washing clothes upset the balance, it’s all about fluid physics, “it’s all about interfaces between solids and liquids - and up in space it’s the biggest game in town”, peeing in space is easier than camping, how you determine your space order with feet, the domino effect of space suit sizes, your space suit is your space ship, IT’S LESS MATERIAL, there are people who are still waiting their turn, “how do you make sure these voices are heard when their presence is not missed?”, how to work for change collaboratively, you shouldn’t have to work so hard to participate, “oh that’s going on the website Cady”, one small step for you and one big step for democracy.

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111: Astronaut Cady Coleman, Life in Space, and What Astronauts Learn

What even is horsepower? Is it a silly unit of measurement, or actually an underrated marvel?? And how old is makeup? Why do we do it? And what historic looks can you steal for your next night out?

What are the flaws in scientific publishing, who's responsible, and how can we fix it?

ALSO SEE US LIVE IN LONDON!!! LETSLEARNEVERYTHING.COM/LIVE

Images we talk about:

Papyrus Image
Fish Palette
Patch Portrait
Painting of Two Ladies

Timestamps:

 (00:00:00) Intro

 (00:03:15) Horsepower

 (00:48:26) Makeup

 (01:39:07) Outro

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

We also learn about: I’m taking horse pills to get their powers, we can answer questions without getting klaxonned, abbreviated for french reasons, the meter is 1 ten millionth the distance from the north to south pole, I’m going to be talking about power “oh god”, power is the movement of a mass over time, you’ll notice nowhere in that definition did I mention horses, James perfects the steam engine, you can’t just say “hey this engine will get us to the industrial revoltuion” you have to sell it in horses, come up with your own unit of power dweeb, a horse can produce 15 horsepower, you’re about to have a lot more nickels, there was a metric and imperial horsepower, all the international names for hosepower, watt SI unit is on first base? the father son and the holy ghost of electronics (the amp, volt, and watt), we didn’t have a unified unit for power before horsepower, Thomas Edison measured lightbulb efficacy by horsepower, IT WASN’T AN IRONIC CHOICE IT WAS CAUSE AND EFFECT, this isn’t a podcast it’s a slumber party, Caroline and Ella’s metallic blue eyeliner/facepaint, webster’s definition is somehow too broad and too narrow, prehistoric pigemtns may have been body paint, Ella’s surprisingly informative ancient egyptian ASMR video, from kohl to green malachite, caroline hiding the sexy bits of the papyrus from us, this makes my tummy hurt, fish palettes, ancient greek prostitues were required to wear lipstick, modern man or ro-man, a woman buys lotions and perfumes with cheating in mind, Elizabeth I’s lead and vinegar makeup, painting on fake veins, plucking hairs to match the queen’s forhead, the optical illusion dot, Caroline’s favorite fad: beauty patches, it’s so wild how excluded darker complexions are in the market when this topic started in ancient egypt, perhaps makeup imitates the moment of an orgasm, im inventing new sexism: men are blurry, we finally just asked women why they wear makeup, wearing makeup because we have to vs we want to, for other or ourselves, the ro-manosphere.

Sources:
History of the SI Units
History of Imperial Units
The Fan-Tastic paper: The Origin of the Horsepower Unit
James' Encyclopedia Britannica Biography
Horserpower From a Horse Paper
Siemen's Address for the Watt Unit
Edison Papers Measuring Lightbulbs in Horsepower
NOAA Lightning Stats

 ---
Merriam Webster
Makeup Definition
Blog: Bodypainting
Why Do We Do That? Makeup
Archeology Journal: Prehistoric Body Painting- 2000
Independant: 300000 year old body art
Smithsonian: Evidence of Fur and Leather Clothing, Among World’s Oldest, Found in Moroccan Cave
2017 Paper: Painted in red: In search of alternative explanations for EuropeanPalaeolithic cave art
Britannica: Makeup
Blog: History of Makeup
Wiki: Beauty and Cosmetics in Ancient Egypt
NHM Utah: Makeup in Ancient Egypt
Blog: Ancient Egyptian make-up
Book: Ovid on Cosmetics
University of Kent: The Painful Art of Being a Roman Woman
Wiki: Cosmetics in Ancient Rome
The Guardian: Medieval Christian Misogyny Shapes How We Judge Women Today, Says Scholar
Royal Museums Greenwich: Elizabeth I: Fashion and Beauty
DMDA: You Must Get a Patch
Auction Listing: Portrait of two ladies. Patch marks to their faces
Wiki: Allegorical Painting of Two Ladies
Smithsonian: Make-up
Preston Park: The History of Victorian Makeup
YouGov: One in Six Women Wear Makeup at the Gym
YouGov: How Often - and why - American Women wear makeup
YouGov: One in Twenty British Men Now Wear Makeup
2022 Paper: The contrasting effects of body image and self-esteem in the makeup usage
Blog: Why Do We Chase The Post-O Glow?
2015 Paper: Facial coloration tracks changes in women's estradiol
2015 Paper: Cosmetics Alter Biologically-Based Factors of Beauty: Evidence from Facial Contrast
ABC News: Makeup Makes Women Seem More Competent, Study Says
2024 Paper: The Influence of Makeup on Individual Self-Identity: An Exploratory Study
2016 Paper: Does make-up make you feel smarter? The “lipstick effect” extended to academic achievement

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110: Horsepower & Makeup

What are the flaws in scientific publishing, who's responsible, and how can we fix it?

ALSO SEE US LIVE IN LONDON!!! LETSLEARNEVERYTHING.COM/LIVE

Timestamps:

 (00:00:00) Intro

 (00:02:47) Scientific Publishing Part I

 (00:35:57) Scientific Publishing Part II

 (01:13:07) Outro

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Join our Discord!

We also learn about: We almost do the same grim joke, the live show will have 50% more hosts than this, before publications there were societies and books and letters, in 1665 a Henry Oldenburg of the royal society starts “Philosophical Transactions”, the longest continuous journal (ignoring the time Olderburg was put in a tower for criticizing the king), the discovery of Jupiter’s red spot and also a deformed calf, Newton’s Optics was published in Philosophical Transactions first, Science has bad SEO, the doubling time of papers is 14 years since the 1950s, Ella’s peer review process, errors can be missed and biases affected, not paying reviewers is a bug that’s labelled as a feature, government funded research can still be privately owned, we’ve all agreed “processing fee” just means bullshit, there’s some things I don’t want to be “fun”, Elsevier has a 38% profit margin while Alphabet’s is 32%, editorial resignations in protest, I’m excited to add Robert Maxwell to my Arya Stark list of people, Maxwell died on his yes-that-Ghislaine-Maxwell Yacht, the scheme to buyout scientists for their papers, cover upfront costs - own copyright - flood with new journals - reap the subscription costs, “jesus wept”, retractions are growing by about 20% each year, I’m buying Ella a dictionary so she can learn what “fun” means, fool me 239 time shame on me, paper mills, predatory journals are pay to win, the Chinese restaurant metaphor keeps staying accurate, no it’s not nature our journal is nurture, is this finally rock bottom? the public review curate model, the pros and cons of preprints, diamond open access, the nelson memo, “I think the Ghislaine Mawell death yacht is fun”.

Sources:
Royal Society: History of Scientific Journals
Royal Society: Philosophical Transactions The Early Years
Royal Society: Philosophical Transactions Issue 1
University College London: A History of Scientific Journals
Philosophical Transactions A: Newton Shows the Light
Royal Society Notes and Records: 350 Years of Scientific Periodicals
Broad Research Communication Lab: Peer Review - a Historical Perspective
Nature Humanities and Social Sciences Communications: Growth Rates of Modern Science
JSTOR: The History of Peer Review is More Interesting Than You Think
British Journal of Biomedical Science: The Peer Review Process: Past, Present, and Future
Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine: Peer Review: A Flawed Process at the Heart of Science and Journals
The Conversation: Academic Publishing is a Multibillion Dollar Industry
New Scientists: Time to Break Academic Publishing’s Stranglehold on Research
The Lancet: Should Peer Reviewers Be Paid?
Guardian: Is the Staggeringly Profitable Business of Scientific Publishing Bad for Science? (Robert Maxwell Longread)
Research Professional News: Elsevier Profit
Guardian: George Monbiot on Academic Publishers
Retraction Watch: Statistics and Computing Resignation
Guardian: The Murky Life of Robert Maxwell
Journal of the Academy of Public Health: The Rise and Fall of Scientific Journals and a Way Forward
EBSCO Research: Publish or Perish Paradox
University of Technology Sydney: The ‘Publish or Perish’ Mentality is Undermining Science
Retraction Watch: COVID Retractions
Retraction Watch: Most Cited
Retraction Watch: Retractions by Nobel Prize Winners
Retraction Watch: Most Retractions
British Medical Journal: Boldt the Great Pretender
Nato Strategic Communication Centre: Disinformation and Scholarly Communications
The Conversation: Paper Mills
Toxicologic Pathology: Predatory Journals: What They Are and How to Avoid Them
The Lancet: Lessons From the Influx of Preprints During the Early COVID-19 Pandemic
The Conversation: Diamond Open Access
San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA)

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109: Scientific Publishing

We all thought quicksand would be a bigger deal than it is, but what is the science behind them and all the other worries I had as a kid? And how does pinball reflect the changing cultures of our time, and could now be the best era of pinball?

ALSO SEE US LIVE IN LONDON!!! LETSLEARNEVERYTHING.COM/LIVE

Things we Talk About: 

Bagatelle
Redgrave's Pinball
Humpty Dumpty
Beat Time
Lambeth & Sarceni's Amazing Pinball Talk at Magfest
David Barber's Magfest Pinball Panel
Technology Connection's Great Pinball Breakdown
PinballMap.com

Timestamps:

 (00:00:00) Intro

 (00:06:22) Quicksand and Other Childhood Worries

 (01:05:22) The Undying Game of Pinball

 (01:55:32) Outro

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

We also learn about: Ella’s spoon collection is much more important than our live show, the never ending story, quicksand was in 3% of in the 1960s, the problem with gen z is they’re not afraid of quicksand, quicksand is reverse oobleck (sheer-thinning), the settled sand at the bottom requires the force of lifting a car, quicksand is unfortunate physics circumstances burying you, 11th century quicksand art in the Bayeux Tapestry (also Haley’s comet), we’re less dense than quicksand so you’d float at your waist, you could listen to this podcast twice while hanging out in quicksand, Ella cried so much she couldn’t cross the piranha plank, piranha fear is President Roosevelt’s fault, you know you’re making fun of a ten year old child right now, my main takeaway was what a cogent president he was, piranhas reloading their teeth, piranhas have 10x the relative bite force to size of a crocodile, piranhas aren’t carnivores - they’re opportunistic omnivores and a skittish prey species, the cow just walking out of the piranhas, it’s like two truths and a lie but all three are true, ARE WE DOING SPIDERS GEORG, spiders have acute mechanoceptors, tarantulas aren’t just hairy for fun, debunking the Lisa Birgit Holst debunking, a 50 spiders salute for georg, Beans Britain is a statistical outlier and should not be counted, spiders georg as a stats teaching tool, spiders georg was NOT an outlier, the moment Tom and pinball fell in love, we’ve been throwing balls at pins since ancient Egypt, indoor parlor games were for the aristocracy, fixing the pins to the table with bagatelle, the depression sparked the start of pinball’s craze, evolving their legs back, truly pinball is what caused the depression, pinball was the avocado toast of the time, pinballs were literally turned into billy clubs and bullets, pinball was banned for 34 years in new york city, the historic humpty dumpty machine first gave us flippers in 1947, pinball was cooler than porn, the bootles, it’s games sex and games AGAIN - but this time it’s bad, Suzanne Ciani’s digital design for Xenon, guess the pinball cabinet from the sound, the sopranos’ profanity filter, NBA fastbreak isn’t a basketball themed pinball - you are playing basketball, Dave demonstrating a Tap Pass, pinball is the most open it’s ever been, finding cabinets is a somehow even nerdier version of birdwatching, oh nooo don’t send me pictures of pinball cabinets.

Sources:
2021 Fibromyalgia Acupuncture Review
Wildland Trekking: Is Quicksand Real?
EBSCO: Non Newtonian Fluid
Wiki: Shear Thinning
Slate: The Rise and Fall of Quicksand
Getty: Bayeux Tapestry Quicksand Scene
BBC Future: Can Quicksand Suck You to Your Death?
Nature Comms: Liquefaction of Quicksand Under Stress
Europhysics News: Quicksand!
National Geographic: Quicksand 
Greater Cleveland Aquarium: How a President Propagated a Myth
Zootaxa: Molecular Systematics of Serrasalmidae
Nature Scientific Reports: Extreme Jaw Forces of Living and Extinct Piranhas 
University of Washington News: Piranha Fish Swap Old Teeth
Evolution and Development: Heterodonty and Dental Replacement in Piranhas
BBC: Piranha 'less deadly than feared'
Studies on Neotropical Fauna and Environment: Attacks on Humans by the Piranha Serrasalmus rhombeus in Suriname
The Harvard Gazette: Piranha Lab 
BBC: Do People Really Swallow Spiders in their Sleep
Snopes: Do People Swallow Eight Spiders Per Year?
Scientific American: Fact or Fiction? People Swallow 8 Spiders a Year While They Sleep |
Springer Nature: The Vibrational Sense of Spiders
Wiki: Fried Spider
r/HelloInternet Reddit: Lisa Birgit Holst Doesn't Exist 
Snopes: Lisa Birgit Holst
Tumblr: Spiders Georg
Wiki: Spiders Georg
Journal of Interdisciplinary Science Topics: View of How Many Spiders Would Spiders Georg Have To Eat? 
Medium: The Spiders Georg Problem

 ---
Lambeth & Sarceni's Amazing Pinball Talk at Magfest
David Barber's Magfest Pinball Panel
Clive Thompson for Smithsonian Mag on Pinball
National Museum of American History on Pinball and Bagatelle
Montague Redgrave's Pinball Patent
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science on Pinball and Gambling
Technology Connection's Great Pinball Breakdown
Suzanne Ciani's Audio Design for Xenon

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinlearn

108: Quicksand and Other Childhood Worries & The Undying Game of Pinball

We've added a SECOND live show in London, and it's a Sunday matinee! See all the details at LetsLearnEverything.com/live

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinlearn

Second London Live Show! 1pm Sunday Oct 18th!

Corry and Luke from the Sci Guys podcast join us, at last completing elaborate 4 year scheme to have them on! We learn about whether acupuncture is bullshit, and learn a bit more about That famous dolphin story. We also talk shop about mistakes, debunking, and curiosity!

Timestamps:

 (00:00:00) Intro

 (00:10:51) Acupuncture

 (00:32:27) THAT Dolphin Story

 (00:54:20) Mistakes & Debunking

 (01:21:10) Outro

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

We also learn about: 

I’m biggly judging, the only thing I love more than science is a weird bit, Caroline’s 4 year plan to get in a zoom call with these bozos, kind of feels like you came to the top of the mountain and came down to meet us, Brian Cox does Not follow Tom, I know something that will fix Ella’s connection, the corry-luke scale, the peripheral nervous system, free opiod receptors, endogynous, different kind of needles for that opiod, fake accupuncture, treating sever hiccups, min-maxing heroin, it’s tricky to study pain, maybe therapy works more than accupuncture, by the way I don’t need you to share everything, dolphins weren’t so great at finding land mines, I’ll just leave some dead air, an open bar for editting, the sensory deprivation tank, you’re paying for this open bar Tom, I won’t tell you the name of the paper but I will tell you about lisa simpson, was really hoping the apartment would have a dolphinarium, now do your duolingo, this was all to communicate with aliens, Tom tries to have a teachable moment, well someone was certainly “arriving”, raising a chimp as a human, Bunny’s backlash, weird studies, language is complicated and we don’t even think about it so we underestimate it, did we not all read coco transcripts in college - oh i guess not, Corry’s corona mistake, double checking even when we know someone’s wrong, can you believe there are podcasts where people try to learn everything? a meta message not about being right but about science, QI’s mistake rate, the science debunking complex can get toxic, when we debunk it’s not with antagonism but curiosity, the mould effect saga, I think what you were trying to say correy is that it’s important to foster curiosity.

Sources:
Harvard Medical School, Science of Acupuncture
Review: Is Acupuncture Placebo?
Review: Acupuncture for Fibromyalgia Treatment
Guardian: NASA's Dolphin Project
Atlantic: Margaret Lovatt's Dolphin Experiment

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107: The Sci Guys, Acupuncture, and THAT Dolphin Story

It's the Best of Everything! The episode where we look at the topics that YOU thought were our best from the past year, and chat some behind the scenes about them! It's a great place to start and a great time to brush up on things you may have forgotten.

Images we Talk About: 
Etching from the Great Moon Hoax
Bumble Bee Ocelli

Timestamps:

 (00:00:00) Intro

 (00:03:51) The Vitamin Saga

 (00:20:55) Why is the Sky Blue?

 (00:33:19) Speech Disfluency

 (00:53:11) The Great Moon Hoax of 1835

 (01:09:07) Superheavy Elements II

 (01:27:33) Eyevolution II

 (01:45:17) Outro 

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

We also learn about: 

You wouldn’t marry a husband, oh here comes the vitamin guy, you think we’ll still have history, you missed a spot, literally having to ask for extra time, we don’t learn like computers - relearning is normal, the I’ve just turned 30 pilgramage to Japan, I’ve ruined the algorithm, oh YAY, excited for marriages and reality fracture, 30 seconds of laughter.

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinlearn

The Best of Everything 2026

You may know the polygraph is junk science, but what is the real science of lying and what wild turns did the polygraph take to get to today? And how old is dentistry? If ancient cave men didn't brush why do I have to? Well it turns out for good reason, and some fascinating dental science.

ALSO SEE US LIVE IN LONDON!!! LETSLEARNEVERYTHING.COM/LIVE

Images we Talk About: 
Mackenzie's First Polygraph
Ancient Teeth Image
Dentistry Tool 1
Dentistry Tool 2
Dentistry Tool 3
Dentistry Tool 4

Timestamps:

 (00:00:00) Intro

 (00:06:38) The Polygraph

 (01:00:33) Dentistry History

 (01:49:19) Outro

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

Go to https://surfshark.com/learneverything or use code LEARNEVERYTHING at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN!

We also learn about: 2 truths and a lie, the jeremy kyle show, the first lie from the devil to eve (or when children first lie), the official stance of the podcast is lying is good and cool, deontic reasoning and theory of mind, flexible and explicit TOM, Ella aces the Sally-Anne test, discovering new advanced levels of lying, lying is normal for kids it’s not evil, lying is complex… but what if it wasn’t and we could just know, James Mackenzie’s original polygraph, the polygraph actually worked (just not for lying but for cardiology), sphygmomanometers, proto-feminist William Marston, back then just thinking women had a theory of mind made you a proto feminist, Tom falls down the rabbit hole of Marston’s feminism, what’s the difference between a lie you believe and the truth, Marston is the first to bring the polygraph to court in Frye vs the United States, the polygraphs turns into a one band band machine, Marston invented wonder woman and the lasso of truth, table the feminism of wonder woman another time, if corporations are people they should all go to therapy, polygraphs are still a 2 billion dollar industry, police firefighters and paramedics still take polygraphs, Caroline pre-empts the but, a polygraph is not a machine you need the interpreter, lying is useful, it’s fun to lie so who’s your favorite co-host, wow we can bond over private healthcare, dentistry asmr, tooth decay is from bacteria acid, stone age morocco acorn sweets, you can blame agriculture for cavities, fossilized plaque can give us an oral history, determining women did a job from paint in teeth, fuck I drank the paint water at least no one will know, did you say we were kissing the rats or was that my inner monologue, would you like to read the tooth worm poem? how could this possibly get to a tooth worm, most of recorded human history we believed in tooth worms, the earliest example of dentistry was a week ago, sorry it changed a week ago, an ancient beeswax filling, a 59,000 year old tooth hole, what’s a worse hyphenate than barber-surgeon, blacksmith barbers, traveling tooth pullers, so many jobs I’m glad don’t exist, a medieval dentist clown is literally someone’s worst nightmare, victorian job questionnaire, What The Eff is That, dental tools that look like weapons made in a dream, I didn’t realize until we got into this how much I hate teeth! the truth of my soul is private in Germany,

Sources:
The Emergence of Lying in Very Young Children
Marjorie Rhodes NPR
Social and Cognitive Correlates of Children's Lying Behavior
Review of Theory of Mind in Chilren
James Mackenzie's "The Study of the Pulse"
Mark Harris' Great Wired Piece on Polygraphs
Matthew Brown's Deep Dive into Marston's Feminism
JAAPL Frye v. United States
Cornell Law Frye Standard
Harvard center for Law Brain and Behavior on the Polygraph
Scientific American on Lying

 ---
National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research
National Library of Medicine: Microbiology of Dental Decay and Periodontal Disease
2014 Paper: Earliest evidence for caries and exploitation of starchy plant foods in Pleistocene hunter-gatherers from Morocco
SciAm: Oral Mystery: Are Agriculture and Rats Responsible for Tooth Decay?
NHGRI: Digging into the past to uncover the cause of our cavities
Wiki: Tooth Worm
Smithsonian: 6,500-Year Old Beeswax May Be Oldest Known Dental Filling
NewScientist: Oldest dental filling is found in a Stone Age tooth
The Guardian: Neanderthals Used Stone Drills to Treat Cavities 59,000 Years Ago, Tooth Suggests
Wiki: Barber Surgeon
Bath Medical Museum: Teeth Pullers and Denture Makers
2007 Paper: The Tooth Puller
2025 Paper: Pierre Fauchard
Science Museum: Dental Pelican 
Science Museum: Dental Pelican for Tooth Pulling
Science Museum: Dental Key
BBC: When Blacksmiths Were Dentists
Science Museum: Dental drill
Science Museum: Syringe
Spear: A Brief History of Dental Anesthesia
Blog: The Gruesome History of Dental Implants
BBC: The Dentures Made From the Teeth of Dead Soldiers at Waterloo
Science Museum: Shade Guide 
Blog: What Are Dentures Made Of?
Dentists Act 1878

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106: The Polygraph & Dentistry History

As we plan out the new year, please enjoy a recast of one of my (Tom's) favorite guest appearances on Spellbound and Gagged, hosted by the wonderful friend of the show Ellen Weatherford!

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Recast: The Funcanny Valley - Spellbound and Gagged

Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst

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