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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!

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

 ---

 Dentistry History sources will be added soon!

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

106: The Polygraph & Dentistry History

It's that time of year to vote for the Best Of Everything!

https://www.letslearneverything.com/vote

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

Vote for the Best Of Everything! LetsLearnEverything.com/vote

Are there more carnivores in the ocean than land? Yes! But... why? And what does that teach us about how we study ecosystems? And what constitutes a collection? Well it goes way back in time, and can cover anything and everything interesting, and maybe even teach us about ourselves and each other.

Images we Talk About:
Giraffe
Biomass Pyramid 1
Biomass Pyramid 2
Dolphin
Tiger
Purple Otter Skull

Timestamps:

 (00:00:00) Intro

 (00:03:30) The Marine Carnivore Conundrum

 (00:56:33) Collecting

 (01:51:34) Outro

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

We also learn about: Oh yeah that topic’s gonna hit, only 5% of fish are herbivorous compared to 30% of terrestrial animals, zoopharmacognosy, carnivora is not all carnivores and not exclusively carnivores, hypercarnivores eat 70% or more meat, polar bears are some of the most carnivorous animals we know of, grizzly bears only eat 10% meat, osteophagia, suckin on bone, trophic levels, Ella’s clearly an apex predator but are all humans, trying to beat the trophic level high score, let us know your level in the discord, average trophic levels, humans are 2.2 on average, trophic jorg, lopsided biomass pyramids, there are simply less plant diversity in the oceans, land predators hunt animals with at least 45% of their body size whereas whales do .01%, oh yeah aquatic animals don’t have paws or storage, aquatic carnivores have homodont dentition, trophic cascades, sea urchins can turn otter bones purple, hunter collector society, don’t pre-empt my question, the earliest collection we know of is from 105,000 years ago, shell collectors were just like me fr, coin collecting was a hobby of kings, a quick detour for the worst pope, but maybe Pope Boniface VIII is just like me for real, I like collecting 50 and 100 dollar bills actually, the wunderkamer or cabinets of curiosities, the industrial revolution ignited collecting, Americans turned British spoons into collecting, Ella’s love spoon, say the line Ella, this is really a “what’s wrong with Ella” topic, Edward Wharton-Tigar’s cigarette card collection and incredible quotes, David Attenburough convinced him not to take his cards with him into the 8th ring of hell, you’ve activated my trap card, magpies don’t collect shiny things and may have neophobia, animal collection, the cursed bug katamari, it’s like if I collected cards with boobs AND HE JUST LIKE ME FR, pack rat brain activation, a pack rat piss detour, amberat, collections represent our ability to abstract and think of the future, and that’s why I should get another spoon, Freud’s toilet hypothesis for collecting, Baudrillard on collecting, collecting builds yourself, They Collect What? baggers, I now collect banana friends.

Sources:

So, once again there are actually too many sources to fit here, it literally won't let us put them all here hahaha so please find the sources at https://www.letslearneverything.com/105-sources

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

105: The Marine Carnivore Question & Collecting

Caroline's Frogs campaign and our improv class were some of our favorite bonus episodes we've done, so we wanted to share a sample of what they sound like!

If your interest is piqued, you can hear the rest AND support the show at www.LetsLearnEverything.com/join

Sources:
JSTOR: Portmaneau Origins

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

Preview: Frogs & Improv

Folks we're halfway through the MaxFunDrive! And to keep the celebration we have Tom chatting behinds the scenes with other Max Fun hosts!

For all the details about MFD perks, the livestream, and how to support the show, go to LetsLearnEverything.com!

Timestamps:

 (00:00:00) Intro

 (00:01:26) Casters on Casters

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

MaxFunDrive Bonus: Tom's Casters on Casters

What is the Anthropocene? No really, who came up with it, when does it start, and why does that matter? Well it involves nuance, scientific beef, and a surprising amount of freaky little guys. And we all know of some sound effects we love, but what is their history, where are the weird places they've shown up, and what can they teach us about art?

Images we Talk About:
The International Chronostratigraphic Chart
Opabinia
Graptolite
Sound Effect Rooms
Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3
Picture 4
Picture 5
Picture 6

Timestamps:

 (00:00:00) Intro

 (00:05:37) The Anthropocene

 (01:21:57) Sound Effects

 (02:16:15) Outro

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

We also learn about: The human dominated geological time frame, this is actually a geology topic, let’s get our rocks off, the geological timescale, clues in the rock layers, the geologic calendar, the international chronostraographic chart, Eons Eras Periods Epochs Ages, GSSPs are physical places, a long cambrian tangent, the burgess shale was a rare cambrian preserver, trilobites are the alpha male body plan, opabinia had 5 eyes and one claw, hallucigenia actually makes Tom recoil, index fossils, Ella just loves these little freaks, Ella literally has a graptolite fossil, the SPICE extinction, title drop halfway through the topic, wait nvm we have to talk about the holocene, in 2024 they declined the anthropocene proposal, are we covering the anthropocene or the 24 years of its proposal? Jan Zalasiewicz ignobel lick, heavily acronymized science beef, a person dabbing is the anthropocene GSSP (or fossilized air bubbles in ice), Jan vs Jan, maybe the anthropocene is just an Event, insects are the canary in the mass extinction coal mine but they’re also not in the record, humans make up a third of the mass of large vertebrates - and the rest are mostly things we eat, a t-rex wishes to be the most abundant species and a monkeys paw curls, chicken bones in the fossil record, we’ve pushed back the next ice age 50,000 years, don’t clip me dabbing at nuclear weapons, when does the anthropocene start? 1952 with the plutonium shift, there was a most popular album at the start of the anthropocene, era dates are changed all the time, a spicy retirement letter, did you ask him about the email - I mean I did, rocks are political, we’re not in the anthropocene but let’s see what happens, make this design juicier please, sound effects can be realistic or symbolic, the siren whistle slip sound, the real sound of bald eagles, sound effects are treated more like a commodity than an art and a history, we don’t know if ancient mesopotamians beatboxed, Ella shredded so hard on the thundersheet she bled, sound effect started in plays, shakespeare and kabuki pioneered realistic and symbolic sound effects, tsuke, the first radio sound effects from the 1921 world series broadcast from Jersey, the walking surfaces at the BBC, 1920s sound effect rooms, sound effect records, who would buy this? ME!! what do you mean you survived the great depression traveling america for sound effects, 2 headed turntables designed for vinyl sound effect DJs, Jack Foley, the Bristol Old Vic thunder machine’s audio tricks, stealing John Dennis’ thunder, canning laughter from the Red Skelton show, this isn’t a real game, fine it was a good game and I win, recreating pacman with waves, pacman’s noise is so icon it created an onomatopoeia, Ben Burtt also loved the lightsaber, that was a great buzz, sound effects are both the truth and a lie, freesound.org, male_thijs_loud_scream.aiff

Sources:

 Folks, we have so many show notes and sources that we literally hit the character limit, which is a first!

 So please find the sources at https://www.letslearneverything.com/104-sources

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

104: The Anthropocene Argument & Sound Effects

IT'S THE MAX FUN DRIVE!!! We kickoff with a crossover "Casters on Casters" with Ella chatting behinds the scenes with other Max Fun hosts!

For all the details about MFD perks, the livestream, and how to support the show, go to LetsLearnEverything.com!

 

Timestamps:

 (00:00:00) Intro

 (00:01:40) Casters on Casters

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

MaxFunDrive Kickoff! Ella's Casters on Casters

Why aren't mushroom animals? Why is this mushroom growing out of a frog?? WHAT KIND OF MUSHROOM IS TOAD?!?! Well Sage the Bad Naturalist is here to answer all our festering fungus questions!

Things we Talk About:

Sponge Lifecycle
Fungus Lifecycle
Mushroom Growing out of Frog
Bunashimeji Mushroom
Blewit Mushroom

Timestamps:

 (00:00:00) Intro

 (00:06:50) Why Aren't Fungi Animals

 (00:24:55) This is Planet Chitin

 (00:30:01) The Frog Mushroom Mystery

 (00:52:47) Questions for Sage

 (01:19:16) Outro

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

We also learn about: Maybe some day I’ll get to be on this podcast, don’t ask scicomm dad! fungal anatomy, mushrooms are just the short lived fruiting body, fungi don’t have seeds or leaves or photosynthesize, Fungi were just the weird plant for a while - just Jerry, fungi don’t have vasculature their more spongy, fungi are genetically closer to animals so why didn’t Jerry come to our family? coral are animals, coral and fungal reproduction cycles, you’re going to learn so much in this one Tom, “that’s cant be the reason why”, consequences of the divergence aren’t the reason - the divergence is the reason, we should have been wrong more right!, this is planet chitin, dark fungi, fungus is made of bug, oh we’ve found the thing that actually makes me want to throw up on the podcast, protect our chitinous brethren, the mystery of the mushroom growing out of a frog, sage’s frog theory whiteboard, no one has ever seen this before, first time we’ve seen it does not mean first time it’s happened, mucusy coincidence, the return of amphibian chytrid fungus, the scientists have moved on but Sage hasn’t, botanical anarchy, slowly dropping out of grad school, odd jobs, its fucked up that make up affects views, Toad is a bunashimeji, remember toad with legs is made of bugs, blewits are underrated, drawing on the artist’s conk mushroom.

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

103: Sage The Bad Naturalist & The Frog Mushroom Mystery

Why are there so many vitamins, what even IS a vitamin?? Well Tom finally understands, and takes us on a tour through their infuriating past. And how did the cheerful fairy we know and love today, evolve into its current form? Well we'll only tell if you can answer our riddles three and- or you can just listen to the episode.

Things we Talk About:
James Lind Scurvy Painting
The Various Vitamin Bs
Vitamin Map
Brownie
First Fairy Image
Cicely Mary Barker Fairies
Cottingley Fairies 1
Cottingley Fairies 2
Illusion Spinners
Bitterbloom Bearer

Timestamps:

 (00:00:00) Intro

 (00:03:05) The Vitamin Saga

 (00:57:54) The Evolution of Fairies

 (01:48:20) Outro

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

We also learn about: Will vitamin c cure me or murder me? more people died of scurvy than combat on the seas, Lind’s biblical scurvy experiment painting, vitamin Pee, maybe oranges are the fifth humor, beri beri, the gelatin comission, come onnn man it’s the 1800s give me a break, we know proteins carbs fats and minerals but something’s missing, STUDY MINERALS THEY SAID - YOU’LL WIN A NOBEL PRIZE THEY SAID, vital amines but they’re not amines, wait are vitamins like fish?? drop the e just vitamin, *mymymymy* all the vitamins are completely different?, some vitamins only exist for a few picoseconds in a supercollider, a bunch of vitamins got pluto’d, Vitamins are like a title, vitamer, VITAMIN D IS A HORMONE, wait maybe hormones are vitamins too, we haven’t talked about how vitamins work because they do Too Many Things, “we’re trying our best but sometimes our best isn’t good enough”, lifting the shadow of death, fitnessgirl250 actually has a PhD, food science is an applied science, the LLE supplement has all the dropped vitamins, vitamins are perfect for capitalism, there is not silver bullet, you can’t supplement your way into a healthy life, an appearance from she/her Caroline, the rainbow magic fairy books, we support evil fairies, the fickle house brownies, realizing fairytales are fairy tales, both high and low class could blame fairies, dressing boys as girls to protect them from the fae, booktok loves hot Rumpelstiltskin, American leprechaun traps, fae - fatah - the fates, when did fairies evolve wings, distinguishing from angels through insectification, fairies may have shrunk to be less threatening, Tom doesn’t know what a panto is, Victorians established the modern fairy, fairies went from robbing cribs to being trapped in the nursery, Cicely Mary Barker’s flower fairies, the collectability of fairies, 350 fairy books in 5 years, the Cottingley fairy hoax, fairies went from being about protecting sons to empowering girls, spelling fairy or faerie, Evyn Fong’s insectoid fairies, the review corner riddle, weaponizing review corner to talk to us.

Semba: The Discover of the Vitamins
Royal Museums Greenwich: Scurvey
Science History Institute: Scurvey
Beriberi Review through Chinese Medical Literature
Drummond's Naming of Vitamins
Nobel Laureats in the History of Vitamins
Semba: On the Discovery of Vitamin A
SciAm: What Vitamins Really Do

---

Wiki: Parī (Peris)
JER Journal: Peri and Persian Mythology
Book: A Dictionary of English Folklore
BBC: Fairies, Leprechauns and Changelings: Ireland's Darkest Folklore
Blog: Fairy versus Faerie, and other names for the Fae
Harvard University: The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale
This Is Gendered: The Fairy
Blog: An Overview of How Faeries Were Portrayed During Different Literary Periods
Edinburgh University: A Need for Belief: The Victorians and Fairies. 
Book: Trolls: From Scandinavia to Dam Dolls, Tolkien, and Harry Potter
BBC: When Britain was Gripped by 'Fairy Mania'
Blog: The Surprising Magic of Bad Books
Oxford English Dictionary: Fairy

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

102: The Vitamin Saga & The Evolution of Fairies

Vote for your favorite topics at LetsLearnEverything.com/bestof before Sunday June 8th!!!

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

Vote for the Best Of Everything 2025!

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