Episodios

  • 66: What is a Species & What is UK Voting?

    66: What is a Species & What is UK Voting?
    Jul 18 2024
    It's a word we say all the time but... what IS a species? How has it been used in the past, and could the different answers all be right? And how does voting work in the UK? It starts with voting for knights, and could hopefully end in the future with something even better.Images we Talk About:Ella's Zoom MoustacheTimestamps:(00:00:00) Intro(00:04:23) What is a Species?(01:01:54) UK Voting(01:50:46) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!Join our Discord!We also learn about: Jenny Lec, the definition we know is wrong, has anyone taken my title On The Origin of Species? This is my favorite! Oh shit… generic and specific, thinking of species as logical units, Kingdom Phylum Friends Acquaintances Work Friends Genus Species, the anime dewey decimal system, dark fungi, the cognitive dissonance of science at the time, even Darwin didn’t have a good definition of species, 1942 is when the common species definition was popularized, Biological - Evolutionary - Genetic definition of species, species gerrymandering, there is only 1 species of giraffe but should there be 4? policy first science, you don’t need hard definitions to do amazing things, nature is constantly doing kickflips over our no skateboarding signs, you really put your whole polizzy into naming that hybrid, a ring of banging around the himalayans, ring species in actuality look like a biblically accurate angel, let’s just ask what definitions scientists use, you can’t tell if fossils ever fucked, we only knew about human neandrethal interbreeding since 2010, what’s so wrong with having multiple species definitions? there’s a lot to biology! in between “there’s one answer” and “there’s no answers” is “there’s many answers”, Lizzy Poll, you can just call an election early?? in the UK you just vote for your member of parliament, it’s actually really weird to have a separate vote for president, every 2 steps forward is brought 1 step back by “the monster raving loony party”, Elmo think women no need to vote, the house senate and president, coalitions, tea cups with electoral college members on them, electing knights in the first parliament in 1264, bloc voting lets you pick your top favorites, Cromwell was the first Footloose, we had discovered quantum physics before women could vote, First Past the Post was only establish in 1948 in the UK, what are the positives of First Past the Post and cockroaches? please let us loose to bash FPTP, tactical voting, Australia has a version of Ranked Choice, Tom finally gets to wax poetic about Ranked Choice Voting, france’s 2 round voting, if the definition of species should match the task why not the type of voting system? the 2011 voting reform attempt, it’s been the foundation of this country for generation, try ranked choice voting on smaller scales and locally, Ella falls in love with herself, happy hour gender confusionSourcesCarl Zimmer for NYT "What is a Species Really?"Aristotle's Use of Species and GenusQueiroz on Ernst Mayer and Species DefinitionsMontana State on Linneus and Species DefinitionsDark FungiErnst Mayer's Modern Excellent "Systematics And The Origin Of Species"Paper Debating Darwin's Definition of SpeciesBird InterbreedingScientific American on Wolf SpeciesThe Greenish Warbler Broken Ring SpeciesStankowski and Ravinet's Amazing "Quantifying the use of Species Concepts"NHM "Are Neandrethals the Same Species as Us"---Sky News: General Election ExplainedUK Parliament: Voting Systems in the UKElectoral Reform Party: How Long Have We Used First Past the Post?2019 Paper: Electoral Systems and Electoral Reform in Historical Perspective by David KlempererParliament UK: Magna CartaPDF: UK Parliament and the MonarchyUK Parliament: Women get the VoteBBC: Voting System in the UKUK Parliament: Proportional RepresentationThe Guardian: ‘Disproportionate’ UK Election Results Boost Calls to Ditch First Past the PostThe Conversation: The Conservatives May Regret Campaigning to Keep First Past the Post in 2011
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    1 h y 56 m
  • The Best of Everything 2023-2024

    The Best of Everything 2023-2024
    Jul 4 2024

    After much deliberation, the academy (listeners of the podcast) has voted on the best topics from the past year! If this is your first episode, you'll get a sampling of our favorite moments of science and sillyness, and if you're a long time listener, you'll hear some behind the scenes thoughts about the topics, as well as... a secret teaser at the very end??

    Images we Talk About:
    The Jacobin Pigeon
    The Pouter Pigeon

    Timestamps:
    (00:04:37) Intro
    (00:03:59) Part 1
    (00:55:00) Part 2
    (01:51:28) Outro

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    We also learn about: you gotta listen to the best ofs for the rock paper scissors drama, I’m not sure if Ella remembers our names, it’s not the same joke it’s a Call Back, superseding my superseded theories, Tom’s jokes are like the rain - you walk on through and hope it stops quickly, it gets Jalapeno business, I miss Comedy, Ella claimed review corner but keeps forgetting it, the art of topic writing is explaining but also what not to explain, our favorite topics of each others, wrote down the idea for public domain day the year before, Tom goofs up the La La Land Joke, ohh did you just finish episode 50? maybe, thanks everyone for the nice messages, Mum! “those stupid awards”, they’re all great episodes, we learned who in our family listens to our show, you guys wanna learn about ants??
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    2 h
  • 65: Black Holes 101 & Tattoos

    65: Black Holes 101 & Tattoos
    Jun 20 2024
    What happens when a star collapses to a point of near infinite gravity? And just how hard could that be to actually... find? And why do we love tattoos so much, and how long have human beings across the world been loving them too?Check out Tom's first long form video that's finally out!Images we Talk About:The Crab NebulaFirst Image of a Black HolePhoto of OUR Black Hole, Sagiratius AAncient Siberian TattooTimestamps:(00:00:00) Intro(00:02:47) Black Holes 101(00:57:51) Tattoos(01:43:53) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!Join our Discord!We also learn about: black holes are massive (mass) but not massive (size), nothing can escape a black hole, supermassive black hole by muse, the closest black hole is 1000 light years away so we don’t need to worry about them too much, matter can’t escape the Plunging Region, does your McDonald also have black holes? stellar evolution, “they’re just big gassy balls doing nuclear fusion”, the fusion in a star pushes against the gravity keeping it in equilibrium, Caroline’s fear of the sun expanding, stellar corpse, a neutron star is just made of neutrons - that can’t be right, if you add too much flour (mass) this will turn into an atomic bomb (black hole), stop saying massive and start saying voluptuous to avoid confusion, one in every thousand stars could be a blac khole, “surely that’s not sustainable” “have I got news for you about the future of all things”, theorizing a black hole in 1783, we only get the word Black Hole in 1964, betting on Signus X1, finding black holes by nearby objects’ bright hot death screams, it took 2 years to process the black hole image, sorry I think it looks like a butthole, Sagitarius A - our galaxies butthole, deslicious spaghettification, we’re all being spaghettified, I’m being raviolified here! where do you go in a black hole? into a topic for another day, “tom saw the topic on me”, no inheritance until you tattoo me onto your butt, Caroline got a tattoo to honor pigeons, the above skin - the skin - and the below skin, phagocytosis, microphages contain and become the tattoo! “the art is your immune system” and we only knew this in 2018, Ötzi the Iceman had 57 tattoos, ella regrets letting us guess what tattoos he had, ritualistic and therapeutic tattoos, egyptian women tattoos, old preserved siberian tattoo, the painted picts, Tattoo comes from the Tahitian word Tatau, famed tattoo afficianado Charles Darwin, the meaning of polynesian tattoos, sailor tattoos were inspired by polynesians but adapted to things meaningful to them, sailor tattoos were like sailing achievements, shark repeller tattoos, ancient greek tattoos were literally “skin-stigmas”, stigma affects culture and culture affects stigma in a feedback loop, “true on all accounts for my case”, gender norms in tattoos, “ooh another means by which to put down women don’t mind if I do”, biases in the workplace,”it’s literally only skindeep”, tattoos are so personal and human of course you can’t assume or speak to all of them, they’re an art and they’re universal across cultures.Sources:NASA: Black HolesScience News Explores: What are black holes?Gravitational Collapse OverviewGoddard Space Flight Centre: The Life Cycles of Stars: How Supernovae Are FormedBritannica: End States of StarsBritannica: Evolution of High Mass StarsBritannica: Origin of Chemical ElementsBBC Bitesize: The Lifecycle of Stars (GCSE Resource)NASA: Neutron Stars Are WeirdScience News Explores: A Short History of Black HolesAstronomy: A Brief History of Black HolesLind Hall Library: John MichellAmerican Museum of Natural History: The Country Parson Who Conceived of Black HolesUniversity of Chicago: Black Holes ExplainedAstronomy: Cygnus X-1- The Black Hole that Started it AllEvent Horizon Telescope: Astronomers Reveal First Image of the Black Hole at the Heart of Our Galaxy1978 Article: A Supermassive Object in Galaxy M87Space.Com: Where do Black Holes Lead To?SYFY: How Worried Should We Be About Black Holes?Podcast: The Guardians Science Weekly- White HolesImage Source: NASA First Image of a Black HoleImage Source: Event Horizon Telescope: FIrst Image of Black Hole at the Centre of the Milyway---Pew Research: How Many People Have Tattoos?The Science of TattoosMouse Tail Tattoo StudyWellcome Collection: A Brief History of TattoosSmithsonian: More HistoryJapan’s Tattooing HistoryMaori TattoosPolynesian tattoosPazyryk Tattoos (Very Cool)First Female MP to Wear MokoSailor TattoosBroussard & Harton's Amazing Tattoo Stigma Study
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    1 h y 48 m
  • 64: Tom Scott, Human Acceleration, and Failed Videos

    64: Tom Scott, Human Acceleration, and Failed Videos
    Jun 6 2024

    How fast can a regular human accelerate from 0-60? How can you learn to love roller-coasters? And is there a terrifying experience Ella's done that even Tom Scott hasn't?? After having us on his show for so long, it's finally time for Tom Scott to join us on our show!

    Videos we Talk About:
    Tom Scott's Amazing Roller Coaster Video
    Tom Scott's Failed Video Video

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:04:15) Human Acceleration
    (00:50:03) Roller-coasters and Failed Videos
    (01:18:05) Outro

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    We also learn about: herding cats and children, Thanks for the compliment you can leave now, UK metric is a mess, milk is just a blur cause it’s PastYourEyes, both Tom’s can’t be like this, stopping the angular velocity pedants, what’s so hard about orbital mechanics it’s not rocket science, this is a question full of "um actually"s, the longest second of Tom Scott’s life in the Mythen car, “would you do it again” “oh in a heartbeat”, just frame cars as IRL speedrunning, “oh my god she got sub 1 second”, please prove me wrong so I can ride it, steam catapulting a plane, the Nevis Catapult might win if you believe the hype, all politely saying roller coasters, “roller coaster nerds are like train nerds but worse”, running coasters at 100%, calibrating the weights of cars, British politeness way under-markets stealth, “I’ve done something Tom Scott hasn’t done??”, the experimental Nürburgring coaster that only operated for 4 days, Do-Dodonpa the “rattly bastard” that broke bones, dragsters going 0-60 in half a second stunned us to silence, you could buy the nitro X2 for less than a tesla but you do get to drive a tesla more than twice, “I reserve the right to turn this into a video essay”, our roller coaster journeys, dread and expectation, Ella loves the fear, “this is the worst thing I’ve ever done, YES”, LLE live episode on a roller coaster, Dick & Dom in da Bungalow sounds like a parody of something british, only americans will remember Raccoon Barrel from the Barrell Brothers! “It has been a metaphor which is possibly the highest priase I can give something like that”, making a video about failed videos “you only get to pull that trick once”, Tom’s one shot Netherlands drone video, “it was a Look How Clever I Am video”, ideally it’s both clever content and cleverly shot, “the content has to be worth it”, it’s like OKGO - matching content with production, the ratchet of quality, “the frustration I feel is a compliment to David”, “i left everything on the table”, 3 of us just mimed sword swallowing, "not a great mime"
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    1 h y 22 m
  • Pride Merch & Voting for the Best of Everything!

    Pride Merch & Voting for the Best of Everything!
    May 30 2024

    It's Pride and Poll-jedice! For pride month we have some pride merch including an amazing design by Caroline, with proceeds going to Pride in Stem! Also, toss in your vote to defend the honor of your favorite topic for the next Best Of Everything episode!

    All of this is at LetsLearnEverything.com
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    4 m
  • 63: Biomimicry & The Evolution of Chess

    63: Biomimicry & The Evolution of Chess
    May 23 2024
    What can we learn by mimicking animals in nature, and more importantly, what can we learn about the nuance behind the buzzword of biomimicry? And just how many wild facts are hidden in a simple chess set?Images we Talk About:One of the Oldest Shatranj SetsTimestamps:(00:00:00) Intro(00:03:26) Biomimicry(00:50:25) Chess Chess Evolution(01:33:41) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!Join our Discord!We also learn about: So nice to have a topic taken, biomemetics, the spider grabber is more like bio-stealing, “nature is a giant pool of ideas”, “nature is the OG and does it best, organism level, lily leaf umbrella, who remembers davinci? none of his flying machines even worked, a quick lesson on flying, biomimcry was only coines in the 1950s and only become trendy in the 90s, gecko feet, spinning the biomimicry slot machine, sheep wool antidepressants, a biomimicry quiz, oh right we want fewer train sonic booms, whale flipper tubercles, whale power turbines, Ella biomimics Caroline, termite AC, destroying nature to recreate nature, biomimicry 3.8, the ickyness of corporate biomimicry, we’re an organic sustainable biomemetic podcast, a person after our hearts critizing a ted talk, you can biomimic like davinci or the wright brothers, nature is not infallible, pitching our own biomimetic ideas, bumble bees saying oops, ripple, chess chess evolution you know like that game, can’t stop thinking about those anal beads, everything Caroline’s learned about chess is against their will, Tom learns about himself by talking about chess camp, scachs d’amor was so nerdy, the hornets nest of chess historians, chess comes from the indo-persian area, borders are weird why do I need so many modifiers to describe this area, calling it a horsey is more historically accurate, a chariot makes so much more sense than a castle moving across the board, oh wait does no one else call this piece a religious figure? the knight has been unchanged for 1300 years, the chad knight vs the virgin bishop, we codified white goes first after discovering quantum physics, do you want to play a game of king? Your king is in king, shah mat - the king is dead, people say check because “I won’t let you do the silly thing, we’re gonna keep playing for a little bit”, checkered comes from chess not the other way around, cheque -> exchequer -> checkered -> chess -> shah, why aren’t we talking about this more! Ella’s very good biomimicry review corner Sources:Biomimicry as a Sustainable Design MethodologyHow Biomimicry is Inspiring Human InnovationTypes of BiomimicryHistory of BiomimicryVelcroBiomimicry in Flight and Wing DesignNASA Wing MorphingNASA Successfully Tests Shape-Changing WingJapanese Bullet TrainWhale TurbinesWhalePowerSoft ToboticsTentacle RobotThe Planned City of LavasaEastgate CentreBiomimicry 3.8The Limitations of Biomimentic ArchitectureThe Ripple DeviceMosquito Inspired Needles---Davidson's Incredible "A Short History of Chess"Scachs DamorThe Beginnings of ChessOldest Shatranj SetThe MET "Chessmen and Chess"Wired: The Game of Chess had Patch Notes TooWhite and Black in ChessThe MET "Shah Mat!"gov.uk on The ExchequerEncyclopedia Britannica Chess History
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    1 h y 38 m
  • 62: False Memories & House Plants

    62: False Memories & House Plants
    May 9 2024
    How much real science is there to the Mandela Effect, and how much should we be worried about our faulty memories? And what's the science and history behind our long love for house plants?Timestamps:(00:00:00) Intro(00:03:31) False Memories(00:57:30) House Plants(01:37:47) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!Join our Discord!Yes Ella my favorite host of Let’s Learn Everything, Fiona Broome - Paranormal Researcher, Ella is shocked to learn the Mandela Effect was a conspiracy first, repressed memories, the McMcartin Preschool Trial again, the concept of memories at all is bonkers, we shoudl do more experiments, flashbulb memories aren’t as “unchanging as the slumbering rhinegold”, the original study didn’t even check if the memories were accurate they just assumed, flash bulb memories only Feel more accurate, the concept of false memories can make people believe in the mandela effect MORE, don’t have an existential crisis, rebunking your memories, most memory recalls aren’t adversarial like mandeal effect questions, Metamemory effects, just like memory isn’t so simple false memories aren’t so simple either, “I wish I hadn’t said yay when you said racism”, does anyone remember the 2 president Obamas? we gave false memories to bees, having false memories makes bees MORE complex not less, false memories aren’t flaws they’re just part of memory, classic meatbrain, “my brain is a beautiful and complex thing”, movies can exist, The Four Legged Chairs, the art of putting a plant into a pot, egyptians used plants for a ton of stuff, portable plants, gillyflowers for bad breath and paying rent, peppercorn payment, (ayyy), Wes Anderson’s The Winter Hotel for Plants, renting plants for a party, the illegal orchid trade, plant hunters, pteridomania, the World War 2 potted plant boom, the millenial urge to care for plants is more of a historic urge, guilting your cohosts into talking about your plants, you’d need 10 potted plant per square foot in the home to clean the air, just imagine yourself as a Sim you need art and plants, hot or not for plants, there aren’t really huge health benefits from plants, it feels like studies are asking “why do we like plants so much??”, just enjoy plants for the sake of enjoying them, office plants are nice but I feel like work life balance will do better for my health, I just think they’re neat! Sources:Snopes: The Mandela EffectThe Wiley Handbook on The Cognitive Neuroscience of MemoryEthan Watters: The Forgotten Lessons of the Recovered Memory MovementThe False Memory Syndrome: Experimental studies and comparison to confabulationsThe Fallibility of Memory in Judicial ProcessesUCLA Med on MemoryImplanting False MemoriesHirst and Phelps Amazing Review of Flashbulb MemoriesPredicting Confidence in Flashbulb Memories (re: Michael Jackson)Fiona Broome: The Mandela Effect is Not False MemoriesFalse memory and COVID-19: How people fall for fake news about COVID-19 in digital contextsBBC on Mandela EffectFalse Memory in Bees StudyAnalysis of False Bee Memory StudyDon Hertzfeldt On Memory---National Museums Liverpool: Gardens in Ancient EgyptBritannica: HouseplantsNational Trust: A Potted History of HouseplantsHorticultural Reviews, Volume 31, The Foliage Plant IndustryGrace and Thorn: The History of HouseplantsCobham Museum: Windlesham- Peppercorn PaymentThe Plant Runner: A History of HouseplantsThe Scotsman: Our Fascination With Indoor Potted Plants has a Long and Colourful HistoryArchitectural Digest: The Most Iconic Houseplant Trends Through the DecadesThe Guardian: Indoor Plant Sales Boom, Reflecting Urbanisation and Design TrendsThe Telegraph: Houseplant Sales Soar2019 Paper: Potted Plants Do Not Improve Indoor Air Quality: A Review and Analysis of Reported VOC Removal EfficienciesUniversity of Reading: Owning Houseplants Can Boost Your Mental Health – Here’s How to Pick the Right One2022 Paper: The Appearance of Indoor Plants and their Effect on People's Perceptions of Indoor Air Puality and Subjective Well-BeingRHS: Houseplants: To Support Human Health2022 Paper: Effects of Indoor Plants on Human Functions: A Systematic Review with Meta-AnalysesBBC: Are Your Houseplants Bad for the Environment?
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    1 h y 42 m
  • 61: Whale Fall Ecology & Jury Duty

    61: Whale Fall Ecology & Jury Duty
    Apr 25 2024
    What happens when the largest living animal becomes the largest dead animal? Just how complex could a dead whale be? And what are the differences, flaws, and nuances of the jury system, and can we be studying it better?Images we Talk About:The Zombie WormTimestamps:(00:00:00) Intro(00:03:59) Whale Fall Ecology(00:52:52) Jury Duty(01:32:41) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!Join our Discord!We also learn about: A bucket of mice, when whales die the people who love them will miss them, a jury of your cohosts will decide if your topic is boring, Tom stretching his arms to measure a 34 meter long whale, marine snow and whale falls, gettin ghastly gassy, a new mussel told us to go check out the whale fall, whales are mortal, deep sea mussel delicacy, how hard could it be to find a whale over 70% of the earth’s surface? let’s just wait for the carcass to come to us… wait actually?? welcome to our automatic zoo of dead things on the beach brought to you by the crown, sinking beached whale carcasses, the 3 stages of whale fall, Denial/Mobile Scavenger Phase can take 2 years, scavengers eat about one (1) Caroline of whale per day, Enrichment Opportunist Phase, Sulfophilic Phase, 7% of a whale is bone lipid, a sulfur bacteria carpet. did we walk into Caroline’s trap? This final phase can last 100 years! It’s not a trap if I’m asking you a question! 690,000 whale falls at any time, never in my wildest dreams would i be so lucky as to know the 12km distance from fall to fall statistic, whaling is deforestation for bacteria, Osedax or the zombie worm or the bone devourer or snot flower, there’s Drama in this whale fall ecosystem, dinosaur fall ecosystems, fossilized bones with fossilized deep sea snails, we got picked to talk about jury duty, UK US differences, a 900 day trial, there’s something wrong with Ella, the US is the only country to have so many civil juries, this topic has become a US UK debate, only the US requires unanimity, juror selection bias, racially diverse juries do a better job, I wish we could be surprised peremptory challenge is biased against women, oops it’s a british colinization topic, you could literally say too many asians, semi-jural systems, is this a philosophy topic about human nature?? our various biases, the confirmation bias against tom’s bad jokes, can we study jury bias? there hasn’t been any research on live jury deliberation.Sources:NatGeo: Dead whales are washing up on the East Coast.NHM: Whale Fall: What Happens When Whales Die?Review of the Impact of Whale Fall on Biodiversity in Deep-Sea Ecosystems (2022)The Discovery of a Natural Whale Fall in the Antarctic Deep Sea (2013)NPR: What Happens After A Whale Dies?Scientific American: Life at the Bottom: The Prolific Afterlife of WhalesFish Food in the Deep Sea: Revisiting the Role of Large Food-Falls (2014)NatGeo: Making a Home on PlesiosaursChemosynthesis-Based Sssociations on Cretaceous Plesiosaurid Carcasses (2008)---Cornell Law: What is Jury Duty?Jury Law UKMagna Carta538: Jury Duty is RareJury Service in the UKJuror Exemptions and Exclusions USADifferences between US and UK Legal SystemsJury Duty in UK vs USAUK Civil Case Info"Justifying ProhibitedPeremptory Challenges (2007)"Jury Under Fire: Jury Selection Can Effectively Identify Biased JurorsNACDL: Bias in Jury SelectionEJI: History of Bias in Jury SelectionComparison of Juries in Democratic Countries (2007)Jury Trial in different countriesWorld Jury Sytems: Exporting the English Jury System (2000)Monash Law: Do we need juries?Cognitive and Human Factors in Legal Layperson Decision Making: Sources of bias in Juror Decision Making (2022)Thomas Lecture on Jury BiasThe Curious Case of the Jury-Shaped Hole (2023)
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    1 h y 38 m