A Little Bit Of Science

If you’re left-handed you're part of a group that makes up about 10% of the population. And this rate of left-handedness has been consistent. Historical and archaeological records, reaching as far back as the Neanderthals, tell us that we’ve had this background rate of left-handedness for quite literally all of human history. All of human history, that is, except for a small blip between the 19th and 20th centuries. But before we explore that weird anomaly, one of the most interesting things about this story is how we have come to work out how many left-handers there have been across history. From studying silhouetted hand prints to analysing paintings, drawings and sculptures, scientists have been able to chart left-handedness back to the Palaeolithic era. Amazingly, tooth striations from Neanderthals help us understand that there have always been lefties. In more recent history, researchers have turned to photos, hospital records and documentaries. Thank goodness for all those old docos that contain endless footage of people waving at the camera. We wave with our dominant hand, so these film reels are an accidental census of left-handedness. But do you know what's weird about those images of waving crowds from the beginning of the 20th Century? The number of left-handers seems to drop off as they get younger. Which is where the anomalous data enters. Pulling all the data on left-handers together from cavemen to now, we see there is a pronounced dip in left-handers in the 19th century. So here's the question - where the hell did all the left-handers go during the 19th century?! There are three main theories, but these still remain theories: death, fewer babies, or long-standing prejudice whipped up by seriously villainous people. Previous episode mentioned: The Best Years Of Your Life! Sources Accident proneness and handedness by WF Daniel and RA Yeo Biased semantics for right and left in 50 Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages, by Wulf Schiefenhovel Handedness and longevity: archival study of cricketers by Aggleton, Bland, Kentridge and Neave Left-handedness and accident-related injury risk by S Coren Left Handed: Bad science and bad attitudes are the problem, not the left hand by Free Thought Blogs National Geographic Smell Survey, by Charles Wysocki and Avery Gilbert New London School Explosion, by Petroleum History Almanac Old books on left-handedness, by Keith Milsom Problems Related to Left-Handedness by KC Garrison #PyrfumeCodefest Twitter Thread by Joel Mainland Retraining left-handers and the aetiology of stuttering: The rise and fall of an intriguing theory, by Howard I Kushner The history and geography of human handedness by IC McManus The surprising geography of American left-handedness by Christopher Ingraham The Sniff Survey, by Boyce Rensberger See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There is no better way to conquer things than with great big explosions. The thing to be conquered in this episode? Rain (humans just love punching on with nature). This story begins with a strange observation. After the Civil War in America, soldiers of all ranks, abilities and backgrounds often spoke of drenching drain after battles. This apparent connection rose to the level of received wisdom. In essence — many believed the powerful explosions of battle brought rain. This idea really took off in the US in 1871 with the publication of Edward Powers’ book ‘War and Weather’, a chronicle of battles that were followed by precipitation. This deep wisdom did not consider the fact that battles fought in temperate locales like Virginia, averaged rain every four days. And the battles seldom started in drenching rain…Whatever. Powers had an idea. And the idea had promise. Lots of consistent big booms bring rain. Welcome to the wild world of concussionism. But so far it was just a theory, so Powers thought, “time to prove it”. He harangued politicians to pony up some cash to fund some field tests. Luckily for Powers, it was the late 1880s and people were settling the Great Plains in vast numbers, and they were struggling with severe, ongoing droughts. Perfect opportunity! Powers was granted $9000 to test concussionism. But who would run this scheme? Enter our hero: General Robert. G. Dyrenforth. Broad-shouldered, capable and extravagantly optimistic, Dyrenthforth was a relentlessly self-promoting chap. He saw vast possibilities where others didn't. He asserted that man's dominion over the continent could be extended to the heavens and to the four winds. Most importantly, he subscribed to the theory that there is no problem a little gunpowder can’t fix. Basically, Dyrenforth was concussionism’s poster boy. Over the next five months, Dyrenforth assembled a team, collected gear, and found a test site. To be really precise, his first experiments mimicked a battlefield. In detail. A lot. He set up 3 lines of boom stuff that looked like an artillery battery. There were jury-rigged mortars to lob dynamite and rackarock charges into the air, balloons to float skyward and denote with furious force: the whole nine yards! Over several weeks they blew up multiple oxyhydrogen balloons and detonated thousands of pounds of explosives. Dyrenforth’s reports quickly claimed success - torrential rain. It was all going swimmingly. He even came up with an elaborate theory as to why the booms led to rain. Of course, as we all know, no experiment is perfect, and Dyrenforth was not without his detractors. But he was a man on a mission, driven to prove to all and sundry that concussionism was the cure to America’s frontier farmland water woes. So, was it…? Previous episodes mentioned: Weather War Operation Popeye Sources: https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/rain-of-error/ MAKING WAR ON JUPITER PLUVIUS - THE CULTURE AND SCIENCE OF RAINMAKING IN THE SOUTHERN GREAT PLAINS, 1870-1913 MICHAEL R. WHITAKER http://househistoryman.blogspot.com/2012/02/bizaare-last-will-of-rainmaker-george.html http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.wat.023 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/23/us-stated-cloud-seeding-weather-modification https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eight-states-are-seeding-clouds-to-overcome-megadrought/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The way the story goes, the Summer of 69 was when all hell broke loose in Cleveland. It was the summer the Cuyahoga River caught on fire. Choked with industrial effluent and chemicals it burst into flames. It is said that this is the event that birthed the Clean Water Act and the Environmental Protection Authority. America was galvanised by this shocking event. Things started to change. But the thing is, this was not the first time the Cuyahoga River had burst into flames. We feel like the most obvious question is, how does a river which is by definition “a large natural stream of water” burst into flames?! Shouldn’t the water act as some sort of fire deterrent? But water was no match for the horrors contained in the Cuyahoga River. When surveyors first came across this river in 1796 they knew they’d hit gold. It was connected to one of America’s largest lakes and was an excellent shipping route. Cleveland was born and industry boomed. And back then, as well as being shipping routes, rivers were the industry's drain. Flush it all down the river and it’s someone else’s problem. And so, the Cuyahoga River quickly became the dump for all manner of lovely things. Waste from oil refineries, paint factories, steel mills, coking plants and slaughterhouses. Raw sewerage. Trash. If you had something you didn’t want, into the river it went. It got pretty bad, bubbling away like a deadly stew. So bad that it was commonly accepted that if you fell into the river, you should get yourself to hospital, fast. With reports like this, it’s not a stretch to believe that it liked to spontaneously burst into flames. Well, maybe not spontaneously, but it didn’t take much to ignite that bad boy. The thing is, that fire in 1969 was not the first time the river had caught alight. The river had been prone to catching alight at least nine times before 1969. And that fire in 1969, well, almost no one noticed. So how does a run-of-the-mill river fire in a badly polluted river that almost no one noticed transform into such an environmentally revolutionary moment? The events that transpired say something deeper about how we look at the world, and what it takes to get us to change. Sources: Smithsonian Magazine: The Cuyahoga River Caught Fire at Least a Dozen Times, but No One Cared Until 1969 David and Richard Stradling’s Perceptions of the Burning River: Deindustrialization and Cleveland's Cuyahoga River in Environmental History Not Enough to Drink - Google Books Cleveland's Cuyahoga River caught fire 50 years ago. It inspired a movement. 51 Years Later, the Cuyahoga River Burns Again - Outside Online America's Sewage System and the Price of Optimism - TIME Oral Histories of the 1969 Cuyahoga River Fire - Belt Magazine See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The car has been around for over a century, which makes it easy to forget that there were real-life humans behind its invention, not to mention a messy, complex journey of invention. There are of course some well-meaning gentlemen that were involved in the invention of the automobile. But, possibly one of the most important figures was a woman by the name of Bertha Benz. Bertha Benz’s husband was a locomotive engineer, Karl Benz. After getting into a good deal of debt in an iron manufacturing business, he was bailed out by his then fiance Bertha and, with her financial support, set about on his lifelong dream of creating the first true automobile. There were many failed attempts by Karl before he had any success with a saleable automobile. These contraptions started out as three-wheeled vehicles that could reach 25kph (wild speeds in the day of the horse-drawn carriage). By the time they reached “Model III”, these machines were saleable and one could opt for some sick mods like a folding roof and additional vis-à-vis bench seats, the height of comfort. However, back then, automobiles were not an easy sell. They were loud, shuddering, unreliable and, well, they didn’t involve horses. How dumb! As we know all too well, humans are, in general, terrible at embracing change. The general view back in the 1800s was that these “horseless carriages” were absolutely impractical. However, this public had yet to encounter Bertha’s genius. It’s helpful to point out here that Karl was no Elon Musk. By all accounts, he was meticulous, patient and conservative and prone to bouts of self-doubt and depression. Karl had some serious doubts about the practicality of his inventions and wondered if they’d ever be useful for anything more than quick jaunts around town. But Bertha was made of different stuff and could see a little further than her husband’s limited view. Not only did she have impressive intelligence, but she also disagreed with her husband and spoke out resolutely against dissenters of the automobile. So in 1888, following the release of Model III and tired of her husband’s general attitude, Bertha took matters into her own hands. Bertha roped her two teenage sons into her plans and took a trip. This trip included the first roadside repairs, the first automatic marketing stunt, the first case of a wife borrowing her husband’s car without asking and the first violation of intercity highway laws in a motor vehicle. And it set the scene for the automotive revolution. Sources: https://americanhistory.si.edu/america-on-the-move/fill-up https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/short-picture-history-gas-stations-180967337/ https://www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs/EM01356b.htm https://www.hotcars.com/the-story-of-bertha-benz-and-the-first-long-distance-road-trip/ https://group.mercedes-benz.com/company/tradition/founders-pioneers/carl-benz.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Benz https://group.mercedes-benz.com/company/tradition/founders-pioneers/carl-benz.html https://group-media.mercedes-benz.com/marsMediaSite/en/instance/ko/The-Benz-Patent-Motor-Car-from-1888--The-worlds-oldest-original-car.xhtml?oid=9361444 https://web.archive.org/web/20150924041731/http://www.history.com/news/bertha-benz-hits-the-road-125-years-ago https://group.mercedes-benz.com/company/tradition/founders-pioneers/bertha-benz.html?r=dai https://jalopnik.com/meet-bertha-benz-the-woman-who-took-the-first-real-dri-451617383 https://www.wired.com/2010/08/0812berta-benz-first-road-trip/ https://www.denso-am.eu/news/deneur19_12_female-pioneers-bertha-benz https://www.prohori.com/english/worlds-first-driver-bertha-benz-and-her-great-story/ https://group-media.mercedes-benz.com/marsMediaSite/en/instance/ko/Bertha-Benz--The-Woman-behind-the-Automotive-Revolution.xhtml?oid=9361402 https://www.dpma.de/english/our_office/publications/ingeniouswomen/berthabenz/index.html See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Scurvy is zero fun. We’re not sure how much you know about this disease but it’s not a walk in the park. Okay, it’s fair to say that not many diseases are a gentle stroll through a pretty field of flower-filled gardens, but scurvy really is an incredible bastard. The only thing going for it is that you’re generally dead pretty quick. You start off feeling a little tired, sore and short of breath. Your gums start to hurt and your legs swell. Then, your darkening, swelling legs develop purple, black, red or blue spots, your muscles start wasting away and you start hallucinating. Then your teeth fall out, your gums rot, old wounds open up and you become so weak and sick that you die. Put simply, it is horrible and gross. And scurvy is not a recent phenomenon. It has plagued humans since ancient times. It hammered early agricultural societies, and we can even see evidence of it in ancient writings. But while it has always been around, it really took off in the age of the explorers. Take, for example, Vasco de Gama’s 1497 journey around the Cape of Good Hope. One hundred of his one hundred and sixty men died. In fact, all shipowners and governments in the 15th-18th centuries assumed that 50% of the crew on a long voyage would die of scurvy. Imagine starting your voyage knowing that you had a 50/50 shot at actually living to see the end of it. It doesn’t sound like a great time. We’re surprised anyone wanted to voyage anywhere with odds like that. But scurvy’s scourge continued right through to modern times with cases occurring still today in the malnourished. As a deficiency disease, and possibly one of the easiest things to treat and cure, we humans have done a truly remarkable job of continuing to get scurvy. We’ve overlooked the cause of scurvy and have been bizarrely forgetful when the cure was stumbled across. Of course, it was never a matter of just forgetting. Colonial trades and fear of poisoning played a role, as did a range of whacky treatments that confused everyone. And as always, a healthy dose of terrible science communication was thrown in there too. Join us while we poke fun at the ridiculous amount of times this simple yet horrific disease kept resurfacing, and why lemons (not limes) reign supreme. Previous episodes mentioned: Ep 276 - Philip Nitschke's Quest to Allow Us To Die Ep 111 - Drinking your own urine? Sources Jeremy Hugh Baron’s article in Nutrition Reviews: Sailors' scurvy before and after James Lind – a reassessment Idle Words: Scott And Scurvy Anu Lall: SCURVY, When Medical Arrogance killed 2,000,000 men Curious Historian: The Scourge Of Scurvy The Guardian: The secret of how Amundsen beat Scott in race to south pole? A diet of raw penguin Journal of the Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh: The role of scurvy in Scott’s return from the South Pole The Journal of Nutrition: Scurvy and Cloudberries: A Chapter in the History of Nutritional Sciences Leviathan: Ishmael's Recovery: Injury, Illness, and Convalescence in Moby-Dick National Geographic: A Nightmare Disease Haunted Ships During Age of Discovery Science History Institute: The Age of Scurvy Special Care in Dentistry: The risk for scurvy in children with neurodevelopment disorders See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you were knocking on death’s door and the door wasn’t opening quickly enough, would you want to be able to give it a shove yourself? To have agency over your death is a tricky subject, but that hasn’t stopped Philip Nitschke from diving into it head first. To understand why Nitschke felt compelled to go down such an onerous path, let’s first give you a sense of his personality as a young chap. When he was 18, someone stole Nitschke's car radio. The police weren’t too concerned about it so Nitschke waited in the boot of his car with a 0.22 calibre rifle for the thief to come back for the car speakers. That may seem slightly insane to a regular human being, but Nitschke needed to serve some justice. He figured that he could solve his own problems. As a young med school graduate, feeling compelled to help people solve their own problems too, Nitschke was intrigued by the idea of euthanasia for those that wanted to end their lives peacefully and on their own terms. And in 1996, in the Northern Territory, Nitschke became the first doctor in the world to administer a legal, lethal, voluntary injection. As a result, Nitschke became an outspoken advocate and crusader for euthanasia. As you can imagine, it hasn’t been an easy road, but it certainly hasn’t been boring. Nitschke invented death machines, originated a euthanasia flash mob and created a Comedy Festival show entitled ‘Dicing with Dr Death’. The reviews were actually pretty good! And yes, you did read that right. Death machines are a real thing. Dying in a peaceful, reliable and dignified manner is surprisingly difficult. Nitschke’s newest death machine iteration (which currently only exists in VR form) is called Sarco (named after sarcophagus) and looks like it belongs in a Tesla display centre. Why has Nitschke fought so hard for our right to die? And what is the state of voluntary assisted dying (and his medical licence) now? Also - what happened to that car radio thief? Jump on into this episode and find out. Previous episodes mentioned: Ep 275 - Chinese Restaurant Syndrome or Why We Panicked About MSG Ep 270 - Non Fungible Tulips! Ep 267 - What Do We Do With The Immortal Quadrillionaires? Ep 153 - Safety Issues at the Los Alamos Lab! Sources: https://www.economist.com/1843/2019/12/12/a-design-for-death-meeting-the-bad-boy-of-the-euthanasia-movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia_device https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-05/ama-speaks-out-over-nitschke-claims/4670282 https://www.exitinternational.net/about-exit/history/ https://www.exitinternational.net/sarco/ Australian Man First in World To Die With Legal Euthanasia 1996https://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/26/world/australian-man-first-in-world-to-die-with-legal-euthanasia.html https://maxdogbrewing.com https://www.9news.com.au/national/dr-death-to-fight-nitrogen-complaint/6765eccc-5b3f-45b5-9fda-15cd70940740 https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/15/nitschke-suicide-machine-amsterdam-euthanasia-funeral-fair https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sarco-death-philip-nitschke_n_5abbb574e4b03e2a5c7853ca https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-assisted-suicide-machine-727874 https://www.smh.com.au/national/healthy-woman-thanks-dr-nitschke-then-kills-herself-20021126-gdfvde.html https://www.smh.com.au/national/euthanasia-campaigner-philip-nitschke-sets-medical-licence-alight-20151127-gl9wpr.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Nitschke See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In August 1968, a rather innocuous letter to the editor was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr Ho Man Kwok had written in speculating on the reason he felt so ghastly after eating at a Chinese restaurant. Was it the soy sauce or the cooking wine? Or perhaps, he offered up, it was the monosodium glutamate seasoning - MSG. The prominent symptoms, as he described them, were numbness at the back of his neck, general weakness and heart palpitations. Surely Dr Kwok hadn’t just overeaten or sampled a few too many beverages during the evening. There must be another explanation and something else to blame. The New England Journal, which clearly did a lot of background checking, thorough research and fact-finding *ahem* decided to run with this madness and the term “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” was coined. And so, the flurry of MSG bad-mouthing and hysteria took off. Now, more than five decades later surveys suggest that a whopping 43% of Americans believe that MSG is bad for you. And we wouldn’t be surprised if Australia fell in line with this statistic. The “syndrome” has exploded to encompass symptoms far beyond Dr Kwok’s initial complaint. People report muscle tightening, burning sensations, and almost fainting. And, most notably, an irresistible urge to take off all your clothes. We can certainly blame MSG for that... But is this all bollocks? Are there any real studies from the whole of science that prove or disprove these theories? After a few sprinkles of MSG in their beer, Will takes Rod on a journey through racism, hysteria and deliciousness all in the name of acquitting MSG in the court of public opinion. Previous Episodes Mentioned: Musical Maladies - And Fakes! Sources Jennifer LeMesurier’s Poroi (An Interdisciplinary Journal of Rhetorical Analysis and Invention) article: Uptaking Race: Genre, MSG, and Chinese Dinner Ian Mosby’s: ‘That Won-Ton Soup Headache’: The Chinese Restaurant Syndrome, MSG and the Making of American Food, 1968–1980 Michael Blanding’s article in Colgate Magazine: The Strange Case of Dr Ho Man Kwok Richard D Lyons article in the New York Times: ‘Chinese Restaurant Syndrome’ Puzzles Doctors. May 19 1968 Herbert Schaumburg and Robert Byck’s article in Science: Monosodium L-Glutamate: Its Pharmacology and Role in the Chinese Restaurant Syndrome This American Life’s The Long Fuse The Washington Post’s: Beware of musher's knee and hooker's elbow Umami Information Center: Kikunae Ikeda See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our episode today begins in the 1960s with Laszlo Polgar and his hot and saucy epistolary courtship with a foreign language teacher named Klara. Correction here. Laszlo's letters were less hot and saucy and more….precise and instrumental. There was no time for detailing THE karma sutra. László was on a mission. He wanted to raise child geniuses. So, in his letters to Klara, he outlines the pedagogical experiment he intends to carry out with his future progeny. Laszlo clearly knows how to woo a lady. The guiding theory behind this experiment was that Laszlo believed that any healthy child had the innate capacity to become a genius if their education starts by the time they are three, and specialises by the time they are six. All he needed was a wife to jump onboard, so to speak. Klara was clearly intellectually aroused by his letters and, in rough translation from Hungarian she said to László “Mate, I am bloody in”. And so the great experiment began. After what was probably some very methodical, precise and well-thought-out intercourse, they had three children. Susan (1970), Sophia (1974) and Judit (1976). Now that they had their subjects, it was time to start phase two - education. László believed public education only produced mediocre minds - but homeschooling was illegal in Hungary at the time. After a battle with an armed policeman, he won on the homeschooling front. Now that they could successfully and legally educate their children at home, the next hurdle was to find the specialisation that would allow the genius to blossom. Their eldest daughter Susan sorted that quandary when, aged four, she found a chess board in a closet. Was she obsessed from that very first sighting? Probably not. To be fair, she was just trying to find something that resembled a toy to play with. The household wasn’t big on barbies or monster trucks. Now that Susan had inadvertently picked a speciality, it was decided - all three girls would become chess masters (it’s not an experiment without replication). The next hurdle to overcome was infiltrating the boys club that was chess at the time. Back in the 1970s, less than 1% of top chess players were female. So, Laszlo's mission turned him into a women’s rights activist as a nice little side effect. Did Laszlo and Klara succeed in their genius-raising experiment? How do they feel about the outcome? And where are Susan, Sophia and Judit now? Tune in to find out. Previous episodes mentioned: The Actual Genius of Paul Erdős Dozenalism! References: herway - Epistolary Relationship: 6 Reasons To Bring Back Old-School Romance Wikipedia - László Polgár Psychology Today - The Grandmaster Experiment The Conversation - What’s behind the gender imbalance in top-level chess? Independent - A man with a talent for creating genius: William Hartston meets Laszlo Polgar, the father of three world-class chess players The Guardian - Judit Polgar: 'Everything was about chess' Chicago Tribune - Trained to be a genius, girl, 16, wallops chess champ spassky for $110,000 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our goal here at The Wholesome Show is to make you feel happy, amused and entertained. But a fair warning that we must sometimes journey through a rather astonishing volume of grotesque and sad death to get you there. We won’t apologise for it. It is our duty. In this episode, we travel back to the 18th and 19th centuries - a generally dire time to be alive. Infanticide - the killing of unwanted children - was a horrifyingly common reality. Luckily at the time, there was a relatively liberal emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Joseph II, that decided to try and do something about this epidemic of child killing. First of all, he established foundling homes, where unwanted infants could be dropped off. There was even a convenient after-hours “chute” for those times you couldn’t possibly get there during business hours to give away your children. Convenience was key, even in those days. Then Joseph II set up maternity hospitals, for mothers to give birth in. Was this a brilliant success? Let’s say a little bit of yes and … quite a lot of no. You see, there was a rumour going around that while these hospitals were free, they were in fact … houses of death. How did all this death occur? Well within 24 - 48 hours after exhausted women in need of a solid nap gave birth, they became incredibly unwell. Relentless fevers, excruciating abdominal pain, headaches…These women would go downhill very quickly. Now, because it was the 18th century they had some wacky ancient treatments. The ever trusty leeches, a bit of bloodletting, lots of mercury, opium (that part sounds pretty good), and of course enemas. Because everyone feels like an enema when they’re knocking on death’s door. Did these treatments work at least? No. No they didn’t. These hospitals don’t get to be known as “Houses of Death” without quite a lot of death. This is where we come to the hero of our story - Dr Ignaz Semmelweis. Upon starting work as an obstetrician at the maternity wing of the Vienna General Hospital, Semmelweis realised pretty quickly that something was wrong. Surely a large part of the puzzle was missing. Ignaz Semmelweis made a discovery that would go on to save hundreds and thousands of lives, but he unfortunately paid the ultimate price. Tune in to the episode to hear why Ignaz Semmelweis is truly a martyr to science. Previous episodes mentioned: A Brief History of Medical Leeches! The History And Future Of The Death Certificate Sources British Medical Journal: Infanticide and Excessive Infant Mortality Caroline M De Costa The Medical Journal of Australia: “The contagiousness of childbed fever”: a short history of puerperal sepsis and its treatment Ignaz Semmelweis: The etiology, concept, and prophylaxis of childbed fever K Codell Carter & Barbara R Carter: Childbed Fever Museum of Contraception and Abortion: The Vienna Foundlings and Orphans Home Paige Mathieson: Midlands Historical Review: Bad or Mad? Infanticide: Insanity and Morality in Nineteenth-Century Britain Sydney Morning Herald: Would baby hatches have saved Lily Grace? The Persecuted: 10 famous martyrs and why they died (Updated 2020) Wikipedia: Baby hatch Wikipedia: Giordano Bruno Wikipedia: Ignaz Semmelweis Wikipedia: Infanticide Wikipedia: Tank Man The World of the Hapsburgs: The Vienna Foundling Home between welfare and population policy See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Have you ever had a dream that you just had to do no matter how crazy or how dangerous it might sound to anyone else? A dream so core to your being that nothing was going to stop you realising it no matter the obstacles? Nail Armstrong sure did. As did Marie Curie. Edmond Hillary too. But recently, we found out about a human who eclipsed all those wannabes. That man was Larry Walters. Even as a very young lad, Larry imagined himself flying. His inspiration? Balloons. His idea first took flight when he came across helium balloons on a trip to Disneyland. But it really cemented at the age of 13 when he came across weather balloons at the army disposal store. From then on, he dreamt of nothing else. Well, we can’t 100% confirm that he dreamt of nothing else, but it’s more dramatic if we say that. Larry did attempt to become a pilot to get his fix of zooming through the air. But his bad eyesight stopped him joining the airforce. This dream of his refused to die. He was a man on a mission. Many years after his trip to Disneyland, Larry devised a foolproof (ahem) plan to strap 42 weather balloons filled with helium to a lawn chair and launch into the unknown. The lawnchair was really sturdy apparently. There was surely no cause for concern. Larry’s idea was to float up to about 30 feet, drift lazily for a few hours out over the Mojave Desert and then pop some balloons and drift back down. Sounds like a nice way to spend an afternoon really. Larry prepared. He packed an altimeter (because, height), CB radio, two litres of Coca-Cola, eight plastic bottles of water (for ballast), and a BB gun. There were reports of a stashed six pack as well. The thing he was in very short supply of was maths. Strap in, as we join Larry on his ‘peaceful float across the Mojave desert’. Sources 8 of the Weirdest Items in the Smithsonian's Archives https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/556928/weirdest-items-smithsonian-archives How the Balloon-Borne “Flying Lawn Chair” Got Into the Smithsonian https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/flying-lawn-chair-180972974/?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=socialmedia The strange, sad odyssey of ‘Lawn Chair Larry’ https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/the-strange-sad-odyssey-of-lawn-chair-larry-3b943991179c Before There Was “Up,” There Was “Lawnchair Larry” https://allthatsinteresting.com/lawnchair-larry-walters Larry Walters; Soared to Fame on Lawn Chair https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-11-24-mn-60236-story.html Did Larry Walters Fly in a Lawn Chair Attached to Helium Balloons? https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/up-up-and-away/ Floating on a Lawn chair Over L.A.? He was Living Out His Dream https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davidrupert/floating-on-a-lawnchair-over-l-a-thats-no-fool-thats-a-hero/ The Man in the Flying Lawn Chair https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1998/06/01/the-man-in-the-flying-lawn-chair 50 Epic Adventure Quotes To Kick You Off Your Couch https://expertvagabond.com/adventure-quotes/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Six friends gather around a patch of dirt in the Netherlands. Cornelis, Dirk, Symon, Reynier, Other Cornelis and Andries (clearly this is not 2022). They’re digging up something that is meant to be worth 30 guilders. That is, the price of a pretty modest house back in 1637. A whole house worth of value in a small buried item. Gold? Gemstones? An incredibly well bred and fanciful horse? No dear reader, it was nothing of the sort. It was in fact, a single tulip bulb. You may have heard the story of tulip mania in the Netherlands. How an entire country goes mad over a single flower. And how it all collapses in a matter of days. But almost all of the popular history around this time is erroneous - an oversimplification. A bit like judging the 90s on just Blink 182 albums. There is a much deeper story here. First, the setting. We jump back to 1585, when the Netherlands gained independence from the Spanish empire, kicking off a century of explosive economic growth. While the rest of Europe was slumming it through a period known as the ’General Crisis’, the Dutch became a dominant trade power and got very rich. During this time Jehan Somer, the son of a magistrate, took two years off to go backpacking (ok, luxury touring back then). During his time away he visits Constantinople. Recently taken over by the Ottoman Turkish empire, Constantinople at that time was nice. Impressive gardens with very impressive flowers. Somer returned to the Netherlands with a bug for flowers. He showed his buddies back home all the sweet flowers he’d found. Dogtooth violets, auricles, double narcissi, lilies, crocuses and tulips. But tulips? Well, tulips were special. Join us as we make this journey through the Netherlands in the 17th century and how this story has so many parallels with our modern-day manias. We dive down beyond the simplistic takes and ask what happened, what caused it and what it says about today. Sources Anne Goldgar: Tulip mania: the classic story of a Dutch financial bubble is mostly wrong Charles Mackay: Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds Bloomeffects: The history of eating tulips Tulipmania Art Journal: The most expensive tulip bulb in history costed as much as the finest house on the most fashionable Amsterdam canal Wikipedia: Economic history of the Netherlands I don’t care about your crypto, boy See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this daring episode, Rod and Will take us back to 1894 Paris, when a small newspaper had a brilliant idea to boost circulation. A wacky endurance race that would take no prisoners. In this race there were no fewer than 20 different methods of propulsion from steam, petrol, compressed air, clockwork, a system of pendulums through to a mechanical motor. From a four tonne monster tractor right down to a tricycle. With one steering wheel in the whole race (steering wheels were not a thing back then). Basically, it was a Festival of Crazy Mechanical Stuff. But we’re not actually talking about that race today. We’re talking about the more high tech (but bizarrely similar) version of that race, more than 100 years later. In 2003, the US Defence Advanced Research Agency (DARPA’s) announced its first ‘autonomous vehicle grand challenge’. Popular Science Magazine called this ‘DAPRA’s Debacle in the Desert’. Excellent. You might see where this is going. The top secret race track (the location of which was only announced three hours before the race began) ran across the Mojave Desert. The race designer, a man by the name of Sal Fish, designed a course that incorporated everything you can imagine you might find in a desert. Rocks, left turns, right turns, dips, gullies, cacti. Drop offs, barbed wire fences, animals that could come out of nowhere, train tracks. Thankfully, DARPA, being the thoughtful department that they are, had a crew of biologists run a final sweep for the endangered desert tortoise. No animals were harmed. Tony Tether, the Director of DARPA was really not expecting anyone to be interested. Even though there was a $1 million dollar prize (yes, you had to finish the race, not just get the furthest). But on the morning of registration people were lined up around the block - 106 team applications in total. It’s not that hard to make an autonomous vehicle right - basically Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with a laptop? The final, whittled down entrants (15 in total) were the most varied bunch you can think of. From highschool kids, the CEO of a loudspeaker company (excellent marketing strategy) through to a cantankerous ex-Marine who also happened to be a talented roboticist. As for the vehicles, Sal Fish (our course designer) exclaimed “My God, these vehicles were something out of Mad Max.” Join Rod and Will on this wild ride - did anyone win, or did it turn into a robotic graveyard? And learn how that 1894 race turned into the ultimate inspiration for the autonomous vehicles we (almost) have today. REFERENCES: Standage, T. (2021). A Brief History of Motion: From the Wheel, to the Car, to what Comes Next. Bloomsbury Publishing. The Autonomous-Car Chaos of the 2004 Darpa Grand Challenge https://www.wired.com/story/autonomous-car-chaos-2004-darpa-grand-challenge/ World’s 1st Motor Racing Event Had A 90 Mins Lunch Break (Dec 202, 2020) https://medium.com/formula-one-forever/worlds-1st-motor-racing-event-had-a-90-mins-lunch-break-6b0f203cf016 From Darpa Grand Challenge 2004DARPA’s Debacle in the Desert Behind the scenes at the DARPA Grand Challenge, the 142-mile robot race that died at mile 7 JUN 4, 2004 https://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-06/darpa-grand-challenge-2004darpas-debacle-desert/ An Oral History of the Darpa Grand Challenge, the Grueling Robot Race That Launched the Self-Driving Car https://www.wired.com/story/darpa-grand-challenge-2004-oral-history/ The Grand Challenge https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/timeline/-grand-challenge-for-autonomous-vehicles DARPA Urban Challenge https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/timeline/darpa-urban-challengeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's a whole bunch of reasons to not be fans of the Proud Boys. In the words of the Southern Poverty Law Centre they're a 'general hate' group, their members played key roles in the January 6 attack on the US capitol, and they're pretty goddamn misogynist. But it's rule number two of their by-laws that's just weird. It states “No heterosexual brother of the Fraternity shall masturbate more than one time in any calendar month". Or maybe it's not weird... So here's the question we're asking this week: why are the Proud Boys so obsessed with (not) wanking?The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the olden times people used to climb mountains wearing all sorts of odd things - wool, leather, or just in the nude! But George Finch was an ideas man...Rod tells Will the story of the invention of the puffer jacket!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Guess what listener - it's possible that people alive today might live a very long life... like 1200 years maybe.That sounds fun, but maybe it might lead to dystopia?Will agonises with Rod about what we should do about longevity treatments!The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!Sources:Aeon: What are the ethical consequences of immortality technology? https://aeon.co/ideas/what-are-the-ethical-consequences-of-immortality-technologyBBC: A frozen graveyard: The sad tales of Antarctica’s deaths: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180913-a-frozen-graveyard-the-sad-tales-of-antarcticas-deathsEMBO Rep. Jayne Lucke and Wayne Hall: Who wants to live forever: 2005 Feb; 6(2): 98–102. doi: 10.1038/sj.embor.7400339Bernard Williams: The Makropulos case: reflections on the tedium of immortality: https://web.archive.org/web/20160528020748/http://stoa.org.uk/topics/death/the-makropulos-case-reflections-on-the-tedium-of-immortality-bernard-williams.pdfForbes: What Kills Billionaires: https://www.forbes.com/2005/04/05/cx_vg_0405feat.htmlJohn Hardwig: Is there a duty to die? The Hastings Center Report , Mar. - Apr., 1997, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Mar. - Apr., 1997), pp. 34-42 https://www.jstor.org/stable/3527626JAMA Health Forum. Eric D Finegood et al. 2021;2(7):e211652. doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2021.1652 John Harris: The Harold Hatch International Lecture on Longevity and Population Aging Intimations of Immortality The Ethics and Justice of Life-Extending Therapies: https://www.ilc-alliance.org/wp-content/uploads/publication-pdfs/IntimationsImmortality.pdfJournal of Aging Studies: Public attitudes towards human life extension by intervening in ageing: Brad Partridge Jayne Lucke Helen Bartlett Wayne Hall https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0890406510000757?casa_token=ELUiWi4dNksAAAAA:cziJHAtan_8s5o-az6WYOS8Kqwrre9g4YJ3jw1vhoUg7M1eWHHimfqRlbq3sKdzzbschLWviN6vELive Science: The Ethical Dilemmas of Immortality https://www.livescience.com/10465-ethical-dilemmas-immortality.htmlLong Bets: Peter Schwartz and Melody Haller: At least one human alive in the year 2000 will still be alive in 2150.https://longbets.org/11/NBCNews: Mainstream docs join anti-aging bandwagon: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna23358964REJUVENATION RESEARCH: Brad Partridge, Jayne Lucke, Helen Bartlett, and Wayne Hall: Ethical, Social, and Personal Implications of Extended Human Lifespan Identified by Members of the Public Volume 12, Number 5, 2009 a Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. DOI: 10.1089=rej.2009.0907 Scientific American: Aging Is Reversible—at Least in Human Cells and Live Mice: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/aging-is-reversible-at-least-in-human-cells-and-live-mice/Wikipedia: Lawrence Oates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_OatesWikipedia: Richard Lamm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_LammSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At the end of the 19th century in Paris there were a range of weird and wonderful acts - but one stood out...Rod tells Will the story of Le Pétomane!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!Le Pétomane By The Wholesome Show is licensed under a Creative Commons License.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Old timey people put a lot of stock in maps, but they didn't always get things exactly right. They joined Tasmania to mainland Australia, got Africa in the wrong place, and moved Siberia a long way to the east. But was this by accident? Or design?Will tells Rod the story of lying with maps!The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!SourcesBar News: Review of Lying for the Admiralty by Margaret Cameron-Ash, by Caroline DobraszczykThe Globe (84) Captain Cook Invented Point Hicks to Hide Bass Strait by Margaret Cameron-AshThe Globe (87) Cook conspiracy at point hicks? By Trevor LipscombeThe Globe (87) Where’s my embassy comrade? An examination of the 1981 Soviet Military City Plan of Canberra, by Brendan Whyte. Lying for the Admiralty by Margaret Cameron-AshSignals 125: James Cook’s false trail by Nigel Erskine.Gyula Pápay POLITICS AND CARTOGRAPHY in State Security and Mapping in the GDR Map Falsification as a Consequence of Excessive Secrecy?Imago Mundi: Silences and Secrecy: The Hidden Agenda of Cartography in Early Modern Europe by J. B. HarleySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We all go to the movies right, we see the sights, we hear the sounds! But what if we could smell the smells?Rod tells Will the history of Smell-O-Vision!The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

People have been cooking food for as long as they've been people - and for almost as long other people have been pushing against it.Will tells Rod the history and science of raw food evangelists!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!SourcesBismark Daily Tribune: Apostle of Raw Food Explains Sect: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042242/1913-10-09/ed-1/seq-3/Carnivor Aurelius on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlpacaAurelius/status/1175851010977337344?lang=enEncyclopedia.com: Szekely, Edmond Bordeaux (?-1980) https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/szekely-edmond-bordeaux-1980 Edmond Bordeaux Szekely: The Essene Gospels of Peace: http://www.thenazareneway.com/index_essene_gospels_of_peace.htmDiscover Magazine: Archaeologists Find Earliest Evidence of Humans Cooking With Fire https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/archaeologists-find-earliest-evidence-of-humans-cooking-with-fireGlikson, A., Fire and human evolution: The deep-time blueprints of the Anthropocene. Anthropocene (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ancene.2014.02.002 LA Weekly: L.A. HAS BEEN EATING RAW VEGAN FOOD SINCE 1918, THANKS TO THIS COMMUNIST, FEMINIST ANGELENO https://www.laweekly.com/l-a-has-been-eating-raw-vegan-food-since-1918-thanks-to-this-communist-feminist-angeleno/McGee, H. On Food and Cooking.National Cancer Institute: Chemicals in Meat Cooked at High Temperatures and Cancer Risk https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/diet/cooked-meats-fact-sheetNew York Times: Chimpanzees Would Cook if Given the Chance, Research Says https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/us/chimpanzees-can-cook-a-mean-potato-research-says.htmlOgden, Utah Standard Magazine: Love and Raw Potatoes https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85058396/1915-08-07/ed-1/seq-9/Restaurant-ing through history: Back to nature: The Eutropheon https://restaurant-ingthroughhistory.com/2014/02/02/back-to-nature-the-eutropheon/amp/Terrence Twomey (2013). The Cognitive Implications of Controlled Fire Use by Early Humans. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 23, pp 113-128 doi:10.1017/S0959774313000085 Wikipedia: Bernarr Macfadden: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernarr_MacfaddenWikipedia: Herbert M. Shelton: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_M._SheltonWikipedia: Maximilian Bircher-Benner: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_Bircher-BennerWrangham, R., 2009. Catching Fire: How Cooking Made us Human. Basic Books, New York 320 pp.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ettore Majorana was a physics genius who really could have won the Nobel Prize... but in 1938 he disappeared. The question is, what happened to him? Rod tells Will the story!The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ok, the Americans won the race to the moon - but do you know what the Soviets actually did land on the moon? It's something a little bit special.The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You might not know this but ozone has a bizarrely 'clean' smell - so much so, there's a long history of people using it to 'clean' things that they really shouldn't...Rod tells Will the story!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, proudly brought to you by the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We at The Wholesome Show of course want to live forever. But if you have to go, there are a hell of a lot of worse ways than dying in the saddle.Will tells Rod the science and history of dying on the job!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, proudly brought to you by the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tycho Brahe is one of the most important astronomers of all time - but he died under super mysterious circumstances. So who killed him?Rod tells Will and special guest Hans the story of the murder of Tycho Brahe!The Wholesome Show is Rod Lamberts and Will Grant, proudly brought to you by the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We all have... unique ways of looking at the world. But what if two mutually contradictory views of the world are put in the same room?Rod tells Will the story of the ethically dubious Jesus experiments of Milton Rokeach!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, proudly brought to you by the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are a few places around the world where a large number of people live to over 100 - do you want to know how? Well, Will tells Rod exactly what the secret is!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, proudly brought to you by the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What evidence would we need to confirm that Bigfoot exists? Photos? Hair sample? A pool of blood?Rod tells Will the story of Melba Ketchum's quest for the Big Foot! The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, proudly brought to you by the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the middle of the 20th century it became totally normal - at a 21st, a wedding or a confirmation - to give people the special present of the total removal of their teeth.Was science to blame?Will tells Rod the story!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!Sources:- Brides.com: The 34 Must-Have Items to Add to Your Wedding Registry: https://www.brides.com/gallery/best-wedding-registry-items- Dallas Museum of Art: THE BRIDAL REGISTRY https://collections.dma.org/essay/a8mBA7yW- Dusty Old Thing: From the Fashion to the Gifts- Wedding Trends Over the Past Century Sure Have Changed! https://dustyoldthing.com/wedding-trends-changed/- J Prosthet Dent. 2002 Jan;87(1):5-8. doi: 10.1067/mpr.2002.121203.- Australian Dental Journal 2007;52:(2):154-156- BMC Public Health volume 14, Article number: 65 (2014) - MMWR: Ten Great Public Health Achievements -- United States, 1900-1999: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00056796.htm- British Dental Journal: Total tooth loss in the United Kingdom in 1998 and implications for the future https://www.nature.com/articles/4800840Reddit: How true is this claim about Victorian England? “Having all your teeth removed was considered the perfect gift for a 21st birthday or a newly married bride.”- https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/agyegl/how_true_is_this_claim_about_victorian_england/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf- CDA Journal 28 (3): Focal Infection Theory RevisitedSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The early days of nuclear science were very much a... move fast and break things world. And some people? They ended up in some dangerous spots. Rod tells Will about the risky world of nuclear science at the 1940s Los Alamos National Laboratory!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, proudly brought to you by the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do you get sick of waiting for your packages from your online retailers of choice? Have you ever wanted to get your mail just that little bit faster? Yes? Yes! Then might I interest you in... rocket mail?Will tells Rod and special guest CJ Josh the story of rocket mail!The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, joined today by @cjjosh and proudly brought to by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is English spelling needlessly complicated? Should we fix it?Som pepl say yes!Will tells Rod the story of the Simplified Spelling Board!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Exercise is great. It helps with just about everything! But here's the thing, does it help you... spread the word of God?Rod tells Will the story - and future - of muscular Christianity!The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, proudly brought to you by the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We love the metric system - you love the metric system! But... what if it wasn't perfect?Will tells Rod the story of dozenalism!The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!Sources:Svalbard: French Revolutionary (Decimal) Time; https://svalbard.watch/pages/about_decimal_time.htmlWikipedia: Units of measurement in France; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Units_of_measurement_in_FranceToday I found out: A GENIUS AMONG US: THE SAD STORY OF WILLIAM J. SIDIS; www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/12/genius-among-us-sad-story-william-j-sidis/New York Times: Sidis Could Read at Two Years Old: 18 October 1909.The Listener: Twelves and Tens A.C.AITKEN on the case against the system of decimalization; www.dozenalsociety.org.uk/archives/aitken.htmlSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Gambian Pouched Rat - or the African Giant Pouched Rat - can hold heaps of stuff in its awesome face pockets... But it's also very useful in helping humans... Rod tells Will the story, a pocket episode for the holidays!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Clarence Birdseye Invents An Industry! by The Wholesome ShowSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over a few hundred years from the year 1200 on, the people of Easter Island / Rapa Nui built an amazing pocket universe - a flourishing civilisation with their own system of writing and amazing carved stone Moai.But then it collapsed.Will tells Rod what happens, and why the story of what happens matters!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!Sources:Benny Peiser’s ‘From Genocide to Ecocide: The Rape of Rapa Nui’. https://web.archive.org/web/20100610062402/http://www.uri.edu/artsci/ecn/starkey/ECN398%20-Ecology,%20Economy,%20Society/RAPANUI.pdfDiNapoli, Crema, Lipo, Rieth and Hunt’s ‘Approximate Bayesian Computation of radiocarbon and paleoenvironmental record shows population resilience on Rapa Nui (Easter Island)’ in Nature Communications https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8225912/BingUNews: ‘Resilience, not collapse: What the Easter Island myth gets wrong’ https://www.binghamton.edu/news/story/3155/resilience-not-collapse-what-the-easter-island-myth-gets-wrongPrinceton: ‘Jacob Roggeveen, 1659–1729’ http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/maps/websites/pacific/roggeveen/roggeveen.htmlEaster Island Travel: ‘Ship logs of 1722 voyage of Jacob Roggeveen’ https://www.easterisland.travel/easter-island-facts-and-info/history/ship-logs-and-journals/jacob-roggeveen-1722/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chatbots are everywhere these days - your bank, your phone company, your facebook... your therapist? Well actually, they were therapists first... Rod tells Will the story!The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, proudly brought to you by the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!Sources:https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-eliza-effect/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666827020300062http://www.jabberwacky.com/j2convbydate-N6641part2https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=4137https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna23615538https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Weizenbaumhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA_effecthttps://www.businessinsider.com.au/therapy-chatbot-depression-app-what-its-like-woebot-2018-1https://news.mit.edu/2008/obit-weizenbaum-0310See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We all know the Nazis embraced a bunch of dumb - awful - ideas. But their ideas about how the universe worked? Well that was sincerely whackadoo...Will tells Rod the story!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!SourcesWilly Ley: Pseudoscience in Naziland, http://www.alpenfestung.com/ley_pseudoscience.htmChristina Wessely: Cosmic Ice Theory—Science, Fiction and the Public, 1894–1945. https://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/research/projects/DeptIII-ChristinaWessely-WelteislehreEric Kurlander: Hitler’s MonstersEric Kurlander: A Song of Ice and Fire https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/song-ice-and-firePhilip Ball: How 2 Pro-Nazi Nobelists Attacked Einstein’s "Jewish Science" [Excerpt]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-2-pro-nazi-nobelists-attacked-einstein-s-jewish-science-excerpt1/The Occult Bistory of the Third Reich: Horbiger http://thirdreichocculthistory.blogspot.com/2011/07/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We've all ridden in Ferris Wheels - including some that are getting really pretty gigantic. But have you ever wondered where they came from? Rod tells Will the story of Ferris's Wheel!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!---------------Sources:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-07-25/what-happens-when-every-city-has-a-giant-ferris-wheelhttps://interestingengineering.com/the-worlds-largest-ferris-wheel-has-just-opened-in-dubai?utm_source=IGStory&utm_medium=Article&utm_campaign=organic&utm_content=Oct27https://pressofatlanticcity.com/history/look-back-atlantic-citys-almost-famous-somers-wheel/article_289d2b62-27a5-59d4-b1a0-44821117ed61.htmlhttps://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/history-ferris-wheel-180955300/https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/new-jersey/2019/05/06/history-of-the-ferris-wheel-new-jersey-william-somers-george-ferris/1116618001/Ferris Wheels: An illustrated History N.D.Anderson (2006) https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/0968.htmhttps://web.archive.org/web/20130118143455/http://www.hydeparkhistory.org/newsletter.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_Gale_Ferris_Jr.https://petticoatsandpistols.com/2015/02/02/ferris-pleasure-wheel/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Grey Owl had a crucial message for the world - but was he the right person to bring it?The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You didn't know you needed to know it, but penis prosthetics and penis transplants are both VERY IMPORTANT and VERY SCIENCE. They are! It's true! Rod tells Will the story of where they're up to!The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Curt Herzstark had an invention ready to go... but he never knew it would save his life.Will tells Rod the story of the Curta pocket calculator!The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We use a lot of sand. In fact, it's the number two thing we use as a species after water! But because we use so much, there's some bad things that happen as well...Rod tells Will all about the world of sand mining!The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We all know that even though the ground beneath our feet feels solid, it's actually moving nice and slowly towards somewhere else. But the science underpinning this idea? It was actually a huge fight...Will and Rod explore, joined by Tanja Pejic of Geoscience Australia!The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, joined today by Dr Tanja Pejic of Geoscience Australia!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

People have taken things to enhance their performance for ages - but the things they've taken, that's what's weird...Rod tells Will the story!The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bikes are awesome! But during the biggest bicycle craze of the 19th century, medical opinion on bikes went a little bit weird... Will tells Rod the story!The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Art forging - and catching art forgers - is a booming business these days. And on both sides, science has a key role to play...Rod tells Will the story!The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We love science here at the Wholesome Show, but what if you used science to make a workplace more efficient? Would you be a good person? Or is that dangerous?Will tells Rod the story of Taylorism, or Scientific Management!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The treatments we have available for various psychiatric issues aren't either vast... or precise. Which is why electroconvulsive therapy is still a regular thing... Rod tells Will and special guest Shaam Al Abed the history!The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, joined today by Shaam Al Abed and this time brought to you by Brain Teaser as well as The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Symbolic communication is ours! Just for us humans! Or... maybe it's not...Will tells Rod the story of Karl von Frisch and the bee waggle dance!The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.