A Little Bit Of Science

The usual history says that the link between smoking and lung cancer was first shown by the British epidemiologist Richard Doll in 1952. But that's not quite true. The first people to show this link were... actually bad people.Will tells Rod and special guest CjJosh the story of the Nazi war on tobacco!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts - joined today by CJJosh! Proudly produced by G'day Studios, and brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's horrible when a lot of people die... but what if they all die in a line?Will tells Rod the story of the Sverdlovsk outbreak of 1979!(Spoiler it's anthrax and it's the Soviet Union)!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.

Speculating here listener, but would you swap your body for a younger, hotter, healthier version of yourself? Well, there are a few surgeons out there who are happy to help...Rod tells Will the story of head (body) transplantation surgery!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, proudly brought to you by G'day Studios and supported by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's a common trope - you do something catastrophically silly, and next thing you know you're watching your life flash before your eyes. Or you're standing in fluffy clouds that look suspiciously like heaven... or you're being dragged in chains to a pit that looks worryingly like hell. Don't worry, it's just a Near Death Experience! But... what actually are they? What happens? How common are they? And why are they all so... similar?Will tells Rod all about the science of Near Death Experiences!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, proudly brought to you by G'day Studios and supported by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What is Magnetic Resonance Imaging, and what is an MRI machine? What have people done in them? And are they 100% science? Rod tells Will and special guest CJJosh all about the wonderful world of Magnetic Resonance Imaging!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts - joined today by CJJosh! Proudly produced by G'day Studios, and brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Playing a musical instrument is fun, rewarding, and lets you strut your stuff in front of a crowd of thousands! But it comes with a downside... some injuries unique to the instrument you choose. Or... does it?The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, produced by G'day Studios, and proudly supported by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daylight savings time is beautiful. An extra hour of the day for walking the dog, drinking daiquiris or listening to podcasts that require you to be outside in the sun! But maybe it's a little bit of a guilty pleasure... Will tells Rod the history and science of daylight savings time!The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, produced by G'day Studios and proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Myers Briggs Type Indicator is used by thousands and thousands of high profile companies... But should 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've known for years that things like portion size, food availability and the colour of your plates affect your food intake... But it turns out the research it was based on was maybe a little bit bullshit?Rod tells Will the story of Brian Wansink's strange food hack science!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.

Apparently, Albert Einstein once claimed that “If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live”... And since 2007, colonies of bees around the world have been mysteriously collapsing... Will (and guest expert Saul Cunningham) get to the bottom of the story!The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, joined today by Professor Saul Cunningham of the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society! Proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ok, we know that old timey people had some weird ideas about medicine... but when it comes to cures for sexual issues, it seems they'll try... anything.Rod tells Will the story of old time aphrodisiacs!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 about islands... and we all know about lakes. We know we can have islands in lakes, and even lakes on islands.But did you know that there are lakes on islands in lakes? And even more, islands in lakes on islands in lakes?Roger Dickey knew this... And he had a quest, to find the elusive fourth order island!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.

A lot of people are held up as geniuses (genii?)... But most of them are just pretty smart and pretty lucky. Paul Erdős though, he was something different.Rod tells Will his 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.

As of recording on the 21 August 2020, some 566 have been to space. 345 have been American, 121 Russian Soviet. 65 have been women... And at least 7 have been smugglers. Will tells Rod the story of the secret things people have brought into space!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.

Should you 'diet' to reduce your carbon impact? In this episode we discuss the carbon diet with Jo Clay, candidate for the Greens Party here in the current Australian Capital Territory election!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.

***Warning, there is a *lot* of swearing in this episode!***Listener, have you always wanted to have a swear word for those people who aren't impressed by amazing things? Well, Rod's got a swear word for you! In this episode, Rod tells Will about the history and science of swearing!***Second warning, there is a *lot* of swearing in this episode!***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.

For a few short months between 1783 and 1785, France went absolutely nuts for balloons. In this episode, Will tells Rod the origin and development of balloonomania!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.

Early scientific labs had a fairly different understanding of workplace health and safety to what we might see in labs today. In this episode, Rod tells Will some of the horror stories of the early work on x-rays!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.

No one likes doing paperwork. Even worse when that paperwork is about your own death... Today Will is joined by Dr Arnagretta Hunter to tell Rod the history - and the future - of the death certificate!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, joined today by Dr Arnagretta Hunter. The Wholesome Show is 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 Cold War, Soviet scientists apparently developed an explosive so potent it could be used to make nuclear fusion bombs the size of a baseball.But was it real?Rod tells Will the story of Red Mercury!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, and is proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

'Stockholm Syndrome' is a very widely used term, used to describe supposed feelings of affection and love held for a captor by a hostage...But when you dig a little deeper, the story turns into something a little bit different.Will tells Rod the story of Stockholm Syndrome!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, proudly supported by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What would you trade to never get cancer?Well, that's not a real question, because it's not really an option. But there are a group of people with one hell of a side benefit...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.

It's no secret listener, we're part of perhaps the most problematic demographic - white middle aged podcasting academics. And, quite legitimately, we're being asked to do better.So - this is us, going a little bit meta and drawing on the advice of Prof Jasmine Roberts of Ohio State University to try to explore what we can do to help make a better world.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. Prof Jasmine Roberts' White Academia: Do Better is available at https://medium.com/the-faculty/white-academia-do-better-fa96cede1fc5See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ok, it's the Cold War in America, and you're building nuclear everything - nuclear ships, nuclear subs, nuclear aeroplanes! But what if there's an oopsie - how do you clean it up? With the biggest robot ever made of course!Rod tells Will the story of the Beetle, the biggest robot ever made!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.

Ever since people have tried to make our world just a tiny bit healthier - you know, to not be coated in open sewage - idiot libertarians have screamed that it's their freedom to be covered in shit.In this episode, Will hosts Rod and special guest Professor Penny Hawe in a special quiz on the history of the nanny state critique!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, joined today by Professor Penny Hawe! Proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You can be, on the outside, a normal - even successful - person, but still hold a core of quackery on the inside.Alfred Lawson was one such person.A successful journalist, aircraft manufacturer and pilot - and the first person to commute by plane - Lawson also had some intensely weird Ideas about how the world works. Rod tells Will his 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.

Henry Cotton had some interesting ideas about the causes of psychiatric disorders. The problem wasn't the ideas, it was the dogged pursuit of following them through..The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, joined today by Dr Madeleine Hinwood! Proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nobody likes being afraid - but even so, fear is a pretty useful emotion. It protects us from tigers and bad parties and what not. But what if you don't experience it?Rod tells Will the story of S. M., the woman who feels no fear!The Wholesome Show is made by 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.

For thousands of years smallpox was the worst virus in the world. It killed more people than any other disease - perhaps as many as half a billion in the 20th Century alone.But then, following a concerted global effort of vaccination, we wiped it out - the only disease threatening humans to have been fully eradicated.Will tells Rod how this happened!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.

In the 18th Century the people of Europe had heard of Asia - but they didn't know much about it. And so to fill the information vacuum, some enterprising folk... filled the gap with bullshit. The champion of this was George Psalmanazar... Rod tells Will his 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.

While we're living through a pandemic, we're also in the midst of a tsunami of misinformation, a plague of snake oil, a veritable shit-storm of bad communication!And we wanted to document it. So today, Will tells Rod - and special guest Darren Saunders - all about some of the awful people spreading awful lies in this Covid-19 world!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're all told as kids to chew our food properly - but people don't usually go as far as The Great Masticator, Horace Fletcher. As Fletcher held it, food should be chewed until liquefied before swallowing. "Nature will castigate those who don't masticate."Rod tells Will all about him!The Wholesome Show is made by Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, and proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1918-1919, the Spanish Flu killed perhaps as many as 100 million people. More than anything else ever. But for decades, we barely spoke about it - in fact it was called the forgotten pandemic. Will tells Rod all about it!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.

The internet, you may be shocked to learn, is full of lies - half truths, fraud, fakery! Some of the lying may in fact be diagnosable... Rod tells Will about Munchausen's syndrome, Munchausen's by proxy, and Munchausen's by Internet! This is our first social distancing podcast, bear with us while we polish our tech :)The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pandemics suck. You know that. You also know that panic buying sucks, particularly when everyone is buying your delicious brand of muesli. But what causes it? Will tells Rod a little about the history and science of panic buying!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 - take care everybody!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Nobel Prizes are really pretty famous. But what about the guy who set them up? Rod tells Will the story of Alfred Nobel!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.

In 1996 the US Air Force released an 'ideas paper' exploring how "US aerospace forces can ‘own the weather’ by capitalising on emerging technologies and focusing development of those technologies to war-fighting applications."In short, they were looking at making weather a weapon against their enemies!Will tells Rod about the history behind this idea...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 1966 a group of US Army scientists wanted to find out just how vulnerable the New York Subway system was to a biological attack.The good news? They found it was... pretty vulnerable.The bad news? The way they found this out was... pretty dodgy.Will tells Rod and Hans all about it!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, joined today by Dr Hans Thulstrup, and proudly presented by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kant holds that the fundamental principle of our moral duties is a categorical imperative. For people who listen to Heavy Metal, that means categorising music with the most awesome array of sub-categories you can imagine!Rod tells Will (and Hans!) all about the science of Heavy Metal!The Wholesome Show is Rod Lamberts and Will Grant, joined today by Hans Thulstrup! Proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's a sad fact of humanity that people who don't know much about something wildly over estimate how good they are at that thing. Heard about Iran's nuclear program? Then you're basically an expert. Played a video game with a helicopter? You're basically a pilot.This phenomenon is known as the Dunning-Kruger effect.But it's not just a reason we should calm down our self-estimation, it has real world consequences. Rod tells Will more!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.

Can an enslaved person suffering a terrible condition consent to an experimental medical procedure?The short answer is no! The long answer is still no, but with a side order of 'it's complicated'. But can the rest of society benefit?Will tells Rod about the difficult legacy of J Marion Sims!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.

Listener you knew it was coming - if you were going to draw a Venn diagram of Wholesome Show topics (juvenile and science being the key circles), then poo transplants would sit right in the middle!So this episode, Rod tells Will the history and science of Faecal Microbiota Transplants!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 sugar is bad for our teeth.But... how did we come to know that?Rod tells Will the story of the Vipeholm Hospital sugar experiments!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.

What's a pedoscope, and why were they banned? Will tells Rod the weird story of this weird invention from the dark ages of the 20th Century...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.

Listener, are you the type to delay gratification? To study for your test now, and save the night of partying till afterwards? To save your pennies for a sensible purchase only when you have the money? To avoid eating one marshmallow now, to get two later? Or do you need what you need/want right now, and consequences be damned?Either is fine, we're not judging. But for years, perhaps the most famous experiment in cognitive psychology has...Will tells Rod and Hannah the story of the weird marshmallow experiment!The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, joined today by Hannah Carle! We're proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey listener, what are you going to do with your body when you die? Like most sensible people, you're going to get turned into a diamond and fired into the sun (of course!) - but if that's not quite for you, what's an environmentally and socially responsible solution for your mortal remains?Rod tells Will and Hannah about the science and politics of Big Corpse! The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, joined today by Hannah Carle and proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the early 1960s a team of Harvard researchers... got high. All good, each to their own!But because they were researchers, they decided to become a little more rigorous on what happens when you take psychedelic drugs. Will tells Rod the story of the Harvard Psilocybin Project!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.

In 1957 a stray dog was rescued from the streets of Moscow - and then strapped to the top of a rocket and sent into space! She died :(But she paved the way for the rest of us to reach the stars, so that's nice!Hannah Carle joins the Wholesome Show today to tell Rod and Will about the animals who've gone to space!The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, joined today by Hannah Carle from ANU's Research School of Biology! Proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Supply chain logistics is one of the fastest growing and most innovative industries in the world. In shipping companies around the world scientists and engineers are working on robot factories and drone delivery and ways to get your packages to you faster and faster.And the drug industry is keen on this too! Rod tells Will about the innovative ways drug barons are shipping drugs around the world...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 late 19th century Marie and Pierre Curie conducted some groundbreaking work on radioactivity. Their results were exciting - so exciting, we went around putting radioactive ingredients in everything!Will tells Rod the story of radioactive snake oil!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.