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In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we skip the quick fact because this one took forever to research and put together and I ran out of time. Instead we jump right into the main topic which is a very real phenomenon that popped up off and on for several hundred years called Dance Mania or St. Vitus’ Dance. While it might sound like a bit of a joke, it was surprisingly deadly at times and had a fascinating cure. We then look at the probable cause of this phenomenon, along with many other similar ones, including a couple in modern times, that all seem to have the same root. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The likes of renowned aerospace engineer Burt Rutan’s Voyager aircraft, which successfully completed the world’s first nonstop, unrefueled aerial circumnavigation of the globe in December of 1986 in flight for a little over 9 days, or Rutan’s Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer which did the same thing in 2005 in just 2 days and 19 hours, are feats that make the news rounds the world over. However, as impressive as these pioneering flights were, they pale in comparison to the true record for aerial endurance that the media seems to have forgotten, set all the way back in 1958, not using any specially designed, ultra engineered, high tech plane, but a simple Cessna 172, which the pilots of managed to keep in the air, and lived in, for an astounding 64 days, 22 hours, and 19 minutes without ever touching the ground once. So how did they manage this in a plane that normally only has an endurance of 4-5 hours? Well put your tray tables and seatbacks in their upright position, as we dive into the incredible tale of Robert Timm, John Cook, and the record-breaking flight of the Hacienda. Author: Gilles Messier Host/Editor: Daven Hiskey Producer: Samuel Avila Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ever wonder how far back in time you could go and still talk to people effectively? Well, wonder no more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the 1990 sci-fi comedy sequel Back to the Future Part III, intrepid time travelling 80’s duo Marty McFly and Dr. Emmett Brown find themselves trapped in Hill Valley, California, back in the year 1885. With their DeLorean time machine out of gas and it being, well, 1885, Doc and Marty are forced to take creative measures to accelerate their ride up to the required 88 miles per hour and get back to the future: namely, pushing the car ahead of a steam train as it careens towards a half-finished bridge because what could go wrong? While in our previous video Why the Heck Couldn’t Doc Brown Have Just Made Gasoline in Back to the Future III?, we examined whether the Doc could have devised a less convoluted means of getting home, including just, you know, putting gas in the tank - check that video out after this one if you haven’t already, link below - intrepid viewers might also noticed a number of impressive gizmos in Doc’s blacksmith shop, including perhaps the most in your face one in his noisy and complex working ice machine he used to make ice for his tea. But could Doc Brown actually have actually made ice artificially in the summer heat of California using 1885 technology and the tools and materials he had on hand in the region. Well, put on some colorful cowboy gear and sneakers as we look into the surprising number of ways the ancients used to make ice, the eventual death grip Big Ice had on the government- not even joking, how they lost that grip thanks to new technologies Koolaid-Manning their way through that corruption wall, and whether Doc Brown could have recreated these technologies with what he had available and as the machines was depicted to work in the film. And finally in the Bonus Fact, we are going to look at how surprisingly long it took for air conditioners to become a thing long after the technology was perfected, and how, funny enough, Hollywood accidentallied its way into being the reason people finally decided cool air on a hot sweltering day was kind of nice… So let’s dive into it all shall we? And we begin with the genius of the ancients. If you liked this video, you might also enjoy: Why the Heck Couldn't Doc Brown Have Just Made Gasoline in Back to the Future III? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRYdebc_NAo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today's compilation episode we're looking at a handful of Hollywood vs Reality topics like the bizarre story behind "The Room", is genuine multiple personality disorder an actual thing or just a hollywood invention. The real life expendables, do blind people actually hear better than sighted people, were nunchucks ever actually used in combat, and the story of the very real knight Ulrich Von Lichtenstein. 00:00 The Bizarre Story Behind "The Room" 13:54 Is Genuine Multiple Personality Disorder an Actual Thing? Or Just a Hollywood Invention for Movies? 35:24 The Real-Life Expendables 46:29 Do Blind People Actually Hear Better Than Sighted People or is This Just a Hollywood Myth 59:05 Were Nunchucks Ever Actually Used in Combat or are They Primarily a Hollywood Thing? 01:08:52 A Knight's Tale- The Real Life Ulrich Von Liechtenstein Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

⁠⁠In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start by looking at whether or not male humans can get pregnant and carry a baby to full term naturally. (Spoiler- yes and yes. And even breastfeed too! It doesn’t even require fancy science or advanced medical techniques.) Moving on to the meat of today’s episode, we jump into a variety of bizarre animal mating practices, starting with the somewhat humorous mating practices of the giraffe, looking at how porcupines mate without serious injury, banana slugs, the evil that is the male duck, and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Following December 7, 1941 surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, which finally drew the United States into the Second World War, the attack’s architect, Imperial Japanese Navy Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, infamously lamented that: “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” While in reality Yamamoto likely never said this, the sentiment proved shockingly prophetic, for almost overnight the outraged nation shifted its entire economy towards a singular goal: crush the Axis Powers. Factories which had once produced household goods like sewing machines, typewriters, and automobiles were converted over to churning out rifles, helmets, tanks, jeeps, aircraft, and other vital war weapons by the hundreds of thousands, while a huge force of non-combatant civilians - including record numbers of women - were hired to staff them. The result was a nigh-unstoppable “Arsenal of Democracy” that ultimately swamped the wartime economies of Germany, Italy, and Japan and guaranteed Allied victory. But one American wartime factory stood out among the rest: Air Force Plant 31 in Ypsilanti (ip-si-lan-tee) Township, Michigan - better known as Willow Run. At peak capacity in April 1944, a complete B-24 Liberator heavy bomber was rolling out this facility’s doors every single hour - a staggering feat of industrial production that has yet to be matched. This is the story of the greatest factory ever built. Author: Gilles Messier Host/Editor/Pilot: Daven Hiskey Producer: Samuel Avila Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

According to the Aircraft Crashes Record Office in Geneva, between 1940 and 2008 there were 157 people who fell out of planes without a parachute during a crash and lived to tell about it. A full 42 of those falls occurred at heights over 10,000 feet (above 3,000 meters), such as the tale of 17 year old Juliane Koepcke who not only survived an approximately 10,000 foot free fall, but also a subsequent 10 day trek alone through the Peruvian rain forest with no real supplies other than a little bag of candy. Now, while you might think surely nothing like that could ever happen to you, it turns out whether falling from 30,000 feet or a much more common 30, the same basic strategies apply. And for reference here, approximately 30 feet or about 9 meters is around the height at which you begin to be more likely to die from your injuries than survive. At heights as little as about 80 feet, only about 1 in 10 people survive and it pretty much all goes to hell from there. So what can you do to increase your chances of survival if you ever find yourself doing your best impression of Icarus? Authors: Karl Smallwood and Daven Hiskey Producer: Samuel Avila Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It is one of the most iconic cinematic weapons in history, on par with James Bond’s Walther PPK, Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber, and Indiana Jones’s bullwhip. Strap it to your back, and you instantly become an unstoppable one-man army, a bullet hose spitting hot lead at 6,000 rounds per minute and turning dense jungle into leaf mulch, cars into twisted scrap metal, and your enemies into piles of hamburger meat. It is, of course, the M134 Minigun AKA “Old Painless”, the blisteringly fast rotary-barrel machine gun wielded by the likes of Jesse “The Body” Ventura in Predator, Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2: Judgement Day, and Keanu Reeves in The Matrix. Unlike many other movie weapons, “Ol’ Painless” seems remarkably plausible, but does such a weapon really exist, and could you wield it the way it’s almost always shown in movies? Well, strap on your bullet proof vest, as we dive into how humanity went from the Gatling Gun, to the incredible M61 Vulcan which, in turn, birthed one of cinema’s most badass, and misunderstood, weapons. Author: Gilles Messier Host/Editor: Daven Hiskey Producer: Samuel Avila 0:00 Intro 1:06 Inventing the Gatling Gun 5:31 How Automatic Firearms Work and Aviation 15:49 Project Vulcan 19:10 The Incredible M134 "Minigun" 25:25 So, Is the “Ol’ Painless” Version of the Minigun From Movies Real? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today's compilation episode, we're looking at the greatest naval espionage mission in history, that time the moon nearly started World War 3, WTF is up with embalming communists and many other fascinating cold war stories. 0:00 Silent Seas: The Top Secret, Greatest Cold War Naval Espionage Mission 9:54 That Time the Moon Nearly Started World War 3 (and Other Silly Cold War Shenanigans) 19:09 Death by Blue Peacock: Britain’s Bizarre and Deadly Cold War “Rainbow Codes” 29:17 The Incredible Real Life Cold War Bond Villain Ice Lair 52:50 The Cold War's Most Pathetically Hilarious Air Battle 1:00:01 WTF is Up with Embalming and Displaying Communists? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Apologies for my audio quality in this one. Adobe kept crashing on me, so we had to use the audio Simon was receiving which isn’t ideal. Also a bit under the weather and lost my voice before recording, so maybe for the best that I wasn’t coming through in pristine quality. Next episode will sound much, much better! In any event, in this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start by looking at the real story behind the song In the Air Tonight. Moving on to the meat of today’s episode, we jump into the fascinating story of one Willie Francis, a young man convicted for murder, executed, then executed again about a year later, despite the fact that it would very much seem as if he was innocent the whole time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On September 15, 1916, German troops defending towns in France’s Somme Valley heard a strange new sound above the usual boom of artillery and crack of rifle and machine gun fire: a deep, throaty rumbling, accompanied by a high-pitched metallic squeaking. Peering over the parapets of their trenches, they gasped as they beheld a terrifying sight: a line of giant, armour-plated vehicles, rolling on caterpillar treads and bristling with guns, heading straight for them. The tank had arrived on the battlefield. While the results of history’s first armoured assault were mixed, with nearly two-thirds of the British Mark I tanks deployed that day breaking down or getting stuck before they could reach their objectives, the psychological impact of the new vehicle was undeniable. By the end of the war, the technology had been greatly improved, with tanks playing a key role in the final Entente victories leading up to the Armistice. The tank soon became an integral part of modern warfare, with any nation unable to field armoured vehicles finding itself at a significant disadvantage. But tanks require a lot of money and industrial capacity to develop and mass-produce - resources many nations simply do not possess. Take New Zealand, which at the outbreak of the Second World War found itself cut off from outside sources of military equipment and facing imminent invasion by the Japanese. But where there’s a will, there’s a way, and determined to defend their islands, whatever the cost may be, the enterprising Kiwis cobbled together a home-grown armoured fighting vehicle which, while admittedly resourceful, was also hilariously inept, and still ranks as perhaps the worst tank ever built. This is the story of the Bob Semple Tank. Author: Gilles Messier Host/Editor: Daven Hiskey Producer: Caden Nielsen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Set it down and it flows like a liquid. Pull it slowly and it stretches like rubber. Hit it with a hammer and it shatters like glass. Throw it on the ground and it bounces higher than a rubber ball. It can help heal injuries, stabilize wobbly furniture, clean up dust and pet hair, and lift newsprint off the page, allowing comic-strip characters to be stretched into amusing shapes. It is on permanent display in the Smithsonian Museum and has even flown to the moon and back. It is, of course, that most classic and versatile of toys: the weird and wacky goo known as Silly Putty. For nearly eight decades, this strange rubbery substance in the plastic egg has enchanted children and adults the world over, finding a myriad of applications both amusing and practical. Yet like many other classic toys like the Slinky, Super Soaker, and Play-Doh, Silly Putty owes its existence and enduring popularity to an unlikely accident - and not a bit of clever marketing. This is the stretchy, bouncy, wacky history of one of the world’s favourite playthings. Author: Gilles Messier Host/Editor: Daven Hiskey Producer: Samuel Avila Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As most know, on January 27, 1967, the Apollo Program, the United States’ first effort to land a man on the moon, was rocked by a horrific tragedy. During a “plugs-out” ground test of the brand-new Block 1 Apollo spacecraft, an electrical fault sparked a fire in the capsule. Fuelled by the pure oxygen environment in the cabin, the blaze spread rapidly, taking the lives of crew members Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee. The Apollo 1 fire halted the nascent lunar program dead in its tracks, forcing NASA to step back, reevaluate its equipment and procedures, and make hundreds of changes to the Apollo spacecraft, spacesuits, and other systems. It was not until October 11, 1968 - 21 months after the disaster - that Apollo 7, just 7, not 2, finally blasted off, carrying astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn Eisle, and Walt Cunningham into low earth orbit. The mission was a success, proving the reliability of the redesigned Block II spacecraft and paving the way for more daring and historic missions: Apollo 8, the first to take men round the moon; Apollo 9, the first to test the Apollo Lunar Module in space; Apollo 10, a full dress rehearsal for the lunar landing; Apollo 11, the first to land men on the surface of the moon; and Apollos 12-17, which with one infamous exception all succeeded in landing men on the moon and exploring large areas of our closest celestial neighbour. And at this point you may not be wondering- why did the mission numbers skip directly from 1 to 7? What happened to Apollos 2-6? Well, here now is the story of the forgotten Apollo missions, and the valuable modifications they contributed to the program and helping humans set foot on the moon. Along the way we’re also going to be covering how before America decided to step foot on the moon, the initial plan was, instead, to blow it up because, sure, why not? As well as just what a nuclear explosion would look like on the moon, and how effective a nuclear bomb would be as a weapon in space, which is probably very different than what you might think on both of those. More on all that later. Author: Gilles Messier Host/Editor: Daven Hiskey Producer: Samuel Avila 0:00 Intro 3:41 The Pre-Apollo 1 Testing and Naming Scheme and Apollo 1-3 22:44 Why They Re-Named the Apollo Missions and Apollo 4 27:11 Apollo 5 29:24 Apollo 6 34:33 Carl Sagan and The United States' Plan to Nuke the Moon 36:32 What Would a Nuclear Explosion Look Like on the Moon? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the episode today, we're going over a variety of reasons why the past was the worst and, while the world is far from perfect and MANY things to still improve upon, we are all lucky to be alive right now. And anyone who says otherwise should be smacked upside the head with a history book repeatedly until they see the error in their thinking. ;-) 0:00 That Time the U.S. Government Intentionally Poisoned and Killed Over 10,000 of Its Citizens 28:18 That Time the US Government Teamed Up with the Mafia to Defeat the Nazis 40:33 The Poison Squad – The Men Who Volunteered to Let the Government Poison Them 52:32 Forgotten History: The M247 Sergeant York and Its Propensity to Lock Onto Latrines Instead of Enemy Aircraft 1:04:07 Forgotten History: Walter Hunt and the Safety Pin 1:13:44 Alexander Graham Bell’s Forgotten Greatest Invention 1:19:51 The Largely Forgotten Airship Disaster That Helped Kill These Cruise Ships of the Sky 1:40:17 The Forgotten Plague During Prohibition 1:46:55 Forgotten History- The Battleship Built in Union Square 1:58:19 The Obscenely Successful Obsolete Sailing Ship and Its Daring Captain Who Terrorized the High Seas During WWI Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices