Let's Learn Everything!

Maximum Fun

Science communicators Ella Hubber, Tom Lum, and Caroline Roper learn about anything and everything interesting! Each episode they teach each other about a science topic, and learn about a miscellaneous topic. Whether it's bugs on drugs, temporal illusions, or fanfiction, there's so much out there, so let's learn everything! Join our Discord, email us, and follow us everywhere at www.LetsLearnEverything.com

  1. 6 DAYS AGO

    93: Unsolved Math Problems & Video Game Controllers w/ Ellen Weatherford

    Wait... ELLA is doing a math topic?? Not only that but she finds the beauty in searching for answers among the toughest math problems. Then, friend of the show Ellen Weatherford takes us through a tour of video game controllers. My favorite is the- wait how did we end up talking about World War 2?? Images we Talk About: Tesseract Gif Tennis for Two Controllers Magnavox Odyssey Game.com Timestamps: (00:00:00) Intro (00:03:05) Unsolved Math Problems (00:54:47) Video Game Controllers (01:46:42) Outro Support us with a Max Fun Membership! Join our Discord! We also learn about:  Today Caroline is played by Tom and Tom is played by Ellen, I’ll fall on the bad british accent sword for our guests, Ellen speed runs failing math, famous bad lawyer Fermat, I’m learning about math?? from Ella??? Ellen’s Last Theorem: lentil’s cure cancer, “mathematics like any science requires advancements and research and discovery”, basic math starts as early as mesopotamia, a brief history of mathematics, I gotta make math to describe this apple, math begets math, new ways to solve old problems, is this problem hard or will it take thousands of years to solve, the oldest unsolved math problem is 2000 years old, you’re scientifically wrong that all numbers are perfect, we know of 52 perfect numbers, merseene primes and perfect numbers, we don’t know if odd perfect numbers exist, Hilbert’s 23 unsolved math problems, it’s not the answers to the questions - its the tools built to solve them, new list just dropped - the millenium prize problems, the million dollar prize doesn’t account for inflation, the power of an interesting question, multidimensional play-doh, bumblebee - the tesseract! the poincare conjecture had only not been solved in the third dimension, perelman turns down the fields medal, they can offer a million cause if you solve it you’re only thinking about play-doh and 10 dimensions, is the mellenium prize problematic? eh, after researching a lot… the Riemann hypothesis actually probably won’t break cryptography, pure mathematics deserves the benefit of the doubt for its purpose, go forth with Ella’s blessing, new Ella loves math and libertarianism, I don’t know if the convergent evolution argument for controllers holds up in court, Ellen’s radical definition of a game, I don’t think the gate should be closed but don’t push me through it, the murky search for the first video game, Birdy the Brain - the Tic Tac Toe machine, controllers transmit human intention into a computer, some of the first controllers used dials, I was going to say the manhattan project as a joke, a brief and unexpected nuclear disarment detour, Higinbotham doesn’t like being remembered for tennis for two, Space War! the Magnavox Odyssey, some controllers were tabletop not handheld, Atari stole pong, the anatomy of a controller, stolen valor for logitech controllers piloting submarines, kids and parents learning to use controllers, Ella thought RT and RB meant top and bottom, rumble is purely for experience not input, the game.com had the first touch screen, a urinal controlled driving game, interviewing resident elderly expert Donna Jones. Sources: MacTutor: Pierre Fermat Biography Wiki: Fermat's Last Theorem MacTutor: History of Mathematics Simon Fraser University: A Brief History of Mathematics Medium:The Oldest Unsolved Problem in Math Pillars Taylor University: Odd Perfect Numbers Royal Society: David Hilbert Simons Foundation: Hilbert’s Problems Clay Institute: The Millennium Prize Problems Nature News: Maths 'Nobel' Prize Declined By Russian recluse Anatoly Vershik: Thoughts on the Clay Millennium Prizes BBC In Our Time: The Poincare Conjecture Medium: The Poincaré Conjecture [BBC News: Russian Maths Genius Perelman Urged to Take $1m Prize](BBC News - Russian maths genius Perelman urged to take $1m prize) Clay Mathematics Institute: Riemann Hypothesis --- Probably the Oldest Interactive Electronic Game - Jeremy Norman’s History of Information “Bertie the Brain Still Lives” - Popular Mechanics “Tennis for Two – A Pioneer in the Video Game Industry” - GameSpeak Mag “Who was Willy Higinbotham?” - Federation of American Scientists “Spacewar!” - Museum of Play “The Magnavox Odyssey: The Forgotten Pioneer of Gaming Consoles” - Slashgear Bad Game Hall of Fame “Place to pee: new Belgian urinal-based video game” - Ars Technica “Sega Begins Sales of Urine-Powered 'Toylet' Videogame” - Wired Perifit Care, Original Kegel Exerciser

    1h 54m

  2. 11 SEPT

    92: The Chemistry of Computers & The Great Moon Hoax of 1835

    What does chemistry have to do with computers? Well it might just be the best way to understand what's actually going on inside a CPU! And how could there have been a moon hoax back in 1835? Well it involves cosmic pluralism and Edgar Allen Poe so buckle up! Images we Talk About: Vaccuum Tubes in Computers The First Integrated Circuit Another early Integrated Circuit Prototype People Etching a Circuit Mask TED How are Microchips Made Video Etching from the Great Moon Hoax Timestamps: (00:00:00) Intro (00:02:23) The Chemistry of Computers (01:04:27) The Great Moon Hoax of 1835 (01:49:15) Outro Support us with a Max Fun Membership! Join our Discord! We also learn about:  BOOOO, a first time interview for this podcast, tom tries to define an integrated circuit, semiconductors, being mid at conducting is vital, silicon silica and silicone, quartz is one of the most abundant minerals and it’s just silica, the metalloids, transistors are so important but so vague, Caroline and Ella were not expecting a trans rights joke, for once of your jokes deserved more appreciation, the quest to make the smallest switch, semiconductors or on the edge of flipping between conductive or not, vacuum bulbs, The Tyranny of Numbers, photo-lithography, etching shrinking then stenciling a circuit, then computers would help make computers, Moore’s predictions of the future of computing, wait did you just explain Moore’s Law? my new graphics card comes with a new unified theory of physics, transistors are now the width of a few strands of DNA, quantum troubles, relying on moor’s law can stifly creativity, but also making transistor’s smaller is interesting science! Ella & Caroline never thought they’d understand computers like this, it’s almost like they’re going to announce they’re discovering aliens, cosmic pluralism, Sir William Herschel discovered Tom’s Anus, we were in a way disproving life on other planets, Gruithuisen sees roads on the moon, “the power of imagination on the man is large”, alien theories sold papers, Edgar Allen Poe’s SciCom satire, quoth the lunarian - nevermore, the daily drops escalated the and on the fifth day we got moon racism, the etchings of lunar life, lets get bibles and colonialism on the moon baby, Richard Adams Locke is the true author, Herschel was on a research trip while this was going down, it sounds like we’re the perfect team for a hoax, aside from being a critique of science communication it also made bank and made the sun the most bought newspaper in the world, Locke’s non denial denial, selling property on the moon, this changed journalistic standards, the occasional hoax actually isn’t okay but fine, Herschel actually thinks it’s hilarious, Locke X Poe collab balloon hoax, this sparked a trend of science fiction. Sources: Cornell History of Semiconductors Euro Physics News 100 Years of Semiconductor Science Royal Society of Chemistry on Silicon PBS History of Transistors PBS Invention of the Integrated Circuit IEEE Historhy of the Integrated Circuit Moore's Original Paper: Cramming more Components onto Integrated Circuits UPenn: Is Moore's Law Really Dead? MIT: The Death of Moore's Law --- Wiki: Lunar Pareidolia  Book- The Moon in the Greek and Roman Imagination Wiki- Anaxagoras  Futurism: Franz von Paula Gruithuisen's Venus Science Fiction Smithsonian Blog- The Great Moon Hoax Library of Congress: Blogs  Paper- The "Great Moon Hoax" of 1835 Linda Hall Library: Richard Adams Locke Britannica: The Great Moon Hoax of 1835 Library of Congress: Blogs : Belief, Legend, and the Great Moon Hoax Library of Congress: The Sun (New York) 1833-1916 Internet Archive: Great Moon Hoax Papers Edgar Allen Poe Society: Richard Adams Locke

    1h 55m

  3. 28 AUG

    91: Lauren Gawne, Is Pointing Rude, and Gestures Studies

    Is pointing rude? I'm sure it's a simple question with a simple answer that won't completely break our brains in rethinking all we take for granted about gesture. Also, what is Lauren’s holy grail lost media of gesture studies? Timestamps: (00:00:00) Intro (00:05:01) Is Pointing Rude? (00:48:11) Questions for Lauren (01:25:26) Outro Support us with a Max Fun Membership! Join our Discord! We also learn about:  Diverse but incredibly niche interests is the sweet spot, studying the holes in emoji, Tom wasn’t a rude pointer child like Ella, the Disney point, when you point you don’t direct to the end of your finger - you psychically project forward, dogs and horses are great points - cats not so much, we are the only primate that points in the wild, you likely pointed before you spoke, ITS CALLED THE INDEX FINGER BECAUSE IT POINTS LIKE AN INDEX, non index pointing, “that is one lens through which we could consider this”, lip pointing in Encanto, travel guides will simplify to pointing is rude because it’s complex and nuanced where it’s rude, we haven’t even gotten to rainbows, taboos for pointing at specific things, who dude watch where you’re pointing it’s threatening, what if hypothetically a host just went to japan and pointed a lot, Japan is often on the linguistics bingo card, pointing is the pronoun system in ASL, spacial pronoun tracking, you can be a better pointer than someone, gesture and speech have different strengths, Tom’s gestures are more honest than his words to his cohosts, pointing was some of the earliest emoji, “medieval illuminated manuscript marginalia creators would be disappointed with you Ella”, the finger pointing came before the arrow, “we had hands before we had writing”, gesture studies is still new and very interdisciplinary, the way you study gesture is every way, you gesture bigger in loud environments, computers are good at reading hands but not hands in context, the only thing Tom can correct Lauren on is that it was Just Dance not DDR, gesture is ephemeral to study, a huge reason we have gesture study now is video exists, the holy grail lost tapes of gesture, using gesture studies to prove the nazis wrong, are gestures are both for you and the person you’re talking to, I’m not analyzing your gestures if what you’re saying is interesting, metaphorical gesture space, we move ideas around like little apples, you’ll never be able to watch a ted talk again, the archery V myth, exploiting the ambiguity of gesture, we’ve been gesturing with communicating for so long and only reading and writing so recently - so of course we yearn for emoji, “we’re adding the body straight back in the moment we get the chance to”, the rate of literacy is weird, Lauren insisted no emotion on the head shake emoji because it’s not universally negative, sign language has gesture, for the Aymara language the future is behind you - i cant see whats going to happen, iconic resources, cognitive linguistics is obsessed with our meat puppets, we all experience the same gravity and that influences how we think, part of the joy is being the meat puppet.

    1h 29m

  4. 14 AUG

    90: Octopuses & The Paralympics

    How strange are octopuses really? We're going to be debunking some claims, then rebunking them with some real, amazing facts about our fellow earthlings. And what the history of the paralympics? What can we learn from its attempts and its failures and its importance in sports? See Tom's Science Game Show in NYC! Things we Talk About: Octopus Virus Diagram Snail Nervous System Diagram Octopus Maze Image Video of Octopus Opening a Jar Video of Octopus Camouflage Paralympics Ad Timestamps: (00:00:00) Intro (00:02:56) Octopuses (00:55:08) The Paralympics (01:41:44) Outro Support us with a Max Fun Membership! Join our Discord! We also learn about: Censoring octopussy, 3 science communicators get rabid over a dubious study, octopi are so smart they could only have come about from fertilized eggs aboard an asteroid, cephalopods evolved a central nervous system independently with ganglia, the “head” of an octopus is where there other organs are, octopi don't have 5 brains but they do have a lot of distributed neurons, each sucker is a finger-nose-tongue that can make decisions on its own, octopi have terrible hand eye coordination but can learn to be better at it, Ella thinks “man this would be a great topic for the podcast”, octopi are aliens in the metaphorical sense - and maybe it’s a bad metaphor, I’m not a playing I’m developing flexible behavioral strategies, octopuses play pully downy rather than keepy uppy, the criteria of play, we thought Ella was going to compliment Tom but of course that wasn’t it, octopus cities have populations between 2 and 11, Ella’s gerrymandering octopus city, its more about shared resources and cheaper rent than grand designs, octopus color changing is way more than just pixel cells, but… octopuses are colorblind, their sucker opsins sense color and send directly to chromatophores, octopuses can know a color without seeing it, these are amazing earthling behaviors, Ella was looking for a simple un-nuanced not heavy misc topic, the first Stoke Manderville games, fuck you we’re doing our games on the same day, the organizer of that first game had uhhhhh bad views on disabled people, the Paralypics grew really fast because there was a huge demand for it, Ella loves murderball, goalball and boccia are Paralympic unique sports, the classification system of the Paralympics, the work that goes into the classification system and the flaws and harms it can sometimes have on the athletes, as human as it is to run fast it’s human to cheat, the Spanish ID baseball scandal halted ID sports for 10 years, how the Paralympics and the public views the Paralympians, Ella unfortunately doesn’t solve ableism by the end of the topic, I hear enough of Tom on the show already. Sources: The Infamous Octopuses from Space Paper Live Science: Octopi are Not Aliens SciAm: Are Octopuses Smart? Octopus Neuroecology How Octopuses Control their Body Discover Mag: Octopus Intelligence The Amazing Octopus Maze Study OPB: Octopus Intelligence Convergent Evolution of Brains Experimental Evidence for Spatial Learning in Octopuses SciAm: The Mind of an Octopus Octopus Problem Solving Play in Octopuses Octopus City Study BBC: Octopus City Neural Control of Cephalopod Camouflage Octopus Camouflag Study Octopus Aging and Evolution Paper --- Sage: Deaf History of Sport Olympedia: George Eyser Wiki: George Eyser Olympics: Oliver Halassy  Paralympic.org: History  International Wheelchair & Amputee Sports Federation: Paralympic Games 1960 - 1992 Paralympic.org: Paralympic Games BBC: Stoke Mandeville Games Paralympic.org: Who We Are Paralympic.org: Paris 2024 Sports Washington Post: Wheelchair Rugby  Top End Sports: Discountinued Paralympic Sports SBS News: Sports that Don't Have an Olympic Equivalent Olmypics: Boccia Paralympic.org: Classification BBC Inside Science: Classification BAA.org: Parathletics Divisions BBC: Tully Kearney  Paralympics GB: Classification BBC: Spain ID Basketball and ID in Paralympics The Conversation: When Paralympic Atheletes Fake the Extent of their Disability Vice: Spain ID Basketball (translanted) The Conversation: Why somne Disabled People are Critical of the Paralympics  Dis(Empowering) Paralymoics Histories by Danielle Peers Guardian: Channel 4 Superhuman Ad Guardian: Channel 4 New Ad Blog: Paralympics, Good or Bad for Disabled People

    1h 47m

  5. 31 JUL

    89: Understanding Blood & Peculiar Percussion

    Blood! We all have it, but how much do we know about it? And more importantly, what was the journey of understanding to get there? And just how deep can the history of these peculiar percussion instruments go? Well we'll be criss-crossing across the planet today to find out! Images we Talk About: The Quijada Son Jarocho Quijada Video The Clapper The Clapper in Performance Timestamps: (00:00:00) Intro (00:01:35) Understanding Blood (00:49:38) Peculiar Percussion (01:24:41) Outro Support us with a Max Fun Membership! Join our Discord! We also learn about: 5 liters of blood over 60,000 miles, humoral theory, phlegm - yellow bile - black bile - blood, I’m from house sanguine - our fire is strongest in our season of spring, humoral theory was around for 1500 YEARS, blood letting, a leeches detour just for Caroline, very few leeches actually suck blood, the exportation of leeches for blood letting made them endangered, we nearly killed the leeches in nearly killing us, leeches are sometimes used today after reconstructive surgery for their enzymes, Nafis’ circulatory system would not be believed for 400 YEARS, these time skips are killing me, Harvey was ALSO NOT BELIEVED, we stan Harvey cause he got witches acquitted, the government and church’s ban on blood transfusions, 1818 was the first recorded successful transfusion, 1658 Jan Swammerdam first saw “oval particles” but this was 7 years before the word “cell” was used, pop quiz on what the parts of blood do, don’t draw your blood while driving, blue and green blood in crustaceans and leeches, antigens and antibodies, “I hope this will be of some use to mankind”, sodium citrate helped blood stay fresh for transfusion, god medicine fucking rules, we reinvented humors with blood personality types, the humors are stored on the antigens obviously, “do you know what my blood type is, for no reason, I’m fine, it’s a podcast thing”, Tom has a slumdog millionaire moment because he was working on another video, there are 48 recognized blood groups each with dozens of antigens, having your own bloodtype means having your own bespoke horoscope, we’re averaging one blood group discovered a year, the journey of understanding blood is the journey of science, it’s hard to tell if rocks were used for a cup song routine, Caroline & Ella fall in love with the quijada, it’s a literal death rattle, “play my bones when I die”, make a jawbone that won’t break, the much sillier vibraslap can still sound good, vibraslap on All Along the Watchtower, the whip/clapper/slap stick, comedia dell’arte, the slap stick was a literal stick to make a slap sound, the christmas rise in slapsticks, the armenia alchemist Avedis Zildjian, since we were working with metal we went listen to this taaah tah tah taaah, a perfeclty clear cymbal is just a bell, a cymbal is crafted chaos to sound good, mmm this wine is very trash but not pingy, now we know Ella’s partner wasn’t just making shit up about cymbal sounds, confirming our sources for this wild Zildjian story, what do you think about this instrument?? I can’t stop making chocolate cymbals! Ringo made people want to drum, finding out Sabian is from the Zildjian family is like finding out Wendy’s last name is McDonald, a percussionist can literally touch history from all across the world, it’s about the reviews we don’t read. Sources: Science Museum: Blood J Thromb Haemost: Discovery of the Cardiovascular System Contagion - CURIOSity Digital Collections: Humoral Theory MedicineNet: Is Bloodletting Still Used Today? Fresh Water Habitats Press Release: Medicinal Leech Breeding The New Yorker: The History of Blood NCBI Book: The ABO Blood groups Annals of Clinical and Laboratory Science: The Discovery of Blood Cells Red Cross Blood Services: History Of Blood Transfusions 1628 To Now NCBI Bookshelf: Blood and the Cells it Contains The Conversation: Essays on blood: why do we actually have it? Blood at 70: its roots in the history of hematology and its birth PMC: A Brief History of Human Blood Groups Japan Experience: Blood Types in Japan The Conversation: More Blood Types than you Think CBS News: New Blood Type The Conversation: Gwada-negative --- Kabeleh Bah Playing the Quijada Salsa Blanca on the Quijada John Jeremiah Sullivan on the Quijada Son Jarocho Quijada Video History of the Vibraslap Boston Symphony Orchestra on Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No 2 Britannica on Slapstick's Etymology The AMNH's Slap Stick The Cymbal Test Video NPR on Zildjian's History NYT on Zildjian's History

    1h 30m

  6. 17 JUL

    88: The Evolution of the Placebo & Postage Stamp Art

    Chances are you know what a placebo is, but... how does it really work? And what can its evolution teach us about science, medicine, and ethics? And how much art can fit a tiny postage stamp? Well enough to fill a whole history of debate, drama, and ducks. Images we Talk About: Drafts of England's First Stamp Sydney Views Stamp The Train Stamp 2025 Duck Stamp Winners McBroom's Spite Duck Timestamps: (00:00:00) Intro (00:02:20) The Evolution of Placebos (00:57:13) Postage Stamp Art (01:41:17) Outro Support us with a Max Fun Membership! Join our Discord! We also learn about:  The word placebo has escaped academic containment, fake mourners saying “I will please the lord”, placebo paint on birds wings, placebo as sham, The Royal Commission on Animal Magnetism, not that kind of animal magnetism, placebo as psychology, is this going to be a running bit, defining placebo not in reference to something else, “a person’s psychological response to being treated”, things like healing through time or pressure to answer are Not placebo effects, placebo effects are tricky to study, animals can get the placebo effect, goo goo ga ga am I in the contwal gwoup? conditioning rats that a smell means reduced pain, the internal and external factors of placebo, the placebo effect is actually doing things in your brain, of course we talked about that before on episode TWENTY EIGHT, Ella loves brain action, you can consciously fail a placebo but unconsciously pass it, the nocebo effect, it may be just in your head but your head is a lot of things, the murky ethics of placebos, doctors are mostly prescribing harmless placebos when patients ask for one, Caroline & Ella’s sleeping pill and recovery position placebos, HOLY SHIT PLACEBO EVOLVED INTO CHARIZARD HELL YEAH, some placebos work when you tell people it’s a placebo, placebo pills take 2 twice daily, wait is this actually just about the importance of transparent and accessible and trustworthy medical care?? the American Philatelic Society, Tom used stamps as stickers, Ella’s friend’s giant mimic stamp, the public was aroused by post office reform - not just us! every contestant of the first stamp contest was revoked, it took 4 artists to design the first stamp, no monarch stamps unless they’re hot, the Universal Postal Union is the second oldest international organization, the absolutely HATED train stamp, philatelic propaganda, Operation Cornflakes, the Citizen Stamp Advisory Committee’s incredible process, so you’re saying we can’t make an Iraq War stamp, so you’re saying the UK can make a 9/11 stamp, stamps are of the most visible pieces of art, the duck stamp is the only art competition sponsored by the government,  the super bowl of wild life art, are you a celebrity if oyu haven’t won a DEGOT? stamp advisors with reduction glasses, duck stamp royalty, Broome’s incredible spite art, stamps didn’t have to be art - but we’re glad they are. Sources: The Americal Philatelic Society The Postal Museum London: The Penny Black Swiss National Museum: Stamps Wiki: Postage Stamp Design Linns Stamps: New South Wales Pictorial Stamp Smithsonian Postal Museum: International Philately Universal Posta Union 2011 Book: Book of History of the Postage Stamps of the United States of America US Postal Service: Creating U.S. Postage Stamps The Postal Museum London: Stamp Design WWT: Duck Stamps Scientific America: The Duck Stamp Fish and Wildlife Service: 2024 Duck Stamp Winner Million Dollar Duck Video- Taylor and McBroom Rivalry New York Times: Rising to Glory on the Wings of Ducks Print Magazine: The Extraordinary Design Journey of a Stamp—From Quasi-Secret Society to Perforated Perfection Image: The First Stamp Design Evolution Image: 1869 Pictorial Stamp- 3 Cent Train Stamp 2024 Duck Stamp Entries Image: McBroom: Comrade Tim Taylor --- Etymology of Placebos & Placebo History Placebo Review Wikipedia Placebo in History Beecher's The Powerful Placebo The Powerful Placebo: Fact or Fiction? Nature Overview: Placebo - Honesty Fakery Textbook Chapter: Placebo Analgesia in Rodents The Neuroscience of Placebo Effects Benedetti's Great 2 Placebos Experiment NPR on Prescribing Placebos Guardian on Prescribing Placebos Kaptchuk's Great Open Label Placebo Study Finniss et al. Placebo Review

    1h 47m

  7. 3 JUL

    87: Mating Rituals & True Crime

    Just how complicated can animal mating rituals be, and why did they even evolve them at all? And why is true crime Everywhere, and what can we learn from breaking down what makes it feel so icky? Also see Tom's new Game Show in NYC this Sunday! www.OurFindingsShow.com Things we Talk About: Deathwatch Beetle Red-Winged Blackbird House Finch Lesser Florican Video Dance Analysis Video 1 Dance Analysis Video 2 Cruell Step-Dames Carolina Buddies Murder Ballad Timestamps: (00:00:00) Intro (00:04:04) Mating Rituals (01:03:01) True Crime (01:46:08) Outro Support us with a Max Fun Membership! Join our Discord! We also learn about: the adorable death watch beetle, the deep sea “ah fuck it - you’re here” approach, of course the man on the podcast thinks reproduction is easy, why are people on hinge so picky, hermaphrodite sea bunnies, there’s plenty of fish in the sea and the sea is fucking huge, sexual ornaments, peacock feathers made Darwin SICK, sexual ornaments to identify you’re doing it with the right species, you can hang your sexual ornaments all year long for other purposes, finch dating shows, carotenoids from skilled foraging make a brighter pigment is an indicator trait, or just go to a tanning salon, going to the gym is the same - false muscles, active at night - gives you a fright - active at day - wants to get laid, wow flies give eye contact during courting - that’s better than a lot of humans, the fly cha cha slide, drosophila simlish, nuptial gifts, Women! Want! Regurgitated Nutrient Liquid! the arms race of jumping birds, the “I’ll have what she’s having theory”, dancing mannequins, intermediate level of asymmetric arm movement, if anything the study shows how comical it is to try to boil down human mating, the famous shirt smelling study, what are you trying to show with a human mating study? we shouldn’t be reductive for human mating or for animal mating either, ascribing the gender binary to worms, there is no one easy tip to dating in nature, a double banger for nuance, early crime tabloids like Illustrated Police News, Jack the Ripper was dubbed by the press after all, the prison chaplain’s broadsides, nature’s cruel step-dames or matchless monsters of the female sex, I can’t stop myself from coming up with names fro these murders, true crime lit was a best seller at public hangings, some broadsides sold 30x more than the news, the unmissable attraction of La Morgue de Paris, American Murder Ballads didn’t need you to be literate, true crime as an indicator of media trends, the vicious cycle of true crime consumption, icky entertainment motivations, working against the wishes of survivors, if only the victim had had our sponsor - simply safe, the commodification of people’s suffering, what stories do we choose not to tell, true crime seems to say there is “right” kind of victim, but true crime isn’t irredeemable. Sources: Combermere Abbey: A Hard Day’s Night For The Beetles Padi: Sea Bunny Sea Slug Courtship and Reproduction 1978 Paper: Ultraviolet reflection and its behavioral role in the courtship of the sulfur butterflies  1972 Paper: The Role of the Epaulets in the Red-Winged Blackbird, (Agelaius phoeniceus) Social System Audubon: Are Brightly Colored Males Really the Best Mates? Scientific America: Why are male birds more colorful than female birds? National Science Foundation: Bright colors in the animal kingdom: Why some use them to impress and others to intimidate 2019 Paper: Facial masculinity does not appear to be a condition-dependent male ornament and does not reflect MHC heterozygosity in humans Yale News: Yale study reveals mating tip for bird species: You should be dancing The Guardian: Dinosaurs performed dances to woo mates, according to new evidence Northumbria University: Study identifies high quality female dance movements 1995: MHC-dependent mate preferences in humans 2023 Paper: Do humans agree on which body odors are attractive, similar to the agreement observed when rating faces and voices? 2017 Paper: Humans as a model species for sexual selection research 2009 Paper: Dance dance attribution: exploring the relationship between dance and attractiveness in intial perceptions  2020 Paper: Mutual mate choice and its benefits for both sexes --- Podcast.co: How Many True Crime Podcasts Crime Reads: The Rise of the True Crime Podcaster JSTOR: The Bloody History of the True Crime Genre Henry Goodcole: Nature’s Cruel Steppe Dames NYT: The Bloody History of True Crime Lit Wellcome Collection: Paris Morgue JSTOR: The Paris Morgue Provided Ghoulish Entertainment JSTOR: The Murder Ballad Was the Original True Crime Podcast Psychology Today: Why the True Crime Audience Is Predominantly Female SAGE article: Why women are drawn to tales of rape, murder and serial killers NYT: Is Our True-Crime Obsession Doing More Harm Than Good? Gawker: True Crime is Rottnig Our Brains TIME: The Human Cost of Binge-Watching True Crime Series Reclamation: The Fascination With All That is Morbid and Macabre Binghamton University: True Crime Adaptations and How the Public Surveils University of Oregon: The true crime genre is popular, but is it ethical?

    1h 51m

  8. 19 JUN

    The Best of Everything 2025

    Listeners voted for their favorites topics of the past year, so join us as we chat and relearn the best of everything! Support us with a Max Fun Membership! Join our Discord! The best awards in podcasting that feature hosts named Tom, Ella and Caroline, the best cohost award is a tie (for Charlie and Teddy) actually introducing ourselves again, Tom is the hot one and the funny one, everyone loves dinosaurs, satisfying questions I never thought to ask, no one at the Igs knows Tom, the nuanced story of the propoganda of the propaganda, hey they happen to be some great topics we’re talking about, I had to put jokes about how bad we are so that we could compliment each other later, you can go back and discover Ella’s, we love an experimental episode as well as a classic episode, we love the quirky younger sibling of things, the World Games are coming up soon - get hype!

    1h 46m
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Hosts & Guests

About

Science communicators Ella Hubber, Tom Lum, and Caroline Roper learn about anything and everything interesting! Each episode they teach each other about a science topic, and learn about a miscellaneous topic. Whether it's bugs on drugs, temporal illusions, or fanfiction, there's so much out there, so let's learn everything! Join our Discord, email us, and follow us everywhere at www.LetsLearnEverything.com

Information

  • Creator
    Maximum Fun
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2025
  • Episodes
    116
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Tom Lum, Caroline Roper, and Ella Hubber
  • Show Website
    Let's Learn Everything!

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