Stuff To Blow Your Mind

Once more, the mailbot delivers the spoils of listener feedback and your loyal Stuff to Blow Your Mind hosts read and respond to them. Join Robert, Christian and Joe as they cover everything from com…

Of all the moons of Jupiter, Callisto, Ganymede, Europa and Io tantalize us the most. These alien worlds of ice, fire, desolation and hidden oceans tantalize us with their possibility for extraterres…

Imagine a disease that warps and petrifies the flesh, transforming normal skin into bark-like growths that slowly consume the hands and feet. Commonly known as "tree man disease," Epidermodysplasia V…

What began as a 1960s term for a retrofitted human space explorer has become a focal point for considerations of human and machine interaction, technological culture, biomechanics and feminist identi…

Your know the feeling. You're trying to recall the name of a time-keeping musical device or the the actor who played Fredo in "The Godfather" and all that comes to mind is a memory-hole in the shape …

What does it mean to solve a problem in our universe? That's a trickier question than you might think, with some fairly high-stakes ramifications in the worlds of computing and even philosophy. In th…

The human obsession with vampires runs deep, so deep that it survives our consistent attempts to squeeze all the mystery and fun out of the topic. Inject a little science, however, and the patient re…

During the Second World War, Melanesian islanders encountered the vast, commercial systems of Allied and Japanese forces. Cargo Cults sprang up in the wake of such contact, typified by deification an…

Just what are the upper limits of avian cognitive ability? Various studies reveal how certain bird species engage in mental time travel, tool use, self recognition, theory of mind and even meta-cogni…

When does a protest religion become an actual faith? What happens when purely fictional modes of belief leak off the page or screen? Join Robert and Joe as they discuss modern religious movements, th…

Behold a tentacled, immortal predator with a wound for a mouth. No, this isn't the product of a horror writer's fever dream, but rather a denizen of the natural world. In this episode of Stuff to Blo…

How do you solve a problem like crime, poverty or climate change? The answer, like the problem itself, is elusive and amorphous. These are not "tame problems," but "wicked problems" -- conundrums tha…

In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, enter a kingdom within a kingdom: the remarkable honey-and-wax monarchy within a beehive and the organizational complexity of ancient Egypt. Join Robert an…

You asked for it, you got it. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Christian return to the Creepypasta files and discuss some actual science behind the "Jeff the Killer" tale of mut…

Sexual cannibalism is a rarity in the natural world, and scientists are still attempting to understand the act as practiced by mostly arachnids and insects. Why consume your mate after or during sexu…

Welcome to the Kingdom of the Inca, where hundreds of rope bridges connect an imperial highway system and fiber-armored soldiers wield woven slings against the enemies of the Emperor. In this episode…

Enter the world of the osedax worm, where mouthless female scavengers liquefy the bones of dead whales with acid-drenched roots -- and where each female's body contains a harem of tiny, sperm-produci…

Join Robert and Christian as they consider the beauty and composition of the Medusa nebula in this episode of the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast.

It's that time again. Join Robert, Joe and Christian for another round of robot-delivered listener mail. They're read your missives concerning everything from the Chinese zodiac and psychopaths to so…

The figure of John C. Lilly as psychedelic dolphin communicator burns in the collective memory as a counterculture avatar, yet his legacy embodies far more than the mythologized and/or vilified figur…