Archive for May, 2010

You Asked:

How is the amount of calories in food determined? — Ryan, Millersburg, Ohio

Marshall Brain Answers:

All food contains energy – What we need is a way to measure it…

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We’re headed in to a holiday weekend here in the U.S., so if you’re preparing for a trip, why not download our latest podcasts and take them with you? In this post I’ll give you a sneak peek of the kind of conversations you can expect.

On Monday, we presented the episode “Boob Politics: The Cleavage Issue.” One of our Twitter followers has posed the question of whether this will be our most popular episode based on the title, and I have to admit I’m curious to see the numbers for this conversation about how the perception of breasts has changed over time in Western culture.

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Perhaps one of history’s most experimental gardeners, Thomas Jefferson documented his cultivation failures as often as his successes. In the summer of 1809, his squash “came to nothing,” as did his Old World grapes, the famous wine fruit, Vitis vinifera. The squash may have just been unlucky — Jefferson had plenty of success with his favorite vegetable, peas, or with imported plants from Italy or Mexico. But with the vines at least, he may have just needed to think more creatively.

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The goal of the Google Lunar X Prize is to put a privately funded robot lander on the moon in a 2011-to-2014 time frame. The first team to reach the goal will get a $20 million prize (if by the end of 2012) or a $15 million prize (if by the end of 2014). And it looks like there is at least one team ready to meet the challenge in a 2012 time frame…

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Maybe it’s because I’ve been editing a host of safety-related articles lately, or maybe I’m just a worrier (most people who know me would say it’s likely the latter), but the mention of a friend’s upcoming beach trip had me immediately thinking, I should do a blog post on beach safety. So here it is, folks.

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When I look in the mirror, it is easy to see that I am fat. More than half of American adults probably see the same kind of thing. But what is a person’s “ideal weight”? What do doctors think a person should weigh if he/she wants to be healthy? What do other people think?

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Let’s say that you have always wanted to fly. But the cost of getting a pilot’s license ($10K) and buying a plane ($100K) is hard to swallow. Is there a cheaper way to get in the air?

The answer may be a paramotor (also known as a powered paraglider), costing less than $10,000 and needing no license…

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Here is a fascinating idea. Around the United States there are millions of acres of parking lots. Yet, as the following article points out, “Parking lots are probably the largest underutilized depository of real estate in the country.” Now there is a $10,000 contest looking for ideas that would utilize all that space more effectively…

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In this installment of the guys’ continuing series on engines, Scott and Ben cover the two-stroke engine. Tune in to learn what this engine does, where it’s used, and — most importantly — how it works.

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In this episode, Robert and Allison take a road trip to the Georgia Dome, where they grab an exclusive look at the FIRST Robotics competition. Tune in and learn more about the world’s largest grade-school robotics competition.

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