About Charles W. Bryant
Charles W. (Chuck) Bryant co-hosts the “Stuff You Should Know” podcast along with his trusty sidekick, Josh Clark. He was born in Atlanta in the early 1970s under the sign of Pisces. Twenty-four years later, he earned an English degree at the University of Georgia. He spent the next decade traveling, pursuing creative endeavors and getting street smart. He and his wife-to-be moved back to Atlanta in 2004, with four pets in tow. He hooked up with HowStuffWorks.com shortly after co-host Josh was hired, and the pair bonded immediately over their love of Hunter S. Thompson, the fight-or-flight response and dive bars. In his off-time, Chuck enjoys hanging out with his wife, cooking and playing in his old-man band. He loves his neti pot and hates cold bathroom floors. You can find Chuck on Twitter at @SYSKPodcast and on Facebook at the official Stuff You Should Know page.
Most Recent: Charles W. Bryant Postings
Those of you who have listened to the podcast know how AWESOME I think parkour is. If you don’t know what it is, it’s part running, part gymnastics with a bit of martial arts thrown in. Sort of. It’s also called “free-running” and been featured in a number of movies, most notably the James Bond flick “Casino Royale.” It’s pretty much a foot chase on steroids — flipping over, under and around obstacles is the name of the game. And it also seems like keeping the forward movement going is where the real art of it comes into play. Stopping at a wall to figure out how to scale it and where to go next is poor form, as I understand it.
So over the weekend the United States government managed to avoid shutting down and putting roughly 800,000 people on a forced furlough. National Parks are open and people are able to get their home loans pushed through, their medicare sorted and the military won’t see any delay in their paychecks arriving. Hooray. I know I’m not the only one who was slightly rubbed at the notion of the government shutting down because of the typical partisan bickering that seems to dominate in D.C.
Greetings podcast family, it’s Chuck here with a little podcast goodness recap — a chance for you to share your stories with the world! Yesterday’s show was about oil speculation and to be honest it kind of made my head hurt a little bit. It’s not a secret that finance and Chuck don’t mix. Oil speculation is pretty interesting though, and some people feel like it may have a bearing on the high prices that we’re all seeing at the pump here in the United States.
This week on the Stuff You Should Know podcast program, Josh Clark and myself served up a bit of goodness about Sherpas on Tuesday’s episode. We called it warm, friendly living for a reason. It’s mainly because the Sherpa people are so darn warm and friendly. We covered all aspects of Sherpa life, from their interesting migratory history, to the amazing ways they’re been able to survive for so long at such high altitudes among such steep slopes.
This one is a little odd. Seems the owner of the English Premier League club Fulham FC has erected a statue of late pop singer Michael Jackson outside the stadium. That’s Michael Jackson, and that’s an English soccer team. If you’re waiting for the link between the two then you can keep waiting. There really isn’t one. The chairman of the club, Mohammed Al Fayed, is just a big fan of Jacko.
Podcast Goodness: LIVE FROM SXSW, IT’S UFOS!
by Charles W. Bryant | April 1, 2011
Hey there, SYSK Army! This week we released our first ever LIVE podcast, and let me tell you it was a lot of fun. A few weeks ago, as many of you know, we (including Jeri) traveled to Austin, Texas for their awesome and popular South By Southwest (SXSW) interactive festival. We were invited to podcast live at the historic, possibly haunted, and definitely awesome Driskill Hotel in downtown Austin. This place was really lovely and it was a real treat and honor to be on the bill.
It’s sad that the 32 year anniversary of the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island is made more relevant because of the current situation in Japan. If it hadn’t been for the earthquake and tsunami-caused events recently then the passing of the Three Mile Island incident would have probably gone unnoticed by many. But because nuclear power is no suddenly again in the limelight, we’re getting some coverage of the partial meltdown that occurred on March 28, 1979. Believe it or not I actually remember it, at the age of eight. Of course I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew it was something important.
Hey there, folks. On Tuesday’s show we got to the matter at hand in terms of Japan’s current nuclear reactor scenario that continues to unfold. We’re not a news show, we do try and explain things in simple terms when a particular event has gripped the world. We can all thank Jeri in these cases for turning these shows around so quickly for release when the clock is ticking. Our goal with this episode was to do what we always try and do — explain what in the heck is going on with something without the mainstream media bells and whistles that some might refer to as sensationalism. Especially in a case like this, where fear is very real and not to be manipulated.
First Full Face Transplant in the United States
by Charles W. Bryant | March 22, 2011
We did a podcast some time ago about face transplants. Medical science is pretty remarkable these days and I think the episode really highlighted some of the breakthroughs in facial reconstruction, or in this case, full transplant. At the time, there had only been one such operation performed – for a French woman who lost her face due to a very unfortunate incident with her dog. It was pretty disturbing to say the least and we heard from a lot of you who had a hard time getting through the episode.
Have you ever seen someone rummaging through a dumpster in your large city and wondered, “hey, what in the world is that dude doing in that dumpster?” Well, this week on the Stuff You Should Know podcast program we got down to the bottom of that query. Sure, there could be lots of reasons why someone would dumpster dive, but the one we went with for the sake of the show was the notion that this person may be something called a “freegan.”
Recent Postings by Category
BrainStuff
- Thank You and Best Wishes to Marshall Brain
- Contest – Design a $300 house and win $25,000
- How the Philtrum works – the place under your nose where your face comes together
The Coolest Stuff on the Planet
- Traveling on the Orient Express
- Deep-fried Goodness at Carnival
- The Colors of the Running of the Bulls
Keep Asking
- Why can a 5 foot 8 inch man dunk a basketball on a 10 foot rim while some people of taller stature can’t?
- What happens to our sun once it runs out of fuel?
- How do we know the age of the universe?
Stuff Mom Never Told You
- Who invented the Christmas card?
- How the Kinsey Report Fueled Whiskey Sales
- How to Get Your Wedding Announcement into The New York Times
Stuff to Blow Your Mind
- Blow Your Mind: In the Lair of the Rat King
- Mandala: Memory Palace, Inception and Simulated Worlds
- Virgin Galactic: $200,000 Ticket to Ride
Stuff You Should Know
- The Southern Death Cult, the Maya and Georgia
- Deformed Baby Spider Brains
- Amazing Medical Conditions: Maple Syrup Urine Disorder
The Stuff of Genius
CarStuff
- Was Chrysler’s “It’s Halftime in America” Super Bowl commercial a little too political?
- Why is NASA studying car safety?
- Tips for in-car Navigation Systems
How-to Stuff
- How to Make the Most of a Gallery Crawl (When You’re on a Shoestring Budget)
- How to Swim with Dolphins (When Deep Water Terrifies You)
- How to Cure a Homemade Cookie Craving Without Turning on the Oven
PopStuff
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 40: Did movies ruin love?
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 39: Urban Legends
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 38: Defending Disney Princesses?
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know
Stuff to Change the World
- Who will own the Arctic?
- Obesity: The New Global Crisis
- Bill Gates Makes For A Pretty Decent Cartoon
Stuff You Missed in History Class
- Butch Cassidy: Should we read between the lines?
- Are we rooting for D.B. Cooper?
- Party Time: A Look at Unconventional Politics

