A favorite tangled rat tale of mine... (Leonard Shoup Books)

The furniture is chewed and the cupboard raided of every last crumb. Feces litters the house and very walls seem alive with the clawed scurry of diseased rodents.  You’ve evacuated the the children, grandmama and the family dog.

Even now they seek refuge at the church, as you drive your axe into the floor and pull back splintered boards. As you cast your flickering lantern light down on the horror that squirms beneath your home: a dozen worm-like tails knotted in blood and excrement, gleaming mad eyes and the hideous shriek of the Rattenkönig.

In medieval Germany it was a dire omen of plague-ridden doom. Today, it remains more of a grotesque cultural reference and cryptozoological oddity. Yes, in this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Julie and I enter the lair of the rat king, that fabled, vile mass of tail-tangled rodents. Is there any truth to the legends? Prepare to be shocked by the reality of microbial rat kings and museum horrors.

So there you have it! You can find the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast on iTunes, Zune and the RSS feed. And don’t forget the free HowStuffWorks App!

Image source: Leonard Shoup Books

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Amoghapāśa Five-deity Mandala from 16th century Nepal. (Michael C. Carlos Museum/Emory University)

A world simulated in the mind, where fortresses of bone rise above a sea of blood. Where a pantheon of wrathful and serene deities assemble in precise arrangement.  Where multi-limbed beings dance, cyclopean architecture looms high and a mountain bridges Earth to the cosmos.

That’s the rich world of the Mandala (Sanskrit for “circle”), an artistic visualization tool that allows Tibetan Buddhism ‘s most advanced psychonauts to enter heightened states of meditation.

It’s essentially an imagined palace, not unlike the dreamscape architects in the sci-fi film “Inception,” or the famed “memory palace” mnemonic device that emerged in ancient Rome. Julie and I covered memory palaces in this STBYM episode, but it all basically boils down to employing spatial memory to memorize information by placing it all in an imagined “palace” filled with memorable symbols.

East Asia scholar Dan O’Huiginn provides some interesting commentary on the concept of Mandala-as-memory-palace in this wonderful post. He even argues that the deities in a Mandala are themselves parts of the memory palace, their various physical characteristics all symbolizing Buddhist doctrine.

I recently attend Emory University’s “Mandala: Sacred Circle in Tibetan Buddhism,” so all of this is still bouncing around my head. The Atlanta exhibit (running through April 15, 2012) provides fascinating insight into Mandala tradition, and you’ll even get to witness the live creation (and destruction) of a sand Mandala by actual Tibetan Monks if you drop by before Feb. 11.

I love the cosmology of Mandalas. I love the art. And, having recently researched the future of virtual sex and the Living Earth Simulator for HowStuffWorks, I found the concept of Mandala computer models rather fascinating. What was once simulated in the mind comes to simulated life inside the virtual world.

I’ve included some video clips of computer Mandalas here. Think about them. Might future virtual worlds be used for more than mere escapist fantasy and hedonistic indulgence? Might we use them to attain spiritual liberation?

So there you have it! You can find the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast on iTunes, Zune and the RSS feed. And don’t forget the free HowStuffWorks App!

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Hot ticket item. (Image courtesy Virgin Galactic)

Want to blast into space with Angelina Jolie and Stephen Hawking? Well Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic might just be your ticket to ride.

In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Julie and I discuss the landmark space tourism venture and what it means for the future of manned space travel. Plus what might happen if Kanye West ventured into suborbital space?

Articles of note? Enjoy these past bits that I wrote:

Space Music: Jay-Z and Beyoncé to Film Music Video in Orbit

How High Will Virgin Galactic Fly?

So there you have it! You can find the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast on iTunes, Zune and the RSS feed. And don’t forget the free HowStuffWorks App!

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Behold, "The Search Engine." (Ninja Tune Records)

Few artists embody “space music” quite as well as DJ Food AKA Strictly Kev.

I spoke to the man back in 2010 about cosmic DJ mixes and he had quite a bit to share about sci-fi samples and his own psychedelic space music (you can read that here). But now it’s 2012 and Kev is back with his first full-length album in 11 years. So I checked in with him for the scoop on “The Search Engine.”

DJ FOOD: “I’m very pleased with the album, a lot of the themes that kept coming up again and again whilst making it (completely unintentionally, it’s not a concept album) where sci-fi and space related but in a very 60s and 70s time frame. A lot of the imagery I was into looked back to a pre “Star Wars” idea of what the future and space travel would be like as well as a lot of the sounds I was using, coming from the analogue era rather than today’s digital one.”

Given his perfectionist flair for both sonic and visual art, it should come as no surprise that “The Search Engine” delivers solidly on both counts. Artist Henry Flint of “2000 AD” fame provides the killer album art and photographer Will Cooper-Mitchell contributed images of Kev in full-astronaut garb exploring an urban wasteland — all featured in a limited comic-sized 48-page booklet.

Ah, but what of the music, right? Let’s listen to a sample:

The album features production collaborations with 2econd Class Citizen, DK (Solid Steel) and Dr. Rubberfunk — along with vocal contributions by Natural Self (Tru Thoughts), Matt Johnson (The The) and JG Thirlwell (Foetus, Steroid Maximus, Manoerxia).

DJ Food suits up. (Photo by Will Cooper-Mitchell)

All this comes together in 12 tracks — just under an hour of music — and the download version presents “The Search Album” as a continuous mix.

Head over to the Ninja Tune website for full details on the different album versions available, and be sure to check out the excellent DJ Food blog. Whether you’re into electronic dance music, graphic design, retro sci-fi or merely giant robots, then Kev probably has something to wow you.

So there you have it! You can find the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast on iTunes, Zune and the RSS feed. And don’t forget the free HowStuffWorks App!

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Artur Taymazov of Uzbekistan picks up his coach after winning the gold medal in the men's 120 kg wrestling gold medal match at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. (Harry How/Getty Images)

Just what sort of hugger are you anyhow? Do you go squeeze random strangers in deep? Do you grapple your pals in a manly bear bug or go for the dreaded side-hug?

Our affectionate embraces come in a variety of forms and, in this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Julie and I discuss the psychology, sociology and evolutionary science of hugging it out.

We’ll even get into the topic of man-hugs — and I think you may agree that the one in the accompanying photo may be the manliest hug of all time.

Plus, you’ll learn about the most awkward and disastrous hugs that I’ve personally been a part of.  So listen in. The hug plane is cleared for a landing.

So there you have it! You can find the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast on iTunes, Zune and the RSS feed. And don’t forget the free HowStuffWorks App!

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The right stuff? (Ian Gavan/Getty Images)

They’ve already brought a new child into the world and purchased it a $614,000 rocking horse made out of gold, so it’s only natural that pop culture’s favorite one percenters now ascend into sub-orbit aboard Virgin Galactic and film the mother of all music videos. Or at least that’s what record executives are thinking, according to MTV News.

Needless to say, this is an excellent idea. I’m game for any convergence of music and outer space, be it a killer DJ mix or a just a cool Boston album cover. Numerous music videos have already created the illusion of pop stars and rap artists in orbit , so it only seems right that space tourism kick in to give us the authentic experience.

Hey, and the tickets are only $200,000 a pop — cheaper than a newborn’s rocking horse.

But what might that authentic experience consist of? I’m sure everyone has visions of Jay Z rapping cool and collected as he floats around the SpaceShipTwo cabin — Beyoncé sparkling, singing and looking like a million bucks. But two more probable alternatives come to mind:

Possibility one: Instead of spitting rhymes, Jay-Z vomits up his foie gras terrine with pickled grapes due to a case of space adaptation syndrome, which even medicated astronauts experience to varying degrees. And will Beyoncé feel up to singing with a migraine? Luckily, red wine seems to help, but lets not kid ourselves about the realities of terrestrial digestion systems in even a plush extraterrestrial environment.

Possibility two:  If we’re to go by what astronauts and Virgin Galactic personnel have to say about sub-orbital flight, Jay-Z and Beyoncé may find themselves too distracted by the transcendent experience playing out all around them. For starters, who in their right mind spends their brief venture into space staring into a digital camera? Look out the window! And secondly, how might a taste of the so-called overview effect change their understanding of the universe and humanity’s place amid the stars? Might a cosmically reborn Jay-Z and Beyoncé return to Earth? How might they express it in their music?

Naturally, I’m hoping for option two. I’d also be game if Jay took Kanye instead.

We’ll see what comes together on this, but let’s face it: If they actually do shoot a “real” space music video in orbit, here’s no way they’ll beat the “fake” space video for Billy Ocean’s “Lover Boy.”

So there you have it! You can find the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast on iTunes, Zune and the RSS feed. And don’t forget the free HowStuffWorks App!

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A black blizzard swallows the horizon in 1935. (PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

Just look at that photo. It was 1935 and a leviathan of dust advanced on a parched and decimated land. Families fled. Farms fell into ruin. The Dust Bowl terrorized the prairie lands of North America and threatened to turn the entire region into desert.

In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Julie an I travel back to the ruined farms and black blizzards of the Great Depression. What agricultural practices led to this near-apocalypse and how did we plant trees to combat the ecological damage?

We’ll tackle these questions and examine the current battles between human civilization and our enemies of dust.

So there you have it!You can find the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast on iTunes, Zune and the RSS feed. And don’t forget the free HowStuffWorks App!

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In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Julie and I confront the inner cheat and look at what science has to say about the equations written on your thigh and that sheet of vocabulary words you just swallowed.

Plus I’ll share a tale or two from my days as a high school English teacher. And as long as we’re referencing Rage Against the Machine, do enjoy this lovely cover of “Killing in the Name of ” by The Apples:

So there you have it!You can find the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast on iTunes, Zune and the RSS feed. And don’t forget the free HowStuffWorks App!

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Star and Isabelle Jones fence on the edge of the Times Square Hotel in 1925. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

From deadly Japanese samurai blade to the enormous Scottish claymore, the sword stands as one of our most iconic human inventions. The technology cut a bloody swath across the course of human history and continues to stand as a symbol of power and death.

So in this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Julie and I consider the way of the sword: the complex science tied up in their manufacture, the at-times deceptively complex martial arts behind their usage and even their use in such films as “The Princess Bride,” “Kill Bill” and “Rob Roy.”

UPDATE: In the podcast, I mentioned that I’d link to the online text for Hans Talhoffer’s 1459 swordplay book “Alte Armatur und Ringkunst.” Well here it is. Click on the images to enter the virtual book itself.

So there you have it!You can find the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast on iTunes, Zune and the RSS feed. And don’t forget the free HowStuffWorks App!

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Brain... splitting... (Denis Scott/Taxi/Getty)

Before you dive headfirst into that New Year’s hangover, let’s explore exactly what’s going on inside your body when you wake to a splitting headache, a troubled gut and the realization that you’re wearing half a gorilla costume.

Join Julie and I as we speak softly and lead you through the biological effects of alcohol consumption, the anatomy of the resulting hangover and tips to prevent or cure your accursed condition.

Plus, why will this cycle of drinking and hangover continue? Why won’t we learn this lesson about over indulgence? Your Stuff to Blow Your Mind hosts will discuss the psychology of hangover as well.

So there you have it!You can find the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast on iTunes, Zune and the RSS feed. And don’t forget the free HowStuffWorks App!

Skull still intact? Follow Stuff to Blow Your Mind on Twitter and Facebook.