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Venture down the rabbit hole to the very limits of human understanding.
Blow Your Mind: In the Lair of the Rat King
by Robert Lamb | February 7, 2012
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.
Mandala: Memory Palace, Inception and Simulated Worlds
by Robert Lamb | February 7, 2012
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.
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?
Space Music: DJ Food and ‘The Search Engine’
by Robert Lamb | January 26, 2012
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.”
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.
Space Music: Jay-Z and Beyoncé to Film Music Video in Orbit
by Robert Lamb | January 12, 2012
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 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.
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?
Have you ever cheated on a test? You’re far from alone. But just what goes on in a student’s mind when they reach for the cheat sheet and how does it play out in various cultures and scholastic traditions?
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.
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.
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.
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