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GamesStuff to Blow Your Mind
Venture down the rabbit hole to the very limits of human understanding.
We’ve all heard about panspermia, in which the building blocks of life theoretically travel to Earth from elsewhere in the universe. But where does all that stuff come from? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Julie and Robert glimpse inside the nebulae of creation.
Sure, your chances of going down in a plane crash are pretty slim — but what if it actually happens? Without a parachute in sight, how can you hope to survive a deadly drop from the friendly skies to a rather unfriendly Earth’s surface?
In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,Julie and I discuss your survival plan. You’ll find that awesome HSW flight safety infographic right here (also embedded below) and the “Popular Mechanics” article we discuss resides on the other end of this link. And don’t forget the article “How to Survive a Plane Crash.”
Can psychedelic drugs help prepare terminal patients for death? Can substances like MDMA ease the dying through the ultimate transcendent experience? While the scientific study of psychedelic experience has been somewhat of a touchy subject since the 1960s, some researchers continue to seek out the beneficial aspects of these powerful, mind-altering substances. What actually goes on inside the mind during a “trip” and how might we use that to ease our passage through death?
Travel to Saturn’s frozen moon of Titan and you’ll discover lakes of liquid methane, thick smog clouds and exactly 13 minutes and 46 seconds worth of Earth music.
Back in 1997, French musicians Julien Civange and Louis Haeri composed four tracks to place aboard ESA’s Titan-bound Huygens probe, which would in turn make the seven-year journey board NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Dubbed “Music2Titan,” the EP breaks down as follows:
Julie and I recently recorded ten episodes of “Stuff to Blow Your Kid’s Mind” and I figured, hey, wouldn’t it be cool to have all the videos embedded in a single post? Think of it as a super-sized club sandwich, only instead of meat, cheese and veggies, this baby’s packing layer upon layer of delicious science. We kick off each episode with a simple science experiment and from there we take you on a mind-blowing journey through time and space.
I hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed making them!
Human civilizations surround themselves in walls of stone and walls of ideas. They raise walls against enemies, against environmental forces and even against the spirit world. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Julie and I examine our world of walls, from the battlements of China’s Ming Dynasty to the galactic walls that border the voids of our universe.
Plus, I didn’t get a chance to blog about our episode from last Thursday…
“The Space Age is almost two hundred years old. For more than half that time, our civilization has been utterly dependent upon the host of satellites that now orbit Earth. Global communications, weather forecasting and control, land and ocean resources banks, postal and information services – if anything happened to their space-borne systems, we would sink back into a dark age. During the resultant chaos, disease and starvation would destroy much of the human race.”
Those words come to us from sci-fi legend Arthur C. Clarke’s 1979 novel “The Fountains of Paradise,” a fictional glimpse into the future that rings even more true today giving what we know about the dangers of space junk.
Space Music: CopperWire, Eastern Bloc Funk and Mœbius
by Robert Lamb | April 19, 2012
CopperWire’s “Earthbound” is about as cosmic a hip-hop album as you could possibly ask for. Extraterrestrial alter egos? Check. Hijacked spaceship? Check. And just for good measure, “Earthbound” features a back story by sci-fi author Nnedi Okorafor and audio samples of sonified light curves, provided by SETI Senior Research Scientist Jon Jenkins.
I don’t have to convince you that Centaurs are amazing. They stroll boldly through thousands of years worth of art, canter through our literary classics and their Photoshopped bodies continue to scandalize the Web. They are of course human/equine hybrids, but what of their biology? Having attended the University of Tennessee at Knoxville some years ago, I’ve seen “The Centaur Excavations at Volos” countless times. That specimen provides insight into the creature’s skeletal system, but what about all the rest?
What will the year 2999 look like? What will it sound like?
That’s the creative catalyst behind The 2999 Project, a multimedia time trek to the end of the 30th century. Canada’s King Deluxe record label called on electronic and dubstep artists to a create a soundtrack for the year 2999, then asked a selection of visual artists to illustrate the tracks.
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
- Golden Fields of Canola
- The Park That Never Sleeps: Central Park
- Draw a Pretty Picture With Your Bike and Your Phone
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: Nebula in a Box
- Blow Your Mind: Three Minutes Till Impact
- Touching the Void: Psychedelics and Death
Stuff You Should Know
- Stuff You Should Know at SXSW
- The Southern Death Cult, the Maya and Georgia
- Deformed Baby Spider Brains
The Stuff of Genius
CarStuff
- Listener Mail: What’s the world’s largest engine?
- Listener Mail: What makes a “classic car” classic?
- Was Chrysler’s “It’s Halftime in America” Super Bowl commercial a little too political?
How-to Stuff
- How to Enjoy the Fruits of Your Labor
- How to Travel the World in 4 Days
- How to Smell Like Someone at HowStuffWorks
PopStuff
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 68: Astrology: What’s PopStuff’s Sign?
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 67: Collecting: PopStuff’s Cabinet of Curiosities
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 66: Tracy and Holly’s Running Playlists
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know
- Good News from the Oldest Mayan Calendar
- One Year Later: Colony Collapse Disorder
- Who Killed Martin Luther King, Jr.?
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
