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Blow Your Mind: Undercover Actors and the Shadow Self
by Robert Lamb | January 29, 2013
Method actors, wrestlers, undercover cops and online avatars all raise perplexing questions about the nature of self.
What happens when we drape our lives in layers of fiction — and what would we find buried beneath it all?
In this episode, we discuss the place where cover and identity collide in the human mind. It’s a topic we first raised in our “Wrestling With Kayfabe” episode — so if you skipped that one because of the wrestling content, I urge you to give it a second chance.
There’s long been a line of thought that the explanation for the altogether odd phenomenon of contagious yawning — feeling the overwhelming urge to yawn after observing another person yawn — is found in the empathy of the individual observing the yawn. The idea goes that the more empathetic among us are the most susceptible to contagious yawning and research shows this hypothesis tends to hold up among humans and higher apes.
Decapitating Rats to Determine if Decapitating Rats is Humane
by Josh Clark | January 31, 2011
I once said that if you’re wearing a lab coat you can pretty much do anything you want to a rat. This sentiment was shouted down via email by a number of lab researchers who listen to the podcast. Since the early 20th century, a number of states have had on the books laws that provide standards of treatment for lab animals and in 1966 lab animals finally came under federal protection in the U.S. Animal Welfare Act. Since then the treatment of animals used in experimentation has been defined and further regulated by successive measures over the following years.
How do individuals relate to reality? How has humanity attempted to interpret its position in the universe? From navel-gazing to the geocentric universe and beyond, the search for humanity’s place has become a long — and mind-blowing — enterprise.
Recent Postings by Category
BrainStuff
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The Coolest Stuff on the Planet
Keep Asking
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- 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
- Are calorie counts on fast food menus effective?
- 237 Reasons Humans Have Sex
- The Wedding Ring Phenomenon
Stuff to Blow Your Mind
- Blow Your Mind: Slay Your Paper Tigers
- Space Religion: Cao Dai and the 72 Inhabited Exoplanets
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Stuff You Should Know
- “In The Neighborhood” by Jon Stewart Mosman
- “Thanatos” by Christopher Vincola
- “Frame Story” by Adam Pracht
The Stuff of Genius
CarStuff
- Show Notes: Heart-stopping Last Laps of Racing
- Never say Never: Jaguar XJ220 Spotted in the Wild!
- What’s your pick for the 2013 Indianapolis 500 pace car?
How-to Stuff
PopStuff
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 152: Final Episodes
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 151: Mailbag!
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 150: Barbie!
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
- Missed in History: Irish Potato Famine, Part 1
- Missed in History: Paul Poiret
- Missed in History: Benjamin Banneker
