Selects: Thrill to the Stunning Bicameral Mind Hypothesis

Psychologist Julian Jaynes came up with a stunning hypothesis in 1976, that human consciousness only developed in the last 3000 years. And he seemed to have proof in ancient texts. Scholars have been picking it apart ever since and in this classic episode we join the club.

How to Drink a Tree's Blood

Of course we're talking all about maple syrup today - the tapping, the processing, the eating.

Short Stuff: Wisdom Teeth

By all rights there should be three sets of molars in your mouth. But it turns out that our skulls aren’t really set up to accommodate that many anymore. Exactly why depends on who you ask.

Save the Whales!

In the 1970s, conservation groups around the world rose up to protect dwindling whale populations, some on the verge of extinction. They all worked under the same banner: Save the Whales! It turned out to be one of the most successful campaigns ever.

Selects: How Fever Dreams Work

Fever dreams can be unsettling experiences. These ramped up nightmares are vivid, detailed and only happen when the human body experiences a fever. What is it about the combination of fevers and dreams that make these night terrors so hellish? Learn all that and more in this classic episode.

UNESCO World Heritage: Preserving the Best of Humanity

Humanity’s created a lot of neat things over the eons and starting in the 1940s, the UN created an agency focused on preserving those things for the whole world and future people. But that mission is in danger of becoming only about branding and money.

Short Stuff: Brown-Headed Cowbird

There’s a kind of bird that lots of people think is a real jerk. And it kind of is. But in the brown-headed cowbird’s defense, it’s just evolved that way. Find out why it has such a bad reputation among bird lovers in this Short Stuff.

Some Silly Inventions That Became Wildly Popular

Once in a while someone comes up with a solution for a problem we didn’t know we had, and maybe even a problem that didn’t even exist. Even more rarely, the stars align just right so that some crackpot invention captures everyone’s imagination.

Selects: Sammy Davis Jr: National Treasure

In this classic episode Josh and Chuck sit down and detail the complicated life of the late, great Sammy Davis Jr.

The Sewol Ferry Disaster

In 2014 a ferry carrying hundreds of South Korean high school students on a field trip sunk, killing almost everyone on board. Hauntingly, their deaths were fully avoidable: everyone from the dock inspector to the Coast Guard to the president failed them.