This week's episode begins with what appears on the surface to be a seemingly innocent Twitter question...
Q: How do you avoid brain freeze when you eat ice-cream?
Well, after a couple of rather fully hectic tangents (3 * ‘ALERTS' in 5 MINUTES!!), Dr Karl finally gets around to the answer. Don't worry though cause there's a load of interesting extra information coming your way during this little journey...
For those after a more succinct answer, pop this little video explanation on...
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Big floods in Thailand...via one rather large Tangent, ALERT!
Shave explains Signal to Noise Ratio, no wait, Karl explains Signal to Noise, no wait Shave does...
Onwards, compression algorithms of the audio and visual kind. JPEGS, GIFs, MPEGs 1, 2 & even 3!
Back to Thailand, hard drives and backups. The factories that make 90% of the hard drives in the world were located in Thailand, and most of them were destroyed during the huge floods at the end of 2011. It's a convoluted path, but what Dr Karl and Dr Shave are trying to say here is that this ‘single point' failure in Thailand has resulted in a world shortage of hard drives.
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Karl questions Shave about the gig he'll be playing at Wembley Stadium...impressive much. Shave gives Karl the low down on Keytars.
And onwards... This episode includes the following topics for discussion:
The Viking Sun Stone & Viking Berserkers
Physicists and archaeologist have been working together and it seems they have some fairly concrete ideas about the Norse legend of the "sunstone" and its use as a navigational tool. Looks like those clever little Berserkers were right across the polarisation of light, which would have allowed them to navigate on a cloudy day.
Read the full academic article here:
Or the overview style article here:
And the Monty Python version of events...
The bacteria that live in your gut can make you fat or skinny. How so? For more information, grab yourself of Karl's new book, BRAIN FOOD or read the GMIS related stories HERE, HERE and HERE
Toxoplasmosis gondii is a parasite that is hosted/breeds inside members of the cat family. If infected by this parasite, some pretty interesting stuff can happen - you might become slightly more suicidal and, you can have up to 6 times increased rate of car accidents...
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In this weeks episode, Dr Karl and Dr Shave discuss and answer the following:
1 Why if hot air rises is it colder at the top of a mountain? This and more ‘stuff' about air - molecules, pressure, hot and cold air...
2 Shave recently became a father... Big Daddy Karl has some fatherly advice for him.
Prospective fathers should watch what they eat. Studies on male rats who eat high fat diets show that they sire daughters who are more likely to develop diabetes at an early age, and who have unstable blood sugar levels at an early age. Further reading here...and more highbrow version here
AND... If you want to make 80, you have to eat properly and exercise. If you want to live to 100, you're gunna need to choose good gene stock...
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Flower munching Hippy Dr Karl thinks that Nasturtiums hold the key to eternity...circa 70s man.
In this weeks episode, Dr Karl and Dr Shave discuss and answer the following:
Why does hair turn grey? (Read more...)
What is Dr Karl's favourite amino acid, and why do humans live for very long at all?
The effects of wearing high heels on women's legs OR why walking flat-footed hurts habitual high-heels wearers. Further reading...
Also included in this blogcast;
Blood is an organ, exercises to do on planes, what is Dr Karl's strange biological quirk? Why do we desire fatty foods when we're hungover, and other such off the topic discussions.
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Disclaimer: When you hear the ‘hooter', it's not half-time, but rather it's the ‘TANGENT ALERT!!!' Not that we need to spell it out, but it's basically an indication that Karl and Shave have gone off on a massive tangent...
In this weeks episode, Dr Karl asks Dr Shave, "...what happened in 1955 that was of earth-shattering importance to the musical world?" The answer, Eurovision. Karl and Shave discuss a ground breaking article in which some physicists uncover and analyse the voting biases in the Eurovision Contest. Further reading here...
They also look at a study which discovered that women who wear a swimsuit in a maths exam do worse in the exam than guys....funny that. Read the original article...
Back to Eurovision. Wig Wam (Norway), winners of Eurovision 2005 are a personal favourite. Check out their song, "In My Dreams". Nice outfits dudes...
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Episode 10:
In this weeks episode, Dr Karl and Dr Shave discuss:
Right and left-handedness in society;
Their love for science fiction stories;
Right and left-handed politicians - do their hand gestures reveal their thoughts?
Kissing - do you turn your head to the left or right when you 'go in', and what does it mean?
What just happened...
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