Shows / Cool Stuff Daily
Cool Stuff Daily
Cool Stuff Daily covers the most interesting and coolest stories in the world of science, progress, life-hacks, memes, exciting art, and hope. This is the antidote to depressing headlines. Smart stuff in podcast form. Cool news, as a service. Hosted by Zach Morris.
Episodes
Cool Stuff DailyThu. 04/08 - Who Invented the High Five?
Where did the high five come from? Who came up with it? And why has it persisted for so long? Plus, what if we could turn the entire Earth into a telescope?…
Cool Stuff DailyWed. 04/07 - The 1970s Clubhouse Precursor
When social media happened over the phone. Have physicists found a new force of nature? And the long-lost Lord of the Rings made-for-TV-movie produced by…
Cool Stuff DailyTue. 04/06 - A New Bacteria Discovered on the ISS That Could Help Grow Plants on Mars
A new bacteria was discovered on the International Space Station and it could mean interesting things for our future on Mars. The latest shortage in the US has…
Cool Stuff DailyMon. 04/05 - Vaccine Side Effects: Myths & Tips
Busting some myths and sharing some doctor-backed advice on COVID vaccine side effects. The history of cigarette cards and how they played an important role in…
Cool Stuff DailyFri. 04/02 - When Ships Were Stuck at the Suez Canal for Eight YEARS & a Micronation Was Formed at Sea
It turns out we got lucky with how quickly the Ever Given was freed. The last time the Suez Canal was blocked, it dragged on for eight years and led to the…
Cool Stuff DailyThu. 04/01 - Slamilton: A Basketball Musical
Could humans evolve to be venomous? The man currently walking from Washington D.C. to New York City and tweeting all the way. The Hamilton/Space Jam mashup you…
Cool Stuff DailyWed. 03/31 - Why All The Galaxy Carpets In 90s Movie Theaters?
Why did every movie theater in the 90s install that galaxy-themed carpet? A mafia fugitive who got caught by authorities after starting a cooking channel on…
Cool Stuff DailyTue. 03/30 - Zombie Brain Cells Keep Going After We Die
The medieval version of the millennial avocado craze––if avocados were only eaten when rotten and commonly referred to with a sexual nickname, anyways. Turns…
Cool Stuff DailyMon. 03/29 - Why The Lawyer Cat Filter Was a Default on Thousands of Computers
A new fossil analysis that bolsters the theory that primates may have lived alongside dinosaurs––and somehow survived extinction. The high school girl who…
Cool Stuff DailyFri. 03/26 - We Are All the Big Boat Stuck in the Suez Canal
The gargantuan container ship is still blocking traffic from flowing in the Suez Canal, but it has not stemmed the creativity of people online––from memes to…
Cool Stuff DailyThu. 03/25 - How to Cook & Eat Cicadas
Have you ever wondered who or what comes up with the explanatory blurbs beneath trending terms on Twitter? I’ve got your answer. Your guide to eating and…
Cool Stuff DailyWed. 03/24 - Oops All Shrimp Tails! The Cinnamon Toast Crunch Saga
The saga of the shrimp tails in the Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and what it has to do with Chance the Rapper, women’s basketball, the Natural History Museum of Los…
Cool Stuff DailyTue. 03/23 - How Fast Did Forrest Gump Run?
How fast was Forrest Gump running when he jogged across the country? The running community on Reddit did the math. A study has confirmed that some people do…
Cool Stuff DailyMon. 03/22 - The Bakery AI Being Used For Cancer Research
The AI built to tell pastries apart that’s now being used for cancer research. It turns out a large portion of Mars’ water may be hiding in the planet’s crust…
Cool Stuff DailyFri. 03/19 - The Feuding Cousins Responsible For Our COVID Test Swab Supply
The family feud putting the US’s COVID-19 test swab supply at risk. Could we use our food waste and sewage to fuel jets? And the projected symbol that was…
Cool Stuff DailyThu. 03/18 - Salmon Chaos & The Paris Commune
Today marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the Paris Commune––and it remains as controversial as ever. Scientists have grown a mouse embryo in an…
Cool Stuff DailyWed. 03/17 - Why Doesn't Channel 37 Exist?
Why analog TVs never had channel 37. Spoiler: the answer includes aliens. The rise of bitcoin ATMs. And the pretty amusing self-reported symptoms from the…
Cool Stuff DailyTue. 03/16 - Daylight Saving Time? Not in this house!
How St. Patrick’s Day, as we know it now, is kind of more of an Irish-American holiday than a purely Irish one. More of the Dead Sea Scrolls have been…
Cool Stuff DailyMon. 03/15 - Brood X and Self-Sabotaging Zoom Calls
Brood X is coming: what you need to know about your soon-to-be neighbors. A new discovery in Spain has led to questions about the true role of women in the…
Cool Stuff DailyFri. 03/12 - A Sperm Bank on the Moon
The proposal to create a “modern ark” aka scientists want to store sperm and eggs in lava tubes on the moon as a back-up plan in case we accidentally destroy…
Cool Stuff DailyThu. 03/11 - Is This Ancient Biblical Forgery Actually Real?
It was written off as a forgery in 1883, but now it’s being reconsidered as the oldest known Biblical manuscript. Also, how the pandemic has affected the names…
Cool Stuff DailyWed. 03/10 - A Year of the Pandemic WITHOUT the Internet
Reflections from a man who quit using the internet right before the pandemic started. A meteorite older than Earth was discovered in the Sahara Desert. And…
Cool Stuff DailyTue. 03/09 - Could Aliens' Pollution Help Us Find Them?
Can we find extraterrestrial civilizations by searching the cosmos for their pollutants? Are humans hard-wired to be productive? And what can we learn about…
Cool Stuff DailyMon. 03/08 - Replacing The Simpsons Cast with AI Voice "Actors?"
Could The Simpsons replace their entire cast with AI replicas? A look at the scientific, artistic, and legal possibilities. Researchers have discovered an…
Cool Stuff DailyFri. 03/05 - A Physical Warp Drive Is Now Possible, Scientists Say
Will warp drive ever be possible? These scientists say they’ve created the first physical model for how it could work. A lookback at the Star Wars immunization…
Cool Stuff DailyThu. 03/04 - Will NFTs Change How We Buy Music & Movies?
Will NFTs bring about an economic and creative revolution for artists and change the way we buy our media? Kings of Leon are willing to give it a shot. A small…
Cool Stuff DailyWed. 03/03 - Life Lessons From Cats
Cuttlefish have passed a test designed for small human children. Polaroid has made a pen that draws in edible 3D candy. What we can learn from cats about being…
Cool Stuff DailyTue. 03/02 - Light-Up Tattoos For You and Your Avocado
Scientists have created light-up OLED tattoos that could tell you when to put on sunscreen or when your avocados have gone bad. The Twitter account tracking…
Cool Stuff DailyMon. 03/01 - The Future: Fast Vaccines and Slow Social Media?
How the RNA-based platform used for some of the COVID-19 vaccines is already changing the game for other diseases. Plus, “I got vaccinated” stickers and selfie…
Cool Stuff DailyFri. 02/26 - Is Mr. Potato Head Non-fungible?
Delving into the world of crypto art and non-fungible tokens. A history of Mr. Potato Head, or, I’m sorry, just Potato Head? And a few links to help you chill…
Cool Stuff DailyThu. 02/25 - The Anti-Marie Kondo & Radical Keeping
How to make your clothes last longer and practice the art of “radical keeping” according to “the anti-Marie Kondo.” A segment about #Buttergate in Canada…
Cool Stuff DailyWed. 02/24 - How Childhood Illness Can Shape Future Immune Response
How the flu you had as a kid could shape your immune response to future flu viruses. A bunch of videos have been going viral showing snow not melting when held…
Cool Stuff DailyTue. 02/23 - The History (and Erasure) of Black Brewers
Beer culture is perceived as overwhelmingly white, but its history and its present is not. A historical look at the erasure of Black brewers. The impact of…
Cool Stuff DailyMon. 02/22 - Two-Way Dream Communication
Scientists have tapped deeper into the depths of our dreams by achieving two-way communication with lucid dreamers. Why were there so many serial killers…
Cool Stuff DailyFri. 02/19 - Green Oranges, Pink Margarine, & Grey Salmon: A Brief History of Dyed Foods in the U.S.
A history of how the US government started deciding what color our food is allowed to be. Could lab-grown wood disrupt the lumber industry? And, The Muppet…
Cool Stuff DailyThu. 02/18 - Improving Twitter with an 1800s Etiquette Handbook
The Los Angeles musician who helped design the microphones on the Perseverance rover that will hopefully give us our first-ever audio recordings of Mars. Can a…
Cool Stuff DailyWed. 02/17 - How Perseverance Could Pave the Way for Humans on Mars
A historical defense of arranging book collections by color. Scientists have sequenced the oldest DNA ever found and made some mammoth discoveries in the…
Cool Stuff DailyTue. 02/16 - Del Monte Engineered Pink Pineapples for Instagram
The new fruit taking over Instagram. Why the winter storm sweeping the US is causing an energy crisis, especially in Texas. And a new-ish game that lets you…
Cool Stuff DailyMon. 02/15 - The Impactor That Killed the Dinosaurs: A New Theory
Scientists in Antarctica accidentally discovered animal life beneath an ice shelf half a mile deep. An app that lets you tune into live radio stations all over…
Cool Stuff DailyFri. 02/12 - He Made a Guitar Out of His Uncle's Skeleton
The story of how two brothers gamed the YouTube system thirteen years ago and have since used that method to raise nearly 14 million dollars for charity. An…
Cool Stuff DailyThu. 02/11 - Myspace is back!
How the UK variant of Sars-CoV-2 may have evolved inside just one human. Some dating apps are adding video components, but it’s just another case of modern…
Cool Stuff DailyWed. 02/10 - The Curious Case of the Purple Daisy Photo
Do all of these UV light “virus-killing” appliances really work? The mystery of the purple flower photo that has accounted for nearly 20% of all Wikimedia…
Cool Stuff DailyTue. 02/09 - A Hacker Tried to Poison a Town's Water Supply
The scientific benefits of going for regular walks, and some tips for incorporating more walks into your life. The town in Florida whose water was almost…
Cool Stuff DailyMon. 02/08 - A Live Animated Stage Production... Wait, what?
How the Royal Shakespeare Company is using live motion capture to animate a virtual show in real time. A case study of a California town who has this whole…
Cool Stuff DailyFri. 02/05 - This Is Your Brain On Juggling
How learning to juggle is the perfect example of what happens to your brain when you learn a new skill. A new literary version of Street Fighter II. Why Burger…
Cool Stuff DailyWed. 02/04 - An Unborn Baby's Debut Album
We were bracing for a flu and COVID double whammy of a winter, but it never came. What happened? An intriguing new community initiative taking off in Europe to…
Cool Stuff DailyWed. 02/03 - Are We Too Cynical for Viral Stunts These Days?
What causes ice ages? The science behind your frying pan. You know, the one that’s supposed to be non-stick but isn’t. Scientists explain why. Other scientists…
Cool Stuff DailyTue. 02/02 - How Frozen Helped Solve the Dyatlov Pass Mystery
How a 1970s seat belt crash test and the animated movie Frozen helped potentially solve the 62-year-old Dyatlov Pass mystery. A fascinating correction to…
Cool Stuff DailyMon. 02/01 - February's Mars Invasion
Sharing some thoughts from Langston Hughes on this first day of Black History Month, and questioning what makes someone a hero in our history books. Plus, the…
Cool Stuff DailyFri. 1/29 - What Your Tone of Voice Could Say About Your Music Taste
What did everyday Romans in Pompeii eat? An archaeologist has tried to reconstruct their meals. Merriam-Webster has added 520 new words to the dictionary. How…
Cool Stuff DailyThu. 1/28 - Legal Protections for Sounds & Smells in France
The mathematics of knitting. How France is trying to legally protect smells. A cautionary tale that will inspire you to go check on your office building if…
Cool Stuff DailyWed. 1/27 - Putting Your Money In GameStop is Old News
A brief dip into the GameStop Wall Street mayhem. A new water-is-wet kind of study proving that money indeed can buy you happiness. And the story of some…
Cool Stuff DailyTue. 1/26 - Werner Herzog on Skateboarding
New DNA analysis upends some long held assumptions about the evolutionary background of dire wolves. How Adobe Flash broke an entire railway system…
Cool Stuff DailyMon. 1/25 - The Moon Rock in Biden's Oval Office: A History
The word “robot” was coined one hundred years ago today in a play about robots taking over the world. Good thing that hasn’t happened yet! ...right? The story…
Cool Stuff DailyFri. 1/22 - The Swedish Secret to Happy, Productive Work Days
NASA trained an AI to detect craters on Mars. A possible discovery of giant prehistoric carnivorous worms. A new Swedish practice to adopt. And a mobile site…
Cool Stuff DailyThu. 1/21 - Biophilic Recharge Rooms for Healthcare Workers
Recharge Rooms are helping frontline healthcare workers cope with the continued toll the pandemic is taking on their well-being. How bats are helping…
Cool Stuff DailyWed. 1/20 - Baby Megalodons & The Muppet Gatsby
New findings into the cannibalism and sheer size of baby megalodons. Teaching AIs to become our teachers. And The Great Gatsby has only been in the public…
Cool Stuff DailyTue. 1/19 - Should Sea Shanty TikTok Take Its Leave and Go?
A synthetic cornea implant has successfully helped a legally blind man regain his sight. Team USA and Team Canada women’s hockey players can’t stop falling in…
Cool Stuff DailyMon. 1/18 - When the FBI Spied on Martin Luther King Jr.
Several of the women who influenced Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and left their own marks on the civil rights movement. A new documentary tracking the FBI’s…
Cool Stuff DailyFri. 1/15 - Wikipedia As An MMORPG & A Pigeon on Trial
A couple of stories for the birds today. First, ravens at the Tower of London are living up to their collective name of a conspiracy of ravens by possibly…