Shows / Stuff You Should Know
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Episodes
- Stuff You Should Know
Vocal Fry and Other Speech Trends
You've heard lots of complaints about vocal fry, mostly from older white men. But it's not exclusive to the Kardashians. Learn all about vocal fry, upspeak and…
- Stuff You Should Know
Please Listen to How Plasma Waste Converters Work
There is a way to not only sustainably get rid our household waste, but also produce enough energy from it to power the process and even create electricity for…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Wine Fraud Works
Wine fraud may be a case of rich con artists tricking wealthy people into parting with money, but it's still a crime. Learn all about this weird, widespread…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Vestigial Organs Work
Darwin asserted that seemingly useless organs and behaviors are left over from our evolutionary history. But as more are found to have a function, the idea has…
- Stuff You Should Know
What was the Philadelphia Experiment?
The Philadelphia Experiment is a bad movie from the 1980s, and also the conspiracy theory that refuses to die, despite virtually zero evidence of its…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Lobbying Works
Lobbying is an entrenched part of American politics and one that many people think is breaking government. But petitioning the government is protected in the…
- Stuff You Should Know
How PEZ Works
PEZ began in Vienna as a mint meant to help people quit smoking. But once American kids got ahold of it, the candy took off and a symbol of childhood - and…
- Stuff You Should Know
Chuck and Josh Make It Through Female Puberty
In part two of the SYSK puberty saga, Josh and Chuck venture into new territory as they explore all of the amazing changes girls face when they come of age…
- Stuff You Should Know
Geothermal Energy: Earth's Gift to Mankind
Green energy is good for all, and it doesn't get much greener than using the Earth's own heat to warm your home or office. Learn all about geothermal energy in…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Cult Deprogramming Worked
The fear of cults in the 1970s drove Americans to look the other way on kidnappings, abuse and torture of cult members by deprogrammers - but did it even work?…
- Stuff You Should Know
The Great Nuclear Winter Debate of 1983
At the height of the Cold War, a group of concerned scientists promoted their findings on the horrific aftereffects of nuclear war and were accused of…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Publicists Work
Some people call them flacks. Other people call them liars. But if you're in the public eye and suddenly have an image problem, you'll call them your best…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Chili Peppers Work
Born and raised in South America, chilis were the earliest crop domesticated in the continent and among the first items brought back to Europe by Columbus…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Police Dogs Work
Police dogs have been used since the 19th century - one WWI German defector became a major movie star. But in the US the post-9/11 era has seen a K9 unit boom…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Alcoholism Works
In the US, 17 million people are alcoholics. Not merely abusing alcohol, these sufferers become physically dependent on it, forming a chronic disease. Learn…
- Stuff You Should Know
How to Donate Your Body to Science
Donating your whole body to further science and medicine is probably the best thing you could do with your corpse. Which is why the industry that handles those…
- Stuff You Should Know
Nirvana: Not The Band
Hinduism and Buddhism are closely related in a number of ways, including their vision of what comes after we exit this mortal coil. Learn about the religions'…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Hot Air Balloons Work
Arguably the most beautiful objects in the entire world, hot air balloons take advantage of some interesting physics and have a long history of killing their…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Umami Works!
For millennia humans have recognized four tastes, but in the 1980s a fifth taste first isolated in Japan gained worldwide acceptance - and took off like a…
- Stuff You Should Know
Pigeons: Homing, Passenger, Carrier and Otherwise
Pigeons can get a little confusing. Passengers, messengers, carriers, homing - the list goes on. But when it comes down to it, they're all variations of the…
- Stuff You Should Know
Hula-Hoops: The Toy That's A Shape
We've covered our fair share of pop-culture icons and here is another - Hula-Hoops. They've been around since ancient time in some form or another, but made…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Auto-Tune Works
What began as a challenge to an oil engineer to make a terrible singer into a pitch-perfect one, Auto-Tune has become a ubiquitous (and, to many, obnoxious)…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Droughts Work
Droughts can be an inevitable feature of a local climate or a catastrophic result of human meddling. Learn the ins and outs of droughts including the American…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Earth-Like Planets Work
Since the Kepler telescope went online, astronomers have found there may be an estimate 40 billion planets like Earth in the Milky Way galaxy alone. What does…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Bats Work
They are creepy, sure, but they are also useful, cute and in great danger of extinction. Get a new lease on life from a new view of bats in this episode. Learn…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Profiling Works
At its base, criminal profiling is a legitimate investigatory tool. The Supreme Court has drawn a clear line that bans profiling when it includes race. So why…
- Stuff You Should Know
Road Rage: GRRRR!!!
About half of all people experience rage on a daily basis when they get behind the wheel. What is it about driving that ticks us off so badly? Learn more about…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Citizen's Arrests Work
In some states, it is not only your right but your duty to arrest someone you see committing a crime. Learn all about why you should basically never do that in…
- Stuff You Should Know
The Time Nazis Invaded Florida
During World War II, Nazis invaded the United States with saboteurs bent on fomenting chaos. Three times. Learn more about your ad-choices at…
- Stuff You Should Know
How the Terracotta Army Works
In 1974, Chinese farmers discovered the first of what would number 7,000 terracotta soldiers meant to protect China's first emperor in the afterlife. Learn…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Brickfilm Works
What began as a pair of teens who made a film for their grandparents has exploded into its own art form. Learn all about how stop-motion Lego films are made…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Egypt's Pyramids Work
Pyramids can be found in ruins around the world, but no civilization perfected the feat of engineering like Pharaonic Egypt. Learn about the mysteries that…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Circus Families Work
Don't be confused - this one is about actual circus acts made of family members, not the controversial comic strip. Learn more about your ad-choices at…
Stuff You Should KnowHow Audience Testing Works
Did you know some of our most beloved movies originally had different, sometimes better, endings? That is until they were tested in front of focus groups…
- Stuff You Should Know
Mosquitoes: The Worst
Sun Tzu said know your enemy, and so it is in this spirit that we present this episode on one of the worst airborne pests in the world. Learn more about your…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Landfills Work
Well-planned landfills have only recently come into widespread use. Recently, waste managers have found that they work a little too well and now the landfill…
- Stuff You Should Know
Are You My Mother?: How Animal Imprinting Works
What do little baby ducklings have to do with Nazis? A lot actually. Find out about animal imprinting experiments and the debate over their ethics. Learn more…
- Stuff You Should Know
How BASE Jumping Works
You should never BASE Jump. It is one of the most genuinely dangerous sports on the planet. But with that out of the way, you should definitely learn all about…
- Stuff You Should Know
Bridges: Nature Abhors Them
From prehistoric logs across streams to the 102-mile Kunshan Grand Bridge, nature works ceaselessly to take down spans. Learn about the fascinating ins and…
- Stuff You Should Know
How the Wow! Signal Works
In 1977, Ohio State astronomers discovered a radio transmission from space that was 30 times louder than the cosmic background noise. Since then every…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Ocean Currents Work
It's easy to overlook the importance of ocean currents - they move along out at sea, while we stay mostly on land. But we are globally affected by them every…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Street Gangs Work
The street gang problem in America peaked in the 1990s, but recent FBI reports find that gang membership doubled from 2006-2011. What's driving this increase…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Tupperware Works
Tupperware won immediate design acclaim when it was released in 1947, but it took a pioneering female executive to make a line of plastic food storage into an…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Junk Food Works
Junk food is literally that, empty calories of energy that provide little nutritional value and usually are stored as fat. Yet junk food is irresistible and…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Color Works
Science doesn't have a good explanation for why we sense color, yet it is everywhere and affecting us all the time. But why should minutely different…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Internet Censorship Works
Some of it seems innocuous enough: protecting kids from unseemly sites or intellectual property from piracy. But the tools to protect these things are the same…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Pinewood Derbies Work
Tens of millions of Scouts, and their parents, have taken standard blocks of wood and turned them into cars that zip along at up to 20 mph. Learn about the…
- Stuff You Should Know
Does the FDA Protect Americans?
The FDA was the first consumer protection agency in the US. Since 1906, it's been issuing regulations meant to protect Americans from tainted food, ineffective…
- Stuff You Should Know
Josh and Chuck Make It Through Male Puberty
Around ages 9 or 10 a boy will begin to undergo a magical, surprising, weird, amazing, totally bonkers transformation from childhood to adulthood. To separate…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Therapeutic Hypothermia Works
Physicians noticed centuries ago that people exposed to cold temperatures often have amazing recoveries from serious medical emergencies. Now medicine is…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Spiders Work
Spiders are second only to snakes in the dread departemnt, but they're actually very helpful arachnids who are only deadly to humans under the worst case…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Water Slides Work
Water slides have been around in one form or another since the Romans. But back then they didn't know what they had on their hands. With the birth of the…
- Stuff You Should Know
Oh No, Snakes!
If you think snakes are legless reptile carnivores, then you are exactly right. If you think snakes are here to kill you then you are exactly wrong. Learn more…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Clowns Work
Jesters of some sort have been around since ancient Egypt and China. Our modern clown was invented around 1800 and ever since they have been getting steadily…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Zero Population Growth Works
In 1968, Paul Erlich published The Population Bomb, predicting coming famine and mass death. Erlich's predictions didn't pan out but his ideas launched a…
- Stuff You Should Know
How Slinky Works
It has been called a "glorified spring", but Slinky is one of the best selling toys of all time. From accidental origins to an unlikely resurrection, Slinky…
- Stuff You Should Know
What's the deal with blood types?
Blood types have one of the more interesting backstories in medical history. But as much as we've figured out about them and how they work, we still don't know…
- Stuff You Should Know
Polyamory: When two just won't do
In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Chuck dive into the world of polyamory. Turns out polyamorists aren't weirdos and deviants, they're just…
- Stuff You Should Know
Thanks, Easter Bunny! Bock Bock!
Happy Easter from Stuff You Should Know! Learn all about Easter, from its humble beginnings as a pagan holiday to the multi-billion dollar industry it is…
- Stuff You Should Know
Does the body replace itself?
Does the human body really replace itself every few years? The answer is yes, but different parts of the body do so at different rates. Learn all about which…