Stuff To Blow Your Mind

In this classic episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe explore the sargassum seaweed and the many strange and amazing organisms that call it home. (originally published 4/29/2021)

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Once more, it's time for a weekly dose of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Weirdhouse Cinema listener mail...

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Smart Talks with IBM returns May 31. This season, host Malcolm Gladwell and a team of correspondents from Pushkin Industries meet with New Creators who are creatively applying technology in business to drive change. This is a paid advertisement from IBM.

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What will we do when robots and artificial intelligences break the law? In this classic episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss the issue of robot moral and legal agency. (originally published 4/13/21)

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Brains attack once more on Weirdhouse Cinema as Rob and Joe discuss the 1958 horror film “Fiend Without a Face,” starring the best stop-motion brain monsters the 50s had to offer.

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On a mundane level, a cauldron is nothing more than a great cooking pot, but it takes on supernatural dimensions in various myths and legends. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss the history of cauldrons and their links to tales of witchcraft, rebirth and the mandate of heaven.

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In this episode of STBYM’s The Monstrefact, Robert discusses the vampiric giantess from the Capcom videogame Resident Evil Village…

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On a mundane level, a cauldron is nothing more than a great cooking pot, but it takes on supernatural dimensions in various myths and legends. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss the history of cauldrons and their links to tales of witchcraft, rebirth and the mandate of heaven.

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Studies have found that spending time in nature creates a host of psychological and physiological benefits for humans. But why? In this episode, Robert and Joe explore several competing explanations for the restorative power of natural environments, covering everything from the shape of our ancestral environments to the internal economy of attention and focus.

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The god of war does not march into battle alone. His sons, embodying panic and terror ride beside him. The same can be said of the planet Mars and its two moons: Phobos and Deimos. In this classic episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss the Martian moons as well as a bit of mythology. (originally published 4/22/2021)

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It’s time for another Spanish monster romp on Weirdhouse Cinema! In this episode, Rob and Joe discuss Amando de Ossorio’s 1973 film “The Loreley's Grasp,” full of Germanic mythology and highly questionable science.

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It is dark inside the human body, but not every denizen of the animal kingdom is such a closed book. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss various creatures with transparent anatomical features and translucent bodies.

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In this episode of STBYM’s The Monstrefact, Robert discusses the Germanic siren known as the Loreley…

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You may think you know yourself, but humans have a striking inability to predict their own behavior in differing emotional states. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe explore the hot-cold empathy gap.

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Once more, it's time for a weekly dose of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Weirdhouse Cinema listener mail...

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The god of war does not march into battle alone. His sons, embodying panic and terror ride beside him. The same can be said of the planet Mars and its two moons: Phobos and Deimos. In this classic episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss the Martian moons as well as a bit of mythology. (originally published 4/20/2021)

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In celebration of Friday the 13, Rob and Joe dive into one of the sillier entries in the Jason Voorhees franchise with 1989's "Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan" on this week's Weirdhouse Cinema.

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It’s easy to take document duplication for granted in our modern age, but our digital ease follows centuries of mechanical innovation and millennia of human specialization in the form of the scribe. In this Stuff to Blow Your Mind two-parter, Robert and Joe explore the history and invention of the facsimile.

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In this episode of STBYM’s The Monstrefact, Robert discusses a ghoulish blob from the yokai tradition of Japan…

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It’s easy to take document duplication for granted in our modern age, but our digital ease follows centuries of mechanical innovation and millennia of human specialization in the form of the scribe. In this Stuff to Blow Your Mind two-parter, Robert and Joe explore the history and invention of the facsimile.

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Once more, it's time for a weekly dose of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Weirdhouse Cinema listener mail...

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Even as humans reach out into the void with robotic probes and turn to artificial intelligence to aid in the search for extraterrestrial life, we face the possibility that the life we find out there might be mechanical and governed by artificial intelligence as well. In this classic episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss alien AI and post-organic life. (originally published 4/1/2021)

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In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe discuss Mario Bava's hypnotic 1965 sci-fi horror movie "Planet of the Vampires." It has all the style you could ask for, plus giant space skeletons.

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Can you see the light of the stars from the bottom of a well? Did an astrologer once fall into a well because he was staring up at the stars? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss a couple of well-and-cosmos-related tales from antiquity.

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In this episode of STBYM’s The Monstrefact, Robert discusses tentacled lurkers in the bog from the worlds of gaming, fantasy literature and industrial music…

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It might surprise you to learn that the oldest raging fires on Earth are actually underground. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss the world of eternal flames and coal seam fires.

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Once more, it's time for a weekly dose of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Weirdhouse Cinema listener mail...

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Even as humans reach out into the void with robotic probes and turn to artificial intelligence to aid in the search for extraterrestrial life, we face the possibility that the life we find out there might be mechanical and governed by artificial intelligence as well. In this classic episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss alien AI and post-organic life. (originally published 3/30/2021)

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The surface world fights back against undersea aggression! In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe discuss Ishirô Honda’s 1963 Toho film “Atragon,” which features an armored submarine and the debut of the kaiju Manda!

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It might surprise you to learn that the oldest raging fires on Earth are actually underground. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss the world of eternal flames and coal seam fires.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of STBYM’s The Monstrefact, Robert discusses the Pokemon known as Torterra with a little help from Sebastian…

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It might surprise you to learn that the oldest raging fires on Earth are actually underground. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss the world of eternal flames and coal seam fires.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Once more, it's time for a weekly dose of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Weirdhouse Cinema listener mail...

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Did the planet Jupiter, like a reckless god, wreak havoc on a young solar system? Join Robert and Joe and they consider the red planet’s destructive powers on Stuff to Blow Your Mind. (originally published 3/25/2021)

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It’s time for more big meaty monsters slapping meat on Weirdhouse Cinema, as Rob and Joe discuss 1991’s “The Guyver,” a biomechanical slapfest full of wonderfully weird casting and an array of glistening special effects by synthetic flesh wizard and co-director Screaming Mad George.

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In the previous week’s episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discussed contemplations of plant memory and other topics that blur our understanding of the animal/plant divide. In this episode, they continue on some of those themes by considering the legendary vegetable lamb of Tartary, said to be a flesh-and-blood animal that grew from the ground.

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In this episode of STBYM’s The Monstrefact, Robert discusses Baphomet, the Goat of Mendes…

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In the previous week’s episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discussed contemplations of plant memory and other topics that blur our understanding of the animal/plant divide. In this episode, they continue on some of those themes by considering the legendary vegetable lamb of Tartary, said to be a flesh-and-blood animal that grew from the ground.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Once more, it's time for a weekly dose of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Weirdhouse Cinema listener mail...

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Did the planet Jupiter, like a reckless god, wreak havoc on a young solar system? Join Robert and Joe and they consider the red planet’s destructive powers on Stuff to Blow Your Mind. (originally published 3/23/2021)

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In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe discuss the 1968 Hammer horror film “The Devil Rides Out,” directed by Terence Fisher and adapted by Richard Matheson from the novel by Dennis Wheatley. It stars Christopher Lee and Charles Gray as dueling occultists in a tale of high-stakes Satanism. 

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Do plants remember? Do they communicate? What is the extent of their interaction with their environment? In this Stuff to Blow Your Mind series, Robert and Joe dive into the amazing world of plant intelligence research.

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In this episode of STBYM’s The Monstrefact, Robert discusses a possible link between Blade the Vampire Hunter and a particular slime mite…

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Do plants remember? Do they communicate? What is the extent of their interaction with their environment? In this Stuff to Blow Your Mind series, Robert and Joe dive into the amazing world of plant intelligence research. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Once more, it's time for a weekly dose of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Weirdhouse Cinema listener mail...

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We all know a “dad joke” when we hear one, but what exactly qualifies as a dad joke and what does it reveal about parenthood, childhood learning and comedy itself? Robert and Joe explore in this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. (originally published 3/18/2021)

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This week’s classic episode of Weirdhouse Cinema is 30 percent human, 70 percent robot and 100 percent lethal -- because the subject is the 1986 Italian sci-fi action film “Hands of Steel,” a cyborg arm wrestling movie set in the dystopian future of 1997. (originally published 3/19/2021)

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It’s time for another invention-based classic episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. In this episode, Robert and Joe discuss a very old invention that we can scarcely imagine life without: the spoon. (originally published 3/11/2021)

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In this episode of STBYM’s The Artifact, Robert discusses a fascinating Celtic artifact...

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It’s time for another invention-based classic episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. In this episode, Robert and Joe discuss a very old invention that we can scarcely imagine life without: the spoon. (originally published 3/9/2021)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.