Why does a manual transmission make a whirrin...

Over a few hundred years, real stories about secretive agents developed into the legend of the ninja. Learn how this myth captured the world's imagination -- and about the work being done at the world's first International Ninja Research Center -- in this episode of BrainStuff, b ...  Show more

The French word 'bourgeois' originally just meant a middle-class town dweller, but it's taken on a lot of different (and often derogatory) connotations over the centuries, including in the English slang term 'bougie'. Learn more in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this articl ...  Show more

Aston’s 110th birthday present to itself is a machine so old school it has a wooden gearlever and recycled geography teacher upholstery. Analogue heaven, or expensive anachronism? We discuss that and the rise of the expensive manual gearbox with the help of the 911 S/T, GMA T.50 ...  Show more

You're probably reading this on a device connected to the internet, while listening to this episode. But how did the digital files that make up this description, and the digital sound files that you can hear, appear, on demand, on your phone, tablet or other device? How are you c ...  Show more

A scientist asked people to sit in a silent room for 15 minutes. Almost half of them decided to give themselves a painful electric shock instead. What is it about our brains that makes our relationship with silence so strange? And should we learn how to listen to it? This is the ...  Show more

How do we move? What parts of the brain control how we use our muscles? And what implanted technology is allowing people with spinal cord injuries to walk again? In this episode of How We’re Wired, join evolutionary anthropologist Dr Anna Machin as she picks apart the neuroscienc ...  Show more