In 1861, one man and a “gas bag” filled with hydrogen sparked America's obsession with going higher, farther, into the unknown. In this episode, Roman and journalist Jack Hitt tell the story of Thaddeus Lowe — showman, scientist, and dreamer — whose balloon flight from Cincinnati ...Show more
Karaoke Videos
Behind every cheesy karaoke track was a surprisingly ambitious filmmaking experiment. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Host ...Show more
You may call it the toilet, the loo, the privy, the potty, the can or even the bathroom, but whatever you call it, this everyday object has its roots in Bronze Age Pakistan. It even had a seat!But how did the toilet come to be? Given one third of the world’s population still live ...Show more
If you live in a city with modern sanitation, it’s hard to imagine daily life being permeated with the suffocating stench of human excrement. For that, we have a number of people to thank – not least a London watchmaker called Alexander Cumming. Cumming’s world-changing invention ...Show more
Happy World Toilet Day! It is that day of the year when we all need to overcome our embarrassment and discuss what is normally a taboo topic. Hundreds of millions of people still have no access to a toilet, putting them at risk of disease, sexual assault and public humiliation.Ta ...Show more
Older American cities have a dirty problem — outdated sewer systems that use a single pipe to carry both sewage and stormwater to treatment facilities. As population growth and climate change have increased both sewage and stormwater, those pipes can get filled to capacity, and t ...Show more