Inventing Fire: the First Spark of Humanity

If you can never connect to a printer, if furniture jumps out to stub your toe, if when you do the dishes the water jumps out the sink to soak you - then you are victim of the inanimate malice of things.The belief that all things are essentially out to get us us has a name - Resi ...  Show more

400 years ago on the River Thames a mad genius showed off the world's first submarine. A crowd of thousands including King James watched as Cornelis Drebbel disappeared beneath the murky water, only reemerging after three whole hours had passed.The same genius also came up with p ...  Show more

Ever felt like you were wrestling with more than just a campfire? Me too. Turns out, controlling fire is a bit like trying to control your own mind; tricky, unpredictable, and full of surprises. In this episode, we have an episode drop from Sam's new show "How to Change the World ...  Show more

Fire changed everything for early humans! In this episode, we’ll learn how people first discovered fire and how it helped them survive. Fire gave them warmth, light, and a way to cook food. It also kept them safe and helped them make new tools. We’ll talk about how fire brought p ...  Show more

The Stone Age is the foundational period of human history, stretching from roughly 3 million to 5,000 years ago, and accounting for over 99% of humanity’s time on earth. It’s the era when modern humans evolved and migrated out of Africa to populate the globe, developed language a ...  Show more

What does the Declaration of Independence have in common with Vincent van Gogh’s sketches? The ink used to produce them came from wasps. From pests to products, insects have played an enormous role in human history. Entomologist and animal behaviorist Barrett Klein encourages a h ...  Show more