The BrainFood Show

In the episode today, we're looking at the rather disgusting ingredients of Worcestershire sauce and how it's made. Whether honey is vegan. How Cereal became part of a complete breakfast. What started the cops eating doughnuts stereotype. Who invented the Food Pyramid. How Napoleon helped invent margarine. Why Asian nations use chopsticks. The difference between brown and white eggs. How people used to use frogs to keep milk from spoiling. The corrupt individual that gave us Monterey jack cheese. And finally the Cornell professor who gave the world the chicken nugget.

00:00 What is in Worcestershire Sauce and Why is It Called That?
04:44 Is Honey Vegan?
09:45 How Did Cereal Become “Part of a Complete Breakfast”?
23:43 What Started the “Cops Eating Doughnuts” Stereotype
27:01 Who Invented the Food Pyramid?
36:20 Napoleon and the Invention of Margarine
42:30 Why Do Asian Nations Use Chopsticks?
45:50 The Difference Between Brown and White Eggs
51:07 Frogs and Milk- How to Keep Milk from Spoiling Without Refrigeration
53:50 The Corrupt and Ruthless Californian Who Gave us the Name for “Monterey Jack” Cheese
01:01:31 The Cornell Professor Who Gave Us the Chicken Nugget
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In this art documentary, we are diving into the fascinating, and often
insanely expensive, ways artists made the colors they used in their
paintings by going on site and discussing it with various experts in the field.

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At 8:15 AM local time on August 6, 1945, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay of the U.S. Army Air Forces’ 509th Composite Group dropped a single bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Nicknamed Little Boy, the bomb detonated at an altitude of 580 metres or 1,900 feet, unleashing the explosive equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT. The immediate fireball and blast wave obliterated buildings out to a radius of 1.6 kilometres or one mile, while the resulting firestorm destroyed nearly 11 square kilometres or 4.4 square miles of the city. By the end of the year, around 150,000 civilians of all ages had been killed as a result of the blast, while thousands more succumbed to injuries and radiation poisoning over the following years. The atomic bomb had made its terrifying combat debut.

But while Little Boy was fuelled by 64 kilograms or 141 pounds of highly-enriched Uranium, astoundingly only 1.5% of this material or 800 grams actually participated in the nuclear reaction, while a scant 0.7 grams was converted to pure energy. That’s right: a piece of Uranium lighter than a paperclip obliterated an entire city.

Such is the astounding power of nuclear fission, which is so much more efficient than any chemical reaction that a single kilogram of Uranium burned in a nuclear reactor can produce as much energy as 3,000 tons of coal. But…how? What makes nuclear fission so extraordinarily powerful? How does it all work?

Well, let’s dive into the fascinating process and science that allows us to unlock the incredible amount of energy that lies within all matter.

Author: Gilles Messier
Editor/Host: Daven Hiskey
Producer: Samuel Avila

0:00 Intro
1:41 What's Really Going on With the Fundamental Building Blocks of All Matter
10:26 Why is There So Much Energy in Matter?
12:02 Artificially Inducing Fission and Why They Choose What They Choose for This
18:08 Building an Atomic Bomb
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As the official name of Paris–Bordeaux–Paris Trail suggests, the idea of this particular event was to see who could drive from Paris to Bordeaux and back again in the quickest possible time. For reference, this was a distance of 1,178 km or 732 miles on the roads of the day. So what was so special about this particular race? Well, for the first time in history, a large group of automobiles would be pitted against one another in a first to finish-style event, with said race kicking off on June 11, 1895.

The brainchild of a group of automobile enthusiasts and journalists keen to promote the then fledgling French automobile industry, the race was seen as a way to both test the limits of cars at the time as well as test the commercial viability of motor racing as a spectator sport.

Although, as we’ve previously noted, this was only a couple decades after an era in which competitive walking was one of the world’s most popular spectator sports, so the competition was pretty light. And, to be perfectly clear- we’re not talking speed walking- just regular leisurely walking for hours and hours on end… In fact, certain walking matches were known to draw tens of thousands of spectators. Yes, before YouTube, our forebears found watching people casually walking in circles for sometimes days on end without stopping great entertainment, though to be fair this was...

Author: Karl Smallwood
Host: Simon Whistler
Producer: Samuel Avila
Editor: Daven Hiskey
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Ever wonder who invented the ballpoint pen? Well strap in, as we do a deep dive into the progression of writing, and the incredible engineering behind the surprisingly revolutionary ballpoint pen.

Author: Gilles Messier
Host/Editor: Daven Hiskey
Producer: Samuel Avila
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