Let's Learn Everything!

• Preview: The Lab Rat Games

  Welcome to the (preview for the) Lab Rat Games! The GAME show where we compete to learn anything and everything interesting! We love putting games into our topics, so what happens when we make a whole show of them, with each of us hosting their own section! Plus! We're joined by friend of the show and competitive chaos combatant, Sabrina Cruz!Support us with a Max Fun Membership!Join our Discord!

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• 81: Dinosaur Diet Detectives & Proto-Podcasts

  How can scientist's unravel the mystery of what dinosaurs ate? Well the clues are right in front of our eyes, or should I say their teeth! And poop! And listener you may already know what a podcast is, but how did proto-podcasts in a chicken coop give us the DNA for what we love, and how did podcasts even happen?Images we Talk About:First Iguanadon ToothPuffer Fish TeethFish TeethsIncisivosaurusSaurolophusDinosaur Stomach Contents FossilHam ComicSybil's Baby's Radio RebutTimestamps:(00:00:00) Intro
(00:04:33) Dinosaur Diet Detectives
(01:00:51) Support our Show!
(01:04:27) Proto-Podcasts
(02:02:49) Bonus Content!
(02:07:24) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!Join our Discord!We also learn about: Deep Dive Discovering Dino Diets, dinosaur time, imagining us discovering a new animal, well we know it doesn’t eat nerds, Ella describes teeth perfectly - “is that what you meant to say Tom?”, the mouth is the first stomach, we found the teeth of the first herbivorous dinosaur before the body - and before we had the word for dinosaur, cinderella/goldilocks teeth, dental microwear, food print, the topography of a grasshopper’s mandible, teeth can be more indicative than stomach content, maybe you just tried in and out for the first time when you got captured by aliens, dinosaur teeth are the old coins of ancient civilizations, egg eating oviraptors, it’s not just us but experts that are confused about oviraptaurs teeth, reconstructing the crime scene of a bit mark, this case has been closed for 70 million years! the tarbosaurus seems to have separated the chicken leg to make eating easier, a tyrannosaur leaving a tooth in the scene of the crime, they not only got bit but lived to tell the tale, this proves tyranosaurs hunted living animals - and weren’t just scavengers, hard foods stay in the stomach longer, some dinosaurs used Gastrolith rocks as stomach teeth, rocks natures teeth, Bromalite can be regurgitalite or coprolite, 580 million year old worm poop, we didn’t think grass was that old then we found it in dinosaur poop,  we put dinosaur poop in a particle accelerator, we’re not looking at poop - we’re constructing the foodchain of dinosaurs, an ancient egyptian podcast, podcasting is NOT an oral tradition, the chicken coop boys, Sybil’s Little Ham Radio Show 20 years before a woman on proper radio, the Titanic sinking sped along radio restrictions, Tom skipped over the cassette before because its science impact was small but its misc impact was huge, explaining cassette tapes at a high frequency so it doesn’t hurt old people to hear, Lou Otten, the syrian cassette archive, mixtapes, Caroline’s family mix CDs, Tom’s custom Jack’s Mannequin Mix CDs, Pacific Horticulture Magazine being delighted that someone’s interested, Tom’s Magic Corner, I knew it was some journalist doing their thing, apple didn’t come up with podcasting - not even the name, journey back to 1999, the dream of RSS, what’s that facebook shaped cloud on the horizon? the dream of hosting your own feed, somehow podcast RSS survived, podcasts are the Horshoecrab of the internet, “wherever you get podcasts” is amazing, The Lab Rat Games!Sources:NHM London: Iguanodon TeethNHM London: Beyond Jurassic World- What We Really Know About Dinosaurs and HowNHM London: The Seven Greatest Dinosaur Discoveries of the Last 200 YearsBritish Ecological Society: What do Grasshoppers Eat?Phys.Org: Cutting Edge Teeth StudyNPR: Dental Detectives: What Fossil Teeth Reveal About Ancestral Human DietsUniversity of Tokyo: Dinosaur Teeth Reveal What They Didn’t EatBBC: Dinosaur Teeth Reveal Feeding HabitsIncisivosaurus2022 Paper: Incisivosaura Bite ForceUniversity of Pennsilvania: What Fossils Tell Us About the Dining Habits of DinosaursNHM London: Dinosaur Eating Habit Insights from Stegosaurus stenops2010 Paper: New information on scavenging and selective feeding behaviour of tyrannosauridsDave Hone's Archosaur Musings2012 Paper: Physical evidence of predatory behavior in Tyrannosaurus rexSave Our Seas: What Tools do Biologists use to Tell What is on the Menu for Wild Animals?Scientific America: Tyrannosaur’s Stomach Contents Have Been Found for the First Time2023 Paper: Exceptionally preserved stomach contents of a young tyrannosaurid reveal an ontogenetic dietary shift in an iconic extinct predatorSN Explores: Fossil Stomach Reveals a Dinosaur’s Last MealNHM London: CoproliteThe Bristol Dinosaur Project: The Grass DivideNPR: Over 500 Fossilized Poops Show How Dinosaurs Came to Rule the EarthAmerican Museum of Natural History: How Does Studying Dinosaurs Benefit Humanity?---MET on Memory Boards and Luba Oral TraditionsOED Broadcast EtymologyThe Chicken Coop Ham RadioSybil's Little Hame Radio ProgramNYTimes on Titanic's Impact on Radio LawLibrary of Congress on Recorded RadioNPR On Lout Otten and the Cassette TapeWired on Cassette HistoryNPR on the Syrian Cassette ArchiveBerkeley Audio Tape RetrospectiveCarl Malamud on Asynchronous Internet RadioThe Earliest Mention of Podcasts in the GuardianTwo-Bit History on the History of RSSKevin Werbach's Vision of the Future of RSS and the InternetTechCrunch: Rest in Peace RSS

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• Tom, Ella, and Caroline join MFD Spring Break

  It’s not MaxFunDrive without a wild kickoff spectacular! Former real-life VJ and host of MTV's Spring Break 1999, Dave Holmes, takes your favorite MaxFun hosts through some wacky ‘90s- and Spring Break-themed mini games!!Featuring: Dave Holmes, Jeremy Bent, Oscar Montoya, Dimitry Pompée, Tom Lum, Ellen Weatherford, Alex Schmidt, Brenda Snell, Drea Clark, Alonso Duralde, Dan McCoy, Jordan Morris, Manolo Moreno, Ella Hubber, Caroline Roper, Ella McLeod, John-Luke Roberts, Justin McElroy, Clint McElroy, Mike Cabellon, Sierra Katow, Hal Lublin, Danielle Radford, John Moe, Christian Dueñas, Christian Duguay. Timestamps:(00:00:00) Intro(00:02:22) Tom, Ellen, Alex, and Brenda Trivia(00:32:47) Tom, Ellen, Manolo, and Jeremy on Party Animals(00:46:34) Caroline, Ella, Ella, and John-Luke on British Spring Break    

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  1:20:29
• 80: Ify Nwadiwe, The Science of the Peasant Railgun, and a Panoply of Nerdery

  Host of Um Actually and nerd of many domains Ify Nwadiwe joins us as Tom helps him deconstruct the infamous Peasant Railgun from D&D. Could it actually work? And can we come up with something even more powerful using real science? We also dig into nerdery old and new, and see if Ify can convince Ella and Caroline to embrace their home country's greatest export: Warhammer.Images we Talk About:A Real Railgun FiringTimestamps:(00:00:00) Intro(00:06:05) The Peasant Railgun(00:43:07) Q&A/Nerding Out(01:12:19) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!Join our Discord!We also learn about: After this black hole research I do appreciate my family more! we’re here to game, what is a peasant? stealing science experiments for DnD campaigns, Caroline and Ella are delighted to learn the Peasant Railgun for the first time, convincing peasants to hands across america, pandering to the audience telling them their smart, My Monster Manual is On the Origin of Species, a peasant message system/computer, let people accelerate things to the speed of light! I shouldn’t let my players do WHAT, and remember kids DONT use a bong because it gets you SO HIGH, I’m reading between the lines Gary would want us to do this, the real rail gun, UM ACTUALLY ITS A PEASANT COIL GUN, rail guns are more common in fiction, the strength of a rail gun tears itself apart and creates a fireball, Ify would make each peasant in the line roll, if your players try to make the railgun say yes then show them the picture, the peasants have the means of production and destruction - they should unionize, the fastest manmade object, the manhole cover isnt the fastest object recorded, mission to touch the sun, gravity slingshot, it’s not the mass of the planet its the orbit, its not a magnet - its a magnet on a bullettrain, DMs watch out for artificer space programs, the duke of musk keeps stealing our government funding, Morgan you’re welcome to play beyblades with Ify any time, marrying bratz and digimon, England’s main export is Warhammer, can Ify convince Ella to play Warhammer, should we do a separate zoom just talking about nerd stuff? online writing forums, audio books are real books, be mean in magic, playing DnD on stage vs at home, playing true to your character.Sources:First Edition D&D Player's HandbookKnight's Digest on Peasant Railgun OriginsEarliest Peasant Railgun MentionPCGamer on D&D 2024 Dungeon Master Guide UpdateIEEE Early Railgun ResearchVice "This Is Why the Navy Can’t Have Nice Railguns"USC on Railgun FeasabilityPopular Science Interview on Railgun TestJPL Chart of Fastest ObjectsCNET on Parker Solar ProbeNASA Gravity Assist Primer

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  1:16:19
• 79: The Psychology of Math & Sudoku

  Why is math both so easy and so hard for our brains, and how can the psychology of horses, babies, and mathematicians help answer that? And what wild journey did Sudoku take to become the popular puzzle that Ella adores?Things we Talk About:The Video of a Child Learning to CountThe Melencolia PaintingTimestamps:(00:00:00) Intro(00:04:59) The Psychology of Math(01:00:35) Sudoku(01:44:59) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!Join our Discord!We also learn about: the Wonderful student, it’s not you - it’s math, “I did biology for a reason”, children can want a lot of complex things, it’s harder in the UK cause its Maths plural, Caroline & Ella’s math journeys, charlie solves the Riemann hypothesis, the horse the myth the legend - clever hans, clever hans was drafted into the military AS A MATHEMATICIAN, real horse math! so many animals seem to have Number Sense, counting is hard for kids, multiplication isn’t counting - it’s memorization and other strategies, Caroline doesn’t have a great Mental Blackboard, kick flipping a chair in our minds to brag to Caroline, overlapping waves, hot or not for equations, hahaha a taylor expansion?? in Lp?? ridiculous! there is no one math organ in the brain, don’t give up on math, “I don’t treat math as a monolith (I think statistics is the worst math)”, that surprises me because sudoko’s amazing and you’re wrong, the ancient mystical turtle’s magic square, a mathematical warding spell, “once something is proved true, it is eternally true”, HOW DID ELLA NOT REALIZE THIS WAS A MATH TOPIC, magic squares are unsolved, math divination, wow this is a math’s topic huh, maths in art, Melancholia, the magic square on La Sagrada Familia, wait Magic Squares AREN’T the precursor to sudoku?? I don’t know this child, if not sudoku why sudoku shaped? the Latin square originated in Korea before Euler, my parents are older than sudoku, it was originally called Number Place, even though we call it Sudoku - in Japan it’s often called Number Place for trademark reasons, the 2004 sudoku boom, sudoku is an infectious meme, this topic took so long (because Ella took sudoku breaks), figuring out the question of unique puzzles, so many ways to think about a square, advanced sudoku techniques, x-wing and swordfish, sudoku championships, of course Ella found speed running in this topic, Sudoku doesn’t seem to cure cognitive decline - but it’s also just fun to do! a beautiful sudoku poem, it’s how we learn and it’s calming - a little win, “I feel like I need to lie down”, let us know if you know the difference between 3 apples and 4 apples.Sources:Perfect Pitch StudyFeigenson et al. Core System of NumberThe Clever Hans Phenomenon RevisitedNYTimes Berlin's Wonderful HorseActual Horse Number Sense StudyNumber Sense in AnimalsRat Brain Number Sense StudyNPR Why Big Numbers Break our BrainsErikson Institute Video of Child CountingThe Development of Mathematical CognitionMath Expert Brain Activity StudyThe Beauty of Math StudyUniversity of MAryland on Math Brain ActivityKeith Devlin Stanford TalkKatie Steckles: What Do Mathematicians Do All Day?---Wikipedia: Magic SquareRoyal Institution: Magic SquareUniversity of Cambridge: Magic SquareMagic Squares in Islamic MathematicsWiki: SudokuThe Guardian: History of SudokuThe Science of Sudoku by BY JEAN-PAUL DELAHAYEPaper: There Is No 16-Clue SudokuAdvanced Sudoku Techniques:Wiki: World Sudoku ChampionshipsSudoku.com: The Fastest Sudoku PlayerSudoku.com: 4 Reasons that Sudoku is the Perfect Puzzle GameWorking MemoryBBC: Puzzle Slolving and Cognitive DeclineSudoku 15 year studyGlobal Council on Brain Health ReportSudoku Mental Fortitude

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