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Stuff You Should Know

How did language evolve? What makes us happy? Each week Josh and Chuck explore everything from matadors to moonshine. Join the guys as they look into big and small questions alike -- seriously, it's all the Stuff You Should Know.

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Latest Episodes

  • Yakuza: From Samurai to Slot Machines

    Released 11.06.12

    The Yakuza trace their lineage back to the 18th century samurai, left masterless following political upheaval, who turned to lives of crime.

  • Is Stockholm Syndrome real?

    Released 11.01.12

    Since a hostage standoff in Sweden took place in 1972 a peculiar and mysterious psychological phenomenon has had a name.

  • SYSK’s Halloween Horror Fiction Winner!

    Released 10.30.12

    Josh and Chuck have been planning this thing since spring and it’s finally here! Tune in to hear which listener’s scary story won the SYSK Halloween Horror Fiction Contest -- and prepare to have your socks scared off just in time for All Hallow’s Eve.

  • Exoskeletons: How’s it coming?

    Released 10.25.12

    Since the 1960s, the Pentagon has called for a suit that can make a soldier jump higher, run faster longer and generally be a badder dude.

  • How Commercial Jingles Work

    Released 10.23.12

    You probably can recite five right now. Commercial jingles are designed to hijack your working memory and implant a product or service and they really work.

  • How Lion Taming Works

    Released 10.18.12

    Bossing a lion around in front of a crowd at a circus has been an attraction for 200 years, but exactly how lion tamers get their captive wild animals to comply has evolved over time.

  • How Black Holes Work

    Released 10.16.12

    It wasn’t too long ago when black holes were strictly predictions in theoretical math. Over decades, astronomy has gotten better at uncovering these cosmic phenomena.

  • How Pizza Works!

    Released 10.11.12

    Sure it’s everywhere and there’s a more-than-90-percent chance you eat it once a month. But we’ll bet you don’t know the full history of that pizza (or tomato pie) you’re about to chow down on.

  • How Rainforests Work

    Released 10.09.12

    It’s been called the world’s lungs, the world’s pharmacy and the world’s air conditioner. It takes up only 6 percent of Earth’s land, yet houses 50% of the world’s species.

  • How Fire Works

    Released 10.04.12

    Creating fire was possibly the most important human discovery, but it’s easy to take for granted. But.

  • How Whiskey Runners Worked

    Released 10.02.12

    Sure, Chuck and Josh have discussed it before, but it’s worth revisiting: Running moonshine led to the creation of NASCAR.

  • Subways: HUH! What are they good for?

    Released 09.27.12

    As ubiquitous as they’ve become, it’s easy to overlook the marvels of engineering that are subways. Chuck and Josh go boring as they explore these systems of tubes that must circumnavigate rock, rivers, cables and more to get you where you’re going.

  • Q: Are we in the midst of cyberwar? A: Yes

    Released 09.25.12

    There’s a secret war going on around us, and it's happening on a daily basis. The Air Force recently launched a new unit specifically designed to carry out and defend against cyberwar.

  • Why does music provoke emotion?

    Released 09.20.12

    A well-crafted piece of music can bring us to incredible highs and crushing lows, sometimes within the same song.

  • Are we all Martians?

    Released 09.18.12

    There’s a very good question that no one has yet satisfactorily answered: Where did life on Earth come from?

  • How Book Banning Works

    Released 09.13.12

    If you want to control the masses, control what they read. After all, books are seeds that germinate new points of view.

  • How Asexuality Works

    Released 09.11.12

    When Alfred Kinsey conducted his sex surveys he turned up, but ignored, a fourth sexual orientation: people who don’t experience sexual attraction.

  • Bioluminescence: A Bright and Shiny Fish

    Released 09.06.12

    Science has a handle on fireflies and glowworms, but most bioluminescent animals live in the ocean and are tough to study.

  • Can you test a nuclear weapon without a fallout?

    Released 09.04.12

    Over the course of human existence, thousands of nuclear weapons have been exploded on Earth and in space.

  • How Flesh-eating Bacteria Work

    Released 08.30.12

    Possibly the most horrifically-named disease anyone could contract, flesh-eating bacteria can lead quickly lead to amputations and death.

  • How the Electoral College Works

    Released 08.28.12

    When you vote in an American presidential election, you’re not voting for your candidate – you’re voting for a group of people you hope will in turn vote for your candidate.

  • Stuff you Should Know: Learn to Speak Like a Sailor

    Released 08.24.12

    Although you may have never set foot on a ship, odds are that you're familiar with the popular figures of speech that were originally nautical terms.

  • What happens to abandoned mines?

    Released 08.23.12

    Did you know there are as many as 500,000 abandoned mines in the US, but the federal government knows where only 30,000 of them are?

  • Why You Probably Have a Criminal Record

    Released 08.21.12

    If you're an American adult, there's a 1 in 4 chance you have a criminal record. While it's less likely you've committed any serious crime, there are still repercussions to having a rap sheet as more employers use them to decide between candidates.

  • Did Reagan's Star Wars program win the Cold War?

    Released 08.16.12

    Putting lasers in space to blast Soviet missiles out of the air was a real part of Ronald Reagan's defense policy.

  • The Shark Diaries

    Released 08.14.12

    In this special episode of Stuff You Should Know, Chuck and Josh tip their hats to Shark Week with an old-fashioned radio play.

  • How Shark Attacks Work

    Released 08.09.12

    A shark attack is a terrifying experience for the victim -- but are sharks really man-eating monsters with a taste for human flesh?

  • How Ramadan Works

    Released 08.07.12

    It's the holiest month of the Muslim calendar, and for good reason. It was during the month of Ramadan that Mohammed began to issue the Koran.

  • Can we build an elevator to space?

    Released 08.02.12

    With the end of the shuttle program and an International Space Station still in need of supplies, the aerospace industry is working the kinks of out of a century-old idea to build a service elevator from Earth to outer space.

  • How the Musketeers Worked

    Released 07.31.12

    You know and love them as a fluffy chocolate nougat and maybe as a book and a movie, but musketeers were quite real and quite deadly.

  • Stuff You Should Know, Live at Comic-Con

    Released 07.26.12

    How does time travel work? Could it ever cross the line from science fiction into science fact? Join Josh and Chuck -- along with a live audience at the 2012 Comic-Con -- as they explore the ins and outs of time travel.

  • How White-collar Crime Works

    Released 07.24.12

    White-collar crime often involves fraud and other nonviolent acts. For most people, the term "white-collar crime" conjures up images of CEOs conniving their way to fortune.

  • Did a cow start the Great Chicago Fire?

    Released 07.19.12

    It's true: The newspapers of the day reported that a cow (or perhaps its owner) was responsible for a fire that burned half of Chicago in 1871.

  • How Disco Works

    Released 07.17.12

    Fly, robin, fly indeed. No musical genre has risen and burned out as quickly as disco, and historians are still trying to unravel the animosity aimed at it.

  • How Lightning Works

    Released 07.12.12

    You’ve seen lightning before, and maybe you’re even afraid of it. You should be. The air is ripped apart and a sudden electrical discharge burning six times brighter than the sun connects with Earth.

  • Geysers: Nature’s Innuendo

    Released 07.10.12

    The spectacular eruptions of steam and water we call geysers are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg, the result of thousands of years of specific natural conditions and physical processes.

  • How Tabloids Work

    Released 07.05.12

    Having started as an egalitarian answer to 19th-century newspapers, tabloids came to peddle shock and sleaze.

  • Is the Dead Sea dead?

    Released 07.03.12

    An anomaly of geography, the shores of Dead Sea form the lowest dry spot on Earth. It’s been visited by millions, including King Herod and Cleopatra, all seeking the health benefits of this saline lake.

  • What’s the deal with Executive Orders?

    Released 06.28.12

    Depending on who’s in office, they’re either a presidential tradition or the acts of a despot. Executive orders are not spelled out in the Constitution, yet every president has issued them.

  • Lying Liars: How Lying Works, Liar

    Released 06.26.12

    Studies find that absolutely everyone lies – some have found as much as a quarter of our daily interactions involve lies.

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