Cool Stuff Ride Home
Covering the most interesting and coolest stories that you may have missed around the world in about 15 minutes a day. Cool Stuff Ride Home looks at science, progress, life-hacks, memes, exciting art, and hope. This is the antidote to depressing headlines. Smart stuff in podcast form. Cool news, as a service.
Hosted by Reggie Risseeuw and Marques Pfaff.
876
Thu. 02/25 - The Anti-Marie Kondo & Radical Kee...
How to make your clothes last longer and practice the art of “radical keeping” according to “the anti-Marie Kondo.” A segment about #Buttergate in Canada that’s not really about Buttergate afterall. And a browser extension that shows you...
16 min
877
Wed. 02/24 - How Childhood Illness Can Shape Fu...
How the flu you had as a kid could shape your immune response to future flu viruses. A bunch of videos have been going viral showing snow not melting when held up against a flame, but it’s not a conspiracy. It’s science. And the first song...
16 min
878
Tue. 02/23 - The History (and Erasure) of Black...
Beer culture is perceived as overwhelmingly white, but its history and its present is not. A historical look at the erasure of Black brewers. The impact of pandemic boredom on the economy. And a new app that will put David Attenborough in your living...
17 min
879
Mon. 02/22 - Two-Way Dream Communication
Scientists have tapped deeper into the depths of our dreams by achieving two-way communication with lucid dreamers. Why were there so many serial killers between 1970 and 2000? And what stopped them? And space is getting more diverse in more ways than...
15 min
880
Fri. 02/19 - Green Oranges, Pink Margarine, & G...
A history of how the US government started deciding what color our food is allowed to be. Could lab-grown wood disrupt the lumber industry? And, The Muppet Show has been released from the Disney Vault. Sponsors: OurCrowd, Skillshare, Get a free...
15 min
881
Thu. 02/18 - Improving Twitter with an 1800s Et...
The Los Angeles musician who helped design the microphones on the Perseverance rover that will hopefully give us our first-ever audio recordings of Mars. Can a 19th century etiquette book make Twitter bearable? And what some of the top websites looked...
14 min
882
Wed. 02/17 - How Perseverance Could Pave the Wa...
A historical defense of arranging book collections by color. Scientists have sequenced the oldest DNA ever found and made some mammoth discoveries in the process. And NASA’s Perseverance rover is set to touch down on Mars tomorrow––some...
15 min
883
Tue. 02/16 - Del Monte Engineered Pink Pineappl...
The new fruit taking over Instagram. Why the winter storm sweeping the US is causing an energy crisis, especially in Texas. And a new-ish game that lets you take a virtual vacation with your friends. Sponsors: Skillshare, Get a free trial of Premium...
18 min
884
Mon. 02/15 - The Impactor That Killed the Dinos...
Scientists in Antarctica accidentally discovered animal life beneath an ice shelf half a mile deep. An app that lets you tune into live radio stations all over the world. A new study that challenges the long held theory about the asteroid that killed...
17 min
885
Fri. 02/12 - He Made a Guitar Out of His Uncle'...
The story of how two brothers gamed the YouTube system thirteen years ago and have since used that method to raise nearly 14 million dollars for charity. An interactive site that simulates the audio experience of being at your favorite bar. Coca-Cola...
15 min
886
Thu. 02/11 - Myspace is back!
How the UK variant of Sars-CoV-2 may have evolved inside just one human. Some dating apps are adding video components, but it’s just another case of modern tech “inventing” something that has already existed for decades. Let’s talk about the...
17 min
887
Wed. 02/10 - The Curious Case of the Purple Dai...
Do all of these UV light “virus-killing” appliances really work? The mystery of the purple flower photo that has accounted for nearly 20% of all Wikimedia Commons traffic since last summer. And, it’s been ten years since “Friday” by Rebecca...
16 min
888
Tue. 02/09 - A Hacker Tried to Poison a Town's ...
The scientific benefits of going for regular walks, and some tips for incorporating more walks into your life. The town in Florida whose water was almost poisoned when a nefarious individual hacked into their water supply. The researchers hoping to...
16 min
889
Mon. 02/08 - A Live Animated Stage Production.....
How the Royal Shakespeare Company is using live motion capture to animate a virtual show in real time. A case study of a California town who has this whole pandemic response thing down. A 3D printed house has hit the market on Long Island. And...
17 min
890
Fri. 02/05 - This Is Your Brain On Juggling
How learning to juggle is the perfect example of what happens to your brain when you learn a new skill. A new literary version of Street Fighter II. Why Burger King France is handing out free potatoes. And, following on yesterday’s story about the...
15 min
891
Wed. 02/04 - An Unborn Baby's Debut Album
We were bracing for a flu and COVID double whammy of a winter, but it never came. What happened? An intriguing new community initiative taking off in Europe to help prevent the mounting problem of electronic waste. And have you heard of...
17 min
892
Wed. 02/03 - Are We Too Cynical for Viral Stunt...
What causes ice ages? The science behind your frying pan. You know, the one that’s supposed to be non-stick but isn’t. Scientists explain why. Other scientists have engineered spinach to send emails. Sort of. And did you hear about the Hollyboob...
17 min
893
Tue. 02/02 - How Frozen Helped Solve the Dyatlo...
How a 1970s seat belt crash test and the animated movie Frozen helped potentially solve the 62-year-old Dyatlov Pass mystery. A fascinating correction to something I said yesterday about Langston Hughes. And remembering Captain Sir Tom Moore....
16 min
894
Mon. 02/01 - February's Mars Invasion
Sharing some thoughts from Langston Hughes on this first day of Black History Month, and questioning what makes someone a hero in our history books. Plus, the discovery of a new blue pigment. And all the Mars news for February. Sponsors: Indeed, Get...
17 min
895
Fri. 1/29 - What Your Tone of Voice Could Say A...
What did everyday Romans in Pompeii eat? An archaeologist has tried to reconstruct their meals. Merriam-Webster has added 520 new words to the dictionary. How do they decide which words get added? And a sci-fi dictionary to explore this weekend. Plus,...
16 min
896
Thu. 1/28 - Legal Protections for Sounds & Smel...
The mathematics of knitting. How France is trying to legally protect smells. A cautionary tale that will inspire you to go check on your office building if you’ve been working from home and no one’s done that for a few months. And a horrifying new...
15 min
897
Wed. 1/27 - Putting Your Money In GameStop is O...
A brief dip into the GameStop Wall Street mayhem. A new water-is-wet kind of study proving that money indeed can buy you happiness. And the story of some students who just found out their new professor this semester has been dead for two years....
14 min
898
Tue. 1/26 - Werner Herzog on Skateboarding
New DNA analysis upends some long held assumptions about the evolutionary background of dire wolves. How Adobe Flash broke an entire railway system. Astronomers have discovered a sextuply-eclipsing sextuple star system. Say that six times fast… And...
16 min
899
Mon. 1/25 - The Moon Rock in Biden's Oval Offic...
The word “robot” was coined one hundred years ago today in a play about robots taking over the world. Good thing that hasn’t happened yet! ...right? The story behind the moon rock in President Biden’s newly redesigned Oval Office. And the...
16 min
900
Fri. 1/22 - The Swedish Secret to Happy, Produc...
NASA trained an AI to detect craters on Mars. A possible discovery of giant prehistoric carnivorous worms. A new Swedish practice to adopt. And a mobile site that will match you with your film critic soulmate. Sponsors: NordVPN, Get 68% off a...
14 min