Curiosity Daily Podcast: How Hollywood Gets Seances Wrong

Learn about how bacteria in your gut can produce electricity. Then, performer and lecturer Thom Britton will tell us about the origins of seances and how Hollywood gets them wrong.

October 27, 2020

Episode Show Notes:

Some Bacteria in Your Gut Produce Electricity by Cameron Duke

More resources from performer Thom Britton:

Subscribe to Curiosity Daily to learn something new every day with Ashley Hamer and Natalia Reagan (filling in for Cody Gough). You can also listen to our podcast as part of your Alexa Flash Briefing; Amazon smart speakers users, click/tap “enable” here: https://www.amazon.com/Curiosity-com-Curiosity-Daily-from/dp/B07CP17DJY

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Next Up

Curiosity Daily Podcast: How Does Fever Help You Get Better?

Learn about how a fever helps you get better; why the first reliable and widely available pregnancy test was the African clawed frog; and a potential breakthrough in the shockingly complicated traveling salesperson problem.

Curiosity Daily Podcast: What People Get Wrong About Evolution (w/ Neil Shubin)

Learn about the “superhabitable” planets that may have conditions better for life than Earth. Then, biologist and best-selling author Neil Shubin will explain a common misconception about how animals evolve.

Curiosity Daily Podcast: How to Get Over a Breakup, Why Cockroaches Exist, Vestigial Traits, and the Lombard Effect

In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com — plus, talk to Dr. Gwen Pearson, the education and outreach coordinator for Purdue University’s department of entomology — to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:

Curiosity Daily Podcast: How to Get Over Burnout, Darkness is Faster than Light, and How Much Communication is Nonverbal

How much of communication really is nonverbal? Why is darkness faster than the speed of light? How can you tell if you’re burned out — and how do you recover?

Curiosity Daily Podcast: How to Communicate About Science (w/ 3M’s Jayshree Seth) and Get Out of a Creative Rut

Learn how the 2019 State of Science Index suggests we talk about science differently, with a special guest: 3M Corporate Scientist and Chief Science Advocate Jayshree Seth. Plus: learn a simple strategy for getting out of a creative rut.

Curiosity Daily Podcast: How Your Friendships Change, a Secret Airline to Area 51, and Magic Words to Get What You Want

In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories to help you learn something new in just a few minutes:

Curiosity Daily Podcast: Introducing If/Then

What gets you curious? Virtual experiences, celestial bodies, water worlds or maybe just the tiniest mysteries inside your brain? The endlessly curious and curiously funny, Gillian Jacobs (Community, Netflix's LOVE) and Diona Reasonover (NCIS), step off set to go on tangents with real-life astronauts, astrophysicists, science artists, mathematician-types and other really smart people that investigate what seems impossible.

Curiosity Daily Podcast: The Curiosity Podcast Wraps Up with Yoga, Volcanoes, and Meditation

Learn from some of our favorite expert guests about yoga, volcanoes, meditation, and more on this special episode of the Curiosity Podcast. You'll hear from accomplished authors and academics from past episodes, in addition to a special guest you've never heard before on the show. Plus, hear about the past, present, and future of the Curiosity Podcast.

Curiosity Daily Podcast: Do Opposites Really Attract?

Learn about why opposites don’t really attract; the “propinquity effect” and how physical distance affects the way we feel about other people; and the history of when and why we started using last names.

Curiosity Daily Podcast: Are Facial Expressions Universal?

Learn about common ancestors shared by every human; evolution’s multiple directions; and universal facial expressions.