
SciShow Tangents
SciShow Tangents is the lightly competitive knowledge showcase from the geniuses behind the YouTube series SciShow. Every other Tuesday, join Hank Green, Ceri Riley, and Sam Schultz as they try to one-up and amaze each other with weird and funny scientific research... while not getting distracted. There will be tangents about video games, music, weird smells, surprisingly deep insights about life, and of course, poop, but it always comes back to the science.
Latest episodes

Mar 7, 2023 • 40min
Farming
Learning is a little like farming, in a way. You sow your brain field with facts seeds, nurture those seeds into thoughts and ideas and voila: you're smart! So slap on your headphones and jump on that tractor: We've got a bumper crop of knowledge to harvest!SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents to check out this episode with the added bonus of seeing our faces! Head to www.patreon.com/SciShowTangents to find out how you can help support SciShow Tangents, and see all the cool perks you’ll get in return, like bonus episodes and a monthly newsletter!And go to https://store.dftba.com/collections/scishow-tangents to buy your very own, genuine SciShow Tangents sticker!A big thank you to Patreon subscribers Garth Riley, Mike A, and Tom Mosner for helping to make the show possible!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! While you're at it, check out the Tangents crew on Twitter: Ceri: @ceriley Sam: @im_sam_schultz Hank: @hankgreen[Trivia Question]Circulation of 1938 Old Farmer’s Almanachttps://www.almanac.com/history-old-farmers-almanachttps://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/how-the-old-farmers-almanac-previewed-the-information-age/415836/[Fact Off]Bradford watermelon seeds that people would die forhttps://bradfordwatermelons.com/2014/08/our-story-the-long-version/https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/71931/super-sweet-watermelon-has-deadly-historyhttps://www.treehugger.com/bradford-watermelons-were-juicy-delicious-people-literally-die-4862619Hearing loss in farmed salmon because of weird otolith formationhttps://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/farmed-salmon-are-deaf-and-now-we-know-whyhttps://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/220/16/2965/33518/Rapid-growth-causes-abnormal-vaterite-formation-inhttps://www.nature.com/articles/srep25249https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fvets.2021.709850/full[Ask the Science Couch]Animal agriculture (ants, termites, pocket gophers)https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/did-you-know/did-you-know-leafcutter-ants-are-farmers-who-grow-fungihttps://asm.org/Articles/2017/September/the-leaf-cutter-ant-s-50-million-years-of-farminghttps://www.theverge.com/2016/6/25/12024324/termite-farming-25-million-years-ago-before-humanshttps://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0156847https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/957505https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)00915-0Video of pocket gopher pulling plant: https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/940458[Butt One More Thing]Pig sty latrineshttps://www.artic.edu/articles/629/pigsty-and-latrineshttps://www.sixthtone.com/news/1001550/seats%2C-squats%2C-and-leaves-a-brief-history-of-chinese-toiletshttps://www.google.com/books/edition/_/N5dN_A29v58C?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=fertilizer

Feb 28, 2023 • 41min
Lasers
In all of science, there are very few things conceptually cooler than lasers. A beam of light you can use to blast aliens? Heck yeah! But are lasers actually as cool in reality as they are in science fiction? Probably not! But I guess you'll have to listen to find out for sure.SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents to check out this episode with the added bonus of seeing our faces! Head to www.patreon.com/SciShowTangents to find out how you can help support SciShow Tangents, and see all the cool perks you’ll get in return, like bonus episodes and a monthly newsletter!And go to https://store.dftba.com/collections/scishow-tangents to buy your very own, genuine SciShow Tangents sticker!A big thank you to Patreon subscribers Garth Riley, Mike A, and Tom Mosner for helping to make the show possible!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! While you're at it, check out the Tangents crew on Twitter: Ceri: @ceriley Sam: @im_sam_schultz Hank: @hankgreen[Truth or Fail]Gold-plated bacteriaContact lenses that shoot lasersLead into gold with lasers[Trivia Question]Universal Product Code first scanned in grocery storehttps://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/history-bar-code-180956704/[Fact Off]Laser cooking of printed chickenhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jct3f92rIOEhttps://www.scientificamerican.com/article/3-d-printed-chicken-dinner-cooked-by-lasers/Laser lightning rod for deflection/protectionhttps://www.unige.ch/communication/communiques/en/2023/devier-la-foudre-grace-au-paratonnerre-laserhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-022-01139-zhttps://www.nssl.noaa.gov/education/svrwx101/lightning/faq/http://www.usfcam.usf.edu/cam/exhibitions/1998_12_mccollum/supplemental_didactics/21.uman2.pdf[Ask the Science Couch]Long-distance lasers and masers https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/lasers/hazardshttps://spie.org/news/12-09-laser-ranging?SSO=1http://ccom.unh.edu/theme/lidarhttps://www.icrar.org/megamaser/https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.02523 [Butt One More Thing]Low-level laser therapy for butt (or any) tendonshttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8886125/https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22960-gluteal-tendinopathyhttp://www.utahorthopediccenters.com/hip/gluteus-medius-tendinopathy-or-dead-butt-syndrome/

Feb 21, 2023 • 42min
Poop
The bodily function so universal, there's a kids book all about how everybody does it! But... is that kids book a lie?! Find out the answer to that and way more in this very overdue episode of Tangents!SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents to check out this episode with the added bonus of seeing our faces! Head to www.patreon.com/SciShowTangents to find out how you can help support SciShow Tangents, and see all the cool perks you’ll get in return, like bonus episodes and a monthly newsletter!And go to https://store.dftba.com/collections/scishow-tangents to buy your very own, genuine SciShow Tangents sticker!A big thank you to Patreon subscribers Garth Riley, Mike A, and Tom Mosner for helping to make the show possible!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! While you're at it, check out the Tangents crew on Twitter: Ceri: @ceriley Sam: @im_sam_schultz Hank: @hankgreen[Trivia Question]Penguin poop distance traveledhttps://iposeogsekk.com/penguano.pdfhttps://improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2005[Fact Off]AI listening to sounds of poop/diarrhea/farthttps://www.newscientist.com/article/2350082-ai-listens-to-toilet-sounds-to-guess-whether-people-have-diarrhoea/https://www.inverse.com/innovation/fart-monitoring-aiDagger made of frozen poop debunked (or, at the very least, not effective in lab conditions)https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X19305371https://nautil.us/the-problem-with-the-frozen-poop-knife-study-237572/https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-friday-edition-1.5282456/why-scientists-tried-and-failed-to-make-a-knife-out-of-frozen-poop-1.5282458[Ask the Science Couch]Period poops (progesterone/estrogen & prostaglandins)https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/24411-prostaglandinshttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3297513/https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3823955https://health.clevelandclinic.org/why-do-you-poop-more-on-your-period/

Feb 14, 2023 • 42min
Mating
In honor of Valentine's Day, that most cherished day of beauty and love, the Tangents crew gets real down and dirty by telling you more than you could ever want to know about sex harpoons, cannibalism, living sperm, and some other utterly un-romantic methods of copulation employed by the animal kingdom! SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents to check out this episode with the added bonus of seeing our faces! Head to www.patreon.com/SciShowTangents to find out how you can help support SciShow Tangents, and see all the cool perks you’ll get in return, like bonus episodes and a monthly newsletter!And go to https://store.dftba.com/collections/scishow-tangents to buy your very own, genuine SciShow Tangents sticker!A big thank you to Patreon subscribers Garth Riley, Mike A, and Tom Mosner for helping to make the show possible!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! While you're at it, check out the Tangents crew on Twitter: Ceri: @ceriley Sam: @im_sam_schultz Hank: @hankgreen

Feb 7, 2023 • 38min
Spit
You need to clean a smudge of your glasses? Use some spit! Gotta make some food moist so you can swallow it? Why not try spit? Lips too dry to whistle a tune? My friend, spit is the bodily excretion for you! Spit: don't leave home without it!SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents to check out this episode with the added bonus of seeing our faces! Head to www.patreon.com/SciShowTangents to find out how you can help support SciShow Tangents, and see all the cool perks you’ll get in return, like bonus episodes and a monthly newsletter!And go to https://store.dftba.com/collections/scishow-tangents to buy your very own, genuine SciShow Tangents sticker!A big thank you to Patreon subscribers Garth Riley and Tom Mosner for helping to make the show possible!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! While you're at it, check out the Tangents crew on Twitter: Ceri: @ceriley Sam: @im_sam_schultz Hank: @hankgreen[Trivia Question]Minor salivary glandshttps://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/researchers-may-have-discovered-new-organ-set-salivary-glands-hidden-your-head-180976104/[Fact Off]Bowerbird making “paint” out of salivahttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3996615/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.2005.0908-8857.03549.xhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347213001097?via%3Dihubhttps://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2005.0325https://australian.museum/learn/animals/birds/satin-bowerbird/https://australian.museum/learn/animals/birds/satin-bowerbird/Spitting cobras evolved to defend against hominids throwing rockshttps://www.newsweek.com/how-it-feels-acobra-spits-face-revealed-excruciating-detail-1749490https://www.earthtouchnews.com/discoveries/discoveries/spitting-cobras-may-have-evolved-unique-venom-to-defend-from-ancient-humans/https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/01/study-did-cobras-first-spit-venom-scare-pre-humans[Ask the Science Couch]Compressing salivary glands aka “gleeking”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK542272/https://www.health.com/mind-body/what-is-gleekinghttp://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/digestion/pregastric/salivary.html [Butt One More Thing]Dung-spitting competitionshttps://www.huffpost.com/entry/dung-spitting-contest-northern-ireland_n_55ae6aebe4b0a9b9485290c1https://www.ripleys.com/weird-news/bokdrol-spoeg/https://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2014/8/1/5960987/spitting-antelope-poop-is-a-sport-kudu-bokdrol-spoeg

4 snips
Jan 31, 2023 • 38min
SciShow Tangents Classics - Artificial Intelligence
Original Airdate: February 19, 2019It seems like everyone's using Artificial Intelligence these days, so we thought we'd dip back into our archives for a little refresher on just what the heck AI even is. Plus, meet the character find of 2023: President Smartest Dog in the World!

Jan 24, 2023 • 38min
Rubber
You can bounce it, you can stretch it, heck... some people even chew it! That's right, it's rubber! And at long last, the Tangents team is finally talking about it! You all really wanted an episode about rubber, right? Well, we made it anyway, so you have to listen. SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents to check out this episode with the added bonus of seeing our faces! Head to www.patreon.com/SciShowTangents to find out how you can help support SciShow Tangents, and see all the cool perks you’ll get in return, like bonus episodes and a monthly newsletter!And go to https://store.dftba.com/collections/scishow-tangents to buy your very own, genuine SciShow Tangents sticker!A big thank you to Patreon subscribers Garth Riley and Tom Mosner for helping to make the show possible!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! While you're at it, check out the Tangents crew on Twitter: Ceri: @ceriley Sam: @im_sam_schultz Hank: @hankgreen[Definition]Mesoamerican rubber recipehttps://news.mit.edu/2010/mayaball-0524[Trivia Question]Koosh ball filamentshttps://www.mentalfloss.com/article/73583/12-kooky-facts-about-koosh-balls[Fact Off]Mimicking birdsong with a rubber tubehttps://softmath.seas.harvard.edu/publication/controllable-biomimetic-birdsong/https://seas.harvard.edu/news/2011/01/simple-rubber-devices-mimic-complex-bird-songshttps://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-12093906Mayan dental care & harvesting chicle as gumhttps://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1870-249X2018000100007https://scholar.smu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1020&context=fieldandlabhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0008621500827755https://bda.org/museum/collections/teeth-and-dentures/mayan-toothhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352409X22000980#b0200

Jan 17, 2023 • 39min
Tails
From a bunny’s seemingly-useless fluffy li’l puffball to a scorpion’s practical and deadly venom-filled stinger, the world is filled with all sorts of wonderful tails! And heck, some of them aren’t even tails at all, but that’s ok!SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents to check out this episode with the added bonus of seeing our faces! Head to www.patreon.com/SciShowTangents to find out how you can help support SciShow Tangents, and see all the cool perks you’ll get in return, like bonus episodes and a monthly newsletter!And go to https://store.dftba.com/collections/scishow-tangents to buy your very own, genuine SciShow Tangents sticker!A big thank you to Patreon subscribers Garth Riley and Tom Mosner for helping to make the show possible!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! While you're at it, check out the Tangents crew on Twitter: Ceri: @ceriley Sam: @im_sam_schultz Hank: @hankgreen[Trivia Question]Seahorse square tail segments https://today.ucsd.edu/story/why_the_seahorses_tail_is_square_and_how_it_could_be_an_inspiration[Fact Off]Swallowtail butterfly tails protect from attacking damagehttps://www.sciencenews.org/article/butterfly-wing-tail-loss-break-birds-escapehttps://phys.org/news/2022-06-evidence-butterflies-tails-distract-predators.htmlhttps://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2022.0562Bird-of-paradise light-absorbing tail feathershttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02088-whttps://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/new-vogelkop-superb-bird-of-paradise-changes-up-the-old-song-and-dance/https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/20/20813054/vantablack-ultrablack-black-material-surrey-nanosystems-carbon-nanotubes-science-materials[Ask the Science Couch]Evolutionary tail loss in some primates (apes)https://www.science.org/content/article/jumping-gene-may-have-erased-tails-humans-and-other-apes-and-boosted-our-risk-birth-defectshttps://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.14.460388v1https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3263034/https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/why-don-t-humans-have-tails[Butt One More Thing]Ant head mimicry on wasp tail/metasomaImage: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Posterior-metasomal-tergites-and-ovipositor-of-Clistopyga-caramba-sp-nov-holotype_fig2_281632324https://www.biotaxa.org/Zootaxa/article/view/zootaxa.4013.2.9https://phys.org/news/2021-09-segments-scorpion-metasoma.html

Jan 10, 2023 • 39min
Gas
From precious oxygen to the lowly fart, every day we’re all wallowing around in an invisible soup of gas! Exciting, isn’t it? Tune in to go into an exciting adventure into the world of gas with Sam, Ceri, and Dr. Tubeboy!SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents to check out this episode with the added bonus of seeing our faces! Head to www.patreon.com/SciShowTangents to find out how you can help support SciShow Tangents, and see all the cool perks you’ll get in return, like bonus episodes and a monthly newsletter!And go to https://store.dftba.com/collections/scishow-tangents to buy your very own, genuine SciShow Tangents sticker!A big thank you to Patreon subscribers Garth Riley and Tom Mosner for helping to make the show possible!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! While you're at it, check out the Tangents crew on Twitter: Ceri: @ceriley Sam: @im_sam_schultz Hank: @hankgreen[Trivia Question]Horace Wells and Nitrous Oxide/Laughing Gashttps://pubs.asahq.org/anesthesiology/article/119/5/1014/13670/Horace-Wells-Demonstration-of-Nitrous-Oxide-in[Fact Off]History of the storage/transportation of gas (cylinders, gas holders, bamboo)https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/natural_gas_basics.htmlhttps://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/0471238961.0701190519160509.a01https://www.apga.org/apgamainsite/aboutus/facts/history-of-natural-gashttps://www.jstor.org/stable/24969284https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_2603https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/349362https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/professional_theses/147/https://www.nortegas.es/en/our-business/distribution-of-natural-gas/history-of-natural-gas/Canaries to detect carbon monoxide in mines & resuscitating them with oxygenhttps://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/story-real-canary-coal-mine-180961570/[Ask the Science Couch]Fart/flatus noises from anal sphincterhttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8601379/https://www.menshealth.com/health/a19545944/fart-noises/https://flatology.com/consider-the-sphincter/https://urogynecology.nm.org/anal-incontinence.html[Butt One More Thing]Snake cloacal popping https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/377052

Jan 3, 2023 • 40min
Memory
It's the time of year for old acquaintances to be forgot, but SciShow Tangents has never been one to bow to convention! So this week, we're remembering all our dang acquaintances and way more as we dive deep on the concept of Memory! Want more Deboki? Check her out at https://twitter.com/okidoki_boki to find info on all of the many projects she works on!SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents to check out this episode with the added bonus of seeing our faces! Head to www.patreon.com/SciShowTangents to find out how you can help support SciShow Tangents, and see all the cool perks you’ll get in return, like bonus episodes and a monthly newsletter!And go to https://store.dftba.com/collections/scishow-tangents to buy your very own, genuine SciShow Tangents sticker!A big thank you to Patreon subscribers Garth Riley and Tom Mosner for helping to make the show possible!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! While you're at it, check out the Tangents crew on Twitter: Ceri: @ceriley Sam: @im_sam_schultz Hank: @hankgreen[Truth or Fail]Imprinting in generalhttps://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2021.736999/fullhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4726915/Pekin duckling different eye, different memorieshttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347216302597?via%3Dihubhttps://phys.org/news/2016-11-ducklings-memory-banks-visual.htmlCalifornia condor puppet funeralshttps://www.nature.com/news/2007/070806/full/news070806-3.html#B1https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/zoo.20151Siberian cranes imprint for migrationhttps://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1377&context=nacwgprochttps://savingcranes.org/learn/species-field-guide/siberian-crane/https://amp.theguardian.com/news/2006/apr/01/guardianobituaries.mainsection[Trivia Question]Chaser (Border Collie) remembering unique object nameshttps://webs.wofford.edu/reidak/Pubs/Pilley%20and%20Reid%202011.pdfhttps://www.goupstate.com/story/news/2019/07/26/world-famous-dog-chaser-dies-at-15/4597342007/https://www.goupstate.com/story/news/2021/11/02/spartanburg-community-college-new-mascot-scc-chasers-chaser-the-border-collie-south-carolina/6199107001/[Fact Off]Taking Photos Makes Memory Worse https://www.binghamton.edu/news/story/3079/taking-photos-can-impair-your-memory-of-eventshttps://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/08/05/1022041431/to-remember-the-moment-try-taking-fewer-photos[Ask the Science Couch]Remembering commercial jingles rather than “important” names and dates https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fxge0001050https://muse.jhu.edu/article/269004https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0086170https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0305735611406578https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0305735611418553https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-35459-001https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2022.896285/full[Butt One More Thing]Poop amnesia or vasovagal syncopehttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6067056/https://www.iflscience.com/woman-loses-10-years-of-memories-due-to-bad-case-of-constipation-52589https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/constipated-woman-lost-10-years-of-memories-after-straining-too-hard/F5X2BVV6FWFXH7NNZZFG2IGEYA/
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