Moment Of Um

Flannel is a soft, comfy fabric used to make shirts, cozy winter bed sheets and all kinds of other stuff. But how is it made?  We asked fabric expert Susan Brown to help us find the answer.Got a question that’s got you woolgathering? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll help you weave your way to the right answer! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A volcano forms when the hot melted rock deep under the Earth’s crust bubbles to the surface and breaks through. Sometimes, a volcano will go from active to dormant, meaning it doesn’t erupt anymore. How does that happen? We asked geochemist Kelsey Woody to help us find the answer.Got a question of seismic proportions? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll help find a MAGMAnificent answer!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If sharks were around in the time of dinosaurs, how are they still here today when dinosaurs have gone extinct? Were some just really, really good at hiding from the asteroid that hit Earth? For this episode, we talked to Karen Chin, a professor of Geological Sciences at the University of Colorado. Got a question you want to sink your teeth into? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll try our best to fin-ish what you started!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A volcano forms when the hot melted rock deep under the Earth’s crust bubbles to the surface and breaks through. Sometimes, a volcano will go from active to dormant, meaning it doesn’t erupt anymore. How does that happen? We asked geochemist Kelsey Woody to help us find the answer.Got a question of seismic proportions? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll help find a MAGMAnificent answer!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A lot of people like root beer! But it’s kind of hard to describe, right? It’s really got a unique taste. We asked Ashley Rose-Young, a historian from the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History, to help explain exactly what the flavor of root beer is, and share a little of the history behind this yummy drink. Got a question that’s poppin’ around your brain? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll help get to the root of the issue.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our body has lots of ways to fight off the germs that make us sick. One of those ways is to crank up our internal temperature to make it too hot for harmful bacteria to survive. This is called a fever. How do our bodies reach those hot fever temperatures? We asked physician Dr. Joe Alcock to help us find the answer.Got a burning question? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll help find an answer that’s a real fever reliever!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

QR codes are little black-and-white squares that you might have seen on food packages, movie tickets, restaurant menus, and lots of other places. You take a picture of the code with your smartphone and then your phone takes you to a certain website! But how does your phone know what all those random little dots mean? We asked computer engineer Sam Dickerson to help us find the answer.Got a question that you just can’t crack? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll help decode the answer.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Solar panels absorb light from the sun and turn it into electricity. They can power everything from a calculator to a whole country! How does this sunny science sorcery work? We asked solar power expert Karl Wagner to help us find the answer.Got a sUN-believably cool question? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll power through til we find the answer! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

3D printers are pretty awesome. Unlike the machines that print pictures or words on paper, 3D printers can create things you can hold in your hand – like fun-shaped food, cameras and even guitars. So how do they do it? We asked printing expert Robin Schwartzman from the University of Minnesota to help us find the answer.Got a question that jumps off the page? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll see if we can get an answer to materialize. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Computers are awesome machines. They help us do so many things – from looking up facts to watching hilarious videos. But what exactly makes a computer a computer? We asked computer engineer Sam Dickerson to help us find the answer.Got a question that’s hard to compute? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll help process it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.