2006

S8.E1 ∙ 17 Tonnes of Spinning Glass: Making the World's Largest Telescope

Sun, Dec 31, 2017

At the Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab, under the football stadium of the University of Arizona, there's an enormous rotating furnace, keeping tonnes of glass heated as it forms the mirrors for the Giant Magellan Telescope. Here's a look inside.

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S8.E2 ∙ Sign Language Isn't Universal

Sun, Jan 07, 2018

Deaf blogger Rikki Poynter explains how sign languages have very little in common.

7.6 /10

S8.E3 ∙ A Language Made Of Music

Sun, Jan 14, 2018

Solresol is a language, invented out of whole cloth by Jean-François Sudre in the 19th century, that used seven musical notes to create all the words that he thought you'd ever need. It did work: so why aren't we all speaking in notes right now?

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S8.E4 ∙ Canada's Most Successful King

Sun, Jan 21, 2018

William Lyon Mackenzie King was a sexually repressed, hypocritical, guilt-ridden, prostitute-visiting momma's boy who was exceptionally weird. He was also, perhaps, Canada's greatest prime minister. This week, Evan talks about legacy, and about how you don't need to be a good person to be a good politician.

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S8.E5 ∙ Remote controlling an entire airport

Sun, Jan 28, 2018

London City Airport's getting a new control tower: but it's just going to be a large mast with 14 high-definition cameras on it. The actual tower will be 80 miles away, in the headquarters of NATS near Swanwick. It feels questionable: but is it?

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S8.E6 ∙ Faceswapping, Unethical Videos, and Future Shock

Sun, Feb 04, 2018

I was going to tell a science fiction story about faceswapping, and mass blackmail. Then the news broke about unethical faceswapping videos, and software designed and marketed for creating them: and I realised the future had arrived faster than I thought.

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S8.E7 ∙ Making artificial earthquakes with a huge steel ball

Sun, Feb 11, 2018

In Göttingen, Germany, there's a four-tonne steel ball that can be raised up a 14-metre tower -- and then dropped in less than two seconds, crashing back to earth. It makes tiny, artificial earthquakes: here's why.

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S8.E8 ∙ This city centre has no street names

Sun, Feb 18, 2018

In the Quadratestadt of Mannheim, Germany, the streets aren't named: instead, the blocks are. It's an exception to a rule that most people don't even think about - especially not mapping companies.

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S8.E9 ∙ Launching An Entire Fireworks Display At Once

Sun, Feb 25, 2018

Human error has launched massive barrages of fireworks at the wrong time before. We're doing it deliberately.

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S8.E10 ∙ The moiré effect lights that guide ships home

Sun, Mar 04, 2018

I'd never heard of moiré effect beacons until I got an email asking me about them. It seemed like a really clever idea - but it was really hard to research. Or at least it was, until I stumbled upon one magic phrase that revealed its history.

0 /10

S8.E11 ∙ European clocks ran slow for a bit. British clocks didn't.

Sun, Mar 11, 2018

Many people sent me this story: it covers my favourite topics of power grids and temporal anomalies. But when the mainstream press have already covered it, how could I add something more? The answer: by adding another pet topic, Unnecessary British Patriotism. And a teasmade.

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S8.E12 ∙ How formation flying works

Tue, Mar 13, 2018

The Red Arrows are the Royal Air Force's aerobatic display team - the best in the world. They fly Hawk T1 jets, powering through the sky at hundreds of miles per hour, pulling high-G maneuvers with just a few metres between their wingtips. Here's how they do it: and part of it's a skill that you probably already know.

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S8.E13 ∙ There's a mermaid show in Florida

Sun, Mar 25, 2018

In Weeki Wachee Springs State Park, Florida, there's a mermaid show -- and there has been for 70 years. It's one of the United States' oldest roadside attractions, and it still does three shows a day. At least, provided the local wildlife doesn't get in the way.

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S8.E14 ∙ The US president has a bulletproof railcar

Sun, Apr 01, 2018

US Car Number 1, the Ferdinand Magellan, sits in the Gold Coast Railway Museum in Miami. It's 120 tonnes of bulletproof, armoured railcar: a train carriage designed to move the President of the United States around the country in safety and style. At least, it was, until other transport came along to do a better job.

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S8.E15 ∙ Making an international standard cup of tea

Sun, Apr 08, 2018

As far as I can find, no-one has actually made a International Standard Cup of Tea - ISO 3103 or BS 6008 - for the internet before. Lots of people have talked about it, but that's easy. Making one? That requires precision... and some specialist equipment.

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S8.E16 ∙ G-force, jerk, and a giant centrifuge

Sun, Apr 15, 2018

At the Royal Air Force training centrifuge in Farnborough, pilots learn how to avoid G-LOC: g-induced loss of consciousness. Let's talk about g-force, about jerk, and about how to keep circulation flowing to your brain.

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S8.E17 ∙ We Sent Garlic Bread to the Edge of Space, Then Ate It

Sun, Apr 22, 2018

The title says it all, really.

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S8.E18 ∙ 2½ Hours of Unedited Garlic Bread Flight Footage

Sun, Apr 29, 2018

There's a concept called "Slow TV", championed by Norwegian broadcaster NRK, that emphasises long, unedited, contemplative journeys. Well, I've been snowed under with planning and editing some big projects, so for this week's video we're doing Slow TV with a video even less conventional than last week's.

0 /10

S8.E19 ∙ How The Black Point Message Crashes Android Apps

Fri, May 04, 2018

"_If you touch the black point then your WhatsApp will hang_", says the message that's being sent around, and it's right. It's a text rendering bug, the same as many others -- which isn't interesting. But the characters it's using, Unicode RTL and LTR marks, are worth knowing about.

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S8.E20 ∙ How planes stay safe over the Atlantic

Sun, May 13, 2018

Over the North Atlantic, there's no radar coverage: so how do air traffic controllers keep planes safe? The answer, at least in part, can be found at Nav Canada's Gander Area Control Centre in Newfoundland. The North Atlantic Tracks are like freeway lanes in the sky, if freeway lanes were stacked a thousand feet on top of each other.

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S8.E21 ∙ A Town Called Asbestos

Sun, May 20, 2018

In Quebec, Canada, there's a town called Asbestos. It's an alarming name, one that conjures up images of lung disease and mesothelioma. So why haven't they changed it?

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S8.E22 ∙ The US-Canada border splits this road down the middle

Sun, May 27, 2018

Rue Canusa (or Canusa Avenue) is a street that's split in two by a border: the northern part is in Stanstead, Canada, and the southern part is in Derby Line, USA - and border crossings here aren't as easy as they used to be.

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S8.E23 ∙ The town that was burned for science

Sun, Jun 03, 2018

The St Lawrence Burns were a series of deliberate fires in the soon-to-be-demolished village of Aultsville, Ontario, which was due to be flooded to make way for the St Lawrence Seaway. The results changed the way buildings are constructed around the world, and saved lives.

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S8.E24 ∙ The giant freezer that tests winter boots

Sun, Jun 10, 2018

If you're in Canada, you need good winter boots. But how do you know whether they're actually safe, or whether you'll fall over the first time you step on ice? This is WinterLab, part of the Challenging Environment Assessment Laboratories at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, where they're testing winter shoes with science.

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S8.E25 ∙ Making 200,000 tons of arsenic dust safe

Sun, Jun 17, 2018

Giant Mine sits near Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territories of Canada. Once it was a productive gold mine, but after the gold ran out, the mining company went bankrupt and left the government to clean up the mess: enough arsenic trioxide dust to kill everyone on Earth. The solution: freezing it, at least for now.

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S8.E26 ∙ The new highway to the Arctic Ocean

Sun, Jun 24, 2018

Until recently, Canada didn't have a road link to the Arctic Ocean. But last year, the all-weather Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway opened, which meant that finally the country was connected "from sea to sea to sea".

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S8.E27 ∙ Watching for nuclear attack in the Arctic

Sun, Jul 01, 2018

In the far north of Canada sit the DEW Line stations: "Distant Early Warning". Built in the 1950s, these were the sites that would have sounded the alarm if the Soviet Union ever attacked North America. Or at least, they were until they went obsolete just a few years later.

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S8.E28 ∙ The sourtoe cocktail has a human toe in it

Sun, Jul 08, 2018

In Dawson City, a small mining town in the Yukon, sits the Downtown Hotel. Inside there is a tradition that tourists have been trying out for decades: the Sourtoe Cocktail.

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S8.E29 ∙ We Should Let Some Wildfires Burn

Sun, Jul 15, 2018

In the last few years, wildfires have been getting worse - and, oddly, it's because humans have been preventing them. From a helicopter above the forests of British Columbia, and from the Tree Ring Lab at UBC, let's talk about how we should just let some wildfires burn.

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S8.E30 ∙ Stories I Can't Tell

Wed, Jul 18, 2018

There are some stories in Canada that I'm not qualified to tell.

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S8.E31 ∙ How the 90s VHS look works

Sun, Jul 22, 2018

90s VHS video filters are in fashion right now, and most producers are using the same filter as everyone else. Why does the filter look like it does? To answer that question, I went to talk to the person that wrote it.

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S8.E32 ∙ This nuclear reactor is run by students

Sun, Jul 29, 2018

At Reed College in Portland, Oregon, there's a TRIGA nuclear reactor, used for research. You can stand next to it and watch the blue glow from the bottom of a deep swimming pool. I had to visit.

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S8.E33 ∙ Testing the sound mirrors that protected Britain

Sun, Aug 05, 2018

The Sound Mirrors, on Romney Marsh, were built in the late 1920s as a way to amplify the sound from aircraft engines over the English Channel. We're flying a bit closer than that, with a drone.

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S8.E34 ∙ I hit 3,000-year-old art with a hammer

Sun, Aug 12, 2018

The White Horse, in Uffington, is one of the oldest surviving works of art in Britain: carved into a hillside in Oxfordshire 3,000 years ago. Every year, it's rechalked by volunteers co-ordinated through the National Trust, a line of maintenance going back to before England had written history.

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S8.E35 ∙ Your private messages travel under this beach

Sun, Aug 19, 2018

In Porthcurno, Cornwall, there's an old telegraph cable landing station. It's how Britain talked to the Empire -- and it's now a museum. But the technology here isn't quite as obsolete as you might think.

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S8.E36 ∙ That Time I Got In Trouble With The Government

Sun, Aug 26, 2018

The first part of "How To Be Popular On The Internet" is all about an old saying: if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. And if you do succeed - well, you're still going to need to do that.

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S8.E37 ∙ The Quiz That Was Shared A Million Times

Tue, Aug 28, 2018

In the middle part of "How To Be Popular On The Internet", it's time to talk about giving the people what they want, about getting noticed, and about the north-south divide.

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S8.E38 ∙ Why You Don't Want To Go Viral

Thu, Aug 30, 2018

The term "viral" has fallen out of fashion in the last few years, which is why this series wasn't called "going viral". And in truth, that's not what you want to do.

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S8.E39 ∙ The collapsible crash-test robot car

Sun, Sep 09, 2018

The Global Vehicle Target is the new standard for testing autonomous driving and crash test systems. To cameras and radar, it looks like a car: but if you hit it, it'll fly apart. So if your emergency braking doesn't quite work... well, this is what happens.

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S8.E40 ∙ We Made a Banhammer

Sun, Sep 16, 2018

For years, moderators of online forums and chat rooms have wielded a metaphorical "banhammer" to deal with anyone who steps out of line. Now it's real. Well, a bit more real, anyway.

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S8.E41 ∙ Wingwalking used to be a lot more dangerous

Sun, Sep 23, 2018

Back in the 1920s, wingwalking claimed lives. Daredevils would move around on the top of a plane's wings, in mid-flight, often without any harness or any safety line. Maybe they'd be able to clip onto something during takeoff and landing, but maybe not. There are still a few of those true daredevil wingwalkers out there in the world, but in the 21st century... it's usually a bit different.

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S8.E42 ∙ How the first ever telecoms scam worked

Sun, Sep 30, 2018

In the 1830s, two French brothers, François and Joseph Blanc, pulled off the first telecoms scam in history. The optical telegraph, a line of semaphore towers stretching from hilltop to hilltop, was for government use only: but something as simple as the law wasn't going to get in their way.

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S8.E43 ∙ What's The Longest Word You Can Write With Seven-Segment Displays?

Sun, Oct 07, 2018

Let's talk about seven-segment displays, and about the longest word you can write with them.

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S8.E44 ∙ If Educational Videos Were Filmed Like Music Videos

Sun, Oct 14, 2018

There's a reason music videos look strange. I could just talk about framerate, cuts and continuity - or I could get an actual music video director. And a leaf blower.

8.3 /10

S8.E45 ∙ The Ogham language

Sun, Oct 21, 2018

Ogham is an old Irish script made by carving notches into stones. It fell out of use more than a millennium ago - but it's an interesting exception to a linguistics and computer-science rule that I'd never even realised existed. Let's talk about the Ogham Space Mark.

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S8.E46 ∙ Why do London's manholes keep exploding?

Sun, Oct 28, 2018

Every month or so, somewhere in London, a manhole explodes. It's so common that it doesn't make the news unless it's spectacular or someone gets injured. Here's why, complete with gratuitous pyrotechnics.

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S8.E47 ∙ Britain's Largest Battery Is Actually A Lake

Sun, Nov 04, 2018

Dinorwig Power Station, otherwise known as Electric Mountain, is a pumped-storage hydro station in Llanberis, Wales. And yes: it's Britain's largest battery. Here's how it works, and why some of the things you think you know about TV pickups might not be so true any more.

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S8.E48 ∙ Why Computers Can't Count Sometimes

Sun, Nov 11, 2018

Sometimes, numbers on sites like YouTube and Twitter jump up and down; subscriber counts lag, like-counts bounce all over the place. Why is it so hard for computers to count? To answer that, we need to talk about threading, eventual consistency, and caching.

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S8.E49 ∙ Testing the world's longest echo

Sun, Nov 18, 2018

Technically, the Inchindown oil tanks in Invergordon, Scotland, have the world's longest reverberation, but that makes a much worse title. We tested them with a loud noise and some very sensitive microphones.

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S8.E50 ∙ An American Stonehenge: The Mysterious Georgia Guidestones

Sun, Nov 25, 2018

In a field near Elberton, Georgia, USA, sit a set of mysterious standing stones: mysterious not because they're ancient, but because they were funded by someone anonymous in 1980, perhaps as a message to any survivors of the end of the world.

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