Episode 16: Clockwork Computers, Ice Age Americans and Big Foot In this episode Tracey discusses a new sighting of Bigfoot in Colorado, why Sasquatch is interesting to a cultural historian and could such a creature possibly exist, while Ashley is shocked to discover that new entry requirements for Americans traveling abroad are close to what… Read more

In this episode Ashley’s traditionally disturbing Stuff in the News concerns the billion-dollar international trade in monkey skulls and other bits of dead animals you can buy on ebay. Tracey’s traditionally earnest Stuff in the News focuses on a paradigm changing archaeological find from Africa – a nearly half-a-million-year-old, pre-homo sapien, wooden structure that has… Read more

In this episode Tracey will terrify you all with her Stuff in News, that new footprint evidence that shows that those 10ft tall, 30 mph, huge beaked ‘terror birds’ had another deadly weapon in their arsenal – deadly sharp killer claws. Meanwhile, by our usual neat unplanned synchronicity, Ashley’s Stuff in the News reveals that… Read more

Tracey Cooper, November 5, 2023. In her Piece of Stuff this week, Tracey talked about the faked fossils that made up the Piltdown Man assemblage that were “discovered” by hoaxer Charles Dawson in 1912-13 and accepted as real by most of the academic archeological community until 1956. After this, the search for the culprit of… Read more

Tracey’s Stuff in the News Mark Piesing, “How do we Warn Future Generations to Avoid our Nuclear Waste?” National Geographic, September 1, 2023. Accessed September 3, 2023 at https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/nuclear-waste-repository-ray-cat-wipp-hitf-fabbri “Nuclear Waste Storage,” Nuclear Princeton, accessed September 3, 2023 at https://nuclearprinceton.princeton.edu/yucca-mountain “Radioactive Waste Management,” World Nuclear Association accessed September 3, 2023 at https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-waste-management.aspx Ashley’s Stuff in… Read more

Tracey’s Stuff in the News Tara Cobham, “Alien Corpses’ shown to Congress as UFO expert is forced to testify under oath,” Independent, September 13, 2023. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/alien-corpses-in-mexico-found-congress-ufo-b2411144.html David Nelson, “Claims of Alien Corpses made at Mexican Congress hearing into Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena,” Diario AS, September 13, 2023. https://en.as.com/latest_news/claims-of-alien-corpses-made-at-mexican-congress-hearing-into-unidentified-anomalous-phenomena-n/ Megan Janetsky, “Scientists call fraud on supposed extraterrestrials… Read more

Ashley’s Stuff in the News Aylin Woodward, “Our Big Brains Have Shrunk. Scientists Might Know Why,” Wall Street Journal, September 8, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/science/human-brains-shrinking-evolution-science-980c45e.  DeSilva, Jeremy et al. “Human Brains Have Shrunk: The Questions are When and Why.” Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 11 (2023). https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2023.1191274.  Tracey’s Stuff in the News “Nuclear Waste Storage,” Nuclear Princeton,… Read more

Show Notes Episode 10 – A Spot of Tea and Silk from the Sea In this episode’s Stuff in the News we talk about Eminem asking a certain GOP candidate not to use his music, and a five thousand year old dragon made of mussel shells that has just been discovered in the Inner Mongolian… Read more

For her Piece of Stuff this week, Ashley showed us the world’s oldest surviving tea from the tomb og Emperor Jing Di, and we talked about various types of tea, including Earl Grey which is flavored with oil of bergamot. As Ashley was talking, I realized that I didn’t know what bergamot is, why Earl… Read more

In this week’s episode, Ashley shares news of the possible recovery of an ancient herb, long thought lost, called Silphion, which in its day was worth its weight in silver for culinary, medicinal, and abortifacient properties, and Tracey has a 3-for-1 special on art conservation news involving an organogel, a hydrogel and a scoundrel. Tracey’s… Read more