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The BrainFood Show

The BrainFood Show

By: Cloud10
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 In this show, the team behind the wildly popular TodayIFoundOut YouTube channel do deep dives into a variety of fascinating topics to help you feed your brain with interesting knowledge.Cloud10 World
Episodes
  • That Time the USA Tried to Make Hippo Farming a Thing

    That Time the USA Tried to Make Hippo Farming a Thing
    Sep 14 2025
    If you were to travel down the Rio Magdalena just north of the Columbian capital of Bogotá, you might just come across some rather out-of-place wildlife: a herd of African Hippopotamuses. The herd, which now numbers nearly 100, is descended from four individuals imported in the 1980s by notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar, and kept in a private zoo on his estate in Puerto Triunfo. When Escobar was killed in 1993, the hippos escaped into the surrounding rivers and multiplied…and multiplied, and multiplied. The enormous invasive species then proceeded to wreak havoc on the local ecosystem, destroying local plant life, disrupting the habitat of native animals like crocodiles and manatees, and killing fish with copious amounts of noxious faeces. If left unchecked, biologists fear the population could reach 1,000 by 2035, causing untold environmental damage. But as bizarre as this environmental crisis might seem, the exact same scenario might very well have played out in the United States more than 100 years ago, thanks to one of the strangest bills in U.S. congressional history. This is the wild and unlikely story of how the U.S. government tried to introduce hippo ranching to America. Host: Simon Whistler Author: Gilles Messier Editor: Daven Hiskey Producer: Samuel Avila Sponsor note:  Our listeners get 10% off their first month at ⁠betterhelp.com/BrainFoodShow⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    22 mins
  • The Fascinating Saga of History’s Largest Diamond

    The Fascinating Saga of History’s Largest Diamond
    Sep 12 2025
    “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.” So wrote Samuel Johnson, the famed 18th Century polymath and founder of the modern English dictionary. And indeed, London offers many delights for the discerning traveller, from the iconic Houses of Parliament and St. Paul’s Cathedral to the theatres of the West End, the fashionable shops of Soho, and the countless world-class museums covering every subject imaginable. But no sojourn to the UK capital is complete without a visit to the Tower of London, the 11th century fortress and palace that has served many functions over the centuries, most infamously as a prison for some of British history’s greatest villains. It is also famously the home of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom. Among the centrepieces of this storied collection are the Imperial State Crown and the Sovereign’s Sceptre With Cross, worn by British sovereigns during coronations and state openings of parliament. But in addition to their historic symbolic importance and sublime craftsmanship, these pieces have another claim to fame: they are both set with stones cut from the largest gem-quality diamond ever discovered: the Cullinan, unearthed in South Africa in 1905. The story of how this massive stone came to reside among the Crown Jewels is a fascinating one, a tale of luck, subterfuge, and Colonial politics at the turn of the 20th Century. Author: Gilles Messier Host: Daven Hiskey Producer: Samuel Avila Sponsor note:  Our listeners get 10% off their first month at ⁠betterhelp.com/BrainFoodShow⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    31 mins
  • ENOUGH! The First Astronaut Strike In Space... Allegedly

    ENOUGH! The First Astronaut Strike In Space... Allegedly
    Sep 10 2025
    People being unhappy with their job is not a rare occurrence. It is almost a given that, assuming you don’t work for me, there are many people in your office who want an exit as soon as possible, maybe even you. At some point, maybe you’ve even snapped and rebelled against your company overlords in some fashion. But as cool as you might have felt passive aggressively sending that urgent email three days late on purpose, you will never be as cool as those men who thumbed their noses at the $4 million (about $25.2 million today) being spent per day on their mission and said “not my problem” while in lower orbit…. Allegedly… Sponsor note:  Our listeners get 10% off their first month at ⁠betterhelp.com/BrainFoodShow⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    33 mins
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