The Wholesome Show

On May 14, 1945, Albert Stevens was injected with 131 kBq (3.55 µCi) of plutonium - the highest known radiation dose in any human - without his knowledge or informed consent. This is his story. The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!

Statistics, you might be surprised to learn, is the science of the state. At heart the whole discipline was born from an effort to count how many people your country had, so you could know how many taxes you could collect / armies you could raise / pyramids you could build. But the business of counting people has never been... straight forward. Sam Vilkins tells Rod and Will all about it! The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, joined today by Sam Vilkins! Proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!

In our galaxy there are billions of stars like our Sun, many of them probably billions of years older. In all likelihood, many of these stars will have Earth-like planets, and if the Earth is typical, at last some may have developed intelligent life - perhaps even billions of years more advanced than us. It's just simple probability! But... why is the galaxy so... quiet? Today, we explore the world of people looking for answers... The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, joined today by Dee Catto and Matt Phung! Proudly made possible by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!

Between 1946 and 1993 a bunch of countries dumped 85 PBq* of radioactive waste into the ocean. Slurries, solids, reactors - you know, the stuff you find lying around and just want to put in the ocean.** It was terrible, and it seems we've mostly stopped it. But that shit is still down there... So we explore! * I don't really know how much a PBq is, but it's a lot more than 'nothing', and 'nothing' is the correct amount of radioactive waste that should go into the ocean ** No, you don't find it lying around and you don't want to put it in the ocean, you're a good person listener. The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!

Corn flakes are delicious. But did you know they were originally invented to lower sexual desire? (Try it yourself next time you have a bowl, but be careful!) Their invention was part of a quest of John Harvey Kellogg's not only to improve the health of society, but to stop people from a range of other practices, including drinking, smoking, having sex and masturbating. In this episode we explore the weird - and really quite repressive - health beliefs of John Harvey Kellogg! The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, joined today by Sam Vilkins and Matt Phung! Proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!

In the dying days of the Second World War, allied troops entering Strasbourg made a grisly discovery - the purpose built beginnings of a skeleton collection. This pseudoscientific collection was an attempt by the Nazis to showcase - in physical form - the alleged racial inferiority of the "Jewish race" in contrast to the German Aryan Übermenschen. It's both disgusting, and very definitely not science. But Nazis weren't the only ones to collect human bones... We explore the terrible terrible bone collectors! (Australian Indigenous listeners are advised this episode contains discussion of deceased Indigenous Australians). The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, joined today by Sam Vilkins! Proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!

Everyone has food they hate eating. For some people it's mushrooms, for others it's onions, for others it's aniseed. (For Will it's watermelon. It's the lamest melon). But if you're starving on a desert island and there's only mushrooms, onions, aniseed or watermelon there, sure, you'll bend your rules. But what about... other humans? How hungry do you have to get to turn to anthropophagy (it means cannibalism)? In this episode, we explore the science, history and anthropology of anthropophagy (it means cannibalism)! The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!

Do you listen to The Wholesome Show in the shower? You can, it's totally fine with us! So... if you're in the shower now, take a look down at the floor. Look at the drain and watch your suds go down... Where do they go? Well, down the pipe, down the river, and all the way down to the very bottom of the Mariana Trench!* So that's fine if your suds are wholesome and non toxic to the environment, but sadly *heaps of garbage* is being washed down our drains all the way to the ocean. This makes us intensely sad. So to understand more, we explore the Great Pacific Garbage Patch! The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science! *Maybe more symbolically than literally

Listener I distinctly remember being told, when I was about 4, that even the Queen does poos. (It's true, she does!) Well, there's nothing to be ashamed about, it's all part of life. But about 4.5 billion of us don't have access to safe and hygienic toilets, and that is a shame. So for this episode we explore the history and technology of the toilet! Enjoy! The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant - joined today by Assoc Professor Sujatha Raman! Proudly made possible by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!

Have you ever wished the made up dinosaurs from the latest Jurassic Park movies were real? Well, you're not the only one! It turns out fossil hunters around the world are ... a little prone to inventing their own dinosaurs! We explore the Piltdown Man and other fossil fakes! Enjoy! The Wholesome Show is Rod Lamberts and Will Grant, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!

Have you ever wanted to be just a little bit smarter? To think a little bit more clearly, to remember better, to have a higher IQ? Well it turns out, people are trying a variety of government approved - and home made - techniques to do just that. But they're not consequence free... We explore Transcranial Electromagnetic Stimulation! The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre of the Public Awareness of Science!

Earlier this year teenagers around the world began* to receive* sinister text messages... from a half bird half woman half ghoul thing from the depths of despair. The messages instructed* these teenagers to do bad things - to hurt themselves - or the creepy ghoul known as Momo would get them! But - you know the story listener - it was all bullshit. Just a scary image and a made up moral panic, whipped into shape for clicks by moral entrepreneurs. But there is something interesting here - who falls for these things, and why do they fall for them when they do? We explore! The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, and proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science! *they didn't, it didn't happen, it was made up

Human brains are, quite simply, one of the most astounding things in the cosmos. They've written the works of Shakespeare, composed the lyrics to most Tool songs, and put people on the moon! But they've also got... some terrible loopholes. In particular, there's a bizarre loophole in our brains where we can decide if someone we don't like ... isn't really human. And then, we can do awful things to them (sad face emoji). Dehumanisation is a terrible process that has lead to many terrible things - the perfect thing for a Wholesome Explore! The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!

Warning - this episode somewhat less safe for work than normal! Azog is an underappreciated cavewoman in her tribe. The cavemen treat her like a piece a meat, and disrespect her at every turn. Azog cannot change this unless she proves herself as a hunter. But when she discovers a clutch of baby velociraptors and decides to kill them and triumphantly bring them back to her tribe, things start to get a little weird... This episode, we explore the weird world of dinosaur erotica, and the weird world on our side that brought it into being! The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, (usually) proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science! (Wherefore means why)

On first glance, the idea of meritocracy sounds like a pretty sensible way of organising society. Put simply, all the good things - rewards and privileges and crowns and jobs and things - go to the people who work the hardest and are the best at things. Sound pretty fair? Well it probably wouldn't surprise you, intelligent listener, if we told you that the world today isn't 100% meritocratic. We still have monarchs after all... But here's the thing. Not only do we not live in a meritocratic world, the idea of meritocracy itself is bad: the more people believe in it, the worse they become as humans. Ugh! We explore! The Wholesome Show is Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!