When Disney announced a full-immersion live-action role-playing Star Wars experience, it should not be surprised that Kat and Dan started saving up immediately. The three-day, two-night experience was intense, immersive, and incredibly personal. If you don’t have time to read the 10,000 word illustrated blog about our journey or simply prefer to li…

The Mir Space Station was a true Soviet engineering wonder, an achievement comparable with the US landing on the Moon. Yet in its later years, Mir survived some horrific & hair-raising accidents... The post The Awful and Wonderful History of the Mir Space Station | Curious Minds Podcast appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.…

Archimedes is famous for being Ancient Greece's greatest engineer. Yet a random discovery - a prayers book found in an old church in Turkish Istanbul, casts this mysterious genius in an even more surprising light. The post The Lost Manuscript of Archimedes | Curious Minds Podcast appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.…

In 1989, a message was found in a virus: "Eddie Lives…Somewhere in Time!". 'Eddie' was a particularly nasty virus, and its discovery led a young Bulgarian security researcher down a rabbit hole, on a hunt for the prolific creator of the Eddie virus: The Dark Avenger. The post The Dark Avenger [From: Malicious.Life] | Curious Minds Podcast appeared …

By Dan Amrich & Katrin Auch

After describing the Software Crisis in the previous episode, we discuss the various methodologies and practices implemented over the years to combat the complexities of software development. We'll tell the sad story of the FBI's VCF project - perhaps the most expensive failed software project ever - and hear about Dr. Fred Brooks' classic book, 'T…

Software errors and random bugs are rather common: We’ve all seen the infamous Windows “blue screen of death”... But is there really nothing we can do about it? Are these errors – from small bugs to catastrophic mistakes – inevitable? In this episode, we'll tell the story of FORTRAN, the groundbreaking high-level computer language, and the sad, sad…

In 1983, president Ronald Reagan shocked the world when he announced that the United States was developing an ultra-modern defense system against intercontinental ballistic missiles. Hundreds of billions of dollars were invested in the system’s development - But then, in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, and with it – the Star Wars initiative. Was …

The fall of Napster (see Part I of this series) has left a vacuum in the world of file sharing - and as the saying goes, the Internet abhors vacuum... Various File Sharing programs such as Gnutella, Kazaa and others quickly filled the void. In this episode, we'll describe Grokster's legal battle against the Record Companies, the sinister poisoning …

Napster, a revolutionary Peer-to-Peer file sharing software, was launched in 1999 - and forever changed the media world. In this episode, we'll tell the story of Sean Fanning and Sean Parker, its creators, and talk about the legal battle it fought with the record companies - and Metallica. The post The History of File Sharing, Part 1 (of 2): The Ri…

Heroes of Podcasting: An interview with Aaron Mahnke about the role of storytelling in podcasting, his inspirations and how he started Lore. The post Heroes Of Podcasting #5: Aaron Mahnke, Lore Podcast | Curious Minds Podcast appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.By Curious Minds

Todd has an amazing story which begun with a serious injury - but ultimately led to a surprising career as an early entrepreneur in the new media of podcasting. He wrote the first book on podcasting and signed one of the first advertising deals. Today, Todd's company is one of the biggest players in this new media. The post Heroes Of Podcasting #4:…

Leo Laporte is one of the very first podcasters.In 2005 Leo left - or almost left - traditional radio to start his own podcasting network, centered around cutting edge technology news, called TWIT. TWIT quickly became one of the most successful podcast networks with millions of downloads and award winning show such as This Week In Tech, Security No…

Jay Soderberg started in podcasting back in 2006. Jay’s story is rather unique, since his first steps in podcasting were in the corporate world, whereas the vast majority of podcasters back then were independent creators. The post Heroes Of Podcasting #2: Jay Soderberg (The PodVader), VP of BlogTalkRadio | Curious Minds Podcast appeared first on Cu…

This series explores the history and future of podcasting, and each episode will feature a single guest who is a pioneer of podcasting. This time, we're interviewing Prof. Karlheinz Brandenburg - inventor of the popular MP3 format which a critical innovation in Podcasting history. The post Heroes Of Podcasting #1: Inventor of MP3, Prof. Karlheinz B…

In 1998, a group of people broke away from the Free Software Foundation and created instead the Open Source Initiative. What were their motives? Richard Stallman, the founder of the FSF, and Tim O'Reilly who helped popularize the term 'Open Source' discuss the history of Open Source & Free Software. The post The History of Open Source & Free Softwa…

This episode will focus on a few of the lesser-known children of the Solar System neighborhood: The Oort Cloud, Kuiper's Belt & Dwarf Planets. The post The Solar System’s Little Known Members – Astronomy Shorts 4 | Curious Minds Podcast appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.By Ran Levi

In the early 1980's Richard Stallman founded the Free Software Foundation (FSF): a socio-technological movement that revolutionized the software world. In this episode we'll hear Stallman himself talking about the roots of the movement, and learn of its early struggles. The post The History of Open Source & Free Software, Pt. 1, w/ Special Guest: R…

Humans have yet to have set foot on a different planet, but today, from their limited vantage point on Earth, astronomers are able to notice a few breathtaking phenomena that are beyond human imagination. This episode reveals some of the greatest, most amazing, violent and impressive meteorological phenomena seen on other planets in the Solar Syste…

In the previous part of the episode we learned how linguists were able to reconstruct bits of the ancient & long lost Indo-European language. In this episode we'll discover what can these words tell us about life in the Bronze Age, family ties and nomadic relationships. We'll also learn about the links between Genetics & Linguistics: a recent genet…

A surprising discovery made by a William Jones, British judge in India uncovered the existence of an ancient language, the ancestor of an amazing variety of modern languages - from English and French, to the Persian Farsi and Indian Sanskrit. The speakers of this language didn't leave any written evidence behind, but researchers were able to recons…

A journey to outer space has many dangers and challenges; but for those courageous astronauts, the trip might be worthwhile. Some of the planets and moons in the Solar System have views that are really, but really, out of this world: The Caloris Basin, Iapetus and Miranda. The post Astronomy Shorts 2: Three Breathtaking Views within the Solar Syste…

The universe we live in is really big: It's vastness is difficult to even comprehend. That vastness is why, even if our universe is teeming with life, it is unlikely that we will ever meet other intelligent life forms. Let's take a closer look at the scales of distances, speeds and volumes in our universe. The post Astronomy Shorts 1: The Scale of …

How a single navigation error cost the Royal Navy Four battle ships and 1,505 men - and led a humble carpenter to solve one of the most difficult & important engineering challenges of the last 300 years. The post The Longitude Problem (Maritime History) | Curious Minds appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.…

Dr. Timothy Leary help kickstart the LSD's involvement in the Hippie movement of the 1960's - and was imprisoned for it. But what really makes LSD so dangerous? We'll delve deep into the effects of LSD on the human brain. The post LSD History, Pt.2: Timothy Leary | Curious Minds appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.…

A 2-parts series on LSD history: it's discovery, it's initial uses by psychologists and the CIA and it's role in the 'hippie revolution' of the 1960's. Also, how does LSD affects the brain? The post LSD History | Curious Minds appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.By Ran Levi

The Black Death that swept across Europe in the 14th century wasn't the first time nor the last that the Bubonic Plague decimate large cities and brought empires to their knees. For many thousands of years, its cause and way of spreading was totally unknown - until two brave (and some might say - insanely brave) French physicians took to the street…

The male Y Chromosome holds tantalizing clues about our own, personal past - but that past can turn out to be very troubling. Tatiana Zerjal's research on DNA samples brought by Spencer Wells from central asia revealed uncomfortable truths, such as the extend of rape and murder in Genghis Khan's Mongol empire. Dr. Karl Skorecki's interest in his pr…

In the 1970s and 80s, an interesting academic dispute rose between two rival camps of scientists in the field of Paleoanthropology, the study of human evolution. The main question dealt with the theories of when and where the modern human, the Homo-Sapiens, appeared. The post Molecular Clock, Pt.1: Mitochondrial DNA | Curious Minds appeared first o…

Arsenic Poisoning was the weapon of choice for many women over the centuries. Find out Arsenic's deadly history - and how it kills. The post Arsenic Poisoning – A History | Curious Minds appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.By Ran Levi

What can we learn from the BBC's failed Domesday Project about the digital preservation of the wealth of information we produce each year? The post Digital Preservation & The Domesday Project | Curious Minds appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.By Ran Levi

A 2-part series, exploring the role of technology in the Battle of the Atlantic in WW2. How did technical innovations by German, American and British engineers determine the ebbs and flows of the naval battles and the ultimate fate of the German U-Boats fleet? Read the Full Text or Listen to the Podcast Subscribe: iTunes … Continue reading U Boats …

How did the small, outgunned German fleet manage to strike painful blows to the Great British Navy? The credit for this success belongs to the German flotilla of submarines: the Unterseeboots, or U-Boats. The post U Boats in WWII, Pt. I: The Battle of the Atlantic | Curious Minds appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.…

In 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen was an honored and admired physics professor. But reputation aside, Röntgen was 50 years old - and at that age, it is rare for a scientist to make a significant contribution to his or her field. The post Medical History: Rontgen, Hounsfield & Radiology | Curious Minds appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.…

Today's digital world is a reverse tower of Babel. It takes all sorts of different languages to build it. It is this phenomenon that Aleks Krotoski explores in this final edition.By BBC Radio 4

Aleks Krotoski introduces the programming language that people probably interact with on a daily basis more than any other.By BBC Radio 4

Basic is the little language that could. As language of choice for home computing in the 1980s, it became iconic.By BBC Radio 4

Inefficient, verbose and ugly, yet by the 1990s, 80 per cent of the world's business software was written in Cobol. Aleks Krotoski explores why.By BBC Radio 4

The history of computing is dominated by the hardware; the race for speed and power has overshadowed how we've devised ways to instruct these machines to do useful tasks. In this 5 part series Aleks Krotoski tells the story of the languages we've used to talk to the machines. FORTRAN is the oldest of what are called high level languages and marked …

By Dan Amrich & Katrin Auch