How Gold Works

Only 161,00 metric tons of gold has been mined in the entire history of the world. Considering about 85 percent of the precious mineral is recycled, there’s a chance your jewelry may once have been part of an Incan headdress or Mycenaean face mask. Learn the ins and outs of this metal that humans have killed over for millennia.

January 27, 2013

TV Bonus: How Bees Work

With less than a million neurons in their tiny heads, bees shouldn’t be able to do much more than eat, sleep and reproduce. And yet, bees are capable of high functions like population economics and navigating by the sun on overcast days. Learn about these fascinating insects, including what a stinger really is in this episode of Stuff You Should Know.

January 24, 2013

Fecal Transplants: You Gonna Drink That Poop?

There’s an emerging field in health care called medical ecology that’s concerned with understanding how the 100 trillion microbes living inside us keep us healthy. The field’s first breakthrough is the fecal transplant, taking poop from a healthy person and putting it into the gut of a sick person. It’s a real thing and it actually works.

January 22, 2013

How the Frick Fracking Works

Fracking, the process of breaking trapped resources like natural gas and oil from shale, has led to a revolution in energy production in the U.S. It’s also given rise to increasing worries that the process can have sweeping environmental impacts.

January 19, 2013

How Autopsies Work

How can experts determine a person’s cause of death? Join Josh and Chuck as they take a trip through the morgue and look over the shoulders of the often controversial coroners and medical examiners that open cadavers to determine how someone died.

January 19, 2013

How Alien Hand Syndrome Works

When a person has alien hand syndrome, his or her hand can move involuntarily, and seemingly of its own volition. Tune in and learn more about this misunderstood syndrome in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.