Awesome Learning

Several years back, The Atlantic interviewed David Lynch to speak about how he arrives at the ideas in his films. Along the way, he provided some inspiring advice that any of us could use to help us generate fresh ideas.

Mental Floss‘ Elliott Morgan fills our brains with 26 tidbits of trivia about magicians and their tricks, including the math skills, psychology, and dexterity required to make stage illusions convincing. Also, we never knew Teller’s first name until today.

(PG-13: Language) Cracked’s corporate scumbag Roger is back to give us a good, hard Rogering, with a look at pharmaceutical companies who invest in patents, political lobbying, marketing, and incenting doctors, so they can reap big profits off of patients with severe illnesses.

(PG-13: Language) “One of the best ways to ensure you’re being romantic instead of creepy is to be above a 7.” Casually Explained checks off the physical cues that may indicate that someone is into you. You Casanova/perv.

Vox looks at the history and evolution of comic book lettering. The most well known style – all caps, italicized, and with consistent thickness – was developed to make text easier to read on cheap paper. But there are dozens of comic book fonts and lettering styles.

We’ve all read our share of Shakespeare in school, but the combination of old English and William’s flowery prose sometimes makes it difficult to comprehend exactly what he was talking about. Our favorite YouTube puppets do their best to sort Romeo & Juliet out for us.

Adam Ruins Everything washes out a seemingly harmless piece of advice: drinking 2L or eight glasses of water a day. It turns out no study has conclusively proven that standard. So why are we often told to stay hydrated? Because money.

The always compelling CGP Grey looks at the behaviors underlying traffic patterns, such as city gridlock and highway traffic jams. He provides some simple things we can do to reduce the problem, but his ultimate fix would require a far more dramatic change.

The world has many nonsensical borders, what with presumptuous people often drawing the lines. YouTuber RealLifeLore looks at some of the worst examples of such carelessness – narrow and long protrusions that cut into one or more neighboring territories.

Adam Ruins Everything divulges one of Hollywood’s worst kept secrets: movie studios pay millions of dollars so that their movies and actors can win – or even just get nominated for – Oscars, Golden Globes, and Emmys. Why? Because trophies sell tickets.

Aluminum is light and resists corrosion, but it’s soft and hard to refine. Thankfully, advances in engineering plus a bit of luck took care of its setbacks, paving the way for passenger airplanes, skyscrapers and much more. Real Engineering explains.

Google employees Nat and Lo spoke with some of their co-workers who handle YouTube to give us an overview of how it compresses and stores the videos we upload and how it distributes those copies around the world.

Most art museums are arranged based on nationality, chronology or genre. Instead of having such sterile and unwelcoming archives, The School of Life argues that art museums should be set up for therapeutic purposes – e.g. museums for loneliness, aging, creativity, etc.

Today I Found Out points out why there are only a handful of foreign light trucks available in the US. It all has to do with the chicken tax, a 25% import tax on trucks that the US imposed in 1963 in retaliation for European countries placing a similarly high tariff on US chicken.

The Sam O’Nella Academy fills us in on a few tricks that mother nature plays on our bodies, putting things in the wrong places and the like. You could spend your whole life without even knowing about them, and there’s a 10% chance you’ve got a bonus spleen right now!

Did you know that American football got its name because players did use their feet (and hands) to move the ball forward instead of carrying and passing it? Or that it’s possible to score a single point in the game? All that and more in Mental Floss’ video.

Vox explains how race walking works. Contestants have to have at least one foot on the ground at all times and keep their legs straight when they step. The peculiar gait is designed to maximize pace in the face of the restrictions.

Computerphile sat down with nano-scientist Phil Moriarty who explains just how tiny the wires and transistors of semiconductors are these days, and how we’re approaching a point in physics where we’re going to have to build computers very differently.

We’re sure that we’re oversimplifying in our headline, but we’ll let TED-Ed and molecular biologist Anusuya Willis explain how the single-celled cyanobacteria which nearly wiped out most life on Earth, then gave us the oxygen and plants we all need to exist.

There are many external factors that lead to heavy traffic, but one of the main reasons is human nature. AsapScience looks at behaviors we should adopt and how technology can curtail our bad driving habits.

Google employees Nat and Lo visited the Google Doodle design team to find out how they make the interactive Google logos. In particular, Nat and Lo spoke to the members who came up with the Olympic-themed Doodle, the Fruit Games.

Aside from doves and dual-wielded pistols, John Woo’s most lasting contribution to the world of cinema is Gun Fu. He first used the mix in his 1986 film A Better Tomorrow, combining martial arts with firearms to create exciting close combat gunfights.

Kurzgesagt takes a look at what seems like science fiction, but could quite possibly revolutionize the world. With the ability to manipulate genes, we could create just about anything we want, from made to order babies, to better foods, to the fountain of youth.