We all forget things sometimes. We leave the car keys in random places. We look all over the house for our sunglasses, only to find them already on our heads. And we’ve all experienced the angst of double booking, completely (or conveniently) forgetting about a dentist appointment booked for the time we were meant to meet up with friends at the pub.

Sometimes our brains just have enough stuff in there and there’s no room for anything new.

Kinda like how the world forgot about the time when millions of people died within a six month period from the Spanish Flu. Sure, we talk about it now but back then, when the pandemic was over, no one talked about it. 5 per cent of the population died, it sucked, let’s just forget about it…?

But how could a catastrophic event of this magnitude be collectively forgotten? And perhaps it’s not the only tragedy we’ve tossed into the black memory hole of history…

What are the most common fears and phobias that people have today? Most of us can relate to having a healthy fear of sharks or getting sweaty palms at the idea of being stuck in a tiny space. It’s also pretty socially acceptable for someone to opt out of bungee jumping, or for a fellow aeroplane passenger to need a few deep breaths to calm themselves before takeoff.

Then of course there’s the fear of public speaking - which we all fear more than death, right? Maybe not… This claim seems to link back to a publication from 1977 called The Book of Lists, which in turn cites the London Times… which in turn references the 1973 Burskin Report. This claims that 41 per cent of people feared speaking before a group, whereas only 19 per cent feared death.

But is it really true?

It’s the end of the science as we know it! And I feel fine! But seriously though, is it? As a global community, we are investing 10 times more money and resources into scientific research than we did in the 1950s, yet the number of groundbreaking discoveries is dwindling.

We’ve gone to the moon. We’ve discovered massive black holes. We’ve split the atom and peered through high-resolution microscopes to observe those tiny little quarks. Sure, we’re still making advancements, but a lot of science these days is refining past discoveries. We’re not really uncovering anything new. In fact, most of the Nobel Prizes awarded since the 1990s have been awarded for scientific work that went on in previous decades.

So is scientific pursuit just slowing down? Or, are we nearing the end of scientific discovery altogether?

We’re talking about sex. But what exactly constitutes sex? For a lot of people, the term is open to interpretation, especially if you’re trying to stay a virgin to please the Lord or deny your infidelity. We all remember Bill Clinton’s famous speech about not having “sexual relations”. Does this mean that oral sex isn’t sex? And what about anal sex? For some, there is a poophole loophole, while others consider looking at pornography and deep kissing as an act of sex.

Regardless of what you consider sex to be, there seem to be a lot of grey areas as cultural, religious and contextual factors thrust their way into the conversation. Is sex only considered sex if you reach the big O? And what if it's just the tip or a little bit of shaft? Two dicks, no dicks, plastic-covered dick? Who has to do what with what to whom for it to be considered sex in your mind?

Remember as a kid, having to wear that uncomfortable school uniform every single day? We were told when to sit, when to stand, when to eat, when to play, even when we were allowed to go to the toilet. Myriad rules to crush us into oppressive obedience!

Now imagine a similar scenario in your workplace. Employees are given insultingly basic commands and training that even the most sheltered individual would have learned simply in the school of life. There’s a term for it: Workplace Infantilisation. Workers denied their agency and wisdom from experience in favour of child-like over-proceduralisation. And no, workplace infantilisation is not a term for child labour, pathological smuggling of employee’s children into the office, or a worker boasting an adult diaper fetish.

But is workplace infantilisation genuinely happening on a significant scale? Or is it merely a vent for worker frustrations over the minutiae of bureaucratic tape?

Mother Nature, in all her brilliance, has birthed some fascinating phenomena. Take the magical skies of the Aurora Borealis in Iceland for example, or the bioluminescent Maldives shores where the ocean lights up like neon blue fairy lights.

Here in Australia, we have Lake Hillier, where the water is the colour of a strawberry milkshake. In England of course, they have the synchronised sheep panic at 8pm. Wait… what?

Although one of the lesser known phenomena (you might even say “un-herd” of), unexplained sheep panic caused quite a stir in Oxfordshire England in the late 19th century. On November 3, 1888, tens of thousands of sheep in a 200 square mile radius in Oxfordshire suddenly went bonkers at 8pm. It was as if some unseen terror had gripped them all simultaneously. Can you hear the X-files theme music playing?

Back in the day, before robots and the internet, guys and gals who longed for the company of a significant other had one move up their sleeve: pluck up the courage to leave the house and talk to another human. Nowadays-ish, people search for love from home aided by computers and a social media background check (thanks Wayback Machine). Nowadays proper, the pool from which to select a lover has expanded to include artificial intelligence. In today’s post-ChatGPT age, AI girlfriend chatbots are on the market but you better keep it hush-hush… apparently, OpenAI don’t want you to meet their digital darlings, especially Tiffany or Nadia.

Speaking of intelligence, the former director of the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), Sean Kirkpatrick, squashed our dreams in a recent interview, candidly admitting that UAP sightings (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena - we don’t call them UFOs anymore) were likely just top secret military intelligence drones. Awesome. So why make such a big deal about releasing the UFO files? We don’t buy it. They’re definitely hiding something.

On the topic of misinformation, in 1997, 14-year-old junior high school student Nathan Zohner warned his fellow students about a dangerous substance called dihydrogen monoxide, or DHMO. It’s colourless, odourless, tasteless and yet kills thousands of people every year through accidental inhalation. Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue damage and in its gaseous form, DHMO causes severe burns.

It’s found in cancers and infected wounds, and large quantities have been confirmed in every river, stream, lake and reservoir in America. But most terrifying is that everyone who drinks DHMO goes on to eventually die. How can this be legal??

After the horrors of World War I, the Australian Federal Government gave thousands of discharged veterans money, land and the promise of a bright and happy agricultural life in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia. Life as a farmer wasn’t easy, but at least these veterans had seen the last of the battlefield. Or so they thought.

The war was over, but then in 1929, the great depression hit. Hoping to ease the pressure and literally put bread on the table for Australians, the Federal Government promised subsidies to the new farmers to increase their crop production. Then wheat prices began to fall and the government bailed on their promise of subsidies. The farmers were screwed. And on top of all of this, the wheat farmers in Western Australia found themselves in a battle with an unexpected adversary. AKA The Emu Wars.

Around the globe, there are 100 or more "uncontacted" tribes, Indigenous peoples who avoid all contact with outsiders. Many of these people groups are in places like Brazil, Venezuela and Peru, probably hoping the beautiful rainforest they call home doesn’t get completely decimated by the white man.

Over the years, outsiders have made some attempts to build connections with such tribes, in the hopes of understanding their cultures and respecting their way of life (well, we’d like to think that was their intention anyway). But the title of the most “uncontacted” people today goes to the Sentinelese people, an isolated tribe living on North Sentinel Island located off the coast of India. And if weren’t for the noteworthy, and quite frankly, arrogant efforts of John Chau, a devout Christian missionary in 2018, we doubt we would have ever heard of them.

We’re all afraid of something. Many people live with significant anxiety due to their fear of things such as heights, flying, public speaking, the number 8 for example (Octophobia - it’s a real thing). But one fear puts disproportionately more heebies in our jeebies: taphophobia, or the fear of being buried alive as a result of being incorrectly pronounced dead. To a mad few, it may seem a genuine irrational fear (like omphalophobia - the fear of belly buttons) but at least some solace can be taken in the fact that it is exceedingly rare… right? There wouldn’t be an episode if that was the case!

Perhaps being trapped 6 feet under is more reality than nightmare. This was certainly the case in centuries past.

In the early 19th century, when Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, it was remarkably common for people to be accidentally buried alive. It happened so frequently in fact, that some clever people came up with innovative escape coffins to help the poor buried people get out.

The 20th century was a golden era for ethically dubious brain studies. In 1950, Dr Jose Delgado had a vision to control aggressive behaviour using a device surgically implanted in the brain known as the Stimoceiver. How science fictiony is that?!

Delgado's journey toward creating a peaceful human race started with a bully macaque monkey who had been terrorising his cage mates. After successfully pacifying the angry monkey with the Stimoceiver, Delgado took the bull by the horns, quite literally. In 1963, a pivotal moment unfolded as Delgado tested the limits of the Stimoceiver in a dramatic experiment in the bull fighting arena. The public spectacle that followed thrust Delgado into the spotlight, drawing both admiration and ethical concerns.

There are a lot of patron saints out there in the Catholic multiverse. They have saints for every day of the year and then some. We’ve all heard of the more famous saints like St. Paul, St. Peter and St. Patrick. What, no Saint Gary? Pfft. But then there are some lesser-known saints, but by no means less holy.

Like St. Lidwina of Schiedam, the patron saint of ice skating. At age 15, she fell over ice skating and broke her rib, which one source ominously states was the beginning of her martyrdom. No matter what medical intervention was applied, her rib just did not heal. She became progressively paralysed, soon unable to walk, her body slowly deteriorating to the point where she was confined to bed for the rest of her life. But paralysis was just the beginning.

When we think of champions in the battle against climate change, names like Greta Thunberg, David Suzuki, and David Attenborough come to mind. But would you ever associate former US President Donald Trump with climate action? Probably not. But, his 2016 presidential campaign manager, Steve Bannon - you know the former investment banker, Hollywood executive, the guy who’s continuously being charged and convicted of crimes - well, he played a surprising role in an incredible scientific endeavour which has been aiding in climate change research for decades. You think you know someone.

The story goes back to the 1970’s at an ‘intentional community’ in New Mexico called Synergia Ranch. Whether or not it was a fancy name for a hippy cult, Synergia Ranch became a breeding ground for ideas about creating a self-contained, ecologically sustainable environment. Co-founder John Allen, an ecologist and playwright, dreamed of blending high-tech and ecological principles to create a self-sustaining wonderland.

Christmas, the most wonderful time of the year. Festive feasting on sweet delicacies, children filled with wonder, awaiting Santa’s visit on Christmas Eve. Unless of course, you subscribe to some of the lesser-known Northern European traditions. Then Christmas is downright horrifying.

Hans Trapp for example. After being excommunicated from his local catholic church, Hans Trapp roamed the countryside disguised as a scarecrow, obsessed with the idea of tasting human flesh. He lured a young shepherd boy to his death, cooked him over a fire and just when he was about to eat him, God struck him down with lightning. He’s dead now, but legend has it that at Christmas time, Hans Trapp goes from door to door looking for tasty young children.

The first asbestosis death that was officially linked to asbestos exposure was in 1924. A few other asbestos-related deaths were happening around that time too so in 1929, asbestos companies commissioned our friend Dr. Lanza to run an industrial hygiene survey of several of their asbestos plants and factories.

After conducting a bunch of physical examinations and X-rays, Dr Lanza found that asbestosis was rife in the workers. But instead of gently breaking the news to them that they would die a slow, horrible death, he decided it was better to not tell them anything and instead tell the executives.

Australia is a wondrous country with endless sights to see. The Great Barrier Reef, Sydney Opera House, Bondi Beach, the vast sunburnt deserts... and a tiny town in Western Australia where, if you breathe, your chances of dying a horrible death will be vastly increased.

Wittenoom, considered Australia's version of Chernobyl, is a site that no one should visit (and yet some still do). Back in the 1930s, before Wittenoom was even a town, a young man named Lang Hancock kicked off a mining boom after discovering a beautiful blue rock: premium-grade blue asbestos. At first, the asbestos mining was more like fossicking on the surface, but things really kicked off when CSR (a famous Australian sugar refining company!) bought the mine and decided to take things underground.

We’ve all heard about the horrors of asbestos. But what about the miraculous side of it? Think about it - it’s a rock that you can make clothes out of, and banknotes for that matter. It’s wild. A weaveable, fire-resistant, rot-resistant rock. There’s literally nothing else like it on the planet.

With all our advances in science and modern manufacturing techniques, we still haven’t been able to come up with something to match it. Now we all know the boring modern uses of asbestos such as building materials, roofing, fireplaces etc. Boring. We want to know the more creative uses for this magical rock. Well, how does asbestos toothpaste sound to you?

Imagine a slower pace of life: Growing your own vegetables, spending more time with the children, the smell of freshly baked sourdough wafting through your well-kept home, no pesky job or financials to worry about. That does sound lovely, doesn’t it? And then while your healthy kids are playing in their mud kitchen, you hop online to chat with your tradwife friends about how to ban immigration, ban abortion, and breed out the blacks. Wait, what?!

To be fair, it’s quite a leap to go from baking bread to white supremacy. But there seems to be a connection between these wholesome and traditional values and something far more sinister. And because we can’t quite understand what the hell sourdough has to do with terrorism, we’ve invited special guest Dr Kristy Campion on the show to discuss the links between the tradwife movement and the alt-right.

In a time when women were treated atrociously, Nellie Bly (born Elizabeth Cochran) fought back. Unhappy with her journalist assignment to the lifestyle section, she embarked on a mission that would change the course of journalism forever.

Her first mission: expose the appalling treatment of patients in the Blackwell Island Insane Asylum. A casual stroll around the exterior and interview with a staffer would simply not do for Nellie’s standards. She opted for undercover, which meant feigning insanity to get herself committed… and hopefully returning home. With careful consideration, and a promise from her editor to get her out, Nellie accepted the mission and took to practising her crazy eyes in the mirror, spooking herself out with ghost stories and brushing up on her acting skills.

Ebenezer “Eben” McBurney Byers was the personification of the Roaring Twenties: Chairman of his own company, private box at the baseball, golf pro, ladies' man - total Great Gatsby vibes.

Unfortunately, Eben had a fall one day leaving him with an injury that interfered with his athletic prowess. Conventional treatment failed and so his physiotherapist, Dr. Charles Moyar, suggested he try RadiThor, an energy drink advertised as “Pure Sunshine in a Bottle” and accompanied, as quackery always is, by the usual panacea claim. But what was in this miracle drink? Well, not a lot. Just some triple distilled water and at least 1 microcurie each of radium-226 and radium-228.