Explore every episode of the podcast Facts Machine

Come see our show THIS THURSDAY (9/19 7pm Eastern) in person in NYC or livestream from wherever you are!

In this Symbiosis-themed episode, we were joined by Dr. Kate Bredbenner and Hampton Humber for stories about synergistic species, comedy about critters coexisting, and trivia that mite live on your head rent-free!

Kate: @simplebiologist

Hampton: @Hampdman

In this marine biology themed episode, we were joined by fish expert Joshua Barber and squid expert Dr. Diana Li, PhD for deep dives on the deep sea, the laugh aquatic, and trivia that will show you the error of your waves. Josh: @joshbarbershop @gettingfishypod Diana: @dianateuthis.bsky.social

For this show about urban animals, we were joined by guest scientists Dr. Casey Lardner, PhD & Dr. Valentina Alaasam, PhD (plus guest game-master Sam Corbin!) for deep dives on our nest-door neighbors, a habitat for hilarity, and trivia about why we can’t have niche things!

Come see our show THIS THURSDAY (5/16) 7pm Eastern at Caveat in NYC or via livestream from wherever you are!

For this Earth-themed show, we were joined by stand-up comedian & science writer Kasha Patel as well as Earth scientist, performer & educator Kristina Gustovich for deep dives on the deep interior of our planet, comedy about the climate, and trivia that’ll was into this world!

Kristina Gustovich: @mucho_gustovich

Kasha Patel: @Kashablanca

We were joined by neuroscientists Dr. Chloe Lopez-Lee, PhD and Dr. Devon Collins, PhD for deep dives on the deepest recesses of our brains, comedy about consciousness, and trivia that blew our minds!

In this love-themed episode, we were joined by two beloved science communicators, chemist Adam Rosenzweig & neuroscientist Dr. Paula Croxson for a show full of deep dives on the deepest recesses of our hearts, comedy about commitment, and trivia you'll love at first sight!

Dr. Paula Croxson

Insta/TikTok/Twitter: @PaulaCroxson

Adam Rosenzweig

Twitter: @AdamTheChemist

Insta: @Adam_The_Chemist

TikTok: @AtomsAndBonds

In this episode, we were joined by two out-of-this-world science communicators, astrophysicist and folklorist Dr. Moiya McTier, PhD & astronomer Dr. Mark Popinchalk, PhD for a show full of deep dives on deep space, comet-y about astronomy, and trivia that made us see stars!

Moiya's socials:

Twitter/TikTok/Instagram: @GoAstroMo

Mark's socials:

Twitter/TikTok - @MarkPopinchalk

Instagram - @Mark.Popinchalk

Come to our live show THURSDAY 1/25 7PM at Caveat in NYC or via livestream from wherever you are! Tickets & show info: ⁠https://www.caveat.nyc/events/facts-machine-1-25-2024⁠

Moiya's book The Milky Way

Moiya's new podcast Pale Blue Pod

Moiya's PBS show Fate & Fabeled

Moiya's first podcast ExoLore

Tickets for our Friday, 3/17 show "Taking A Brain Check"

Welcome to Facts Marine! Noah was joined live at Caveat in NYC by guest marine biologists and science communicators Jaida Elcock and Dr. Diana Li, PhD, as well as scientist and comedian Kyle Marian! Listen as they make waves, do deep dives on the deep sea, and have a “littoral” whale of a time!

Tickets for our Friday, 3/17 show "Taking A Brain Check"

During NYC's Brain Awareness Week, Em and Noah (and Rob in spirit!) were joined live at Caveat by guest neuroscientists and science communicators Leslie Sibener and Dr. Devon Collins, PhD, as they endeavored to get tangled up in neural nets, celebrate Dendritic Arbor Day, and fight for neurite to party!

Piano accompaniment: Rose McCathran & Ryan Brechmacher

Tickets for our Friday, 3/17 show "Taking A Brain Check"

Joined by special guest Jaida Elcock, shark scientist and grad student at MIT-WHOI, co-founder of Minorities in Shark Science (MISS), organizer of #BlackinMarineScienceWeek, and TikTok-er extraordinaire, we take a bite out of TEETH facts! Open (your ears) wide for aquatic melon ballers, the under appreciated craft of dentist office blogging, and a Michael Phelps race that never was, but totally should have been. And for the love of enamel, make sure to floss!!

Tickets for our Friday, 3/17 show "Taking A Brain Check"

Live at Caveat in NYC, just days before Halloween, we were joined by folklorist to the stars, and astrophysicist to the folks, Dr. Moiya McTier, PhD! Listen in to learn about a threatening arrangement of triangles, the ballad of the Space Bat, and an Ohio pig farmer who dreamed of two things: 1) seeing the stars and 2) smashing Confederates...AND HE WAS ALL OUT OF STARS... Listen to Moiya over at her science-based world-building podcast, ExoLore! Watch Moiya over at her show on PBS Digital Services Fate & Fabled! Read Moiya over at her new book The Milky Way: An Autobiography of Our Galaxy!

Science Friday engagement producer, comedian, and inclusive science communicator extraordinaire Kyle Marian joins us for a gastronomical live show at Caveat all about FOOD. In a variety show of storytelling, audience challenges, and unrepentant culinary goofiness, we chew the fat, spill the beans, go bananas, and satisfy even the most voracious of trivia appetites. Tune in, and eat your heart out 😋

Accompanied by special guest Dr. Latasha Wright, chief scientific officer at BioBus and Rob’s bio-boss, we finally share all the facts we’ve been dyeing to tell you! Tune in to learn all about the art, science, and history behind pigments and dyes—we hope it all soaks in! 

 Our guest today is biology professor, science communicator, and co-owner of an animal sanctuary (!) Dr. Carly York, who joins us for a (lightly NSFW) episode about romantic relationships in the animal world. Tune in and keep an eye out for Carly’s upcoming book on romance in the wild!

 Science comedian, neuroscience PhD, and “guardian of knowledge” Dr. André Pineda makes his second Facts Machine appearance on an episode in homage to organisms that live on the edge, thrive in the unsurvivable, and take that “grow where you are planted” proverb that gets embroidered on pillows as a personal challenge: extremophiles.

This week we’re joined by data science professor, standup comedian, and circus performer, Dr. Andrea Jones-Rooy to articulate, communicate, enunciate, extrapolate, debate, formulate…where was I going with this? OH RIGHT we’re talking about language. Word. 

Dino 101 host, science communicator, and dinosaur whisperer Dustin Growick is our guest for an episode NOT about dinosaurs (but don’t tell them, we’re sworn to secrecy). Instead, we put favorite museums on display and exhibit our finest trivia that has nothing to do with dinosaurs. Who needs ‘em, anyway?*

*jk, dinosaurs. We love you, dinosaurs.

Skype a Scientist founder, cephalopod expert, and all around kickass science communicator Dr. Sarah McAnulty joins the Facts Machinists for an episode all about “communication”. Turns out we had a lot to say! 

 

It's our third birthday and fiftieth episode! We're joined by some familiar voices for a special anniversary episode!

Hi everyone!! COMING SOON: new episodes, new guests, new facts, same old puns! For now, please enjoy this episode of all the stuff that was too weird to put in a normal episode.

🎶We don't think you're ready for these jellies🎶 We are joined by evolutionary biologist, venomologist, and jellyfish expert Anna Klompen for an episode all about venom! Listen for evolutionary arms races, snails that cure cancer, and jellyfish sneezes.

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In this episode, we're joined by science journalist Marion Renault to swap facts on "uncharisma" in nature. Tune in for facts about the (wrongfully) over-looked and (superficially) unappealing organisms that keep our ecosystems and even our lives running smoothly. By the end, you'll be convinced these critters really *are* more than meets the eye--even the maggots! (Though in their case it may be for the best that this is an entirely audio medium.)

*Editor’s note: We had some catastrophic audio failures in this one, especially during the quiz. We were remotely recording early in the pandemic, and just about everything went wrong. Nonetheless, we hope you’ll enjoy the episode despite the sounds of the birds and cars, the echoes we couldn’t eliminate, and the fact that Noah’s whole quiz had to be pieces together from super compressed zoom audio!* We wanted to give our listeners the world...'s fair! We are joined by museum curator Kristina Parsons to dive headlong in the wide world of World's Fairs.

Everybody knows that old joke, "What did the astrophysicist say to the folklorist? We are the same person..." Maybe it's funnier in the original Icelandic? To find out, we sought the only person we know who fits that description, Moiya McTier! Join Noah, Em, Rob, and Moiya as we discuss Erik the Well-Read, why Lucifer is definitely not from Iceland, and the power of a new pair of skin-pants! Bonus: they come with a pocket!

Abandon hope, all ye who *ento* here! It's a broadly entomological arthropod-cast about bugs! In this episode, which we live-streamed on Caveat's YouTube page, we welcome comedian, writer, and legendary pun queen Sam Corbin to discuss bees with "daddy tissues", artisanal stings, and the worst kind of jelly donut.

Paradigms, they are a-changin’ in this week’s episode of Facts Machine! We’re joined by friend of the pod and scicomedian extraordinaire Dr. André Pineda, PhD, a neuroscientist, science communicator, and show runner at our home venue Caveat who leverages laughs to share science. Join us as we talk Al-Haytham “going turbo” while Europe was in a dark age, evolution by “naturalist selection”, and rerouting priests to prevent disease.

 H2OMG! This episode’s all about the universal solvent, 60% of the human body, and (when it’s feelin’ fancy) dihydrogen monoxide. We’re joined by long time friend of the pod and first time guest of the pod Dr. Jessica Noviello, a planetary geologist, science communicator, and avowed dinosaur enthusiast currently studying the Kuiper Belt Object EL61 Haumea in her post-doctoral research. Tune in to learn how water makes its way around our universe, how a giant aquifer stayed hidden in plain sight, and why Niels Bohr was oddly possessive about a bottle of Carlsberg.

 

 This week Noah spills his guts in the finale of our three part anatomy quiz series! Guess along as Rob and Em try to distinguish real and made-up medical terminology and encounter fruity maladies and ambiguous pouches along the way.

Make no bones about it, in this second of three special anatomical quiz episodes, Rob tests Emily's and Noah's knowledge of his favorite organ, bones! 

Don't hate, ventilate! In this first of three special anatomical quiz episodes, Emily tests Noah's and Rob's knowledge of her favorite organ, the lungs! Somehow, they end up debating the merits of different kinds of turtle bums. How? Who knows.

 Facts Machine returns with an episode all about etymologies. Join us as we dig deep to discover our favorite word origins, root and stem! #protologism

 

 

  

We're taking a break for a few weeks while we work on some *big plans*! In the meantime enjoy this episode of our unaired failures and musical interludes.

At long last, the Facts Machine episode theme you've all been waiting for -- Donkeys! Our equine friends have an incredible history, from being worshipped by medieval Catholics, causing Stoic philosophers to die laughing in ancient Greece, and carrying the comedic weight for writers from antiquity to the present day. Also it's fun to say "ass".

 In this episode, we talk male show-vinism, tell the incredible story of an Irish pirate queen, and find out what female mice really want.

This is a podcast about Pythagoras and beans, Oklahoma and the truth, and Princess Alice and her pet Spinach. Everything you think is a vegetable is a fruit. Ben Franklin has a plan for your farts.

Don't you just hate it when people only want to talk about how you discovered universal gravitation, but not about your passion project, making proportionately-sized doors for cats? Or when the press loves how you revolutionized the automobile industry by mass producing affordable cars but not how you tried to make them out of soy beans? Or how no matter how many times you explain that you discovered what E equals, they don't want to use the special refrigerator you invented? Misery loves company, so listen along to our latest episode, all about the lesser known and lesser appreciated ideas of famous scientists and inventors!

Emily, Rob, and Noah went to Science Friday’s science trivia night, and they won! They also learned some interesting facts that they have brought back to share with you in this episode. Listen to find out why you shouldn’t cast your margaritas before swine, how to distinguish between a blue whale and a Soviet submarine, and whether the aurora borealis thinks you are worthy of applause.

When Facts Machine does an episode about sports, somehow you leave with more information about the mysteriously accurate predictions of 19th century authors, the ability to pinpoint the true origin of referred pain in the tip of your right shoulder blade, and possibly the first viral marketing campaign than you do about sports themselves. Play ball!

Live at Caveat in NYC, Noah, Emily, and Rob head back to class with their first ever guest host, chemistry teacher extraordinaire Rich Fisler! In this episode, the facts are elementary, the laughs are periodic, and discussion of fewer puns was tabled. 

In this episode, Facts Machine makes a PAWEDcast! Noah, Rob, and Emily learn all about dogs — the good boys and good girls who make life worth living. Listen to find out how good the first good boy was, how some good girls are helping reseed forests after fires, and how some good boys and good girls (and one especially good boy) braved wind and snow to save a bunch of kids from Diptheria!

Hail to the Chief! It's an episode of Facts Machine all about U.S. presidents. Listen to find out why it's not safe to run for president in 2020, how to win friends and influence people to crowdfund your mausoleum, and which president was arrested for speeding in a horse-drawn carriage.

“More intellectual than I expected.” Our listeners should expect nothing less from an episode of Facts Machine all about poop! Would you believe that in this episode we discuss the natural philosophy of Aristotle, the finer points of long-term space exploration, AND cutting-edge (or should we say, “surface-level”) biomimicry in engineering? Just to be clear, though, this is definitely an episode about poop. There will be jokes.