Mark and Toddcast

This week we take a look at one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World - the Colossus of Rhodes. How much do we actually know about it? How was it built and how long was it there? Find out on this week's episode.

This week we take a look at some things we all thought we had figured out...that we still don't have figured out. Namely, how does a bike self-correct to keep itself upright when moving? And how does the Coriolis Effect make water drain in the opposite direction in the Southern Hemisphere? Or do either of those things really happen at all? Find out this week.

Triangulating a location on a perfectly round globe is relatively easy, but how do you do it on a globe that's squished in the middle -- an "oblate spheroid"? This week we take a look at Gladys Mae West, a pioneering African-American mathematician whose work in the mid-20th century is still used for global positioning systems today.

Mark is out this week, which means Todd is joined by a very special guest: Nate Heath of the NotNerd podcast! This episode we do a news roundup of the stories that have been piling up over the past couple of weeks. Be sure to check out the NotNerd podcast wherever podcasts can be found!

Company towns are nothing new. But company towns trying to replicated the Michigan suburbs in the Amazon rainforest are not. And when you hear about the calamities of Henry Ford's rubber plantation city experiment deep in the bowels of Brazil's Amazon jungle, you'll know why. Have you driven a Ford into the middle of nowhere lately?

In 1902, the biggest meteorite ever found in North America was found.....in West Linn?  Through thievery and lawsuits, the meteorite made its way through various owners and now resides in the Natural History Museum in New York. Find out the forgotten story of the Willamette Meteorite on this week's show. I couldn't think of any meteorite puns. Sorry. I'll regroup and come back with a great one next week.

Sure, 2020 will go down as a hot mess of a year. But was it really so bad in the grand scheme of things? This week we'll check out the year 536 A.D., which has a scientific consensus of being the worst year to ever be alive on the planet. All that, and a ton of news catch-up. Enjoy!

Ada Lovelace (or Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace, if we're being particular), is often called "The world's first computer programmer," which is quite the claim to fame considering she lived in the mid-1800s and that, well, she was a "she." This episode we look into the mind and life of a pioneer and visionary whose work laid the ground for how computers work today.

This week we take a look at the life and work of MC Escher, an artist more embraced by mathematicians than he was by the art world. His work endures, and his singular style infused a realism to absurd perspectives, impossible objects, physics-defying landscapes, warped geometry, and infinite tessellations. I had more written about our oversized discussion and news segment, but it all got deleted and now I don't care. Enjoy!

This week we take a look at inventions that occurred either way earlier, or way later than we all might expect. From crossword puzzles to plywood, we find out the who's and whens of some of history's biggest innovations. In the news: Roseburg's historic ammonium nitrate explosion, the new Burnside Bridge, desalinization using solar energy, and Slurpee assaults. High-five!