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This episode we brew poison! But how dangerous is it? Join us to find out as we take a look at the history and science of poison. You’ll learn about the hemlock used to kill Plato and Pliny’s less than effective remedies to the arsenic detecting Marsh test developed in the 1800s. We also find a not so famous Famous Anton who should probably be better known for his advancement in the field that formed the foundation for clinical trials today.
Get your early bird ticket for Intelligent Speech 2025: https://intelligentspeechonline.com/
Use code curiosity for 10% extra off!
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This episode we take a peek at the devil’s picture books – a name given to playing cards. We start with Chinese accounts dating back nearly 1000 years then go via beautiful Mamluk designs to Thomas de la Rue industrialising the printing process 100 years ago.
But what are playing cards without magic? We meet one of Anton’s namesakes, Anton Zamloch AKA Zamloch the Great! He put on fantastic magic shows in the late 1800s, touring America with his blend of magic, mayhem and mischief!
Show notes: https://curiosityofpod.com/episodes/the-devils-picture-books-and-wild-west-magic
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It’s episode 50 and we have a very special guest - the magician and playing card historian Lee Asher! Anton has been learning magic for the last 18 months and also become an avid playing card collector so Lee was the perfect guy to have on. He’s worked with some of the big names in magic and even invented his own card tricks - his knowledge and advice is invaluable. What we really enjoyed about talking with Lee was the passion and humanity he brings, he sees magic a positive force, something to share and a path to being a better person. Lee is also president of 52 Plus Joker, the world’s largest playing card collecting club, and gave us a brilliant rundown of playing card and magic history. We really enjoyed our chat and hope you will too and a massive thank you to Lee, be sure to check out his website and 52 Plus Joker!
Show notes: https://curiosityofpod.com/episodes/magic-and-playing-card-history-with-magician-lee-asher-interview
Check out: https://www.leeasher.com/ and https://52plusjoker.org/
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We’re back! Podcasts, being an audio format, make the perfect medium for talking about sight and how eyes work.
This episode Anton and I discover how animals see. From the Cambrian Explosion and mass of new creatures that evolved to neutral implants via some unfortunate German rabbits we uncover the history and the science.
Show notes: https://curiosityofpod.com/episodes/the-curiosity-of-sight-how-eyes-work-and-how-we-discovered-that
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A mini bonus episode for you to let you know we are talking at Intelligent Speech 2023 this 4 November. Full details and tickets are available at https://intelligentspeechonline.com/ - use offer code curiosity at checkout for 10% off!*
As we love you, our listeners, we’re also releasing Anton’s story set in Takarajima from our bonus Patreon treasure episode, it was inspired by real events you can learn about here: https://www.morethantokyo.com/takarajima-incident/
You can get all our bonus content on our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/curiosityofpod including a discussion about how Takarajima is reinventing it’s history, life about 1700s ships, a look at AI and a video on Roman metal casting at home!
https://curiosityofpod.com/
*whilst offer lasts!
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This episode we go treasure hunting, exploring three stories from around the world focussing on our obsession with greed and wealth.
We sail around the globe the wrong way telling an epic tale of survival, visit a tropical island in search of lost treasure and learn about an unusual hermit. Each story is about more than glittering gold and priceless gems, it’s a tale of the lengths man will go to in the pursuit of fame and fortune.
Anton talks about a German man desperate to discover the lost treasure of Lima on Cocos Island and I use the logs of Guernsey Great Philip Saumarez to recount the epic round world trip of the Centurion in search of Spanish gold! We also meet a hermit with a familiar name but a very unfortunate story.
Show notes: https://curiosityofpod.com/episodes/tales-of-treasure-cocos-island-the-centurion-and-a-hermit
Buy tickets for Intelligent Speech: https://intelligentspeechonline.com/ use offer code ‘curiosity’ for 10% off.
Vote for us in the British Podcast Awards: https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/vote
Support and review: https://linktr.ee/curiosityofpod
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In celebration of Margaret Ann Neve’s birthday we’re re-releasing our feature about her 110 year life! It was buried at the end of episode 19 so deserves to be surfaced. Listen to how much Anton has changed in the 2 and a bit years since release then imagine what 110 years of change must have felt like for Margaret. She was the first person recorded to have lived in 3 different centuries and was born and spent most of her life here in Guernsey!
https://patreon.com/curiosityofpod
https://curiosityofpod.com/
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This feature was researched and written by Anton!
Have you heard of the 1903 Potato boom? No? Neither had we until recently. Join Anton as he tells you all about Archibald Findlay and his amazing potatoes that were reaching prices of £5000 a ton - that’s half a million in today’s money. But are they all they’re cracked up to be?
For more bonus content become a Patron: https://patreon.com/curiosityofpod
If you enjoyed the episode please subscribe, share and review!
https://curiosityofpod.com/
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This episode we take a break from talking history and science and interview Paul Mayze MD of Avid Games, the creators of Cards, the Universe and Everything affectionately known as CUE Cards.
CUE Cards is a great fun mobile game that’s chock-full of facts about… well everything! It’s a deck building and battling game where you can learn about everything from Chinese Folklore to the Higgs Boson and Corn Beef Sandwiches to the Macrauchenia!
As soon as Anton and I started playing we knew CUE Cards fitted our podcast and love of learning perfectly so reached out to them and they happily agreed to tell us more.
Paul talks to us about the challenges of creating and maintaining a thriving game and community, the difficulties of balancing trade and game mechanics and the joy of seeing people, particularly families, having fun together. A big thank you to Paul for taking the time to talk to us.
If you enjoy the game please enter Anton’s referral code so you and he get some goodies: W8K-40L-XVK
Shoe notes: https://curiosityofpod.com/episodes/interview-with-paul-mayze-cards-the-universe-and-everything
You can downland CUE Cards from the App Store, Google Play or visit their website: https://www.cardstheuniverseandeverything.com
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The potato, it’s been with us forever, it’s so mundane and everyday it’s hardly worth thinking about, right? Wrong!
A relatively recent arrival to Europe and much of the world this not so simple vegetable has had a very big impact on the modern world. Easily outstripping the nutritional value of grains and other primary crops it can be argued the modern world - and Europe’s - would not have been possible without it.
We travel from Axomama, an Andean potato goddess, through it’s spread across Europe (correcting several incorrect anecdotes along the way) to modern day China where’s the humble potato is celebrated in song!
Show notes: https://curiosityofpod.com/episodes/potato-potato-potato-foundation-of-the-modern-world
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Artificial intelligence is set to transform the world altering how we work, access content and create. Many visions of AI show it as robotic, machinelike and impersonal but is this really the case? In this first AI revolution it’s creativity and artistic disciplines that are most touched. But can a computer really be creative and what does creativity mean? Trained on our data - our images, writings, stories - they have only ever had an echo of the true experience of feeling sad or the wind in their hair.
We explore this topic, demonstrate how DALL·E works, get creeped out by Bing uncover what animals say, all using AI!
Show notes: https://curiosityofpod.com/episodes/artificial-intelligence-creativity-and-talking-to-animals
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Last episode we were dragged down to hell through our naive use of magic and magical elements - this time we break free thanks to the real elements that make our world - the atoms.
Anton and I recreate a Roman casting technique, melting tin in cuttlefish bone moulds to get a closer look at one of the earliest metals humans would have worked.
From our obsession with gold to burning diamonds with giant magnifying glasses we’ve long sought to control, create and transform the world. Beginning with the first nanoseconds of the universe we chart humanity’s understanding of these smallest of building blocks.
Show notes: https://curiosityofpod.com/episodes/lementary-my-dear-anton-atoms-and-elements
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patreon.com/curiosityofpod
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Magic has a long and complex history. From the earliest times people have sought to understand and control the world around them. The Babylonians would be guided by celestial movements, the Romans would give young boys a Divine Phallus to ward off the evil eye. We start at the beginning and work our way through magical practice taking in stories of witchcraft, meetings with the devil and the burning of babies. Taking all we learn and armed with a powerful wand, divine protection and a handful of herbs we try our hand at magic and summon a banshee.
Show notes: https://curiosityofpod.com/episodes/the-history-of-magic-and-summoning-a-banshee
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We were honoured to be invited to talk at Intelligent Speech 2022 on the theme of crossings. https://www.intelligentspeechconference.com/
We selected the Balmis expedition - a Spanish attempt to vaccinate their empire from smallpox in the early 1800s but in an age before air travel and refrigeration how do you transfer a delicate vaccine across the world’s oceans? Enter 22 orphans to save the world...
We had a few technical issues during recording but I have tried my best to clean the audio up.
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Ahoy me hearties, weight anchor and lets be off!
We look at the life of one of the most amazing but forgotten men of the 1600s, William Dampier. Ever curious he was an explorer, navigator, naturalist, writer and so much more. The author of A New Voyage Around the World, his accounts opened the world to the public. Never before had people experienced such exotic locations from their own homes or had such detailed descriptions of the world beyond their shores. From stories of raids on Spanish settlements in the Pacific to first setting step on the shores of Australia his vivid accounts were a world first. He inspired Charles Darwin, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Alexander von Humboldt and many more. Sadly his more lawless acts would lead him, in the eyes of some, to be little more than a common pirate but we hope to show you just how wrong this is.
Show notes: https://curiosityofpod.com/episodes/william-dampier-explorer-pirate-privateer-navigator-and-naturalist
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Time is one of the biggest mysteries of science but also one of the fundamental aspects of our reality. It’s nature has been discussed for centuries, from Aristotle to Newton to Einstein, we’ve sought answers but only found more questions as we’ve peeled back it’s layers. There is no fixed ‘now’, every point in space has it’s own flow of time. Does time even exist? How much of what we feel is simply our brain attempting to make sense of the world? Join Anton and me as we uncover it’s secrets.
Show notes: https://curiosityofpod.com/episodes/what-is-time
Thank you to Ronan for allowing us to use his song When is the Future?
Written and produced by Ronan HarrisPublished by Schubert Music PublishingTaken from the VNV Nation album “Noire”
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In this bonus episode we present Anton’s short story Guilty Chocolate read by Anton himself! He claimed second prize in the Guernsey Literary Festival WriteStuff competition judged by leading international author Anthony Horowitz.
The competition gave students the following brief: ‘Write an imaginary 300 word story inspired by Detectives or Spies’. Anton’s story was described as ‘a very dark and mature story that relates closely to world events right now. The title nails it and the whole piece is horribly believable.’
This is also the first time Anton ever edited an episode, choosing the music, cleaning up audio and more.
https://curiosityofpod.com
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Legend tells of an early pioneer of rocketry who, in 1633, blasted off over Istanbul in celebration of the birth of the Sultan’s daughter. There are stories of an eccentric French couple flying horses and bulls into the sky to entertain the masses. There were inventors who saw the future of travel in personal balloons that allowed us to bound across the landscape as if we were an astronaut on the moon. These tales my sound absurd by they are the ‘True History’ of mankind’s obsession with flight. Join us as we discover some of history’s craziest people who put entertainment and progress ahead of their mortality!
Show notes: https://curiosityofpod.com/episodes/the-true-history-of-flight
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We are very excited and proud to announce that we will be talking at the 2022 Intelligent Speech conference! Our talk will be about 22 orphans packed onto a ship to America and deliberately infected with cowpox! We would love our listeners to join us. Tickets cost $20 for the early bird (and 8 hours of talks) or $30 thereafter, but if you use promo code curiosity at checkout you get an extra 10% off.
https://www.intelligentspeechconference.com
Here’s what they say:
CROSSING LINES
We chose to make the topic for this year’s Intelligent Speech conference, Crossing Lines, as it seemed to not only resonate with our times but also with what we hope Intelligent Speech 2022 will represent through our range of speakers. This year’s conference will be cross-curricular, we will have speakers who have crossed over from being podcasters to being authors and vice versa, we’ll be crossing continents, we might even have stories about crossing over and crossed lines.
Where lines cross are junctures and our era certainly feels like a major juncture in time; at Intelligent Speech 2022, our speakers will be exploring other times when lines have been crossed in one way or another.
Intelligent Speech 2022 will take place on Saturday, June 25 at 10 am EST (New York)/3 pm GMT (London). There will be eight hours of great presentations from up to 40 different content creators from the worlds of podcasting, YouTube, and media. Each session will be 40 minutes long.
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We travel downunder to meet one of Australia’s most unusual creatures: Ornithorhynchus anatinus, better know as the Platypus. Few animals have caused such debate as our duckbilled friend, for nearly a century leading scientists across Europe (maybe they should travel a bit closer to their subject) debated exactly what this paradoxical animal was – mammal, lizard, something entirely new? What are the eggs all about, and where are the nipples? And don’t get us started on the penis! The Platypus is one very strange animal indeed. We explore the folklore, tell the history, look at the science of how we came to understand Ornithorhynchus anatinus. Along the way there are epic arguments and a secret WW2 mission, finally we top it off with a rap written and performed by Anton!
Show notes: https://curiosityofpod.com/episodes/the-paradoxical-platypus-the-history-and-science-of-this-unusual-mammal
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