A gigantic ancient geoglyph lies unassumingly in the sleepy hills of Dorset, England. What secrets does this naked and belligerent, club-weilding giant keep? Frobisher Smith and Raven Black look into the hazy history of this mysterious cultural landmark and find a connection to the pagan hero Hercules, as well as the medieval hermit and healing saint, St. Eadwold, who was the brother of Edmund, King of East Anglia. We explore the ins and outs of this giant, which has reportedly had some of its features, and its intended meaning, changed over the ages. ------------------------------- Links: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/jan/01/cerne-abbas-giant-is-hercules-and-was-army-meeting-point-say-historians https://www.jstor.org/stable/27110114 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eadwold_of_Cerne Clip originally aired on Strange Realm episode #45: https://rumble.com/v45rtvr-strange-realm-ep.-045-jan.-7th-2024.html

Down in the dark waters of the Amazon, electric eels lie in wait to snag a meal, stunning their prey with a massive electric shock. But there is more to the story: the eel's zap produces, in the water around it, the effect known as electroporation, which makes biological cells more permeable. This then leads to horizontal gene transfer amongst the wild river life! Can the eels' electric shocks be used in bioengineering or medical science? Scientists may just be hard at work right now, finding out! Get the scoop here from Frobisher Smith and Raven Black in this brief segment. ------------------------------- Links: https://www.sciencealert.com/a-zap-from-an-electric-eel-could-give-nearby-organisms-new-genes Clip originally aired on Strange Realm episode #42: https://rumble.com/v41wzkk-strange-realm-ep.-042-dec.-17th-2023.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp

The answer may surprise you! It turns out that learning two languages at once, instead of just one, can often be a great idea for adult language learning. All the benefits of bilingualism are enhanced by going multilingual, and recent studies suggest that the drawbacks in speed of learning are not too severe. It just might be worth it to start learning another language if you are already learning one. Frobisher Smith and Raven Black break it down for you in this short segment. ------------------------- Links: https://www.popsci.com/diy/can-you-learn-two-languages-at-once/ https://preply.com/en/blog/learn-two-languages-at-once/ https://www.clozemaster.com/blog/learning-two-languages-at-once/ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14790718.2020.1779726 Clip originally aired on Strange Realm episode #25: https://rumble.com/v3a5w7m-strange-world-ep.-025-aug.-20th-2023.html

In 1674, a priest published his account of visiting the ruins of the Zapotec city of Mitla, and in it he described a vast underground temple with four interconnected chambers, the last of which featured a stone door leading into a deep cavern. The Zapotec believed this to be the entrance to the underworld, known by them as Lyobaa ("place of rest"). Recently, an international team of archaeologists announced that they found this fabled underground labyrinth — right where the legends said it should be. Frobisher and Raven take a look at this archaeological expedition and discuss the Zapotec temple in connection to other similar underworld temples found elsewhere in classical antiquity. Would you unseal the entrance to Hades? ------------------------- Links: https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/07/archaeologists-may-have-found-ruins-of-fabled-entrance-to-zapotec-underworld/ https://classicalgreece.omeka.net/items/show/34 Clip originally aired on Strange Realm episode #19: https://rumble.com/v2z8gcm-strange-world-ep.-019-july-9th-2023.html

Is our planet speeding up? Or slowing down? Or perhaps, some kind of secret third thing?! Frobisher explores this topic and tries to break it all down while not getting to exasperated at the shambolic state of Science Journalism, in this clip from one of his rare solo episodes.

Taking you through the billowy toroidal layers of Earth's outer protective shell, and then out past the Van Allen Belts into the 4th Dimension to introduce you to the Astounding 5-Days-in-One 4D Time Donut! Join us here on Donut Earth, won't you?