Tom Scott: Things You Might Not Know

  • Premiered: Jan 2014
  • Episodes: 269
  • Followers: 1
  • Ended
  • YouTube
  • Unknown
  • Documentary Reality

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Season 2023
2023x1
This rollercoaster doesn't stop automatically
Episode overview
Air date
Jan 09, 2023
The Great Scenic Railway, at Luna Park in Melbourne, Australia, is the second oldest rollercoaster in the world: and it's one of only a few which still uses a manual brake.
2023x2
These chickens save lives.
Episode overview
Air date
Jan 16, 2023
"Sentinel chickens" are an early-warning system against some nasty mosquito-borne diseases. I visited a flock in New South Wales, Australia.
2023x3
This is “impossible”, but New Zealand is trying anyway.
Episode overview
Air date
Feb 27, 2023
The common wisdom is that, once an invasive species is truly established, it can't be eradicated — but I talked to the team from Predator Free Wellington, who think they can do just that
2023x4
This tiny hovercraft went viral.
Episode overview
Air date
Apr 10, 2023
Hideyasu Ito runs the Micro Hovercraft Laboratory, and I got to meet him and ride his incredible four-bubble hovercraft.
2023x5
How they saved the holes in Swiss cheese
Episode overview
Air date
May 01, 2023
Agroscope is a Swiss government-backed agricultural research lab. It's got a lot of other resarch projects too, but it also keeps a backup of the Swiss cheese bacterial cultures... just in käse
2023x11
Shake tables are way more complex than I thought
Episode overview
Air date
May 22, 2023
At the University of California San Diego, there's the Shake Table: an earthquake simulator with the heaviest payload capacity in the world.
2023x9
This is an excuse to show you a really good tunnel
Episode overview
Air date
May 29, 2023
The Catesby Tunnel, in the UK, is an old Victorian railway tunnel that has a new use: a secretive car testing facility, like a wind tunnel but in reverse. So rather than just show it to .. show full overview
2023x10
No-one knows how explosions work (yet)
Episode overview
Air date
Jun 05, 2023
The first few moments of an explosion can't be simulated yet. But there's a team at the University of Sheffield working on it.
2023x12
Climbing frames were meant to hack kids' brains
Episode overview
Air date
Jun 26, 2023
Well before the first climbing frame was patented as "jungle gym", mathematician Charles Hinton thought they might be able to teach kids four-dimensional thinking.
2023x6
How can you legally fly a plane designed in 1910?
Episode overview
Air date
Jul 03, 2023
Near Dayton, Ohio there's a lookalike of the Wright Brothers' Model B: a 1910 aircraft with no cockpit. It's a modern plane with a very old design, and I went for a ride.
2023x7
If this survives for an hour, it passes the Bear Test.
Episode overview
Air date
Jul 17, 2023
At the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone, Montana, you can get a product certified as bear-resistant... by actual bears.
2023x8
A bear found my GoPro and took a selfie
Episode overview
Air date
Jul 24, 2023
An unexpected update to the Bear test video
2023x13
Why are adverts so loud?
Episode overview
Air date
Sep 04, 2023
This was so much more complex than I thought.
2023x14
This library has every book ever published
Episode overview
Air date
Sep 11, 2023
The British Library is one of the six legal deposit libraries for the UK - and the only one that doesn't pick and choose, or have to ask for copies. That's a lot of books to store, and .. show full overview
2023x15
0-100 in less than a second. And I'm driving.
Episode overview
Air date
Oct 23, 2023
AMZ Racing's "mythen" holds the world record for electric vehicle acceleration: 0-100km/h in 0.956 seconds. And they let me drive it.
2023x16
Boarding planes could have been very different
Episode overview
Air date
Oct 30, 2023
There's a world in which everyone boards planes with "mobile lounges", PTVs, or Plane-Mates... but this is not that world.
2023x17
Why use many streetlights when one will do?
Episode overview
Air date
Nov 27, 2023
The moonlight towers of Austin, Texas, are the last urban municipal lighting towers in the world: because before every street was wired to the grid, how else would you light up a city?
2023x18
Why the government drops flies on California
Episode overview
Air date
Dec 18, 2023
There's a good reason for it.
2023x19
People are going to be angry about pylons.
Episode overview
Air date
Dec 25, 2023
Britain's power grid is turning inside-out, which means pylons are about to become a lot more controversial in Britain. At the National Grid Training Centre, I climbed one.

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