PBS

We've run, jumped, and stomped all over the world of Super Mario, but, where in the universe is Super Mario EXACTLY? It's virtual so it obviously DOESN'T exist but if it did, could Super Mario world be in our solar system? And what do the planet's dynamics reveal about Mario's crazy jumping ability?

The Kepler telescope recently noticed a strange partial eclipse that some have speculated could be a Dyson Sphere. Are Dyson Sphere's possible? Are they practical? What other alternatives to futuristic energy capture do we have to choose from?

Where do artificial flavors come from? Well whether it’s your average store bought yogurt, granola bar, or even butter, a lot of food we eat today is full of artificial flavoring. Why did this happen? Well it actually has to do with the strange history of vanilla (yes! boring old vanilla) and the human perception of taste. How does it all work? Watch the episode to find out!

We review some of the best responses to the 'Quitest Place' assignment.

We continue our exploration of ArtPrize and meet with Brooklyn-based artist Diana Shpungin. Diana's work and her assignment for you are both based on empathy -- it's a feeling we usually have for other people, but Diana wants you to direct your empathy towards objects instead.

It seems that no matter how far we advance into the digital age, our bodies remain a place where we want to express ourselves. This episode of OFF BOOK profiles the diverse talents and philosophies of three modern tattoo artists of vastly differing styles: Vinny Romanelli, Kiku, and Stephanie Tamez.

Feel disoriented when you wake up? One in seven people suffers from this effect called 'Sleep Drunkenness'. It is the same for everybody: you wake up to the annoying sound of your alarm clock, telling you it is another day for you to get out of your bed and go about your day, but instead you talk to the phone, thinking someone is calling you and then ‘hang up’ to go back to your sleep. It is called ‘severe sleep inertia’, a state when you wake up suddenly from your slumber and you feel groggy and disoriented, thinking how confusing life is. According to research, one in seven people experience this phenomenon, with episodes typically lasting up to 15 minutes after you are so rudely woken up. During those episodes, it is quite normal to pour your morning cereal in the dishwasher. When we <a href="https://rumble.com/v3qc5z-our-sleep-patterns-inherited-from-hunter-gatherers-says-study.html" target="_blank">sleep</a>, we cycle through three stages of light and deep sleep. The first and second stages are light, called non-REM 1 and non-REM 2 stages. During these stages, we can be woken up pretty easily. But when we hit non-REM 3, we enter deep sleep, followed by REM, which stands for Rapid Eye Movement. Yes, our eyes actually move back and forth and we are most likely to dream during this stage. Sleep drunkenness occurs when we are woken up from this REM stage, while our brains still contain a chemical called adenosine. It is a neurotransmitter that travels between nerve cells, promoting sleep and suppresses arousal. When you have your <a href="https://rumble.com/v47itx-starbucks-menu-change-could-be-game-changer-to-morning-coffee-routine.html" target="_blank">morning cup of joe</a>, the caffeine fights the morning effects of adenosine and speeds up the rate our nerve cells communicate with each other. This is especially helpful if you reach for your hot, black beverage as soon as you wake up. So, next time you find yourself talking to your alarm in the morning, remember - there could be a sleep drunkenness anonymous group somewhere if we weren’t all so far apart.

These cool glasses give new hope for visually impaired people to see again.

She's probably the most famous artwork of all time, but what do you know about her? It's time to better know the Mona Lisa.

Do you have food nostalgia? Why are our memories of food are so vivid (and delicious).

Black holes are the result of absolute gravitational collapse of a massive body: a point of hypothetical infinite density surrounded by an event horizon. At that horizon time is frozen and the fabric of space itself cascades inwards at the speed of light. Nothing can travel faster than light, and so nothing can escape from below the event horizon- not matter, not light, not even information.

We explore Misophonia, a sound sensitivity syndrome where people have strong emotional reactions to common sounds. We meet Vanessa's friend Molly Templeton and clinical psychologist Dr. Ali Mattu to talk about the brain basis of Misophonia, trigger sounds, reactions and treatment.

What is El Niño? Why can’t we predict the weather? Just a few slight changes in global climate patterns can drastically shift the weather. Thanks to chaos theory, even our smartest meteorologists can’t predict weather correctly.

How does dark energy affect the universe's expansion? Measuring past expansion history should tell us the future expansion without ever having to count any galaxies. To measure this we need to measure the redshift-distance relationship, which we will talk about in detail in this episode.

Your love of social media may have a bigger impact than you thought.

With millions of Earth-like planets around sun-like stars in our galaxy alone, why don't we see intelligent alien life? Or any other life for that matter? It gets especially weird when you factor in new scientific revelations that life on Earth occurred crazy fast! So if you want to help us theorize on the real reasons we haven't found alien life, you should check this video of Space Time! Why don’t we see alien civilization? The resolution for it has to be that there is some sort of great filter that either makes intelligent life extremely rare in the first place or that wipes out, essentially, all advanced civilization before they get to the galactic empire stage, whether by a nuclear war, environmental catastrophe, accidentally making a <a href="https://rumble.com/v4b1yl-a-star-meets-a-black-hole.html" target="_blank">black hole</a> that swallows the planet, et etcetera. But some people believe in that and some people just don’t buy that theory. The other logical explanation is that we know of exactly one instance intelligent life happening, the case of the earth. Multicellular life evolved independently dozen of times. It just took a really long time for those single cells to become complex enough to form large collaborative structure capable of collective reproduction, I.e plants, animals, species capable of making the Kerbal Space Program. So what is the great filter? Maybe it’s just time. If life is common then of the billions of Earth-like planets in the <a href="https://rumble.com/v4bfkl-hubble-space-telescope-zoom-into-the-center-of-our-galaxy-nasa-esa-video.html" target="_blank">galaxy</a>, only a tiny fraction needed to have a small head start on us in order to have produced the Federation of Planets and Stargates and stuff by now. Well, that explains a lot!

How did life on Earth get started? Did life on Earth originate on another planet? Either Mars, or in a distant solar system? Could Earth life have spread to have seeded life elsewhere? Let’s see what modern science has to say about the plausibility of panspermia.

Paul Dirac’s insights into the nature of Quantum Mechanics laid the foundation for Quantum Field Theory and predicted the existence of anti-matter. Part 1 in our series on Quantum Field Theory.

The point of tipping has always been a motivational and rewarding gesture from a costumer to the waiter. Expressing that the customer is satisfied with the food, restaurant courtesy along with the helpfulness of the waiter. Having all this into consideration and along with the fact that we are a generation of tippers, this video might actually give you a couple of tips on tipping as to how much you should tip depending on the different places you visit. To start off, tipping for some of us is a <a href="https://rumble.com/v3oub3-red-squirrel-lodge-luxury-feeder.html" target="_blank">luxury</a> , as if barely being able to afford the food in your favorite restaurant is not enough, now you should give an additional amount. And nowadays its done that which ever way you pay whether it is cash, credit, or debit you can always punch in an amount which you feel most suitable. This might come as a surprise since it does happen that the waiter/waitress is standing on top of you as they are handing you the terminal and if not literally standing there and in ways pressuring you to give them a tip, cause if you don't, you might get one of those eye rolling moments which no one is out there looking for one. Now, having this into consideration, if you feel that tipping is not your thing since you are only obliged to pay for the food you eat, if you are in a restaurant for an instance, then just don't. This is not a must but only something to show th waiter that common courtusy of them bringing you your food which is their job to begin with. Now, for those who do happen to <a href="https://rumble.com/v4f1nn-the-best-100-tip-ever-jason-asselin.html" target="_blank">tip</a>, the two guys will show you the ropes as to how much you should tip depending on the place you go. Sick of that anxious feeling trying to figure out who and how much to tip? Take a look since these guys have actually done the math for you so you don't have to wreck your brain.

Do you remember having a cold in 5th grade? Or the flu a couple years ago? Your immune system does. Our bodies hold many levels of immune defense. Millions of B cells and T cells and antibodies are constantly on patrol for germs and antigen invaders. As scientists learn more about how this system works and how to engineer it, could we ever actually be immune to everything?

Some of the biggest evolution questions finally answered.

You’ve always been told that pi is 3.14. This is true, but this number is based on how we measure distance. Find out what happens to pi when we change the way we measure distance.

Australia will perpetually encounter the season opposite to the one we in the northern hemisphere will encounter, so does this means that Australia will never get a white Christmas?

Fomalhaut is a massive young star surrounded by a ring of dust debris that can tell us a great deal about the formation of our own solar system.

They say people can always tell if you are faking a smile because your eyes are not mirroring your mouth. In reality, when you are tired or stressed, a fake facade is sometimes the only thing you can muster. But according to this explanation, even a fake smile can sometimes be better than none at all. In the mid 19th century, a French scientist by the name of Guillaume Duchenne studied <a href="https://rumble.com/v378lf-puppy-surprise.html" target="_blank">emotional responses</a> in humans by stimulating different areas on his subject’s faces with - you guessed it - good old electricity. This helped him isolate the muscles that we use to express fear, sadness and joy. But it also helped him distinguish which muscles on our faces create a fake smile, and which create a genuine smile. There are two muscles: one just under our eyes called orbicularis oculi, and another on the sides of our cheeks called zygomaticus major, that work together to give our expressions that real smile. It is also called a Duchenne smile. Charles Darwin was inspired by Duchenne and conducted his own research. In it, he suggests that our facial expressions actively influence our mood, calling it the facial feedback hypothesis. In a more recent study, subjects were given Botox shots for the corrugator muscles in their brows so they could not express sad or distressed emotions on their face. They reported that their positive mood was higher than the other participant who received different medications. The conclusion is pretty simple, although a bit controversial. If you bear through your periods of sadness and stress with a fake smile, the happiness you present will eventually catch up with you. You can always watch this <a href="https://rumble.com/v34932-cute-labrador-loves-to-smile.html" target="_blank">dog smiling on cue</a>, it always works for us.