Just A Minute: Volume 6

Hello and welcome back! 

This is MinuteEarth’s guide to the best science content from our studio and beyond. Every edition includes stuff we’re working on, along with other cool new science-related stories we want you to know about. Make sure to sign up here so you never miss a minute 🙂

We’re currently working on a video about why only some rivers form massive canyons, and I love this old buff river genie that Lizah created for an initial storyboard. He probably won’t make the final version for scene composition reasons, so I wanted to give him his due here. (It’s also a great example of how our human stick figures never get faces but pretty much everything else - from microbes to fictional characters - gets one.)  

Here are some videos our team has released on our various channels over the last few weeks!

MinuteEarth

Why Don’t Snakes Poison Themselves?
Lots of animals out there have toxins for protection or aggression - and Cameron wondered how they make sure they don’t poison themselves with their own supply. What he found is that there are a wondrous array of strategies out there for animals to make sure they don’t inadvertently kick their own buckets.

MinuteFood

Why some jalapeños are SO much spicier than others
Let’s play … Jalapeño roulette! In the newest MinuteFood episode, game show host Kate makes contestants chow down on a peck of potent peppers - for science - as she digs into the mystery of why some jalapeños pack a punch, while others are pretty plain.

xkcd’s What If?

What if a glass of water were LITERALLY half empty?
Optimists and pessimists have nothing on, well, nihilists like Randall, who imagines what would happen if a glass were literally half empty - as in vacuum-of-space empty. As is usually the case with these thought experiments, chaos ensues.

MinuteMinis

A dog's behavior is not related to its breed
When it comes to dog breeds and behavior, there’s a ton of confirmation bias at work. For example, because we think of pit bulls as aggressive, we’re much more likely to notice when they do aggressive things. But a new study has found that if we can divorce the look of its dog from its genes, then a lot of those breed-behavior judgments disappear.

• For our Instagram, Lizah made a comic about what remote work is like here at MinuteEarth.

• After months of being sold out, our fruit ripening magnet is finally back in stock in our new-look DFTBA store. But hurry because they’re going faster than a pineapple on a countertop!

• MinuteFood officially launched its merch store! Click the button below to check it out. We have to warn you - the characters are CUTE.

1. Vox made a lovely video about the history of Kodak. 

2. People Make Games made this amazing documentary about the military applications of role playing games. (This is one of Arcadi’s favorite channels btw.)

3. Mount Everest is still getting taller, but not for the reason you’d think. Pretty cool NYT story (it’s free to read!). And reminds me of this old MinuteEarth video about how high mountains can get.

4. Our friend Emily Calandrelli just relaunched her hit TV show “Emily’s Wonder Lab” as a free YouTube series!

5. We’re pretty much the core audience for Tbrookerart’s “Aerial Embroidery” series, which shows off the farm landscapes we love so much.

by Matthew Goldenberg

Thanks for reading! More fun science content coming to your inbox soon.
❤️ MinuteEarth