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53 Episodes 2015 - 2015
Episode 1
Kyle Hill is the Science Editor for Nerdist, so of course he has a list of his top five science stories of 2014. Giant dinosaurs, a paralyzed man regaining the ability to walk, landing on a comet and two more made the cut.
Episode 2
Kyle Hill has a new hope for all of you young padawans just itchin' to get yourselves one of those sweet, sweet lightsabers. Well, sorta. Most of the "science of lightsabers is complete fiction, but he does find one thing about them plausible.
Episode 3
In a highly philosophical episode of Because Science, Kyle Hill tackles the question of whether or not you are the same person once you are disassembled, beamed as a matter stream, and then reassembled by Star Trek's transporters.
Episode 4
In this edition of Ask Kyle, viewers cover a lot of ground, from whether or not an Assassin's Creed leap of faith is possible, to how artificial gravity on spaceships and space stations might work, to how the Tardis could be bigger on the inside.
Episode 5
In this edition of Ask Kyle, viewers cover a lot of ground, from whether or not an Assassin's Creed leap of faith is possible, to how artificial gravity on spaceships and space stations might work, to how the Tardis could be bigger on the inside.
Episode 6
Nerdist Science Editor Kyle Hill explains how mathematics students from The University of Ottawa and Carleton University modeled a zombie outbreak and figured out what the time-line for zombies outnumbering humans would be.
Episode 7
Perhaps you've never considered what Cupid's wingspan would need to be to keep his diapered butt in the sky--but Kyle Hill has. The calculations for what a real-life Cupid would look like are pretty scary stuff.
Episode 8
Viewers wonder whether you could swim in a coin vault like Scrooge McDuck, what the science behind vampirism or lycanthropy might be, and how big Mary Poppins' umbrella would need to be for her to fly with it. Kyle Hill gives answers.
Episode 9
Using the Hyrule Historia's official time-line for all of The Legend of Zelda games as a jumping-off point, Kyle Hill explains how there can be more than one Zelda universe with the theory of infinite parallel universes.
Episode 10
Leading scientific thought-provoker Kyle Hill uses the movie character Chappie to help illustrate questions about consciousness, including the hard and easy problems of consciousness as raised by philosopher David Chalmers.
Episode 11
A nuclear war-type event, the Great Mushroom War, blew a hole in the planet and killed most of the humans of Ooo. We have nuclear weapons _ could we blow ourselves into an Adventure Time situation? Kyle Hill works it out.
Episode 12
The Death Star is huge--160 km across--and can be mistaken for a moon. So it seems that it would take a lot of money and power to create and run something like that. Wonder how much? Kyle Hill has some answers.
Episode 13
Channeling his inner Scooby gang, Kyle Hill tackles the mystery of what exactly is wrong with Scooby-Doo's speech with the help of Dr. Steven Long. He creates a custom diagnosis for the cartoon dog and also coins the term "Scooby Snaccent.
Episode 14
Bruce Banner was hit with gamma radiation that gave him the ability to turn into The Hulk when angered. But what about his super-heroic condition would make him take on a green hue? Kyle Hill has a marvelous answer.
Episode 15
Iron Man makes some pretty incredible maneuvers in his suit, and inertia should bang Tony Stark around pretty hard, but it doesn't. Kyle Hill hypothesizes as to how Tony might survive using the Iron Man suit and its extreme moves.
Episode 16
The man without fear, Daredevil, is blind--but he can perceive the world around him using all of his senses. Every one of us has the Daredevil-esque ability to get information about the world around us without our eyes, as Kyle Hill explains.
Episode 17
Scientists in the Marvel Universe are a bit ahead of us in the real world, but there are real-world techniques that actual scientists might someday use to suppress and activate certain genes and deliver medications with the help of light rays.
Episode 18
Avengers: Age of Ultron features a sentient artificial intelligence (AI) called Ultron that wishes to destroy all humans. So, how long do we have to worry about this scary AI? Kyle Hill is on the case with the most current scientific thinking.
Episode 19
There's no such thing as dragons, but if there were, how many people would they need to eat a day to power their flight and fire-breathing? What is wrong with Hodor? Could a big man crush another man's skull? Kyle Hill looks into it, Because Science.
Episode 20
In the Mad Max universe, gas (among other things) is a scarce and precious commodity, something we've been warned could happen in the real world. But it hasn't happened yet. Kyle Hill gives his opinion on whether it's likely to occur.
Episode 21
Speedsters experience life differently than normal folks. So how can Quicksilver listen to a song in his headphones at normal speed if he's running super fast? Kyle Hill has some thoughts on how science can explain this musical feat.
Episode 22
The real science behind the spider silk that Spider-Man swings around on is the subject of this episode of Because Science. Spider silk is fascinating, whether it's coming out of an artificial web shooter or the backside of a spider.
Episode 23
Orphan Black is packed with clones, but no one has cloned a human yet, at least that we know of. However, nature clones humans all the time. Randy and Jason Sklar join Kyle Hill for a twinteresting take on naturally occurring clones: identical twins.
Episode 24
In the movie Jurassic World, scientists are able to not only bring dinosaurs back from extinction, but also mix up bits of genetic code to create more exciting creatures. That's not quite possible in the real world, as Kyle Hill explains.
Episode 25
The sonic screwdriver is an amazing piece of tech that does a bunch of things, but Kyle Hill is concentrating on just one of its abilities: manipulating objects with sound, and whether that is doable with today's science.
Episode 26
TV shows like Hannibal and The Walking Dead feature people parts on the menu for humans (and zombies). Kyle Hill looks into the real-life history of humans eating other humans, and the pros and cons of such a culinary choice. Short answer: no.
Episode 27
Terminators use human tissue, including a covering of skin, to help them fit in with their human prey. Kyle Hill explains how that skin could work, and how the aging of the skin as seen in Terminator: Genisys could happen.
Episode 28
Not much Pok'© Science is explained to visitors to the Pok'©mon universe, but one mystery stands out: how Pok'© Balls work. Many fan theories exist, and some of them are pretty bleak. Kyle Hill speculates on the best theories.
Episode 29
In the movies and comics, Ant-Man's abilities are explained by "Pym particles, which are not a thing in real life. Nerdist Science Editor Kyle Hill presents a non-Pym particle explanation for how Ant-Man's suit might work.
Episode 30
One of the most enjoyable items in Batman's arsenal is his cape, which looks super cool and can be used as a glider in the game Batman: Arkham Knight. Kyle Hill poses the question, "how big would the cape need to be to really work as a glider?
Episode 31
The Titans from Attack on Titan are big humanoid giant things who rampage around, eating people. They are very scary. And, according to Kyle Hill, some of them are just way too big to function--Because Science.
Episode 32
The Human Torch has some pretty cool powers. Obviously real people don't burst into flames for fun and crime-fighting _ but sometimes real people do burst into flames. Kyle Hill looks at the very uncool spontaneous human combustion.
Episode 33
The Hyperbolic Time Chamber in Dragon Ball Z is a place where Goku and Gohan spend one year training, but outside the chamber only one day passes by. Kyle Hill uses his super science powers to explain how that sort of time dilation could work.
Episode 34
How is it possible that the people closest to Superman and Clark Kent can't tell they're the same person? Kyle Hill looks at a few possible explanations before settling on a final, surprising conclusion.
Episode 35
There are, essentially, two different types of zombies in pop culture: fast (World War Z) and slow (The Walking Dead). Using the book Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sleep as a primer, Kyle Hill considers the differences between the two types.
Episode 36
Humans are good for a lot of things, but being batteries doesn't seem to be one of their strong suits. Kyle Hill investigates whether or not the immense simulation known as the Matrix could really be powered by human batteries.
Episode 37
Both generations of Ghostbusters use particle accelerators to bust ghosts. Nerdist Science Editor Kyle Hill isn't commenting on whether or not you could use one to catch a ghost, but he can tell you whether or you could strap one to your back.
Episode 38
Batman's greatest villain, The Joker, sometimes uses a nasty concoction to make his victims die laughing, resulting in hideous grinning corpses. Find out if the comic's explanation of the mixture holds up to real-world science.
Episode 39
Adult Swim's Rick and Morty have a portal gun that allows them access to the infinite Rickstaverse of alternate time-lines, a concept that aligns with the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, as Kyle Hill explains.
Episode 40
Hive minds in fiction are usually pretty unpleasant, from Star Trek's Borg to the virus victims in The Hive. Kyle Hill runs down some relatively pleasant examples of swarms, the closest to things to hive minds the real world has to offer.
Episode 41
The movie The Martian has a lot of people wondering when we'll actually get humans to Mars in real life. NASA has a time-line for that, and Kyle Hill has a rundown, plus at look at what's already happened on Mars.
Episode 42
Just in case you ever become a vampire, or if you know a few who just aren't getting the most out of their prey, Kyle Hill has some pointers for where to bite to get the biggest meal, where to bite to kill and where to bite to spare the victim.
Episode 43
Some people (about 6% of the population) experience sleep paralysis--they can't move or breathe well, and they see something scary in the room with them. Supernatural interpretations used to be the norm for sleep paralysis, but science can explain it.
Episode 44
No one would actually want to eat the Stay Puft Marshmallow man (unless they could find similarly large graham crackers and chocolate squares), but it's still a fun thought experiment to try to figure out how many calories he has in him.
Episode 45
Nerdist Science Editor Kyle Hill takes an in-depth look into how two different hover board manufacturers make their super cool real-life hover-boards work using two different approaches to making a board hover.
Episode 46
Most people probably don't consider how powerful their video game weapons would be using real-world calculations, but Kyle Hill isn't most people. He calculates just how powerful the energy weapons in Fallout 4 need to be to vaporize enemies.
Episode 47
In the wastelands, the preferred drink has always been Nuka-Cola. It's delicious, but irradiated. Kyle Smith does the math to find out how many of these dangerous drinks you could swig before they'd send you to the big vending machine in the sky.
Episode 48
Radroaches, Stingwings and other enormous bugs are just some of the many wondrous creatures created by the, well, fallout from nuclear war that leads to the events of Fallout 4. But can bugs ever really get that big?
Episode 49
Star Wars' science fiction and real life science collide as Kyle Hill details his theory that Han Solo must be a pretty old guy even in A New Hope, because of how long the Kessel Run is and how fast even non-hyperspace travel is.
Episode 50
You may recognize TIE fighters from Star Wars. "TIE stands for twin ion engine, and it turns out that they actually exist in the real world. It's real-life rocket science as explained by Nerdist Science Editor Kyle Hill.
Episode 51
Kylo Ren's enormous lightsaber with crossguard blades ignited a red-hot debate that may never end. Kyle Hill speaks about the history of swords and the speculative science behind lightsabers, and declares Kylo Ren's to be totally cool in every way.
Episode 52
When Westley challenges Vizzini to a battle of wits in The Princess Bride, he poisons both cups because he's immune to the poison. Kyle Hill looks at whether that's possible, and also what real poison is closest to the fictional iocane powder.
Episode 53
Using the classic "driving on the ceiling of the Queens-Midtown Tunnel scene from the original Men in Black as the example, Kyle Hill presents a primer for how to do nerdy physics analyses with math, math and more math. Why? Because Science.