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ELI5 Explain Like I'm 5: Bite sized answers to stuff you should know about - in a mini podcast

Explain Like I'm Five, aka ELI5, is the mini-podcast series where we take the questions you always wanted to ask, and talk about them in a way that is easy to understand. Made possible by the amazing reddit community at r/explainlikeimfive. See episode show notes for user credits.

ELI5 Higgs Boson - how it was named the God Particle?

7 mins; May 24, 2024

ELI5 Life Insurance - why the astronauts of Apollo 11 couldn’t buy life insurance?

6 mins; May 17, 2024

ELI5 El Niño and La Niña - what exactly are they?

6 mins; May 10, 2024

ELI5 Horse Racing - what’s the role of the jockey?

6 mins; May 02, 2024

ELI5 Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta - the NATO Phonetic Alphabet

5 mins; April 25, 2024

ELI5 Airport Runways - how are they numbered?

6 mins; April 18, 2024

ELI5 Gore-Tex - what makes Gore-Tex so special?

8 mins; April 11, 2024

ELI5 Train Tracks - how do trains maintain traction in slippery conditions?

9 mins; April 04, 2024

ELI5 Bailouts - why don't governments own the companies they bail out?

7 mins; March 28, 2024

ELI5 Jet Stream - can a regular plane break the sound barrier on a jet stream?

7 mins; March 21, 2024

ELI5 Matcha Tea - how do you tell if it’s high quality?

8 mins; March 14, 2024

ELI5 Olive Oil - virgin, extra-virgin & refined - what's the difference?

6 mins; March 07, 2024

ELI5 Leap Years - why was 2000 a leap year but 2100 isn’t?

6 mins; February 29, 2024

ELI5 Hypnosis - is it real and how does it work?

7 mins; February 22, 2024

ELI5 Eczema - why scratching it feels so good?

5 mins; February 15, 2024

ELI5 Soaps - hand soaps vs body wash - are they different?

6 mins; February 08, 2024

ELI5 Endangered Species - how is the axolotl endangered but also in pet stores?

7 mins; February 01, 2024

ELI5 Aurora Borealis - what would it be like inside the northern lights?

7 mins; January 25, 2024

ELI5 Snakes - does eating a venomous snake kill its predator?

6 mins; January 18, 2024

ELI5 Rewind - Artificial Sweeteners - good for weight loss or bad for you?

10 mins; January 14, 2024

ELI5 Onomatopoeias - why are there differences across languages?

6 mins; January 11, 2024

ELI5 Weight Gain - how does the body decide where it goes?

8 mins; January 04, 2024

ELI5 Winter Solstice - why it marks the start of winter, not the middle of it?

5 mins; December 21, 2023

ELI5 Primary Colors - are they red green blue or red yellow blue?

6 mins; December 14, 2023

ELI5 Bed Bugs - why they came back after nearly being eradicated?

7 mins; December 07, 2023

ELI5 Where’s Waldo - why Waldo is an important character in cryptography?

7 mins; November 30, 2023

ELI5 Thanksgiving - why is it called Black Friday?

7 mins; November 23, 2023

ELI5 Powerlines - why aren’t more power lines underground in the US?

8 mins; November 16, 2023

ELI5 Crabs - why do crabs turn bright orange when cooked?

7 mins; November 09, 2023

ELI5 Planes - why the need for a ground cart to push them back?

7 mins; November 02, 2023

ELI5 GDP and the Equator - why are countries richer away from the equator?

6 mins; October 26, 2023

ELI5 Altitude and Heat - why is it colder at higher elevations?

7 mins; October 19, 2023

ELI5 Screws - why do we have two different types?

7 mins; October 12, 2023

ELI5 Lasers - why don’t you see many white laser pointers?

8 mins; October 05, 2023

ELI5 Voice Agents - How does “hey siri” respond if it isn’t constantly listening to my conversations?

6 mins; September 28, 2023

ELI5 Currencies - what does it mean to float a country’s currency?

8 mins; September 21, 2023

ELI5 Money - why its origins were not about bartering?

9 mins; September 14, 2023

ELI5 Saunas - how do near boiling temperatures not burn you?

8 mins; September 07, 2023

ELI5 Ice Baths & Warm Showers - what are the benefits?

8 mins; August 31, 2023

ELI5 DNA - what is the double helix?

7 mins; August 24, 2023

ELI5 Saturn - does it really rain diamonds?

6 mins; August 17, 2023

ELI5 Hibernation - is there a way humans could hibernate like bears do?

6 mins; August 10, 2023

ELI5 Elevators - is the door close button a placebo?

8 mins; August 03, 2023

ELI5 Swimming - why are there exactly 4 strokes?

8 mins; July 27, 2023

ELI5 Pickleball - why has it become so popular?

7 mins; July 20, 2023

Introducing Hidden Brain

1 min; July 20, 2023

ELI5 Tesseract - what is it and what does it look like?

6 mins; July 13, 2023

ELI5 Central Banks - do crypto currencies make them obsolete?

8 mins; July 06, 2023

ELI5 Amnesia - why don’t people forget their primary language?

7 mins; June 30, 2023

ELI5 Latin - why did such a popular language like Latin die out?

6 mins; June 22, 2023

ELI5 Deserts - was the Sahara really once lush green forests?

8 mins; June 15, 2023

ELI5 Presidents vs Prime Ministers - why do some countries have both?

5 mins; June 08, 2023

ELI5 Undersea Cables - who lays and manages the cables that power the internet?

7 mins; June 01, 2023

ELI5 Jail and Bail - what’s the point of bail and what is a bond?

7 mins; May 25, 2023

ELI5 Antimicrobial Surfaces - how can a surface clean itself?

6 mins; May 18, 2023

ELI5 Airport Security - why we have a 100ml fluid limit?

8 mins; May 11, 2023

ELI5 Megalodon - how are we sure they are extinct?

6 mins; May 04, 2023

ELI5 Port and Starboard - why not just left and right?

6 mins; April 27, 2023

ELI5 Energy Drinks - what’s in them beyond caffeine?

7 mins; April 20, 2023

ELI5 Laughing Gas - why is N20 called laughing gas?

7 mins; April 13, 2023

ELI5 Sinkholes - how do they happen?

7 mins; April 06, 2023

ELI5 GPS - how is GPS a free service?

8 mins; March 30, 2023

ELI5 Fusion - what is nuclear fusion and why is it important?

6 mins; March 23, 2023

ELI5 Balloons - why is there a ring at the opening of a balloon?

7 mins; March 16, 2023

ELI5 Toothpaste - how did people brush before toothpaste?

9 mins; March 09, 2023

ELI5 Pirates - why fly the skull and bones flag?

7 mins; March 02, 2023

ELI5 The Metric System - why is lbs the abbreviation for pounds?

9 mins; February 23, 2023

ELI5 Ketchup - which country did the word ketchup originate from?

7 mins; February 16, 2023

ELI5 Tomatoes - fruit or vegetable?

7 mins; February 09, 2023

ELI5 The Streisand Effect - what makes it so universal?

6 mins; February 02, 2023

ELI5 Alzheimer’s - the difference between Alzhiemer’s and Dementia?

9 mins; January 26, 2023

ELI5 Postage Stamps - does the sending or receiving country get money from my stamp?

7 mins; January 19, 2023

ELI5 Food Pyramid - why all the criticism?

7 mins; January 12, 2023

ELI5 Heart Rate Monitors - what types are most accurate?

8 mins; January 05, 2023

ELI5 Bank Runs - why does a run on the bank happen?

8 mins; December 29, 2022

ELI5 Credit vs Debit Cards - what’s the difference?

7 mins; December 08, 2022

ELI5 Turbulence - how do pilots know it’s coming?

8 mins; December 01, 2022

ELI5 Coca Cola - where does the name come from?

8 mins; November 24, 2022

ELI5 Phobia - what's the difference between a phobia and a fear?

6 mins; November 17, 2022

ELI5 Ponzi Schemes - how do they work?

8 mins; November 10, 2022

ELI5 Reboot - why turning it off and on again fixes a host of tech issues?

8 mins; November 03, 2022

ELI5 Smell and Taste - how does our sense of smell work?

7 mins; October 27, 2022

ELI5 Trucks - why do European trucks look different to US trucks?

7 mins; October 20, 2022

ELI5 Ants - how do they cling to surfaces so well?

7 mins; October 13, 2022

ELI5 Einstein - why is e = mc squared such a big deal?

7 mins; October 06, 2022

CPR - what is Michael Jackson’s association to CPR?

6 mins; September 29, 2022

ELI5 Pee - is urinating in the pool ok?

6 mins; September 22, 2022

ELI5 Jupiter - can you land on a gas planet?

7 mins; September 15, 2022

ELI5 Decaf - how did a train accident lead to its discovery?

6 mins; September 08, 2022

ELI5 Dyslexia - does it exist in all languages?

7 mins; September 01, 2022

ELI5 Donuts - why the association with the police?

8 mins; August 25, 2022

ELI5 Ampersand - the 27th member of the alphabet?

5 mins; August 18, 2022

ELI5 Wrinkled Fingers - why water makes our fingers wrinkle?

6 mins; August 11, 2022

ELI5 Escalators - what is the shoe shine thingy there for?

9 mins; August 05, 2022

ELI5 Occam's Razor - please explain what it really means!

6 mins; July 28, 2022

ELI5 Bear Markets - where it gets its name?

6 mins; July 22, 2022

ELI5 Nitrogen - if it’s 80% of our atmosphere, why don’t we talk about it much?

7 mins; July 14, 2022

ELI5 Golf - why are white balls the standard?

8 mins; July 08, 2022

ELI5 Milk and Eggs - why cows and chickens became the standards for milk and eggs?

8 mins; June 30, 2022

ELI5 Natural Gas - why doesn’t the flame from a gas stove ignite the supply line?

8 mins; June 23, 2022

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ELI5 Explain Like I'm 5: Bite sized answers to stuff you should know about - in a mini podcast

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