11 Mysterious Aspects of Modern Life With Simple Answers

So you think you know how the world works, right?
11 Mysterious Aspects of Modern Life With Simple Answers

So you think you know how the world works, right? You watch one episode of 'Mythbusters' and suddenly you're an expert on ballistics, germ theory and aeronautical engineering.

Tell me then, Jonas Salk, why you always get sick on airplanes. You're probably thinking it has something to do with the recycled air. Five hours spent breathing the same diseased air as the commoners back in coach and you're bound to come down with something, right? Wrong, you aristocratic pig!

You can actually blame the airlines and flight attendants for this one. Don't you think it's weird how the plane gets clean in the 20 minutes between when the plane lands and when they ask you to board? Yeah, that's because they don't clean it. Every surface on an airplane is a plastic germ-ridden hellscape trying to eat you from the insides out. That's why you get sick when you fly.

There are plenty of other everyday systems and things whose inner workings are taken for granted like that. Jack O'Brien is joined this week by Cracked editors Soren Bowie and Kristi Harrison for a roundup of things that don't work how you'd expect: from airplanes, to soap, to the world economy.

Throw on your headphones and click play above, go here to subscribe on iTunes, or download it here.

Also don't forget to buy tickets to our next live podcast taping on Saturday, August 13th at the UCB Sunset Theatre in Los Angeles!

In the muggle world, we're not given the opportunity for a magical hat to tell us which school we should go to. Usually we just have to go to the high school closest to where we live or whatever college accepts our SAT scores and personal essay. This month, our goal is to determine what would be the best fictional school to go to.

Join Jack, Daniel, the rest of the Cracked staff and some special guests as they figure out if it's a realistic school like Degrassi or West Beverly High, or an institution from a fantasy world like Hogwarts with its ghosts and dementors, or Bayside High, haunted by a monster known only to humans as 'Screech.'

Tickets are just $5 and are available HERE.

Footnotes:

USA Today: 5 Myths About Germs on Airplanes

Slate: How Welfare Reform Failed

And The Band Played On (Book)

And The Band Played On (Movie)

Oklahoma vs. Harvard Debate (Start at 0:43)

Cracked: 6 Inside Facts About Jeopardy From a 74-Episode Winner

The Economist: Age Invaders

IMF: What Is The Demographic Dividend?

Cracked: 6 Counterintuitive Tricks to Beating Popular Game Shows

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