Episodes

  • 83: The Most Boring Element & Solving Shakespeare's Accent
    Apr 24 2025
    What is the most boring element, and just how boring could it possibly be? Turns out: VERY! And how can we decipher what Shakespeare sounded like, and who among us can lay claim to his accent?Timestamps:(00:00:00) Intro(00:03:52) The Most Boring Element(00:48:53) Solving Shakespeare's Accent(01:26:37) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!Join our Discord!We’re not going for the easy sappy answer, what makes something boring? all the oxygen stans updating wikipedia, the most boring is obviously bohrium, thulium is used in lasers and x-rays, about 24 grams of astatine per planet, shout out Sir Martin Poliakoff, the 4 elements that came from pitchblende, Caroline stop anthropomorphizing protactinium, the isotope brevium, you could have been called abracadabra and instead your legal name is Actinium’s dad, wow what a fascinating [Rn]5f 26d7s2 ground state electron configuration! give me more random letters and numbers Tom! protactinium is there if your smoke detector is old, the global ocean conveyor belt, THC (Thermal Haline Circulation), that’s the ocean bit- anyway here’s something completely different about protactinium, paleoclimatology sounds a lot like protactinium, Ella realizes the turn, HE DID IT, whoa Caroline doing thumbs up to climate change, they’re de-extincting William Shakespeare, where better to waste my time pursuing this than Let’s Learn Everything, shakespeare is typically performed in received pronunciation, wait this is secretly a UK vs US topic! I’m surprised it took you 3 years to figure out we just keep you for your American accent, Americans have vestigial roticity, the universal beauty of two dudes yapping, what a strange elitism to claim to have Elizabethan English, Appalachian claims of shakespearean accents as a way to boost image, if you want to know what people sounded like back then… look at what people wrote about it! more one to one spellings like “philome” for film, we can deduce the accent from rhymes and puns, I loov this topic, Tom’s accent gets miscalibrated, an open midback is really stylish these days, open mid back unrounded vowel, Ella can move your tongue with her mind, I see why this gameshow didn’t make it to television, don’t wast a reem on a droom, the Rorscach test of the Original Pronunciation created by David and Ben Crystal, flecks of every dialect, “it’s a sound that reminds people of the accent of their home, and so they ten to listen more with their heart than their head”, “American English simply isn’t good enough for Shakespeare”, the Sundry Boroughs of New York baby! the language of Shakespeare is dead but alive in English everywhere, Shakespeare was meant to be played for the public - so it should be spoken like the public, Shakespeare's accent belongs to all of us!Sources:Amazing paper from Nature Chemistry: "The Most Boring Chemical Element"HPS on ProtactiniumLos Alamos Laboratory on ProtactiniumPeriodic Videos on ProtactiniumMining Website on Protactinium's HistoryBritannica on PitchblendeNature Chemistry: "Peculiar Protactinium"NOAA on the Global Ocean Conveyor BeltNOAA on PlanktonEOS on Protactinium for PaleoclimatologyProtactinium/Thorium in Paleoclimatology TextbookCarbonbrief's Climate Tipping PointsThorium Protactinium DatingYu, Francois, and Bacon's first paper on Protactinium Ocean Current Dating---Wiki: British colonisation of the AmericasWiki: Early Modern EnglishHistory of English: Early Modern EnglishBBC: How Americans preserved British EnglishThe Historical Linguist Blog: American English – The language of Shakespeare?Dialect Blog: Shakespearean vs. Modern EnglishNational Geographic: Tangier IslandBBC: The Tiny Island with a British accentLanguage Myths BookDavid Crystal’s Original Pronunciation evidencePaper: Early Modern English PhonologyOxford Dictionary: Early modern English: grammar, pronunciation, and spellingUniversity of Toronto: Early Modern English PhonologyNPR: How Did the Bard Really SoundYoutube: Shakespeare: Original pronunciation
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    1 hr and 33 mins
  • 82: International Space Law & Taxidermy
    Apr 10 2025
    What laws are there to worry about in the moon? And what does space law teach us about Earth law? And what can we learn about societies throughout history from the lens of stuffing dead animals?Images we Talk About:Orbiting Space DebrisFallen Space DebrisHanging Christian CrocodileHanging Christian CrocodileTimestamps:(00:00:00) Intro(00:03:02) International Space Law(01:03:25) Taxidermy(01:46:48) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!Join our Discord!We also learn about: The splash zone of intro to astronomy, space NCIS, the bedrock of 1967 outer space treaty, the first earthling in space (2 tortoises), countries are responsible for their damage and no WMDs, that big tangible moon in the sky, unprecedented lunar traffic this year, potential water ice on the moon could be the next big space race, there’s no moon water regulation, no nation can own the moon, buuuut can an individual - former ventriloquest and used car salesman own the moon?? god don’t call it “untapped resources on the moon”, you can’t own the moon but can you own its resources, there’s a legal officer for the UN officer of outer space affairs! we can allll frack the moon (except no one signed the treaty anyway), we can’t even agree to share moon resources One Day, only “safe and sustainable” space mining allowed, it doesn’t have to be legally binding to make countries want to follow it, a radio telescope on the far side of the moon would be SICK, sorry about all the space junk us 3 put up there, 90 metric tons of re-entry, suing nasa over space debris, if it launched from florida and hit florida it’s actually local state space law, satellite light pollution, satellites don’t die they just crash into a farm upstate, starlink burnt 120 satellites in 1 month alone, there’s no laws about safely deorbiting - no one has to do this, how we treat space is a microcosm of how we treat earth, space law is real, why can’t we bring our optimism from space back to earth instead of the other way around? Ella’s mouse doing drugs, the art of skin arranging, apologies to our ancient Egyptian listeners, the various techniques of Egyptian preservation, arresting from decay, Frederik Ruysch’s wet specimens, crocodiles make a lot of sense for the first taxidermy cause they’re big and leathery - anyway it was hanging in a church…, Tom loses his mind about A SECOND TAXIDERMIED CROCODILE IN A CHURCH, a croc that’s at least from 1623, The Great Italian Taxidermy Crocodile Road Trip, about one third of the british population went to the 1851 great exhibition, the telescope and taxidermy exhibition sounds like a trap for Caroline and Ella, “whimsy and anthropomorphism in taxidermy of the Victorian era”, anthropomorphic taxidermy was considered grotesque, taxidermy didn’t die we just stuffed it back up, environment taxidermy requires knowing an animal inside and out (pun intended), the degrees of ethical taxidermy, ethical is not a binary, it depends on your personal code of ethics, taxidermy as a lens of moral feelings through history.Sources:UNOOSA: Outer Space TreatyUN: International Space Law ExplainedRoyal Museums Greenwich: Who Owns the Moon?Lunar Embassy: Buy Some MoonPolitico: Who Owns the MoonGuardian: Moon ResourcesJet Propulsion Laboratory: Moon ResourcesNASA Moon Mining ContractsBusiness Insider: Mining Disrupting Science on the MoonNASA Artemis AccordsESA Space Environment StatisticsSpaceWatch: SatellitesNatural History Museum: Space JunkGuardian: Florida Family Sues NASAScientific American: Samantha Lawler, Space X DebirsJournal of Space Safety Engineering: Uncontrolled Re-entryUNOSSA: United Nations 2007 Space Debris Mitigation GuidelinesESA Space Environment Report 2024Rolling Stone: Space TrashFCC: Deorbiting Satellites RuleScientific American: Space Junk Polluting Stratosphere---Britannica: Taxidermy2019 Paper: Animal Bodies between Wonder and Natural HistoryBBC: Ancient Egyptian mummification 'recipe' revealedBook: Practical Taxidermy2020 Paper: The Animal Body As Medium: Taxidermy And European Expansion, 1775–1865Museum of Idaho: A brief, Gross History of TaxidermyAtlas Obscura: Crocodile at the Santuario Madonna delle Lacrime ImmacolateUniversity of Dayton: Crocodile Hunting in the Marian LibraryWandering Italy: Grazie, Italy and the Crocodile Church2006 Paper: The History of Taxidermy: Clues for PreservationJournal of Antiques and Collectables: Taxidermy: Exploring one of the Most Complicated CollectiblesThe Royal Parks: The Great Exhibition of 18512012 Thesis: The Shock Proved Fatal: Whimsy and Anthropomorphism in Taxidermy of the Victorian Era, 1851-1899Cardiff University: Frequently Asked Questions in TaxidermySmithsonian: Why Taxidermy Is Being Revived for the 21st CenturyHorniman Museum: Ethical TaxidermyGuardian: Inside the Female-Led World of Ethical TaxidermySussex Wildlife Trust: Putting the Ethical in Taxidermy
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    1 hr and 52 mins
  • Preview: The Lab Rat Games
    Mar 27 2025

    Welcome to the (preview for the) Lab Rat Games! The GAME show where we compete to learn anything and everything interesting! We love putting games into our topics, so what happens when we make a whole show of them, with each of us hosting their own section! Plus! We're joined by friend of the show and competitive chaos combatant, Sabrina Cruz!

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    Join our Discord!

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    38 mins
  • 81: Dinosaur Diet Detectives & Proto-Podcasts
    Mar 20 2025
    How can scientist's unravel the mystery of what dinosaurs ate? Well the clues are right in front of our eyes, or should I say their teeth! And poop! And listener you may already know what a podcast is, but how did proto-podcasts in a chicken coop give us the DNA for what we love, and how did podcasts even happen?Images we Talk About:First Iguanadon ToothPuffer Fish TeethFish TeethsIncisivosaurusSaurolophusDinosaur Stomach Contents FossilHam ComicSybil's Baby's Radio RebutTimestamps:(00:00:00) Intro
(00:04:33) Dinosaur Diet Detectives
(01:00:51) Support our Show!
(01:04:27) Proto-Podcasts
(02:02:49) Bonus Content!
(02:07:24) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!Join our Discord!We also learn about: Deep Dive Discovering Dino Diets, dinosaur time, imagining us discovering a new animal, well we know it doesn’t eat nerds, Ella describes teeth perfectly - “is that what you meant to say Tom?”, the mouth is the first stomach, we found the teeth of the first herbivorous dinosaur before the body - and before we had the word for dinosaur, cinderella/goldilocks teeth, dental microwear, food print, the topography of a grasshopper’s mandible, teeth can be more indicative than stomach content, maybe you just tried in and out for the first time when you got captured by aliens, dinosaur teeth are the old coins of ancient civilizations, egg eating oviraptors, it’s not just us but experts that are confused about oviraptaurs teeth, reconstructing the crime scene of a bit mark, this case has been closed for 70 million years! the tarbosaurus seems to have separated the chicken leg to make eating easier, a tyrannosaur leaving a tooth in the scene of the crime, they not only got bit but lived to tell the tale, this proves tyranosaurs hunted living animals - and weren’t just scavengers, hard foods stay in the stomach longer, some dinosaurs used Gastrolith rocks as stomach teeth, rocks natures teeth, Bromalite can be regurgitalite or coprolite, 580 million year old worm poop, we didn’t think grass was that old then we found it in dinosaur poop, we put dinosaur poop in a particle accelerator, we’re not looking at poop - we’re constructing the foodchain of dinosaurs, an ancient egyptian podcast, podcasting is NOT an oral tradition, the chicken coop boys, Sybil’s Little Ham Radio Show 20 years before a woman on proper radio, the Titanic sinking sped along radio restrictions, Tom skipped over the cassette before because its science impact was small but its misc impact was huge, explaining cassette tapes at a high frequency so it doesn’t hurt old people to hear, Lou Otten, the syrian cassette archive, mixtapes, Caroline’s family mix CDs, Tom’s custom Jack’s Mannequin Mix CDs, Pacific Horticulture Magazine being delighted that someone’s interested, Tom’s Magic Corner, I knew it was some journalist doing their thing, apple didn’t come up with podcasting - not even the name, journey back to 1999, the dream of RSS, what’s that facebook shaped cloud on the horizon? the dream of hosting your own feed, somehow podcast RSS survived, podcasts are the Horshoecrab of the internet, “wherever you get podcasts” is amazing, The Lab Rat Games!Sources:NHM London: Iguanodon TeethNHM London: Beyond Jurassic World- What We Really Know About Dinosaurs and HowNHM London: The Seven Greatest Dinosaur Discoveries of the Last 200 YearsBritish Ecological Society: What do Grasshoppers Eat?Phys.Org: Cutting Edge Teeth StudyNPR: Dental Detectives: What Fossil Teeth Reveal About Ancestral Human DietsUniversity of Tokyo: Dinosaur Teeth Reveal What They Didn’t EatBBC: Dinosaur Teeth Reveal Feeding HabitsIncisivosaurus2022 Paper: Incisivosaura Bite ForceUniversity of Pennsilvania: What Fossils Tell Us About the Dining Habits of DinosaursNHM London: Dinosaur Eating Habit Insights from Stegosaurus stenops2010 Paper: New information on scavenging and selective feeding behaviour of tyrannosauridsDave Hone's Archosaur Musings2012 Paper: Physical evidence of predatory behavior in Tyrannosaurus rexSave Our Seas: What Tools do Biologists use to Tell What is on the Menu for Wild Animals?Scientific America: Tyrannosaur’s Stomach Contents Have Been Found for the First Time2023 Paper: Exceptionally preserved stomach contents of a young tyrannosaurid reveal an ontogenetic dietary shift in an iconic extinct predatorSN Explores: Fossil Stomach Reveals a Dinosaur’s Last MealNHM London: CoproliteThe Bristol Dinosaur Project: The Grass DivideNPR: Over 500 Fossilized Poops Show How Dinosaurs Came to Rule the EarthAmerican Museum of Natural History: How Does Studying Dinosaurs Benefit Humanity?---MET on Memory Boards and Luba Oral TraditionsOED Broadcast EtymologyThe Chicken Coop Ham RadioSybil's Little Hame Radio ProgramNYTimes on Titanic's Impact on Radio LawLibrary of Congress on Recorded RadioNPR On Lout Otten and the Cassette TapeWired on Cassette HistoryNPR on the Syrian Cassette ArchiveBerkeley Audio Tape ...
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    2 hrs and 13 mins
  • Tom, Ella, and Caroline join MFD Spring Break
    Mar 17 2025

    It’s not MaxFunDrive without a wild kickoff spectacular! Former real-life VJ and host of MTV's Spring Break 1999, Dave Holmes, takes your favorite MaxFun hosts through some wacky ‘90s- and Spring Break-themed mini games!!

    Featuring: Dave Holmes, Jeremy Bent, Oscar Montoya, Dimitry Pompée, Tom Lum, Ellen Weatherford, Alex Schmidt, Brenda Snell, Drea Clark, Alonso Duralde, Dan McCoy, Jordan Morris, Manolo Moreno, Ella Hubber, Caroline Roper, Ella McLeod, John-Luke Roberts, Justin McElroy, Clint McElroy, Mike Cabellon, Sierra Katow, Hal Lublin, Danielle Radford, John Moe, Christian Dueñas, Christian Duguay.

    Timestamps:

    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:02:22) Tom, Ellen, Alex, and Brenda Trivia
    (00:32:47) Tom, Ellen, Manolo, and Jeremy on Party Animals
    (00:46:34) Caroline, Ella, Ella, and John-Luke on British Spring Break

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    1 hr and 20 mins
  • 80: Ify Nwadiwe, The Science of the Peasant Railgun, and a Panoply of Nerdery
    Mar 13 2025

    Host of Um Actually and nerd of many domains Ify Nwadiwe joins us as Tom helps him deconstruct the infamous Peasant Railgun from D&D. Could it actually work? And can we come up with something even more powerful using real science? We also dig into nerdery old and new, and see if Ify can convince Ella and Caroline to embrace their home country's greatest export: Warhammer.

    Images we Talk About:
    A Real Railgun Firing

    Timestamps:
    (00:00:00) Intro
    (00:06:05) The Peasant Railgun
    (00:43:07) Q&A/Nerding Out
    (01:12:19) Outro

    Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

    Join our Discord!

    We also learn about: After this black hole research I do appreciate my family more! we’re here to game, what is a peasant? stealing science experiments for DnD campaigns, Caroline and Ella are delighted to learn the Peasant Railgun for the first time, convincing peasants to hands across america, pandering to the audience telling them their smart, My Monster Manual is On the Origin of Species, a peasant message system/computer, let people accelerate things to the speed of light! I shouldn’t let my players do WHAT, and remember kids DONT use a bong because it gets you SO HIGH, I’m reading between the lines Gary would want us to do this, the real rail gun, UM ACTUALLY ITS A PEASANT COIL GUN, rail guns are more common in fiction, the strength of a rail gun tears itself apart and creates a fireball, Ify would make each peasant in the line roll, if your players try to make the railgun say yes then show them the picture, the peasants have the means of production and destruction - they should unionize, the fastest manmade object, the manhole cover isnt the fastest object recorded, mission to touch the sun, gravity slingshot, it’s not the mass of the planet its the orbit, its not a magnet - its a magnet on a bullettrain, DMs watch out for artificer space programs, the duke of musk keeps stealing our government funding, Morgan you’re welcome to play beyblades with Ify any time, marrying bratz and digimon, England’s main export is Warhammer, can Ify convince Ella to play Warhammer, should we do a separate zoom just talking about nerd stuff? online writing forums, audio books are real books, be mean in magic, playing DnD on stage vs at home, playing true to your character.

    Sources:
    First Edition D&D Player's Handbook
    Knight's Digest on Peasant Railgun Origins
    Earliest Peasant Railgun Mention
    PCGamer on D&D 2024 Dungeon Master Guide Update
    IEEE Early Railgun Research
    Vice "This Is Why the Navy Can’t Have Nice Railguns"
    USC on Railgun Feasability
    Popular Science Interview on Railgun Test
    JPL Chart of Fastest Objects
    CNET on Parker Solar Probe
    NASA Gravity Assist Primer

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    1 hr and 16 mins
  • 79: The Psychology of Math & Sudoku
    Feb 27 2025
    Why is math both so easy and so hard for our brains, and how can the psychology of horses, babies, and mathematicians help answer that? And what wild journey did Sudoku take to become the popular puzzle that Ella adores?Things we Talk About:The Video of a Child Learning to CountThe Melencolia PaintingTimestamps:(00:00:00) Intro(00:04:59) The Psychology of Math(01:00:35) Sudoku(01:44:59) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!Join our Discord!We also learn about: the Wonderful student, it’s not you - it’s math, “I did biology for a reason”, children can want a lot of complex things, it’s harder in the UK cause its Maths plural, Caroline & Ella’s math journeys, charlie solves the Riemann hypothesis, the horse the myth the legend - clever hans, clever hans was drafted into the military AS A MATHEMATICIAN, real horse math! so many animals seem to have Number Sense, counting is hard for kids, multiplication isn’t counting - it’s memorization and other strategies, Caroline doesn’t have a great Mental Blackboard, kick flipping a chair in our minds to brag to Caroline, overlapping waves, hot or not for equations, hahaha a taylor expansion?? in Lp?? ridiculous! there is no one math organ in the brain, don’t give up on math, “I don’t treat math as a monolith (I think statistics is the worst math)”, that surprises me because sudoko’s amazing and you’re wrong, the ancient mystical turtle’s magic square, a mathematical warding spell, “once something is proved true, it is eternally true”, HOW DID ELLA NOT REALIZE THIS WAS A MATH TOPIC, magic squares are unsolved, math divination, wow this is a math’s topic huh, maths in art, Melancholia, the magic square on La Sagrada Familia, wait Magic Squares AREN’T the precursor to sudoku?? I don’t know this child, if not sudoku why sudoku shaped? the Latin square originated in Korea before Euler, my parents are older than sudoku, it was originally called Number Place, even though we call it Sudoku - in Japan it’s often called Number Place for trademark reasons, the 2004 sudoku boom, sudoku is an infectious meme, this topic took so long (because Ella took sudoku breaks), figuring out the question of unique puzzles, so many ways to think about a square, advanced sudoku techniques, x-wing and swordfish, sudoku championships, of course Ella found speed running in this topic, Sudoku doesn’t seem to cure cognitive decline - but it’s also just fun to do! a beautiful sudoku poem, it’s how we learn and it’s calming - a little win, “I feel like I need to lie down”, let us know if you know the difference between 3 apples and 4 apples.Sources:Perfect Pitch StudyFeigenson et al. Core System of NumberThe Clever Hans Phenomenon RevisitedNYTimes Berlin's Wonderful HorseActual Horse Number Sense StudyNumber Sense in AnimalsRat Brain Number Sense StudyNPR Why Big Numbers Break our BrainsErikson Institute Video of Child CountingThe Development of Mathematical CognitionMath Expert Brain Activity StudyThe Beauty of Math StudyUniversity of MAryland on Math Brain ActivityKeith Devlin Stanford TalkKatie Steckles: What Do Mathematicians Do All Day?---Wikipedia: Magic SquareRoyal Institution: Magic SquareUniversity of Cambridge: Magic SquareMagic Squares in Islamic MathematicsWiki: SudokuThe Guardian: History of SudokuThe Science of Sudoku by BY JEAN-PAUL DELAHAYEPaper: There Is No 16-Clue SudokuAdvanced Sudoku Techniques:Wiki: World Sudoku ChampionshipsSudoku.com: The Fastest Sudoku PlayerSudoku.com: 4 Reasons that Sudoku is the Perfect Puzzle GameWorking MemoryBBC: Puzzle Slolving and Cognitive DeclineSudoku 15 year studyGlobal Council on Brain Health ReportSudoku Mental Fortitude
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    1 hr and 51 mins
  • 78: Drosophila Melanogaster & The British Meal Deal
    Feb 13 2025
    Why is the common fruit fly the perfect model organism, and the reason for 6 Nobel Prizes?? And what is the british fascination around the meal deal, lunchtime, and the sandwich?Images we Talk About:Map of the Fruit Fly BrainRat My Meal DealThe Sandwich FactoryTimestamps:(00:00:00) Intro(00:02:57) Drosophila Melanogaster(00:49:46) The British Meal Deal(01:37:48) OutroSupport us with a Max Fun Membership!Join our Discord!We also learn about: Ella’s former favorite fun fact, are 6 nobel prizes more impressive than long sperm? we need to pause, bolas, Ella’s Virgins, Dew Loving Black Belly, Dros Mel are human commensals - they migrated with us, “they’re undemanding guests”, first life intentionally put into space, maybe Jeff Goldblum became a fly so seamlessly because they share 60% of their DNA, Tom’s great Jeff Goldblum impression, they share a lot of disease related genes, Thomas Morgan - The Lord of the Flies, Morgan knew about genetics but not DNA yet, genetic redundancy, a fly geneticist’s swiss army knife, the varied list of nobel wins, are they cancelled? wait actually? guess that fly gene, “the inside jokes are becoming outside jokes”, the golden wild west era of the fruit fly may be over - but not all science, the beautiful fruit fly brain, we COULD end by talking about how this little organism has been so belovedly studied and helpful, Dros Mel has a mini bachelorette organ, the great british everything, is this a sincere answer? rating meal deals, fluctuations of lunch elitism, a beaver and a noonshine, capitalism made workers hours longer - workers rights made lunch, lunch was given by and for women, the earl of sandwich was too much of a gamer, we can’t re-litigate the cube rule, the “daring” true story of the sandwich, the sandwich storry isn’t about invention it’s about class, food elitism fads, ella invents soup in a tube, 1980s the first pre-packaged sandwich, units of sandwich (UOS), it’s almost like getting separated from the means of production…, the british sandwich association, take your lunch break! you won’t remember doing an extra bit of work - you’ll remember spending time with folks and making a bomb ass sandwich, short lunch breaks make meal deals make sense, drosophola and meal deals cancelled on this episode,Sources:Paper: Drosophila - Model Organism of ChoicePaper: Innate Immune Responses of Drosophila melanogaster Are Altered by SpaceflightNASA: Fruit Flies in SpacePaper: Drosophila – A Versatile Model in Biology & MedicinePaper: The Secret Lives of Drosophila FliesGuardian Article on DrosophilaPaper: Where are Drosphila FromPaper: Gal4 Swiss Army KnifeNobel Prize: DrosophilaNPR: Fruit Fly NamesNature News: Troublesome Names Get the BootPaper: Fly Brain MapFly Brain ImageUKRI: Fruit Fly Neuron MapPaper Drosophila Sperm StorageMeal Deal Sources Coming Soon!
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    1 hr and 43 mins