How metal wires changed the world!

Brains On! Science podcast for kids

Brains On Universe

Kids & Family, Education For Kids

4.4 • 13.5K Ratings

🗓️ 16 December 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In our final look at metal, we explore how metal wires changed the world. Once humans figured out how to send little blasts of electricity through metal, we quickly developed lots of uses for this. One was a new way of communicating called the telegraph. Join Molly and co-host Ava as they team up with Dylan Thuras, co-founder of Atlas Obscura to learn how people laid hundreds of miles of wire in hopes of sending messages across oceans. Plus, the new Brains On Headquarters is having an opening ceremony, and there’s a brand new Mystery Sound to guess!

Guest: Dylan Thuras, co-author of The Atlas Obscura Explorer's Guide to Inventing The World.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Lemonada
0:02.0	Brains on Universe
0:09.0	You're listening to Brains on where we're serious about being curious.
0:15.0	Clark Kent is an ordinary person with a secret.
0:20.0	Yeah, he seems normal enough until you find out he can fly, shoot lasers from his eyes,
0:26.6	and he's basically indestructible.
0:29.3	Right. He's Superman. He has superpowers. Metals like that too.
0:35.2	Metal seems normal enough. Metals are solid, strong materials that are generally great to make stuff with.
0:43.2	But, like Clark, metals also have hidden superpowers.
0:47.9	People had started to realize, back in the, even the 1600s and 1700s, that metal had some very interesting properties
0:56.4	besides what you could make out of it.
0:59.8	We can kind of send a little shock, a little signal
1:04.0	along a wire, and move something from here to there.
1:08.4	That's Dylan Thuris, co-founder of Atlas Obscura.
1:11.6	He's here again to help with the final chapter in our deep dive on Metal.
1:16.1	Check out parts one and two if you haven't.
1:18.7	Today, we're going to wrap up by looking at how Metal's superpowers change the way we send messages around the world.
1:25.2	Look up. It's a bird. It's a plane. It's Brains on coming at you right now.
1:33.1	Hey friends, Sandin and I were unpacking, and we found an old photo album.
1:38.9	Oh, Molly, look. Remember that time we attempted to make the world's largest pizza?
1:42.9	We're having such a blast in this photo.
1:45.3	Yes, so much cheese.
	...

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