We are Ken Jennings and John Roderick. We speak to you from our present, which we can only assume is your distant past, the turbulent time that was the early 21st century.

Fearing the great cataclysm that will surely befall our civilization, we began this monumental

reference of strange and obscure human knowledge.

These recordings represent our attempt to compile and preserve wonders and esoterica that would otherwise be lost.

So whether you're listening from an advanced civilization or have just reinvented the technology to decrypt our transmissions,

this is our legacy to you.

This is our time capsule.

This is the omnibus. Oh, You have accessed entry 746.ge 4120, certificate number 41602.

Mad cow disease.

Right up front I'm going to give a trigger warning. Mostly this is a

trigger warning for me because there's a lot of talk.

You can give yourself a pep talk.

I don't know if you can give yourself a trigger warning.

I should have given myself a trigger warning before I dove into this.

I've been meaning to talk about mad cow disease since it was on one of my earliest lists of

omnibus topics and I think it was one you and I probably looked at over the last

15 years we've been doing the show multiple times and went,

man mad cow disease, whatever.

But I decided to do a deep dive and halfway through,

I really wished I hadn't.

Just because...

It's a little too visceral?

...