Midnight Facts for Insomniacs

From violent dictators to notorious sadists to cult leaders, Shane and Duncan debate history's scariest people. Who's in your top 5? Tell us in the Discord...

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Access the entire back catalog of After Midnights, plus bonus episodes and video livestreams over at the brand new MFFI Patreon: 

PATREON

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Join the Midnight Masses!

Become an Insomniac by dropping a review, adding us on social media, and contacting us with episode ideas. 

And we now have Midnight Merch! Show your Insomniac pride and pick up a tee shirt or coffee mug to spread the word! 

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Join two lifelong skeptics as they attempt to set aside their cynicism and immerse themselves in the mystical universe of Astrology and the Zodiac. (“Attempt” being the operative word. If you're a huge fan of Astrology, please take note: there will be some respectful debunking.)

Whether you're a fixed feminine water sign or a masculine cardinal air sign, whether your 8th house is in Pluto or Mars, you'll find something to enjoy in this week's cosmic, celestial, prognosticating installment of MFFI. 

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Support the show by becoming a Midnight Minion, Menace, or Maniac, and unlock exclusive bonus content over at PATREON

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Join the MFFI community and vote on episode topics via DISCORD

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In this episode:  

• Mesopotamia and the Babylonians
• The "How" Problem
• Constellations and the Zodiac
• Mayan Astrology
• Chinese Astrology
• Sun Sign
• The Elements: Earth, Wind, Air, and Fire
• Fixed, Cardinal, and Mutable Signs
• Rising Sign
• Moon Sign 
• Planets
• Houses
• The Infamous NASA blog
• Ophiuchus: The 13th Sign
• Joan Quigley and Nancy Reagan
• Mercury in Retrograde

Join the Midnight Masses!

Become an Insomniac by dropping a review, adding us on social media, and contacting us with episode ideas. 

And we now have Midnight Merch! Show your Insomniac pride and pick up a tee shirt or coffee mug to spread the word! 

Midnight Merch

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Episode Transcript

On the most recent A.M., the boys debated the most compelling moments in history, but what about the most fascinating people? If you could travel back in time, who would you want to meet? Alexander the Great, Joan of Arc, Meat Loaf? Tell us in the Discord...

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Access the entire back catalog of After Midnights, plus bonus episodes and video livestreams over at the brand new MFFI Patreon: 

PATREON

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Join the Midnight Masses!

Become an Insomniac by dropping a review, adding us on social media, and contacting us with episode ideas. 

And we now have Midnight Merch! Show your Insomniac pride and pick up a tee shirt or coffee mug to spread the word! 

Midnight Merch

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Did gladiators always battle to the death? Who was the most famous gladiator of all time, and why did he never step foot in the Colosseum? Were any gladiators women? What would a day at the Colosseum look and sound like? (Spoiler alert: music accompanied the fights). Were all gladiators slaves, or could free citizens compete in the arena? 

Join Shane and Duncan as they explore the history and legacy of human combat in this week’s hacking and slashing, rough-and-tumble episode of MFFI.

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Support the show by becoming a Midnight Minion, Menace, or Maniac, and unlock exclusive bonus content over at PATREON

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Join the MFFI community and vote on episode topics via DISCORD

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In this episode:  

• How Combat Became Entertainment
• Cultural Universals: Wrestling, Boxing, etc
• The Etruscans and Campanians
• Ludus/Ludi
• The Gladius (Sword)
• Funeral Ceremonies (Munus/Munera)
• Female Fighters
• Brutus Pera and Decimus Junius Brutus Scaeva
• Caesar's Munus
• Venatio (Beast Shows/Animal Hunts)
• Augustus Regulates the Munera
• Trajan's Games
• Marcus Aurelius
• Commodus
• Russel Crowe's Maximus
• Myth Busting
• Lucius Cassius Dio
• The Colosseum
• Gladiator Pairs
• Gladiator Types: Retiaruus, Murmillo, Andabata, Thraex
• Mimus (Horn-Blowing Chickens and Flute-Playing Bears)
• Spartacus and the Third Servile War
• Honorius and the End of the Games

Join the Midnight Masses!

Become an Insomniac by dropping a review, adding us on social media, and contacting us with episode ideas. 

And we now have Midnight Merch! Show your Insomniac pride and pick up a tee shirt or coffee mug to spread the word! 

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Episode Transcript

What are the most consistently misused words and phrases in the English language? Find out in this week's nitpicking, pedantic, gloriously sesquipedalian episode of MFFI. 

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Support the show by becoming a Midnight Minion, Menace, or Maniac, and unlock exclusive bonus content over at PATREON

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Join the MFFI community and vote on episode topics via DISCORD

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In this episode:  

• Terrific
• Queer
• Ironic
• Literally
• Meretricious 
• Irregardless
• Disinterested
• Electrocute
• Refute
• Fewer vs Less
• Nauseous 
• Nonplussed
• Eggcorns
• I Could Care Less
• Shoo-In
• For All Intents and Purposes
• Piqued
• Hunger Pangs
• You've Got Another Think Coming
• Dog Eat Dog World
• Coleslaw
• Buck Naked

Join the Midnight Masses!

Become an Insomniac by dropping a review, adding us on social media, and contacting us with episode ideas. 

And we now have Midnight Merch! Show your Insomniac pride and pick up a tee shirt or coffee mug to spread the word! 

Midnight Merch

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Episode Transcript

What’s the world’s most dangerous plant? Which notorious stinging nettle is capable of an aerial attack? And what the heck is a hemicryptophyte? 

Join Shane and Duncan as they explore the wild world of toxic foliage in this week’s lush, leafy, and lethal episode of MFFI. 

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Support the show by becoming a Midnight Minion, Menace, or Maniac, and unlock exclusive bonus content over at PATREON

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Join the MFFI community and vote on episode topics via DISCORD

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In this episode:  

• Atropa Belladonna (Deadly Nightshade)
• Herbaceous, Perennial, Rhizomatous, Hemicryptophyte
• Augustus and Livia
• Atropine
• Daffodil (Narcissus Poeticus)
• Lycorine
• Castor Bean (Ricinus Communis) 
• 1978 Umbrella Murder (Georgi Markov)
• Ricin Poison
• Gympie-Gympie (Dendrocnide Moroides)
• Gubbi-Gubbi
• Phototoxic Giant Hogweed (Heracleum Mantegazzianum)
• Tangent: Corpse Bloom (Amorphophallus Titanium)
• Hemlock (Conium Maculatum)
• Socrates
• Nerium-Oleander
• The Deadliest Plant on Earth

Join the Midnight Masses!

Become an Insomniac by dropping a review, adding us on social media, and contacting us with episode ideas. 

And we now have Midnight Merch! Show your Insomniac pride and pick up a tee shirt or coffee mug to spread the word! 

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Episode Transcript

On September 26, 1983, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Soviet army saved the world.

When the Oko nuclear-warning system erroneously reported an incoming barrage of American missiles, Stanislov Petrov chose not to alert his superiors, and averted the apocalypse. But what if he had made a different decision? Would civilization still exist? What would the world look like today? 

Join the boys as they examine the uniquely human obsession with revising history, and take a journey down the "what if" rabbit hole.

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Support the show by becoming a Midnight Minion, Menace, or Maniac, and unlock exclusive bonus content over at PATREON

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Join the MFFI community and vote on episode topics via DISCORD

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In this episode:  

• The Roman Origins of Alternate History
• Titus Livius's Ab Urbe Condita
• Points of Divergence
• Chaos Theory
• The Butterfly Effect
• Edward Norton Lorenz
• "For Want of a Nail" 
• Apocalyptic Futures
• Lieutenant Colonel Stanislov Petrov
• The Oko Warning System
• "Launch on Warning" Protocol
• Mutually Assured Destruction
• Northern Hemisphere Effects vs. Southern
• Fallout
• Little Ice Age vs. Nuclear Winter 
• What if the North Hadn't Won the Civil War?
• Likelihood of a Northern Failure/Southern Stalemate
• Abraham Lincoln and the Election of 1864
• McClellan Negotiates a Ceasefire
• Lincoln's Legacy
• Slavery Continues
• Southern Decline
• Westward Expansion, Further Fragmentation
• WWI in America

Join the Midnight Masses!

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And we now have Midnight Merch! Show your Insomniac pride and pick up a tee shirt or coffee mug to spread the word! 

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Episode Transcript

To make up for the lost episode due to Shane’s bout with COVID, MFFI is releasing another full, brand new After Midnight this week! Enjoy your favorite segments like “How Stupid Are We?” and “This Week’s Random Fact,” plus the greatest movie sequels of all time.

What’s in your top five? Tell us in DISCORD ...

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Access the entire back catalog of After Midnights, plus bonus episodes and perks over at the brand new MFFI Patreon: 

PATREON

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Join the Midnight Masses!

Become an Insomniac by dropping a review, adding us on social media, and contacting us with episode ideas. 

And we now have Midnight Merch! Show your Insomniac pride and pick up a tee shirt or coffee mug to spread the word! 

Midnight Merch

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The future is here, and it's terrifying. Join the boys as they learn all about the revolutionary gene-editing tool CRISPR/Cas9. What's with the crazy acronym, how swole can a chicken be, and when will Duncan get his prehensile tail? Find out on the latest DNA-snipped, biologically enhanced episode of MFFI. 

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Support the show by becoming a Midnight Minion, Menace, or Maniac, and unlock exclusive bonus content over at PATREON

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Join the MFFI community and vote on episode topics via DISCORD

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In this episode:  

• Clustered Regularly Interspaced Palindromic Repeats
• Genetic Scissors
• Streptococcus Pyogenes
• Bacteria: The Real Hero
• Yoshizumi Ishino
• Francisco Mojica
• Cas9
• Emanuelle Marie Charpentier and Jennifer Anne Doudna
• DNA/RNA/crRNA
• Cas12a
• Sickle Cell Treatment
• Victoria Gray
• CRISPR Crops
• Memphis Meats
• The GMO issue
• HIV and Cancer Treatments
• Challenges

Join the Midnight Masses!

Become an Insomniac by dropping a review, adding us on social media, and contacting us with episode ideas. 

And we now have Midnight Merch! Show your Insomniac pride and pick up a tee shirt or coffee mug to spread the word! 

Midnight Merch

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Episode Transcript

Little-known fact: the mad doctor from Mary Shelly's Frankenstein was based on a real-life scientist named Giovanni Aldini. And even Aldini's corpse-reanimating experiments were mild compared to some of the bizarre and horrifying travesties that have been committed in the name of scientific progress. Join the boys as they explore two-headed dogs, telekinetic pong-playing monkeys, and the history of unhinged science.

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Support the show by becoming a Midnight Minion, Menace, or Maniac, and unlock exclusive bonus content over at PATREON

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Join the MFFI community and vote on episode topics via DISCORD

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In this episode:  

• Vladimir Demikhov
• Head Transplants
• Shavka and Brodyaga
• Jose Manuel Rodriguez Delgado
• Shiro Ishii
• Unit 731
• Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night (Disease Fleas)
• Giovanni Aldini, the OG Frankenstein
• Galvanism
• The Postmortem Electrocution of George Forster
• Andrew Ure, Frankenstein Part 2
• The Postmortem Electrocution of Matthew Clydesdale
• Elon Musk and Neuralink
• Pager the Mind-Pong Monkey
• Cryonics
• Alcor, the Life-Extension Foundation
• M.E.A.R.T, the Semi-Living Artist

Join the Midnight Masses!

Become an Insomniac by dropping a review, adding us on social media, and contacting us with episode ideas. 

And we now have Midnight Merch! Show your Insomniac pride and pick up a tee shirt or coffee mug to spread the word! 

Midnight Merch

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Episode Transcript