Joined by neuroscientists, science communicators, and all around stand up humans Dr. Paula Croxson, PhD and Dr. Thiago Arzua, PhD, Rob and Noah put mind over grey matter in our annual Brain Awareness Week neuroscience show! Tune in wherever you get your podcasts—you know you want to.**
Special thanks to Paula and Thiago for lending us their beautiful, hilarious brains for an evening, and to Caveat, the rest that follows when you free your mind.
**You being your brain. Of course your brain wants to hear about itself. The ego on that thing.
BONES!
10/27/2022 @ caveat
After boning up on the spookiest osteological facts, Noah, Em, and Rob reunited with scientist, comedian, and Facts Machine esteemed alumna Kyle Marian to share humerus stories drawn from anthropology, medicine, architecture, and more. It was an evening of rib-roaring fun—replete with mementos mori and danses macabre—and you can listen to it wherever you get your podcasts. And let us know: what bone would you pick?
Special thanks to Kyle for giving life to our skeleton crew and tickling our funny bones, and to Caveat, which could only be more perfect if it had a chandelier made entirely from human bones.
Seas Get Degrees
5/28/2022 @ caveat
For this special edition of Facts “Marine”, Noah was joined onstage at Caveat by THREE amazing guests—marine biologists and science communicators Jaida Elcock and Dr. Diana Li, PhD and scientist and comedian Kyle Marian—to tell tall (but true, of course) tales about the life aquatic! With their fabulous facts (and costumes to match), our hosts made waves, did deep dives on the deep sea, and had a “littoral” whale of a time!
(And as if that wasn’t enough, there was also a totally unplanned, organic, genuinely heavenly three part harmony that just…happened? Truly lightning in a bottle, people—check it out here or wherever you listen to podcasts.)
Special thanks to our phenomenal co-hosts Jaida, Diana, and Kyle for buoying us with their joy and brilliance, and to Caveat, the cozy sea cucumber bum to our nerdy little pearlfish hearts.
All You Need is Lobe
3/12/2022 @ CAVEAT
Columbia neuroscientists Leslie Sibener and Dr. Devon Collins, PhD joined us on stage at Caveat for All You Need is Lobe, Facts Machine’s SECOND brain-themed show (clearly, we’re biased) that somewhere in the planning snowballed into a loose parody of the Wizard of Oz. Our facts fell for the scheming of sinister witches, went on a mind-altering romp through the poppies, and listened carefully for the sounds of Toto, and our guests and audience journeyed through the trials of tricky brain games and a pub-style trivia quiz. All in all, brains were teased, thoughts and were provoked, and lungs were (not really) vindicated in our most musical show yet!
The audio of the show is up wherever you listen to your podcasts, as well as right here!
Special thanks to our amazingly brilliant co-hosts Devon and Leslie, to our fabulously talented pianists Rose McCathran and Ryan Brechmacher, and to Caveat, the place we always wish clicking our heels would bring us to.
Dark Matters
10/27/2021 @ Caveat
Folklorist and astrophysicist Dr. Moiya McTier, PhD joined our storytelling orbit in Dark Matters, our second Halloween show at Caveat featuring SPOOKY (and true) TALES FROM SPACE. We beamed out our creepiest astronomical facts (see: space bats, vampires, and ghosts, oh my!) and celebrated all things celestial in our themed games and trivia quiz. It was our most cosmos-politan show yet, and we left our audience starry-eyed**!
(**or for those tuning into the recording, starry-eared! Be starry-eared yourself wherever you listen to your podcasts, or listen here!)
Special thanks to Moiya for terrifying us with her otherwordly knowledge and storytelling skills, to the stellar Caveat for providing us “space”, in all its interpretations, and to our promo photographer Kelsey Hopland for her artistry and patience as we gallivanted again, this time trying to out-gargoyle the gargoyles at Belvedere Castle.
Food for Thought
7/21/2021 @ CAVEAT
For our long-awaited in-person re-debut on the Caveat stage, we were joined by comedian, science communicator, and Science Friday Engagement Producer Kyle Marian for a show all about food, food, (glorious) food! In an evening amusing to both the brain and bouche, we served up a buffet of culinary facts, touching upon the science and history behind the innately human endeavor of preparing and sharing food. Tangentially, somehow, we also spent a good deal of time talking about Wales. Mwynhewch eich bwyd!
Special thanks to Kyle for gracing us with her top notch comedic and storytelling chops, to Caveat for being a home for our show and not infrequently for ourselves, and to our promo photographer Kelsey Hopland for her artistry and patience as we gallivanted around an NYC apartment kitchen playing root vegetables like musical instruments.
The audio recording of the show is up wherever you listen to your podcasts, as well as right here!
This is Your Brain on Brains
7/1/2020 9PM @ CAVEAT (LIVESTREAM)
Facts Machine had brains on the brain in their second Caveat livestream: This is Your Brain on Brains! Joined by our very special guest (neuroscientist, storyteller, rock flautist, and open-water swimmer) Dr. Paula Croxson, brains were split, the Pokemon theme was sung, and (in a sense) viral memories were made.
Keep an eye on your podcast feeds for an audio recording of the show, which we’ll be dropping this fall!
BUGS!
5/17/2020 7pm @ caveat (livestream)
Facts Machine assembled around our respective laptop screens to become, for one night only, an ARTHROpodcast! In our first Caveat livestream debut, Noah, Rob, and Em bugged out with very special guest/Punderome champion Sam Corbin over weevil aliases, waggling bees, and the so-called “sommelier of stings”.
Check out an audio recording from the show wherever you get your podcasts!
A Halloween Science Seance
10/22/2019 9pm @ caveat
Facts Machine gathered near the eve of all hallows to summon facts stranger than fiction…and also host their second live show! Spooktastic science facts were swapped, terrifyingly tricky trivia was played, and, as always, many ghastly puns were groaned over.
Special thanks to Diana Montano, event producer at WNYC’s Science Friday podcast, producer at Caveat, and our guest host extraordinaire; Caveat, proudly our home venue and our favorite basement in NYC; our house band the Trunk Pumpkins; and our promo photographer Tanya Jain.
Catch an audio recording of the show wherever you listen to the podcast, and catch you at our next one!
The Periodic Table of Elements
4/29/2019 9pm @ Caveat
Facts Machine held their inaugural live show mostly to celebrate the U.N.’s declaration of 2019 as International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements, and partly as an excuse to make a ton of egregious chemistry puns. It was an evening of science storytelling, trivia, and musical comedy held in of honor the elements that make up our universe and the people throughout history who’ve been devoted to their study. In other words, it was #combusted.
Special thanks to Rich Fisler, a high school physics and computer science teacher and our infinitely hilarious guest host; Caveat, the Lower East Side’s premier locale for nerdtastic infotainment; and our promo photographer Tessa Hirschfëld-Stölėr.
You can listen to an audio recording of the show wherever you listen to our podcast, and we hope you enjoy it nearly as much as we did!