Ice Rink

Your Brain on Facts is a half-hour podcast of things you didn't know, things you thought you knew, and things you never knew you never knew, covering topics as diverse as science-fiction, funerals, food origins, heroic animals, and the strategic butter reserve. Before she started the Your Brain On Facts podcast to safely vent the copious bonus facts in her brain, Moxie LaBouche performed and produced burlesque, specifically "nerd-lesque." It was her privilege to produce the only George R. R. Martin-approved burlesque tribute to Game of Thrones and even to play for the man himself. Moxie has presented a local TED talk, is the prolific author of unfinished fiction, knows seven words of Latin, and previously earned her living as a goat farmer and soap maker. She is also the creator and co-host of the Science With Savannah, Age 7 podcast and YouTube channel. Moxie lives in Virginia with her husband and a dozen or so pets. http://yourbrainonfacts.com/ TRANSCRIPT The first public artificial ice rink, London's Glaciarium, which opened in 1841, had no ice; you skated on a layer of pig fat, salts, and copper sulfate. It fell out of favor due to the smell. A mechanically frozen rink was still 36 years away, when inventor John Gamgee repurposed a device he'd made to freeze meat for trans-oceanic shipment.