The Compendium: An Assembly of Fascinating Things

Biosphere 2 was meant to prove we could build a world from scratch. Instead, it became a fight to keep the air breathable and the story from turning toxic.

In 1991, eight people sealed themselves inside a vast Arizona terrarium designed to test whether a closed ecosystem could sustain human life and one day help us survive on Mars. What followed was not just a biosphere experiment under glass, but a slow collision between science, survival, collapsing oxygen levels, and a press narrative determined to call it a joke. This week, we dig into what really happened inside Biosphere 2, why the project began to unravel, and whether it was ever the failure people still think it was.

Topics include


The Biosphere 2 experiment and its original Mars habitat ambitions


Why oxygen levels dropped inside the sealed ecosystem


The biospherians, food shortages, and life inside the dome


How media coverage helped distort the story of Biosphere 2


Whether Biosphere 2 failed, or was misunderstood from the start

Resources and Further Reading

Biosphere 2 - Wikipedia

Life under the bubble - Discover magazine

The Human Experiment - by Jane Poynter

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
Intro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland
Community & Calls to Action
Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple Podcasts
Instagram: @theCompendiumPodcast
Website: thecompendiumpodcast.com
Support us: Sign up to Patreon
Circus Job Board: Apply to join the Circus
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Morgan Metzer survived a home invasion that ended with a far darker truth: the man who came to save her may have known exactly what happened.

On New Year's Eve in Canton, Georgia, a masked attacker entered a locked home, used intimate knowledge of the house, and left one woman bound, beaten, and terrified. The first person to find her was the ex-husband she still trusted, but the details of the night pointed somewhere far closer to home. This is a chilling story of gaslighting, coercive control, psychological abuse, and the case that later inspired Gaslit by My Husband.

Topics include

The New Year's Eve home invasion at the centre of Morgan Metzer's story

How gaslighting and coercive control shaped the years before the attack

The warning signs of psychological abuse hidden inside an old relationship

The real case behind Gaslit by My Husband

Resources and Further Reading

Gaslit by My Husband: The Morgan Metzer Story - Stream on Paramount

Georgia man who attacked - CBS News

From hero to villain - CBS News

Saved by Her Ex-Husband - People.com

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
Intro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland
Community & Calls to Action
Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple Podcasts
Instagram: @theCompendiumPodcast
Website: thecompendiumpodcast.com
Support us: Sign up to Patreon
Circus Job Board: Apply to join the Circus
Share this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway.

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Nellie Bly faked madness to enter Blackwell's Island asylum, then turned fearless reporting into a 72-day race around the world.

Before she became a legend, Elizabeth Cochran was a young reporter trying to force her way into a profession that barely made room for women. This episode follows her rise from sharp-tongued columnist to daring undercover journalist, as she exposes the cruelty inside Blackwell's Island, builds her reputation through investigative journalism, and catches the eye of Joseph Pulitzer. From Ten Days in a Mad House to a globe-spanning stunt that made her famous, it is a story about nerve, performance, ambition, and the price of becoming extraordinary.

Topics include:

Her early career and the making of Nellie Bly

Going undercover inside Blackwell’s Island asylum

What her investigation revealed about care, cruelty, and institutional neglect

Investigative journalism as performance, risk, and public spectacle

Joseph Pulitzer, the New York World, and the machinery of sensational reporting

Her 72-day trip around the world and the frenzy that followed

Resources and Further Reading

10 days in a madhouse - by Nellie Bly

Nellie Bly - Wikipedia

Woman & The American Story - nyhistory.org

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
Intro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland
Community & Calls to Action
Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple Podcasts
Instagram: @theCompendiumPodcast
Website: thecompendiumpodcast.com
Support us: Sign up to Patreon
Circus Job Board: Apply to join the Circus
Share this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway.

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In 2019, eBay went full villain in one of Silicon Valley’s biggest cyberstalking scandals. Today we’re diving into the fragile ego at the top, and the lengths the CEO went to in a harassment campaign against a wholesome suburban couple in Boston.

After critical posts hit a nerve, eBay’s CEO instructed their Global Security team to take down nay sayers at any cost. Today we track the emails, fake accounts, doorstep packages, and the FBI investigation that drags the whole operation into the light.

Topics include

EcommerceBytes, Ina and David Steiner, and the criticism eBay could not ignore

eBay cyberstalking tactics, fake accounts, and a harassment campaign gone rogue

Threat Matrix, private dossiers, and what Global Security thought it was doing

How the FBI traced the stalking back to eBay executives and DOJ charges

Resources and Further Reading

eBay stalking scandal - Wikipedia

Take her down - Boston Magazine

Execs Made Life Hell for Critics - Wired

USA vs. eBay - Defered Prosecution Agreement

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
Intro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland
Community & Calls to Action
Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple Podcasts
Instagram: @theCompendiumPodcast
Website: thecompendiumpodcast.com
Support us: Sign up to Patreon
Circus Job Board: Apply to join the Circus
Share this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway.

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The West Memphis Three story is a nightmare of panic, pressure, and vanished evidence, where a confession mattered more than truth.

In 1993, three eight-year-old boys vanished in West Memphis, Arkansas, then turned up murdered in Robin Hood Hills. As the Satanic Panic crept into the investigation, police chased a satanic ritual narrative and built a case around Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jesse Misskelley, fuelled by a false confession and courtroom “experts” who should never have been there. Years later, the hair evidence in a ligature knot and the Alford plea that freed them leave one brutal question hanging: if they walked out, who never got caught?

Topics include

Satanic Panic hysteria and a wrongful conviction built on fear

Jesse Misskelley’s false confession and the interrogation tactics behind it

Paradise Lost and West of Memphis, and how the documentaries shifted the case

The Alford plea, the hair evidence in the knot, and why the case stayed unresolved

DNA testing and the long fight for full exoneration

Resources and Further Reading

West Memphis Three - Wikipedia

The Satanic Panic - Wikipedia

Paradise Lost (1996) - Documentry

West of Memphis (2012) - Peter Jackson

Devil's Knot - Mara Leveritt

Host & Show Info
Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
Intro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland
Community & Calls to Action
Review & follow on: Spotify & Apple Podcasts
Instagram: @theCompendiumPodcast
Website: thecompendiumpodcast.com
Support us: Sign up to Patreon
Circus Job Board: Apply to join the Circus
Share this episode with a friend! If you enjoyed it, tag us on social media and let us know your favourite takeaway.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.