Brainiac: Science Abuse is a British TV series, originally presented by Richard Hammond and now by Vic Reeves, assisted by Jon Tickle (a former Big Brother housemate) and an army of nameless "Brainiacs", used as human guinea-pigs. The series ran from 2003 to 2008. Ostensibly a "we make science fun" programme, it generally displays about as much scientific rigor as a dried kumquat, preferring instead to come up with a series of excuses for showing cool stuff, usually with a little bit of scientific explanation of why the stuff is cool in that way. Items include: