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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

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Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick,

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Speaker 3: and we're back with part two of our twenty twenty

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Speaker 3: three entry on the Eganbel Prizes. This is a collection

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Speaker 3: of awards that are given out every year by a

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Speaker 3: scientific humor journal called the Annals of Improbable Research to

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Speaker 3: honor scientific studies and articles that are in some way goofy, goobery,

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Speaker 3: or likely to cause a chuckle. Now, in the last episode,

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Speaker 3: we talked about this year's honorees in the let's see

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Speaker 3: one was in the Geology and Chemistry category and that

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Speaker 3: was about geologists licking and eating fossils. And then your study.

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Speaker 3: I can't remember what the category was, but it was

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Speaker 3: about turning dead spiders into robot hands.

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Speaker 2: Oh, yes, that was the Mechanical Engineering Prize, the Realm

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Speaker 2: of Necrobiotics.

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Speaker 3: That was a high quality entry. But we're back today

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Speaker 3: to talk about a few more of the winners that

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Speaker 3: were selected in twenty twenty three. And Rob, I think

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Speaker 3: you were going to kick things off with the Medicine Prize.

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Speaker 2: Yes, the Medicine Prize, which concerns knows hairs. So I

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Speaker 2: think this is going to be one that a lot

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Speaker 2: of I think everyone just about everyone out there is

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Speaker 2: going to find something interesting that we can all relate

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Speaker 2: to on some level. The study is the Quantification and

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Speaker 2: Measurement of nasal hairs in a cadaveric population by fam

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Speaker 2: at All. This was published in the International Journal of Dermatology.

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Speaker 2: This was in twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 3: That word cadaveric or cadaveric, whatever that is that makes

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Speaker 3: it sound like being dead, is like, I don't know,

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Speaker 3: a religion or something, you know, like oh, yes, the cadavericks.

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Speaker 2: Oh yes, or you know, like a group you need

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Speaker 2: to appeal to politically, Oh, we want to get the

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Speaker 2: cadavereck vote this year. I mean, I guess in the

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Speaker 2: past some people have gone after the cadavereck vote, but

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Speaker 2: that of course is quite illegal.

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Speaker 3: They don't get to vote. Side show Bob comes to mind.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so, yeah, this study concerns nose hair, so I

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Speaker 2: think it will be worthwhile, first of all, just to

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Speaker 2: review what and why these are. There is actually apparently

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Speaker 2: some wiggle room for debate on the exact roles that

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Speaker 2: nose hairs play, which is always kind of fascinating. You

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Speaker 2: need to hear about this because we just kind of

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Speaker 2: take them for granted or we don't even think about them.

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Speaker 2: But generally speaking, we understand them to be air filters.

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Speaker 2: As we breathe through our nose, through our nostrils, the

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Speaker 2: hairs catch dust, pollen, and other particles. All right, then

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Speaker 2: you're probably wondering, well, then what happens now my nostrils

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Speaker 2: are full of dust and hair. Well, the whole idea

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Speaker 2: here is this keeps them from going straight to your lungs. Instead,

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Speaker 2: they just wind up stuck in the mucus in your nose,

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Speaker 2: So it's eventually going to be swallowed as mucus or

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Speaker 2: blasted out of your nostrils as mucus.

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Speaker 3: So together the nose hairs and the mucus form a

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Speaker 3: kind of like one two defense system for a particle

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Speaker 3: matter getting into your respiratory system.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's by and large the primary understanding of what

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Speaker 2: they're doing. So if that being the case, they serve

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Speaker 2: an important purpose, and more nose hairs may even help

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Speaker 2: boost our protection at least in some situations with some

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Speaker 2: potential illnesses. There was a believe a twenty eleven study

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Speaker 2: from ostark at All that found that nasal hair density

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Speaker 2: can prevent asthma in patience with seasonal rhinitis, that's inflammation

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Speaker 2: and irritation of the mucous membrane of the nose. Ah.

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Speaker 3: I never thought of that before. So having a hairier

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Speaker 3: nose could in some situations have benefits.

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Speaker 2: Right, not necessarily just across the board, but again in

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Speaker 2: some situations with some particular ailments. Uh huh.

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Speaker 3: Of course.

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Speaker 2: The thing about nasal hair is that outside of these particulars,

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Speaker 2: we tend not to view it as an attractive feature.

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Speaker 2: I was. I was looking around about this because I

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Speaker 2: was thinking, Okay, you know, with things like eyebrows and

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Speaker 2: so forth, there are often cultural differences. You know, what

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Speaker 2: one culture and in one time period finds, as you know, repulsive,

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Speaker 2: and other finds as attractive, and you know, and so forth.

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Speaker 2: But I was looking around and I couldn't immediately find

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Speaker 2: any convincing cases where particular culture, in any period of

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Speaker 2: human history went just all in on the beauty of nosehair.

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Speaker 3: I cannot think of an example, though it sounds like

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Speaker 3: one of those things you wouldn't be surprised if you

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Speaker 3: came across a line in like the song of songs.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's like your nosehairs are like the you know,

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Speaker 3: the eyelashes of butterflies or whatever.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's the kind of thing I was half

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Speaker 2: expecting to find it maybe out there. If anyone knows

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Speaker 2: of anything like that, certainly right in and let us know.

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Speaker 2: I have. I did run across a couple of sort

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Speaker 2: of like joke videos or articles where if someone was

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Speaker 2: putting like fake eyelashes lashes on their nostrils and saying like, oh,

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Speaker 2: this is the new fad. But as far as I

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Speaker 2: can tell, that's just just humor. But yeah, for the

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Speaker 2: most part, nose hair is something we're either just blissfully

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Speaker 2: ignorant of. You don't know what your nose hairs are

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Speaker 2: up to, or, as is the case I think with

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Speaker 2: many of us, you end up being painfully aware of

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Speaker 2: what your nose hairs are up to, and you're actively

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Speaker 2: trying to keep them in check, you know, especially as

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Speaker 2: you get older and nose hairs begin to get thicker

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Speaker 2: and longer. Well than it's it's just a constant battle

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Speaker 2: because your body has seems to have decided, you know

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Speaker 2: what we're all in on nose hair. We're all in

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Speaker 2: on ear hair. We don't have enough of any of

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Speaker 2: these categories. Let's just start pumping it out.

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Speaker 3: Strange that it does not do the same for head

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Speaker 3: hair as you get older.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and often it can. It can feel like

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Speaker 2: a weird like, why aren't you growing more on the

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Speaker 2: top of the head. Come on, why are you? Why

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Speaker 2: are you diversifying? Like, just focus on the head. So. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: as humans age, the body seems to put increasing emphasis

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Speaker 2: on the need to grow ear and nose hair. This

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Speaker 2: is thought to be due to antigen's sensitivity or the

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Speaker 2: long term exposure of hair fallcules to hormones, so you

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Speaker 2: end up with the hair possibly growing longer and thicker.

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Speaker 2: This is annoying, I think across the board, I don't

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Speaker 2: think anybody celebrates this so much. Again, unless there's a

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Speaker 2: particular culture or particular time period that I'm missing, and

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Speaker 2: I did not look up ear hair, So it's possible

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Speaker 2: that there's some sort of caveat where you know, particular

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Speaker 2: time and place. Very furry ears we're in fashion. But

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Speaker 2: at least with nose hair, you know, not necessarily a

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Speaker 2: bad thing. Again, with certain ailments, in certain environmental conditions.

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Speaker 2: So for the most part, for cosmetic reasons, we often

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Speaker 2: try to keep our nose hairs in check. We do

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Speaker 2: things like cut them or trim them. We also them

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Speaker 2: or pluck them. I've never had the ladder, but I

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Speaker 2: understand this to be quite quite an experience because, of course,

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Speaker 2: you know, your nostril is very sensitive. So if anyone

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Speaker 2: has any firsthand experience with the waxing or plucking of

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Speaker 2: all their nose hairs, let us know. But doctors tend

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Speaker 2: to advise it in order to avoid infections and ingrown hairs,

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Speaker 2: which can be quite painful in that sensitive nasal region,

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Speaker 2: you're better off sticking to cutting and trimming. They seem

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Speaker 2: to believe that, you know, cutting and trimming, all right,

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Speaker 2: that's fine, go ahead and do it, keep things in check.

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Speaker 2: Waxing and plucking maybe reconsider that.

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Speaker 3: Wait by plucking. Okay, So I've never waxed my nose,

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Speaker 3: But to get maybe too much information out there, I

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Speaker 3: mean I have and I've never plucked in the sense

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Speaker 3: of pulling out all of my nose hair, but I

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Speaker 3: have had like one wild nose hair just sort of

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Speaker 3: like go and doink out in the wrong direction, and

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Speaker 3: what are you supposed to do about that? In that

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Speaker 3: case I have plucked that that nose hair out. Is

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Speaker 3: that something I shouldn't do?

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Speaker 2: According to the articles I was looking at, Yeah, dermatologists

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Speaker 2: tend to say you're better off not doing that. You're

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Speaker 2: better off isolating that here and trimming it, you know,

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Speaker 2: or trimming all of them. But but then again, it's

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Speaker 2: like you're just kind of it's not like that here

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Speaker 2: is definitely going to get infected when you pluck it,

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Speaker 2: you know. I think people different experiences will will play

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Speaker 2: out different ways. Okay, but but yeah, certainly what do

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Speaker 2: you do in that that long one grows? There's there?

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Speaker 2: The recent Perry Mason TV show was quite good and

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Speaker 2: John Lithgalt has a has a part in the first

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Speaker 2: season as an elderly attorney who is going through all

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Speaker 2: of these various age related crisses but also just you know,

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Speaker 2: professional as well. But there's a part where he goes

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Speaker 2: on this big he's railing against the young Perry Mason

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Speaker 2: and telling him one day you'll wake up and you'll

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Speaker 2: have a nose hair as long as your arm and

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Speaker 2: so forth. So yeah, it's just it's just part of

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Speaker 2: getting older. But yeah, go ahead and trim them, say

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Speaker 2: the dermatologists. But coming back to the study, because yes,

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Speaker 2: we have a study here that concerns counting those hairs

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Speaker 2: of the dead. And I think it's easy to think

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Speaker 2: to sort of get into shrimp on a treadmill territory

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Speaker 2: when judging the set face value and say, well, why

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Speaker 2: is this necessary? Why are you You're counting nose hairs,

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Speaker 2: which sounds like just a metaphor for wasting time, and

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Speaker 2: you're doing it with the dead. What's the purpose here? Well,

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Speaker 2: the study, according to the study itself, they're they're ultimately

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Speaker 2: concerned with things like individuals with alopecia. In medical conditions,

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Speaker 2: you know, where one does not have hair, and we

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Speaker 2: often think of that as well, we think of a

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Speaker 2: head hair, we think of body hair. But of course

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Speaker 2: that's also going to impact your nostrils as well. So

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Speaker 2: think about everything we just talked about. If you just naturally,

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Speaker 2: due to this condition, do not have nostril hairs, you're

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Speaker 2: missing out on the benefits of this built in filtration system, right, Okay,

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Speaker 2: And therefore the author's stress quote the quantification of nasal

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Speaker 2: hairs and the effects of lack of nasal hairs on

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Speaker 2: a patient's quality of life has yet to be assessed.

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Speaker 3: So here's where they're going to start recruiting people of

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Speaker 3: the cadaveric persuasion.

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Speaker 2: Exactly well with the general idea of being like they're

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Speaker 2: going to start with cadavers, and future studies can look

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Speaker 2: at live human beings. But for this small study, they

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Speaker 2: looked at twenty cadavers, ten men and ten women with

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Speaker 2: the mean age of eighty three. They found the average

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Speaker 2: nasal hair count amounts to one hundred and twenty in

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Speaker 2: the left and one hundred and twenty two point two

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Speaker 2: in the right. Hairs were individually counted and removed. And Joe,

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Speaker 2: if you'll look down in the outline that we share here,

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Speaker 2: I copy and pasted an image from the study where

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Speaker 2: you can actually the cadaver's nose. If you're trying to

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Speaker 2: picture how they counted them. It does appear that they

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Speaker 2: bisected the nostril, cut it in half, and then that

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Speaker 2: enabled them to get at the nose hairs better. I

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Speaker 2: don't think they read the full study. I don't know

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Speaker 2: that they specifically said that this was their methodology, but

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Speaker 2: clearly in the photo the nose has been sought in

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Speaker 2: half and you see them. It's showing off the nasal

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Speaker 2: hairs for plucking in counting.

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Speaker 3: I'm really glad you included this visual. It does have

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Speaker 3: a strong heavy metal album cover energy. And oh man, yes,

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Speaker 3: the kind of gray matrix of hair that is like

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Speaker 3: further up in the cavity. I guess you don't think

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Speaker 3: about that. I don't know. I think of nose hairs

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Speaker 3: as being something that's more just like down near the

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Speaker 3: opening of the nostril, but it looks like they go back.

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Speaker 2: Well, they do get into this a bit, yeah, like

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Speaker 2: where is it thickest. So they found no significant differences

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Speaker 2: count wise between male and female nose hairs, and it

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Speaker 2: seems to be more or less the same history of

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Speaker 2: heart disease did not impact the count but they found

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Speaker 2: cancer related deaths lined up with lower counts overall, but

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Speaker 2: they suspect cancer related therapies or the culprit here and

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Speaker 2: they didn't have all of the medical histories on all

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Speaker 2: of the cadavers to be one hundred percent certain. No

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Speaker 2: significant location differences between nostrils, and they also stress that

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Speaker 2: the shortcomings of the study are of course the small

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Speaker 2: size of the study, the older ages of the subjects

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Speaker 2: who you know died at advanced age and the lack

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Speaker 2: of demographic and personal details. They add that the anterior

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Speaker 2: location of follicles supports their presumed role as a protective filter.

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Speaker 2: So more hairs upfront, because this is where you'd want

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Speaker 2: to start intercepting the particles, even if it makes this

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Speaker 2: more annoying from a cosmetic level. So you know, this

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Speaker 2: is why nose hairs may make protrude, because that's where

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Speaker 2: they are situated, because it makes sense to catch all

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Speaker 2: that stuff, okay, And of course they drive home that

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Speaker 2: they want to do future studies with live test subjects,

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Speaker 2: of course without sawing noses in half, I would imagine

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Speaker 2: in this case. And they will also want to look

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Speaker 2: at people with and without alopecia to better understand the

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Speaker 2: role of nose hairs and the ramifications of their absence.

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Speaker 2: So they seem to drive home that this by and

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Speaker 2: large just an area that we don't have enough data on.

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Speaker 2: And this is also an area where we can appreciate

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Speaker 2: the article beyond its silliness, right, because like your nose

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Speaker 2: is right there, it's right on your face. It's a

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Speaker 2: vital part of our body and we should better understand it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and I would imagine that depending on what they find,

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Speaker 3: this could possibly lead to better treatments or preventative measures

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Speaker 3: for people. For example, if someone has alopecia or some

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Speaker 3: other or has undergone cancer treatment, or has some kind

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Speaker 3: of condition that has rendered them with fewer nose harris

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Speaker 3: than they would normally have, and they also have asthmas

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Speaker 3: something like that, that you might want to have a

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Speaker 3: kind of nose hair prosthesis or something that would do

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Speaker 3: something similar.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. They stress that, like, basically, we need to

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Speaker 2: learn more and then probably sort of reevaluate our guidelines

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Speaker 2: for what do we do with people who are lacking

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Speaker 2: nose hairs. So they you know, they stress that synthetic

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Speaker 2: barriers are probably important, but we need to know how important.

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Speaker 2: And what's been done in the past has been using

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Speaker 2: things like aligning of petroleum jelly in the nostril in

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Speaker 2: place of hair, but they say that that's generally not

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Speaker 2: favored by patients. So I'm guessing that's not pleasant to

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Speaker 2: put up with. And so it's just an area where

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Speaker 2: more more information is required, updated guidelines are required, and

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Speaker 2: who knows, maybe there's some sort of new approach that

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Speaker 2: could be developed. So again, this is just a perfect

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Speaker 2: Ignobel Prize winner because it's just inherently funny because it

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Speaker 2: is about nose hairs. Nose hairs are hilarious, There's no

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Speaker 2: good getting around it. They're not so hilarious when you're

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Speaker 2: plucking them or trimming them, or noticing them in the

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Speaker 2: rear view mirror on your way to a you know,

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Speaker 2: a job interview or what have you. But are they

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Speaker 2: are nice? The fact that we're dealing with the nosehirs

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Speaker 2: of corpses, of course, adds that extra kind of gallows

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Speaker 2: humor to the affair. But on the other hand, it's

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Speaker 2: important because again the nose is right there in the

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Speaker 2: center of your face. It plays a very important role

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Speaker 2: in our sensory understanding of the world and our breathing,

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Speaker 2: in our health, and so the more we understand it,

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Speaker 2: the more we can understand, you know, our own health

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Speaker 2: and how to and also how to look out for

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Speaker 2: folks who are lacking in those here for one reason

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Speaker 2: or the other, either you know, do it alopecia or

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Speaker 2: due to cancer therapies or SPA treatments.

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Speaker 3: Of course, Rob, are you ready to move on to

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Speaker 3: the next one.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so what do you have for us, Joe?

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Speaker 3: Okay, I'm gonna be talking about the twenty twenty three

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Speaker 3: Education Prize which they gave two let's see, it goes

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Speaker 3: to Katie tam Cyanea Poun, Victoria Huie Winan van Tilberg,

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Speaker 3: Christy Wong, Vivian Kwong, gigu In and Christian Chan for

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Speaker 3: a pair of studies trying to explore the limits of

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Speaker 3: just how boring school can get. No, I should note

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Speaker 3: of special relevance to the IGNO Bells themselves. We rarely

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Speaker 3: watch the awards ceremony for the Ignoblls, but I think

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Speaker 3: they usually upload a video and I've definitely seen some

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Speaker 3: of the award ceremonies in the past. Anyway, I recall

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Speaker 3: from previous years they have this tradition where when an

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Speaker 3: honorees speech is going on too long, you know how

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Speaker 3: at the Oscars they have the music come in to

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Speaker 3: play people off. It's like, Okay, that's enough, you know,

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Speaker 3: it's time to move on to the next thing. Instead

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Speaker 3: of having the Oscar orchestra come in, they have a

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Speaker 3: child who walks up and starts whining into the microphone,

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Speaker 3: saying please stop I'm bored.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And if you want to watch that video or

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Speaker 2: get the full list of winners from this year past years,

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Speaker 2: go to Improbable dot com.

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Speaker 3: So this research on boredom is, I think, not as

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Speaker 3: hilarious as the Dead Spider hand or some of the

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Speaker 3: other prodigies in the pure weirdness category that we've covered before.

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Speaker 3: But I still think it's pretty clear why the idea

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Speaker 3: of research on boredom is funny. It seems thematically recursive

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Speaker 3: for some reason. The idea of scientifically studying boredom seems

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Speaker 3: itself incredibly boring and also possibly of trifling consequence to society.

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Speaker 3: But I picked this award because I think it's one

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Speaker 3: of those subjects where our initial judgments about salience are

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Speaker 3: totally wrong. I think the psychology of boredom is actually

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Speaker 3: a potentially enthralling topic. It's the sort of photo negative

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Speaker 3: of the question what are the sorts of experiences that

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Speaker 3: people find most effortlessly absorbing and why? And what could

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Speaker 3: be more fascinating than discovering the hidden principles underlying fascination itself.

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Speaker 3: It's a good point, and understanding boredom is a really

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Speaker 3: important part of that picture. Also, I would argue against

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Speaker 3: the intuition that boredom is like a trivial subject or

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Speaker 3: something that is not of much societal impact. I think

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Speaker 3: boredom has huge social consequences, and I want to mention

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Speaker 3: a couple of ways. Of course, it's true that boredom

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Speaker 3: has huge consequences in education, where as both of these

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Speaker 3: studies note boredom in the classroom is associated with a

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Speaker 3: range of negative outcomes studies in the past. They go

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Speaker 3: over a bunch of these papers in their background sections.

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Speaker 3: They say, studies in the past have found that being

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Speaker 3: bored in class is associated with quote lower dedication to learning,

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Speaker 3: lower effort, lower learning motivation, poorer time management, more attention problems,

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Speaker 3: and lower class attendance. Extensive evidence has demonstrated a negative

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Speaker 3: impact of boredom on academic performance, and they cite a

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Speaker 3: bunch of studies and to back this up. The evidence

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Speaker 3: is pretty clear being bored in class is not only

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Speaker 3: unpleasant for the student, it is not good for educational outcomes.

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Speaker 3: But also I think the subject of boredom has broader consequences.

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Speaker 3: For example, this is not something that these researchers discuss

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Speaker 3: at all, but I am personally of the opinion that

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Speaker 3: one of the most poisonous trends brought on by media

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Speaker 3: technologies like TV and the Internet and social media is

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Speaker 3: the rise of what I would call an entertainment based epistemology,

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Speaker 3: a tendency to believe things are true and important simply

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Speaker 3: because they hold your interest because they're entertaining or interesting,

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Speaker 3: and to assume things are either false or important if

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Speaker 3: they bore you. I can't prove this is true, but

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Speaker 3: I strongly believe this, and I think this helps explain

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Speaker 3: a lot of otherwise confounding social phenomena. For example, I

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Speaker 3: think I've mentioned this exact idea on the podcast before,

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Speaker 3: but I think there is a really underappreciated explanation for

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Speaker 3: the mass appeal of conspiracy theories, and that is that

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Speaker 3: they are entertaining. A lot of the popular explanations for

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Speaker 3: the appeal of conspiracy theories is based in anxieties and

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Speaker 3: the need for explanatory closure on ambiguous phenomena, and you know,

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Speaker 3: the search for explanations and all that, and I'm sure

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Speaker 3: those play play a role too, but I personally think

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Speaker 3: entertainment is like a huge and under explored factor in

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Speaker 3: what makes these things so popular. A lot of conspiracy

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Speaker 3: theories offer a fascinating, absorbing, Hollywood style narrative to explain

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Speaker 3: something in the world, world, something that is interesting. It

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Speaker 3: effortlessly holds your attention, when like a more parsimonious explanation

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Speaker 3: based on evidence would be kind of boring.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. It's so

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Speaker 2: many of the like even if you don't get in,

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Speaker 2: even if you are not a conspiracy theorist, if you

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Speaker 2: would not say that you're a you know, if you

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Speaker 2: don't follow the boards, you don't actually believe in any

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Speaker 2: of it. You or they'll say you don't believe in

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Speaker 2: the various theories and what have you. You can you still

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Speaker 2: probably find them amusing on some level, at least on

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Speaker 2: that Can you believe what these people believe the level

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Speaker 2: of things you know, or just look at look at

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Speaker 2: this you know this data, then look how they're interpreting it.

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Speaker 2: And of course that can, as we've discussed before, like

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Speaker 2: that can also be kind of a gateway into learning

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Speaker 2: more about it and maybe being overwhelmed by some of

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Speaker 2: the ideas.

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Speaker 3: I think that's exactly right, and I think it's also

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Speaker 3: it's more than just what we would call strictly conspiracy theories.

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Speaker 3: I think there are generally a lot of people who

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Speaker 3: just get into highly speculative, highly speculative belief systems with

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Speaker 3: a poor basis and evidence, let's call it that. Starting

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Speaker 3: off just like being kind of like, what's this, I'll

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Speaker 3: watch a video. Oh, this is kind of entertaining. But

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Speaker 3: as you spend time with ideas, even if you don't

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Speaker 3: initially believe them, often they will come to become more

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Speaker 3: appealing to you because you're spending time with them. Almost

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Speaker 3: kind of a social reinforcement effect sets in the same

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Speaker 3: way that when you spend time around people, their beliefs

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Speaker 3: start seeming more reasonable to you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. And also, as we've said before, a lot of

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Speaker 2: these ideas provide kind of a shortcut to wonder, a

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Speaker 2: shortcut to individual or cosmic significance. You know, places you

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Speaker 2: can get to through science through a you know, actual

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Speaker 2: understanding of of of evolution or or or you know

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Speaker 2: or or the you know, the history of the universe

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Speaker 2: as we understand it. But aliens, however, often provide a

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Speaker 2: short cut to that point.

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Speaker 3: Yes, a short cut to explanatory closure, and one that

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Speaker 3: is just it just holds your attention easily, Like, you

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Speaker 3: don't have to put in much work to keep thinking

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Speaker 3: about it. It's just fascinating.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Anyway, So if we are to an extent correct about

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Speaker 3: that belief about the you know, the pandemic of entertainment

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Speaker 3: based epistemology thinking something's true just because it's it's interesting

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Speaker 3: or exciting, then it's incredibly meaningful to all of us

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Speaker 3: to have a better understanding of how human interest is

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Speaker 3: cultivated and also how boredom sets in. Though even if

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Speaker 3: we're wrong about the societal trend, it's still a really

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Speaker 3: important question for educators and other communication based professions. Boredom,

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Speaker 3: by any measure, I think is a really serious object

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Speaker 3: of study.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, as a as a parent, I

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Speaker 2: guess a topic that comes up again and again, and

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Speaker 2: my wife and I frequently have discussions about, like, do

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Speaker 2: do the youth of today understand how to be bored?

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Speaker 2: Do they know what boredom is? You know, they're like

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Speaker 2: they have so many different streams of entertainment and information

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Speaker 2: coming into their lives. And then also like, I think

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Speaker 2: you need tools to deal with boredom and and or

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Speaker 2: transform your boredom because there are going to be times

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Speaker 2: in your life where you're going to be bored and

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Speaker 2: you're going to have to be able to defind ways

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Speaker 2: out of it or through it yourself.

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Speaker 3: Okay, So to look at these actual studies themselves. The

432
00:24:27,119 --> 00:24:32,000
Speaker 3: first study was called Boredom Begets Boredom and Experienced Sampling

433
00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:36,240
Speaker 3: Study on the Impact of Teacher Boredom on Student Boredom

434
00:24:36,320 --> 00:24:40,160
Speaker 3: and Motivation, published in the British Journal of Educational Psychology

435
00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:43,000
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty. The subjects were four hundred and thirty

436
00:24:43,040 --> 00:24:46,040
Speaker 3: seven students mean age fourteen and a half years and

437
00:24:46,200 --> 00:24:49,439
Speaker 3: seventeen of their teachers, and the study set out to

438
00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:56,040
Speaker 3: determine quote, the relationship between teacher boredom, students perceived teacher boredom,

439
00:24:56,520 --> 00:25:01,200
Speaker 3: student boredom, and student learning motivation and rob This is

440
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:05,359
Speaker 3: one where I can identify from personal experience. I have

441
00:25:05,480 --> 00:25:08,959
Speaker 3: had the experience of being a teacher and being bored

442
00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:11,480
Speaker 3: by what I was teaching, but trying not to let

443
00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:14,760
Speaker 3: the students know that, having to kind of like fake

444
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:17,440
Speaker 3: it to like push through and okay, no, no, no,

445
00:25:17,600 --> 00:25:19,720
Speaker 3: because they'll they'll know if you're bored. I had a

446
00:25:19,760 --> 00:25:21,879
Speaker 3: sense of it back then. They'll know if you're bored

447
00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:25,399
Speaker 3: and so you got to really like put on a

448
00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:27,760
Speaker 3: happy face and get into it even if you're not

449
00:25:27,800 --> 00:25:28,280
Speaker 3: feeling it.

450
00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:31,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I think on one level or another, we

451
00:25:31,320 --> 00:25:34,240
Speaker 2: at least know the Hollywood version of what a bored

452
00:25:34,280 --> 00:25:36,679
Speaker 2: teacher looks like. We think of, say Ben Stein in

453
00:25:36,720 --> 00:25:40,560
Speaker 2: Ferris Beeler's Day Off, or any other various pop culture

454
00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:45,040
Speaker 2: manifestations of the same principle, like, this boring individual is bored,

455
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:48,280
Speaker 2: and I am also feeling the boredom that is just

456
00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:49,919
Speaker 2: flowing off of them in waves.

457
00:25:50,440 --> 00:25:55,960
Speaker 3: So the researchers collected a two week experience diary from

458
00:25:56,040 --> 00:26:00,439
Speaker 3: the subjects that included experiences in classroom lectures, and the

459
00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:04,840
Speaker 3: findings were indeed that teacher boredom was negatively associated with

460
00:26:04,880 --> 00:26:10,200
Speaker 3: student motivation. Bored teachers made students less motivated, and they

461
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:15,120
Speaker 3: write about their conclusions, quote perceiving teachers being bored promoted

462
00:26:15,160 --> 00:26:18,480
Speaker 3: students own feeling of boredom, which in turn reduced their

463
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:22,000
Speaker 3: learning motivation. They say, quote when a teacher is bored

464
00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:25,679
Speaker 3: in class, or when students perceive that their teacher is bored.

465
00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:27,720
Speaker 3: So maybe if it seems like they're bored even though

466
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:32,639
Speaker 3: they're not, students would have lower learning motivation. Makes sense, okay.

467
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:37,199
Speaker 3: Second study this was called whatever will Will bore? The

468
00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:42,359
Speaker 3: mere anticipation of boredom exacerbates its occurrence in lectures. This

469
00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:45,840
Speaker 3: was also published in the British Journal of Educational Psychology

470
00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:50,680
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, and this paper included three studies attempting

471
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:54,399
Speaker 3: to measure whether expecting to be bored by an experience

472
00:26:54,840 --> 00:26:58,879
Speaker 3: makes you more likely to actually be bored by it. So,

473
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:03,480
Speaker 3: in the first couple of studies, they used natural university

474
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:07,639
Speaker 3: lecture environments, so just like students going to their own classes,

475
00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:11,359
Speaker 3: and they asked students ahead of time, and they found

476
00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:14,639
Speaker 3: that students who expected to be bored in a lecture

477
00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:17,800
Speaker 3: later did report that it was more boring than students

478
00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 3: who didn't expect to be bored. But you could say, okay, well,

479
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:24,600
Speaker 3: but maybe that's some there's some other confounding factor there,

480
00:27:24,640 --> 00:27:26,919
Speaker 3: like maybe if you're if you were the kind of

481
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:29,760
Speaker 3: student who expects to be bored, you're also just more

482
00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:33,240
Speaker 3: likely to be bored in general. So in a third study,

483
00:27:33,600 --> 00:27:38,159
Speaker 3: they experimentally manipulated anticipated boredom, so they were going to

484
00:27:38,320 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 3: show students a lecture video and they had a test

485
00:27:41,320 --> 00:27:45,600
Speaker 3: group where they made students more likely to expect boredom,

486
00:27:45,960 --> 00:27:50,000
Speaker 3: and they found yes, in this manipulated sample group, they did.

487
00:27:50,119 --> 00:27:53,399
Speaker 3: The students who did anticipate higher levels of boredom felt

488
00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:55,199
Speaker 3: more bored by the video lecture.

489
00:27:55,560 --> 00:27:57,439
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think this is an important area because I

490
00:27:57,480 --> 00:27:59,600
Speaker 2: hear from my son regarding his class. It's like their

491
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:02,960
Speaker 2: classes he loves, and then the classes where he expects

492
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:05,679
Speaker 2: to be bored And I haven't approached it from this

493
00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:07,960
Speaker 2: angle before, Like I need to talk to him about

494
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:11,880
Speaker 2: like expectations of boredom equally boredom. But also it makes

495
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:15,119
Speaker 2: me think about like the social pressure of thinking a

496
00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:17,719
Speaker 2: class is boring and the effect that would have, you know,

497
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 2: like it seems, you know, this pervasive idea that I

498
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:26,360
Speaker 2: think is often compounded by media, the idea that ah

499
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:30,080
Speaker 2: Man school school sucks, teachers suck, the you know, classes

500
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:32,720
Speaker 2: are boring. It's just something you got to get through

501
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:34,359
Speaker 2: so you can get back to tears from the kingdom

502
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:39,000
Speaker 2: or whatever, so tears off the Kingdom. Sorry sorry sell defense,

503
00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:42,960
Speaker 2: but at any rate, Yeah, like understanding and being able

504
00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:46,600
Speaker 2: to sort of be aware of yourself within a bored

505
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 2: state seems important.

506
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:51,240
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So I've got a couple of points I

507
00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:53,280
Speaker 3: want to make First of all, I want to say

508
00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:56,280
Speaker 3: we say this a lot, but to anybody reacting to

509
00:28:56,360 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 3: these studies with like, well I could have told you that,

510
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:01,960
Speaker 3: or like why do they have to test that? That's obvious?

511
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 3: Science is full of findings that are counterintuitive, where your

512
00:29:06,520 --> 00:29:10,520
Speaker 3: hunches are wrong. You will never discover those unless you check.

513
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:13,640
Speaker 3: So until you actually put your hunches to the test,

514
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:17,440
Speaker 3: you don't really know. So I would just always encourage

515
00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:20,320
Speaker 3: people don't react that way when a study finds something

516
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:23,800
Speaker 3: and you feel like, well, that's obvious, why would you

517
00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:25,880
Speaker 3: test for that? Yeah, but there are tons of things

518
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:28,760
Speaker 3: that are true that are not obvious, so like you

519
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:31,680
Speaker 3: should check anyway, put things to the test. Even if

520
00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:33,920
Speaker 3: it seems like, yeah, obviously that's true, a lot of

521
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 3: times it's not true.

522
00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:37,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, And if it is true, you want to know

523
00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:39,440
Speaker 2: how true it is. I mean, kind of going back

524
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:41,760
Speaker 2: to the nose hairs thing, like, yeah, even though we

525
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:44,680
Speaker 2: suspect that this is the case, it makes sense to

526
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:48,800
Speaker 2: test it more, to do counts, to look at medical

527
00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:51,280
Speaker 2: histories of individuals with and without nose hair and see

528
00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:52,720
Speaker 2: how it all lines up.

529
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:55,160
Speaker 3: So that's the first point. But the second thing is

530
00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:59,600
Speaker 3: coming back to your idea. Yeah, about about like your

531
00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 3: son's expectations of boredom in certain classes in school, and

532
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:06,960
Speaker 3: all that this second paper was to me. It was

533
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:11,600
Speaker 3: suggesting interesting questions about the role of volition in boredom.

534
00:30:12,120 --> 00:30:16,280
Speaker 3: For example, I have memories of when I was a kid,

535
00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:20,320
Speaker 3: I would go to church, and I remember thinking that

536
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:24,280
Speaker 3: church was boring. It would feel like it was going

537
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:27,160
Speaker 3: on forever, and I would want it to be over

538
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:30,080
Speaker 3: so we could leave and I could have lunch or whatever.

539
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:35,360
Speaker 3: I also remember feeling bad for feeling this way. I

540
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:40,120
Speaker 3: remember feeling guilty that I was having these sacrilegious thoughts

541
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:44,400
Speaker 3: or emotional reactions, and that it was basically immoral of

542
00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:47,000
Speaker 3: me to be bored by church. You know, we're coming

543
00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:49,560
Speaker 3: here to worship the creator of the universe. Shouldn't this

544
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:52,280
Speaker 3: be the most interesting thing we ever do in our

545
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:56,800
Speaker 3: whole lives? And so I can remember making conscious effort

546
00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 3: to convince myself that church was not going to be boring.

547
00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:03,719
Speaker 3: It was going to be really really interesting, and I

548
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:08,000
Speaker 3: was going to feel really really interested by it. And

549
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:11,760
Speaker 3: I was trying to think, like, I don't really fully

550
00:31:11,800 --> 00:31:13,720
Speaker 3: know the answer to this question. I was thinking, did

551
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 3: those efforts work. I remember thinking like that, But did

552
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:20,920
Speaker 3: that actually make me less bored? I think it sort

553
00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 3: of worked, like I think I could partially talk myself

554
00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:29,880
Speaker 3: into being less bored by an experience I found naturally boring,

555
00:31:30,360 --> 00:31:33,400
Speaker 3: but there was still some kind of cognitive dissonance there.

556
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:37,240
Speaker 3: And I don't know if that actually made the underlying

557
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:42,360
Speaker 3: boredom more or more bearable or less bearable in some way.

558
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:43,040
Speaker 3: I don't know.

559
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:47,800
Speaker 2: Hmmm, this is interesting. Now. My apologies to my mother

560
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:52,080
Speaker 2: if she's listening, but I would agree that church is boring.

561
00:31:52,680 --> 00:31:54,640
Speaker 2: I have most of my memories of going to church

562
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:59,520
Speaker 2: as a child were of being bored. I think, you know,

563
00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:01,680
Speaker 2: I mean, I think part of it is like you

564
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 2: know what, age is the material aimed at you know,

565
00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:07,280
Speaker 2: in the you know what and so forth, And as

566
00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:10,000
Speaker 2: an adult, you're you're often maybe more, there's more in

567
00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:13,000
Speaker 2: the like the sermon that is aimed at you. As

568
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:15,480
Speaker 2: an adult, you you kind of have a built up

569
00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:18,920
Speaker 2: appreciation for the music you're singing in the church culture

570
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:21,760
Speaker 2: you're in the in the middle of. But also I

571
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:25,520
Speaker 2: look back and I remember, like three things come to mind.

572
00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:27,640
Speaker 2: First of all, you learned how to deal with your

573
00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:29,680
Speaker 2: own boredom, and if you were bored, you you know,

574
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:34,120
Speaker 2: you fostered some sort of imagination and and so you know,

575
00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:36,920
Speaker 2: I would sort of go into daydreamland if if I

576
00:32:36,960 --> 00:32:39,280
Speaker 2: wasn't engaged with what was going on. But I also

577
00:32:39,360 --> 00:32:44,040
Speaker 2: remember that the other side of it is like generally

578
00:32:44,040 --> 00:32:46,280
Speaker 2: there's a Bible there that you can use, right next

579
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:48,440
Speaker 2: to the hymnal, and so I would often pick that

580
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:51,240
Speaker 2: up because it's like it's okay, most books you can't

581
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:53,360
Speaker 2: have out during the sermon, but you can have a

582
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:55,840
Speaker 2: Bible out, and there's all sorts of weird stuff going

583
00:32:55,880 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 2: on in that Bible. So oh yeah, if you're not

584
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:00,920
Speaker 2: you know, if you're not checked in on that sermon,

585
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 2: well you can go see what sort of strange war

586
00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:07,120
Speaker 2: or magical scenario is happening in the Old Testament, you know,

587
00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:10,480
Speaker 2: flip around, see what see what happens. Uh.

588
00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 3: This may be more my adult perspective than my perspective

589
00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 3: at the time, but I totally agree church may have

590
00:33:15,760 --> 00:33:19,200
Speaker 3: been boring, but the Bible is not. The Bible is awesome.

591
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:22,400
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, even in churches today, I think

592
00:33:22,440 --> 00:33:25,200
Speaker 2: it's it's still a challenge, like how do you can

593
00:33:25,360 --> 00:33:27,840
Speaker 2: you can take kids out of those those sermons. Uh,

594
00:33:28,280 --> 00:33:30,240
Speaker 2: And you can take and send them to a kid's church,

595
00:33:30,280 --> 00:33:32,360
Speaker 2: but then eventually there's a cut off point where they're

596
00:33:32,360 --> 00:33:35,680
Speaker 2: in there with everyone else. And uh. And I'm you know,

597
00:33:35,760 --> 00:33:40,400
Speaker 2: talking mainly from a you know, a Protestant background here,

598
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:43,600
Speaker 2: but I imagine this is true of so many religions that

599
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:47,040
Speaker 2: eventually there is going to be a worship service that

600
00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 2: is aimed at the community at large, and younger people

601
00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 2: are just not going to be into it as much.

602
00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:56,960
Speaker 2: And how do you keep them engaged? Yeah? How do you?

603
00:33:57,000 --> 00:33:59,120
Speaker 2: How do you deal with that challenge? So I'm sure

604
00:33:59,120 --> 00:34:00,440
Speaker 2: a lot I'm sure a lot of people we've given

605
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:04,280
Speaker 2: this a lot of thought throughout history. But but yeah,

606
00:34:04,320 --> 00:34:06,880
Speaker 2: it's it's, it's, it's. It seems seems like it's probably

607
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 2: a universal conundrum because you can't just make the church

608
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:13,040
Speaker 2: service exciting for the for the young people, because then

609
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:15,520
Speaker 2: are the older people going to be into it? I

610
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:17,399
Speaker 2: guess you end up having two services. I know that's

611
00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:18,680
Speaker 2: something with a lot of places do.

612
00:34:19,239 --> 00:34:21,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know how I would feel now with

613
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:24,759
Speaker 3: my adult perspective, though I do remember I think there

614
00:34:24,840 --> 00:34:27,600
Speaker 3: is a some not quite the same way, because there

615
00:34:27,640 --> 00:34:31,480
Speaker 3: wasn't like a you know, a threat of supernatural authority

616
00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:33,640
Speaker 3: hanging over it. But I think I can recall also

617
00:34:34,200 --> 00:34:37,480
Speaker 3: to a lesser extent, similar things in like some college classes,

618
00:34:37,560 --> 00:34:41,920
Speaker 3: where I would be like sometimes feeling truthfully a little

619
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:44,640
Speaker 3: bit bored in say one of my literature classes, but

620
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:47,400
Speaker 3: also being like, but the person I want to be

621
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 3: is somebody who who cares about books and finds these

622
00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:52,880
Speaker 3: books interesting and you know, and a lot of my

623
00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:57,680
Speaker 3: literature classes were effortlessly fascinating, but other ones were sometimes

624
00:34:57,800 --> 00:35:01,120
Speaker 3: honestly more of a slog And so I remember I've

625
00:35:01,120 --> 00:35:03,719
Speaker 3: probably had some of that same cognitive dissonance there. I'm like,

626
00:35:03,920 --> 00:35:07,399
Speaker 3: I want to fight my way into finding this more

627
00:35:07,400 --> 00:35:09,120
Speaker 3: interesting than I naturally do.

628
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:12,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I know this feeling as well. And while

629
00:35:12,520 --> 00:35:16,799
Speaker 2: your mortal soul may not be on the line, there's

630
00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:19,200
Speaker 2: still was and is a lot on the line in

631
00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:22,440
Speaker 2: a college class, Like I remember thinking like, no, no, no,

632
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:24,799
Speaker 2: I should like find a reason to be engaged with this,

633
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:27,040
Speaker 2: because you're going to have to write an essay or

634
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:28,680
Speaker 2: there's going to be a test or what have you.

635
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:31,920
Speaker 2: But then it's still like you're coming up against the

636
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:35,319
Speaker 2: feeling of boredom, and there's at times it can feel insurmountable.

637
00:35:35,480 --> 00:35:37,800
Speaker 3: But anyway, to come back to the subject of the study,

638
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:40,239
Speaker 3: I do think that there is I don't know if

639
00:35:40,239 --> 00:35:42,080
Speaker 3: it can get you all the way there, but I

640
00:35:42,120 --> 00:35:46,799
Speaker 3: do think there is a partial role of like just willful,

641
00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:51,080
Speaker 3: volitional commitment to the idea that I am not going

642
00:35:51,160 --> 00:35:55,319
Speaker 3: to be bored by the subject matter actually contributing to

643
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:57,640
Speaker 3: somewhat lessening it's boredom.

644
00:35:57,920 --> 00:36:02,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I think that's a skill that has

645
00:36:02,200 --> 00:36:05,759
Speaker 2: to be learned and taught, you know. I mean, you

646
00:36:05,880 --> 00:36:07,759
Speaker 2: have to be able to put yourself in that place

647
00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:10,000
Speaker 2: where it's like, Okay, I am bored now, but let's

648
00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:12,959
Speaker 2: turn things on. Let's find something to not be bored about.

649
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:17,440
Speaker 2: What's something I can engage with this, you know, religious service,

650
00:36:17,520 --> 00:36:20,680
Speaker 2: with this lecture, or anything else for that matter.

651
00:36:20,960 --> 00:36:22,960
Speaker 3: To wrap this section, I did just want to feature

652
00:36:23,640 --> 00:36:27,279
Speaker 3: a poem. This is by the poet Charles Simmitch. It

653
00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:29,400
Speaker 3: was published in The New Yorker in two thousand and seven.

654
00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:33,520
Speaker 3: It's called to Boredom. It's a poem about boredom. It reads,

655
00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:37,760
Speaker 3: I'm the child of your rainy Sundays. I watched time

656
00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:41,839
Speaker 3: crawl over the ceiling like a wounded fly. A day

657
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:45,920
Speaker 3: would last forever, making pellets of bread, waiting for a

658
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:50,440
Speaker 3: branch on a bare tree to move. The silence would deepen,

659
00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:54,320
Speaker 3: the sky would darken, as grandmother knitted with a ball

660
00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:59,880
Speaker 3: of black yarn. I know heavens like that. In Eternity's classrooms,

661
00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:04,040
Speaker 3: the angel sit like bored children with their heads bowed.

662
00:37:04,640 --> 00:37:08,120
Speaker 2: Oh that's nice. I'd not heard or read this one before.

663
00:37:08,520 --> 00:37:10,920
Speaker 3: It struck me as a good intersection of our subject

664
00:37:10,920 --> 00:37:13,359
Speaker 3: matter because it includes the idea of children being bored

665
00:37:13,400 --> 00:37:18,320
Speaker 3: in classrooms, but also of the sort of shameful boredom

666
00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:18,920
Speaker 3: of piety.

667
00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:23,560
Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah, And it's also ironic because I have it

668
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:27,480
Speaker 2: on good authority that poetry is also boring or so

669
00:37:28,640 --> 00:37:31,799
Speaker 2: or so the children seem to think. And I immediately

670
00:37:31,920 --> 00:37:34,040
Speaker 2: question this tho It's like, how can you guys not

671
00:37:34,120 --> 00:37:37,440
Speaker 2: be into poetry? Like poetry covers a lottery. I think

672
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:40,960
Speaker 2: maybe is you're exposed to poetry in classrooms, you're only

673
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:43,759
Speaker 2: exposed to like a thin idea of what poetry is,

674
00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:47,400
Speaker 2: and without a reminder that poetry also spills over into

675
00:37:47,800 --> 00:37:50,879
Speaker 2: literature at large, and also into the lyrics of every

676
00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:51,640
Speaker 2: song you listen to.

677
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:55,520
Speaker 3: Well. This actually comes back to the idea of whether

678
00:37:55,719 --> 00:37:59,120
Speaker 3: the teacher enthusiasm or teacher boredom coming through and affecting

679
00:37:59,120 --> 00:38:02,440
Speaker 3: the students in the class. I strongly believe that if

680
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 3: a child thinks poetry is boring, boring and they haven't

681
00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:07,480
Speaker 3: found a way to get into it, one way to

682
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:11,520
Speaker 3: break through to them is to is to experience poetry

683
00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:15,600
Speaker 3: read aloud by a really good, entertaining reader, experiencing it

684
00:38:15,640 --> 00:38:19,400
Speaker 3: as an outloud verbal sort of performance instead of just

685
00:38:19,520 --> 00:38:22,160
Speaker 3: something on the page. I think that really helps, like

686
00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:24,120
Speaker 3: show what's exciting about it?

687
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, absolutely, all right, it's time for our last

688
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:40,840
Speaker 2: selection here though though again we're not covering all of

689
00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:42,600
Speaker 2: the winners. We encourage you to go check out in

690
00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:45,920
Speaker 2: Probable dot com and see the full list. But it

691
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:48,840
Speaker 2: is now time to taste the Ramen electric.

692
00:38:48,680 --> 00:38:50,040
Speaker 3: What are you about to do to me?

693
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:56,160
Speaker 2: Rob? So? This is the Nutrition prize. This one comes

694
00:38:56,160 --> 00:39:02,960
Speaker 2: from the article Augmented Gustation using Electricity by Nakamura and Nyashita.

695
00:39:03,480 --> 00:39:07,880
Speaker 2: This is from Proceedings of the second Augmented Human International Conference,

696
00:39:08,360 --> 00:39:13,640
Speaker 2: March twenty eleven. This is a really fun one. I

697
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:15,800
Speaker 2: had a lot of fun with this paper. I expect

698
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:17,720
Speaker 2: that it would be at least a little kooky, because

699
00:39:17,760 --> 00:39:22,520
Speaker 2: just the idea of essentially eating food that is electrified,

700
00:39:22,719 --> 00:39:25,560
Speaker 2: that has an electrical current flowing through it, that alone

701
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:29,640
Speaker 2: sounds completely bonkers. So I was all up for it.

702
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:34,239
Speaker 2: But then, oh my goodness, this paper kicks off as

703
00:39:34,280 --> 00:39:37,000
Speaker 2: if it were written by the mad scientist doctor Kurt

704
00:39:37,080 --> 00:39:41,000
Speaker 2: Leopold from the nineteen seventy one horror movie Zat aka

705
00:39:41,120 --> 00:39:43,800
Speaker 2: The Blood Waters of Doctor z. This is a film

706
00:39:43,800 --> 00:39:46,600
Speaker 2: that was riffed on Mystery Science Theater three thousand back

707
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:48,600
Speaker 2: in the day, and we have covered it on Weird

708
00:39:48,600 --> 00:39:52,440
Speaker 2: House Cinema. It is a Florida mad scientist movie with

709
00:39:52,520 --> 00:39:55,560
Speaker 2: a fishman, a catfish man walking around, but.

710
00:39:56,080 --> 00:39:59,160
Speaker 3: A self induced catfish man, right, like he's not made

711
00:39:59,160 --> 00:40:02,719
Speaker 3: that way by you know, nuclear testing or something. He

712
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:04,440
Speaker 3: decides to become a fishman.

713
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:09,879
Speaker 2: That's right. Basically, he's like fish rule humans, drool. I'm

714
00:40:09,880 --> 00:40:12,480
Speaker 2: gonna turn myself into the ultimate fish man, and then

715
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:15,359
Speaker 2: I'm going to turn all of the fish into superfish,

716
00:40:15,560 --> 00:40:18,200
Speaker 2: and fish are gonna rule the world again, and I

717
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:21,680
Speaker 2: will be like their fish king. Hilariously, it doesn't really

718
00:40:21,719 --> 00:40:26,520
Speaker 2: pan out for doctor Leopold in the film, but he

719
00:40:26,560 --> 00:40:28,759
Speaker 2: has some great narration early on in that film. So

720
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:33,520
Speaker 2: I'm gonna read the opening paragraph from this paper in

721
00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:35,760
Speaker 2: my version of the Curt Leopold voice.

722
00:40:36,040 --> 00:40:37,760
Speaker 3: Okay, please quote.

723
00:40:38,840 --> 00:40:44,000
Speaker 2: Catfish are described as swimming tongues because they have taste

724
00:40:44,040 --> 00:40:50,200
Speaker 2: buds covering their external body surface and oropheryngegal cavity, and

725
00:40:50,239 --> 00:40:54,040
Speaker 2: they can recognize a very large number of tastes with

726
00:40:54,239 --> 00:41:01,200
Speaker 2: high sensitivity. In contrast, human taste buds are located only

727
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:07,440
Speaker 2: in the mouth and their sensitivity is lower. Posting human

728
00:41:07,560 --> 00:41:12,320
Speaker 2: beings can augment their sensitivity and the number of tastes

729
00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:16,640
Speaker 2: that they can perceive. In this paper, we propose a

730
00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:21,480
Speaker 2: method to change taste. The method involves the provision of

731
00:41:21,640 --> 00:41:26,680
Speaker 2: electric stimulus. We discuss the use of various sensors to

732
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:28,279
Speaker 2: augment gustation.

733
00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:33,839
Speaker 3: And the Oscar goes to you, brilliant, and you're right,

734
00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:37,520
Speaker 3: it is this is so, this is so, doctor Leopald.

735
00:41:37,760 --> 00:41:41,560
Speaker 3: It's like when he's talking about uh oh, what is

736
00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:46,000
Speaker 3: he talking about, like the sargassum or something. We the

737
00:41:46,040 --> 00:41:52,040
Speaker 3: weed of deceit, but just the contempt for humanity here

738
00:41:52,600 --> 00:41:55,799
Speaker 3: weak pathetic human taste buds.

739
00:41:57,120 --> 00:42:00,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so this is one of the more exciting

740
00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:03,400
Speaker 2: opening paragraphs in a science study that I've read recently.

741
00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:07,600
Speaker 2: So to refresh, catfish are amazing because they're all tongue

742
00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:10,319
Speaker 2: tasting all the time. Humans, on the other hand, can

743
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:14,120
Speaker 2: only taste with their mouths and have disappointingly low sensitivity

744
00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:18,000
Speaker 2: to taste losing. However, we humans have science so we

745
00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:19,920
Speaker 2: can augment our tasting powers.

746
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:22,839
Speaker 3: This feels like some kind of pitch from like a

747
00:42:22,920 --> 00:42:28,240
Speaker 3: scammer catfish life coach. It was like, using my course,

748
00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:30,719
Speaker 3: you can become as cool as a catfish like me.

749
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:36,200
Speaker 2: It totally does so. First of all, the first two

750
00:42:36,239 --> 00:42:40,040
Speaker 2: points here are very true. Catfish are often described as

751
00:42:40,080 --> 00:42:44,080
Speaker 2: supertasters with taste receptors all over their bodies, though the

752
00:42:44,120 --> 00:42:47,040
Speaker 2: receptors are more concentrated on the mouth and the barbels

753
00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:51,280
Speaker 2: or whiskers of the catfish. They have a colossal number

754
00:42:51,320 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 2: of taste receptors and high sensitivity to amino acids. They

755
00:42:55,200 --> 00:42:58,520
Speaker 2: use these amazing senses to detect dissolved proteins from food

756
00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:02,360
Speaker 2: sources in the muck, as well as finding potential mates.

757
00:43:02,719 --> 00:43:05,440
Speaker 2: A reminder that catfish, if you're not familiar with them,

758
00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:07,520
Speaker 2: if you're not a you know, if you don't fish

759
00:43:07,520 --> 00:43:11,360
Speaker 2: for catfish. They live in the muck there. They're bottom dwellers.

760
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:15,640
Speaker 2: They're highly sensitive to things that may be down there,

761
00:43:15,680 --> 00:43:17,959
Speaker 2: decaying in the mud that they can feast upon.

762
00:43:18,520 --> 00:43:21,520
Speaker 3: Okay, so I guess when you are I don't know

763
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:24,239
Speaker 3: if the word would be scavenger. When this is your

764
00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:28,880
Speaker 3: method of getting nutrition, you need a you need a

765
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:32,120
Speaker 3: highly tuned sensory array to figure out where the nutrition

766
00:43:32,440 --> 00:43:35,840
Speaker 3: is amongst all of the goop exactly.

767
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:39,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, So to put some numbers behind this, I was

768
00:43:39,160 --> 00:43:41,720
Speaker 2: looking at a Live Science article by Remy Malina published

769
00:43:41,719 --> 00:43:45,040
Speaker 2: in twenty eleven. This author points out that the average

770
00:43:45,080 --> 00:43:50,239
Speaker 2: person has about ten thousand taste buds, but catfish, on

771
00:43:50,280 --> 00:43:52,360
Speaker 2: the other hand, can have get ready for it, one

772
00:43:52,440 --> 00:43:55,640
Speaker 2: hundred thousand to one hundred and seventy five thousand taste

773
00:43:55,640 --> 00:43:59,080
Speaker 2: buds taste receptors. The article also points out that chickens

774
00:43:59,320 --> 00:44:02,000
Speaker 2: come in really with twenty four taste receptors.

775
00:44:02,480 --> 00:44:04,279
Speaker 3: To them, everything tastes like themselves.

776
00:44:05,680 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 2: But think about that without doing the exact math, so

777
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:10,719
Speaker 2: you know, feel free to check my math here, But essentially,

778
00:44:11,000 --> 00:44:14,359
Speaker 2: I think you could roughly say that catfish are as

779
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:18,720
Speaker 2: far beyond humans as humans are beyond chickens in terms

780
00:44:18,760 --> 00:44:22,840
Speaker 2: of our like the taste realm of the senses that

781
00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:24,200
Speaker 2: we occupy in the world.

782
00:44:24,520 --> 00:44:28,960
Speaker 3: I see. So, Like, if you could imagine catfish becoming

783
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:35,759
Speaker 3: like humans and having a complex catfish society, what glories

784
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:42,080
Speaker 3: and splendors of gustation and food senses would would they create?

785
00:44:42,480 --> 00:44:44,640
Speaker 3: Just imagine their restaurants.

786
00:44:44,360 --> 00:44:47,799
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly so like another way to think about this.

787
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:51,040
Speaker 2: For instance, there are tastes that chickens can't taste that

788
00:44:51,160 --> 00:44:54,160
Speaker 2: humans can taste. We know this to be the case

789
00:44:54,200 --> 00:44:57,720
Speaker 2: with other animals as well, like the domestic cat. Domestic

790
00:44:57,760 --> 00:45:01,400
Speaker 2: cat can't taste sweet things. On the other hand, domestic

791
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:05,600
Speaker 2: cats can taste at least one thing that we cannot taste,

792
00:45:05,800 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 2: and that is adnisine triphosphate or ATP. This is an

793
00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:14,080
Speaker 2: energetic molecule in meat, while apparently humans cannot taste it.

794
00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:18,720
Speaker 2: According to David Blo's two thousand and seven Scientific American articles,

795
00:45:18,719 --> 00:45:21,520
Speaker 2: strange but true cats cannot taste sweets.

796
00:45:21,360 --> 00:45:23,439
Speaker 3: And again, this would make sense from an adaptive point

797
00:45:23,440 --> 00:45:26,960
Speaker 3: of view. Cats are not evolved to say, select fruits

798
00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:29,920
Speaker 3: or things like that from their environment. Their carnivores. You know,

799
00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:34,200
Speaker 3: they're going to be primarily eating the meat of other animals.

800
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:36,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, so a cat. It makes sense that a cat

801
00:45:36,800 --> 00:45:40,640
Speaker 2: cannot appreciate, say, a fresh peach, the way human can,

802
00:45:41,320 --> 00:45:45,480
Speaker 2: or at all for that matter. Meanwhile, even though humans

803
00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:49,000
Speaker 2: do buy and large eat meat, or they can eat

804
00:45:49,040 --> 00:45:51,880
Speaker 2: meat depending on their individual diets, you know, they certainly

805
00:45:51,920 --> 00:45:54,880
Speaker 2: can appreciate the flavors of meat, but not in the

806
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:59,680
Speaker 2: way that cats do. Obligate. Carnivores, little carnivores that they are,

807
00:46:00,560 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 2: they taste meats in ways that we cannot. And if

808
00:46:03,080 --> 00:46:05,440
Speaker 2: you live with a cat like I do this, you

809
00:46:05,440 --> 00:46:07,480
Speaker 2: can appreciate this. Like, yes, they seem to have a

810
00:46:07,520 --> 00:46:11,279
Speaker 2: relationship with their food dish that is different than our

811
00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:15,160
Speaker 2: relationship with our food dishes, you know. But the catfish,

812
00:46:15,320 --> 00:46:18,919
Speaker 2: the catfish, oh man, it's almost I think it's insufficient

813
00:46:18,960 --> 00:46:21,920
Speaker 2: to say that the catfish can taste rotting organic matter

814
00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:25,720
Speaker 2: and in the muck in ways that we cannot, because

815
00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:28,840
Speaker 2: I think it's like that number is so much larger

816
00:46:28,880 --> 00:46:32,560
Speaker 2: than ours. The full taste of bud count They inhabit

817
00:46:32,640 --> 00:46:36,040
Speaker 2: an entirely different sense realm when it comes to taste itself,

818
00:46:36,800 --> 00:46:39,560
Speaker 2: and especially when it comes to the precious muck meat.

819
00:46:39,800 --> 00:46:44,799
Speaker 3: They are in a cinnabite level of sensory experience. When

820
00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:46,759
Speaker 3: it comes to tasting the mud at the bottom of

821
00:46:46,760 --> 00:46:49,239
Speaker 3: the river, the pleasure and pain indivisible.

822
00:46:49,880 --> 00:46:53,799
Speaker 2: Yeah. Like to reference another MST three K movie, if

823
00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:57,040
Speaker 2: you could dopple into the body of a catfish and

824
00:46:57,160 --> 00:47:01,160
Speaker 2: experience life as a catfish and your mud is the catfish, Like,

825
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:04,400
Speaker 2: what would that be like? Would it just be just

826
00:47:04,920 --> 00:47:08,520
Speaker 2: I'm imagining, like catfish experiencing muck meat would be like

827
00:47:08,760 --> 00:47:11,640
Speaker 2: the Stargate sequence from two thousand and one A Space Odyssey,

828
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:14,680
Speaker 2: You know, That's what it would be like to just

829
00:47:14,719 --> 00:47:16,919
Speaker 2: really dig into some fresh rotten meat from the muck.

830
00:47:17,480 --> 00:47:19,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, experience beyond limits.

831
00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:23,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what's a human to do short of transforming

832
00:47:23,840 --> 00:47:27,520
Speaker 2: themselves into a walking catfish person. Well, as we've discussed

833
00:47:27,520 --> 00:47:30,120
Speaker 2: on the show before, humans do have one leg up

834
00:47:30,160 --> 00:47:32,440
Speaker 2: on the scenario, and that is that we have cooking.

835
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:36,920
Speaker 2: We have built up multiple culinary cultures that have long

836
00:47:36,960 --> 00:47:39,759
Speaker 2: fed into each other. We've eaten the rainbow and then

837
00:47:39,800 --> 00:47:43,240
Speaker 2: some figuring out how to augment, mask, enhance, and change

838
00:47:43,280 --> 00:47:45,840
Speaker 2: flavors to maximize our gustation.

839
00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:49,640
Speaker 3: Right, So, we know that cooking food changes its nutritional profile,

840
00:47:49,680 --> 00:47:54,560
Speaker 3: but also cooking food unlocks new levels of taste experience.

841
00:47:54,640 --> 00:47:57,160
Speaker 3: A big part of what people do when they say

842
00:47:57,160 --> 00:47:59,680
Speaker 3: cook a piece of meat, is they brown it, you know,

843
00:47:59,719 --> 00:48:05,040
Speaker 3: call using the Miard reaction of these proteins, which like

844
00:48:05,360 --> 00:48:09,640
Speaker 3: drastically increases the complexity of flavor available on the on

845
00:48:09,680 --> 00:48:10,640
Speaker 3: the surface of the meat.

846
00:48:11,400 --> 00:48:14,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the catfish is left of the mercy of

847
00:48:14,520 --> 00:48:18,799
Speaker 2: the environment. Humans. However, we have fewer peg pigments at

848
00:48:18,840 --> 00:48:21,560
Speaker 2: our disposal to paint with. But boy, can we paint

849
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:24,120
Speaker 2: with them. You know, we can fine tune them, make

850
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:27,440
Speaker 2: the absolute best out of so many ingredients, and you know,

851
00:48:27,800 --> 00:48:31,600
Speaker 2: concluding not only staples to our diet, but also minuscule

852
00:48:31,640 --> 00:48:35,120
Speaker 2: amounts of say, poisons and plant bioweapons, things that aren't

853
00:48:35,480 --> 00:48:39,040
Speaker 2: really on the menu from like a larger, you know,

854
00:48:39,040 --> 00:48:42,040
Speaker 2: sort of evolutionary standpoint, but we figured out how to

855
00:48:42,120 --> 00:48:43,799
Speaker 2: use them in just the right ways and just the

856
00:48:43,880 --> 00:48:48,000
Speaker 2: right amounts to fine tune the main things that we're consuming.

857
00:48:48,600 --> 00:48:50,279
Speaker 2: And the authors of the award winning paper here also

858
00:48:50,320 --> 00:48:52,839
Speaker 2: point out that not everything we use is even a

859
00:48:52,880 --> 00:48:56,239
Speaker 2: food or a plant byproduct. Carbonated drinks, They point out

860
00:48:56,320 --> 00:48:59,960
Speaker 2: depends on carbon dioxide. It's not something that has any

861
00:49:00,120 --> 00:49:05,120
Speaker 2: kind of like nutrition profile, you know, but it's still

862
00:49:05,120 --> 00:49:11,440
Speaker 2: something that enhances our our gustation, that enhances our consumption

863
00:49:11,560 --> 00:49:13,960
Speaker 2: and appreciation of a given beverage.

864
00:49:14,200 --> 00:49:15,560
Speaker 3: I do love a Seltzer water.

865
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:18,480
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then central to the paper here is the

866
00:49:18,520 --> 00:49:23,440
Speaker 2: idea of electric taste, depending on the observation that humans

867
00:49:23,480 --> 00:49:30,200
Speaker 2: perceive electric stimulus as having a sour or metallic taste. Now,

868
00:49:30,239 --> 00:49:32,600
Speaker 2: the authors point this out. I don't know that I

869
00:49:32,600 --> 00:49:34,680
Speaker 2: don't think we've covered this before. Maybe I'm wrong, because

870
00:49:34,680 --> 00:49:40,759
Speaker 2: we certainly talked about the history of electrical invention and research.

871
00:49:41,120 --> 00:49:42,880
Speaker 2: But they point out that we've known about this at

872
00:49:42,960 --> 00:49:46,840
Speaker 2: least since the early days of electricity. Swiss math professor

873
00:49:46,880 --> 00:49:51,360
Speaker 2: and electrical pioneer Johann Georg Sulzer, who lives seventeen twenty

874
00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:53,799
Speaker 2: through seventeen seventy nine, was apparently the first person to

875
00:49:53,920 --> 00:49:57,799
Speaker 2: write about this and perhaps the first person to experience

876
00:49:58,080 --> 00:50:03,120
Speaker 2: electric gustation in seventeen fifty two. As Neville Monroe Hopkins

877
00:50:03,120 --> 00:50:07,200
Speaker 2: pointed out in a nineteen oh five book Experimental Electrochemistry,

878
00:50:07,480 --> 00:50:09,919
Speaker 2: Sulcer reported quote, if you joined two pieces of lead

879
00:50:09,960 --> 00:50:12,080
Speaker 2: and silver, so that they will be in the same plane,

880
00:50:12,120 --> 00:50:14,560
Speaker 2: and then lay them upon the tongue, you will notice

881
00:50:14,560 --> 00:50:18,959
Speaker 2: a certain taste resembling that of green vitriol, and while

882
00:50:19,000 --> 00:50:21,800
Speaker 2: each piece apart produces no such sensation.

883
00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:24,640
Speaker 3: Oh that's interesting. So maybe the idea would be that

884
00:50:24,719 --> 00:50:26,960
Speaker 3: you're tasting electrical current.

885
00:50:27,680 --> 00:50:31,839
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And the authors here point out that this

886
00:50:32,200 --> 00:50:34,880
Speaker 2: quote triggered the discovery of the battery cell by Volta.

887
00:50:35,520 --> 00:50:39,960
Speaker 2: And also we should add, going back to our previous episode,

888
00:50:40,120 --> 00:50:42,560
Speaker 2: is that we have another example of scientists using their

889
00:50:42,600 --> 00:50:44,760
Speaker 2: sense of taste to explore the world.

890
00:50:45,280 --> 00:50:48,600
Speaker 3: Oh great connection. Going back to the twenty twenty three

891
00:50:48,600 --> 00:50:52,760
Speaker 3: ig Nobel Geology Prize, which was about eating and licking

892
00:50:53,000 --> 00:50:55,760
Speaker 3: rocks and fossils in various ways, But one of the

893
00:50:55,800 --> 00:50:59,480
Speaker 3: things discussed in that essay was about how geologists will

894
00:50:59,480 --> 00:51:04,440
Speaker 3: sometimes and especially further back in history, would taste rocks

895
00:51:04,440 --> 00:51:07,600
Speaker 3: and sediments and stuff in order to get some chemical

896
00:51:07,600 --> 00:51:08,640
Speaker 3: information about them.

897
00:51:09,120 --> 00:51:12,840
Speaker 2: Right right. So the authors here again are mostly concerned

898
00:51:12,840 --> 00:51:16,719
Speaker 2: with ways to sort of expand human taste sensations, and

899
00:51:16,760 --> 00:51:19,600
Speaker 2: so they point out that there are various beyond cooking

900
00:51:19,600 --> 00:51:23,680
Speaker 2: approaches to flavor augmentation that have been proposed already including

901
00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:26,920
Speaker 2: I'm going to list some of these overlaying novel sense

902
00:51:27,239 --> 00:51:32,040
Speaker 2: and augmented reality information with the consumption of traditional food. So,

903
00:51:32,080 --> 00:51:35,320
Speaker 2: for instance, imagine you're eating a chocolate chip cookie while

904
00:51:35,360 --> 00:51:37,920
Speaker 2: at the same time new car smell is piped in

905
00:51:38,000 --> 00:51:43,560
Speaker 2: at you, and while augmented augmented reality headset makes it

906
00:51:43,600 --> 00:51:45,880
Speaker 2: seem like you're snacking on I don't know, a slice

907
00:51:45,880 --> 00:51:48,360
Speaker 2: of rainbow or a Pikachu or something.

908
00:51:48,560 --> 00:51:50,920
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, so you're combining things. You would have some

909
00:51:51,040 --> 00:51:54,279
Speaker 3: kind of actual physical chemical substrate that is the thing

910
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:56,920
Speaker 3: that's literally going into your mouth while you're eating, but

911
00:51:57,080 --> 00:52:01,080
Speaker 3: you're having that a sort of modified in virtual reality

912
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:04,480
Speaker 3: sense by different by like visual information coming in through

913
00:52:04,480 --> 00:52:06,719
Speaker 3: a headset or goggles or something that make it look

914
00:52:06,840 --> 00:52:10,279
Speaker 3: like something else, and you're being given different smells than

915
00:52:10,320 --> 00:52:13,399
Speaker 3: this food would normally have. And a big part of

916
00:52:13,480 --> 00:52:17,040
Speaker 3: what we think of as taste is actually smell. This

917
00:52:17,120 --> 00:52:19,200
Speaker 3: is apparent to anybody who's ever had like a bad

918
00:52:19,239 --> 00:52:22,480
Speaker 3: cold or something suddenly like you can't taste food anymore.

919
00:52:22,680 --> 00:52:25,120
Speaker 3: A lot of what you when you're eating food and

920
00:52:25,160 --> 00:52:27,640
Speaker 3: you think this tastes so good. A huge part of

921
00:52:27,640 --> 00:52:31,000
Speaker 3: that experience is actually it's smelling good. It just feels

922
00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:31,840
Speaker 3: like it's taste.

923
00:52:32,440 --> 00:52:34,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it reminds me of one of the

924
00:52:35,480 --> 00:52:39,680
Speaker 2: aspects of mixology is that take mint for example. Is

925
00:52:39,719 --> 00:52:43,440
Speaker 2: there plenty of great cocktails and zero proof cocktails that

926
00:52:43,520 --> 00:52:46,440
Speaker 2: have nnt inside them that you know, perhaps the mint

927
00:52:46,520 --> 00:52:49,960
Speaker 2: is torn up or mold or what have you. But

928
00:52:50,200 --> 00:52:52,680
Speaker 2: on the other hand, there are plenty of say tropical drinks,

929
00:52:52,680 --> 00:52:56,400
Speaker 2: for example, that have mint only as a garnish, and

930
00:52:56,440 --> 00:52:59,359
Speaker 2: maybe that mint is pounded in the palm or it's

931
00:52:59,680 --> 00:53:01,919
Speaker 2: you know, ripped a little bit before it's added on top.

932
00:53:02,000 --> 00:53:04,840
Speaker 2: Maybe not, but that's an example where you're not actually

933
00:53:04,920 --> 00:53:07,440
Speaker 2: drinking the mint, but your face is close to the

934
00:53:07,480 --> 00:53:11,719
Speaker 2: mint garnish whilst consuming the beverage, and therefore the mint

935
00:53:11,800 --> 00:53:15,320
Speaker 2: is contributing to the overall taste profile of the cocktail.

936
00:53:15,560 --> 00:53:18,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, molecules of the mint may not be going into

937
00:53:18,200 --> 00:53:20,480
Speaker 3: your mouth and getting on your tongue, but because you're

938
00:53:20,520 --> 00:53:25,280
Speaker 3: smelling it, it does affect how the drink quote tastes,

939
00:53:25,440 --> 00:53:29,120
Speaker 3: really by affecting how it smells exactly.

940
00:53:29,200 --> 00:53:31,440
Speaker 2: And so they're saying, well, you could do that in

941
00:53:31,640 --> 00:53:35,160
Speaker 2: perhaps more technological ways, and then this augmented reality level.

942
00:53:35,200 --> 00:53:38,359
Speaker 2: The sort of Pokemon Go level of it is, make

943
00:53:38,400 --> 00:53:40,399
Speaker 2: it actually look like something else as well.

944
00:53:41,320 --> 00:53:41,640
Speaker 3: All right.

945
00:53:41,920 --> 00:53:45,560
Speaker 2: Another approach they highlight is using vibration and sound to

946
00:53:45,680 --> 00:53:48,799
Speaker 2: change the experience of tasting a candy. I like that

947
00:53:48,840 --> 00:53:51,279
Speaker 2: one because it sounds like something Willy Wonka would dream up.

948
00:53:51,600 --> 00:53:52,040
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm.

949
00:53:53,600 --> 00:53:56,279
Speaker 2: They also mentioned more or less in passing. This is

950
00:53:56,320 --> 00:53:58,160
Speaker 2: something that I think would have to be explored in

951
00:53:58,200 --> 00:54:00,480
Speaker 2: greater depth is the idea of mind control three D

952
00:54:00,600 --> 00:54:04,279
Speaker 2: printing that translates brain signals from the user into three

953
00:54:04,360 --> 00:54:08,160
Speaker 2: D printed food. I glanced at a twenty nineteen paper

954
00:54:08,160 --> 00:54:10,120
Speaker 2: on this concept. So it's kind of like think it,

955
00:54:10,719 --> 00:54:17,680
Speaker 2: print it, eat it.

956
00:54:14,960 --> 00:54:19,160
Speaker 3: Anything you can dream up, you like, neural link your brain.

957
00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:22,600
Speaker 2: To a three D printer, yeah, or just kind of

958
00:54:22,840 --> 00:54:24,719
Speaker 2: you know, you're sort of you're really hungry, and you're

959
00:54:24,760 --> 00:54:27,400
Speaker 2: sort of you know, you're fantasizing about the food you

960
00:54:27,440 --> 00:54:30,800
Speaker 2: want to eat, and then yes, let that flow into

961
00:54:31,040 --> 00:54:33,240
Speaker 2: the three D printer and it will print that food

962
00:54:33,280 --> 00:54:34,840
Speaker 2: out of soil and green or something.

963
00:54:35,239 --> 00:54:36,279
Speaker 3: I don't know about that one.

964
00:54:37,600 --> 00:54:39,640
Speaker 2: I also, this is outside of what they were talking about.

965
00:54:39,640 --> 00:54:41,440
Speaker 2: I looked at a study that proposed to propose a

966
00:54:41,520 --> 00:54:45,319
Speaker 2: kind of neural sharing of taste sensations. One quote from it.

967
00:54:45,360 --> 00:54:49,160
Speaker 2: This is from Electric Taste by Chiak and car Niyaka

968
00:54:49,280 --> 00:54:52,480
Speaker 2: from twenty eighteen. Quote. Humans will want to share these

969
00:54:52,520 --> 00:54:56,360
Speaker 2: stimuli collectively as an experienced digitally, like they currently do

970
00:54:56,440 --> 00:54:58,680
Speaker 2: with visual and audio media on the Internet.

971
00:55:00,600 --> 00:55:03,280
Speaker 3: Oh okay, so the same way you share a meme

972
00:55:03,440 --> 00:55:05,200
Speaker 3: or something, you can share a flavor.

973
00:55:05,840 --> 00:55:07,759
Speaker 2: I guess so. But then, like, what is it like

974
00:55:07,880 --> 00:55:12,680
Speaker 2: to be rickrolled in the realm of shared online taste experiences?

975
00:55:12,719 --> 00:55:15,200
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't want to know. Circus peanuts.

976
00:55:15,239 --> 00:55:18,800
Speaker 2: I think circus peanuts is the rickrolling of a flavor

977
00:55:19,080 --> 00:55:19,720
Speaker 2: that's brilliant.

978
00:55:19,880 --> 00:55:23,240
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. You mean that the weird the puffy

979
00:55:23,239 --> 00:55:25,440
Speaker 3: candy yes, a yeah, the peanuts, yes.

980
00:55:25,360 --> 00:55:28,520
Speaker 2: No, actual peanuts are great, obviously, but that's the weird

981
00:55:28,560 --> 00:55:29,880
Speaker 2: circus peanuts.

982
00:55:29,520 --> 00:55:32,200
Speaker 3: In the same vein candy corn, you know, like you

983
00:55:32,200 --> 00:55:34,280
Speaker 3: think it's going to be one thing, but it's candy corn.

984
00:55:34,920 --> 00:55:36,080
Speaker 3: You've got candy corn again.

985
00:55:46,160 --> 00:55:48,720
Speaker 2: Finally, we're going to get to electric food and drink,

986
00:55:48,920 --> 00:55:52,080
Speaker 2: like the basic concept. So the first concept that they

987
00:55:52,120 --> 00:55:55,360
Speaker 2: roll out is the idea of drinking electrically charged liquids.

988
00:55:55,400 --> 00:55:57,399
Speaker 2: And for this you'll need to drink out of two

989
00:55:57,440 --> 00:56:00,400
Speaker 2: straws at once and also like two contains or at

990
00:56:00,480 --> 00:56:03,160
Speaker 2: least two compartments in the same container. I'm going to

991
00:56:03,239 --> 00:56:05,840
Speaker 2: read a quote here that explains how this works, and

992
00:56:05,920 --> 00:56:08,760
Speaker 2: I'm not going to use the funny voice this time, okay. Quote.

993
00:56:08,960 --> 00:56:11,200
Speaker 2: To set up the system, the user pours a drink

994
00:56:11,239 --> 00:56:15,400
Speaker 2: containing an electrolyte into two cups, Cups A and cup BE. Next,

995
00:56:15,640 --> 00:56:18,399
Speaker 2: they insert a negative electrode into a straw and put

996
00:56:18,440 --> 00:56:21,160
Speaker 2: the straw in Cup A. In a similar manner, the

997
00:56:21,239 --> 00:56:25,000
Speaker 2: user inserts a positive electrode into other straw into the

998
00:56:25,000 --> 00:56:27,880
Speaker 2: other straw and puts that straw in cup B. Is

999
00:56:27,880 --> 00:56:30,560
Speaker 2: shown in figure one, which obviously if you're listening to

1000
00:56:30,600 --> 00:56:33,440
Speaker 2: this you can't see. But the circuit of this system

1001
00:56:33,520 --> 00:56:37,200
Speaker 2: is completed when the user drinks. An electric contact is

1002
00:56:37,200 --> 00:56:40,960
Speaker 2: connected between the straw in the mouth. While drinking, the

1003
00:56:41,000 --> 00:56:45,719
Speaker 2: tongue picks up the electrical stimulus and perceives electric taste.

1004
00:56:45,960 --> 00:56:49,360
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, I think I understand the technical system they're describing,

1005
00:56:49,400 --> 00:56:52,520
Speaker 3: but I'm wondering more about the sensation, like what does

1006
00:56:52,600 --> 00:56:53,560
Speaker 3: this taste like?

1007
00:56:54,760 --> 00:56:58,439
Speaker 2: Well, from what I understand. And I should also add

1008
00:56:58,480 --> 00:57:00,480
Speaker 2: that in the image they present here, you see this

1009
00:57:00,560 --> 00:57:04,920
Speaker 2: cup presumably with two compartments, and there's like a little

1010
00:57:05,239 --> 00:57:07,640
Speaker 2: knob on the cup where you can control the voltage,

1011
00:57:07,680 --> 00:57:11,680
Speaker 2: so you can sort of adjust the exit, you know,

1012
00:57:12,040 --> 00:57:14,800
Speaker 2: to what extent you're gonna perceive the electric taste in

1013
00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:17,800
Speaker 2: various beverages. So my understanding is, like you have the

1014
00:57:18,040 --> 00:57:20,600
Speaker 2: beverage or beverages that you are drinking through the straws.

1015
00:57:21,160 --> 00:57:24,400
Speaker 2: Those have electrolytes. Those also have their own flavor profile,

1016
00:57:24,760 --> 00:57:28,800
Speaker 2: and then they're combining with the electric taste that the

1017
00:57:28,800 --> 00:57:31,280
Speaker 2: tongue perceives. So that kind of metallic or sour.

1018
00:57:31,080 --> 00:57:35,880
Speaker 3: Taste, okay, so just be another kind of flavor that

1019
00:57:35,920 --> 00:57:38,840
Speaker 3: you can like turn up or down in your drink

1020
00:57:38,920 --> 00:57:39,600
Speaker 3: with a switch.

1021
00:57:40,240 --> 00:57:43,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, So kind of like that mint garnish on that cocktail,

1022
00:57:43,600 --> 00:57:46,400
Speaker 2: except an electrical current through the tongue, you know.

1023
00:57:46,480 --> 00:57:46,720
Speaker 3: Okay.

1024
00:57:47,240 --> 00:57:50,720
Speaker 2: Now for food, they realize where you're gonna need something else,

1025
00:57:50,880 --> 00:57:53,680
Speaker 2: and so they propose electric chopsticks. They work on a

1026
00:57:53,720 --> 00:57:57,680
Speaker 2: similar basis, with the chopsticks serving as negative and positive

1027
00:57:57,720 --> 00:58:01,720
Speaker 2: electrodes for the morsel of food pinch between them that

1028
00:58:01,800 --> 00:58:04,720
Speaker 2: is being brought to the tongue. We should also mention,

1029
00:58:04,880 --> 00:58:07,360
Speaker 2: just in passing, we did a great invention episode many

1030
00:58:07,760 --> 00:58:09,280
Speaker 2: not many, a couple of years ago, I don't know,

1031
00:58:09,360 --> 00:58:12,280
Speaker 2: some number of years ago about chopsticks. Chopsticks on their

1032
00:58:12,320 --> 00:58:15,200
Speaker 2: own are fascinating, even if they are not electrified.

1033
00:58:15,680 --> 00:58:17,640
Speaker 3: Chopsticks are always one of the first things I think

1034
00:58:17,640 --> 00:58:21,800
Speaker 3: about when considering the ways that the experience of eating

1035
00:58:21,880 --> 00:58:26,600
Speaker 3: food is highly influenced by things other than just like

1036
00:58:26,640 --> 00:58:29,280
Speaker 3: the flavor and texture of the food itself. Like, eating

1037
00:58:29,320 --> 00:58:33,240
Speaker 3: with chopsticks changes the food experience in a way that

1038
00:58:33,280 --> 00:58:36,120
Speaker 3: I very much like, Like, I will enjoy the same

1039
00:58:36,240 --> 00:58:38,920
Speaker 3: food more often if I eat it with chopsticks.

1040
00:58:39,240 --> 00:58:41,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, I almost never use a fourth these days. I

1041
00:58:41,520 --> 00:58:42,720
Speaker 2: use chopsticks instead.

1042
00:58:42,960 --> 00:58:47,760
Speaker 3: Oh well, I'm not quite there yet for certain foods. Yeah,

1043
00:58:47,840 --> 00:58:49,760
Speaker 3: I don't know. It just feels good. I don't know

1044
00:58:49,760 --> 00:58:50,400
Speaker 3: what the difference is.

1045
00:58:50,480 --> 00:58:52,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I also use a fork. There's sometimes

1046
00:58:52,240 --> 00:58:55,280
Speaker 2: sometimes you just need a form fair enough. But anyway,

1047
00:58:55,920 --> 00:58:57,560
Speaker 2: I should drive home here that the idea, as I

1048
00:58:57,600 --> 00:59:00,520
Speaker 2: understand it here again, is not that the electricity is

1049
00:59:00,680 --> 00:59:04,400
Speaker 2: changing the flavor of the food morsel. It is when

1050
00:59:04,400 --> 00:59:07,840
Speaker 2: the when your tongue touches the food morsel, and you know,

1051
00:59:08,000 --> 00:59:10,640
Speaker 2: the circuit is completed through the tongue. That is where

1052
00:59:10,680 --> 00:59:16,160
Speaker 2: this additional flavor profile is is introduced into the taste

1053
00:59:16,240 --> 00:59:21,120
Speaker 2: sensation of the meat or whatever the morsel happens to be, right, Okay,

1054
00:59:22,280 --> 00:59:24,320
Speaker 2: So I think at this point you might be forgiven

1055
00:59:24,360 --> 00:59:27,080
Speaker 2: if you still think this sounds completely ridiculous, like something

1056
00:59:27,120 --> 00:59:30,600
Speaker 2: that would be rolled out in a movie. That's you know,

1057
00:59:30,680 --> 00:59:34,760
Speaker 2: at a you know, a really fancy experimental restaurant. You know, like,

1058
00:59:35,040 --> 00:59:37,960
Speaker 2: here's your dry ice cocktail, and here your electric chopsticks

1059
00:59:38,240 --> 00:59:40,560
Speaker 2: to uh to eat your electric morsels with.

1060
00:59:40,960 --> 00:59:43,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, what is this minority report food?

1061
00:59:44,000 --> 00:59:46,720
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, And I think I think that would be

1062
00:59:46,760 --> 00:59:49,120
Speaker 2: a pretty fun place to leave it. But things in

1063
00:59:49,160 --> 00:59:51,840
Speaker 2: this paper get even weirder and futuristic, because remember the

1064
00:59:51,880 --> 00:59:54,439
Speaker 2: paper starts out by talking about ways to not only

1065
00:59:54,520 --> 00:59:56,800
Speaker 2: enhance human flavor, but to kind of take us to

1066
00:59:56,840 --> 01:00:00,200
Speaker 2: the next level. And they argue that electric gustation could

1067
01:00:00,280 --> 01:00:05,880
Speaker 2: essentially open the gateway to new realms of flavor. They write, quote, today,

1068
01:00:06,000 --> 01:00:10,520
Speaker 2: most gustatory information tends to focus on the enjoyment of eating. However,

1069
01:00:10,560 --> 01:00:14,080
Speaker 2: the primary role of gustatory information is to use chemical

1070
01:00:14,120 --> 01:00:18,000
Speaker 2: signals to determine whether we can eat a particular material. However,

1071
01:00:18,160 --> 01:00:21,000
Speaker 2: we cannot identify all materials and do not have the

1072
01:00:21,000 --> 01:00:25,160
Speaker 2: capability to distinguish between materials that differ slightly in terms

1073
01:00:25,160 --> 01:00:29,360
Speaker 2: of their ingredients. By using certain sensors and the information

1074
01:00:29,600 --> 01:00:33,080
Speaker 2: on electric tastes provided by them, we may succeed in

1075
01:00:33,120 --> 01:00:36,480
Speaker 2: increasing the sensitivity of the organ of taste. In other words,

1076
01:00:36,640 --> 01:00:39,400
Speaker 2: we can augment the sense of taste by using the

1077
01:00:39,440 --> 01:00:43,880
Speaker 2: phenomenon of electric taste and sensors. So if I'm understanding

1078
01:00:43,920 --> 01:00:47,760
Speaker 2: this correctly, the potential ramifications of this direction are twofold.

1079
01:00:47,800 --> 01:00:50,520
Speaker 2: They argue that we could simply enhance our taste and

1080
01:00:50,560 --> 01:00:52,480
Speaker 2: we be able to potentially tell the difference between two

1081
01:00:52,560 --> 01:00:55,920
Speaker 2: very similarly tasting dishes that have different ingredients, kind of

1082
01:00:55,960 --> 01:00:59,680
Speaker 2: like a taste of all the ingredients. Sort of approach

1083
01:01:00,040 --> 01:01:02,160
Speaker 2: taste every ingredient that's in there, even the ones that

1084
01:01:02,200 --> 01:01:05,400
Speaker 2: you normally wouldn't sense, like looking at a painting with

1085
01:01:05,440 --> 01:01:07,720
Speaker 2: better glasses so you can see all the details. But

1086
01:01:07,800 --> 01:01:12,240
Speaker 2: then the other level is previously tasteless material now has taste.

1087
01:01:12,680 --> 01:01:14,120
Speaker 2: New things are on the menu.

1088
01:01:14,720 --> 01:01:16,720
Speaker 3: I don't know if this would ever actually work but

1089
01:01:17,200 --> 01:01:20,040
Speaker 3: just going with the hypothetical here that this would work,

1090
01:01:20,720 --> 01:01:23,400
Speaker 3: you could imagine it being useful in the sense of, say,

1091
01:01:23,520 --> 01:01:28,400
Speaker 3: imagine somebody has a very strong food allergy. Uh, and

1092
01:01:28,480 --> 01:01:31,560
Speaker 3: it's for a food item that sometimes gets you know,

1093
01:01:32,160 --> 01:01:36,600
Speaker 3: mixed in undetected with other ingredients in a dish, maybe something.

1094
01:01:36,760 --> 01:01:40,480
Speaker 3: So you could just start eating a dish without realizing

1095
01:01:40,520 --> 01:01:43,040
Speaker 3: that this allergen is in there and then have a

1096
01:01:43,080 --> 01:01:46,200
Speaker 3: bad reaction. But if you had this special you know,

1097
01:01:46,280 --> 01:01:49,200
Speaker 3: taste all the ingredient sensor, you'd put it in your

1098
01:01:49,200 --> 01:01:51,840
Speaker 3: mouth and then you would immediately know, uh, oh, this

1099
01:01:51,920 --> 01:01:54,120
Speaker 3: has my allergen in it. I should not eat it.

1100
01:01:54,680 --> 01:01:56,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, that seems reasonable. That seems in align with the

1101
01:01:56,800 --> 01:01:58,800
Speaker 2: kind of thing they're thinking about here. I'm going to

1102
01:01:58,840 --> 01:02:01,920
Speaker 2: read one last quote. They say, by providing a particular

1103
01:02:02,080 --> 01:02:05,720
Speaker 2: electric taste pattern to previously tasteless material, we can ensure

1104
01:02:05,760 --> 01:02:10,640
Speaker 2: the material can be perceived. For example, by replacing atmospheric

1105
01:02:10,720 --> 01:02:14,520
Speaker 2: CO two concentration with electric taste, humans may be able

1106
01:02:14,560 --> 01:02:17,800
Speaker 2: to discern the taste of exhaled and inhaled air. This

1107
01:02:17,880 --> 01:02:20,600
Speaker 2: is similar to the concept of seeing infrared light via

1108
01:02:20,680 --> 01:02:23,520
Speaker 2: an infrared camera. The goal of our system is to

1109
01:02:23,560 --> 01:02:26,920
Speaker 2: obtain a new layer of tongue that can detect tastes

1110
01:02:27,120 --> 01:02:33,120
Speaker 2: that we could not perceive previously. So new frontiers in flavor.

1111
01:02:33,720 --> 01:02:37,720
Speaker 2: The city limits of Flavor Town can be pushed out

1112
01:02:38,120 --> 01:02:41,000
Speaker 2: into the previously rural environments.

1113
01:02:41,480 --> 01:02:44,040
Speaker 3: This is ambitious. I'd say this is beyond expanding the

1114
01:02:44,080 --> 01:02:46,640
Speaker 3: city limits. This is Alexander the Great, and this is

1115
01:02:46,680 --> 01:02:48,520
Speaker 3: a conquest of taste.

1116
01:02:49,200 --> 01:02:52,040
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, there's a whole world of flavors out there

1117
01:02:52,040 --> 01:02:55,680
Speaker 2: that we are denying ourselves. So yeah, this one's inherently

1118
01:02:55,720 --> 01:02:59,200
Speaker 2: funny because it's talking about electrified food, something that I

1119
01:02:59,200 --> 01:03:02,720
Speaker 2: don't think anybody really wants, or at least didn't until

1120
01:03:02,760 --> 01:03:06,400
Speaker 2: they read this paper. But it's also important because you know,

1121
01:03:06,480 --> 01:03:09,680
Speaker 2: nobody wants it because the windows of perception are closed

1122
01:03:09,720 --> 01:03:13,000
Speaker 2: to us. As comical as aspects of the article may seem, like,

1123
01:03:13,040 --> 01:03:15,840
Speaker 2: the basic premise here is I mean, it's utterly psychedelic.

1124
01:03:15,960 --> 01:03:18,600
Speaker 2: Like if we were talking about something other than taste,

1125
01:03:19,720 --> 01:03:21,840
Speaker 2: like more people would be instantly on board. Like if

1126
01:03:21,840 --> 01:03:24,480
Speaker 2: we were talking just about site For us humans who

1127
01:03:24,480 --> 01:03:26,720
Speaker 2: are very site based, if you said, well, these goggles

1128
01:03:26,760 --> 01:03:29,760
Speaker 2: allow you to see things that were previously unseen, you'd

1129
01:03:29,800 --> 01:03:32,000
Speaker 2: be like yes, I will buy that out of the

1130
01:03:32,040 --> 01:03:35,400
Speaker 2: back of a comic book from the nineteen sixties, so

1131
01:03:35,440 --> 01:03:37,880
Speaker 2: that this is, you know, ultimately a similar scenario.

1132
01:03:38,200 --> 01:03:41,960
Speaker 3: It's not X ray glasses, it's the X ray tongue exactly.

1133
01:03:42,360 --> 01:03:45,040
Speaker 3: All right, are we going to cap our Ignobel series there?

1134
01:03:45,560 --> 01:03:47,400
Speaker 2: I believe we will. We'll go ahead and close up

1135
01:03:47,440 --> 01:03:51,480
Speaker 2: shop until next year when they honor more fascinating studies

1136
01:03:51,480 --> 01:03:55,320
Speaker 2: and will inevitably cover them then as well. In the meantime,

1137
01:03:55,360 --> 01:03:57,280
Speaker 2: will remind you that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

1138
01:03:57,320 --> 01:03:59,960
Speaker 2: a science podcast with core episodes on two, season three,

1139
01:04:00,560 --> 01:04:02,560
Speaker 2: and Mondays we do listener mail. On Wednesdays we do

1140
01:04:02,600 --> 01:04:05,160
Speaker 2: a short form monster fact or artifact episode, and on

1141
01:04:05,200 --> 01:04:07,320
Speaker 2: Fridays we set aside most series concerns to just talk

1142
01:04:07,320 --> 01:04:09,760
Speaker 2: about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.

1143
01:04:10,000 --> 01:04:13,280
Speaker 3: Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If

1144
01:04:13,320 --> 01:04:14,800
Speaker 3: you would like to get in touch with us with

1145
01:04:14,840 --> 01:04:17,400
Speaker 3: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a

1146
01:04:17,440 --> 01:04:19,560
Speaker 3: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you

1147
01:04:19,600 --> 01:04:22,560
Speaker 3: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

1148
01:04:22,640 --> 01:04:31,280
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.

1149
01:04:31,360 --> 01:04:34,320
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1150
01:04:34,400 --> 01:04:37,200
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1151
01:04:37,360 --> 01:04:54,480
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