Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick,
Speaker 3: and we're back with part two of our twenty twenty
Speaker 3: three entry on the Eganbel Prizes. This is a collection
Speaker 3: of awards that are given out every year by a
Speaker 3: scientific humor journal called the Annals of Improbable Research to
Speaker 3: honor scientific studies and articles that are in some way goofy, goobery,
Speaker 3: or likely to cause a chuckle. Now, in the last episode,
Speaker 3: we talked about this year's honorees in the let's see
Speaker 3: one was in the Geology and Chemistry category and that
Speaker 3: was about geologists licking and eating fossils. And then your study.
Speaker 3: I can't remember what the category was, but it was
Speaker 3: about turning dead spiders into robot hands.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, that was the Mechanical Engineering Prize, the Realm
Speaker 2: of Necrobiotics.
Speaker 3: That was a high quality entry. But we're back today
Speaker 3: to talk about a few more of the winners that
Speaker 3: were selected in twenty twenty three. And Rob, I think
Speaker 3: you were going to kick things off with the Medicine Prize.
Speaker 2: Yes, the Medicine Prize, which concerns knows hairs. So I
Speaker 2: think this is going to be one that a lot
Speaker 2: of I think everyone just about everyone out there is
Speaker 2: going to find something interesting that we can all relate
Speaker 2: to on some level. The study is the Quantification and
Speaker 2: Measurement of nasal hairs in a cadaveric population by fam
Speaker 2: at All. This was published in the International Journal of Dermatology.
Speaker 2: This was in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: That word cadaveric or cadaveric, whatever that is that makes
Speaker 3: it sound like being dead, is like, I don't know,
Speaker 3: a religion or something, you know, like oh, yes, the cadavericks.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, or you know, like a group you need
Speaker 2: to appeal to politically, Oh, we want to get the
Speaker 2: cadavereck vote this year. I mean, I guess in the
Speaker 2: past some people have gone after the cadavereck vote, but
Speaker 2: that of course is quite illegal.
Speaker 3: They don't get to vote. Side show Bob comes to mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, yeah, this study concerns nose hair, so I
Speaker 2: think it will be worthwhile, first of all, just to
Speaker 2: review what and why these are. There is actually apparently
Speaker 2: some wiggle room for debate on the exact roles that
Speaker 2: nose hairs play, which is always kind of fascinating. You
Speaker 2: need to hear about this because we just kind of
Speaker 2: take them for granted or we don't even think about them.
Speaker 2: But generally speaking, we understand them to be air filters.
Speaker 2: As we breathe through our nose, through our nostrils, the
Speaker 2: hairs catch dust, pollen, and other particles. All right, then
Speaker 2: you're probably wondering, well, then what happens now my nostrils
Speaker 2: are full of dust and hair. Well, the whole idea
Speaker 2: here is this keeps them from going straight to your lungs. Instead,
Speaker 2: they just wind up stuck in the mucus in your nose,
Speaker 2: So it's eventually going to be swallowed as mucus or
Speaker 2: blasted out of your nostrils as mucus.
Speaker 3: So together the nose hairs and the mucus form a
Speaker 3: kind of like one two defense system for a particle
Speaker 3: matter getting into your respiratory system.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's by and large the primary understanding of what
Speaker 2: they're doing. So if that being the case, they serve
Speaker 2: an important purpose, and more nose hairs may even help
Speaker 2: boost our protection at least in some situations with some
Speaker 2: potential illnesses. There was a believe a twenty eleven study
Speaker 2: from ostark at All that found that nasal hair density
Speaker 2: can prevent asthma in patience with seasonal rhinitis, that's inflammation
Speaker 2: and irritation of the mucous membrane of the nose. Ah.
Speaker 3: I never thought of that before. So having a hairier
Speaker 3: nose could in some situations have benefits.
Speaker 2: Right, not necessarily just across the board, but again in
Speaker 2: some situations with some particular ailments. Uh huh.
Speaker 3: Of course.
Speaker 2: The thing about nasal hair is that outside of these particulars,
Speaker 2: we tend not to view it as an attractive feature.
Speaker 2: I was. I was looking around about this because I
Speaker 2: was thinking, Okay, you know, with things like eyebrows and
Speaker 2: so forth, there are often cultural differences. You know, what
Speaker 2: one culture and in one time period finds, as you know, repulsive,
Speaker 2: and other finds as attractive, and you know, and so forth.
Speaker 2: But I was looking around and I couldn't immediately find
Speaker 2: any convincing cases where particular culture, in any period of
Speaker 2: human history went just all in on the beauty of nosehair.
Speaker 3: I cannot think of an example, though it sounds like
Speaker 3: one of those things you wouldn't be surprised if you
Speaker 3: came across a line in like the song of songs.
Speaker 3: You know, it's like your nosehairs are like the you know,
Speaker 3: the eyelashes of butterflies or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's the kind of thing I was half
Speaker 2: expecting to find it maybe out there. If anyone knows
Speaker 2: of anything like that, certainly right in and let us know.
Speaker 2: I have. I did run across a couple of sort
Speaker 2: of like joke videos or articles where if someone was
Speaker 2: putting like fake eyelashes lashes on their nostrils and saying like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is the new fad. But as far as I
Speaker 2: can tell, that's just just humor. But yeah, for the
Speaker 2: most part, nose hair is something we're either just blissfully
Speaker 2: ignorant of. You don't know what your nose hairs are
Speaker 2: up to, or, as is the case I think with
Speaker 2: many of us, you end up being painfully aware of
Speaker 2: what your nose hairs are up to, and you're actively
Speaker 2: trying to keep them in check, you know, especially as
Speaker 2: you get older and nose hairs begin to get thicker
Speaker 2: and longer. Well than it's it's just a constant battle
Speaker 2: because your body has seems to have decided, you know
Speaker 2: what we're all in on nose hair. We're all in
Speaker 2: on ear hair. We don't have enough of any of
Speaker 2: these categories. Let's just start pumping it out.
Speaker 3: Strange that it does not do the same for head
Speaker 3: hair as you get older.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and often it can. It can feel like
Speaker 2: a weird like, why aren't you growing more on the
Speaker 2: top of the head. Come on, why are you? Why
Speaker 2: are you diversifying? Like, just focus on the head. So. Yeah,
Speaker 2: as humans age, the body seems to put increasing emphasis
Speaker 2: on the need to grow ear and nose hair. This
Speaker 2: is thought to be due to antigen's sensitivity or the
Speaker 2: long term exposure of hair fallcules to hormones, so you
Speaker 2: end up with the hair possibly growing longer and thicker.
Speaker 2: This is annoying, I think across the board, I don't
Speaker 2: think anybody celebrates this so much. Again, unless there's a
Speaker 2: particular culture or particular time period that I'm missing, and
Speaker 2: I did not look up ear hair, So it's possible
Speaker 2: that there's some sort of caveat where you know, particular
Speaker 2: time and place. Very furry ears we're in fashion. But
Speaker 2: at least with nose hair, you know, not necessarily a
Speaker 2: bad thing. Again, with certain ailments, in certain environmental conditions.
Speaker 2: So for the most part, for cosmetic reasons, we often
Speaker 2: try to keep our nose hairs in check. We do
Speaker 2: things like cut them or trim them. We also them
Speaker 2: or pluck them. I've never had the ladder, but I
Speaker 2: understand this to be quite quite an experience because, of course,
Speaker 2: you know, your nostril is very sensitive. So if anyone
Speaker 2: has any firsthand experience with the waxing or plucking of
Speaker 2: all their nose hairs, let us know. But doctors tend
Speaker 2: to advise it in order to avoid infections and ingrown hairs,
Speaker 2: which can be quite painful in that sensitive nasal region,
Speaker 2: you're better off sticking to cutting and trimming. They seem
Speaker 2: to believe that, you know, cutting and trimming, all right,
Speaker 2: that's fine, go ahead and do it, keep things in check.
Speaker 2: Waxing and plucking maybe reconsider that.
Speaker 3: Wait by plucking. Okay, So I've never waxed my nose,
Speaker 3: But to get maybe too much information out there, I
Speaker 3: mean I have and I've never plucked in the sense
Speaker 3: of pulling out all of my nose hair, but I
Speaker 3: have had like one wild nose hair just sort of
Speaker 3: like go and doink out in the wrong direction, and
Speaker 3: what are you supposed to do about that? In that
Speaker 3: case I have plucked that that nose hair out. Is
Speaker 3: that something I shouldn't do?
Speaker 2: According to the articles I was looking at, Yeah, dermatologists
Speaker 2: tend to say you're better off not doing that. You're
Speaker 2: better off isolating that here and trimming it, you know,
Speaker 2: or trimming all of them. But but then again, it's
Speaker 2: like you're just kind of it's not like that here
Speaker 2: is definitely going to get infected when you pluck it,
Speaker 2: you know. I think people different experiences will will play
Speaker 2: out different ways. Okay, but but yeah, certainly what do
Speaker 2: you do in that that long one grows? There's there?
Speaker 2: The recent Perry Mason TV show was quite good and
Speaker 2: John Lithgalt has a has a part in the first
Speaker 2: season as an elderly attorney who is going through all
Speaker 2: of these various age related crisses but also just you know,
Speaker 2: professional as well. But there's a part where he goes
Speaker 2: on this big he's railing against the young Perry Mason
Speaker 2: and telling him one day you'll wake up and you'll
Speaker 2: have a nose hair as long as your arm and
Speaker 2: so forth. So yeah, it's just it's just part of
Speaker 2: getting older. But yeah, go ahead and trim them, say
Speaker 2: the dermatologists. But coming back to the study, because yes,
Speaker 2: we have a study here that concerns counting those hairs
Speaker 2: of the dead. And I think it's easy to think
Speaker 2: to sort of get into shrimp on a treadmill territory
Speaker 2: when judging the set face value and say, well, why
Speaker 2: is this necessary? Why are you You're counting nose hairs,
Speaker 2: which sounds like just a metaphor for wasting time, and
Speaker 2: you're doing it with the dead. What's the purpose here? Well,
Speaker 2: the study, according to the study itself, they're they're ultimately
Speaker 2: concerned with things like individuals with alopecia. In medical conditions,
Speaker 2: you know, where one does not have hair, and we
Speaker 2: often think of that as well, we think of a
Speaker 2: head hair, we think of body hair. But of course
Speaker 2: that's also going to impact your nostrils as well. So
Speaker 2: think about everything we just talked about. If you just naturally,
Speaker 2: due to this condition, do not have nostril hairs, you're
Speaker 2: missing out on the benefits of this built in filtration system, right, Okay,
Speaker 2: And therefore the author's stress quote the quantification of nasal
Speaker 2: hairs and the effects of lack of nasal hairs on
Speaker 2: a patient's quality of life has yet to be assessed.
Speaker 3: So here's where they're going to start recruiting people of
Speaker 3: the cadaveric persuasion.
Speaker 2: Exactly well with the general idea of being like they're
Speaker 2: going to start with cadavers, and future studies can look
Speaker 2: at live human beings. But for this small study, they
Speaker 2: looked at twenty cadavers, ten men and ten women with
Speaker 2: the mean age of eighty three. They found the average
Speaker 2: nasal hair count amounts to one hundred and twenty in
Speaker 2: the left and one hundred and twenty two point two
Speaker 2: in the right. Hairs were individually counted and removed. And Joe,
Speaker 2: if you'll look down in the outline that we share here,
Speaker 2: I copy and pasted an image from the study where
Speaker 2: you can actually the cadaver's nose. If you're trying to
Speaker 2: picture how they counted them. It does appear that they
Speaker 2: bisected the nostril, cut it in half, and then that
Speaker 2: enabled them to get at the nose hairs better. I
Speaker 2: don't think they read the full study. I don't know
Speaker 2: that they specifically said that this was their methodology, but
Speaker 2: clearly in the photo the nose has been sought in
Speaker 2: half and you see them. It's showing off the nasal
Speaker 2: hairs for plucking in counting.
Speaker 3: I'm really glad you included this visual. It does have
Speaker 3: a strong heavy metal album cover energy. And oh man, yes,
Speaker 3: the kind of gray matrix of hair that is like
Speaker 3: further up in the cavity. I guess you don't think
Speaker 3: about that. I don't know. I think of nose hairs
Speaker 3: as being something that's more just like down near the
Speaker 3: opening of the nostril, but it looks like they go back.
Speaker 2: Well, they do get into this a bit, yeah, like
Speaker 2: where is it thickest. So they found no significant differences
Speaker 2: count wise between male and female nose hairs, and it
Speaker 2: seems to be more or less the same history of
Speaker 2: heart disease did not impact the count but they found
Speaker 2: cancer related deaths lined up with lower counts overall, but
Speaker 2: they suspect cancer related therapies or the culprit here and
Speaker 2: they didn't have all of the medical histories on all
Speaker 2: of the cadavers to be one hundred percent certain. No
Speaker 2: significant location differences between nostrils, and they also stress that
Speaker 2: the shortcomings of the study are of course the small
Speaker 2: size of the study, the older ages of the subjects
Speaker 2: who you know died at advanced age and the lack
Speaker 2: of demographic and personal details. They add that the anterior
Speaker 2: location of follicles supports their presumed role as a protective filter.
Speaker 2: So more hairs upfront, because this is where you'd want
Speaker 2: to start intercepting the particles, even if it makes this
Speaker 2: more annoying from a cosmetic level. So you know, this
Speaker 2: is why nose hairs may make protrude, because that's where
Speaker 2: they are situated, because it makes sense to catch all
Speaker 2: that stuff, okay, And of course they drive home that
Speaker 2: they want to do future studies with live test subjects,
Speaker 2: of course without sawing noses in half, I would imagine
Speaker 2: in this case. And they will also want to look
Speaker 2: at people with and without alopecia to better understand the
Speaker 2: role of nose hairs and the ramifications of their absence.
Speaker 2: So they seem to drive home that this by and
Speaker 2: large just an area that we don't have enough data on.
Speaker 2: And this is also an area where we can appreciate
Speaker 2: the article beyond its silliness, right, because like your nose
Speaker 2: is right there, it's right on your face. It's a
Speaker 2: vital part of our body and we should better understand it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I would imagine that depending on what they find,
Speaker 3: this could possibly lead to better treatments or preventative measures
Speaker 3: for people. For example, if someone has alopecia or some
Speaker 3: other or has undergone cancer treatment, or has some kind
Speaker 3: of condition that has rendered them with fewer nose harris
Speaker 3: than they would normally have, and they also have asthmas
Speaker 3: something like that, that you might want to have a
Speaker 3: kind of nose hair prosthesis or something that would do
Speaker 3: something similar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. They stress that, like, basically, we need to
Speaker 2: learn more and then probably sort of reevaluate our guidelines
Speaker 2: for what do we do with people who are lacking
Speaker 2: nose hairs. So they you know, they stress that synthetic
Speaker 2: barriers are probably important, but we need to know how important.
Speaker 2: And what's been done in the past has been using
Speaker 2: things like aligning of petroleum jelly in the nostril in
Speaker 2: place of hair, but they say that that's generally not
Speaker 2: favored by patients. So I'm guessing that's not pleasant to
Speaker 2: put up with. And so it's just an area where
Speaker 2: more more information is required, updated guidelines are required, and
Speaker 2: who knows, maybe there's some sort of new approach that
Speaker 2: could be developed. So again, this is just a perfect
Speaker 2: Ignobel Prize winner because it's just inherently funny because it
Speaker 2: is about nose hairs. Nose hairs are hilarious, There's no
Speaker 2: good getting around it. They're not so hilarious when you're
Speaker 2: plucking them or trimming them, or noticing them in the
Speaker 2: rear view mirror on your way to a you know,
Speaker 2: a job interview or what have you. But are they
Speaker 2: are nice? The fact that we're dealing with the nosehirs
Speaker 2: of corpses, of course, adds that extra kind of gallows
Speaker 2: humor to the affair. But on the other hand, it's
Speaker 2: important because again the nose is right there in the
Speaker 2: center of your face. It plays a very important role
Speaker 2: in our sensory understanding of the world and our breathing,
Speaker 2: in our health, and so the more we understand it,
Speaker 2: the more we can understand, you know, our own health
Speaker 2: and how to and also how to look out for
Speaker 2: folks who are lacking in those here for one reason
Speaker 2: or the other, either you know, do it alopecia or
Speaker 2: due to cancer therapies or SPA treatments.
Speaker 3: Of course, Rob, are you ready to move on to
Speaker 3: the next one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what do you have for us, Joe?
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm gonna be talking about the twenty twenty three
Speaker 3: Education Prize which they gave two let's see, it goes
Speaker 3: to Katie tam Cyanea Poun, Victoria Huie Winan van Tilberg,
Speaker 3: Christy Wong, Vivian Kwong, gigu In and Christian Chan for
Speaker 3: a pair of studies trying to explore the limits of
Speaker 3: just how boring school can get. No, I should note
Speaker 3: of special relevance to the IGNO Bells themselves. We rarely
Speaker 3: watch the awards ceremony for the Ignoblls, but I think
Speaker 3: they usually upload a video and I've definitely seen some
Speaker 3: of the award ceremonies in the past. Anyway, I recall
Speaker 3: from previous years they have this tradition where when an
Speaker 3: honorees speech is going on too long, you know how
Speaker 3: at the Oscars they have the music come in to
Speaker 3: play people off. It's like, Okay, that's enough, you know,
Speaker 3: it's time to move on to the next thing. Instead
Speaker 3: of having the Oscar orchestra come in, they have a
Speaker 3: child who walks up and starts whining into the microphone,
Speaker 3: saying please stop I'm bored.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And if you want to watch that video or
Speaker 2: get the full list of winners from this year past years,
Speaker 2: go to Improbable dot com.
Speaker 3: So this research on boredom is, I think, not as
Speaker 3: hilarious as the Dead Spider hand or some of the
Speaker 3: other prodigies in the pure weirdness category that we've covered before.
Speaker 3: But I still think it's pretty clear why the idea
Speaker 3: of research on boredom is funny. It seems thematically recursive
Speaker 3: for some reason. The idea of scientifically studying boredom seems
Speaker 3: itself incredibly boring and also possibly of trifling consequence to society.
Speaker 3: But I picked this award because I think it's one
Speaker 3: of those subjects where our initial judgments about salience are
Speaker 3: totally wrong. I think the psychology of boredom is actually
Speaker 3: a potentially enthralling topic. It's the sort of photo negative
Speaker 3: of the question what are the sorts of experiences that
Speaker 3: people find most effortlessly absorbing and why? And what could
Speaker 3: be more fascinating than discovering the hidden principles underlying fascination itself.
Speaker 3: It's a good point, and understanding boredom is a really
Speaker 3: important part of that picture. Also, I would argue against
Speaker 3: the intuition that boredom is like a trivial subject or
Speaker 3: something that is not of much societal impact. I think
Speaker 3: boredom has huge social consequences, and I want to mention
Speaker 3: a couple of ways. Of course, it's true that boredom
Speaker 3: has huge consequences in education, where as both of these
Speaker 3: studies note boredom in the classroom is associated with a
Speaker 3: range of negative outcomes studies in the past. They go
Speaker 3: over a bunch of these papers in their background sections.
Speaker 3: They say, studies in the past have found that being
Speaker 3: bored in class is associated with quote lower dedication to learning,
Speaker 3: lower effort, lower learning motivation, poorer time management, more attention problems,
Speaker 3: and lower class attendance. Extensive evidence has demonstrated a negative
Speaker 3: impact of boredom on academic performance, and they cite a
Speaker 3: bunch of studies and to back this up. The evidence
Speaker 3: is pretty clear being bored in class is not only
Speaker 3: unpleasant for the student, it is not good for educational outcomes.
Speaker 3: But also I think the subject of boredom has broader consequences.
Speaker 3: For example, this is not something that these researchers discuss
Speaker 3: at all, but I am personally of the opinion that
Speaker 3: one of the most poisonous trends brought on by media
Speaker 3: technologies like TV and the Internet and social media is
Speaker 3: the rise of what I would call an entertainment based epistemology,
Speaker 3: a tendency to believe things are true and important simply
Speaker 3: because they hold your interest because they're entertaining or interesting,
Speaker 3: and to assume things are either false or important if
Speaker 3: they bore you. I can't prove this is true, but
Speaker 3: I strongly believe this, and I think this helps explain
Speaker 3: a lot of otherwise confounding social phenomena. For example, I
Speaker 3: think I've mentioned this exact idea on the podcast before,
Speaker 3: but I think there is a really underappreciated explanation for
Speaker 3: the mass appeal of conspiracy theories, and that is that
Speaker 3: they are entertaining. A lot of the popular explanations for
Speaker 3: the appeal of conspiracy theories is based in anxieties and
Speaker 3: the need for explanatory closure on ambiguous phenomena, and you know,
Speaker 3: the search for explanations and all that, and I'm sure
Speaker 3: those play play a role too, but I personally think
Speaker 3: entertainment is like a huge and under explored factor in
Speaker 3: what makes these things so popular. A lot of conspiracy
Speaker 3: theories offer a fascinating, absorbing, Hollywood style narrative to explain
Speaker 3: something in the world, world, something that is interesting. It
Speaker 3: effortlessly holds your attention, when like a more parsimonious explanation
Speaker 3: based on evidence would be kind of boring.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. It's so
Speaker 2: many of the like even if you don't get in,
Speaker 2: even if you are not a conspiracy theorist, if you
Speaker 2: would not say that you're a you know, if you
Speaker 2: don't follow the boards, you don't actually believe in any
Speaker 2: of it. You or they'll say you don't believe in
Speaker 2: the various theories and what have you. You can you still
Speaker 2: probably find them amusing on some level, at least on
Speaker 2: that Can you believe what these people believe the level
Speaker 2: of things you know, or just look at look at
Speaker 2: this you know this data, then look how they're interpreting it.
Speaker 2: And of course that can, as we've discussed before, like
Speaker 2: that can also be kind of a gateway into learning
Speaker 2: more about it and maybe being overwhelmed by some of
Speaker 2: the ideas.
Speaker 3: I think that's exactly right, and I think it's also
Speaker 3: it's more than just what we would call strictly conspiracy theories.
Speaker 3: I think there are generally a lot of people who
Speaker 3: just get into highly speculative, highly speculative belief systems with
Speaker 3: a poor basis and evidence, let's call it that. Starting
Speaker 3: off just like being kind of like, what's this, I'll
Speaker 3: watch a video. Oh, this is kind of entertaining. But
Speaker 3: as you spend time with ideas, even if you don't
Speaker 3: initially believe them, often they will come to become more
Speaker 3: appealing to you because you're spending time with them. Almost
Speaker 3: kind of a social reinforcement effect sets in the same
Speaker 3: way that when you spend time around people, their beliefs
Speaker 3: start seeming more reasonable to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And also, as we've said before, a lot of
Speaker 2: these ideas provide kind of a shortcut to wonder, a
Speaker 2: shortcut to individual or cosmic significance. You know, places you
Speaker 2: can get to through science through a you know, actual
Speaker 2: understanding of of of evolution or or or you know
Speaker 2: or or the you know, the history of the universe
Speaker 2: as we understand it. But aliens, however, often provide a
Speaker 2: short cut to that point.
Speaker 3: Yes, a short cut to explanatory closure, and one that
Speaker 3: is just it just holds your attention easily, Like, you
Speaker 3: don't have to put in much work to keep thinking
Speaker 3: about it. It's just fascinating.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Anyway, So if we are to an extent correct about
Speaker 3: that belief about the you know, the pandemic of entertainment
Speaker 3: based epistemology thinking something's true just because it's it's interesting
Speaker 3: or exciting, then it's incredibly meaningful to all of us
Speaker 3: to have a better understanding of how human interest is
Speaker 3: cultivated and also how boredom sets in. Though even if
Speaker 3: we're wrong about the societal trend, it's still a really
Speaker 3: important question for educators and other communication based professions. Boredom,
Speaker 3: by any measure, I think is a really serious object
Speaker 3: of study.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, as a as a parent, I
Speaker 2: guess a topic that comes up again and again, and
Speaker 2: my wife and I frequently have discussions about, like, do
Speaker 2: do the youth of today understand how to be bored?
Speaker 2: Do they know what boredom is? You know, they're like
Speaker 2: they have so many different streams of entertainment and information
Speaker 2: coming into their lives. And then also like, I think
Speaker 2: you need tools to deal with boredom and and or
Speaker 2: transform your boredom because there are going to be times
Speaker 2: in your life where you're going to be bored and
Speaker 2: you're going to have to be able to defind ways
Speaker 2: out of it or through it yourself.
Speaker 3: Okay, So to look at these actual studies themselves. The
Speaker 3: first study was called Boredom Begets Boredom and Experienced Sampling
Speaker 3: Study on the Impact of Teacher Boredom on Student Boredom
Speaker 3: and Motivation, published in the British Journal of Educational Psychology
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty. The subjects were four hundred and thirty
Speaker 3: seven students mean age fourteen and a half years and
Speaker 3: seventeen of their teachers, and the study set out to
Speaker 3: determine quote, the relationship between teacher boredom, students perceived teacher boredom,
Speaker 3: student boredom, and student learning motivation and rob This is
Speaker 3: one where I can identify from personal experience. I have
Speaker 3: had the experience of being a teacher and being bored
Speaker 3: by what I was teaching, but trying not to let
Speaker 3: the students know that, having to kind of like fake
Speaker 3: it to like push through and okay, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: because they'll they'll know if you're bored. I had a
Speaker 3: sense of it back then. They'll know if you're bored
Speaker 3: and so you got to really like put on a
Speaker 3: happy face and get into it even if you're not
Speaker 3: feeling it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I think on one level or another, we
Speaker 2: at least know the Hollywood version of what a bored
Speaker 2: teacher looks like. We think of, say Ben Stein in
Speaker 2: Ferris Beeler's Day Off, or any other various pop culture
Speaker 2: manifestations of the same principle, like, this boring individual is bored,
Speaker 2: and I am also feeling the boredom that is just
Speaker 2: flowing off of them in waves.
Speaker 3: So the researchers collected a two week experience diary from
Speaker 3: the subjects that included experiences in classroom lectures, and the
Speaker 3: findings were indeed that teacher boredom was negatively associated with
Speaker 3: student motivation. Bored teachers made students less motivated, and they
Speaker 3: write about their conclusions, quote perceiving teachers being bored promoted
Speaker 3: students own feeling of boredom, which in turn reduced their
Speaker 3: learning motivation. They say, quote when a teacher is bored
Speaker 3: in class, or when students perceive that their teacher is bored.
Speaker 3: So maybe if it seems like they're bored even though
Speaker 3: they're not, students would have lower learning motivation. Makes sense, okay.
Speaker 3: Second study this was called whatever will Will bore? The
Speaker 3: mere anticipation of boredom exacerbates its occurrence in lectures. This
Speaker 3: was also published in the British Journal of Educational Psychology
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, and this paper included three studies attempting
Speaker 3: to measure whether expecting to be bored by an experience
Speaker 3: makes you more likely to actually be bored by it. So,
Speaker 3: in the first couple of studies, they used natural university
Speaker 3: lecture environments, so just like students going to their own classes,
Speaker 3: and they asked students ahead of time, and they found
Speaker 3: that students who expected to be bored in a lecture
Speaker 3: later did report that it was more boring than students
Speaker 3: who didn't expect to be bored. But you could say, okay, well,
Speaker 3: but maybe that's some there's some other confounding factor there,
Speaker 3: like maybe if you're if you were the kind of
Speaker 3: student who expects to be bored, you're also just more
Speaker 3: likely to be bored in general. So in a third study,
Speaker 3: they experimentally manipulated anticipated boredom, so they were going to
Speaker 3: show students a lecture video and they had a test
Speaker 3: group where they made students more likely to expect boredom,
Speaker 3: and they found yes, in this manipulated sample group, they did.
Speaker 3: The students who did anticipate higher levels of boredom felt
Speaker 3: more bored by the video lecture.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think this is an important area because I
Speaker 2: hear from my son regarding his class. It's like their
Speaker 2: classes he loves, and then the classes where he expects
Speaker 2: to be bored And I haven't approached it from this
Speaker 2: angle before, Like I need to talk to him about
Speaker 2: like expectations of boredom equally boredom. But also it makes
Speaker 2: me think about like the social pressure of thinking a
Speaker 2: class is boring and the effect that would have, you know,
Speaker 2: like it seems, you know, this pervasive idea that I
Speaker 2: think is often compounded by media, the idea that ah
Speaker 2: Man school school sucks, teachers suck, the you know, classes
Speaker 2: are boring. It's just something you got to get through
Speaker 2: so you can get back to tears from the kingdom
Speaker 2: or whatever, so tears off the Kingdom. Sorry sorry sell defense,
Speaker 2: but at any rate, Yeah, like understanding and being able
Speaker 2: to sort of be aware of yourself within a bored
Speaker 2: state seems important.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So I've got a couple of points I
Speaker 3: want to make First of all, I want to say
Speaker 3: we say this a lot, but to anybody reacting to
Speaker 3: these studies with like, well I could have told you that,
Speaker 3: or like why do they have to test that? That's obvious?
Speaker 3: Science is full of findings that are counterintuitive, where your
Speaker 3: hunches are wrong. You will never discover those unless you check.
Speaker 3: So until you actually put your hunches to the test,
Speaker 3: you don't really know. So I would just always encourage
Speaker 3: people don't react that way when a study finds something
Speaker 3: and you feel like, well, that's obvious, why would you
Speaker 3: test for that? Yeah, but there are tons of things
Speaker 3: that are true that are not obvious, so like you
Speaker 3: should check anyway, put things to the test. Even if
Speaker 3: it seems like, yeah, obviously that's true, a lot of
Speaker 3: times it's not true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And if it is true, you want to know
Speaker 2: how true it is. I mean, kind of going back
Speaker 2: to the nose hairs thing, like, yeah, even though we
Speaker 2: suspect that this is the case, it makes sense to
Speaker 2: test it more, to do counts, to look at medical
Speaker 2: histories of individuals with and without nose hair and see
Speaker 2: how it all lines up.
Speaker 3: So that's the first point. But the second thing is
Speaker 3: coming back to your idea. Yeah, about about like your
Speaker 3: son's expectations of boredom in certain classes in school, and
Speaker 3: all that this second paper was to me. It was
Speaker 3: suggesting interesting questions about the role of volition in boredom.
Speaker 3: For example, I have memories of when I was a kid,
Speaker 3: I would go to church, and I remember thinking that
Speaker 3: church was boring. It would feel like it was going
Speaker 3: on forever, and I would want it to be over
Speaker 3: so we could leave and I could have lunch or whatever.
Speaker 3: I also remember feeling bad for feeling this way. I
Speaker 3: remember feeling guilty that I was having these sacrilegious thoughts
Speaker 3: or emotional reactions, and that it was basically immoral of
Speaker 3: me to be bored by church. You know, we're coming
Speaker 3: here to worship the creator of the universe. Shouldn't this
Speaker 3: be the most interesting thing we ever do in our
Speaker 3: whole lives? And so I can remember making conscious effort
Speaker 3: to convince myself that church was not going to be boring.
Speaker 3: It was going to be really really interesting, and I
Speaker 3: was going to feel really really interested by it. And
Speaker 3: I was trying to think, like, I don't really fully
Speaker 3: know the answer to this question. I was thinking, did
Speaker 3: those efforts work. I remember thinking like that, But did
Speaker 3: that actually make me less bored? I think it sort
Speaker 3: of worked, like I think I could partially talk myself
Speaker 3: into being less bored by an experience I found naturally boring,
Speaker 3: but there was still some kind of cognitive dissonance there.
Speaker 3: And I don't know if that actually made the underlying
Speaker 3: boredom more or more bearable or less bearable in some way.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Hmmm, this is interesting. Now. My apologies to my mother
Speaker 2: if she's listening, but I would agree that church is boring.
Speaker 2: I have most of my memories of going to church
Speaker 2: as a child were of being bored. I think, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, I think part of it is like you
Speaker 2: know what, age is the material aimed at you know,
Speaker 2: in the you know what and so forth, And as
Speaker 2: an adult, you're you're often maybe more, there's more in
Speaker 2: the like the sermon that is aimed at you. As
Speaker 2: an adult, you you kind of have a built up
Speaker 2: appreciation for the music you're singing in the church culture
Speaker 2: you're in the in the middle of. But also I
Speaker 2: look back and I remember, like three things come to mind.
Speaker 2: First of all, you learned how to deal with your
Speaker 2: own boredom, and if you were bored, you you know,
Speaker 2: you fostered some sort of imagination and and so you know,
Speaker 2: I would sort of go into daydreamland if if I
Speaker 2: wasn't engaged with what was going on. But I also
Speaker 2: remember that the other side of it is like generally
Speaker 2: there's a Bible there that you can use, right next
Speaker 2: to the hymnal, and so I would often pick that
Speaker 2: up because it's like it's okay, most books you can't
Speaker 2: have out during the sermon, but you can have a
Speaker 2: Bible out, and there's all sorts of weird stuff going
Speaker 2: on in that Bible. So oh yeah, if you're not
Speaker 2: you know, if you're not checked in on that sermon,
Speaker 2: well you can go see what sort of strange war
Speaker 2: or magical scenario is happening in the Old Testament, you know,
Speaker 2: flip around, see what see what happens. Uh.
Speaker 3: This may be more my adult perspective than my perspective
Speaker 3: at the time, but I totally agree church may have
Speaker 3: been boring, but the Bible is not. The Bible is awesome.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, even in churches today, I think
Speaker 2: it's it's still a challenge, like how do you can
Speaker 2: you can take kids out of those those sermons. Uh,
Speaker 2: And you can take and send them to a kid's church,
Speaker 2: but then eventually there's a cut off point where they're
Speaker 2: in there with everyone else. And uh. And I'm you know,
Speaker 2: talking mainly from a you know, a Protestant background here,
Speaker 2: but I imagine this is true of so many religions that
Speaker 2: eventually there is going to be a worship service that
Speaker 2: is aimed at the community at large, and younger people
Speaker 2: are just not going to be into it as much.
Speaker 2: And how do you keep them engaged? Yeah? How do you?
Speaker 2: How do you deal with that challenge? So I'm sure
Speaker 2: a lot I'm sure a lot of people we've given
Speaker 2: this a lot of thought throughout history. But but yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's, it's, it's. It seems seems like it's probably
Speaker 2: a universal conundrum because you can't just make the church
Speaker 2: service exciting for the for the young people, because then
Speaker 2: are the older people going to be into it? I
Speaker 2: guess you end up having two services. I know that's
Speaker 2: something with a lot of places do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know how I would feel now with
Speaker 3: my adult perspective, though I do remember I think there
Speaker 3: is a some not quite the same way, because there
Speaker 3: wasn't like a you know, a threat of supernatural authority
Speaker 3: hanging over it. But I think I can recall also
Speaker 3: to a lesser extent, similar things in like some college classes,
Speaker 3: where I would be like sometimes feeling truthfully a little
Speaker 3: bit bored in say one of my literature classes, but
Speaker 3: also being like, but the person I want to be
Speaker 3: is somebody who who cares about books and finds these
Speaker 3: books interesting and you know, and a lot of my
Speaker 3: literature classes were effortlessly fascinating, but other ones were sometimes
Speaker 3: honestly more of a slog And so I remember I've
Speaker 3: probably had some of that same cognitive dissonance there. I'm like,
Speaker 3: I want to fight my way into finding this more
Speaker 3: interesting than I naturally do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I know this feeling as well. And while
Speaker 2: your mortal soul may not be on the line, there's
Speaker 2: still was and is a lot on the line in
Speaker 2: a college class, Like I remember thinking like, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I should like find a reason to be engaged with this,
Speaker 2: because you're going to have to write an essay or
Speaker 2: there's going to be a test or what have you.
Speaker 2: But then it's still like you're coming up against the
Speaker 2: feeling of boredom, and there's at times it can feel insurmountable.
Speaker 3: But anyway, to come back to the subject of the study,
Speaker 3: I do think that there is I don't know if
Speaker 3: it can get you all the way there, but I
Speaker 3: do think there is a partial role of like just willful,
Speaker 3: volitional commitment to the idea that I am not going
Speaker 3: to be bored by the subject matter actually contributing to
Speaker 3: somewhat lessening it's boredom.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I think that's a skill that has
Speaker 2: to be learned and taught, you know. I mean, you
Speaker 2: have to be able to put yourself in that place
Speaker 2: where it's like, Okay, I am bored now, but let's
Speaker 2: turn things on. Let's find something to not be bored about.
Speaker 2: What's something I can engage with this, you know, religious service,
Speaker 2: with this lecture, or anything else for that matter.
Speaker 3: To wrap this section, I did just want to feature
Speaker 3: a poem. This is by the poet Charles Simmitch. It
Speaker 3: was published in The New Yorker in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 3: It's called to Boredom. It's a poem about boredom. It reads,
Speaker 3: I'm the child of your rainy Sundays. I watched time
Speaker 3: crawl over the ceiling like a wounded fly. A day
Speaker 3: would last forever, making pellets of bread, waiting for a
Speaker 3: branch on a bare tree to move. The silence would deepen,
Speaker 3: the sky would darken, as grandmother knitted with a ball
Speaker 3: of black yarn. I know heavens like that. In Eternity's classrooms,
Speaker 3: the angel sit like bored children with their heads bowed.
Speaker 2: Oh that's nice. I'd not heard or read this one before.
Speaker 3: It struck me as a good intersection of our subject
Speaker 3: matter because it includes the idea of children being bored
Speaker 3: in classrooms, but also of the sort of shameful boredom
Speaker 3: of piety.
Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah, And it's also ironic because I have it
Speaker 2: on good authority that poetry is also boring or so
Speaker 2: or so the children seem to think. And I immediately
Speaker 2: question this tho It's like, how can you guys not
Speaker 2: be into poetry? Like poetry covers a lottery. I think
Speaker 2: maybe is you're exposed to poetry in classrooms, you're only
Speaker 2: exposed to like a thin idea of what poetry is,
Speaker 2: and without a reminder that poetry also spills over into
Speaker 2: literature at large, and also into the lyrics of every
Speaker 2: song you listen to.
Speaker 3: Well. This actually comes back to the idea of whether
Speaker 3: the teacher enthusiasm or teacher boredom coming through and affecting
Speaker 3: the students in the class. I strongly believe that if
Speaker 3: a child thinks poetry is boring, boring and they haven't
Speaker 3: found a way to get into it, one way to
Speaker 3: break through to them is to is to experience poetry
Speaker 3: read aloud by a really good, entertaining reader, experiencing it
Speaker 3: as an outloud verbal sort of performance instead of just
Speaker 3: something on the page. I think that really helps, like
Speaker 3: show what's exciting about it?
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, absolutely, all right, it's time for our last
Speaker 2: selection here though though again we're not covering all of
Speaker 2: the winners. We encourage you to go check out in
Speaker 2: Probable dot com and see the full list. But it
Speaker 2: is now time to taste the Ramen electric.
Speaker 3: What are you about to do to me?
Speaker 2: Rob? So? This is the Nutrition prize. This one comes
Speaker 2: from the article Augmented Gustation using Electricity by Nakamura and Nyashita.
Speaker 2: This is from Proceedings of the second Augmented Human International Conference,
Speaker 2: March twenty eleven. This is a really fun one. I
Speaker 2: had a lot of fun with this paper. I expect
Speaker 2: that it would be at least a little kooky, because
Speaker 2: just the idea of essentially eating food that is electrified,
Speaker 2: that has an electrical current flowing through it, that alone
Speaker 2: sounds completely bonkers. So I was all up for it.
Speaker 2: But then, oh my goodness, this paper kicks off as
Speaker 2: if it were written by the mad scientist doctor Kurt
Speaker 2: Leopold from the nineteen seventy one horror movie Zat aka
Speaker 2: The Blood Waters of Doctor z. This is a film
Speaker 2: that was riffed on Mystery Science Theater three thousand back
Speaker 2: in the day, and we have covered it on Weird
Speaker 2: House Cinema. It is a Florida mad scientist movie with
Speaker 2: a fishman, a catfish man walking around, but.
Speaker 3: A self induced catfish man, right, like he's not made
Speaker 3: that way by you know, nuclear testing or something. He
Speaker 3: decides to become a fishman.
Speaker 2: That's right. Basically, he's like fish rule humans, drool. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna turn myself into the ultimate fish man, and then
Speaker 2: I'm going to turn all of the fish into superfish,
Speaker 2: and fish are gonna rule the world again, and I
Speaker 2: will be like their fish king. Hilariously, it doesn't really
Speaker 2: pan out for doctor Leopold in the film, but he
Speaker 2: has some great narration early on in that film. So
Speaker 2: I'm gonna read the opening paragraph from this paper in
Speaker 2: my version of the Curt Leopold voice.
Speaker 3: Okay, please quote.
Speaker 2: Catfish are described as swimming tongues because they have taste
Speaker 2: buds covering their external body surface and oropheryngegal cavity, and
Speaker 2: they can recognize a very large number of tastes with
Speaker 2: high sensitivity. In contrast, human taste buds are located only
Speaker 2: in the mouth and their sensitivity is lower. Posting human
Speaker 2: beings can augment their sensitivity and the number of tastes
Speaker 2: that they can perceive. In this paper, we propose a
Speaker 2: method to change taste. The method involves the provision of
Speaker 2: electric stimulus. We discuss the use of various sensors to
Speaker 2: augment gustation.
Speaker 3: And the Oscar goes to you, brilliant, and you're right,
Speaker 3: it is this is so, this is so, doctor Leopald.
Speaker 3: It's like when he's talking about uh oh, what is
Speaker 3: he talking about, like the sargassum or something. We the
Speaker 3: weed of deceit, but just the contempt for humanity here
Speaker 3: weak pathetic human taste buds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so this is one of the more exciting
Speaker 2: opening paragraphs in a science study that I've read recently.
Speaker 2: So to refresh, catfish are amazing because they're all tongue
Speaker 2: tasting all the time. Humans, on the other hand, can
Speaker 2: only taste with their mouths and have disappointingly low sensitivity
Speaker 2: to taste losing. However, we humans have science so we
Speaker 2: can augment our tasting powers.
Speaker 3: This feels like some kind of pitch from like a
Speaker 3: scammer catfish life coach. It was like, using my course,
Speaker 3: you can become as cool as a catfish like me.
Speaker 2: It totally does so. First of all, the first two
Speaker 2: points here are very true. Catfish are often described as
Speaker 2: supertasters with taste receptors all over their bodies, though the
Speaker 2: receptors are more concentrated on the mouth and the barbels
Speaker 2: or whiskers of the catfish. They have a colossal number
Speaker 2: of taste receptors and high sensitivity to amino acids. They
Speaker 2: use these amazing senses to detect dissolved proteins from food
Speaker 2: sources in the muck, as well as finding potential mates.
Speaker 2: A reminder that catfish, if you're not familiar with them,
Speaker 2: if you're not a you know, if you don't fish
Speaker 2: for catfish. They live in the muck there. They're bottom dwellers.
Speaker 2: They're highly sensitive to things that may be down there,
Speaker 2: decaying in the mud that they can feast upon.
Speaker 3: Okay, so I guess when you are I don't know
Speaker 3: if the word would be scavenger. When this is your
Speaker 3: method of getting nutrition, you need a you need a
Speaker 3: highly tuned sensory array to figure out where the nutrition
Speaker 3: is amongst all of the goop exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So to put some numbers behind this, I was
Speaker 2: looking at a Live Science article by Remy Malina published
Speaker 2: in twenty eleven. This author points out that the average
Speaker 2: person has about ten thousand taste buds, but catfish, on
Speaker 2: the other hand, can have get ready for it, one
Speaker 2: hundred thousand to one hundred and seventy five thousand taste
Speaker 2: buds taste receptors. The article also points out that chickens
Speaker 2: come in really with twenty four taste receptors.
Speaker 3: To them, everything tastes like themselves.
Speaker 2: But think about that without doing the exact math, so
Speaker 2: you know, feel free to check my math here, But essentially,
Speaker 2: I think you could roughly say that catfish are as
Speaker 2: far beyond humans as humans are beyond chickens in terms
Speaker 2: of our like the taste realm of the senses that
Speaker 2: we occupy in the world.
Speaker 3: I see. So, Like, if you could imagine catfish becoming
Speaker 3: like humans and having a complex catfish society, what glories
Speaker 3: and splendors of gustation and food senses would would they create?
Speaker 3: Just imagine their restaurants.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly so like another way to think about this.
Speaker 2: For instance, there are tastes that chickens can't taste that
Speaker 2: humans can taste. We know this to be the case
Speaker 2: with other animals as well, like the domestic cat. Domestic
Speaker 2: cat can't taste sweet things. On the other hand, domestic
Speaker 2: cats can taste at least one thing that we cannot taste,
Speaker 2: and that is adnisine triphosphate or ATP. This is an
Speaker 2: energetic molecule in meat, while apparently humans cannot taste it.
Speaker 2: According to David Blo's two thousand and seven Scientific American articles,
Speaker 2: strange but true cats cannot taste sweets.
Speaker 3: And again, this would make sense from an adaptive point
Speaker 3: of view. Cats are not evolved to say, select fruits
Speaker 3: or things like that from their environment. Their carnivores. You know,
Speaker 3: they're going to be primarily eating the meat of other animals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so a cat. It makes sense that a cat
Speaker 2: cannot appreciate, say, a fresh peach, the way human can,
Speaker 2: or at all for that matter. Meanwhile, even though humans
Speaker 2: do buy and large eat meat, or they can eat
Speaker 2: meat depending on their individual diets, you know, they certainly
Speaker 2: can appreciate the flavors of meat, but not in the
Speaker 2: way that cats do. Obligate. Carnivores, little carnivores that they are,
Speaker 2: they taste meats in ways that we cannot. And if
Speaker 2: you live with a cat like I do this, you
Speaker 2: can appreciate this. Like, yes, they seem to have a
Speaker 2: relationship with their food dish that is different than our
Speaker 2: relationship with our food dishes, you know. But the catfish,
Speaker 2: the catfish, oh man, it's almost I think it's insufficient
Speaker 2: to say that the catfish can taste rotting organic matter
Speaker 2: and in the muck in ways that we cannot, because
Speaker 2: I think it's like that number is so much larger
Speaker 2: than ours. The full taste of bud count They inhabit
Speaker 2: an entirely different sense realm when it comes to taste itself,
Speaker 2: and especially when it comes to the precious muck meat.
Speaker 3: They are in a cinnabite level of sensory experience. When
Speaker 3: it comes to tasting the mud at the bottom of
Speaker 3: the river, the pleasure and pain indivisible.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Like to reference another MST three K movie, if
Speaker 2: you could dopple into the body of a catfish and
Speaker 2: experience life as a catfish and your mud is the catfish, Like,
Speaker 2: what would that be like? Would it just be just
Speaker 2: I'm imagining, like catfish experiencing muck meat would be like
Speaker 2: the Stargate sequence from two thousand and one A Space Odyssey,
Speaker 2: You know, That's what it would be like to just
Speaker 2: really dig into some fresh rotten meat from the muck.
Speaker 3: Yeah, experience beyond limits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what's a human to do short of transforming
Speaker 2: themselves into a walking catfish person. Well, as we've discussed
Speaker 2: on the show before, humans do have one leg up
Speaker 2: on the scenario, and that is that we have cooking.
Speaker 2: We have built up multiple culinary cultures that have long
Speaker 2: fed into each other. We've eaten the rainbow and then
Speaker 2: some figuring out how to augment, mask, enhance, and change
Speaker 2: flavors to maximize our gustation.
Speaker 3: Right, So, we know that cooking food changes its nutritional profile,
Speaker 3: but also cooking food unlocks new levels of taste experience.
Speaker 3: A big part of what people do when they say
Speaker 3: cook a piece of meat, is they brown it, you know,
Speaker 3: call using the Miard reaction of these proteins, which like
Speaker 3: drastically increases the complexity of flavor available on the on
Speaker 3: the surface of the meat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the catfish is left of the mercy of
Speaker 2: the environment. Humans. However, we have fewer peg pigments at
Speaker 2: our disposal to paint with. But boy, can we paint
Speaker 2: with them. You know, we can fine tune them, make
Speaker 2: the absolute best out of so many ingredients, and you know,
Speaker 2: concluding not only staples to our diet, but also minuscule
Speaker 2: amounts of say, poisons and plant bioweapons, things that aren't
Speaker 2: really on the menu from like a larger, you know,
Speaker 2: sort of evolutionary standpoint, but we figured out how to
Speaker 2: use them in just the right ways and just the
Speaker 2: right amounts to fine tune the main things that we're consuming.
Speaker 2: And the authors of the award winning paper here also
Speaker 2: point out that not everything we use is even a
Speaker 2: food or a plant byproduct. Carbonated drinks, They point out
Speaker 2: depends on carbon dioxide. It's not something that has any
Speaker 2: kind of like nutrition profile, you know, but it's still
Speaker 2: something that enhances our our gustation, that enhances our consumption
Speaker 2: and appreciation of a given beverage.
Speaker 3: I do love a Seltzer water.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then central to the paper here is the
Speaker 2: idea of electric taste, depending on the observation that humans
Speaker 2: perceive electric stimulus as having a sour or metallic taste. Now,
Speaker 2: the authors point this out. I don't know that I
Speaker 2: don't think we've covered this before. Maybe I'm wrong, because
Speaker 2: we certainly talked about the history of electrical invention and research.
Speaker 2: But they point out that we've known about this at
Speaker 2: least since the early days of electricity. Swiss math professor
Speaker 2: and electrical pioneer Johann Georg Sulzer, who lives seventeen twenty
Speaker 2: through seventeen seventy nine, was apparently the first person to
Speaker 2: write about this and perhaps the first person to experience
Speaker 2: electric gustation in seventeen fifty two. As Neville Monroe Hopkins
Speaker 2: pointed out in a nineteen oh five book Experimental Electrochemistry,
Speaker 2: Sulcer reported quote, if you joined two pieces of lead
Speaker 2: and silver, so that they will be in the same plane,
Speaker 2: and then lay them upon the tongue, you will notice
Speaker 2: a certain taste resembling that of green vitriol, and while
Speaker 2: each piece apart produces no such sensation.
Speaker 3: Oh that's interesting. So maybe the idea would be that
Speaker 3: you're tasting electrical current.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And the authors here point out that this
Speaker 2: quote triggered the discovery of the battery cell by Volta.
Speaker 2: And also we should add, going back to our previous episode,
Speaker 2: is that we have another example of scientists using their
Speaker 2: sense of taste to explore the world.
Speaker 3: Oh great connection. Going back to the twenty twenty three
Speaker 3: ig Nobel Geology Prize, which was about eating and licking
Speaker 3: rocks and fossils in various ways, But one of the
Speaker 3: things discussed in that essay was about how geologists will
Speaker 3: sometimes and especially further back in history, would taste rocks
Speaker 3: and sediments and stuff in order to get some chemical
Speaker 3: information about them.
Speaker 2: Right right. So the authors here again are mostly concerned
Speaker 2: with ways to sort of expand human taste sensations, and
Speaker 2: so they point out that there are various beyond cooking
Speaker 2: approaches to flavor augmentation that have been proposed already including
Speaker 2: I'm going to list some of these overlaying novel sense
Speaker 2: and augmented reality information with the consumption of traditional food. So,
Speaker 2: for instance, imagine you're eating a chocolate chip cookie while
Speaker 2: at the same time new car smell is piped in
Speaker 2: at you, and while augmented augmented reality headset makes it
Speaker 2: seem like you're snacking on I don't know, a slice
Speaker 2: of rainbow or a Pikachu or something.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, so you're combining things. You would have some
Speaker 3: kind of actual physical chemical substrate that is the thing
Speaker 3: that's literally going into your mouth while you're eating, but
Speaker 3: you're having that a sort of modified in virtual reality
Speaker 3: sense by different by like visual information coming in through
Speaker 3: a headset or goggles or something that make it look
Speaker 3: like something else, and you're being given different smells than
Speaker 3: this food would normally have. And a big part of
Speaker 3: what we think of as taste is actually smell. This
Speaker 3: is apparent to anybody who's ever had like a bad
Speaker 3: cold or something suddenly like you can't taste food anymore.
Speaker 3: A lot of what you when you're eating food and
Speaker 3: you think this tastes so good. A huge part of
Speaker 3: that experience is actually it's smelling good. It just feels
Speaker 3: like it's taste.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it reminds me of one of the
Speaker 2: aspects of mixology is that take mint for example. Is
Speaker 2: there plenty of great cocktails and zero proof cocktails that
Speaker 2: have nnt inside them that you know, perhaps the mint
Speaker 2: is torn up or mold or what have you. But
Speaker 2: on the other hand, there are plenty of say tropical drinks,
Speaker 2: for example, that have mint only as a garnish, and
Speaker 2: maybe that mint is pounded in the palm or it's
Speaker 2: you know, ripped a little bit before it's added on top.
Speaker 2: Maybe not, but that's an example where you're not actually
Speaker 2: drinking the mint, but your face is close to the
Speaker 2: mint garnish whilst consuming the beverage, and therefore the mint
Speaker 2: is contributing to the overall taste profile of the cocktail.
Speaker 3: Yeah, molecules of the mint may not be going into
Speaker 3: your mouth and getting on your tongue, but because you're
Speaker 3: smelling it, it does affect how the drink quote tastes,
Speaker 3: really by affecting how it smells exactly.
Speaker 2: And so they're saying, well, you could do that in
Speaker 2: perhaps more technological ways, and then this augmented reality level.
Speaker 2: The sort of Pokemon Go level of it is, make
Speaker 2: it actually look like something else as well.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: Another approach they highlight is using vibration and sound to
Speaker 2: change the experience of tasting a candy. I like that
Speaker 2: one because it sounds like something Willy Wonka would dream up.
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2: They also mentioned more or less in passing. This is
Speaker 2: something that I think would have to be explored in
Speaker 2: greater depth is the idea of mind control three D
Speaker 2: printing that translates brain signals from the user into three
Speaker 2: D printed food. I glanced at a twenty nineteen paper
Speaker 2: on this concept. So it's kind of like think it,
Speaker 2: print it, eat it.
Speaker 3: Anything you can dream up, you like, neural link your brain.
Speaker 2: To a three D printer, yeah, or just kind of
Speaker 2: you know, you're sort of you're really hungry, and you're
Speaker 2: sort of you know, you're fantasizing about the food you
Speaker 2: want to eat, and then yes, let that flow into
Speaker 2: the three D printer and it will print that food
Speaker 2: out of soil and green or something.
Speaker 3: I don't know about that one.
Speaker 2: I also, this is outside of what they were talking about.
Speaker 2: I looked at a study that proposed to propose a
Speaker 2: kind of neural sharing of taste sensations. One quote from it.
Speaker 2: This is from Electric Taste by Chiak and car Niyaka
Speaker 2: from twenty eighteen. Quote. Humans will want to share these
Speaker 2: stimuli collectively as an experienced digitally, like they currently do
Speaker 2: with visual and audio media on the Internet.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, so the same way you share a meme
Speaker 3: or something, you can share a flavor.
Speaker 2: I guess so. But then, like, what is it like
Speaker 2: to be rickrolled in the realm of shared online taste experiences?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't want to know. Circus peanuts.
Speaker 2: I think circus peanuts is the rickrolling of a flavor
Speaker 2: that's brilliant.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. You mean that the weird the puffy
Speaker 3: candy yes, a yeah, the peanuts, yes.
Speaker 2: No, actual peanuts are great, obviously, but that's the weird
Speaker 2: circus peanuts.
Speaker 3: In the same vein candy corn, you know, like you
Speaker 3: think it's going to be one thing, but it's candy corn.
Speaker 3: You've got candy corn again.
Speaker 2: Finally, we're going to get to electric food and drink,
Speaker 2: like the basic concept. So the first concept that they
Speaker 2: roll out is the idea of drinking electrically charged liquids.
Speaker 2: And for this you'll need to drink out of two
Speaker 2: straws at once and also like two contains or at
Speaker 2: least two compartments in the same container. I'm going to
Speaker 2: read a quote here that explains how this works, and
Speaker 2: I'm not going to use the funny voice this time, okay. Quote.
Speaker 2: To set up the system, the user pours a drink
Speaker 2: containing an electrolyte into two cups, Cups A and cup BE. Next,
Speaker 2: they insert a negative electrode into a straw and put
Speaker 2: the straw in Cup A. In a similar manner, the
Speaker 2: user inserts a positive electrode into other straw into the
Speaker 2: other straw and puts that straw in cup B. Is
Speaker 2: shown in figure one, which obviously if you're listening to
Speaker 2: this you can't see. But the circuit of this system
Speaker 2: is completed when the user drinks. An electric contact is
Speaker 2: connected between the straw in the mouth. While drinking, the
Speaker 2: tongue picks up the electrical stimulus and perceives electric taste.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, I think I understand the technical system they're describing,
Speaker 3: but I'm wondering more about the sensation, like what does
Speaker 3: this taste like?
Speaker 2: Well, from what I understand. And I should also add
Speaker 2: that in the image they present here, you see this
Speaker 2: cup presumably with two compartments, and there's like a little
Speaker 2: knob on the cup where you can control the voltage,
Speaker 2: so you can sort of adjust the exit, you know,
Speaker 2: to what extent you're gonna perceive the electric taste in
Speaker 2: various beverages. So my understanding is, like you have the
Speaker 2: beverage or beverages that you are drinking through the straws.
Speaker 2: Those have electrolytes. Those also have their own flavor profile,
Speaker 2: and then they're combining with the electric taste that the
Speaker 2: tongue perceives. So that kind of metallic or sour.
Speaker 3: Taste, okay, so just be another kind of flavor that
Speaker 3: you can like turn up or down in your drink
Speaker 3: with a switch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So kind of like that mint garnish on that cocktail,
Speaker 2: except an electrical current through the tongue, you know.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: Now for food, they realize where you're gonna need something else,
Speaker 2: and so they propose electric chopsticks. They work on a
Speaker 2: similar basis, with the chopsticks serving as negative and positive
Speaker 2: electrodes for the morsel of food pinch between them that
Speaker 2: is being brought to the tongue. We should also mention,
Speaker 2: just in passing, we did a great invention episode many
Speaker 2: not many, a couple of years ago, I don't know,
Speaker 2: some number of years ago about chopsticks. Chopsticks on their
Speaker 2: own are fascinating, even if they are not electrified.
Speaker 3: Chopsticks are always one of the first things I think
Speaker 3: about when considering the ways that the experience of eating
Speaker 3: food is highly influenced by things other than just like
Speaker 3: the flavor and texture of the food itself. Like, eating
Speaker 3: with chopsticks changes the food experience in a way that
Speaker 3: I very much like, Like, I will enjoy the same
Speaker 3: food more often if I eat it with chopsticks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I almost never use a fourth these days. I
Speaker 2: use chopsticks instead.
Speaker 3: Oh well, I'm not quite there yet for certain foods. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know. It just feels good. I don't know
Speaker 3: what the difference is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I also use a fork. There's sometimes
Speaker 2: sometimes you just need a form fair enough. But anyway,
Speaker 2: I should drive home here that the idea, as I
Speaker 2: understand it here again, is not that the electricity is
Speaker 2: changing the flavor of the food morsel. It is when
Speaker 2: the when your tongue touches the food morsel, and you know,
Speaker 2: the circuit is completed through the tongue. That is where
Speaker 2: this additional flavor profile is is introduced into the taste
Speaker 2: sensation of the meat or whatever the morsel happens to be, right, Okay,
Speaker 2: So I think at this point you might be forgiven
Speaker 2: if you still think this sounds completely ridiculous, like something
Speaker 2: that would be rolled out in a movie. That's you know,
Speaker 2: at a you know, a really fancy experimental restaurant. You know, like,
Speaker 2: here's your dry ice cocktail, and here your electric chopsticks
Speaker 2: to uh to eat your electric morsels with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what is this minority report food?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, And I think I think that would be
Speaker 2: a pretty fun place to leave it. But things in
Speaker 2: this paper get even weirder and futuristic, because remember the
Speaker 2: paper starts out by talking about ways to not only
Speaker 2: enhance human flavor, but to kind of take us to
Speaker 2: the next level. And they argue that electric gustation could
Speaker 2: essentially open the gateway to new realms of flavor. They write, quote, today,
Speaker 2: most gustatory information tends to focus on the enjoyment of eating. However,
Speaker 2: the primary role of gustatory information is to use chemical
Speaker 2: signals to determine whether we can eat a particular material. However,
Speaker 2: we cannot identify all materials and do not have the
Speaker 2: capability to distinguish between materials that differ slightly in terms
Speaker 2: of their ingredients. By using certain sensors and the information
Speaker 2: on electric tastes provided by them, we may succeed in
Speaker 2: increasing the sensitivity of the organ of taste. In other words,
Speaker 2: we can augment the sense of taste by using the
Speaker 2: phenomenon of electric taste and sensors. So if I'm understanding
Speaker 2: this correctly, the potential ramifications of this direction are twofold.
Speaker 2: They argue that we could simply enhance our taste and
Speaker 2: we be able to potentially tell the difference between two
Speaker 2: very similarly tasting dishes that have different ingredients, kind of
Speaker 2: like a taste of all the ingredients. Sort of approach
Speaker 2: taste every ingredient that's in there, even the ones that
Speaker 2: you normally wouldn't sense, like looking at a painting with
Speaker 2: better glasses so you can see all the details. But
Speaker 2: then the other level is previously tasteless material now has taste.
Speaker 2: New things are on the menu.
Speaker 3: I don't know if this would ever actually work but
Speaker 3: just going with the hypothetical here that this would work,
Speaker 3: you could imagine it being useful in the sense of, say,
Speaker 3: imagine somebody has a very strong food allergy. Uh, and
Speaker 3: it's for a food item that sometimes gets you know,
Speaker 3: mixed in undetected with other ingredients in a dish, maybe something.
Speaker 3: So you could just start eating a dish without realizing
Speaker 3: that this allergen is in there and then have a
Speaker 3: bad reaction. But if you had this special you know,
Speaker 3: taste all the ingredient sensor, you'd put it in your
Speaker 3: mouth and then you would immediately know, uh, oh, this
Speaker 3: has my allergen in it. I should not eat it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that seems reasonable. That seems in align with the
Speaker 2: kind of thing they're thinking about here. I'm going to
Speaker 2: read one last quote. They say, by providing a particular
Speaker 2: electric taste pattern to previously tasteless material, we can ensure
Speaker 2: the material can be perceived. For example, by replacing atmospheric
Speaker 2: CO two concentration with electric taste, humans may be able
Speaker 2: to discern the taste of exhaled and inhaled air. This
Speaker 2: is similar to the concept of seeing infrared light via
Speaker 2: an infrared camera. The goal of our system is to
Speaker 2: obtain a new layer of tongue that can detect tastes
Speaker 2: that we could not perceive previously. So new frontiers in flavor.
Speaker 2: The city limits of Flavor Town can be pushed out
Speaker 2: into the previously rural environments.
Speaker 3: This is ambitious. I'd say this is beyond expanding the
Speaker 3: city limits. This is Alexander the Great, and this is
Speaker 3: a conquest of taste.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, there's a whole world of flavors out there
Speaker 2: that we are denying ourselves. So yeah, this one's inherently
Speaker 2: funny because it's talking about electrified food, something that I
Speaker 2: don't think anybody really wants, or at least didn't until
Speaker 2: they read this paper. But it's also important because you know,
Speaker 2: nobody wants it because the windows of perception are closed
Speaker 2: to us. As comical as aspects of the article may seem, like,
Speaker 2: the basic premise here is I mean, it's utterly psychedelic.
Speaker 2: Like if we were talking about something other than taste,
Speaker 2: like more people would be instantly on board. Like if
Speaker 2: we were talking just about site For us humans who
Speaker 2: are very site based, if you said, well, these goggles
Speaker 2: allow you to see things that were previously unseen, you'd
Speaker 2: be like yes, I will buy that out of the
Speaker 2: back of a comic book from the nineteen sixties, so
Speaker 2: that this is, you know, ultimately a similar scenario.
Speaker 3: It's not X ray glasses, it's the X ray tongue exactly.
Speaker 3: All right, are we going to cap our Ignobel series there?
Speaker 2: I believe we will. We'll go ahead and close up
Speaker 2: shop until next year when they honor more fascinating studies
Speaker 2: and will inevitably cover them then as well. In the meantime,
Speaker 2: will remind you that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
Speaker 2: a science podcast with core episodes on two, season three,
Speaker 2: and Mondays we do listener mail. On Wednesdays we do
Speaker 2: a short form monster fact or artifact episode, and on
Speaker 2: Fridays we set aside most series concerns to just talk
Speaker 2: about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If
Speaker 3: you would like to get in touch with us with
Speaker 3: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a
Speaker 3: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
Speaker 3: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
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