WEBVTT - Catching Up with the Ig Nobel Prizes 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.280 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:15.920 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:19.680 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:23.560 are you? So today we are going to continue and 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:28.080 conclude our journey through past winners of the IG Nobel 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:31.960 Prize so far, and a quick reminder on what this 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:35.120 is all about. Over the last few weeks, I've done 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:38.240 two other episodes about this, but you know, the Nobel 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:43.080 Prize is all about celebrating human achievements that generally benefit 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:45.960 all of humanity in some way. That's the idea behind 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:50.880 those The ig Nobel Prize launched out of a satirical 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:54.160 science journal, and they continue on today but as an 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:58.120 offshoot of a different satirical science journal. To learn all 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:01.240 about that, just find the first part of this series, 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:04.679 and they acknowledge projects and people who have achieved something 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:08.320 perhaps maybe at least on the surface, a little less 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:13.360 lofty than something that benefits all of humankind. The general 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:16.679 description is that the ignobl is for something that first 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:20.319 makes you laugh then makes you think. Some of the 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:23.720 awards celebrate the absurd, some of them are actually more 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:26.600 of a way to cast shade at people and projects 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:30.800 that probably deserve it. Now in the line of Ignobel 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:33.640 Prize as we are up to the year twenty thirteen, 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:37.520 and that year there was really only one Ignobel Prize 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:39.880 that was awarded for a category that relates to tech, 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:42.279 because they give them out for all sorts of different 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:46.720 categories and technology doesn't factor into all of them. In fact, 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:51.200 I'm only talking about a very small number of prize 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:55.440 winners overall, because lots of awards went out to all 0:01:55.480 --> 0:02:01.440 sorts of wacky and weird scientific endeavors. This year it 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:05.040 was for the field of safety engineering and the award 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:10.519 went to Gustano Pizzo and the patent that he received, 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:14.920 which was for an anti hijacking system for aircraft. This 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:17.799 was not a new patent. I should add the Ignobel 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:21.720 Prize doesn't necessarily celebrate something that happened in that year. 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:27.839 Sometimes someone will uncover, you know, a ridiculous thing from 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:30.919 years and years ago, and then they'll award the Ignobel 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:34.800 Prize well after the event happened. But the same thing 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:36.799 is true about the Nobel Prize. So I think it's 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:42.920 fine anyway. Bitso's initial filing for this patent dated all 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:45.359 the way back to November second, nineteen seventy two, and 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:48.840 remember the prize went out in twenty thirteen. The Patent 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:52.320 Office actually granted his patent on May twenty first, nineteen 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:55.680 seventy four. So this wasn't just a patent application. The 0:02:55.800 --> 0:03:00.760 US Patent Office actually approved the patent. Now you have 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:04.680 to understand why was there a patent for an anti 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:07.760 hijacking device in the first place. Well, in the late 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:11.960 nineteen sixties and into the early nineteen seventies and beyond, 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:17.400 actually there were several instances of planes being hijacked or 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:21.520 attempts at people hijacking planes. There were several that involved 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:23.919 people hijacking a plane in order to travel to Cuba, 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:26.760 with the phrase take this plane to Cuba becoming something 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:29.760 of a meme back in the day. You'll occasionally hear 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:32.720 that in comedy sketches. I remember there was a comedy 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:36.640 sketch where a hijacker is not able to get onto 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:38.520 a plane, and so it gets on a bus and says, 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:42.200 take this bus to Cuba. The infamous case of dB 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:45.840 Cooper happened in nineteen seventy one. Now, if you don't 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:49.640 know about the dB Cooper case just to do a 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:53.560 web search on D. B. Cooper to read up a 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:57.640 one of the more outlandish acts of thievery in US history. 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.920 But let's get back to this invent. So what was 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:07.400 Gustano's solution toward stopping a hijacker from taking over a plane? Well, 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:12.080 according to the patent quote, a partition or barrier located 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:16.440 immediately aft of the pilot's cabin is adapted to be raised, 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:23.040 dividing the aft section longitudinally into port and starboard areas, 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:27.560 the floors of which are dropped on command to lower 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:31.440 the hijacker into a capsule in the belly of the plane. 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:37.880 The capsule is releasable through opened bombay doors, having attached 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:42.279 there too a parachute for safely returning the hijacker within 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:48.279 the capsule to earth end quote. So, imagine that you've 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:50.880 got X ray glasses on, and you're standing in the 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:54.040 aisle of the plane, and you're looking toward the cockpit. 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:57.719 You would see that beneath the floor right in front 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:02.120 of the cockpit there are first there's a partitioned wall 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:06.240 that can come straight up out of the floor and 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:10.039 thus cut the cockpit into left and right halves, or 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:13.880 the aisle into left and right halves. On that left 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:16.520 and right half, you would see underneath the floor there'd 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:19.279 be a couple of capsules. The patents sketch actually showed 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:22.600 them as nets as opposed to capsules, and the floor 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:26.080 itself is just a trap door. So his invention was 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:29.640 a cartoonish trap door built into the body of a plane, 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:33.080 two trap doors actually, and it would be hijacker would 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:36.400 presumably fall through the trap door into the net or 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:40.960 capsule below. The plane would then open up doors below 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:43.400 the capsule so on the bottom side of the plane 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:47.400 to eject the hijacker, and a parachute would deploy so 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:49.919 that authorities would be able to retrieve. Then ne're do 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:53.400 well once they landed on the ground. The other part 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:55.360 of the invention that dividing wall that would move into 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:58.599 place and bisect the area behind the cockpit. That would 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:01.320 serve both to nudge the hijacker in the right position, 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:04.640 because you know, this invention only works if the hijacker's 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:07.800 actually standing on top of the trap door. I'm reminded 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:12.240 again of comedy sketches where a villain wants to throw 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:15.040 a switch and open a trap door under someone, only 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:17.039 they're not standing on the trap door, so the villain 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:19.840 keeps on like suggesting, why don't you move just a 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:22.159 little bit more to the right. It feels kind of 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:24.839 like that. It also would serve as a barrier to 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:28.120 prevent hijackers from opening the cockpit door right. It almost 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:32.440 sects like like an obstacle that way, because it would 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:34.800 come up right up against the door and keep the 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:37.960 door secure, and thus the hijackers would not be able 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:40.320 to gain access to the pilots. I don't know why 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:43.200 companies like Boeing and Airbust didn't go to the trouble 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:45.880 of building trap doors and bomb bay doors on commercial 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:50.680 passenger jets. Clearly this was worthy of an Ignobel prize. 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:54.800 In twenty fourteen, the Ignobel Prize for Art went to 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:58.800 a project that includes lasers, Which is why I'm mentioning 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:02.159 it in this episode because, as it turns out, this 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:05.200 really isn't that much about tech at all, but lasers 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:08.880 do play a part, and I love lasers, so tech 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:12.760 was really just a way to facilitate part of this experiment. 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:16.280 So the winners of the prize were Marina di Tomasso, 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:22.040 Michelle Sadaro, and Paolo Livrea for their scientific paper titled 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:28.640 esthetic value of Paintings affects pain thresholds. So the basic 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:33.160 hypothesis was that your threshold for pain, or maybe your 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:37.560 perception of pain, depends in part on circumstances that are 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:43.240 outside of the actual incident that's causing the pain. So 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:46.760 in other words, if everything around you is pretty nice 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:49.760 and you're kind of distracted because of how pretty everything is, 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:54.120 then if you stub your toe, you might not perceive 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:57.440 it as painful as if you were in an unpleasant 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:01.160 or scary situation. I'm kind of reminded did of doctors 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:04.480 who will distract a child before the child gets a 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:09.720 shot so that the child doesn't really perceive the pains 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:15.320 as acutely. So that's kind of what the basic hypothesis was, Well, 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:18.480 how do you test that? How do you test if 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:23.400 someone feels pain at a different level based upon what 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:27.480 they're experiencing. So the researchers gather together a group of 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:31.280 folks and they had these people look at different paintings, 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:35.280 and each participant was to give their opinion about which 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:38.760 paintings they thought were beautiful and which ones they thought 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:42.720 were unpleasant or ugly. So that's the first step, you know, 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:45.760 and they would the researchers would write down, okay, you know, 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:51.079 subject A thinks paintings one, five, nine, twelve, sixteen, and 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:53.600 twenty are all pretty and all the rest are ugly, 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:57.040 and they would just keep those as two separate groups 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:01.680 for the second part of the experiment. And the second 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:05.079 part was they had the participants stare at the paintings 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:09.480 they found beautiful and then they hit the back of 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:12.600 their hand with a laser, a laser that was strong 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:18.000 enough to create a point of pain by heating it up. 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:20.920 And they did the same thing with the ugly paintings, 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:24.079 right or the ones that the particular subject found were ugly. 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:27.840 And at the end they said, so how bad it 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:31.280 hurt this time? So, yeah, the laser was just strong 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:33.679 enough to heat that tiny point on the back of 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:37.440 the hand without actually causing damage. It caused discomfort and 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:41.920 then pain, but not it wouldn't, you know, actually hurt 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:45.600 the person. So they asked how bad was the pain 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:47.480 when you were looking at the ugly paintings and how 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:49.120 bad were was the pain when you were looking at 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:53.640 the pretty paintings. And they concluded that quote pain may 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:57.200 be modulated at cortical level by the esthetic content of 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:01.760 the distracting stimuli end quote. So again not super tech heavy, 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:04.480 but it had lasers in it, so I had to 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:07.240 talk about it. Next up, we need to go to 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:10.640 twenty sixteen's Egg Nobel Prizes and the prize in chemistry 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:12.560 that year covers a topic that we've talked about on 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:17.119 Old Tech Stuff podcasts, and that is Diesel Gate, aka 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:21.440 the Volkswagen emissions scandal. All right, So, as I'm sure 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:23.920 many of you know, in lots of places around the world, 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:26.880 there are laws that restrict the amount of emissions a 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:30.880 vehicle can make of certain types of emissions, and if 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:34.760 a vehicle exceeds that limit, then it's not really legal 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:37.200 to drive that vehicle on the roads or to sell 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:41.679 that car in those places. So here in the United States, 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:45.240 one of the emissions the Environmental Protection Agency looks out 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:49.559 for is nitrogen oxide, and vehicles that have diesel fueled 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:53.160 engines can release nitrogen oxide. But as long as those 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:57.760 emissions are under a legal limit, everything's copasetic, at least 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:01.839 from a legal standpoint. The searchers found something curious when 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:05.240 they were testing some Volkswagen vehicles that run on diesel. 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:09.440 In the lab, the vehicles operated under the legal limit 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:13.280 for nitrogen oxide emissions. Everything's fine, But then in a 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:17.079 live road test, some researchers found that two Volkswagen vehicles 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:21.720 running on diesel were actually exceeding the accepted levels of 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:27.520 nitrogen oxide emissions. A further investigation found that Volkswagen had 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:32.400 installed software in their diesel powered vehicles, and that software 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:35.400 would detect when a car was put into emissions testing 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:40.200 in a lab and would essentially throttle the vehicle's performance 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:44.640 so that nitrogen oxide emissions would be below normal. But 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:46.960 if you were outside of a testing environment, when you 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:50.280 were actually using the car for its intended purpose to 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:52.840 take you from place to place, it would switch to 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:56.440 normal operations, and that meant the engine would be generating 0:11:56.440 --> 0:12:01.800 more power, but also you would get more nitrogen oxide emissions. Essentially, 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:06.120 Volkswagen was cheating on an environmental test and this was 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:11.120 a huge scandal, and it led to recalls and fines 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:14.520 and plenty of other costs. And these were not puny 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:18.160 little fines either. In the United States alone, the estimation 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:23.160 was around twenty five billion with a b dollars in fines. 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:26.200 Volkswagen would later claim it cost the company more than 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:30.840 thirty one billion euro. So clearly this is a case 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:34.280 of throwing some shade on an Ignobel winner. The prize 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:37.280 said it went to Volkswagen quote for solving the problem 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:42.760 of excessive automobile pollution emissions by automatically electro mechanically producing 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:47.800 fewer emissions whenever the cars are being tested. End quote. Okay, 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:50.240 we're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:57.480 we've got some more Ignobel Prize winners to talk about. 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:05.560 All right, we're back, and we're up to twenty seventeen. 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:08.640 We actually have a couple of entrees that Merritt mentioned 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:12.319 on a technology podcast, although the second one is well, 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:13.800 it's going to be a challenge for me not to 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:18.080 make some jokes. Remember, Jonathan, this is a serious business. Okay, 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:21.520 all right, we'll start with the easy one first, and 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.960 this one went to a brain activity study that used 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:29.400 fMRI analysis to study a version, particularly in the form 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:33.400 of food disgusted. And as the researchers point out in 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:38.320 the abstract of their paper, some people are disgusted by cheese, 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:42.480 and so in their paper, quote, the neural bases of 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:46.840 disgust for cheese end quote. The researchers describe how they 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:51.199 found out that, based on fMRI data, a higher percentage 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:54.280 of people are disgusted by cheese than by other types 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:57.000 of food, So that's why they chose cheese out of 0:13:57.040 --> 0:14:00.640 everything else. More importantly, they say that those who have 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:03.840 no desire to eat cheese, or perhaps even an outright 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:07.840 aversion to eating cheese, they observed more activity in the 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:11.079 basal ganglia, which I could have sworn was a nightclub 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:15.439 I once walked past in San Diego. So the researchers 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:21.000 were studying how the brain reacts when someone feels discussed. Essentially, 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:23.560 and I will remind y'all that one of the earlier 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:26.760 Ignobel prizes went to some researchers who showed that equipment 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.160 meant to study brain activity and the statistical analysis that's 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:34.720 used along with it, which primarily focuses on fMRI machines. 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:40.040 Those machines are extremely sensitive and the statistical methods are 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:45.359 extremely it's easy to insert errors, either intentionally or otherwise. 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:50.760 Talked about this with David Eagleman recently, and they showed 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:53.960 that by showing that the fMRI study could be done 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:59.280 to apparently measure brain activity in a dead salmon, which 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:02.840 is clearly impossible, right, And the reason I bring that 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:07.600 up is I now, I'm always worried that perhaps any 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:13.040 study that uses FMRII fails to follow very strict controls. 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:18.440 There's no reason to suggest that that's the case here, because, 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:23.560 as David pointed out, it is entirely possible to get strong, valid, 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:29.680 reliable results with fMRI, but you have to be very careful, 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:33.400 which is true about all science. But we can often 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:37.440 just assume that everyone did everything correctly, and then next 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:40.040 thing you know, you find out that the conclusions you 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:45.400 have drawn aren't based on anything anyway. The whole study 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:48.480 was a pretty amusing way to measure disgust, but it 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:52.320 wouldn't work on me because I love cheese. Still, I 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:54.720 thought it was interesting. They thought, we need to figure 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:58.040 out disgust, But we need to figure out how people 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:02.120 experience disgusted in the brain without introducing something that is 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:08.960 genuinely upsetting or dangerous. Right. We don't want to cause 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:14.800 psychological harm by presenting something that's disgusting and disturbing. So 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:19.280 where do we find an item that can create the 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:23.000 feeling of disgust without it actually causing harm and cheese 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:25.760 was what they settled on, and I just think that's great. 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:30.840 And now for the other twenty seventeen prize, this one 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:34.280 was awarded in the field of obstetrics, and it went 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:37.680 to researchers who published a paper titled and I Am 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:42.440 not making this up Fetal facial expression in response to 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:47.160 intra vaginal music emission. So, in other words, the study 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:49.560 looked at how a fetus reacts in the form of 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:53.960 the fetus's facial expression when the fetus encountered music coming 0:16:54.040 --> 0:17:00.800 from inside the mother's vagina. Holy cats, y'all, Oh many jokes. 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:03.960 I mean, the music is coming from inside the vagina 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:06.840 is just one of them. But I will do my 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:10.920 best to stop myself from reverting to a juvenile sense 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:16.400 of humor. So the study compared fetal responses to music 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:19.639 that was played through quote emitters placed on the mother's 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:23.199 abdomen end quote which I'm guessing is kind of like, 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:26.719 you know, having a couple of little speakers that are 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:30.040 attached to whatever the music device is and putting the 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:33.680 speakers sort of face down on the mother's abdomen and 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:37.080 then the baby can listen to music that was sort 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:42.640 of the control group, and the other was applying musical 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:48.679 stimuli intravationally. Now I only read the abstract of this paper. 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:52.159 I did not pay to get access to the full paper, 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:56.359 so I am not exactly sure how they did that. 0:17:57.640 --> 0:18:00.480 I wasn't really brave enough to read the full study, 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:04.360 if I'm being totally honest. But I imagine that however 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:07.280 they did it didn't involve John Cusack in a boombox. 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:13.560 The researchers then used ultrasound and they captured images of 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:17.040 the fetus, and they looked for facial movements such as 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:21.679 mouthing and tonguing, and they observed that a fetus that 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:25.840 was older than sixteen weeks typically did seem to react 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:29.720 more to the intravaginal music stimulation than that that was 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:34.639 coming from outside the mother. And you might be thinking, 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:39.240 why even study this, Well, the researchers actually had a 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:41.440 couple of good reasons for it. For one, they found 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:43.600 that most of the fetuses that they tested this with 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:47.679 reacted to the intravaginal music more than the alternatives, and 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:51.320 this in turn suggested that the neural pathways associated with 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:55.760 hearing and motor responses that are connected to hearing form 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:59.199 earlier than perhaps we previously believed. So it gives us 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:03.119 more information on the actual development of a fetus in 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:06.480 the womb, and that by knowing this we could potentially 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:10.760 develop new methods for things like prenatal hearing screening, among 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.840 other things. So again, on the surface level, the study 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:18.879 sounds at least a little bit bizarre, but through that 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:21.800 bizarre study, we learned things that potentially could have a 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:26.040 significant impact on people in the future. All right up 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:29.760 to twenty eighteen, we got our second Ignobel Prize awarded 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:34.560 to researchers who found a medical application for roller coasters. Now, 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:36.640 if you've listened to the other episodes I've done about 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:39.320 the prizes, you might remember that way back in twenty ten, 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:43.399 some researchers looked at how positive forms of stress, you know, 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:46.359 like thrilling kinds of stress use stress, in other words, 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:50.119 can help alleviate symptoms of asthma. Well, in twenty eighteen, 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:52.399 we had a related idea, except this time it was 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:54.840 the use of roller coasters as part of an effort 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:58.920 to help patients pass a kidney stone. Y'all, I've had 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:02.679 kidney stones twe and it was agonizing both times, and 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:04.920 I can't even imagine being able to sit still long 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:08.280 enough to ride to the closest amusement park, which is 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:10.959 about a half hour drive from where I live, and 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:14.440 then make my way through the park to the closest 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:17.919 suitable roller coaster to pursue this kind of treatment. But 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:21.080 then again, when I'm in the throes of agony, perhaps 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:25.520 I'd consider trying it anyway, because any relief would be 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:30.200 more than welcome. The researchers, Mark Mitchell and David Wardinger 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:35.080 published their findings in a paper has a title that 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:40.920 includes words that I absolutely cannot pronounce, but essentially a 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:46.439 validation of a renal model for the evaluation of renal 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:50.800 calculi passage while writing a roller coaster. And it almost 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:52.280 feels like they were doing the whole thing as a 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:54.159 gag right from the start with that kind of title, 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:57.520 But it does get better. So, first off, the researcher 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:01.080 has created a simulation to stand in for a patient. 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:04.919 They needed to have some sort of way to measure this, 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:08.440 and it would not be practical or ethical to seek 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:12.800 out people who were in the midst of trying to 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:15.640 pass a kidney stone to stand in and help out 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:19.680 with this, so they needed something to simulate a patient 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:22.040 with a kidney stone, and that makes sense to me. 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:26.280 The simulations were based off actual medical cases of kidney stones, 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:30.760 so they relied on tomography that was gathered during various 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:34.840 patients treatment to determine things like the size of kidney 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:38.880 stones and where in the renal system they were at 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:43.240 the time of the patient seeking treatment. So the researchers 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:47.560 would suspend the stones or calculi in other words, quote 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:53.560 in urine in the model. End quote you. Then they 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:56.320 would take this model on a roller coaster ride. So 0:21:56.400 --> 0:22:02.240 you had researchers carrying the simulation of a human renal 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:08.200 system filled with urine and kidney stones, or a simulation 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:11.360 of a kidney stone onto a roller coaster, and not 0:22:11.480 --> 0:22:15.639 just any roller coaster, but the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad 0:22:15.720 --> 0:22:19.440 roller coaster at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. YEA, 0:22:19.440 --> 0:22:21.080 all that happens to be one of the few roller 0:22:21.080 --> 0:22:23.360 coasters that my partner will go on because she does 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:27.400 not like thrill rides and Big Thunder is just at 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:30.480 her threshold for thrill rides, so I can't wait to 0:22:30.600 --> 0:22:33.080 entertain her with trivia that the ride has also been 0:22:33.160 --> 0:22:37.600 used in a study about kidney stones with a simulated 0:22:37.640 --> 0:22:41.199 model of a renal system filled with p So what 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:45.840 did the researchers actually find. Well, it all depends on 0:22:45.880 --> 0:22:48.560 where you sit, I guess, because they saw that when 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:51.120 they took the model on rides and they sat near 0:22:51.160 --> 0:22:55.359 the front of the train, they observed a passage rate 0:22:55.680 --> 0:22:59.440 of four times out of a total of twenty four rides, 0:22:59.800 --> 0:23:02.359 so they rode twenty four times, and four times of 0:23:02.400 --> 0:23:06.760 the ride they saw that the simulated stone had passed 0:23:06.760 --> 0:23:08.920 at least a little bit further down the renal system, 0:23:08.960 --> 0:23:10.800 and the other twenty times it didn't. But when they 0:23:10.840 --> 0:23:13.160 rolled in the back of the roller coaster, they saw 0:23:13.160 --> 0:23:15.919 a passage rate of twenty three times out of thirty 0:23:15.960 --> 0:23:18.480 six attempts. They also saw that the passage of the 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:23.960 calculi depended a bit on the calosseal location of the 0:23:24.000 --> 0:23:26.920 stone itself. And I'm sure I'm butchering the pronunciation of 0:23:26.960 --> 0:23:30.439 these things. I ran into so many medical terms and 0:23:30.480 --> 0:23:33.480 I just am not familiar with them. Anyway, think of 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:37.879 the renal system as having an upper, middle, and lower section. 0:23:38.720 --> 0:23:41.280 The stone would pass through the upper section one hundred 0:23:41.280 --> 0:23:44.200 percent of the time. So if that's where they started 0:23:44.400 --> 0:23:46.600 where they put the kidney stone in the upper part 0:23:46.600 --> 0:23:48.720 of the renal system. It would pass out of the 0:23:48.800 --> 0:23:52.520 upper system, possibly just down into the middle or lower section, 0:23:52.600 --> 0:23:55.920 but it did it every single time. The middle section 0:23:56.400 --> 0:23:59.199 it would pass through fifty five point six percent of 0:23:59.240 --> 0:24:02.439 the time, and the lower section of the renal system 0:24:02.520 --> 0:24:05.520 simulate a renal system forty percent of the time. I 0:24:05.560 --> 0:24:09.399 don't know if that means the model peed itself and 0:24:09.520 --> 0:24:12.639 passed the stone while on the ride. I'd rather not know. 0:24:13.720 --> 0:24:16.480 I will say knowing that some scientists carried a model 0:24:16.520 --> 0:24:18.920 filled with urine on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at least 0:24:18.920 --> 0:24:21.800 sixty times does make me look at the ride a 0:24:21.840 --> 0:24:26.400 little differently. Now, Okay, we're going to take another quick break. 0:24:26.440 --> 0:24:29.080 When we come back, we've got some more Ignobel Prize 0:24:29.080 --> 0:24:32.760 winners to talk about, and hopefully we're done with the 0:24:32.800 --> 0:24:46.720 pee for now. Okay, we're back. So twenty eighteen saw 0:24:46.760 --> 0:24:50.399 another prize winner wasn't just about kidney stones and riding 0:24:50.480 --> 0:24:54.840 roller coasters. The Ignobel Prize for Literature went to a 0:24:54.840 --> 0:24:57.360 research paper that confirms what I think most of us 0:24:57.400 --> 0:25:02.480 probably innately know or least suspect on a subconscious level. 0:25:02.920 --> 0:25:07.840 The paper is titled life is Too Short to RTFM 0:25:07.960 --> 0:25:13.640 how users relate to documentation and excess features in consumer products. So, 0:25:13.720 --> 0:25:16.760 for those innocent summer children among you who do not 0:25:16.880 --> 0:25:25.720 recognize the initialism RTFM, it stands for read the freakin' manual, 0:25:26.359 --> 0:25:29.080 only most of the time folks will use a more 0:25:29.160 --> 0:25:34.360 vulgar F word in that one. So this paper observes 0:25:34.680 --> 0:25:38.880 that with more complex consumer products, people are less likely 0:25:38.920 --> 0:25:41.720 to bother flipping through the pages of a manual before 0:25:41.760 --> 0:25:44.440 trying to suss out how it works. Which, obviously that's 0:25:44.480 --> 0:25:49.240 like counterproductive, right. You've made a product that is more complicated, 0:25:49.600 --> 0:25:52.600