Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Guess what, Mango, what's Ouwell, we are finally here. This
Speaker 2: is the end of twenty twenty five, and you know
Speaker 2: what that means. It's actually time four and I think
Speaker 2: this is right, the forty fourth annual Part Time Genius Awards.
Speaker 2: It's hard to believe we've been doing this for forty
Speaker 2: four consecutive years, or about this single interruption, like that's
Speaker 2: we were doing this this awards as a podcast before
Speaker 2: podcasts were podcasts before Mango.
Speaker 3: How long ago?
Speaker 1: This was forever ago, so long. We used to do
Speaker 1: it on our Walkmans. Yeah, Sony Walkman's. We were just
Speaker 1: like tape it and mail it to one another and
Speaker 1: just synk them up.
Speaker 2: Incredible, incredible.
Speaker 1: But you know, this is one of the things I
Speaker 1: look forward most too, because end of your lists are
Speaker 1: always really fun. But somehow looking at the things that
Speaker 1: are so weird and so wonderful just makes my heart leap.
Speaker 1: You know. It's so fun to see all the things
Speaker 1: that improve over the course of the year, even in
Speaker 1: really difficult years like this one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, And you know, weird and wonderful is
Speaker 2: exactly what we have on deck here today, because this
Speaker 2: year's honorees include an invention that will make it easier
Speaker 2: to enjoy cast roles in space. I know that was
Speaker 2: a concern of ours, A musical mushroom, a very nerdy
Speaker 2: new math holiday, and that's just to name a few.
Speaker 2: So change into your fanciest of outfits, poor glass of
Speaker 2: something festive, and let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners,
Speaker 2: welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson, and as
Speaker 2: always I'm joined by my good friend mangesh Hot Ticketer
Speaker 2: and over there in the booth wearing the fanciest tuxedo
Speaker 2: I think I've seen in a long time, and holding
Speaker 2: a briefcase that's been handcuffed to his arm.
Speaker 3: That's all.
Speaker 2: I didn't notice that until we just started here. That's
Speaker 2: our PALIN producer, Dylan Fagan. But actually I think I
Speaker 2: get it. It's like how Ernst and young people show
Speaker 2: up at award shows with the vote tallies and the
Speaker 2: names of the award winners, right yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Super secure, Except we already have all of tonight's winners
Speaker 1: written down right here. I'm not sure we need to
Speaker 1: go to those lens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true, it's true. All right, Well, I hope
Speaker 2: Dylan has the key for that thing at least. But Mengo,
Speaker 2: before we give our first award out, I'm curious if
Speaker 2: you could give yourself an award for something that you
Speaker 2: did this year, what would it be?
Speaker 1: Hmmm. I think the most impressive thing I did this
Speaker 1: year is that when I realized that kids started saying
Speaker 1: six to seven after someone accidentally said like six to seven,
Speaker 1: I stopped using those numbers insequentially. Wow.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, that's a.
Speaker 1: Real numerical awareness award, I think is what I'd get
Speaker 1: for this year.
Speaker 2: That is really really impressive. So I think I win
Speaker 2: the award for enduring during an entire day where I
Speaker 2: had worn two different pairs of shoes or two shoes
Speaker 2: from different pairs, and I stuck it out. I didn't retreat,
Speaker 2: I didn't go back to the hotel. It was a
Speaker 2: busy day in New York. We were trying to get
Speaker 2: stuff done, and I just went with it. I just
Speaker 2: embraced it. People pointed out all day long. I told
Speaker 2: them what happened, and I endured, and I was really
Speaker 2: proud of myself.
Speaker 1: Oh I love that it's very fashioned forward too. Did
Speaker 1: you try to sell it as something that's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is going to come around next year.
Speaker 2: I know a couple people ask that, and I haven't
Speaker 2: noticed whether they've followed up with actually doing this themselves,
Speaker 2: but I'm gonna say that they did. I'm going to
Speaker 2: say that this started a trend. We'll probably notice it
Speaker 2: going in the next year.
Speaker 1: I'm glad. I'm glad we can make our listeners aware
Speaker 1: as well. So let's get started with our first award,
Speaker 1: which is the Grammy Award.
Speaker 2: So Mango, I don't I hate to break this to you.
Speaker 2: I don't think we can give out a Grammy Awards
Speaker 2: that's actually well definitely trademarked.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So not that Grammy Award. It's our own Grammy Award.
Speaker 1: It's the Generating really awesome Mushroom Music Yes Award, And
Speaker 1: that yes, I think makes me sound like Uncle Baby
Speaker 1: Billy from Writers Stones. But this award goes to John
Speaker 1: Ross and Andy Kidd. They are a pair of UK
Speaker 1: based experimental artists also known as Bionic and the Wires,
Speaker 1: and they describe themselves as a fusion of technology, art
Speaker 1: and nature, which is a fancy way of saying they
Speaker 1: attach bionic arms to mushrooms and make them play instruments.
Speaker 1: So do you want to hear a club?
Speaker 3: I mean obviously so yeah.
Speaker 1: So that is from a video uploaded earlier this year
Speaker 1: called Mushroom in the Wild playing Keyboard. It has one
Speaker 1: point four million views on YouTube, and it's exactly what
Speaker 1: it sounds like. There's a wild mushroom with sensors attached
Speaker 1: to its cap, and those sensors are connected to a
Speaker 1: pair of bionic arms and it is so cute. Each
Speaker 1: one is holding a little mallet and they play a
Speaker 1: tiny synthesizer. It is just the very best thing I've
Speaker 1: seen today.
Speaker 2: That is fantastic. And this isn't a special mushroom that
Speaker 2: went to Juilliard. It's just a regular mushroom growing in
Speaker 2: the woods, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It really taps into their innate abilities. So here's
Speaker 1: how it works. The mushroom is alive, which means it's
Speaker 1: doing stuff like photosynthesis, it's doing stuff chemically and growing.
Speaker 1: All these active processes generate bioelectrical signals, and that's what
Speaker 1: the sensors are picking up and registering as vibrations. Those
Speaker 1: vibrations get converted to motion and that means the bionic
Speaker 1: arms holding the mallets. And there's just something so strange
Speaker 1: and beautiful about listening to music made by an individual mushroom,
Speaker 1: which is not a sentence I'd ever thought.
Speaker 2: I'd said, Yeah, I didn't see that one coming. All right, Well,
Speaker 2: our next award is a game changer for folks who
Speaker 2: love trying new foods but hate being surprised by a
Speaker 2: blast of painful spice. Now we're calling it the putting
Speaker 2: the hot ones guy out of work Award, and it
Speaker 2: goes to this team led by Weijun Ding and Jinghu
Speaker 2: at the Shanghai Institute of Technology. See, the only way
Speaker 2: to tell if a food is spicy is to taste it.
Speaker 2: And if it is spicy and you can't handle the heat,
Speaker 2: while by tasting it, you've exposed yourself to the thing
Speaker 2: that you're trying to avoid. Right, it's a real dilemma here.
Speaker 1: I guess you could have someone else tasted for you,
Speaker 1: like the way kings used to have tasters.
Speaker 2: That is one way you could, but people would probably
Speaker 2: just stop going on to eat with you, I'm guessing.
Speaker 2: And luckily researchers have invented an artificial tongue that uses
Speaker 2: a special sensor to detect the presence of capsation and
Speaker 2: other spicy compounds like alison, which gives fresh garlic that burn.
Speaker 2: And the way they came up with this is actually
Speaker 2: pretty amazing. So you've seen hot ones. What do they
Speaker 2: have standing by in case guests start to panic?
Speaker 1: A glass of milk?
Speaker 2: Right, It's exactly right. So milk has proteins called casins
Speaker 2: that bind to spicy compounds and neutralize the heat. So
Speaker 2: this artificial tongue sensor contains milk, powder and chemicals that
Speaker 2: conduct an electrical current. Now, when it comes in contact
Speaker 2: with the spice, the current decreases, indicating that the casin
Speaker 2: is binding to something hot. So they tested the tongue
Speaker 2: with peppers, ginger, garlic, and a lineup of eight other
Speaker 2: different hot sauces, and overall it was as accurate as
Speaker 2: a panel of human testers and detecting these different spice levels.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 1: I love that because I love eating hot food, and
Speaker 1: I love that you can have a measure that other
Speaker 1: people can rely on, you know, because I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm not a good indicator of how hot something is. Yep, Well,
Speaker 1: this next award is definitely cool. I am calling it
Speaker 1: the Golden Banana Peel Award, and it goes to Martin Muser,
Speaker 1: Oshroff Attila and Sergei Zukomlinov at Zarland University in Germany
Speaker 1: because earlier this year they figured out the real reason
Speaker 1: why we.
Speaker 2: Slip on ice. I assume they came up with something
Speaker 2: more scientific than because ice is slippery.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And in fact, they disproved a theory that's been
Speaker 1: around for about one hundred and fifty years. So back
Speaker 1: in the eighteen hundreds, a British engineer named James Thompson
Speaker 1: suggested that two forces conspire to make us wipe out
Speaker 1: on icy surfaces, pressure and friction. In other words, when
Speaker 1: you step on ice, your weight applies pressure, and because
Speaker 1: your shoes are warmer than the ice, that pressure makes
Speaker 1: some of the ice melt. Then friction kicks in, making
Speaker 1: your foot slide against the wet surface. But it turns
Speaker 1: out that's actually not quite what's happening. So using computer simulations,
Speaker 1: Muser and his team discovered that molecular die poles are
Speaker 1: the real source of slipperiness. So you're probably wondering what
Speaker 1: a die pole is.
Speaker 2: I only think of north pole, South pole. Is there
Speaker 2: a die pole that's like an addition to that or something.
Speaker 1: That's kind of the same idea. So molecules can have
Speaker 1: degrees of positive and negative charge or polarity, and a
Speaker 1: positive end and a negative end, and these poles orient
Speaker 1: them in a particular direction. Now, when water freezes, the
Speaker 1: molecules align in a nice, tidy crystal structure. But when
Speaker 1: you step on it, the orientation of molecules in your
Speaker 1: shoe messes everything up. It's like walking into Martha Stewart's
Speaker 1: kitchen and throwing a bucket of ping pong balls everywhere. Right,
Speaker 1: So when the ice crystal structure is disrupted, some of
Speaker 1: it falls apart and turns back to liquid, so you go.
Speaker 1: Of course, none of this will prevent you from slipping
Speaker 1: on ice, but at least now you can impress people
Speaker 1: with your knowledge of molecular physics while you're waddling along
Speaker 1: a frozen sidewalk.
Speaker 2: That is pretty cool. I'm guessing you may get more
Speaker 2: mileage out of this one than I do, since you
Speaker 2: live in the Northeast and I'm in Alabama. But still
Speaker 2: pretty cool in the end. All right, Well, time for
Speaker 2: our fourth award, and Mango, I have a question do
Speaker 2: you remember what you were doing on September sixteenth, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five.
Speaker 1: Mm, probably desperately searching for a blated gift for my
Speaker 1: kid's birthday.
Speaker 2: Well, what you should have been doing is celebrating Pythagorean
Speaker 2: triple square day, which was identified by a recent Williams
Speaker 2: College grad named Jake Malarkey. I love that is the
Speaker 2: last name, and his math professor, Colin Adams.
Speaker 1: So I remember the Pythagorean theorem partially because I remember
Speaker 1: Shack saying he was like the Pythagorean theorem and there
Speaker 1: was no solution. C squared is the solution of But
Speaker 1: how does that apply to a random band September.
Speaker 2: It's not a random day September sixteenth, twenty twenty five
Speaker 2: or nine sixteen twenty five. All three of those numbers
Speaker 2: are perfect squares. Nine is three squared, sixteen is four squared,
Speaker 2: and twenty five is five squared. And you'll notice something
Speaker 2: about those numbers, right, Sure, they're consecutive exactly, and it
Speaker 2: gets better or at least mathier. So that sequence three
Speaker 2: four five is a Pythagorean triple, which goes back to
Speaker 2: the theorem we learned in school. A squared plus b
Speaker 2: squared equals c squared. Substitute the numbers in for A,
Speaker 2: B and C three squared plus four squared equals five
Speaker 2: squared or nine plus sixteen equals twenty five.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, it's like a like a magic try.
Speaker 2: Nope, it's actually just math. But yeah, it's still very cool.
Speaker 2: And September sixteenth, twenty twenty five was the only date
Speaker 2: in this century that nails the Pythagorean triples square. So Congress,
Speaker 2: as to Jake and Colin, we're giving you the Once
Speaker 2: in a Blue Moon Award. I actually think this one
Speaker 2: is really really cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really fun. So speaking of rarities, next up,
Speaker 1: it's the Wingman Award, or the year it's the wing Woman,
Speaker 1: because it's going to a New Zealand cartoonist and illustrator
Speaker 1: named Giselle Clarkson. I actually checked out her art online
Speaker 1: and it is really wonderful. But that's not why she's
Speaker 1: getting an award tonight. She is being honored for her
Speaker 1: efforts to find a rare snail a mate. And before
Speaker 1: you start picturing a dating app for snails, let me explain.
Speaker 1: So one day Giselle was pottering around in her garden
Speaker 1: and she noticed an unusual snail. It's shell coil to
Speaker 1: the left, not to the right, which might not sound
Speaker 1: like a big deal, but for snails it is a
Speaker 1: very rare mutation. In fact, just one in forty thousand
Speaker 1: snails have it. And the thing is, lefty snails can
Speaker 1: only mate with other lefty snails because their shells affect
Speaker 1: the position of their reproductive organ and so if a
Speaker 1: lefty stail tried to mate with a righty things just
Speaker 1: would not line up.
Speaker 3: That is wild.
Speaker 2: And if it's only one in forty thousand snails, in
Speaker 2: the odds of two lefties finding each other, I mean,
Speaker 2: that's so so small.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is so Luckily, Gazelle has always been
Speaker 1: interested in snails, and as soon as she spotted this
Speaker 1: little guy, she knew he was special and that if
Speaker 1: he was going to find his true love, he would
Speaker 1: need some help. So she named him Bed, moved him
Speaker 1: to her tank in her living room, and teamed up
Speaker 1: with New Zealand Geographic magazine to launch a campaign to
Speaker 1: find him a mate. Now, before everyone runs outside to
Speaker 1: start checking their yards for left shelled snails, I should
Speaker 1: mention that New Zealand has pretty strict rules about importing
Speaker 1: animals even if they're looking for love, which means Ned's
Speaker 1: partner needs to be a Kiwi. Now, Gazelle hasn't found
Speaker 1: a match for him just yet, but she is holding
Speaker 1: out hope. So if you happen to be in New Zealand,
Speaker 1: keep your eyes peeled for a snail who looks a
Speaker 1: little different, maybe a little lonely. And if they enjoy
Speaker 1: taking long walks in the garden, that'll help too. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: fingers Crossed, twenty twenty six is Ned's lucky year. All right,
Speaker 1: we have to take a quick break. But when we
Speaker 1: come back, Water Buffalo's who made a midlife career pivot
Speaker 1: and what it takes to cook in space, So don't
Speaker 1: go anywhere. Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're
Speaker 1: closing the book on twenty twenty five by handing out
Speaker 1: our coveted end of year awards. I know everyone is
Speaker 1: covening them, but if you're feeling left out, do not worry.
Speaker 1: We also have a limited number of our official, equally
Speaker 1: coveted Part Time Genius membership cards, and we'll send you
Speaker 1: one for free if you give us your name, address
Speaker 1: and one fun fact. You can leave a message at
Speaker 1: three or two four oh five five nine two five.
Speaker 1: That is our part Time Genius hotline, or you can
Speaker 1: email us at high Geniuses at gmail dot com. That's
Speaker 1: Hi Geniuses at gmail dot com. You can also dm
Speaker 1: us on Instagram or Blue Sky. There are no shortage
Speaker 1: of ways to reach out.
Speaker 2: I mean, I feel like Mango. Honestly, it's the best
Speaker 2: deal of the season. It really is just such a
Speaker 2: cool thing. Not only do these cards look super snazzy,
Speaker 2: I mean they're also a great way to win an argument.
Speaker 2: Can't agree on what's the longest river in Europe? Slap
Speaker 2: one of these puppies on the table and whatever you say.
Speaker 2: I mean, who's going to argue with a card carrying
Speaker 2: part time Genius.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not sure how this works, but the Volga
Speaker 1: is the longest river in Europe. Card or no card.
Speaker 2: That is word for word what my daughter told.
Speaker 3: Me, Mango.
Speaker 1: So how about you just give out the next award?
Speaker 2: All right, Well, it's time for one of the most
Speaker 2: competitive awards of the evening. It's the Bovine Glow Up Award,
Speaker 2: and it honors the member of the cattle family who
Speaker 2: underwent the most positive trend information this year. This can
Speaker 2: be in terms of appearance, or self confidence or just
Speaker 2: general well being. So there's a lot of opportunities here
Speaker 2: to be entered into this one, and it's always down
Speaker 2: to the wire with this one. But the twenty twenty
Speaker 2: five winner is Todd. So Todd's a Todd. Todd did
Speaker 2: it freaking finally, you know what I mean. He's a
Speaker 2: five year old water buffalo with black fur, and he
Speaker 2: won first place at the annual water Buffalo Beauty pageant
Speaker 2: in chn Bury, Thailand.
Speaker 1: We had all been keeping an eye on Todd this
Speaker 1: whole time, you know, certainly aware of some elements of
Speaker 1: his progress. But why is there a beauty contest for buffaloes?
Speaker 1: Aren't they, you know, treated as like beasts of burden
Speaker 1: normally mango please? I mean this, The term is draft animals,
Speaker 1: not beasts of burden. But even that doesn't apply in
Speaker 1: this case because while water buffaloes used to plow fields
Speaker 1: and rice pattis in Thailand, most farms have long since
Speaker 1: switched to tractors, so that made plowing faster, but it
Speaker 1: also left farmers with a conundrum. Water buffaloes have been
Speaker 1: a major part of Thai agriculture, for generations, and people
Speaker 1: who work side by side with them didn't like the
Speaker 1: idea of selling them off for meat. So about a
Speaker 1: decade ago, a group of farmers decided that they'd start
Speaker 1: pampering their buffaloes instead. They gave them comfy pins and
Speaker 1: a space to rome, and so folks even began treating
Speaker 1: their herds to daily baths and a special high vitamin diet.
Speaker 1: So pretty soon Thailand's buffaloes were looking so big and
Speaker 1: so healthy that people started holding competitions just to show
Speaker 1: them off. These events rekindled national interest in water buffalos,
Speaker 1: and now the Thai government offers assistance to any farmers
Speaker 1: who want to join the festivities. How does a water
Speaker 1: buffalo beauty contest even work? Right? Like? Who determines that
Speaker 1: one water buffalo is more beautiful than another? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess high qualified judges that that's who
Speaker 2: does it. And they wear these bolo ties and cowboy
Speaker 2: hats so you'll know that they're legit. Like once you
Speaker 2: have those things on, you're like, oh, this person, they
Speaker 2: get it. So and the judges rank each contestant in
Speaker 2: these three categories. There's horn size, there's hoof smoothness, and
Speaker 2: overall physique.
Speaker 1: So they're judging how buff is your buff.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. And like I said, Todd, the buffalo
Speaker 2: won Best in Show this year. It was his first competition,
Speaker 2: but I'm guessing not his last. He shared this honor
Speaker 2: with his owner, who's a food vendor and a farmer,
Speaker 2: which I thought was just so sweet. And the farmer
Speaker 2: says here, it's like the saying goes, people raise buffaloes
Speaker 2: and buffaloes raise people. It's like a family member. Did
Speaker 2: you say that in your house, lockering up all the time.
Speaker 2: I mean that was sort of the main thing we
Speaker 2: lived by.
Speaker 1: People raise buffaloes and buffaloes raised people. I love it.
Speaker 1: Now a family member with prize winning horns and super
Speaker 1: smooth hoofs is a great thing. But our next award
Speaker 1: is good news for any aspiring astronaut worried about the
Speaker 1: menu options, especially on long haul space flights. It is
Speaker 1: the Pie in the Sky Award and it goes to
Speaker 1: aerospace engineer Jim Sears of Boulder, Colorado. So earlier this year,
Speaker 1: Sears unveiled a next gen space oven called SAATED, which
Speaker 1: is an acronym for safe Appliance, tidy, Efficient and delicious.
Speaker 1: It is barely larger than a toaster, but it's poised
Speaker 1: to have a big impact on space based cuisine, finally
Speaker 1: providing astronauts with a practical way to cook food in
Speaker 1: zero gravity.
Speaker 2: I was actually thinking about this not too long ago,
Speaker 2: because obviously, growing up you would, you know, one of
Speaker 2: the most exciting things going to like science stores or
Speaker 2: things like that, was buying all the sort of replica
Speaker 2: space food or whatever. And I was wondering, like, how
Speaker 2: much that's advanced? Are they not cooking now in space?
Speaker 2: Are they still just eating freeze dried ice cream up there?
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not quite that dire, but it is close.
Speaker 2: Like most of the food served on NASA missions and
Speaker 2: aboard the ISS is freeze dried or dehydrated, and the
Speaker 2: only way to like quote unquote cook it is to
Speaker 2: soak it in water. Flammability is obviously a huge concern
Speaker 2: in space, so cooking with high heat hasn't been an option. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I can see how an open flame would be a
Speaker 2: bad idea, but I feel like, you know, with an oven,
Speaker 2: the heat sources contain there, So why are space ovens
Speaker 2: just now catching on?
Speaker 1: The major hold up actually has been the lack of gravity.
Speaker 1: So with the standard connection oven, a fan pushes heat
Speaker 1: around because hot air cooks food faster when it's circulating,
Speaker 1: but you actually need gravity for that. So Sears came
Speaker 1: up with an oven that used conductive heat transfer, which
Speaker 1: relies on direct contact rather than air currents. So basically,
Speaker 1: you load your ingredients inside this metal cylinder, which spin
Speaker 1: its around so fast that it creates its own artificial
Speaker 1: gravity through centrifugal forces, and this pushes the food up
Speaker 1: against the walls of the cylinder, which are heated with
Speaker 1: ceramic heaters, and a few minutes later you've got this
Speaker 1: perfectly crisp cylindrical pizza or you know, a rich, moist
Speaker 1: cylindrical birthday cake. It's pretty great.
Speaker 2: It actually kind of sounds like those tilta worlds at
Speaker 2: a carnival.
Speaker 1: It is, except the walls are hot and the passengers
Speaker 1: are pizza dir Yeah. Yeah, But you know what's amazing
Speaker 1: is that soon astronauts will be able to enjoy home
Speaker 1: cooked or rather space cooked meals up there. And you know,
Speaker 1: it might not be the best news for their waistlines,
Speaker 1: but it should do wonders for them morale.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think i'd be more willing to book a
Speaker 2: trip to Mars if I knew they were serving pizza
Speaker 2: on the way. But speaking of tasty treats and hard
Speaker 2: to reach places, our next award is the Cherry on
Speaker 2: Top Award, and it goes to the mystery man in
Speaker 2: Colorado who gave ice cream to weary mountain hikers over
Speaker 2: Labor Day weekend.
Speaker 1: What's the story here, Like he just posted up in
Speaker 1: a parking lot and headed out ice cream to people
Speaker 1: coming down.
Speaker 2: No, he made it much more fun than that. So
Speaker 2: this guy did something truly next level. He hauled a
Speaker 2: sixty pound pack loaded with dry ice and ice cream
Speaker 2: bars all the way to the sum of Huron Peak
Speaker 2: and gave treats to climbers as a reward for actually
Speaker 2: reaching the top and for listeners who aren't experienced mountaineers
Speaker 2: like me and Mango. You know, Huron is one of
Speaker 2: the tallest peaks in the Rockies, measuring over fourteen thousand feet.
Speaker 2: I mean it's hard to carry your own weight into
Speaker 2: thin air like that, much less an extra sixty pounds
Speaker 2: of ice cream. Oh my god, I remember being at
Speaker 2: like twelve thousand the game elevation in Nepal and Tibat
Speaker 2: and like carrying a backpack up a flight of stairs
Speaker 2: and it was just insane. I feel like crazy, And
Speaker 2: I was like in my twenties and I was fit
Speaker 2: at the time. But you know, taking sixty pounds of
Speaker 2: ice cream, I feel like I'd be bragging about that NonStop.
Speaker 2: But what's weird about this is it feels like we
Speaker 2: don't actually know this snow angel's name. Yeah, and he
Speaker 2: didn't just withhold his name. He actually wore disguise consisting
Speaker 2: of sunglasses and a fake mustache. But you know, word
Speaker 2: of his generosity spread fast that day, as you might imagine,
Speaker 2: and hikers on the way down and told other people
Speaker 2: what was going on, which of course made everyone extra
Speaker 2: motivated just to reach the summit. Actually read about one
Speaker 2: guy who had brought his two kids on the climb
Speaker 2: and when they finally made it to the peak, they
Speaker 2: just ran straight to the ice cream man, which is
Speaker 2: just so sweet to think about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I feel like they're gonna be bummed every
Speaker 1: time they climb a mountain from now on. It's not
Speaker 1: ice cream waiting yet. That's a good point. Just this lousy,
Speaker 1: breathtaking vista. So sticking with costume, heroes. It is time
Speaker 1: for our ninth award, the Bruce Wayne on a Train Award.
Speaker 1: So tell me, Will, what would you do if you
Speaker 1: were downtown and you suddenly spotted Batman walking towards you?
Speaker 1: Would you behave any differently?
Speaker 2: I always love your hypotheticals, and I assume you mean
Speaker 2: if I saw a random guy dressed as Batman, because
Speaker 2: I would definitely cross the street because he's almost certainly
Speaker 2: going to ask me to take a selfie and then
Speaker 2: charge me ten bucks for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean that's fair. But you're an outlier on
Speaker 1: this one, because, according to a recent study, being in
Speaker 1: the presence Batman makes the average person more altruistic. This
Speaker 1: research was led by Italian psychologist Francesco Panini, and he
Speaker 1: says it's because spontaneous environmental factors increase pro social behavior,
Speaker 1: or the act of helping others. So when something snaps
Speaker 1: us out of our routines, we tend to be more
Speaker 1: attuned to the people around us. And what does this
Speaker 1: have to do with Patman again? Yeah? So to test
Speaker 1: this phenomena, Panini and his team did this experiment on
Speaker 1: the Milan subway to see how many passengers would give
Speaker 1: up their seats to a visibly pregnant woman. Then they
Speaker 1: ran the same experiment, except this time they had a
Speaker 1: man dressed as Batman enter from another part of the train.
Speaker 1: Without Batman, only thirty seven percent of passengers offered up
Speaker 1: their seats, but when faced with the unexpected appearance of
Speaker 1: the dark Night, that number rose to sixty seven percent.
Speaker 1: Now here's a strange thing, though, forty four percent of
Speaker 1: the passengers who gave up their seats on the Batman
Speaker 1: train didn't recall even having seen which I actually suggests
Speaker 1: that unpredictable events can increase pro social behavior even when
Speaker 1: we aren't fully aware of them, so think of it
Speaker 1: as pro social osmosis.
Speaker 2: Wow, well, there you go. That's pretty wild, all right, Mango.
Speaker 2: I hate to say it, but we have reached our
Speaker 2: final award of the evening.
Speaker 1: We should have patted this out with a bunch of
Speaker 1: musical guests like at other award shoes. Right, I feel like, I, uh,
Speaker 1: maybe I should play that mushrooms clip again.
Speaker 2: Maybe later. For now, I just want to hand out
Speaker 2: this last award because we've shared some pretty life affirming
Speaker 2: stories tonight, but this one is reality affirming. It's called
Speaker 2: the Red Pill Award, and it goes to a team
Speaker 2: of physicists at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. Now,
Speaker 2: they recently proved that the universe is not, in fact
Speaker 2: a computer simulation. How great is that?
Speaker 1: I mean, it is nice to have confirmation, I guess,
Speaker 1: but I didn't know that was the thing that everyone
Speaker 1: was questioning.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's always somebody asking these kinds of questions.
Speaker 2: And yes, the notion that we exist in a virtual
Speaker 2: world created by an advanced alien laptop does sound ridiculous,
Speaker 2: but it's annoyingly difficult to rule out the possibility because
Speaker 2: you know, if we can't trust our own faculties, how
Speaker 2: can we know for sure that we're not in a simulation?
Speaker 1: Right, It's like you can't prove a negative And I
Speaker 1: guess there's no way to investigate this thing kind of scientifically.
Speaker 2: Well that is until now. So earlier this year, these
Speaker 2: researchers in British Columbia they published a mathematical proof that
Speaker 2: shows it's not just unlikely that our universe is a simulation.
Speaker 2: It's impossible. This is head spinning stuff. But the long
Speaker 2: and short of it is that some aspects of physical
Speaker 2: reality cannot be explained solely through computation. There's this deep,
Speaker 2: fundamental layer of existence that's just pure information, and it's
Speaker 2: not to be the realm from which space time emerged,
Speaker 2: and there's no algorithm that can actually account for it.
Speaker 1: So a computer can't have made the universe because a
Speaker 1: computer can't understand the foundation of the universe.
Speaker 2: That's pretty much it put simply. In one of the
Speaker 2: leads on the study, doctor Mirfasil explained it this way.
Speaker 2: Any simulation is inherently algorithmic, it must follow programmed rules.
Speaker 2: But since the fundamental level of reality is based on
Speaker 2: non algorithmic understanding, the universe cannot be and could never be,
Speaker 2: a simulation.
Speaker 1: That is amazing, But it just dawned on me that
Speaker 1: there is a downside to this, and what is that
Speaker 1: The chances of me ever learning kung fu just completely cratered.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is tragic but also true. But I can
Speaker 2: actually live with that if it means our whole existence
Speaker 2: isn't just a bunch of ones and zeros on some
Speaker 2: alien's hard drive, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fair. And I also like the with AI
Speaker 1: getting more pervasive every day, there's at least one thing
Speaker 1: about the universe that'll just never get to know. And
Speaker 1: on that note, that's a wrap on the forty fourth
Speaker 1: annual Part Time Genius Awards. If you want to read
Speaker 1: more about these incredible stories of breakthroughs, come find us
Speaker 1: on Blue Sky and Instagram. Will be posting some of
Speaker 1: those links before we go. I just want to say
Speaker 1: how much we appreciate yourself over the past year, whether
Speaker 1: you've called in, requested a membership card, you've left a
Speaker 1: nice rating. You know, lots of people have sent in
Speaker 1: photos of themselves being inspired by the show. Some people
Speaker 1: have sent illustrations. This incredible illustrator named Rihanna Karzu who
Speaker 1: who did that? It just means a ton to us,
Speaker 1: and it's really wonderful to note that there are so
Speaker 1: many of you who share our love for science and
Speaker 1: history and weird corners of the world. And so I
Speaker 1: just want to say thank you for staying curious. We
Speaker 1: will be back next year, which is also next week
Speaker 1: with another brand new episode, and in the meantime, from
Speaker 1: Will Dylan, Barry Gabe and myself, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. It is hosted by my good pal Will Pearson,
Speaker 1: who I've known for almost three decades now. That is
Speaker 1: insane to me. I'm the UTA co host, Mangeshatikular aka Mango.
Speaker 1: Our producer is Mary Phillips Sandy. She's actually a super producer.
Speaker 1: I'm going to fix that in post. Our writer is
Speaker 1: Gabe Lucier, who I've also known for like a decade
Speaker 1: at this point, maybe more. Dylan Fagan is in the booth.
Speaker 1: He is always dressed up, always cheering us on, and
Speaker 1: always ready to hit record and then mix the show
Speaker 1: after he does a great job. I also want to
Speaker 1: shout out the executive producers from iHeart my good pals
Speaker 1: Katrina and Norvel and Ali Perry. We have social media
Speaker 1: support from Calypso Rallis. If you like our videos, that
Speaker 1: is all Calypso's handiwork for more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or tune in wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. That's it from us
Speaker 1: here at Part Time Genius. Thank you so much for listening.