Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Guess what will?
Speaker 2: What's that mano?
Speaker 1: So you know how sometimes after it rains you see
Speaker 1: snails on the ground, uh huh. And you know how
Speaker 1: sometimes you pick up those snails and collect that trail
Speaker 1: of clear, slimy stuff they leave behind and rub it
Speaker 1: all over your face as a moisturizer.
Speaker 2: So we're like fifteen seconds into this episode and you
Speaker 2: have already lost me. Is that actually a thing?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Well, I don't know about the DIY version of it,
Speaker 1: but there's definitely a whole industry around snail musin and
Speaker 1: in fact, snail slime might be our most valuable of
Speaker 1: the slimes. If you're going to put money in slime,
Speaker 1: it is probably the top slime to put money into
Speaker 1: right now. But some forecasters believe that the market for
Speaker 1: snail slime beauty products will actually top seven hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy million dollars in the next year, and that's in
Speaker 1: the US alone.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's more than we brought in in advertising for this.
Speaker 2: Isn't that amazing? I can't believe we've been stepping over
Speaker 2: this primost line for all these years.
Speaker 1: I know it's embarrassing, but from smearing it on our
Speaker 1: faces in the name of beauty to getting it dumped
Speaker 1: on our heads on kids shows in the name of comedy,
Speaker 1: Today's episode is all about trying to figure out why
Speaker 1: humans are so obsessed with slime.
Speaker 2: Let's dive in. Welcome back to Part Time Genius. I'm
Speaker 2: Will and as always, I'm here with my good friend Mango,
Speaker 2: and somewhere back behind that big booth is our pal Dylan,
Speaker 2: who many of you know Moonlights is a snail beauty
Speaker 2: influencer because of his beautiful dewey scan. We were just
Speaker 2: talking about it before we started recording.
Speaker 1: I know, we get it, Dylan. Your skin is beautiful
Speaker 1: and glowing. You're better than us, all of that.
Speaker 2: Let's let's move on. I'm getting I'm getting upset. But Mango, what,
Speaker 2: why are we talking about slime today again?
Speaker 1: Well, in addition to complimenting Dylan, it's it's just like
Speaker 1: a weird topic. But you know, I live in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: right and we have this little fence in backyard and
Speaker 1: for some reason there's a hole in the fence and
Speaker 1: it was there when we moved in. But it's great
Speaker 1: because our kids, and the neighbors kids use it to
Speaker 1: sneak over to each other's houses. So I'll throw my
Speaker 1: kids in the backyard and suddenly they're like three more
Speaker 1: kids playing in the backyard with them. And it's really
Speaker 1: sweet and kind of Americana to me. But we have
Speaker 1: this one little neighbor, Yuki, and when it rains, he
Speaker 1: comes over in his little raincoat and he just goes
Speaker 1: snail hunting in our flower beds. Yuki is just the best. Yeah,
Speaker 1: even does this like little hand civil for snails. I
Speaker 1: don't know, have you ever seen this? Okay, he does that,
Speaker 1: and so partly that and then part of the fact
Speaker 1: that Ruby is just on an age where like kids
Speaker 1: are always playing with slime and making slime at home
Speaker 1: because of like science or something. It's just around my
Speaker 1: house all the time, and I hate it, Like, I
Speaker 1: hate slime so much, so I wanted to do this
Speaker 1: episode to try to understand why slime exists and why
Speaker 1: some humans are so attracted to it.
Speaker 2: Wait, I want to go back, though, Why do you
Speaker 2: hate slime so much?
Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds fussy, but I don't like my
Speaker 1: hands being like wet and sticky, right right? I like putty,
Speaker 1: like silly putty. I can get behind it and you
Speaker 1: can bounce it, you can transfer images, it can erase stuff.
Speaker 1: But you know it's not slime.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we're going to change this episode is now
Speaker 2: about putty. Now I'm actually glad we sort of that.
Speaker 2: But because you've done a lot of thinking about this,
Speaker 2: maybe we should start with what slime is, like what
Speaker 2: counts as slime.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so slime is a pretty broad term. Even scientists
Speaker 1: will use the word slime without specifying exactly what it is.
Speaker 1: But it's basically anything that's kind of saw and creepily fluid.
Speaker 1: So in nature, slimes act as one of three things.
Speaker 1: They can be a lubricant or a barrier, or they
Speaker 1: can be in adhesive. And one really common slime is
Speaker 1: egg white or albumin, which is a hydrogel. So egg
Speaker 1: whites are actually ninety percent water, and they provide protein
Speaker 1: and water for bird embryos and also cushioning inside the egg.
Speaker 1: But one of the most important things they do is
Speaker 1: that they act like a firewall against microbes. So it's
Speaker 1: actually this very sophisticated thing, and human embryos are protected
Speaker 1: by a similar a very similar slime, amniotic fluid. It's
Speaker 1: strange to think about, but yeah, I guess that's right.
Speaker 1: I mean kids are born, they're basically covered in egg white. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean for century, slime was especially associated with women
Speaker 1: because of pregnancy and childbirth.
Speaker 2: That's it's kind.
Speaker 1: Of that weird extension of those four humors and those
Speaker 1: old theories like blood and phlegm and bile. Plus there's
Speaker 1: obviously all this ignorance about women's anatomy. But slime plays
Speaker 1: this weird role in our imagination because it's almost this
Speaker 1: boundary between health and sickness, right Like, on one hand,
Speaker 1: it can be this protective layer and on the other
Speaker 1: hand excessive puss or mucus, which are also slime's signal
Speaker 1: disease to us. And in fact, I can read you
Speaker 1: this little quote from a book by Suzanne Wedlock. It's
Speaker 1: called Slime and Natural History. She says, humans are quote
Speaker 1: probably hardwired to find signs of their own mortality and
Speaker 1: animality disgusting and to shrink from contamination.
Speaker 2: All right, so we're kind of hardwired to be grossed
Speaker 2: out by slime. But I feel like that's definitely changed
Speaker 2: some over the years, and we now have a working
Speaker 2: definition of slime. So why don't we get back to
Speaker 2: that slimy gold you were talking about at this start.
Speaker 2: So this is snail musin.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is really cool and probably the thing
Speaker 1: that makes me like snails so much more. The reason
Speaker 1: snails secrete slime is actually for movement. I always thought
Speaker 1: it was just like this disgusting evolutionary mistake, but snail
Speaker 1: slime is also referred to is pedal mucus because snails
Speaker 1: use it to move. They're basically generating their own waves
Speaker 1: or surfing them in slow motion. So snails are they're
Speaker 1: basically like surfing their own.
Speaker 2: Snot Yeah, that is awesome.
Speaker 1: I'm going to read you the exact quote from Wedland's
Speaker 1: book because it's so fun. A series of contractions sends
Speaker 1: numerous little waves across their souls. Every elevation presses directly
Speaker 1: on the slime below, causing its molecular framework to break
Speaker 1: or shift. If the pressure is strong enough. The snail
Speaker 1: foot then glides on the more fluid slime. Once the
Speaker 1: wave has passed, the pressure abates and the molecular framework recovers.
Speaker 1: The slime hardens again, and the snail foot pushes away
Speaker 1: until the next surge.
Speaker 2: Okay, so that's why snails make their slime, but I'm
Speaker 2: still missing this leap of why people are scooping it
Speaker 2: up and putting it on their faces.
Speaker 1: Well, snail musin has actually been used in Asian beauty
Speaker 1: products for years, but it got super trendy in global
Speaker 1: skincare around twenty seventeen. Advocates say snail musin hydrates the
Speaker 1: skin and reduces wrinkles, but you know, the science on
Speaker 1: that's kind of mixed. But whether or not it works,
Speaker 1: there's been a huge boom in the snail slime industry
Speaker 1: or hellicic culture I guess it's called that wasn't familiar.
Speaker 1: In Italy, there are more than four thousand snail farms
Speaker 1: and they've seen a forty six percent increase in snail
Speaker 1: slime in the last ten months, all due to demand
Speaker 1: from the cosmetics industry.
Speaker 2: I mean, I will say I think when people hear
Speaker 2: cosmetics industry and they hear animals of any kind, we
Speaker 2: do get a little bit concerned. For good reason.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the industry doesn't have the best track record,
Speaker 1: but several companies say they've actually developed processes to extract
Speaker 1: the slime that doesn't injure the snails. So there's a
Speaker 1: South Korean company it's called cause RX, and they say, quote,
Speaker 1: the snails are placed over a mesh in a dark
Speaker 1: and quiet room for about thirty minutes. The snails are
Speaker 1: left alone to freely roam the net, leaving musin in
Speaker 1: their trails. There's no external process applied to the snails
Speaker 1: or the mesh to force muse and production.
Speaker 2: I just had this great mental image when you said
Speaker 2: the snails are free to roam the net, surfing, turfing
Speaker 2: the web, the darkness. Yeah, exactly, all right, Well, so
Speaker 2: far slime is three for three and it protects fetuses,
Speaker 2: you can surf it, and you can wear it on
Speaker 2: your face, which I know people are looking for things
Speaker 2: to put on their face. So one thing I'm kind
Speaker 2: of fascinated by recently is slimy foods.
Speaker 1: Though so things like okra.
Speaker 2: I love some good slimy ochre, I actually really do.
Speaker 2: But it's also things like Nato, which is a Japanese
Speaker 2: fermented soybean that's delicious when you eat it with rice,
Speaker 2: and it's very gooey, and in fact, that guy texture
Speaker 2: is kind of common in Japanese food. You find it
Speaker 2: in stuff like seaweed and mountain yam, and the Japanese
Speaker 2: have a word for it. It's neba neba, which translates
Speaker 2: to sticky or slimy, and it's it is supposed to
Speaker 2: be on a monopoia for the noise your mouth makes
Speaker 2: while enjoying these slimy foods.
Speaker 1: Never neva, never neva.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely fun to say. All right, well you
Speaker 2: keep working on your neva's. Let's take a quick ad break.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Part Time Genius where we're talking slime,
Speaker 2: and I think it's time to veer into slime of
Speaker 2: pop culture because of course it's one of the most
Speaker 2: popular places where we encounter slime. You'll see these in
Speaker 2: TV and movies. Of course, there's Ghostbusters with Slimer, that
Speaker 2: green floating slime.
Speaker 1: Who became such a fan favorite. I mostly remember him
Speaker 1: from High Seed Juice Box.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Slimer was such a big deal in here, like
Speaker 2: like Todd It was like Michael Jordan's Slimer Madonna, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. It was just Slimer was a
Speaker 2: big deal. And then there's the Blob, which features, of
Speaker 2: course a blob, this expanding, massive red gelatinous material which
Speaker 2: just grows and it eats, and it like pulls human
Speaker 2: victims into itself from all directions. And some of this
Speaker 2: imagery actually goes back to the nineteen thirties. You've got
Speaker 2: writers like HP Lovecraft and Corell Chappek, and they actually
Speaker 2: who wrote War with the Newts.
Speaker 1: You know, I feel like I read a good bit
Speaker 1: in college, and I'm not familiar with that literature.
Speaker 2: You need to do a little bit more reading. But
Speaker 2: it's it's about slimy neutes that quote wage war on
Speaker 2: humanity and strive toward world domination. It's famous because it's
Speaker 2: basically this allegory, Like what you find out is the
Speaker 2: Newts were peaceful and kind until humans started abusing. So Cheppek,
Speaker 2: you know, was writing this in nineteen thirty six Czechoslovakia,
Speaker 2: so it's basically about fascism. So you saw that coming
Speaker 2: right clearly about that. Yeah, And of course there's this
Speaker 2: slime from Nickelodeon, which we knew we had to get
Speaker 2: to at some point, which is actually kind of messed
Speaker 2: up when you hear the origin story. I did not
Speaker 2: know this origin story before this, Yeah, but it's actually
Speaker 2: messed up in a fun way, I promise. So back
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy nine, which side note the ar you
Speaker 2: and I were both born, You Can't Do That on
Speaker 2: television premiered in Canada and it was such a big
Speaker 2: hit that Nickelodeon picked it up. But in a twenty
Speaker 2: twelve interview with Vulture, co creator Jeffrey Darby explained that
Speaker 2: the slime was actually a total accident. I don't know
Speaker 2: if you remember this, but there was this funny dungeon
Speaker 2: set on the show. Do you remember this?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I do. When Cable and Nickelodeon came to our
Speaker 1: neighborhood in third grade, all the kids in our neighborhood
Speaker 1: were completely obsessed totally that and doubledare h Double?
Speaker 2: There? For sure? That was another show with slime. But
Speaker 2: back to You Can't Do That on television, the set
Speaker 2: had a chain hanging down, and the whole day they
Speaker 2: were shooting, there was this running joke between producers where
Speaker 2: they'd say, whatever you do, kids, don't pull on the chain.
Speaker 2: So as bits go. Eventually someone decided to commit and
Speaker 2: they went to the cafeteria asked for all the day's
Speaker 2: plate scrappings. They collected these all in one bucket, and
Speaker 2: their play was to dump it on a kid when
Speaker 2: he or she inevitably pulled the.
Speaker 1: Chain because you know, as we both know, when you
Speaker 1: tell a kid not to do something, he or she
Speaker 1: pretty much has to do it. Of course, so slime
Speaker 1: was originally just food scraps.
Speaker 2: Well, they actually ran out of time to shoot the
Speaker 2: scene that day, and you can't go to overtime with kids.
Speaker 1: Of course, but you can dump food scraps.
Speaker 2: Yet that seems to be seems to be fine, So
Speaker 2: they come back the next week to get the shot.
Speaker 2: But the prop guys like, I didn't get a new
Speaker 2: bucket of food slop. I just have the old one
Speaker 2: from last week. And we all know what happens to
Speaker 2: a bucket of food slop if you leave it backstage
Speaker 2: for a week, it turns it a compost. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: it got all green and gooey and moldy. And I
Speaker 2: guess this is because it was the eighties and they
Speaker 2: actually dumped this gooey mold on a child and it
Speaker 2: got such positive response from Nickelodeon that they wrote a
Speaker 2: show with nothing but slime in it. And that's how
Speaker 2: Nickelodeon's Greens was invented.
Speaker 1: And I'm guessing they've changed that recipe over the years.
Speaker 2: They did just a little bit. Yeah, it's proprietary, so
Speaker 2: we don't know exactly what it is. But Darby says
Speaker 2: it's all edible and non toxic, so that's good. But
Speaker 2: he also has this really insightful thing to say about
Speaker 2: the nature of sliming someone. So here's what he had
Speaker 2: to say. Slime is a leveler. It's violent, but it's
Speaker 2: not violence. It's safe. That's why it resonated with kids.
Speaker 2: You're pulling these people who are on pedestals down green
Speaker 2: Slime was about trying to give this come upance to
Speaker 2: kids on TV so audiences at home wouldn't feel so
Speaker 2: jealous of them. And of course plenty of adults started
Speaker 2: getting slimed too.
Speaker 1: You know, that's something I actually hadn't thought of, Like,
Speaker 1: you get all the fun of dropping something on someone's
Speaker 1: head looney Tune style, but because it's slime, it's not
Speaker 1: an anvil, and no one's getting hurt.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a great evolution for comedy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it kind of reminds me of this one journalist
Speaker 2: what he said about the prevalence of slame and more
Speaker 2: adult movies, especially in the nineteen eighties. Also, it captures
Speaker 2: these feelings of uncertainty of the times, like I mean,
Speaker 2: honestly even like fears of radioactive threats.
Speaker 1: Yeah, slime is I guess pretty versatile in terms of
Speaker 1: what he plays on at philosophically, here's something that's kind
Speaker 1: of fun. Did you know mid pandemic? HuffPo actually looked
Speaker 1: into claims that slime has mental health benefits and it's
Speaker 1: something I've seen more and more like this idea that
Speaker 1: we like slime because it's both distracting and calming. Anyway,
Speaker 1: HuffPo talked to Jack Turbin, who's a doctor and chief
Speaker 1: Fellow and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Stanford and while
Speaker 1: he said he's not aware of any peer reviewed studies
Speaker 1: looking at the impact of slime on mental health, things
Speaker 1: like slime and putty have interesting textures which make it
Speaker 1: easier to capture our attention and draw ourselves into our senses,
Speaker 1: which can make it easier to take a moment away
Speaker 1: from our thoughts and anxieties about the past or future.
Speaker 1: And he's not the only one who thinks this. There's
Speaker 1: this author Britney Johnson, who's also a licensed mental health counselor,
Speaker 1: and she said soothing sounds and soft textures have been
Speaker 1: known to be a great coping skill for people of
Speaker 1: all ages. Touching slime can actually trigger calming signals in
Speaker 1: your brain.
Speaker 2: That is pretty interesting. So it feels like one minute
Speaker 2: you're catching slime in a ghost trap and the next
Speaker 2: minute you're squeezing him like a therapy dog.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like a wet green you can see therapy dog. Now.
Speaker 2: Of course, slime has plenty of negative connotations too, Like
Speaker 2: we've talked a little bit about the health benefits and
Speaker 2: nature our mental health, I guess, and possibly magically deaging
Speaker 2: your skin like your Benjamin button. But slime is still gross,
Speaker 2: and especially when you're talking about pink slime.
Speaker 1: I'd actually forgotten about pink slime and food, right, So
Speaker 1: tell me what it is exactly.
Speaker 2: So, pink slime has an official name. It's called lean
Speaker 2: Finely Trimmed Beef or LFTB, and in the nineteen nineties
Speaker 2: it was in a ton of pre made beef patties
Speaker 2: in the US. And the term pink slime was actually
Speaker 2: coined by a micro biologist named Gerald Zernstein in two
Speaker 2: thousand and two, but most of us became aware of
Speaker 2: pink slime from the two thousand and eight documentary Food Ink.
Speaker 2: You remember all the noise it made.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just remember like thinking at the time it
Speaker 1: was so gross. It was on like magazine covers and things.
Speaker 2: Everywhere everywhere, and it's not appetizing. I mean, pink slime
Speaker 2: got a lot of bad press for that. It was
Speaker 2: a two thousand and nine New York Times expos and
Speaker 2: it reported that BPI, the company who made LFTB, had
Speaker 2: been lowering the levels of ammonium hydroxide it used to
Speaker 2: treat it in response to complaints of the strong ammonious
Speaker 2: smell in meat. But the reduction of ammonium hydroxide caused
Speaker 2: several batches of burger destined for school lunches to test
Speaker 2: positive for E. Coli and salmonella.
Speaker 1: Oh that's gross.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's this twenty twelve ABC News report that ran
Speaker 2: about LFTB. BPI eventually sued ABC and its parent company,
Speaker 2: Disney for defamation, but the damage was done by that point,
Speaker 2: so grocery chains said they would know longer carry pink slime.
Speaker 2: Sales plummeted for maybe five million pounds per week to
Speaker 2: less than two million pounds.
Speaker 1: I mean, pink slime is legitimately disgusting. Be careful, though,
Speaker 1: because we don't want to get sued, so don't tell
Speaker 1: see too much. Yeah, I mean, pink slime is delicious
Speaker 1: right right in Cereal. But I think we're allowed to
Speaker 1: safely say that sea snot is gross? Is that? Okay?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know what sea snot is,
Speaker 2: but yeah, sure, I agree.
Speaker 1: Sea snot are these thick, slimy, gray brown sheets known
Speaker 1: as marine mucilage, and they are made of dead and
Speaker 1: living organic material, but a lot of it is phytoplankton.
Speaker 1: And these microscopic algae usually help fill the ocean waters
Speaker 1: with oxygen, but when they're stressed, they can grow out
Speaker 1: of control and produce this sticky mucus like substance that
Speaker 1: can span miles. In twenty twenty one, turkeys Marmara sea.
Speaker 1: It was actually overrun with sea snot, boosted by global
Speaker 1: warming and also from an overload of pollutants like wastewater
Speaker 1: and also pesticides.
Speaker 2: Oh goodness, so ce snot could talk, it would probably
Speaker 2: say stop dumping poison on me, and I'll chill out
Speaker 2: a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it's funny you say that, because that's
Speaker 1: something we tend to do with slimes, right, Like we
Speaker 1: treat them like they're sentient. And it seems like we've
Speaker 1: done this for a while. So back in nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 1: a woman in Garland, Texas named Marie Harris, she found
Speaker 1: a mysterious slime oozing from the ground in her backyard,
Speaker 1: and she said it was reddish and foamy, it had
Speaker 1: this black mucus inside when it was punctured, and it
Speaker 1: also released this purple goo, so really really gross, And
Speaker 1: eventually she hacks it in half with a garden hoe,
Speaker 1: but two days later it's back, and it's doubled in size,
Speaker 1: and over the course of a couple of weeks it
Speaker 1: grew to sixteen times its original size.
Speaker 2: It definitely makes it sound like it's a lie, I know.
Speaker 1: And a Dallas paper called it, quote the brooding and
Speaker 1: inscrutable organism, and it set off this minor media frenzy,
Speaker 1: and of course rumors start to spread that it had
Speaker 1: come from outer space, and it turns out it was
Speaker 1: just a slime mold, which you know, is gross, but
Speaker 1: soil dwelling amiba, these brainless, single celled organisms that you
Speaker 1: see growing on forest litter and decaying wood. I mean
Speaker 1: slime molts don't have brains, but they actually are kind
Speaker 1: of smart mango, So how do you mean, Well, like
Speaker 1: you said, they don't have a brain, but slime molds
Speaker 1: can make really strange and sophisticated shapes, including.
Speaker 2: Add this to the list, a replica of the Tokyo
Speaker 2: subway system. I mean that's pretty smart. They connect it.
Speaker 2: This is this is actually true. A group of researchers
Speaker 2: from the Hokkaido University in Japan placed FI serum policy fallum.
Speaker 2: Say it with me now, FI serum policyfallus in a
Speaker 2: petri dish scattered with oat flakes, and they sprinkled the
Speaker 2: food scraps in a pattern meant to replicate the locations
Speaker 2: of some of the most visited sites in Tokyo. So
Speaker 2: first the slime mold size grew exponentially, and then it
Speaker 2: branched out, and then the the size of the branches
Speaker 2: started to shrink and eventually recreated this complex, interconnected network
Speaker 2: made of slimes that looks almost exactly like the Tokyo
Speaker 2: subway system.
Speaker 1: See super smart, which is cool, but it also sounds
Speaker 1: like you can just like mold slime molds to look
Speaker 1: like art or architecture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's so easy to endow this inanimate
Speaker 2: growth with intention. Actually, the original the Blob movie from
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty eight was probably inspired by slime molds because
Speaker 2: it's fun to imagine that the slime is actually thinking.
Speaker 2: But it's just a movie. It's not like slime can
Speaker 2: actually become aware and kill people, so you can relax.
Speaker 1: Well. Actually, in twenty sixteen, there's a mass migration of
Speaker 1: snails that left a trail of slime on a German
Speaker 1: motorway and it caused a car crash. Or I guess
Speaker 1: a car surfing out.
Speaker 2: Of control always comes back to the snails.
Speaker 1: So there's one other thing about snail slim. I want
Speaker 1: to say, snails actually leave molecular messages, were potential mating
Speaker 1: partners in their trails, So it's not only a wave,
Speaker 1: but it's like uh tinder for snails.
Speaker 2: Ah, that's pretty awesome. All right, Well, we've got a
Speaker 2: few more facts to get to, but before that, let's
Speaker 2: take a quick break. Welcome back to part time Genius,
Speaker 2: where we're still talking slime. Mengo and you know who
Speaker 2: loves slime mango cool youths.
Speaker 1: Cool youths is not what they call themselves.
Speaker 2: I don't know. They don't talk to me, but cool
Speaker 2: youth do love slime. In twenty seventeen, everyone on the
Speaker 2: Internet was trying to make their own slime. According to Google,
Speaker 2: the number one how to question of the year was
Speaker 2: how to make slime. Slime is even part of the
Speaker 2: cool youth secret internet slang mango.
Speaker 1: The more you say it, the cooler. And yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: I know, cool youth.
Speaker 2: Because everyone was so obsessed with making slime, a ton
Speaker 2: of these slime tutorial videos popped up on YouTube. So
Speaker 2: now when someone uploads a bootleg of a popular movie,
Speaker 2: they'll put in a slime tutorial in the title to
Speaker 2: bury the bootleg and a sea of legit slime tutorial videos.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's I guess pretty smart because YouTube's much
Speaker 1: less likely to find and take down those videos. Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so if you type like slime tutorial and for instance,
Speaker 2: mean Girls, you might get a bootleg of Mean Girl's
Speaker 2: movie musical. Not that we're condoning bootlegs. I just thought
Speaker 2: that was interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course we're not. But as far as slime's involvement.
Speaker 1: It's pretty incredible that people are so obsessed with it,
Speaker 1: and slime tutorials are so prevalent that it's a good
Speaker 1: hiding place for like illegal recordings of comad movies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I gotta say that, after all these
Speaker 2: impressive slime facts, I have one remaining question, and that
Speaker 2: is what can't slime do?
Speaker 1: Maybe that's a good cue for one of our old
Speaker 1: fashioned fact offs.
Speaker 2: Let's do it.
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 2: Why did I kick this off?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 2: Did you know that slime has actually been to space?
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty, Nickelodeons sent about two leaders of slime
Speaker 2: to the International Space Station, where astronauts played with it
Speaker 2: to figure out how slime acts in weightless environments. That's
Speaker 2: actually so cool that they got to do this. According
Speaker 2: to Nickelodeon, scientists shot it out of a giant syringe,
Speaker 2: popped a giant slime balloon, and plopped it on the
Speaker 2: ground to see if it would break apart and create
Speaker 2: a mess or stay clung together, Which is a super
Speaker 2: fun way to get kids interested in how materials react
Speaker 2: in these microgravity environments.
Speaker 1: It's made me change my stance on slime. Now we
Speaker 1: can play with it in space.
Speaker 2: All they want.
Speaker 1: So here's a gross one. I'm not sure if you've
Speaker 1: ever seen a hagfish. Have you ever thing?
Speaker 2: So I don't know.
Speaker 1: There are these like eel like creatures. There are delicacy
Speaker 1: in some parts of the world. But one of the
Speaker 1: most amazing things about hagfish is the way that they
Speaker 1: create an enormous amount of slime. So this is according
Speaker 1: to The Atlantic science writer Ed Yong, hagfish produced slime
Speaker 1: the way humans produce opinions, he said, which is a
Speaker 1: great line. But according to Yong, basically, when they're scared
Speaker 1: or stressed, they release a teaspoon of gunk, and in
Speaker 1: a fraction of a second, when that mixes with water,
Speaker 1: it expands ten thousand times and that single teaspoon can
Speaker 1: fill buckets. Wow, that goog can actually protect hagfish from
Speaker 1: sharks because it stops them from being able to like
Speaker 1: breathe I guess. But there's actually a photo of Yong's
Speaker 1: Atlantic piece when a truck full of hagfish overturned and
Speaker 1: they spilled on a road in South Korea, and there's
Speaker 1: a car that's just covered in gunk. It looks like
Speaker 1: it is like slimed and it can't move. It is
Speaker 1: so funny and so horrific, you have to say it.
Speaker 2: I definitely have to see that. All right, here's another
Speaker 2: quick one. So toy slime first became a thing in
Speaker 2: the nineteen seventies, and in nineteen seventy six Mattel released
Speaker 2: the first line. It was called Slime and it was
Speaker 2: sold in these little trash cans. I feel like it
Speaker 2: was sold in trash cans for years, right like, even
Speaker 2: when we were kids. And from there it slowly got
Speaker 2: incorporated into other nineteen eighties franchises, from Masters of the
Speaker 2: Universe to of course Ghostbusters. But my favorite slime toy,
Speaker 2: which I first learned about doing through you know, a
Speaker 2: little bit of research sought on Wikipedia, there's this board
Speaker 2: game called Slime Monster, and the rules are amazing. So
Speaker 2: let me just read you this directly from the box.
Speaker 2: All right, the slime Monster has invaded the town. You've
Speaker 2: got to stop him. You must get from the high
Speaker 2: school to the armory, pick up a landmine and knock
Speaker 2: the slime monster over. But be careful that the slime
Speaker 2: Monster doesn't knock you over with his slime. So basically,
Speaker 2: you keep trying to move this super gross, weird monster around,
Speaker 2: so he's standing over another player, and then you get
Speaker 2: to slime them, and if the slime knocks them over,
Speaker 2: they have to move back to the beginning. It actually
Speaker 2: makes no sense, so we just stopped playing this game.
Speaker 2: But it was a funny description.
Speaker 1: So here's a sweet one. It's about Slimy the Worm
Speaker 1: Oscar the Grouches pet from Cemer. So I've always seen
Speaker 1: Oscar the Grouch. I known about Slimy, but this is
Speaker 1: the origin story. So apparently the first time Slimy met
Speaker 1: Oscar was on a rainy day when Oscar went to
Speaker 1: the park to see mud puddles and he saw these
Speaker 1: other worms playing in one place, but there was this
Speaker 1: one baby worm playing alone, and then Slimy climbed up
Speaker 1: onto Oscar's shoulder and falls asleep, and Oscar takes them
Speaker 1: back to his trash can and feeds him strawberry sodas.
Speaker 1: That is where the friendship was born, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: almost too sweet a story for Oscar the Grouch, but
Speaker 1: I really like it. But the funniest thing about the
Speaker 1: whole mythology is that Slimy actually has his own family.
Speaker 1: He's got parents, named Dusty and Eartha and a cousin
Speaker 1: named Squirmy, and also Rachel.
Speaker 2: No it right, Rachel makes perfect sense. All right. Well,
Speaker 2: if you want any indication of just how big the
Speaker 2: DIY market is for slime, take a look at the
Speaker 2: growth of Elmer's glue. According to The Washington Post, the
Speaker 2: trend really kicked off in twenty seventeen, like we were
Speaker 2: talking about earlier, partially inspired by social media and YouTube,
Speaker 2: but also because of the varieties of slime you could make,
Speaker 2: from sequence slime to glitter slime to cloud slime, and so,
Speaker 2: as Elmer's marketing director told The Washington Post, we shipped
Speaker 2: more glue in the month of July of twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: Then we shipped the entire year of twenty sixteen. It
Speaker 2: was a wild and crazy time.
Speaker 1: That's insane, considering like they supplied glue to like every school.
Speaker 2: In the game, everywhere. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: So how about this one to closes out. If you
Speaker 1: want to make slime a career, why not consider becoming
Speaker 1: a slime tender at the Slumu Institute and twelve thousand
Speaker 1: foot Slime Museum in Manhattan. In addition to guiding kids
Speaker 1: through glow in the dark, slime caves, making their own
Speaker 1: slime at slime bars and slime waterfalls. You get to
Speaker 1: rev kids up by saying, when I say slime, you
Speaker 1: say times slime.
Speaker 2: That's right. Wait, I have never heard of this place.
Speaker 2: It's in New York.
Speaker 1: I have thought about taking Ruby and their friends to it,
Speaker 1: and it just feels like a nightmare.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really does. But when they say slime and
Speaker 2: you say time energizing, I think for that, I feel
Speaker 2: like you're gonna win the fact off today. So congratulations.
Speaker 1: I am so honored, and I think the cool youth
Speaker 1: are really gonna the cool youths.
Speaker 2: All right, Well that's it for this week's Part Time Genius.
Speaker 2: We're so excited to be doing this show again. Thanks
Speaker 2: so much for listening.
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: This show is hosted by Will Pearson and Me Mongas
Speaker 1: and research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's
Speaker 1: episode was engineered and produce by the wonderful Dylan Fagan
Speaker 1: with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced
Speaker 1: for iHeart by Katrina Norvell and Ali Perry, with social
Speaker 1: media support from Sasha Gay, Trustee Dara Potts, and Viny Shorey.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.