Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from House Stop
Speaker 1: Work dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb, I'm showing performant, and I'm
Speaker 1: Christian Sager. Hey. So we have been doing periscope for
Speaker 1: two weeks now. We've had a bunch of our listeners
Speaker 1: sign in and ask us questions and hang out with
Speaker 1: us on Friday afternoons. So we wanted to remind you
Speaker 1: that we're going to keep doing that as long as
Speaker 1: you are interested. So every Friday at noon we will
Speaker 1: be on the periscope, and if you want to find
Speaker 1: out more about that, you can of course visit us
Speaker 1: on all of our social media channels, which is Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: or Tumbler, all of those. We are blow the mind.
Speaker 1: Don't forget that website Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Wait,
Speaker 1: what's that? What's on that website? All the stuff, all
Speaker 1: of it? Yeah, is that where the videos are. That's
Speaker 1: where the videos are, and that's where the blog posts are,
Speaker 1: That's where all the podcasts. Like some of you listen
Speaker 1: to this and think all we do is the podcast,
Speaker 1: but we've got a lot going on blogging. There's Robert
Speaker 1: does some amazing content about butts. Yeaheah, there's a there's
Speaker 1: some science on that galories and there's a monster science
Speaker 1: both in video form and blog form. The latest one
Speaker 1: I liked a lot, the cat Bus one. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just did one on the cat Bus from Totoro.
Speaker 1: Just rewatched that film with my family and uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's some cool science behind cat Bus. I've actually never
Speaker 1: seen it. You've got to get on there. Well, you
Speaker 1: know the other new thing that we've got going on,
Speaker 1: new music at the top of the show, guys, Yeah,
Speaker 1: how about that welcome a welcome change that was created
Speaker 1: by our fabulous producer Noel Brown. Bravo to you, sir.
Speaker 1: But also I didn't notice this until I had heard
Speaker 1: it a few times. It reminds me of the Doctor
Speaker 1: Who theme, you know, it's with the with the lead part. Well,
Speaker 1: I like to think of us as that that. You
Speaker 1: know what the Three Doctors is. It's when three friend
Speaker 1: doctors from different time periods. I'll meet up together with
Speaker 1: their tartises and hang out and and stop bad things
Speaker 1: from happening. So we're like the three Doctors, but just
Speaker 1: obviously the angry doctor. Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: the curmudgeon doctor. That would be I guess I'm most
Speaker 1: like Peter Capaldi. Yeah, that would be the angry doctor. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we've all met up and here we are to
Speaker 1: talk about, of course what doctor the doctor would talk
Speaker 1: about the ig Nobel Prizes, that's right. Yeah, So that
Speaker 1: we all three decided to come together on this one
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of studies we want to
Speaker 1: We want to roll through them in two episodes, each
Speaker 1: of us taking the head on a different study and
Speaker 1: not doing a super deep dive, but giving you a
Speaker 1: nice overview about what this particular study is, why it's ridiculous,
Speaker 1: why in many cases it's actually important, because that's one
Speaker 1: of the keys here. The Ignailed Bell Prizes have been around,
Speaker 1: uh since I believe, and each year they award ten
Speaker 1: prizes to various bits of research, pure viewed studies that
Speaker 1: you know, it's not the kind of stuff you're gonna
Speaker 1: see capturing the headlines necessarily any scientists do, blind of
Speaker 1: American not winning an actual Nobel prize. Right here at
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works. We've sort of developed a like sub
Speaker 1: theme for studies like this, which is sometimes we publish
Speaker 1: these on our Now how stuff works channel, which is
Speaker 1: there's a study for that, which is the kind of
Speaker 1: like can you believe somebody did this? But at the
Speaker 1: same time, I think the thing about the ignobles is
Speaker 1: that there's always some value and importance to the research.
Speaker 1: So yeah, like I always think of in cases like this,
Speaker 1: I think of science as a slime mold amaze. Right now,
Speaker 1: the slime mold is expanding outward, exploring its terrain, trying
Speaker 1: to find food, and so it's going down all the
Speaker 1: hallways to explore. And that's what science does. And just
Speaker 1: because a particular area of study seems kind of pointless
Speaker 1: at first glance, or it seems just very very specific,
Speaker 1: or it's trying to prove something that we already kind
Speaker 1: of know in our gut, it's still important that science
Speaker 1: go there because science is is mapping the universe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and some of the corners of that map are watching
Speaker 1: elephants p exactly. Well, Okay, I mean I slime mold.
Speaker 1: Can we stick with the gelatinous cube here? Can we
Speaker 1: use a gelatinous cube or is a slim mold like
Speaker 1: a very specific metaphor for ignoble science. Um, I like
Speaker 1: the slime because slime old this swarm intelligence. Oh okay,
Speaker 1: I see what you're saying. Okay, I'll allow it. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: let's af familiarize the audience with what these things are,
Speaker 1: because the first time I heard about it was in
Speaker 1: one of our episodes when we were talking about necrophilia,
Speaker 1: and we uh, there was a study that had previously
Speaker 1: won the Ignoble, which was about a guy watching a
Speaker 1: duck try to have sex with a dead duck. Some
Speaker 1: of the big ones. It was like seventy minutes of
Speaker 1: of him watching that with a notebook. If you really
Speaker 1: want to hear the whole full story, go back and
Speaker 1: sense that necrophilia episode. But uh, it's weird, but it
Speaker 1: also had value to it, and so uh, let's kind
Speaker 1: of encapsulate what these things are for our audience and
Speaker 1: then we can dive into the tent studies. Well, the
Speaker 1: principal individual here is Mark abrams Um. He's the editor
Speaker 1: and co founder of Improbable Research magazine, which you can
Speaker 1: find at their website. Let a link to that on
Speaker 1: the landing page for this episode. And they regularly cover
Speaker 1: research of this nature stuff. It's weird stuff that's a
Speaker 1: little wacky, but it's still science and it's always covered
Speaker 1: in essentially a loving way. Yeah. They say that it's
Speaker 1: supposed to make you laugh but also make you think. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I found this was true about a lot of the
Speaker 1: studies we looked at this time. I I like the
Speaker 1: sense that, um, it is certainly not stroking the ego
Speaker 1: of the scientists who perform these studies, but it's not
Speaker 1: really making fun of them either, or maybe sort of
Speaker 1: making fun of them, but at least not denigrating their work.
Speaker 1: I think there have only been a couple of cases
Speaker 1: where because for one thing, you can nominate your own work,
Speaker 1: and they get about five thousand nominations each year. But
Speaker 1: I can only think of two cases offhand where the
Speaker 1: individuals did not receive it warmly, one of which was
Speaker 1: the U. S. Air Force over their gay bomb, which
Speaker 1: they won a prize four two thousand seven. They did
Speaker 1: not remember hearing about this. Yeah, they did not see
Speaker 1: the humor in it. No, hold on what were the
Speaker 1: details of the gay bomb. The gay bomb, as I recall,
Speaker 1: was that proposed weaponized afrodisiac that you would be able
Speaker 1: to throw into the enemy trenches and harmonomy morale by
Speaker 1: making them, Yeah, get friendly, amorous and confused. It was
Speaker 1: referenced nicely on an episode of thirty Rocks several years back.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, the the the Air Force did not
Speaker 1: see the humor in that. And there there have been
Speaker 1: a couple of curmudgeons along you know, over the years
Speaker 1: that have have come out and said, oh, well, this
Speaker 1: is just you know, waste of time. For instance, the
Speaker 1: ve Robert May, the British government's chief scientific advisor at
Speaker 1: the time, it was a big was a big critic
Speaker 1: of the Nobel Prizes and he was saying that it
Speaker 1: should only be used to, you know, to ridicule anti
Speaker 1: science and pseudo science, and he should leave the the
Speaker 1: real scientists alone. Uh again, totally missing the point that
Speaker 1: the scientists are the are the ones who enjoy this
Speaker 1: the most. Don't you love people who hate humor? So
Speaker 1: I let's address that for a second though, because right
Speaker 1: before we came in here, I watched the almost all
Speaker 1: of the ceremony for awards, which we just which is
Speaker 1: what we're going to cover today. I watched a lot
Speaker 1: of this too, and and I feel like you definitely
Speaker 1: get the tone that they're going for if you watch
Speaker 1: the ceremony. They did a great job filming it. It's
Speaker 1: got multiple camera angles. It's filmed in this beautiful theater
Speaker 1: at Harvard University. Um that I saw Spalding Gray at
Speaker 1: that same theater, like god fifteen years ago or something
Speaker 1: like that, So it was it was neat to see that.
Speaker 1: But uh, the humor is very oh wacky. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's that kind of like academic like we don't want
Speaker 1: to offend anybody humor that's just a little zany and
Speaker 1: goofy and so at this at one on one hand,
Speaker 1: I appreciate it, and I totally understand. Uh, I understand
Speaker 1: that this guy who was it? Who? Who Robert may
Speaker 1: who was so like against it in the first place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't understand where he's coming from. But I'm also
Speaker 1: somewhat sympathetic because it's just like whacketty schmackt he do
Speaker 1: zany like, you know, like jokes and stuff. Even if
Speaker 1: you're not laughing with the jokes, you're still like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that's kind of adorable. Watch the old old scientists get
Speaker 1: up there and kind of you know, hap uh, you know,
Speaker 1: yuck it out. But I will confess though that it
Speaker 1: was unbearable for me to a point that I had to.
Speaker 1: I watched it on YouTube, and I had to watch
Speaker 1: it on double speed, so everybody was talking really fast
Speaker 1: like chipmunks. But I got the gist of everything, and
Speaker 1: I paid a special Please stop, Christian, I'm bored. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but please please stop. Joe tell them about what's her name,
Speaker 1: Pootie Pie or I think it's called Sweetie poop child.
Speaker 1: Pot Pie is the guy on YouTube. Oh, I don't
Speaker 1: know anyway. Yeah, they have a little character who is
Speaker 1: a child who comes up. It's like the Oscar music
Speaker 1: that starts to play when people get a little too
Speaker 1: much gratitude in their speech at the Oscars. Uh. And
Speaker 1: they want to get you off the stage at this ceremony.
Speaker 1: They've got a child who runs up to you and
Speaker 1: proclaims boredom and tells you to stop talking. And she's precocious.
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, then they bring back
Speaker 1: all the former Sweetie poos. Did you watch that part? Didn't?
Speaker 1: Every former Sweetie pooh is a part of the procession. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they are like the van Ol White that kind
Speaker 1: of like escort out the winners of the awards and
Speaker 1: then escort them back in. And they do this whole
Speaker 1: cute see poo thing where they have the sweetie poo's
Speaker 1: a'll tease one another in front of the audience. It's
Speaker 1: a little much. Um. Also, I grew up you have
Speaker 1: a you have a very dark heart that has no
Speaker 1: room for for cuteness. Well I do, and I'll allow
Speaker 1: this as well. I'm from Boston and I'm very familiar
Speaker 1: with Harvard University. I lived right near there for a
Speaker 1: long time, and I'm very familiar with this kind of
Speaker 1: humor that is, you know, it's very um yeah, twee,
Speaker 1: I guess is one way to put it. So um.
Speaker 1: I will warn I will warn our listeners ahead of
Speaker 1: time that maybe I'm the dark heart here, but I
Speaker 1: was a little put off by the zany humor. However,
Speaker 1: the studies themselves are amazing. Well, let's launch into them here, Um, Joe,
Speaker 1: I believe you're up first, tell us about the chemistry
Speaker 1: prize winner, the Ignobil Chemistry Prize winner for two thousand. Okay,
Speaker 1: so the Chemistry prize went to I'm gonna say their names,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of them, so bear with me
Speaker 1: for a second. Here, Callum Ormond, Colin Raston, Tom Yuan,
Speaker 1: Stephen Kudla check Samir and couldn't cha Joshua In Smith,
Speaker 1: William A. Brown, Caitlin Pouglisi, Tivoli, Olson, Mariam eft Car,
Speaker 1: Greg Weiss. Oh, And that's it them for demonstrating a
Speaker 1: mechanical process to unboil an egg. So yes, these scientists
Speaker 1: all work together. Now, I think the main scientist who
Speaker 1: has involved in this process, the one at least who
Speaker 1: has spoken to the media the most about it, was
Speaker 1: Greg Weiss. But they came up with this mechanical process
Speaker 1: to unboil an egg. Well, hold on part of an egg,
Speaker 1: the egg white, and note that this is not uncooking
Speaker 1: an egg, and that you can't unfry an egg or
Speaker 1: unscramble an egg or on. I wonder if you could
Speaker 1: unpoach and egg maybe, but at least what you can
Speaker 1: do is unboiled an egg white. So the paper is
Speaker 1: called and I love the academic alienation of this title
Speaker 1: sheer stress mediated refolding of proteins from aggregates and inclusion bus. Yes,
Speaker 1: I can call the paper is a colon and then
Speaker 1: another long sentence after that. And that's one of the
Speaker 1: beautiful things about the Ignabel Prizes is this is a
Speaker 1: great example of where they really got to the heart
Speaker 1: of what this study is in the way that the
Speaker 1: rest of us can enjoy. Yeah, and so it was
Speaker 1: published in January in Kim Bio Kim And here's what happened.
Speaker 1: The researchers took an egg and then they divided the
Speaker 1: whites from the yolk, and then they boiled the egg
Speaker 1: whites for twenty minutes at about a hundred ninety four
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit or ninety degrees c. And if you have
Speaker 1: ever seen the white part of a hard boiled egg,
Speaker 1: you know what we're dealing with is the final product here.
Speaker 1: And so egg whites in their natural state are a
Speaker 1: mixture of water and proteins, including the protein lysozyme, which
Speaker 1: is a protein associated with immune function and more on
Speaker 1: that in a minute. When you boil egg whites, the
Speaker 1: folded proteins that are in the egg whites get d natured,
Speaker 1: meaning that they sort of lose their precisely folded structure.
Speaker 1: And that folded structure is what makes a protein do
Speaker 1: the things that it does, sort of like what determines
Speaker 1: its role in the in the tiny bio world that
Speaker 1: it inhabits. And they also get all tangled together, and
Speaker 1: they end up forming this solid block of bio jello
Speaker 1: that we recognize as cooked egg white. Um, so that's
Speaker 1: what normally happens when you when you boil an egg white.
Speaker 1: It of course happened in this case as it always does.
Speaker 1: And how do you fix this problem? So the researchers
Speaker 1: took the boiled egg whites and dissolved them in a
Speaker 1: urea solution to turn basically all of it into an
Speaker 1: untangled up liquid of of unfolded proteins. So that's pretty gross.
Speaker 1: It's a cooked egg white slurry. Then the solution was
Speaker 1: placed into what they called a vortex fluid device. And
Speaker 1: what this does is it's kind of like a centerfuge
Speaker 1: but different. It spins a test tube a really high intensity.
Speaker 1: I read one source saying it was about five thou
Speaker 1: rpm s, so very very fast for a short time,
Speaker 1: introducing an amazing amount of sheer stress to the film
Speaker 1: of fluid, which is about one micron thick that built
Speaker 1: up on the walls of the tube. And in a
Speaker 1: quote given to the Washington Post, Greg Wise said about
Speaker 1: the proteins in this process, they're like little elastic bands.
Speaker 1: This stretches and unstretches them and gives them their shape back.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like if you, you know, stretch
Speaker 1: out a tangled up slinky and then get it to
Speaker 1: reform back into its original shape. But help me out
Speaker 1: here for a second. So my understanding of the I
Speaker 1: didn't read this study, but my understanding of what how
Speaker 1: you're presenting it here is the dn turing process. By
Speaker 1: zipping around at this high speed, are they they're renaturing.
Speaker 1: They're refolding back into the original shape that the proteins
Speaker 1: were before they were denatured by the heat. So it's
Speaker 1: not just that they're moving something at such a high
Speaker 1: speed that it like liquefies. No, it's it's actually re
Speaker 1: applying the process. Yeah, they're they're undoing the work of
Speaker 1: cooking by applying this mechanical stress. And so at the
Speaker 1: end they were able to refold some of the proteins
Speaker 1: back into their original shapes without it becoming tangled up
Speaker 1: with one another in the process. That's another problem that
Speaker 1: can happen, and it worked at the end. The solution
Speaker 1: contained proteins comparable to uncooked egg whites, and that immune
Speaker 1: related protein I mentioned lycenseyme that was also found to
Speaker 1: be present in the final product and functional. Okay, So
Speaker 1: what I want to know though, is did they make
Speaker 1: a quiche with this afterwards? And how did it take?
Speaker 1: You know, you couldn't because it's just the egg whites
Speaker 1: and you really need some miolks for keysh We could
Speaker 1: otherwise that would be pretty gross and you could make
Speaker 1: a few different mixed drinks though, right, Oh, you probably could.
Speaker 1: The New Orleans was sour fizz. What's it? What's it
Speaker 1: called when you put an egg white in there? Something
Speaker 1: jim fizz something something fizz. Gross. That's like when people
Speaker 1: drink like oyster shots and stuff like that. It's nasty.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what an oyster? You add oysters,
Speaker 1: like raw oysters to it, like like a real oyster. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's about like having an oyster though. I mean, you
Speaker 1: need to stop talking. You just mix it with like
Speaker 1: booze and I think like tomato juice or something like that.
Speaker 1: Disgusting study. Okay, So so they did it. They managed
Speaker 1: to unboil egg whites and get them back to the
Speaker 1: original state. A couple of things we I guess, in
Speaker 1: case it needs stating, Why is this ridiculous? Well, I
Speaker 1: guess it just sort of seems to contradict the folk
Speaker 1: understanding of entropy that you can't fix what's broken. You
Speaker 1: can't unscramble an egg, I think is an actual expression.
Speaker 1: You might not be able to unscramble an egg, but
Speaker 1: you can unboil an egg. Well, there's so many fun
Speaker 1: metaphors that you can reverse with this, right. I think
Speaker 1: it's also funny because it involves eggs, which apparently some
Speaker 1: people just think are inherently funny objects, and slightly more
Speaker 1: when they're boiled, especially because it's life. But but this
Speaker 1: process actually does have real, very important and interesting applications,
Speaker 1: not just for fun. It can make a big difference
Speaker 1: in many kinds of research involving proteins. For example, cancer
Speaker 1: research in the lab often deals with proteins that have
Speaker 1: exactly the same problem that cooked egg whites do. They
Speaker 1: can become tangled in misshape, and so the proteins get
Speaker 1: d natured, or they're they're folding gets messed up, or
Speaker 1: they get tangled together or both, and then scientists have
Speaker 1: to waste a lot of time trying to restore them
Speaker 1: to to the original folded shape and structure, to get
Speaker 1: them to be useful and by conventional means, this is
Speaker 1: a really time consuming and wasteful process. So this sheer
Speaker 1: stress method that they introduced with this the vortex fluid device,
Speaker 1: could actually make cancer research much more efficient in terms
Speaker 1: of time and cost. So it was reported in their
Speaker 1: study that the refolding of protein by sheer stress was
Speaker 1: faster than the conventional method of quote, overnight dialysis by
Speaker 1: a factor of more than a hundred times, more than
Speaker 1: a hundred times faster. So that's why it took eleven
Speaker 1: people to to write this paper. There were different people
Speaker 1: involved with different aspects of it. Like I know, some
Speaker 1: of the people cited in the paper were people who
Speaker 1: were working with the vortex fluid device itself. Like the
Speaker 1: stories like ten more times. I want to just see
Speaker 1: how many times we can say vortex fluid device throughout
Speaker 1: the sentence, right, So there's some people working with that,
Speaker 1: some people who are presumably working with the science of
Speaker 1: the proteins. Yeah, yeah, routine labs. So probably some I'm
Speaker 1: guessing like graduate students in there who did like the
Speaker 1: scut work. Possibly, I don't know what every single name
Speaker 1: corresponds to. It's one of those, uh, one of those
Speaker 1: features of Modern Sciences. That you get a lot of
Speaker 1: names listed. Yeah, let's see if we can find which
Speaker 1: one of these has the most people applied to it. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: so I'm keeping track. We got eleven on this one. Well,
Speaker 1: let's check out the next prize awarded in the physical science.
Speaker 1: And this one was a lot of fun. I actually
Speaker 1: read about this before this episode, but Robert, it was
Speaker 1: about urine, right, oh, yes, And you're definitely uh, you're
Speaker 1: in for a treat on this one because this is
Speaker 1: the Physics Prize for bladder speed. And noticed I said
Speaker 1: physics and not biology here. That's gonna be a key
Speaker 1: as we move forward. The paper in particular is a
Speaker 1: duration of urine does not change with body size by
Speaker 1: Georgia Institute of Technology researchers Patricia ja Yanga, Jonathan Fama,
Speaker 1: Jerome Choah, Dave and Dave at l Q. And this
Speaker 1: was published in the summer two thousand fourteen edition of
Speaker 1: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And they're just
Speaker 1: right down the street these Yeah. I have read several
Speaker 1: times about the research involving David who in one way
Speaker 1: or another. Yeah, I mean we were talking before the
Speaker 1: episode of the field of fluid dynamics. You see some
Speaker 1: of the most amazing papers coming up and and this
Speaker 1: one definitely uh fits the bill. Did they use a
Speaker 1: vortex fluid device? Not as such. No. So basically, in
Speaker 1: a nutshell, the study investigated how quickly thirty two different
Speaker 1: animals you're inate now? Sixteen of these are live viewing
Speaker 1: the rest or YouTube videos. Um, because they were they
Speaker 1: were interesting to animals of varying size. It's YouTube research. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the interesting initial finding here though, is that it
Speaker 1: turns out that it's all about the same at least
Speaker 1: for animals that weigh at least six point six pounds
Speaker 1: or three kilograms. They found all animals that weigh more
Speaker 1: than that urinate in the same space of time. Um.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't matter if it's an elephants bladder that
Speaker 1: is thirty undred times larger than a cat's. Both animals
Speaker 1: are going to get their being over with and about
Speaker 1: uh twenty seconds. Okay. And the reason here is, the
Speaker 1: paper explores, is that as diverse as all these different
Speaker 1: bladder systems are, um and and all the plumbing, they
Speaker 1: all rely on the fundamental principles of fluid mechanics. The
Speaker 1: researchers found that quote the urethra is a flow enhancing device,
Speaker 1: enabling the urinary system to be scaled up by a
Speaker 1: factor of thirty six in volume without compromising its function.
Speaker 1: One of the idea here is that it's possible that
Speaker 1: larger animals have a longer urethras, and since the weight
Speaker 1: of the fluid in the urethra is pushing the fluid out,
Speaker 1: the long urethra increases the flow rate. So this is
Speaker 1: why if you've ever gone online like our researchers and
Speaker 1: watched a whole bunch of animals uh urinate, you might
Speaker 1: see the larger animals just really pushing it out there
Speaker 1: like a sheet of urine hose. Yeah, whereas the smaller creatures,
Speaker 1: definitely the ones under that six point six pound limit. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're just throwing out some droplets. Uh. For instance, mice
Speaker 1: and rats less than two seconds spent urinating bats just
Speaker 1: a fraction of the speed. So this would be important,
Speaker 1: of course, keeping your your p speed up for an
Speaker 1: elephant because uh, if if an elephant had a shorter
Speaker 1: ure threat, it would take longer to urinate, and during
Speaker 1: that time, of course, it would be more susceptible interpretation. Wow,
Speaker 1: so okay, never, I've never really thought about the evolutionary
Speaker 1: pressures on urination speed. That just doesn't really occur to
Speaker 1: me as a thing having a big having a big
Speaker 1: impact on your survival or reproduction. Well, it's how much
Speaker 1: time that you're you're you have to remain stationary and
Speaker 1: you're somewhere not paying attention to your surrounding. You have
Speaker 1: to remain stationary and pooping on the move. I haven't tried.
Speaker 1: I don't know. You've seen you've both seen Burdenmic, I have,
Speaker 1: so you know what happened. It can't happen when their
Speaker 1: predators about and you need to go potty. And I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about my dog, who definitely breaks the twenty second rule.
Speaker 1: I mean, he pees for a long time when we
Speaker 1: go out first thing in the morning, and that's probably
Speaker 1: because he's got a cushy life and he doesn't have
Speaker 1: to worry about the pressures of survival. That's a good point.
Speaker 1: That's a good point. So I probably don't have didn't
Speaker 1: measure humans as well. I'm not sure if humans were
Speaker 1: in the in the study. To be honest, you know,
Speaker 1: I wonder one thing that could be affecting the different
Speaker 1: times of domesticated animals versus whatever they used in the study.
Speaker 1: I'm sure some of those were domesticated, would be whether
Speaker 1: they are being prompted the urinate or whether they're just
Speaker 1: urinating whenever they feel like it, because it could be
Speaker 1: that in under natural circumstances, you will naturally let the
Speaker 1: amount of urine and build up in your bladder that
Speaker 1: it will take to evacuate in twenty or twenty one second.
Speaker 1: But if you're a dog who's inside and can't pee
Speaker 1: until it's time to go out, you might go beyond
Speaker 1: that threshold when and accumulate a lot. You're thinking, okay,
Speaker 1: so I probably don't have to tell anybody why this
Speaker 1: study is ridiculous, because of course it involves urine, and
Speaker 1: urine like eggs, is inherently funny. Um. But as to
Speaker 1: why it's important for starters, it's an understudied topic. Not
Speaker 1: a lot of people are putting a lot of time
Speaker 1: and effort into the question of urination times for animals,
Speaker 1: And additionally, the study may help to diagnose urine a
Speaker 1: problems and animals as well as inspired of the design
Speaker 1: of quote scalable hydro dynamic systems based on those in nature,
Speaker 1: So there's a biomimicry potential here. Um, you don't need
Speaker 1: to necessarily use external pressure to get rid of fluids
Speaker 1: in a system quickly. Rather, you can let gravity do
Speaker 1: the trick with the right bio mimicry. So possible applications
Speaker 1: include water tanks, UM, backpacks that are used to you know, uh,
Speaker 1: fire hoses, and UM. A couple of examples here in
Speaker 1: which the team actually engaged with some additional experimentation. Uh.
Speaker 1: They actually created a demonstration that empties a teacup, court
Speaker 1: and gallon of water in the same duration for each
Speaker 1: using varying links of connected tubes, thus standing in for
Speaker 1: the varying urethra links UM links among these animals. And
Speaker 1: then they connected a second experiment in which the team
Speaker 1: filled three cups with the same amount of water then
Speaker 1: empty them at varying rates by using different lengths of tube.
Speaker 1: So again you don't have to use you know, varying
Speaker 1: amounts of external pressure to move water through a system.
Speaker 1: You can use to use gravity and tube length. This
Speaker 1: is uh, they're like modern day Da Vincis like this
Speaker 1: is this is the kind of stuff that Da Vinci
Speaker 1: used to sit around and ponder about and work on
Speaker 1: in his sketch books like how to move water more Efficiently.
Speaker 1: They're just looking to nature's way of doing it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's basically a bio on the medic exercise. Now,
Speaker 1: so that makes me wonder if the next thing we're
Speaker 1: going to hear about associated with David who is an ornithopter.
Speaker 1: That would be great. Well wait, let's define that for
Speaker 1: our audience for a second. Oh, if you've listened to
Speaker 1: the Dune episode, you know all about ornithopters. No, didn't
Speaker 1: da Vinci designed some mornithopters flapping flapping wing aircraft. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm afraid that's wrong. That did he design propeller driven
Speaker 1: or I can't remember other than from playing an Assassin's
Speaker 1: Creed game where Da Vinci was the guy who made
Speaker 1: He was like your que to your to your James
Speaker 1: Bond and he made one of those things for you
Speaker 1: to fly around in. Oh nice. Yeah. I don't think
Speaker 1: there's any evidence that da Vinci made a working flying machine.
Speaker 1: I think he just yeah, I don't think right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think it was. And we'll have to ask
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. He would probably know. Uh So The next
Speaker 1: one here, and this is a short one, is the
Speaker 1: Literature Prize, and it specifically goes to a paper called
Speaker 1: is Huh a Universal Word? Conversational Infrastructure and the Convergent
Speaker 1: Evolution of Linguistic Items? By Mark Dinge Manze, Francisco Torrieira,
Speaker 1: and Nick j Enfield Uh. And this was in p
Speaker 1: l OS one published. Okay, so the basics of this
Speaker 1: study are essentially that the writers involved take a look
Speaker 1: at the the word sound huh. Specifically throughout the piece
Speaker 1: they spell it h u h question mark. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: asked to have the question mark. They used a phrase
Speaker 1: to describe it that I thought was very appropriate and
Speaker 1: very interesting. They called it a repair initiator. Yeah. I'll
Speaker 1: get to that in a second. But that's essentially the
Speaker 1: gist of their argument and and why it's important. So
Speaker 1: they argue, one that is universal, regardless of language, all
Speaker 1: human beings use a version of huh. And then the
Speaker 1: second thing they argue is that it is a word.
Speaker 1: It's not just a grunt. Yeah. Apparently there was some
Speaker 1: uh people, some conflict apparently about whether or not it
Speaker 1: was a word or not. And they defined it because
Speaker 1: they said it's used similarly across cultures, and it's also
Speaker 1: a learned, conventional form. And like you said, it's not grunting,
Speaker 1: it's not crying, it's not just a noise. It's a
Speaker 1: word that we use that has purpose to it, right,
Speaker 1: It has a it has a semantic definition. It it
Speaker 1: means something in conversation. It means I didn't understand what
Speaker 1: you just said exactly so. And that's where the other
Speaker 1: initiated repair thing comes in, right, So huh is used
Speaker 1: for us to express to someone else, whether they speak
Speaker 1: the same language or not, that there is something going
Speaker 1: on where we're having trouble understanding, right, whether it's like
Speaker 1: some all understanding or actual problem with the noise in
Speaker 1: your ears, you know the problem hearing it now. They
Speaker 1: found that across different languages it wasn't always pronounced exactly
Speaker 1: the same. That it's sort of the essence of the
Speaker 1: word hah that comes through yeah. And it has the
Speaker 1: same variation in form as you would find in any
Speaker 1: other regular words. So as words kind of spread across
Speaker 1: cultures and they change slightly, uh, Like they use dog
Speaker 1: as an example, and how dog changes across different cultures,
Speaker 1: huh is similar. Well, I mean even in our own
Speaker 1: usage of it. You have huh, but then you also
Speaker 1: have yeah. Yeah, so I mean we have I think
Speaker 1: multiple versions in English exactly. Yeah. And the way that
Speaker 1: they conducted the study is and I feel bad for
Speaker 1: whoever had to sit down and go through all this data. Uh.
Speaker 1: They compiled data from published literature and thirty one languages
Speaker 1: to see how it was used in written form, And
Speaker 1: then they collected data from recordings of naturally occurring conversations
Speaker 1: from ten languages across five different continents, and basically, you know,
Speaker 1: looked for usage of huh uh and and how it
Speaker 1: was understood. And there's the you know, I won't go
Speaker 1: through it here too because I think it would be
Speaker 1: kind of boring, but there's this really interesting uh cable
Speaker 1: visual table that they applied to the study itself. It
Speaker 1: wouldn't work well on a podcast to talk about it,
Speaker 1: basically showing all the different languages and all their locations
Speaker 1: across the world and how huh is used throughout them.
Speaker 1: So of course, why is it ridiculous? Well, it's we're
Speaker 1: studying such a basic part of human existence that seems
Speaker 1: like it doesn't really require that deep of an analysis,
Speaker 1: right uh. And and it's also, you know, just kind
Speaker 1: of a silly The term itself means I don't understand,
Speaker 1: and here we are speaking to understand. Yeah, but they
Speaker 1: make a good case. I think that this is an
Speaker 1: interesting thing to study, especially because they point out how
Speaker 1: huh is such a useful and powerful tool in conversation
Speaker 1: because it has this uh. It has this complex sort
Speaker 1: of conversation management role that happens in such a short
Speaker 1: time span and really helps keep conversations on track and
Speaker 1: moving quickly because you don't have to stop every time
Speaker 1: and say I don't understand what you just said. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's It's interesting though, because it's easy to dismiss hunt
Speaker 1: as um, it's just a needless break in a conversation.
Speaker 1: But but I guess the the the the idea here
Speaker 1: is that it's as small a break as is necessary.
Speaker 1: It's not a verbal pause because it has meaning to it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's a very short, quick, efficient way to
Speaker 1: say I don't get it. Uh. It's feedback essentially, it
Speaker 1: with within conversation. Just let the other person you're speaking
Speaker 1: with no that you need more. Though, this also made
Speaker 1: me think about how I feel like the word huh
Speaker 1: has multiple different meanings in English. It certainly is what
Speaker 1: they're talking about the repair initiators. So you're in the
Speaker 1: middle of saying something I miss here part of it,
Speaker 1: say huh and you repeat. But there's also I noticed
Speaker 1: I often use huh as a punctuation that essentially means
Speaker 1: that's curious. Yeah, that's I feel like that's my primary
Speaker 1: usage of it is someone will say something interesting, especially
Speaker 1: if it's like an audio interview over the phone, and
Speaker 1: you feel like you need to give some feedback that
Speaker 1: you are interested, and still on the line, you go, yeah.
Speaker 1: It can also mean now I'm waiting for the listeners
Speaker 1: to send us in like a super cut of all
Speaker 1: the times we've all gone to each other. Can do that?
Speaker 1: You know that Nolan makes electronic music out of our
Speaker 1: verbal pauses and weird mouth noises. Right, No, but I'm
Speaker 1: not surprised. Yeah, he keeps a folder and one day
Speaker 1: he's going to get rich and famous by using all
Speaker 1: of ours. Well, there's there's one other thing that I
Speaker 1: just want to add about this study, and this is
Speaker 1: they do a little kind of naval gazing dive here
Speaker 1: in linguistic studies. But it's important because we've actually talked
Speaker 1: about stuff like this before, especially when we did that
Speaker 1: Feral Children episode on the Unlanguaged Mind. They have a
Speaker 1: kind of universal grammar post structuralist argument going on, or
Speaker 1: at least they get into that stuff by saying, huh,
Speaker 1: isn't part of our genetic makeup? They're not. Just because
Speaker 1: we all use it doesn't mean it's like built into
Speaker 1: the human code, right, It's not like screaming in pain, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And that Rather, what they're saying is that it's the
Speaker 1: result of convergent cultural evolution, that as we as humans
Speaker 1: have evolved together and built up our societies together, this
Speaker 1: word has been it's it's like this one. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's many other constants, but it is one
Speaker 1: constant that is between all of these cultures. Mhm. Hey,
Speaker 1: so I think it's time to take a quick break
Speaker 1: to hear about our sponsor for this episode. But after out,
Speaker 1: we're gonna come right back and talk about more weird science.
Speaker 1: All right. Well, well, let's move on to another prize here.
Speaker 1: What do we have in terms of management? The Ignobile
Speaker 1: Management Prize? I got a good one for you guys.
Speaker 1: This is this is especially Oh, this is gonna hit
Speaker 1: a little close to home for for those of us
Speaker 1: who work in the digital media field. Uh. So this
Speaker 1: is a paper uh that is called what Doesn't Kill
Speaker 1: You Will Only make You More? Risk Loving colin Early
Speaker 1: Life Disasters and CEO Behavior. It was written in September
Speaker 1: published rather Uh and let me see if I can
Speaker 1: pronounce these names. So I'm gonna butcher these but sorry,
Speaker 1: guys if you're listening. Jennaro Berneil Vanite bag Wat and
Speaker 1: p Rugga Vendra raw I believe are their names. So
Speaker 1: this study finds that CEOs who have experienced fatal disasters
Speaker 1: without stream negative consequences are more likely to be risky
Speaker 1: and aggressive businessmen. So I'm assuming by extremely fatal disasters here,
Speaker 1: that's an extremely fatal to people that are not him,
Speaker 1: and they can they're still alive. Yeah, they have to be.
Speaker 1: They're not undead sea. But then also they haven't lost
Speaker 1: loved ones exactly. Yeah, that's that's the gist of it,
Speaker 1: is that they whether the event had fatal consequences or not,
Speaker 1: or they all do, but it didn't affect them directly. Now,
Speaker 1: by your use of the term businessmen, does this indicate
Speaker 1: that all of the people studied in this were male.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm pretty sure that they were. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: can't say definitively, but I want to say throughout the
Speaker 1: paper that they used the pronoun him a lot. But
Speaker 1: you know, there wasn't any discussion of gender as far
Speaker 1: as I can remember, So yeah, but it's safe to
Speaker 1: assume that they were mostly male. Uh. There is also
Speaker 1: another part of this argument, which is that, uh. There
Speaker 1: they also found that similarly, CEOs who witnessed extreme negative
Speaker 1: consequences during a natural disaster, so like probably seeing their
Speaker 1: loved ones die in front of them, are more conservative
Speaker 1: in business. This includes how they deal with cash holdings, leverage,
Speaker 1: and acquisitions, whereas the other guys are more likely to
Speaker 1: create debt rather than equity, and they're more likely to
Speaker 1: make their companies go through bankruptcy. Hold on, how many
Speaker 1: ceo s did they find who had been through a
Speaker 1: natural disaster? Well, let me tell you about their methodology,
Speaker 1: which I think is a little although okay, I should
Speaker 1: back up with that. The way the way that they
Speaker 1: gathered their information is a little weird to me. However,
Speaker 1: they put it through rigorous, rigorous testing to make sure
Speaker 1: that they their data was I guess accurate. Okay, but well,
Speaker 1: why don't you guys judge by the time we get
Speaker 1: to the end of this and tell me what you think.
Speaker 1: So the first thing that they do is they look
Speaker 1: at a sample of firms from to two thousand and
Speaker 1: twelve and they identified the CEOs of all these companies
Speaker 1: and found their basic demographic information, you know, their age,
Speaker 1: where they grew up, where they were born, YadA, YadA. Right.
Speaker 1: Then they cross reference that with a database of all
Speaker 1: the natural disasters that happened in the United States during
Speaker 1: those times, and these include earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes,
Speaker 1: severe storms, floods, landslides, and wildfires. And they specifically focused
Speaker 1: on the period of time when these CEOs would be
Speaker 1: between the ages of five and fifteen, because they say
Speaker 1: that medical research shows that this is when our most
Speaker 1: lasting childhood memories tend to start and then stop. So, okay,
Speaker 1: the I want to pause for a second here and
Speaker 1: say that the research itself, it's very easy to like
Speaker 1: read and abstract and say, well, these CEOs are more
Speaker 1: likely to do this thing, and these CEOs are less
Speaker 1: likely to do this thing. Right, So the actual numbers
Speaker 1: here what they call leverage ratios. They seem pretty small
Speaker 1: to me. So the first group is three point four
Speaker 1: percent higher than the norm, and then the second group
Speaker 1: is negative three point seven percent lower. So to me,
Speaker 1: this seems like it would fall into the margin of
Speaker 1: error for many other studies that we would look at,
Speaker 1: So you know, keep that in mind. Uh, it just
Speaker 1: it's it seems a little low. I I was expecting
Speaker 1: based on the conclusion that they had, it would be
Speaker 1: a much higher percentage. To be fair, though, like I said,
Speaker 1: they built in a lot of safeguards into this to
Speaker 1: keep data bias and variables out of the studies results.
Speaker 1: They even tested the robustness of their own methodology afterwards
Speaker 1: by applying it in various forms over and over and
Speaker 1: over again. Uh. And so they argue that this supports
Speaker 1: the idea that CEOs who have not experienced extreme consequences
Speaker 1: are desensitized to the negative consequences of risk. Subsequently, those
Speaker 1: who are are more likely to be cautious. Okay, so
Speaker 1: what do you think do you think? Like this methodology
Speaker 1: sounds valid? You know, in the face of it, it's
Speaker 1: weird because the study definitely matches up with the stereotype
Speaker 1: that we a lot of us carry around for the
Speaker 1: sort of inhuman CEOs that we that we ultimately have
Speaker 1: very little personal interaction with. And they they're just this,
Speaker 1: they seem to be this individual has no connection with
Speaker 1: the suffering of others, right, And it seems like we,
Speaker 1: I don't know, we should always be especially careful about
Speaker 1: scientific results that seem to confirm our intuitions because we're
Speaker 1: I don't know, we're just susceptible to being lenient with them.
Speaker 1: That's why I thought that there was a sort of
Speaker 1: inherent ridiculousness to this for the Ignoble prizes rights, it
Speaker 1: seems like it's looking for causality between two seemingly unrelated
Speaker 1: experiences just to confirm our pre existing bias. But uh,
Speaker 1: like I said, I mean, I didn't go into it
Speaker 1: here because again, like it's very dense uh and math
Speaker 1: essentially that they that they went through here. I don't.
Speaker 1: I have to respect them for the diligence that they
Speaker 1: did in the study, but I don't know necessarily that
Speaker 1: all that diligence adds up to being able to say
Speaker 1: that this is accurate. What I would rather see is
Speaker 1: a study that correlates CEO risk taking behavior with how
Speaker 1: they play the board game risk. Well, are they a
Speaker 1: table flipper? Oh nice? Yeah, well, you know, suggest that
Speaker 1: to the board and maybe they can do that for
Speaker 1: the next for next year's I Nobel Prizes, although those
Speaker 1: are probably getting published already. Uh, but there is all right,
Speaker 1: So all that aside is an important study though, in
Speaker 1: the sense that they found a link between CEOs and
Speaker 1: disaster experience and their corporate policies, and subsequently this has
Speaker 1: real economic consequences. Right, So basically what they're trying to
Speaker 1: do is say, like, all right, this is a predictor
Speaker 1: I assume for hiring or you know, in in some
Speaker 1: sense a predictor of how well this person is going
Speaker 1: to run a company. Yeah. I do think one thing
Speaker 1: that's useful here is it's just one more thing that
Speaker 1: helps us remember that ceo s and the people who
Speaker 1: make top level business decisions are human, and they're very
Speaker 1: much subject to human biases prejudices towards certain types of actions.
Speaker 1: They're not. I think there's sometimes this, uh, at least
Speaker 1: in the pro business mindset, there is this type of
Speaker 1: thinking that these people are efficiency optimizing machines who just
Speaker 1: you know, they make the decision that makes the most
Speaker 1: money all the time. But I mean there are people there.
Speaker 1: They make emotion driven the decisions they they are informed
Speaker 1: by their experiences and their feelings about the world based
Speaker 1: on the things that have happened to them. It's good
Speaker 1: to keep that in mind. Then this is one more
Speaker 1: tally in that corner. Yeah, and plus it also it's
Speaker 1: another study that looks at how Evan shape who we
Speaker 1: are um and in this in this case, it reminds
Speaker 1: me a lot of discussions I've had with people about comedians,
Speaker 1: like you have a comedian who didn't who is Jimmy
Speaker 1: Fallon comes to mind. I remember hearing an interview with
Speaker 1: Jimmy Fallon where he basically, you know, he wasn't picked
Speaker 1: on as a kid. He had pretty much had a
Speaker 1: nice rhyn of things. And maybe that explains why I
Speaker 1: don't find Jimmy Fallon all that funny, because he's not
Speaker 1: coming from this place of bankst or suffering like comedians
Speaker 1: that you identify with. Yeah, he's not. He's not Schopenhauer's comedian.
Speaker 1: So maybe he's the CEO of of comedy, you know.
Speaker 1: As it lines up with this study, Wow, Oh man,
Speaker 1: you just really blew my mind with that Robert like
Speaker 1: I am. That gives me pause because I really don't
Speaker 1: like Jimmy Fallon's humor. Um, I'm gonna have to think
Speaker 1: further on this and come back on another episode. And
Speaker 1: I'm not saying I dislike Jimmy Fallone. Seems like a
Speaker 1: nice guy, but like Comedy has never spoken to just
Speaker 1: this comedy. Yeah, I don't know him as an individual.
Speaker 1: He's like a CEO. I don't know those guys in
Speaker 1: he stole my car once. Really well, here's what I
Speaker 1: think that I got from this study is that what
Speaker 1: we need to do is make sure that all people
Speaker 1: who become CEOs of companies saw their parents murdered in
Speaker 1: front of them when they were children, because then they'll
Speaker 1: be like Batman Bruce Wayne, and they will run the
Speaker 1: company really well and clean up all the crime in
Speaker 1: their city. Is there any evidence of support the idea
Speaker 1: that Bruce Wayne was was Slashy is a good CEO? Though,
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to do some contextual analysis to figure
Speaker 1: that one out. In fact, I would I would be
Speaker 1: interested as anyone looked into the various CEOs in the
Speaker 1: comic book world. He's a better CEO, is it like
Speaker 1: or is it Wayne? Yeah? Just in terms of a
Speaker 1: business perspective, Yeah, you know Tony Star, which is a
Speaker 1: bad or industry go to working like, who is it like?
Speaker 1: Sometimes having an evil corporation over your shoulder if they're
Speaker 1: if they have could benefit. I was gonna say that
Speaker 1: the benefits at lex Corp Are great, Great, They've got
Speaker 1: fantastic four O one K, nice hs A package. I mean,
Speaker 1: business is good when you just manufacture toxic chemicals. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: getting back to the seriousness of this though. Um, the
Speaker 1: researchers were specifically interested in the strength of the dosage of,
Speaker 1: you know, experiencing these natural disasters and what their effects
Speaker 1: would be. And this is a quote from the study.
Speaker 1: They say the intensity of life experiences can result in
Speaker 1: nonlinear effects on subsequent risk taking. All right, we have
Speaker 1: one more study to look at in this episode, and
Speaker 1: I believe this one to you again, Christian, the two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen Ignobile Prize for Economics. Yeah, so this actually
Speaker 1: doesn't go to an academic paper. This Uh, this is
Speaker 1: a pretty funny one. But also I can I can
Speaker 1: see why they picked it. Uh, the organizers awarded the
Speaker 1: Thai Land the Thailand Metro Police directly for their efforts
Speaker 1: to combat rampant bribe taking among traffic police. So apparently
Speaker 1: in Thailand it's not all that uncommon for you know,
Speaker 1: if you break the traffic rules, police pulls you over
Speaker 1: and you just throw them like three or four bucks
Speaker 1: or whatever and say, hey, let's why do you forget
Speaker 1: about this? Okay, So to combat the rampant bribe taking
Speaker 1: that's going on among these traffic police, the officers in
Speaker 1: charge said, okay, if you refuse these bribes, you will
Speaker 1: receive a cash reward of up to ten thousand bot. So,
Speaker 1: just for our listeners out there, ten thousand as of
Speaker 1: today converts roughly into two eighty one dollars or comparison,
Speaker 1: a police salary in Thailand right now is is on
Speaker 1: average six thousand bought a month as of data, so
Speaker 1: they make about a hundred and sixty nine dollars a month.
Speaker 1: So you know, if they would refuse these bribes, they'd
Speaker 1: be getting more than a month's paycheck. This raises so
Speaker 1: many questions about it makes you wonder how much they're
Speaker 1: making off bribes in the first place. Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. Um,
Speaker 1: I guess I can preface this by saying that my
Speaker 1: family lived in Thailand for a couple of years. I
Speaker 1: didn't live there with them, but I went and visited
Speaker 1: and stayed with them. Um, so I'm I visited Thailand.
Speaker 1: I'm somewhat familiar with Thailand, but I can't really speak
Speaker 1: to its you know, overall culture and the corruption and
Speaker 1: the government. I do know, as many people do that
Speaker 1: you know, Bangkok is infamous for uh, drugs, prostitution, you
Speaker 1: name it, you know, and so I think that that
Speaker 1: was kind of part of the impetus here for this
Speaker 1: kind of weird policy that they enacted, was to clean
Speaker 1: up the reputation of Bangkok. But of course, so it's
Speaker 1: it's sort of ridiculous, so ridiculous that after two weeks
Speaker 1: the police canceled this policy. Uh. There were so there's
Speaker 1: so much back to your bribe social media criticism about
Speaker 1: this that they thought it was damaging the forces reputation. Uh,
Speaker 1: and two cops received the maximum award based on them
Speaker 1: taking three dollar bribes. Yeah, well it's not rather not
Speaker 1: taking those bribes. It's it's kind of like the whole
Speaker 1: scenario where somebody unloads the dishwasher and then expects praise
Speaker 1: for it, like you're supposed to unload the dishwasher. You
Speaker 1: did your job. Yeah, you did your job. Congratulations. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there shouldn't be a monetary reward for not taking the bribe,
Speaker 1: which is what you're supposed to do to Kenwin. Unsurprisingly,
Speaker 1: the Metropolitan Police Bureau did not send any representatives to
Speaker 1: Harvard to receive the award at the ceremony. I wish
Speaker 1: they did because that would have probably made it quite
Speaker 1: a bit funnier. Did they not even send a video acceptance? Well,
Speaker 1: you know what, I didn't catch that they might have,
Speaker 1: but they didn't get to have what's her name sit
Speaker 1: there and tell them that they're boring. Oh yeah, it's sweetie. Pooh.
Speaker 1: I g I forgot, I forgot to Okay. Uh So,
Speaker 1: just another thing is that Thailand also received the Ignoble
Speaker 1: Award for Public Health because they had research that was
Speaker 1: published about surgical solutions to involuntary penis amputation. I remember
Speaker 1: this one. Yeah, so you know, they're racking up the
Speaker 1: points in the Ignoble category. But let's get serious for
Speaker 1: a second here. Okay, here's why this is important. So
Speaker 1: the state officials and the police in Thailand are supposed
Speaker 1: to face life in jail if they're convicted of taking
Speaker 1: a bride. Life in jail. Yeah, but it's pretty common,
Speaker 1: it's extremely common. Uh. Though. The Thai army took power
Speaker 1: after ousting the first female prime minister uh and they
Speaker 1: claimed that they had to restore order to the nation
Speaker 1: because nearly thirty people were killed in political protests against
Speaker 1: her being elected. Okay, so that's where this all came from.
Speaker 1: Uh And after they took power, that's when they launched
Speaker 1: this campaign to clean up Thailand's image. So this measure,
Speaker 1: the traffic bribe measure, was part of that campaign. Uh
Speaker 1: And specifically because that prime minister's brother is an ousted
Speaker 1: and influential politician who is also a former police officer,
Speaker 1: and he's known to have allies in the police force
Speaker 1: and he's got some you know, political influence with them.
Speaker 1: He fled the country in two thousand and eight. But
Speaker 1: really the speculation is that, like, if you look deeper
Speaker 1: at this, this is more about the military trying to
Speaker 1: take back control of the police from this you know,
Speaker 1: allegedly corrupt politician. All right, Well, there you have it.
Speaker 1: We're gonna cut off right there, and we're gonna pick
Speaker 1: up in the next episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 1: where will roll through five more of the winners from
Speaker 1: the two thousand fifteen Ignoble Prizes. Uh, there's some gonna
Speaker 1: be some fun stuff in there, So give you joined
Speaker 1: this come back from what we're gonna talk about kissing
Speaker 1: and how many babies you can have in a lifetime. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're talking about sticking essentially plungers on the butts of chickens.
Speaker 1: It's it's gonna be. It's gonna be a golden bees
Speaker 1: to your genitals. Science. Hey, So in the meantime, be
Speaker 1: sure to check out stuff to bow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: That's we'll find all the podcasts. You'll find videos, you'll
Speaker 1: find blog posts, you'll find links out that those social
Speaker 1: media accounts such as tumbler, Facebook, and Twitter. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that is where you can also find the address to
Speaker 1: write into us if you were, you know, particularly inspired
Speaker 1: by one of these papers that we discussed, or maybe
Speaker 1: you're one of the authors of one of them and
Speaker 1: want to communicate to us what was actually going on
Speaker 1: with your research, or perhaps you're involved in the Ignoble Prizes.
Speaker 1: If you want to contact us directly, Joe, what's the
Speaker 1: address below the mind at how stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
Speaker 1: a house stuff works dot com U