WEBVTT - The 2015 Ig Nobels: Unboiled Eggs & Urine Speed 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from House Stop 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:16.400 Work dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:18.919 My name is Robert Lamb, I'm showing performant, and I'm 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:23.360 Christian Sager. Hey. So we have been doing periscope for 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:26.720 two weeks now. We've had a bunch of our listeners 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:28.880 sign in and ask us questions and hang out with 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:31.520 us on Friday afternoons. So we wanted to remind you 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:33.920 that we're going to keep doing that as long as 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:37.640 you are interested. So every Friday at noon we will 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:40.720 be on the periscope, and if you want to find 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:42.960 out more about that, you can of course visit us 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:45.880 on all of our social media channels, which is Facebook, Twitter, 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:48.960 or Tumbler, all of those. We are blow the mind. 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:51.880 Don't forget that website Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Wait, 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:54.760 what's that? What's on that website? All the stuff, all 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:57.600 of it? Yeah, is that where the videos are. That's 0:00:57.640 --> 0:00:59.920 where the videos are, and that's where the blog posts are, 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:02.440 That's where all the podcasts. Like some of you listen 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:04.520 to this and think all we do is the podcast, 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:08.080 but we've got a lot going on blogging. There's Robert 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:11.280 does some amazing content about butts. Yeaheah, there's a there's 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:14.960 some science on that galories and there's a monster science 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:18.479 both in video form and blog form. The latest one 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:20.920 I liked a lot, the cat Bus one. Oh yeah, yeah, 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:22.639 I just did one on the cat Bus from Totoro. 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:26.640 Just rewatched that film with my family and uh, yeah, 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:29.240 there's some cool science behind cat Bus. I've actually never 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:31.959 seen it. You've got to get on there. Well, you 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:33.800 know the other new thing that we've got going on, 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:36.920 new music at the top of the show, guys, Yeah, 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:40.759 how about that welcome a welcome change that was created 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:44.360 by our fabulous producer Noel Brown. Bravo to you, sir. 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:47.720 But also I didn't notice this until I had heard 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:49.880 it a few times. It reminds me of the Doctor 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:54.520 Who theme, you know, it's with the with the lead part. Well, 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:56.880 I like to think of us as that that. You 0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:00.280 know what the Three Doctors is. It's when three friend 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:03.080 doctors from different time periods. I'll meet up together with 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:06.440 their tartises and hang out and and stop bad things 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:10.040 from happening. So we're like the three Doctors, but just 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:14.440 obviously the angry doctor. Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm Yeah, I'm 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:17.600 the curmudgeon doctor. That would be I guess I'm most 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:23.040 like Peter Capaldi. Yeah, that would be the angry doctor. Yeah. 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:25.320 So we've all met up and here we are to 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:28.240 talk about, of course what doctor the doctor would talk 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:33.520 about the ig Nobel Prizes, that's right. Yeah, So that 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:35.440 we all three decided to come together on this one 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:37.280 because there are a lot of studies we want to 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:39.639 We want to roll through them in two episodes, each 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:41.959 of us taking the head on a different study and 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:44.799 not doing a super deep dive, but giving you a 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:49.000 nice overview about what this particular study is, why it's ridiculous, 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:52.680 why in many cases it's actually important, because that's one 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:55.560 of the keys here. The Ignailed Bell Prizes have been around, 0:02:55.680 --> 0:03:01.079 uh since I believe, and each year they award ten 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:06.000 prizes to various bits of research, pure viewed studies that 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:08.360 you know, it's not the kind of stuff you're gonna 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:12.240 see capturing the headlines necessarily any scientists do, blind of 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:16.160 American not winning an actual Nobel prize. Right here at 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:19.200 how Stuff Works. We've sort of developed a like sub 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:22.720 theme for studies like this, which is sometimes we publish 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:26.720 these on our Now how stuff works channel, which is 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:29.200 there's a study for that, which is the kind of 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:32.560 like can you believe somebody did this? But at the 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:34.840 same time, I think the thing about the ignobles is 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:37.600 that there's always some value and importance to the research. 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:40.160 So yeah, like I always think of in cases like this, 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:43.280 I think of science as a slime mold amaze. Right now, 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:47.440 the slime mold is expanding outward, exploring its terrain, trying 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:49.720 to find food, and so it's going down all the 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:52.520 hallways to explore. And that's what science does. And just 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:56.760 because a particular area of study seems kind of pointless 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:59.880 at first glance, or it seems just very very specific, 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:02.640 or it's trying to prove something that we already kind 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:05.840 of know in our gut, it's still important that science 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:09.400 go there because science is is mapping the universe. Yeah, 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:11.920 and some of the corners of that map are watching 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:16.520 elephants p exactly. Well, Okay, I mean I slime mold. 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:19.839 Can we stick with the gelatinous cube here? Can we 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:22.039 use a gelatinous cube or is a slim mold like 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:26.320 a very specific metaphor for ignoble science. Um, I like 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:29.920 the slime because slime old this swarm intelligence. Oh okay, 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:33.360 I see what you're saying. Okay, I'll allow it. Uh. So, 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:36.920 let's af familiarize the audience with what these things are, 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:39.000 because the first time I heard about it was in 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:41.480 one of our episodes when we were talking about necrophilia, 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:45.120 and we uh, there was a study that had previously 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:48.960 won the Ignoble, which was about a guy watching a 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:51.720 duck try to have sex with a dead duck. Some 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:54.520 of the big ones. It was like seventy minutes of 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:57.760 of him watching that with a notebook. If you really 0:04:57.800 --> 0:04:59.719 want to hear the whole full story, go back and 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:04.560 sense that necrophilia episode. But uh, it's weird, but it 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:08.240 also had value to it, and so uh, let's kind 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:11.040 of encapsulate what these things are for our audience and 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:13.480 then we can dive into the tent studies. Well, the 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:17.400 principal individual here is Mark abrams Um. He's the editor 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:21.360 and co founder of Improbable Research magazine, which you can 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:24.000 find at their website. Let a link to that on 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:27.800 the landing page for this episode. And they regularly cover 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:31.760 research of this nature stuff. It's weird stuff that's a 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:35.200 little wacky, but it's still science and it's always covered 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:38.799 in essentially a loving way. Yeah. They say that it's 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:41.480 supposed to make you laugh but also make you think. Yeah. 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:43.000 I found this was true about a lot of the 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:46.279 studies we looked at this time. I I like the 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:50.520 sense that, um, it is certainly not stroking the ego 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:53.320 of the scientists who perform these studies, but it's not 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:56.840 really making fun of them either, or maybe sort of 0:05:56.880 --> 0:05:59.520 making fun of them, but at least not denigrating their work. 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:01.880 I think there have only been a couple of cases 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:04.400 where because for one thing, you can nominate your own work, 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:08.080 and they get about five thousand nominations each year. But 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:11.240 I can only think of two cases offhand where the 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:14.800 individuals did not receive it warmly, one of which was 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:17.960 the U. S. Air Force over their gay bomb, which 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:20.760 they won a prize four two thousand seven. They did 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.560 not remember hearing about this. Yeah, they did not see 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:25.240 the humor in it. No, hold on what were the 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:29.000 details of the gay bomb. The gay bomb, as I recall, 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:35.680 was that proposed weaponized afrodisiac that you would be able 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:39.400 to throw into the enemy trenches and harmonomy morale by 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:43.960 making them, Yeah, get friendly, amorous and confused. It was 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:47.320 referenced nicely on an episode of thirty Rocks several years back. 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:49.919 But but yeah, the the the Air Force did not 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:51.680 see the humor in that. And there there have been 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:55.039 a couple of curmudgeons along you know, over the years 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:56.760 that have have come out and said, oh, well, this 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:58.960 is just you know, waste of time. For instance, the 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:03.000 ve Robert May, the British government's chief scientific advisor at 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:05.360 the time, it was a big was a big critic 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:07.560 of the Nobel Prizes and he was saying that it 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:11.040 should only be used to, you know, to ridicule anti 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:14.680 science and pseudo science, and he should leave the the 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:19.400 real scientists alone. Uh again, totally missing the point that 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:21.720 the scientists are the are the ones who enjoy this 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:25.240 the most. Don't you love people who hate humor? So 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:29.320 I let's address that for a second though, because right 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:32.720 before we came in here, I watched the almost all 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:37.800 of the ceremony for awards, which we just which is 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:39.640 what we're going to cover today. I watched a lot 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:43.040 of this too, and and I feel like you definitely 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:46.040 get the tone that they're going for if you watch 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:48.520 the ceremony. They did a great job filming it. It's 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:51.280 got multiple camera angles. It's filmed in this beautiful theater 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:54.760 at Harvard University. Um that I saw Spalding Gray at 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:58.080 that same theater, like god fifteen years ago or something 0:07:58.080 --> 0:07:59.840 like that, So it was it was neat to see that. 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:08.520 But uh, the humor is very oh wacky. Yeah, it's 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:11.720 it's that kind of like academic like we don't want 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:15.520 to offend anybody humor that's just a little zany and 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:18.320 goofy and so at this at one on one hand, 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:23.840 I appreciate it, and I totally understand. Uh, I understand 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:28.120 that this guy who was it? Who? Who Robert may 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:31.400 who was so like against it in the first place. Yeah, 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:35.680 I don't understand where he's coming from. But I'm also 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:39.079 somewhat sympathetic because it's just like whacketty schmackt he do 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:44.600 zany like, you know, like jokes and stuff. Even if 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:47.280 you're not laughing with the jokes, you're still like, oh, well, 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:50.880 that's kind of adorable. Watch the old old scientists get 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:53.600 up there and kind of you know, hap uh, you know, 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:56.080 yuck it out. But I will confess though that it 0:08:56.240 --> 0:09:00.280 was unbearable for me to a point that I had to. 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:02.400 I watched it on YouTube, and I had to watch 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:05.520 it on double speed, so everybody was talking really fast 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:08.280 like chipmunks. But I got the gist of everything, and 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:12.280 I paid a special Please stop, Christian, I'm bored. Yeah, yeah, 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:16.240 but please please stop. Joe tell them about what's her name, 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:21.800 Pootie Pie or I think it's called Sweetie poop child. 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:25.200 Pot Pie is the guy on YouTube. Oh, I don't 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:29.920 know anyway. Yeah, they have a little character who is 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:32.640 a child who comes up. It's like the Oscar music 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:34.840 that starts to play when people get a little too 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:38.040 much gratitude in their speech at the Oscars. Uh. And 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:40.679 they want to get you off the stage at this ceremony. 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:42.600 They've got a child who runs up to you and 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:46.440 proclaims boredom and tells you to stop talking. And she's precocious. 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:49.120 And then on top of that, then they bring back 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:52.960 all the former Sweetie poos. Did you watch that part? Didn't? 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:57.439 Every former Sweetie pooh is a part of the procession. Uh. 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:00.640 And they are like the van Ol White that kind 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:03.800 of like escort out the winners of the awards and 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:06.160 then escort them back in. And they do this whole 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:09.720 cute see poo thing where they have the sweetie poo's 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:12.560 a'll tease one another in front of the audience. It's 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:17.880 a little much. Um. Also, I grew up you have 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:20.000 a you have a very dark heart that has no 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:22.880 room for for cuteness. Well I do, and I'll allow 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:27.080 this as well. I'm from Boston and I'm very familiar 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:29.680 with Harvard University. I lived right near there for a 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:32.000 long time, and I'm very familiar with this kind of 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:37.120 humor that is, you know, it's very um yeah, twee, 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:39.640 I guess is one way to put it. So um. 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:42.360 I will warn I will warn our listeners ahead of 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:45.040 time that maybe I'm the dark heart here, but I 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:49.199 was a little put off by the zany humor. However, 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:54.240 the studies themselves are amazing. Well, let's launch into them here, Um, Joe, 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:56.880 I believe you're up first, tell us about the chemistry 0:10:56.920 --> 0:11:00.520 prize winner, the Ignobil Chemistry Prize winner for two thousand. Okay, 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:05.320 so the Chemistry prize went to I'm gonna say their names, 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:07.400 and there's a lot of them, so bear with me 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:12.160 for a second. Here, Callum Ormond, Colin Raston, Tom Yuan, 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:17.720 Stephen Kudla check Samir and couldn't cha Joshua In Smith, 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:23.680 William A. Brown, Caitlin Pouglisi, Tivoli, Olson, Mariam eft Car, 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:28.560 Greg Weiss. Oh, And that's it them for demonstrating a 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:34.199 mechanical process to unboil an egg. So yes, these scientists 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:37.480 all work together. Now, I think the main scientist who 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:39.280 has involved in this process, the one at least who 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:41.280 has spoken to the media the most about it, was 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:45.960 Greg Weiss. But they came up with this mechanical process 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:50.360 to unboil an egg. Well, hold on part of an egg, 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:54.400 the egg white, and note that this is not uncooking 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:57.000 an egg, and that you can't unfry an egg or 0:11:57.080 --> 0:11:59.959 unscramble an egg or on. I wonder if you could 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:02.720 unpoach and egg maybe, but at least what you can 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:06.240 do is unboiled an egg white. So the paper is 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:11.160 called and I love the academic alienation of this title 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:17.880 sheer stress mediated refolding of proteins from aggregates and inclusion bus. Yes, 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:22.000 I can call the paper is a colon and then 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:24.360 another long sentence after that. And that's one of the 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:27.200 beautiful things about the Ignabel Prizes is this is a 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:29.440 great example of where they really got to the heart 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:31.280 of what this study is in the way that the 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:33.560 rest of us can enjoy. Yeah, and so it was 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:38.319 published in January in Kim Bio Kim And here's what happened. 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:42.320 The researchers took an egg and then they divided the 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:45.480 whites from the yolk, and then they boiled the egg 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:48.120 whites for twenty minutes at about a hundred ninety four 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:51.680 degrees fahrenheit or ninety degrees c. And if you have 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:54.080 ever seen the white part of a hard boiled egg, 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:56.559 you know what we're dealing with is the final product here. 0:12:57.200 --> 0:13:00.200 And so egg whites in their natural state are a 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:05.480 mixture of water and proteins, including the protein lysozyme, which 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:08.680 is a protein associated with immune function and more on 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:11.440 that in a minute. When you boil egg whites, the 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:15.400 folded proteins that are in the egg whites get d natured, 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:19.040 meaning that they sort of lose their precisely folded structure. 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:22.800 And that folded structure is what makes a protein do 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:26.680 the things that it does, sort of like what determines 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:29.960 its role in the in the tiny bio world that 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:34.320 it inhabits. And they also get all tangled together, and 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:37.560 they end up forming this solid block of bio jello 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:41.800 that we recognize as cooked egg white. Um, so that's 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:44.360 what normally happens when you when you boil an egg white. 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:46.640 It of course happened in this case as it always does. 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:50.479 And how do you fix this problem? So the researchers 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:53.760 took the boiled egg whites and dissolved them in a 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:58.240 urea solution to turn basically all of it into an 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:03.120 untangled up liquid of of unfolded proteins. So that's pretty gross. 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:06.960 It's a cooked egg white slurry. Then the solution was 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:11.040 placed into what they called a vortex fluid device. And 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:13.400 what this does is it's kind of like a centerfuge 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:17.160 but different. It spins a test tube a really high intensity. 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:19.120 I read one source saying it was about five thou 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:23.280 rpm s, so very very fast for a short time, 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:28.120 introducing an amazing amount of sheer stress to the film 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:31.040 of fluid, which is about one micron thick that built 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:33.160 up on the walls of the tube. And in a 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.080 quote given to the Washington Post, Greg Wise said about 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:40.640 the proteins in this process, they're like little elastic bands. 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:44.880 This stretches and unstretches them and gives them their shape back. 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:46.840 So it's kind of like if you, you know, stretch 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:49.280 out a tangled up slinky and then get it to 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:52.160 reform back into its original shape. But help me out 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:54.800 here for a second. So my understanding of the I 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:57.440 didn't read this study, but my understanding of what how 0:14:57.480 --> 0:15:01.520 you're presenting it here is the dn turing process. By 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:05.640 zipping around at this high speed, are they they're renaturing. 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:10.640 They're refolding back into the original shape that the proteins 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:13.440 were before they were denatured by the heat. So it's 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:15.480 not just that they're moving something at such a high 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:20.240 speed that it like liquefies. No, it's it's actually re 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:24.040 applying the process. Yeah, they're they're undoing the work of 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:29.520 cooking by applying this mechanical stress. And so at the 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:32.720 end they were able to refold some of the proteins 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:36.160 back into their original shapes without it becoming tangled up 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:38.520 with one another in the process. That's another problem that 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:41.120 can happen, and it worked at the end. The solution 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:45.000 contained proteins comparable to uncooked egg whites, and that immune 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:49.440 related protein I mentioned lycenseyme that was also found to 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:54.360 be present in the final product and functional. Okay, So 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:56.440 what I want to know though, is did they make 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:58.920 a quiche with this afterwards? And how did it take? 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:01.800 You know, you couldn't because it's just the egg whites 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:04.000 and you really need some miolks for keysh We could 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:06.680 otherwise that would be pretty gross and you could make 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:09.520 a few different mixed drinks though, right, Oh, you probably could. 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:14.280 The New Orleans was sour fizz. What's it? What's it 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:16.000 called when you put an egg white in there? Something 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:21.760 jim fizz something something fizz. Gross. That's like when people 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:25.640 drink like oyster shots and stuff like that. It's nasty. 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:29.520 I have no idea what an oyster? You add oysters, 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:32.760 like raw oysters to it, like like a real oyster. Yeah, 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:35.240 that's about like having an oyster though. I mean, you 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:37.680 need to stop talking. You just mix it with like 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:39.880 booze and I think like tomato juice or something like that. 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:45.600 Disgusting study. Okay, So so they did it. They managed 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:48.600 to unboil egg whites and get them back to the 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:52.400 original state. A couple of things we I guess, in 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:55.360 case it needs stating, Why is this ridiculous? Well, I 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:57.880 guess it just sort of seems to contradict the folk 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:01.880 understanding of entropy that you can't fix what's broken. You 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:04.840 can't unscramble an egg, I think is an actual expression. 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:07.879 You might not be able to unscramble an egg, but 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:10.120 you can unboil an egg. Well, there's so many fun 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:13.720 metaphors that you can reverse with this, right. I think 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:17.520 it's also funny because it involves eggs, which apparently some 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:21.720 people just think are inherently funny objects, and slightly more 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:25.920 when they're boiled, especially because it's life. But but this 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:31.280 process actually does have real, very important and interesting applications, 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:34.320 not just for fun. It can make a big difference 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:38.040 in many kinds of research involving proteins. For example, cancer 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:41.240 research in the lab often deals with proteins that have 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:44.199 exactly the same problem that cooked egg whites do. They 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:48.000 can become tangled in misshape, and so the proteins get 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:51.520 d natured, or they're they're folding gets messed up, or 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:54.760 they get tangled together or both, and then scientists have 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:57.200 to waste a lot of time trying to restore them 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:00.200 to to the original folded shape and structure, to get 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:03.520 them to be useful and by conventional means, this is 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:08.320 a really time consuming and wasteful process. So this sheer 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:12.120 stress method that they introduced with this the vortex fluid device, 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:15.520 could actually make cancer research much more efficient in terms 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:19.280 of time and cost. So it was reported in their 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:22.040 study that the refolding of protein by sheer stress was 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:26.720 faster than the conventional method of quote, overnight dialysis by 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:29.119 a factor of more than a hundred times, more than 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:32.280 a hundred times faster. So that's why it took eleven 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:35.760 people to to write this paper. There were different people 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:38.399 involved with different aspects of it. Like I know, some 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:41.280 of the people cited in the paper were people who 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:45.320 were working with the vortex fluid device itself. Like the 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:49.080 stories like ten more times. I want to just see 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:51.399 how many times we can say vortex fluid device throughout 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:55.160 the sentence, right, So there's some people working with that, 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:57.919 some people who are presumably working with the science of 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:02.080 the proteins. Yeah, yeah, routine labs. So probably some I'm 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:05.200 guessing like graduate students in there who did like the 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:09.720 scut work. Possibly, I don't know what every single name 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:12.200 corresponds to. It's one of those, uh, one of those 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:14.480 features of Modern Sciences. That you get a lot of 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:17.040 names listed. Yeah, let's see if we can find which 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:20.600 one of these has the most people applied to it. Okay, okay, 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:23.119 so I'm keeping track. We got eleven on this one. Well, 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:26.640 let's check out the next prize awarded in the physical science. 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:29.320 And this one was a lot of fun. I actually 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:32.000 read about this before this episode, but Robert, it was 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:36.040 about urine, right, oh, yes, And you're definitely uh, you're 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:38.359 in for a treat on this one because this is 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:41.600 the Physics Prize for bladder speed. And noticed I said 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:44.480 physics and not biology here. That's gonna be a key 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:47.440 as we move forward. The paper in particular is a 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:52.040 duration of urine does not change with body size by 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:57.280 Georgia Institute of Technology researchers Patricia ja Yanga, Jonathan Fama, 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:00.919 Jerome Choah, Dave and Dave at l Q. And this 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:05.240 was published in the summer two thousand fourteen edition of 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:08.439 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And they're just 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:13.359 right down the street these Yeah. I have read several 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:16.600 times about the research involving David who in one way 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:19.280 or another. Yeah, I mean we were talking before the 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:22.439 episode of the field of fluid dynamics. You see some 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:25.119 of the most amazing papers coming up and and this 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:28.399 one definitely uh fits the bill. Did they use a 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:34.320 vortex fluid device? Not as such. No. So basically, in 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:38.040 a nutshell, the study investigated how quickly thirty two different 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:40.959 animals you're inate now? Sixteen of these are live viewing 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:45.520 the rest or YouTube videos. Um, because they were they 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:48.879 were interesting to animals of varying size. It's YouTube research. Yeah. 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:52.840 So the interesting initial finding here though, is that it 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:55.400 turns out that it's all about the same at least 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:58.479 for animals that weigh at least six point six pounds 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:02.040 or three kilograms. They found all animals that weigh more 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:06.800 than that urinate in the same space of time. Um. 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:09.000 So it doesn't matter if it's an elephants bladder that 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:13.440 is thirty undred times larger than a cat's. Both animals 0:21:13.440 --> 0:21:16.480 are going to get their being over with and about 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:21.000 uh twenty seconds. Okay. And the reason here is, the 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:23.560 paper explores, is that as diverse as all these different 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:27.159 bladder systems are, um and and all the plumbing, they 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:31.399 all rely on the fundamental principles of fluid mechanics. The 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:35.840 researchers found that quote the urethra is a flow enhancing device, 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:38.959 enabling the urinary system to be scaled up by a 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:42.960 factor of thirty six in volume without compromising its function. 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:45.440 One of the idea here is that it's possible that 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:48.960 larger animals have a longer urethras, and since the weight 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:51.640 of the fluid in the urethra is pushing the fluid out, 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:55.040 the long urethra increases the flow rate. So this is 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:58.240 why if you've ever gone online like our researchers and 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:01.080 watched a whole bunch of animals uh urinate, you might 0:22:01.119 --> 0:22:04.520 see the larger animals just really pushing it out there 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:09.719 like a sheet of urine hose. Yeah, whereas the smaller creatures, 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:13.000 definitely the ones under that six point six pound limit. Uh, 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:16.320 they're just throwing out some droplets. Uh. For instance, mice 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:20.359 and rats less than two seconds spent urinating bats just 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:24.240 a fraction of the speed. So this would be important, 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:26.639 of course, keeping your your p speed up for an 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:29.680 elephant because uh, if if an elephant had a shorter 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:33.280 ure threat, it would take longer to urinate, and during 0:22:33.280 --> 0:22:38.240 that time, of course, it would be more susceptible interpretation. Wow, 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:41.960 so okay, never, I've never really thought about the evolutionary 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:46.000