Speaker 1: Guess what, mango? Do you remember that scene in Spaceballs
Speaker 1: where mel Brooks opens up a can of Perry Air?
Speaker 1: Did you know that's actually kind of a thing in
Speaker 1: China now? Is selling air there? Well? I don't think
Speaker 1: that company actually exists, but Canadians are doing this. So
Speaker 1: The Washington posted his story on this guy named Moses
Speaker 1: Lamb and it started as kind of a gag, but
Speaker 1: he put a zip block full of fresh Canadian air
Speaker 1: on eBay. It took two months to sell, and it
Speaker 1: sold for a whopping, which sounds like a great business.
Speaker 1: But he was bored with his day job, so he
Speaker 1: decided to try it again. And guess how much? The
Speaker 1: next bag sold for a hundred and sixty eight dollars.
Speaker 1: So he started packaging it better and for thirty two
Speaker 1: dollars a can, and they've been selling like hot And
Speaker 1: he isn't the only one. I decided to do a
Speaker 1: little research on this, and there's a whole industry around this. There.
Speaker 1: Eucalyptus lay six packs from Australia, Rocky Mountain air straight
Speaker 1: from the Colorado, even air from the Swiss Alps, and
Speaker 1: people in Beijing are going crazy for it. Does anyone
Speaker 1: in China do the reverse, like, do they like package
Speaker 1: their smog for people living abroad? Well, I know you're joking,
Speaker 1: but actually this does happen when I was doing the
Speaker 1: looking into this. So novelty cans of Beijing air are
Speaker 1: huge sellers, and the ingredients listed on them are pretty great.
Speaker 1: It says nitrogen, oxygen and other stuff. But reading about
Speaker 1: packaged there made me wonder what's actually in the stuff
Speaker 1: around us and what crazy stories are hiding in every
Speaker 1: breath we take. And that's what this episode is all about. Hey,
Speaker 1: their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will
Speaker 1: Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend
Speaker 1: man guest how Ticketer, And in today's episode, we're talking
Speaker 1: about the stories literally hanging in the air. But before
Speaker 1: we get to that, we've got some housekeeping to take
Speaker 1: care of. You're talking about Pan Piguan. Yes, you may
Speaker 1: remember from a few episodes ago it was called what's
Speaker 1: the most American Place. We challenged our listeners to come
Speaker 1: up with this mnemonic device to help us remember the
Speaker 1: five territories that are part of the United States but
Speaker 1: actually not one of the United States. Puerto Rico, Guam,
Speaker 1: the US, Virgin Islands, American Samoa and Northern Mariana Islands.
Speaker 1: And I think mine was pancakes grow under a nice
Speaker 1: tree to help remember those? What was yours again? Uh?
Speaker 1: What was it? It It was like pickles. Pickles get ugly
Speaker 1: after negotiations. Yeah, that's what it was. So we asked
Speaker 1: listeners to send in their own, and they came flooding in.
Speaker 1: It was pretty awesome to see. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: recognize some of those, and we've got some prizes to
Speaker 1: give away. One that I thought was pretty terrific was
Speaker 1: and very simple, but I thought easy to remember. From
Speaker 1: Fred Kruk. We have pine nuts are unusually good, unusually good,
Speaker 1: all right? The best trio of responses. Kelly Lawson in
Speaker 1: Um Georgia sent this one, as she actually sent three,
Speaker 1: and we've got pirates go ashore under nightfall, people get
Speaker 1: uneasy around Ninja's and politics get ugly around November like
Speaker 1: also are so good? All right? You got a T
Speaker 1: shirt coming to you, Kelly. And let's see what other
Speaker 1: we've got two more. We tried to come up with
Speaker 1: the top three, but it was just too hard to
Speaker 1: do this. I have to admit this might actually be
Speaker 1: my favorite from Brett Wilkes in Massachusetts. Paul Giamat's undershirts
Speaker 1: are nuanced, just so nuanced, all right. And then one
Speaker 1: that was um actually used more letters to use both
Speaker 1: letters and some of these pose Raven gave us vodka
Speaker 1: and said never more, and I just thought that was awesome,
Speaker 1: all right, So you guys are winners. And then one
Speaker 1: that was just crazy complicated, and I thought, because it
Speaker 1: was even more difficult to remember than just remembering the names,
Speaker 1: I think deserves a prize. Rob Brown, Um, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be getting a prize as well. So his explanation, Since
Speaker 1: Demonic begins with a silent M, I suggest the following
Speaker 1: Northern Mariana's American Samoa guam Us, Virgin Island, Puerto Rico
Speaker 1: becomes Mascus viper. The end, of course, is silent pronounced
Speaker 1: the Mascus with a silent like with us, which sounds
Speaker 1: a little like Damascus, and then the rest sounds like viper.
Speaker 1: It's so complicated, but but I love that, So Rob,
Speaker 1: you're going to be getting a prize too, So thank
Speaker 1: you all for participating in this contest. That is pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: But let's dig into today's episode topic, you know, one
Speaker 1: of the things that really inspired this episode was Sam
Speaker 1: Kaine's new book called Caesar's Last Breath. Yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: we'll have Samon in just a bit. And you know
Speaker 1: what his book kind of reminded me of. So here's
Speaker 1: a book that came out a few years ago called
Speaker 1: Twinkie Deconstructed, where the author looked at the back of
Speaker 1: a Twinkie package and realized there were like thirty nine
Speaker 1: ingredients that go into Twinkies. Then many he didn't recognize.
Speaker 1: A whole bunch of them were unpronounceable. So we decided
Speaker 1: to chase down the story for each one, and each
Speaker 1: chapter is about a different ingredient. So he goes down
Speaker 1: to mind Shaft and Idaho, He's chasing across this field
Speaker 1: in China, and it's crazy, but that's kind of what
Speaker 1: Sam does. Like he looks at a single breath of
Speaker 1: air and goes down a rabbit hole on the elements
Speaker 1: and compounds in air and it is fascinating. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: the funny thing is, as soon as I started researching
Speaker 1: air and this is so me, but I immediately wanted
Speaker 1: to go to Tangent Town, like I know where someone
Speaker 1: to be talking oxygen and nitrogen and argon and whatever.
Speaker 1: But I immediately wanted to talk about like an air
Speaker 1: hockey game some students invented, and air guitar competitions, and honestly,
Speaker 1: anything but chemistry spoken like the son of a chemical engineer,
Speaker 1: and that would be you. Yeah, well, just to be warned,
Speaker 1: I've got this pile of non essential facts for the
Speaker 1: fact off that all have the word air in them,
Speaker 1: like air fresheners. Can't wait for this. By the way,
Speaker 1: do you know the inspiration for those little tree air
Speaker 1: fresheners that hang in taxis? I mean, I've seen those
Speaker 1: a million times, but now I don't know where those
Speaker 1: came from. You probably realize it's a bad smell, but
Speaker 1: more specifically, they got to start when this chemist overheard
Speaker 1: a milkman crying over spilled milk, or rather that he
Speaker 1: hated the smell of the spilled milk in his truck. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the chemist wasn't immigrant from Europe, and he started thinking
Speaker 1: that a little like alpine scent from his homeland could help.
Speaker 1: So he designed the air freshener. But strangely, the first
Speaker 1: ones weren't tree shaped. They were shaped like pin up girls.
Speaker 1: But He didn't change the design because it was sexist.
Speaker 1: It was just that it was easier to pull plastic
Speaker 1: off a tree pattern, So that's why he changed it
Speaker 1: from a woman's shop. It's weird to think about the
Speaker 1: fact that there were just all these things that we noticed,
Speaker 1: but we don't ever stop to question why they're that way.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been again and hundreds of calves and
Speaker 1: you just are like, oh, well, they're just all shaped
Speaker 1: like trees. I don't really know why, but they are
Speaker 1: the other awesome things that like, his family's owned this
Speaker 1: company for three generations and they claimed that they've sold
Speaker 1: as many air fresheners as McDonald's has sold Hamburgers over
Speaker 1: the airs. Oh my god, I would imagine that things
Speaker 1: are crazy profitable to all. Right, to keep us on
Speaker 1: track here, So just like sleep flavor, two topics we've
Speaker 1: covered here on the show, the reason we chose air
Speaker 1: is that it's something that's easy to overlook, you know,
Speaker 1: partially because it's invisible. But the other reason we don't
Speaker 1: think about it very often is that, honestly, we just
Speaker 1: don't have to. Yeah, I mean, breathing happens automatically, and
Speaker 1: I'm consciously under normal circumstances. So unless something is actually wrong,
Speaker 1: we're not really concentrating on our breath. That just keeps
Speaker 1: going on in the background. But until we researched it
Speaker 1: for this episode, like, I had no idea what the
Speaker 1: numbers look like. Like you could have told me, like,
Speaker 1: we take five thousand breaths a day or a million
Speaker 1: breaths in a day, and I probably would have believed you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I probably would too, But what's the real number? Thank
Speaker 1: you for crying that up. I actually have those numbers
Speaker 1: right here. So the average adult takes a breath once
Speaker 1: every four seconds, So most people are taking somewhere in
Speaker 1: the neighborhood of like twenty thousand breaths to day, and
Speaker 1: it can be closer to fifty if you're really active.
Speaker 1: But you can imagine if every one of those breaths
Speaker 1: was a conscious action, we'd never get anything done. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no way for us to be as
Speaker 1: picky about our breathing as we are out eating or drinking.
Speaker 1: We'd lose our minds if it was something we actually
Speaker 1: thought about. Yeah, And I'm so used to thinking of
Speaker 1: airs like a single thing, but air is actually a
Speaker 1: combination of tons and tons of different gas molecules. Like
Speaker 1: in his book Sam keenes as a normal human breath
Speaker 1: is about a half liter of air, which breaks down
Speaker 1: to over twelve sex tillion molecules. That doesn't even sound
Speaker 1: like a real number. I'm pretty sure you just wanted
Speaker 1: to say sex. But so, how many zeros are at
Speaker 1: the end of a sex tillion? I know, I had
Speaker 1: to actually look this up. There are twenty one. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, it's a staggering amount of zero. It's also
Speaker 1: a crazy number of molecules for a single So that's
Speaker 1: a single breath. Yeah, and imagine like we're taking twenty
Speaker 1: thousand breaths a day. I don't even want to think
Speaker 1: about that. That's crazy. Yeah. So what's even weirder is
Speaker 1: that a large portion of the gas molecules and every
Speaker 1: breath we take are recycled from someone else's. So no
Speaker 1: matter where you are in the world, no matter how
Speaker 1: fresh and clean the air scenes, even if you're getting
Speaker 1: it from like a six pack of your Rocky mountain
Speaker 1: air that you're talking about, it's a certainty that some
Speaker 1: of what you're breathing is really second and breath, or
Speaker 1: third hand or fourth hand or fifth hand, which is
Speaker 1: a little unsettling, but I don't know, maybe kind of sweet.
Speaker 1: I mean, breath seems like this intimate thing to share
Speaker 1: with someone. So the fact that we're all swapping it
Speaker 1: around every four seconds, that means we're all tapping into
Speaker 1: this invisible shared history between us. Yeah, it's like a
Speaker 1: brotherhood of breath, which is this wonderful, poetic notion. I
Speaker 1: was kidding, it's actually kind of gross, really, like, think
Speaker 1: about people breathing on you. But the really crazy thing
Speaker 1: is how far back that shared history goes. Like the
Speaker 1: air we breathe is never completely lost or destroyed, is
Speaker 1: just redistributed. So the title of Sam's book hints at
Speaker 1: this by bringing up Caesar. He breathes dying breath like
Speaker 1: over two thousand years ago. But those sextillion gas molecules
Speaker 1: they live on and wind spread them all over the
Speaker 1: world in a matter of weeks, and Da've been breathing
Speaker 1: and out in different combinations ever since. In fact, it
Speaker 1: turns out that approximately one particle of Caesar's last breath
Speaker 1: will be found in the very next one you take.
Speaker 1: So multiply that by the number of breaths you take
Speaker 1: per day, and you're literally inhaling thousands of microsoftic bits
Speaker 1: of Caesar's secondhand air every single day of your life. Wow,
Speaker 1: that is pretty nuts, And I'm still sticking with the
Speaker 1: fact that that's a little bit gross, but especially when
Speaker 1: you consider that has to be true of every person's breath,
Speaker 1: not just Caesar's. Yeah, the other thing I didn't realize
Speaker 1: was just how fluid there is. Like, in fact, any
Speaker 1: expulsion of air anywhere in the world will reach you
Speaker 1: within the span of two weeks, two months, or a
Speaker 1: year or two depending on where you are in relation
Speaker 1: to it. You can almost imagine it as the sea
Speaker 1: of gas is flowing across the whole world. That is
Speaker 1: really wild. Actually this isn't an air tangent. But what
Speaker 1: about fluid dynamics. Do you know that scientists that you
Speaker 1: see Santa Barbara have studied why we tend to spill
Speaker 1: coffee from our mugs when we walk, Like apparently because
Speaker 1: of our gate and the way the coffee moves, we
Speaker 1: naturally create this oscillation that will spill the drink between
Speaker 1: our seventh and tenth steps. I love that there's a
Speaker 1: study around this. Yeah, so if you actually like slow
Speaker 1: down every fifth or sixth step, you should be golden.
Speaker 1: That's pretty awesome. I actually I thought when you said
Speaker 1: you were going to do a tangent, I thought this
Speaker 1: was going to be about how mosh pits actually follow
Speaker 1: fluid dynamic models, and how people in mosh pits act
Speaker 1: the same way molecules and gas to I mean, they're
Speaker 1: actually scientific papers on this. You know, it's crazy, Like
Speaker 1: I was looking that up again and and I realized
Speaker 1: that the scientists figured out that if you reshape how
Speaker 1: a mosh pit works, people actually motion straight lines. They phenomenal.
Speaker 1: I like the I like the phrase motion straight list. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll have to do a totally different episode on like
Speaker 1: fluid dynamics and the studies of like swimming in molasses
Speaker 1: and whatever. All right, but now that we have an
Speaker 1: idea on how air flows, why don't we talk about
Speaker 1: its power and specifically how it's aided human flight. So
Speaker 1: I'm guessing you want to talk about the right Brothers, No,
Speaker 1: not the rights. I'm thinking we should go back to
Speaker 1: the late seventeen hundreds, even before the rights, when another
Speaker 1: Frenchman named Joseph Michelle Montgolfier was daydreaming about his wife's lingerie.
Speaker 1: I love how much like laundren pin ups. So then
Speaker 1: you mentioned the sextillion. It's just getting area to dirty fast.
Speaker 1: But all right, so there's a great story here. Montgolfier
Speaker 1: was watching his wife's laundry dry over a fire when
Speaker 1: he noticed her underwear billowing and rising whenever the heat
Speaker 1: from the flames increased. So he gets curious about what's
Speaker 1: causing this lift, and he starts thinking about it, and
Speaker 1: he decides that he could build this you know, sack
Speaker 1: of air as he decides to lift himself in the
Speaker 1: same way to possibly fly. So he tries a few
Speaker 1: experiments and after some help from his younger brother, Montgolfier
Speaker 1: succeeded in creating the world's first hot air balloon, which
Speaker 1: he described as a cloud and a paper bag. That's
Speaker 1: pretty amazing. So he figured that all out by watching
Speaker 1: some laundry air. Well, that's the thing. So josephont Gulfier
Speaker 1: was an amateur scientist at best. I mean, he was
Speaker 1: a fan of chemistry rock stars like Priestley and Labassier,
Speaker 1: but he could hardly claim to be an expert himself.
Speaker 1: He actually thought it was the smoke from the fire
Speaker 1: that would make the balloon rise, not the air itself.
Speaker 1: So when the Montgolfier's held the first public demonstration of
Speaker 1: an unman balloon flight, they got it airborne by building
Speaker 1: the biggest smokiest bonfire they could. They burned wool, rabbit, skins, straw,
Speaker 1: even old shoes. Can you imagine how bad the smelled? Terrible?
Speaker 1: But the Montgolfier brothers had perfected their shoe burning technique
Speaker 1: by the time they held their second flight. This time
Speaker 1: they sent a sheep, a rooster, and I think a
Speaker 1: duck airborne. And they were all in this little cage
Speaker 1: that hung beneath the balloon, and the demonstration drew this
Speaker 1: huge crowd. I think even King Louis the sixteenth was
Speaker 1: there to watch this thing. As the balloon animals traveled
Speaker 1: two miles before they touched down unharmed. Well, I'm glad
Speaker 1: they arrived on harm But this is supposed to be
Speaker 1: mankind's dream. Did the Montolfier has ever managed to get
Speaker 1: a human airborne? They sure did, and King Louis had
Speaker 1: suggested that their brothers send up two criminals first, just
Speaker 1: in case something went wrong, But the Montgolfier's didn't think
Speaker 1: the convicts worthy of the honor, so Instead, they decided
Speaker 1: to enlist a physicist and a local marquis for the task.
Speaker 1: It was on November three, and these men became the
Speaker 1: first human beings in history to actually fly, which is
Speaker 1: a huge honor. Yeah, though unfortunately the same physicist holds
Speaker 1: a less prestigious title. Two years later, he became the
Speaker 1: first flight fatality when his balloon caught fire. He was
Speaker 1: trying to cross the English Channel at the time, which
Speaker 1: is horrible. But before we move on, mind if I
Speaker 1: cleared the air with one of my favorite hot air
Speaker 1: balloon stories. All So, Tristan, can you cue the storytelling music?
Speaker 1: So this is a story from East Germany in the
Speaker 1: late nineteen seventies. He's two friends, Hans Strelzik and Gunther Wetzel,
Speaker 1: both happened to watch a late night documentary on the
Speaker 1: history of hot air balloons and it gave them this idea,
Speaker 1: what if they used a balloon to flee communism and
Speaker 1: hoped the Berlin Wall like It sounds obvious in theory
Speaker 1: but pretty difficult in practice. And it helped that one
Speaker 1: was a bricklayer and the other was this mechanic and
Speaker 1: of course they had to work on the project in
Speaker 1: total secrecy. They built an engine out of propane gas
Speaker 1: cylinders that they somehow squirreled away, and they stitched a
Speaker 1: balloon out of tafada. They had to buy the material
Speaker 1: from different shops and space out their purchases so it
Speaker 1: didn't look suspicious, and their wives got involved, like stitching
Speaker 1: this giant balloon together. It had to be big enough
Speaker 1: to hold both their families. But here's the crazy part.
Speaker 1: Right on the night they decided to leave, Mrs Wetzel
Speaker 1: gets nervous and backs out, says the strel They go
Speaker 1: it alone. I mean it's rainy and the conditions aren't great,
Speaker 1: and the engine on the balloon gives out after a
Speaker 1: few minutes. But suddenly they get spotted by the border police.
Speaker 1: Somehow they managed to escape to their car without getting caught.
Speaker 1: But now the Stazzi, you know, those terrifying East German
Speaker 1: secret police, they have this evidence of the balloon and
Speaker 1: they're on the trail. So now they're working against the
Speaker 1: clock and there's really no option but to flee. The
Speaker 1: families start over. This time they use canvas and bed
Speaker 1: sheets to make a stronger balloon. They somehow source all
Speaker 1: this material again, I mean sixty pieces of canvas go
Speaker 1: into this thing in addition to all these bed sheets,
Speaker 1: and they're working overtime, as it's told, and I don't
Speaker 1: think this is false. Stazi is basically closing in on
Speaker 1: the operation. So the two families take off and the
Speaker 1: dead of night again. This time the conditions are better,
Speaker 1: but there's no basket, just a platform and some metal
Speaker 1: bits for these two wives and two husbands and four
Speaker 1: kids to hold onto. And they're up in the air
Speaker 1: at a height of eight thousand feet if I for
Speaker 1: what feels like thirty minutes, just clinging on for their lives.
Speaker 1: And finally they land and they have no idea where
Speaker 1: they are, but when a cop spots them in the
Speaker 1: field and approaches them, they quickly realized they made it
Speaker 1: to West Germany. I mean, isn't that a great story?
Speaker 1: They became heroes in the West overnight, and the hot
Speaker 1: air balloon became for wild at least, the symbol of freedom.
Speaker 1: That is crazy. Yeah, that's a that's that's a good story.
Speaker 1: I think maybe LaVar Burton needs to be worried about
Speaker 1: story time with Mango. That is really good and I
Speaker 1: can't imagine trying to build a Hot Air Balloon on
Speaker 1: my own. I mean now that we have the benefit
Speaker 1: of YouTube, but back then based on what they learned
Speaker 1: from a documentary, that seems insane. But before we return
Speaker 1: to the topic of air, what do you say we
Speaker 1: take a break for a quiz? Sounds great, Samango, Who
Speaker 1: do we have on the line today? We've got Stan
Speaker 1: Hesse and Kyle Laxton from the U S Hot Air
Speaker 1: Balloon Team out of Lancaster, p A wonderful Welcome to
Speaker 1: part time genius guys, So stay and I see you
Speaker 1: founded the company. Can you tell us how it all started.
Speaker 1: I went for a balloon ride one day back in
Speaker 1: the early nineteen eighties, and UH decided I just had
Speaker 1: to have one, got my first balloon, decided to um,
Speaker 1: bigger was better, and the United States had her balloon team.
Speaker 1: Just seemed like a natural extension, and we went to work,
Speaker 1: and probably fifty balloons later, here we are. That's incredible.
Speaker 1: So I heard you guys are on the NTV show Promposals,
Speaker 1: and I was curious, what's the most romantic thing you've
Speaker 1: seen in the air. You've got anything from you know,
Speaker 1: proposals to people just coming out to hang out all
Speaker 1: the way to drop on a couple of skydivers out
Speaker 1: of the balloon. You know what I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: you name it. If you could do it in the balloon,
Speaker 1: you know, we're down to have some fun. Typically we
Speaker 1: probably have an engagement or two every week in one
Speaker 1: of our balloons. What about any surprising or memorable landings.
Speaker 1: I mean, you gotta think, you gotta remember, you know
Speaker 1: how your ballooning were always landed somewhere different every time,
Speaker 1: So I would say every flight is unusual and exciting
Speaker 1: in its own way, you know, whether it be a
Speaker 1: field in the middle of a farm or culd de
Speaker 1: sac during Fourth of July, you know, when you've got
Speaker 1: barbecues left and right. You know, it's it's just really
Speaker 1: neat everybody coming out, either helping out put the balloon away,
Speaker 1: or just come out and take pictures. You know. It's
Speaker 1: just definitely makes for a good story at the end
Speaker 1: of the day. And if I can offer, if I
Speaker 1: can offer mine, I think that I probably would tell
Speaker 1: you that the most memorable place that I've ever landed
Speaker 1: a balloon a nudist colony, and it would have been
Speaker 1: better that they had their clothes on. That's pretty great, Now,
Speaker 1: was that an intentional landing? Did you mean to land
Speaker 1: in a nudist colony? Actually, it was part of a
Speaker 1: part of a contest where we're as part of the event,
Speaker 1: all the participants were given we're given coordinates to where
Speaker 1: they were supposed to land their balloon. We didn't know
Speaker 1: it was the newest colony up front, but we tried
Speaker 1: to fly to the coordinates and we and we come
Speaker 1: into the coordinates and my goodness heard these people are
Speaker 1: without clothing and we had no idea it was a
Speaker 1: new dest colony. Do we land? Yeah? So you did?
Speaker 1: You didn't offer any rides once you got there? I'm
Speaker 1: guessing no, No, But it was it was it was,
Speaker 1: It was different, It was different. Well, let's put these
Speaker 1: guys to the test, Mango, What what quiz are we
Speaker 1: playing with them today? We've got a really dumb quiz
Speaker 1: called the air up there, or rather things that rhyme
Speaker 1: with the air of their Okay, right, So, because we
Speaker 1: like to make people say things that sound like phrases,
Speaker 1: every answer in this quiz will be the blank up there. Um,
Speaker 1: So here we go. Let's get started with question number one.
Speaker 1: You guys ready, all right, let's do it you can
Speaker 1: work together. Question Number one. If lazy Way put too
Speaker 1: many balloons on their furniture, it would be got that
Speaker 1: one to chair up there? You got it, all right,
Speaker 1: one for one. Number two, if Paddington or Winnie the
Speaker 1: Pooh went to space, they'd be the bear up there.
Speaker 1: Got it. If Joe Biden went airborne, he'd be representing
Speaker 1: this state, Delaware. Yeah, the Delaware up there right here
Speaker 1: we go, all right. Number four, if your family's nice forks, knives,
Speaker 1: and spoons were since skyward, they would be you got it.
Speaker 1: Here's a tough one. Number five, This is for all
Speaker 1: the prize. Here we go. Number five, if the dromedary
Speaker 1: colored overcoat were shot into the atmosphere, it would be
Speaker 1: the hare up there. You got it. Congratulations, guys, tell
Speaker 1: them how they did mango. They went a't astounding five
Speaker 1: for five, And in addition to a note to their
Speaker 1: mom or boss and their praises, are contestants of each
Speaker 1: earned macaroni and cheese air Freshener's the strangest smelling air
Speaker 1: freshener we could find the market. Congratulations, all right, congratulations guys,
Speaker 1: and thanks so much for being on part time genius. Unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. It's all good. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: part time genius. So Mango, we should probably talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about the composition of air and some of
Speaker 1: those stories, but honestly, I want to keep talking about
Speaker 1: hot air balloons after your story, So Sam Keene writes,
Speaker 1: Besides the daredevils and picnickers, balloon flights also stimulated interest
Speaker 1: in the properties of gases. Indeed, it's no coincidence that
Speaker 1: some of the first balloonists were also some of the
Speaker 1: first people to explore the behavior of gases in a
Speaker 1: systematic way. These men had the most to lose, including
Speaker 1: their lives, if their theories failed, which is a great point.
Speaker 1: Like atmosphere chemists and other brainy aeronauts made full use
Speaker 1: of the practical applications of hot air balloons. They used
Speaker 1: balloons in all kinds of experiments that grastually expanded our
Speaker 1: understanding of the miles and miles of air above us.
Speaker 1: And while Sam makes a distinction between daredevils and scientists,
Speaker 1: the French chemist and physicist Joseph Louis gay Lusak he
Speaker 1: was definitely both. How's that well, even before he was
Speaker 1: pushing the limits of the skies. Gay Lusac was testing
Speaker 1: the limits of his lab. He almost blinded himself during
Speaker 1: multiple experiments, and he even shocked himself with a homemade
Speaker 1: battery to the point that he couldn't move his arm
Speaker 1: for a day. It just sounds a little more reckless
Speaker 1: than well. I think we should just call him determined,
Speaker 1: which is the best way to explain the fact that
Speaker 1: he took a hot air balloon solo to over twenty
Speaker 1: three thousand feet, which is totally insane. I mean, we
Speaker 1: do need to put this in perspective for our listeners.
Speaker 1: So most recreational balloon is stick between about twelve hundred
Speaker 1: and three thousand feet tops, and that's in balloons with
Speaker 1: modern day safety features. Yeah, his altitude stood as a
Speaker 1: world record for more than a century, so at least
Speaker 1: the ordeal netted him some fame afterwards because it had
Speaker 1: to be rough going in the moment. That air up
Speaker 1: there is really thin, and he would have only had
Speaker 1: a short period to collect samples of verified like high
Speaker 1: altitude air before high tailing it back down After all
Speaker 1: that effort, where the samples even useful totally I mean,
Speaker 1: they showed us that the composition of the atmosphere is
Speaker 1: the same at sea level as it is miles up
Speaker 1: in the air, and while there's less air in general
Speaker 1: at higher altitudes, as gay Lusac learned, the proportions of nitrogen, oxygen,
Speaker 1: and other gases are the same no matter the altitude.
Speaker 1: To breakthrough led to the discovery of several crucial gas
Speaker 1: laws that have helped explain the nature of gases and
Speaker 1: how they behave under different conditions. All Right, I'll admit
Speaker 1: that does sound worth the risk. I guess as long
Speaker 1: as it's somebody else doing the flight. And gaylu Sock,
Speaker 1: he's the guy that figured out that water is made
Speaker 1: up of two parts hydrogen one part oxygen. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. He and his partner in science, Alexander von Humboldt,
Speaker 1: who is often in that hot air balloon with him.
Speaker 1: All Right, So here's something I've found fascinating, and it's
Speaker 1: not something I normally think about, but it's how strong
Speaker 1: the air pressure is around us. So the planet's normal
Speaker 1: air pressure is something like fourteen point five pounds per
Speaker 1: square inch, which is a solid ton of force per
Speaker 1: square foot. I mean, that's round the clock power pressing
Speaker 1: in on you from all directions. It really is kind
Speaker 1: of a wonder we can even stand it. But I mean,
Speaker 1: do you know the only thing that keeps us from
Speaker 1: crumpling from that air pressure are indomitable human spirits, good
Speaker 1: guesses always, but nope, it's the It's the air that
Speaker 1: we're carrying around with us, so we don't notice these
Speaker 1: twenty or so tons of force pressing into us because
Speaker 1: there's an equal amount of force pushing back from the
Speaker 1: inside of our bodies. So Sam Kane describes it pretty well.
Speaker 1: He says, in theory, a piece of aluminum foil, if
Speaker 1: perfectly balanced between blasts from two fire hoses, would survive intact.
Speaker 1: But who would risk it. Our skin and our organs
Speaker 1: face the same predicament visa the air. Just imagining that's crazy,
Speaker 1: and I'm so glad it's a tie between the air forces.
Speaker 1: I would say, though, If the Industrial Revolution taught me anything,
Speaker 1: it's that gases like steam can be powerful allies. Oh absolutely,
Speaker 1: And it's best to stay on their good side too,
Speaker 1: because some of them fight pretty dirty. So take nitroglycerin
Speaker 1: for examp apple, which Sam also talks about in his book.
Speaker 1: There's a huge amount of energy within nitro's chemical bonds.
Speaker 1: But the real reason for any explosive destructive power, it's
Speaker 1: the speed and force at which that energy is released, right,
Speaker 1: Because technically speaking, an ounce of coal or gasoline, or
Speaker 1: even a stick of butter contains more energy than the
Speaker 1: same amount of most explosives. It's just that my pad
Speaker 1: of butter here doesn't have the means to release its
Speaker 1: energy outwardly because it doesn't have the same power of
Speaker 1: a volatile gas cocktail on its side. You have a
Speaker 1: pad of butter over there all right. By the way,
Speaker 1: I can't let the topic of nitroglycerin pass without talking
Speaker 1: about Alfred Nobel. I mean, we all know him from
Speaker 1: the Nobel Prizes and that he made his fortune by
Speaker 1: making dynamite. And this is one of those facts that
Speaker 1: before anybody starts screaming, I know that fact. I know
Speaker 1: that fact. It's kind of like that fact about Taft
Speaker 1: getting stuck in the bathtub, where everybody knows it and
Speaker 1: everybody likes to point it out. But you know what's
Speaker 1: funny is that I always thought Nobel came up with
Speaker 1: dynamite in a vacuum, but he was actually the son
Speaker 1: of a Swedish weapons manufactured Did you know this. He
Speaker 1: then witnessed the demonstration of the destructive power of a
Speaker 1: single drop of nitroglycerin in his youth, and he became
Speaker 1: obsessed with explosives. He started funneling his family's fortune into
Speaker 1: making nitroglycer and more reliable and less likely to explode prematurely.
Speaker 1: I mean, just to give you a sense of how
Speaker 1: volatile nitroglycerin is. Gunpowder explodes in a few thousands of
Speaker 1: a second, but nitroglycern explodes within a millionth of a second.
Speaker 1: But no. Bill's big breakthrough was to slow down the
Speaker 1: nitro by adding gunpowder and then packing them both into
Speaker 1: a hollow piece of wood. And this creates the world's
Speaker 1: first blasting cap. So he started selling blasting caps as
Speaker 1: well as raw nitro, which he dubbed blasting oil, to
Speaker 1: miners and construction crews all over the world. So I'm
Speaker 1: guessing he used those profits to fund his prize program.
Speaker 1: Well maybe partly, but really the blasting caps and oil
Speaker 1: proved to be disastrous products. There were numerous deaths and
Speaker 1: injuries from accidental explosions. In fact, this thing got so
Speaker 1: bad that nobody he would rent labs based the Nobel anymore.
Speaker 1: This is Alphred Nobel. So he actually converted a barge
Speaker 1: into this floating laboratory and he spent years sailing from
Speaker 1: port to port and people started calling this Nobel's death show.
Speaker 1: And it was while he was at sea that he
Speaker 1: hit on the idea of encasing the nitro and gunpowder
Speaker 1: and a clay like substance, and that made the mixture
Speaker 1: less likely to blow up unintentionally. So now we're talking
Speaker 1: about dynamite, and with a capital D. Actually because Nobel
Speaker 1: trademarked the name, and that was a move that paid
Speaker 1: off for him to Dynamite became incredibly popular once mining
Speaker 1: and construction firms saw what it could do, and suddenly
Speaker 1: all kinds of knockoff sprang up, something called hercules powder
Speaker 1: and grin rock, but Nobel was swatting them down with
Speaker 1: his patents, and in the end the products success actually
Speaker 1: cost him his trademark. Dynamite worked its way into the
Speaker 1: public lexicon and became a generic term, kind of like
Speaker 1: clean X or zipper. By the way, my uncle, who
Speaker 1: was an advertising bombay, actually ran into the same problem.
Speaker 1: He couldn't get people to stop saying they were making
Speaker 1: a xerox like for some reason, the word coffee wouldn't
Speaker 1: catch on there, and his client was HP. So the
Speaker 1: slogan they ended up pushing was make your xerox on
Speaker 1: an HP. That's ridiculous. All right. Well, there's actually a
Speaker 1: little bit more of a Nobel's story that I think
Speaker 1: we should talk about, and and that's the role that
Speaker 1: air plays in human psychology. But before we get into that,
Speaker 1: why don't we break for a quiz. So our guest
Speaker 1: today is one of our favorite science writers. He was
Speaker 1: one of the early writers at Mental Flaws actually in
Speaker 1: our days there. Obviously, he's written such books as the
Speaker 1: Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons, The Disappearing Spoon, and many
Speaker 1: of our other favorites. But his latest book is called
Speaker 1: Caesar's Last Breath, and that's the book that we've been
Speaker 1: talking about today. Sam Keene, Welcome to Part Time Genius. Hi,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. Hey Sam, so uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the title of your book is so poetic, and I
Speaker 1: was wondering if you'd explain it to our listeners. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's sort of a classic problem in chemistry and physics
Speaker 1: classes where they ask students what are the odds that
Speaker 1: the next breath you are taking will include a molecule
Speaker 1: that Caesar breathe his last breath um when he was
Speaker 1: assassinated back into b c in robe. And it's the
Speaker 1: question kind of investigates a couple of different ideas about,
Speaker 1: you know, how many molecules are in every breath that
Speaker 1: you inhale, how long those molecules last in the atmosphere,
Speaker 1: how uh you know a breath or any gas really
Speaker 1: spreads around the atmosphere, how quickly it is, how large
Speaker 1: the atmosphere is, And to answer the question you kind
Speaker 1: of have to take all of those factors into account.
Speaker 1: So it's a poetic and interesting question, but there's a
Speaker 1: lot of good science behind it as well, and kind
Speaker 1: of surprisingly, the odds of you breathing in a molecule
Speaker 1: that's Caesar breathe during his last breath are quite high.
Speaker 1: Each time you take a breath, on an average, you're
Speaker 1: probably breathing in depending on the assumptions you make, one
Speaker 1: molecule or so, and over the course of a day,
Speaker 1: it's almost a statistical certainty that you're going to breathe
Speaker 1: in several thousands of those molecules. So it is really
Speaker 1: cool connection between the past and the present day that
Speaker 1: you wouldn't really think about that's something that happens every
Speaker 1: single time you take a breath. Wow, that's it's still
Speaker 1: so strange, no matter how much we thought about it
Speaker 1: in in reading this book, it's such a such a
Speaker 1: bizarre fact. I felt like after I read the chapter
Speaker 1: on these German scientists racing to extract ammonia from the air,
Speaker 1: I came away with this, I don't a new appreciation
Speaker 1: for the compound. And I think you wrote that ammonia
Speaker 1: fertilizers actually grow what half of the world's food did.
Speaker 1: Now did you come away from the book with a
Speaker 1: new respect for any element or other compounds. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: ammonia thing, getting the nitrogen out of the air and
Speaker 1: making something useful from it, it does really give you
Speaker 1: a perspective on how important the air is and what
Speaker 1: I mean, just just the hidden way that really influences
Speaker 1: our lives that we don't think about. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: half the people on the planet wouldn't be here today
Speaker 1: if not for that process of being able to get
Speaker 1: the nitrogen out of the air and make it into fertilizers.
Speaker 1: So it does, I mean, we all know on some
Speaker 1: level obviously that you need to you know, have access
Speaker 1: to air to live. But the fact the importance of
Speaker 1: the air really goes even beyond just sort of day
Speaker 1: to day breathing. All of these guests is you know,
Speaker 1: they helped drive the industrial revolution. They really drive the weather.
Speaker 1: Things like that, Um, you can you know, and you're
Speaker 1: inhaling anesthesia and refrigerants, all these different things, uh that
Speaker 1: make up our modern life. They really are derived. They
Speaker 1: come from things that are going on in the air
Speaker 1: all the time, even if you don't really think about
Speaker 1: them in your day to day life. Now of the
Speaker 1: things I really loved about the book is that these
Speaker 1: little offbeat meanderings that you had. And I was curious
Speaker 1: why you included the tangent on the Peto Maine because
Speaker 1: it's really funny, but I just want to hear your
Speaker 1: thoughts on it. Yeah, the Peto main was sort of
Speaker 1: this uh they called him as Partis, who was basically
Speaker 1: uh an artist who used a flagelence to do impressions
Speaker 1: in uh Lulin rouge in Paris at the end of
Speaker 1: the And I included that one because I think it's
Speaker 1: just such a delightful story, um, something you would never
Speaker 1: ever expect to be going on in sort of high
Speaker 1: society Paris, but he was the most popular artist there
Speaker 1: for a very long time. And the other reason I
Speaker 1: chose to include it is, you know, I think you know,
Speaker 1: you can sort of giggle over it. It's uh, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of low brown humor, but it's something, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the the gas inside of us that we produced, that
Speaker 1: people think about. You know, it's something kind of on
Speaker 1: their mind, even if it's you know, we don't always
Speaker 1: talk about it in polite society. But there again, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of good science in there about what those
Speaker 1: gases are, where they come from, how they affect us
Speaker 1: um and you can even get into other things, like
Speaker 1: there was sort of a digression in there about uh,
Speaker 1: you know, communication and other things. Why do we communicate
Speaker 1: from one side of our digestive tract and not the
Speaker 1: other side of it. There's really no reason things couldn't
Speaker 1: have evolved differently. So again, you can get into a
Speaker 1: lot of really interesting, cool science based on this story
Speaker 1: that on the surface of it might seem you know,
Speaker 1: just amusing, but there's a lot of good stuff behind it.
Speaker 1: Do we know of any animals that communicate through the
Speaker 1: other end? I don't think we do. Do we There
Speaker 1: are some species of cod that they think, uh that
Speaker 1: you know, they're obviously not the articulate speaking like human beings,
Speaker 1: but they seem to respond in some ways the bubbles
Speaker 1: that they release, so it's some sort of rudimentary communication
Speaker 1: going on there. So yeah, there, there, there are tints.
Speaker 1: There are some animals. I do that with various dialects.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that's right. Were there any other facts in
Speaker 1: your research that you found equally just mind blowing? I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so many interesting things in this book, but any
Speaker 1: facts where you you you walked away thinking that can't
Speaker 1: possibly be true. One fact that I really still kind
Speaker 1: of blows my mind is the idea of what's called
Speaker 1: the oxygen catastrophe. So nowadays we think about oxygen obviously
Speaker 1: as vitals or life. It's very important for life. We
Speaker 1: would all die if there was an oxygen in the air.
Speaker 1: But for most preachers who have ever lived on planet Earth,
Speaker 1: especially microbes, oxygen is a deadly poison, and oxygen actually
Speaker 1: caused probably the greatest mass extinction in the history of
Speaker 1: Earth because it was a pollutant. It was a very
Speaker 1: reactive molecule. Most microbes back a few billion years ago,
Speaker 1: didn't want it around, so they would expel it. Eventually
Speaker 1: it built up in the air to such a degree
Speaker 1: that it started killing them off. So again, one of
Speaker 1: the greatest mass extinctions in history was driven by something
Speaker 1: that we considers absolutely vital to life nowadays. So it
Speaker 1: really gives changes your perspective on what this gas is,
Speaker 1: what the air has been over time, and how it
Speaker 1: really has evolved been changed. Yeah, yeah, wow, that is fascinating.
Speaker 1: So we've got a terrible quiz to play with Sam today.
Speaker 1: What's the quiz called. We've got a pop quiz called
Speaker 1: It's elemental. Okay, that's right, And so when Mango says
Speaker 1: pop quiz, he means pop culture quiz and it should
Speaker 1: be fun. So every question we've included the chemical symbol
Speaker 1: for an element. So we'll get started if you're ready, Sam, Okay,
Speaker 1: all right. Question number one, This lead singer for the
Speaker 1: band Queen could have been known as Freddie h G.
Speaker 1: Who is this must be Freddie Mercury? It is question
Speaker 1: number two. This magician who made the Statue of Liberty
Speaker 1: disappear could be known as David see you Field, all right,
Speaker 1: he's a genius. Number three, that's talking about Sami genius,
Speaker 1: not David Copperfield. I don't know if he's pretty smart. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Number three, when he was hankering for a late night sandwich,
Speaker 1: Elvis used to fly his jet out to Colorado to
Speaker 1: get a peanut butter and jelly with bacon sandwich, also
Speaker 1: known as fools a you fools gold you must have
Speaker 1: called it. I love that story, but I didn't know
Speaker 1: he called it, had a special name for it. Right.
Speaker 1: I'm glad we're teaching you a couple of things too,
Speaker 1: equally important alright. Number four, This Belgian comic book journalist
Speaker 1: and his dogs Snowy, raced around the world solving mysteries elementally.
Speaker 1: You'd known him, you'd know him better as s N
Speaker 1: s N. Alright, Another very important one here, Number five.
Speaker 1: Calling this Canadian rock band in I back wouldn't have
Speaker 1: made their music sound any better Nickel. Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: let's do one more. Winston Churchill's speech about this cold
Speaker 1: word boundary could have been called the fe Curtain speech.
Speaker 1: What are we talking about? You must be the Iron curtain. Dazed.
Speaker 1: I was kind of dreading anything related to pop culture,
Speaker 1: but well, you nailed it. How did you do? Sam?
Speaker 1: When astounding six or six which earns them are hard
Speaker 1: earned admiration. Alright, congratulations, Sam, did you did great? See
Speaker 1: there was nothing to be stressed about there. So I
Speaker 1: hope everyone will check out Sam's latest book, Caesar's Last Breath.
Speaker 1: I know you will enjoy it just as much as
Speaker 1: we did. Sam. Thanks so much for writing a terrific
Speaker 1: book and for being a guest on Part Time Genius.
Speaker 1: All right, well, thanks for having me. It was fun.
Speaker 1: So we were talking about the incredible gas power we
Speaker 1: see expressed an explosive compounds like dynamite. But will you
Speaker 1: were telling us when ended up happening with Nobel. Well,
Speaker 1: as you know, Nobel made a fortune off of dynamite
Speaker 1: and it was the equivalent of a quarter billion dollars today.
Speaker 1: And that was all from tunneling projects and subway construction.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was part of it. But his manufacturers
Speaker 1: started to see the potential of nitro for new deadlier
Speaker 1: weapons like bombs and land mines. Nobel became famous all
Speaker 1: over again as a merchant of death. He was rich
Speaker 1: and successful, but ultimately miserable because of how hated he
Speaker 1: was seeing in the public eye. Right, so I'm guessing
Speaker 1: the prizes were this form of penance exactly. I mean
Speaker 1: he took his dynamite money and set up a prize
Speaker 1: fund for chemistry, physics, medicine, literature, and lastly, of course,
Speaker 1: for peace. I mean it was his way of making
Speaker 1: amends for all the suffering he caused while salvaging his
Speaker 1: reputation at the same time. Well, it might just be
Speaker 1: like the best long tail pr move in history, because
Speaker 1: most people remember him for the prizes, and if you were,
Speaker 1: people remember him for that floating death bar. That's true,
Speaker 1: you know, for all his success is poor. Alfred Nobel
Speaker 1: certainly experienced plenty of anguish from the damage gases can cause.
Speaker 1: But there are also some parts of human psychology that
Speaker 1: are directly affected by our need for air. And that's
Speaker 1: actually one of the things I found most interesting in
Speaker 1: Sam's book. He talks about the reason why gas attacks
Speaker 1: are so frightening and appalling to us, and he ends
Speaker 1: up concluding that it's because gases have the power to
Speaker 1: attack our basic biology on a level that things like
Speaker 1: blades and bullets just can't match. When our air supply
Speaker 1: has threatened, humans tend to freak out. I mean, we
Speaker 1: seem to have a fear of poisonous air that's hardwired
Speaker 1: into our brains, and when it's triggered, you know, all
Speaker 1: rational behavior goes right out the window, and our instincts
Speaker 1: tend to take over. Yes, some researchers now think humans
Speaker 1: have a second, independent fear system that deals exclusively with
Speaker 1: monitoring our air supply. So even though we don't consciously
Speaker 1: focus on our breathing, deep down we're always anxious about it.
Speaker 1: We know how much we need air to survive, and
Speaker 1: we also know how quickly too much or too little
Speaker 1: of its properties can wipe us out. But you know,
Speaker 1: if we're going to talk about dangerous air, we should
Speaker 1: probably talk a little bit about nuclear blasts, do we
Speaker 1: have to? I mean just a little so unlike regular explosives,
Speaker 1: that gas molecules released into the atmosphere continue to do
Speaker 1: harm long after the initial blast. And that's actually where
Speaker 1: we get this term fallout from the radioactive leftovers that
Speaker 1: gets shot up into the upper atmosphere before they fall
Speaker 1: out of the sky and rain down on unsuspecting victims,
Speaker 1: which is actually fascinating, but I find the topic so depressing,
Speaker 1: Like the fallowout creates some of the most toxic air imaginable,
Speaker 1: the kind that can ruin food and water supplies and
Speaker 1: causes widespread cases of fast acting cancers and other maladies.
Speaker 1: Part of the reason fallout is so dangerous is that
Speaker 1: there aren't a whole lot of ways to protect against
Speaker 1: something as pervasive as the air itself, And like we
Speaker 1: were saying in the beginning, it's all fluid, as sam
Speaker 1: Keen rights. By the early nineteen sixties, radioactive atoms from
Speaker 1: both Soviet and American tests had seated every last square
Speaker 1: inch on Earth. Even penguins and Antarctica had been exposed. Well,
Speaker 1: just like with everything else, radioactivity is safest and moderation followed.
Speaker 1: Is most dangerous in regions that are fairly close to
Speaker 1: nuclear strike zones. But for the average person, the amount
Speaker 1: of radioactive gases we breathe in from atomic weapons testing
Speaker 1: each year is pretty negligible. It's actually less than the
Speaker 1: radiation we receive from a single X ray, which makes
Speaker 1: me feel a little better, especially because it gives me
Speaker 1: the perfect opening to talk about the surprising truth of
Speaker 1: banana radiation. You guys have no idea how much Mango
Speaker 1: likes to talk about banana facts. But but what's this one?
Speaker 1: Banana facts are the best facts. But I promised this
Speaker 1: one's good. So you probably already know that. Plenty of
Speaker 1: things we interact with on a daily basis, even many
Speaker 1: of the ones we ingest are chalk full of radioactive molecules. Sure,
Speaker 1: so I know brazil nuts, coffee, red meat, even things
Speaker 1: like cat litter and granite countertops have trace amounts. But bananas, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So here's what's weird. Like bananas are actually the gold standard.
Speaker 1: SIGNED has actually compared the radio activity of other ordinary
Speaker 1: objects to bananas, and the amount of radioactive potassium forty
Speaker 1: found in banana is known among nuclear scientists as the
Speaker 1: b D or banana equivalent. Does have a hard time
Speaker 1: believing that, but I'm gonna take your word for it.
Speaker 1: That's pretty ridiculous. I'm guessing beds of radiation aren't anything
Speaker 1: to worry about them, Well, not as long as you
Speaker 1: monitor your banana intake. There are cases of large banana
Speaker 1: shipments setting off the radiation detectors at some seaports, but
Speaker 1: that's just because there's so many beds in one place.
Speaker 1: For human to contract banana induced radiation poisoning, you'd have
Speaker 1: to scarf down about twenty million of them. All right, quick,
Speaker 1: what's your favorite banana related food item? Uh? Banana? Now?
Speaker 1: And laters? Maybe banana? I was thinking, like a real
Speaker 1: thing like peanut butter and banana, think of anything banana? Banana?
Speaker 1: Runts like, what else is banana? Blanana? Laffy taffy obviously
Speaker 1: the answer, but so so I'm guess we're safe. Well
Speaker 1: to clarify, I like bananas, but I don't like banana
Speaker 1: flavor thing. Okay, good, But let's recap a little. So
Speaker 1: we've examined the longevity, permeability, and speed of air, it's
Speaker 1: usefulness in achieving the dream of flight and even helping
Speaker 1: people escape places like East Berlin, which is less of
Speaker 1: a problem today. And we also talked about the force
Speaker 1: that wheels to keep us humans in line and its
Speaker 1: propensity for causing damage both physical and mental. But there's
Speaker 1: one last aspect of air I'd like to demonstrate, all right,
Speaker 1: what's that? The power of its facts? Remember that air
Speaker 1: hockey fact I couldn't quite fit into the episode Prepared
Speaker 1: to be blown away in the part time genius fact off.
Speaker 1: All right, let's see what you got yah yah. So
Speaker 1: this is from two six, but I love it so much. Basically,
Speaker 1: some students created a virtual air hockey game. You have
Speaker 1: half an air hockey table and a videos green with
Speaker 1: someone on the other side. It could be anywhere, like
Speaker 1: in Russia or wherever, and when you hit the puck,
Speaker 1: the table actually calculates how you hit it and at
Speaker 1: one angle and it spits it out on the other
Speaker 1: side of the world, which, as someone who grew up
Speaker 1: with a sister who rarely wanted to play sports with me,
Speaker 1: to always be able to find a table, tennis partner
Speaker 1: or whatever across the globe for a game is sort
Speaker 1: of incredible. That is pretty awesome. So here's one about
Speaker 1: black umbrellas and how they became the standard. Did you
Speaker 1: know that excessive coal burning in the seventeen hundreds caused
Speaker 1: an inky rain in London? So the black umbrella protected
Speaker 1: you from pollutants without looking disgusting. Actually, have you heard
Speaker 1: about that company Air Inc. So an M. I. T.
Speaker 1: Scientist was in India when you realized the soot and
Speaker 1: pollution in the air was actually making smudges on his
Speaker 1: white shirt. So he came up with a novel idea,
Speaker 1: why not use it to replace the carbon black and printers.
Speaker 1: His company actually harvests the straight from the tailpipes of trucks,
Speaker 1: and it's now helping to clean the air while putting
Speaker 1: that pollutant into safe markers and paints that actually, apparently
Speaker 1: artists really dig. That's pretty awesome, all right. Here's one
Speaker 1: about whales. Scientists have long wondered why they leap into
Speaker 1: the air and breach when it exerts so much energy
Speaker 1: to do this, and it turns out it's a communication trick.
Speaker 1: Often the behavior happens when whales are traveling in a
Speaker 1: pod and get separated. While whales have songs and other
Speaker 1: ways to communicate over very long distances, flopping is an
Speaker 1: easy way to get another whale's attention in a closer
Speaker 1: range or in places where there's a lot of competing noise.
Speaker 1: As one scientist told Quartz, it's akin to a really
Speaker 1: keen kid in a classroom jumping up and down and
Speaker 1: waving his hands. Really keen kids and classrooms, right, which
Speaker 1: is pretty awesome. Uh Okay, so this one's about the
Speaker 1: fresh Prince of l Air. Well. First off, did you
Speaker 1: know that that New Yorker writer Andy Borrowitz actually wrote
Speaker 1: the pilot for the show. I didn't, so He told
Speaker 1: Complex magazine that the Spoiled Hillary character was based on
Speaker 1: Quincy jones daughters, or, more specifically, the phone messages they
Speaker 1: used to leave for him while they were at summer camp.
Speaker 1: And one message that Quincy played for Borrowitz said, Dad,
Speaker 1: the water here sucks. Please FedEx avien. Al Right, this
Speaker 1: doesn't actually have anything to do with air, but it's
Speaker 1: too good not to share. It came up when I
Speaker 1: was looking in the ways to clean the environment. Apparently
Speaker 1: this woman in Cleveland, Susan Warren, came to be known
Speaker 1: as the Cleaning Fairy because she would randomly break into
Speaker 1: people's homes, clean them, and then leave. It was apparently
Speaker 1: her way of drumming up business. But cops, could you know.
Speaker 1: Of course, they didn't take kindly to this, so she's
Speaker 1: been arrested twice for it. Oh man, that's so good.
Speaker 1: I had one about this, uh the Helsinki University of Technology,
Speaker 1: which actually created a functional air guitar, like you wear
Speaker 1: colored gloves and a camera watches your movements and turns
Speaker 1: into a real live instrument, which is awesome. But I
Speaker 1: actually really love that cleaning Fairy story. All right, well,
Speaker 1: I'll take it. Well, thanks to Sam Kane, whose book
Speaker 1: we leaned on heavily for this episode. Yeah, the book
Speaker 1: is jam packed with incredible stories, from the shocking and
Speaker 1: amazing tale of scientists collecting ammonia from the air to
Speaker 1: why plants actually respond to anesthesias seriously. Venus flycrafs reflexes
Speaker 1: get all slow and boozy when they're put under. So
Speaker 1: please go out and get Caesar's breath. When you get
Speaker 1: a sec it'll blow your mind. And that's it for
Speaker 1: today's episode. Thanks again for listening. By the way, have
Speaker 1: you heard about the Japanese dio drinkum? Apparently you chew
Speaker 1: it and it makes your bio smell like flowers, which
Speaker 1: is crazy. Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is
Speaker 1: a production of how stuff works and wouldn't be possible
Speaker 1: without several brilliant people who do the important things we
Speaker 1: couldn't even begin to understand. CHRISTA McNeil does the editing thing.
Speaker 1: Noel Brown made the theme song and does the MIXI
Speaker 1: mixy sound thing. Gary Roland does the exact producer thing.
Speaker 1: Gay Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the
Speaker 1: Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams
Speaker 1: and Eves. Jeff Cook gets the show to your ears.
Speaker 1: Good job, Eves. If you like what you heard, we
Speaker 1: hope you'll subscribe, And if you really really like what
Speaker 1: you've heard, maybe you could leave have a good review
Speaker 1: for us. Do we do we forget Jason? Jason who