Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Guess what, Mango?
Speaker 1: What's that?
Speaker 2: Will? I know you're curious, but I want to see
Speaker 2: if you can guess. Do you know why I'm wearing
Speaker 2: a tux today? Is it because it's Monday night in Alabama?
Speaker 2: That is right? You know I love doing that. But
Speaker 2: actually there's an extra special reason, and that's because it's
Speaker 2: the forty third annual Part Time Genius Awards. Mango, that
Speaker 2: is right?
Speaker 1: How could I forget? But remind the listeners? What are
Speaker 1: the Part Time Genius Awards again?
Speaker 2: Well, seeing as this is the forty third time that
Speaker 2: we're doing this, I'm surprised anyone is asking at this point.
Speaker 2: But the Part Time Genius Awards are our look back
Speaker 2: at some of the greatest things to happen last year
Speaker 2: and honoring them with our very prestigious prize, starting with
Speaker 2: the twoenty twenty four Old Factory Award aka the Golden
Speaker 2: Nose Award.
Speaker 1: Mag I am on the edge of my seat here,
Speaker 1: So who is getting the Golden Nose this year?
Speaker 2: Well, this year, the twenty twenty four Golden Nose goes
Speaker 2: to drum Roll please Professor wyn Who at the University
Speaker 2: of New South Wales and Sydney for developing a smartphone
Speaker 2: sensor called Vibe Milk. Now, Vibe Milk uses your phone
Speaker 2: to send vibrations against the milk bottle or carton, and
Speaker 2: then it reads and analyzes the freshness. That way, I
Speaker 2: can tell you if your milk has gone bad. And
Speaker 2: so instead of having to smell your milk or make
Speaker 2: everyone in the room smell the milk to see if
Speaker 2: it's spoiled, you can just use your phone and save
Speaker 2: everyone the trouble. How revolutionary is this manga?
Speaker 1: I already love this because my wife Lizzie does this
Speaker 1: all the time. She like she smells something awful. She's like, no,
Speaker 1: you have to smell this, yeh.
Speaker 2: You smell.
Speaker 1: I hate that you just smelling yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm playing the role of in my family. I
Speaker 2: make everyone smell and I'm relentless. I won't stop until
Speaker 2: they do smell it. But Vibe milk actually works. So,
Speaker 2: as Professor Who put it, quote, you can smell or
Speaker 2: taste of milk is off, but that requires opening the
Speaker 2: package and doing so exposes it to bacteria and that
Speaker 2: accelerates spoilage. So Vibe Milk is non invasive, which means
Speaker 2: you can test the freshness of the milk without breaking
Speaker 2: the seal. That is really cool, and the ideas that
Speaker 2: you can use it at home or even at the
Speaker 2: grocery store before you buy the product now. Currently, Vibe
Speaker 2: Milk is a ninety eight point four percent accuracy rate
Speaker 2: for detecting spoiled milk, and the high tech methods should
Speaker 2: help us reduce dairy waste in a pretty big way. Actually,
Speaker 2: But that's just the first of a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: very important awords we're giving out today, So let's dive in.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson, and as
Speaker 2: always I'm here with my good friend mangesh Hot Ticketer
Speaker 2: and sitting behind that glass holding a conductor's baton and
Speaker 2: queuing up a whole bunch of orchestra music to play
Speaker 2: us out if we start taking too long, that's our
Speaker 2: good Palin producer Dylan Fagan, So mego. I'm glad we're
Speaker 2: finally doing this award show.
Speaker 1: I know I always get jealous of other places that
Speaker 1: give out awards around this top of the year.
Speaker 2: Like who are you? Who you think about the Nobels,
Speaker 2: the MacArthur Foundation, who else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean them too. But I also love the
Speaker 1: weirder awards, like the Ignobles, the Bulward Lytton Award, which
Speaker 1: gives out an award for the worst first sentence in
Speaker 1: a novel. But my absolute favorite is the Bookseller Prize
Speaker 1: for Oddest Title of the Year. And every year, honestly,
Speaker 1: every year I went to see which title wins. Actually,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna pull up the Wikipedia page and read
Speaker 1: out a few of my favorites. And these are all
Speaker 1: real books, by the way. So in twenty ten, managing
Speaker 1: a dental practice the Genghis Khanway. One. In twenty twelve
Speaker 1: it was a goblin proofing one's chicken coop, which is
Speaker 1: a chestnut obviously. Some other winners include how to Avoid
Speaker 1: Huge Ships, bomb Proof your Horse, and one of my
Speaker 1: personal favorites, the dirt Hole and its variations. They are
Speaker 1: all that great.
Speaker 2: That sounds gross.
Speaker 1: Yeah, anyway, I am really hoping that we can slip
Speaker 1: in some of that, like energy and joy and silliness
Speaker 1: into some of these really great innovations we're honoring for
Speaker 1: this year's awards.
Speaker 2: You know mego, you did forget one, and this was
Speaker 2: back in our mental floss days. And I'm not sure
Speaker 2: if they were just scared of us being, you know,
Speaker 2: litigious or something, which is funny to me thinking about
Speaker 2: anybody being scared of us. But I don't know if
Speaker 2: you remember that book. It was called Dental Floss for
Speaker 2: the Mind. It was like talking all the way around
Speaker 2: the idea of the pun mental floss. But you remember
Speaker 2: this book, of course I did. I thought it was
Speaker 2: hilarious that we had a couple friends send it to us,
Speaker 2: just because I still have it on my bookshelf here.
Speaker 2: But anyway, I am all into the silliness and all
Speaker 2: the great innovations and everything that we're talking about today.
Speaker 2: So where do you want to start?
Speaker 1: How about we start with this year's Aerodynamics Prize, which
Speaker 1: we are also dubbing the When Hippopotamus's Fly Award, and
Speaker 1: this goes out to John Hutchinson from the UK's Royal
Speaker 1: Veterinary College. And this year Hutchinson realized that when a
Speaker 1: hippo is running at full tilt, the hippo is actually
Speaker 1: airborne for fifteen percent of that time. Oh wow, Now
Speaker 1: this is important research because hippos are apparently very hard
Speaker 1: creatures to study because one, they are mostly lulling about
Speaker 1: in the water during the day most days. But also
Speaker 1: you do not want to run into a hippo at
Speaker 1: night when they tend to go on land, and that's
Speaker 1: because they are incredibly skittish creatures. A full grown male
Speaker 1: can weigh up to nearly ten thousand pounds and they
Speaker 1: will run you over. Also, they have terrifying teeth.
Speaker 2: They do have terrifying teeth, which everyone in our generation
Speaker 2: would know from playing Hungry Hungry Hippos, which also happens
Speaker 2: to be the game that probably made my heart race
Speaker 2: more than any game out there. But anyway, it's funny
Speaker 2: because the animals are so goofy looking that I just
Speaker 2: assumed they were kind of gentle and sweet. You know,
Speaker 2: you'd look at them and you'd think so.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I actually thought hippos were sweet too, mostly because
Speaker 1: I have this old story in my head from Victorian
Speaker 1: times about Obayes the hippo. I'm sure we've mentioned this
Speaker 1: on the show before, but back in the eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: they brought this hippo from Africa to London and it
Speaker 1: was like the first time a hippo had been in
Speaker 1: Europe since ancient Rome and actually the first time one
Speaker 1: had been in England since prehistoric times, and it was
Speaker 1: like an immediate sensation, so people cued up for hours
Speaker 1: at the London Zoo just to get a glimpse of
Speaker 1: the creature. It actually made about twenty eight million pounds
Speaker 1: in today's currency because like people were just waiting to
Speaker 1: see it, and there was like a real hippo mania.
Speaker 1: Now Obsha been trained to do some basic dance moves
Speaker 1: like a promenade and a pivot and some other things,
Speaker 1: and there was a poka composed for him. The hippo
Speaker 1: was so famous that Charles Dickens was jealous of it.
Speaker 2: Like anywayzing all.
Speaker 1: Of that made me think hippos were sweet, but in
Speaker 1: fact hippos actually killed over five hundred people a year,
Speaker 1: which makes them the deadliest land mammal, more dangerous than
Speaker 1: grizzly bears or big cats. Isn't that insane?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pra It sort of reminds me of the
Speaker 2: Eddie Izzard bit where he's like, you kill enough people
Speaker 2: and it almost starts to be impressives.
Speaker 1: But back to hippos taking flight, because hippo behavior makes
Speaker 1: it hard to monitor them. Hippos haven't been studied that much,
Speaker 1: but Hutchinson and his team realized that they could actually
Speaker 1: visit the animals and watch their movements at a local
Speaker 1: resort in North Yorkshire. It's called Flamingo Land, and then
Speaker 1: his team did all this painstaking frame by frame analysis
Speaker 1: of watching hippos run, and as Hutchinson told The Guardian quote,
Speaker 1: it is mind numbing. It's one of the things in
Speaker 1: my work that I hate the most. It is really boring, agonizing.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: But what he learned is that while hippo's only trot,
Speaker 1: which means like their diagonal pairs of legs are moving
Speaker 1: and touching the ground at the same time.
Speaker 2: That kind of feels like, what is this like the
Speaker 2: sport race walking like they've always got a foot on
Speaker 2: the ground or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what everyone thought, except they would be disqualified
Speaker 1: because when they're moving at top speeds, the trot turns
Speaker 1: into flight as the hippos go airborne for zero point
Speaker 1: three second bursts. And that said, from what I can tell,
Speaker 1: the hippos are only like a few inches off the ground,
Speaker 1: so it's not like you're going to see an air
Speaker 1: bud style movie about hippos anytime soon, but it was
Speaker 1: still pretty wonderful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that is fantastic art.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: For our third award, we are diving into the category
Speaker 2: of medicine. Now, there were a ton of exciting and
Speaker 2: important discoveries in medicine this year, including there's just a
Speaker 2: few that we took note of, the first pig kidney transplant,
Speaker 2: where a genetically modified pig kidney was put into a
Speaker 2: living human. You had a new tiny catheter that removes
Speaker 2: blood clots from the brain, which is incredible for stroke patients.
Speaker 2: And of course there's a new category of weight loss
Speaker 2: drugs that will help things like prevent diabetes and heart
Speaker 2: attacks along with just helping people get slim. So lots
Speaker 2: of things to choose from. But for this year's first
Speaker 2: ever twenty twenty four Medicine Award aka the No Pain,
Speaker 2: No Gain Award, we're giving it to Live in a Shank,
Speaker 2: Tom and Fedai and Christian Bush. So I'm probably getting
Speaker 2: those names wrong, but the spirit is there for their
Speaker 2: advances in placebos science. Now we aren't the only ones
Speaker 2: to recognize the trio. They also won the Ignoble Prize
Speaker 2: earlier this year, which you mentioned, but placebos are a
Speaker 2: fascinating thing. So the fact that you can give someone
Speaker 2: pills or saline injections and somehow trick their brain and
Speaker 2: body into acting like they've receive real medicine has always
Speaker 2: been fascinating to me. And I didn't realize this, but
Speaker 2: the American Medical Association actually considers it ethical to use
Speaker 2: placebos to enhance healing. Huh. And that's partially because placebos
Speaker 2: have been shown to be effective in pain management and
Speaker 2: signaling to the body that medicine is on the way.
Speaker 2: But the reason we're giving this trio of Swiss, German
Speaker 2: and Belgian scientists the award this year is because they
Speaker 2: showed that they can actually make placebos more effective by
Speaker 2: having the placebo cause side effects.
Speaker 1: That is so weird. So how did they figure this out?
Speaker 2: Well, this reporting comes from New Scientists, the magazine to
Speaker 2: Know You and I are both fans of. But in
Speaker 2: the study, the trio got seventy seven volunteers to test
Speaker 2: a nasal spray that they claimed contain the painkiller fentanyl. Now,
Speaker 2: first they had people use the nasal spray. Then they
Speaker 2: applied a hot object to this subject's skin and ask
Speaker 2: them to raise the pain but there was actually no
Speaker 2: fentanyl in the study. The scientists used two different placebos
Speaker 2: for the nasal spray. One had capsation in it, the
Speaker 2: spicy compound found in chili peppers, and one didn't. So
Speaker 2: the capsation spray triggered a little burning sensation when people
Speaker 2: sniffed it, which made them think that it was the
Speaker 2: side effect of fentanyl. Anyway, people who took the capsation
Speaker 2: placebo felt less pain in the trials, hence the conclusion
Speaker 2: that placebos are more effective when they cause side effects.
Speaker 2: But what's funny is that this new knowledge might actually
Speaker 2: be used on real drugs, because if you had a
Speaker 2: very slight side effect to establish drugs, you can actually
Speaker 2: increase the treatment expectations in people's minds and up the effectiveness.
Speaker 2: I just thought this was so interesting. That is wild.
Speaker 1: That's really crazy that you'd add a side effect to
Speaker 1: a real drug. Yeah, yeah, wow, that's amazing. So we're
Speaker 1: on to Award number four, which is twenty twenty four's
Speaker 1: Best Villain aka the Mister Clean Award. Now, to be clear,
Speaker 1: we are not in the habit on the show rewarding
Speaker 1: criminal behavior, but thirty six year old Damon Voinilovich made
Speaker 1: a name for himself this year when he broke into
Speaker 1: a house in Wales. He broke in, he did a
Speaker 1: bunch of laundry, cleaning and chores, and then drank some
Speaker 1: wine and left. And according to a BBC article, Voilovitch
Speaker 1: actually tigied and swept the place. Did the laundry and
Speaker 1: hung it out to dry, mopped the floors, placed groceries
Speaker 1: in the fridge, refilled the bird feeders, emptied the recycling bin,
Speaker 1: put gardening tools away in the shed, whatter the plants,
Speaker 1: put new toothbrush heads on the toothbrushes, and cooked a
Speaker 1: meal for the homeowner, which he set out next to
Speaker 1: a bottle of wine, a glass and a bottle opener
Speaker 1: with a note for them to enjoy it. During this
Speaker 1: breaking and entering, he also helped himself to some wine
Speaker 1: and food, which I guess feels fair now. Apparently, two
Speaker 1: weeks later he was caught in someone's hot tub after
Speaker 1: he showered in their outdoor shower and washed up, and
Speaker 1: he was about to head inside. After all this, jacuzziing
Speaker 1: to start his tidying process. Unfortunately, part of the reason
Speaker 1: he's been doing this is because he was unhoused and
Speaker 1: out of work. But of course that's not a reason
Speaker 1: to break into a stranger's house and start cleaning it
Speaker 1: for them. So the people who saw him call the cops,
Speaker 1: and he's actually currently serving twenty two months in jail.
Speaker 1: But we are hoping that once he's out, all the
Speaker 1: good press and maybe even this very important award will
Speaker 1: help him find some quick work.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I bet he's feeling a whole lot better after
Speaker 2: winning this award. But I would happily give someone a
Speaker 2: good bottle of wine if they did all my laundry
Speaker 2: and came and then mopped our floors for us.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I'd give them two bottles of wine.
Speaker 1: But that's my limit. So what award should we give
Speaker 1: out next?
Speaker 2: All right, well, I feel like it's time to go
Speaker 2: to the financial side of things, So how about we
Speaker 2: give out the twenty twenty four Economics Award aka for
Speaker 2: the Birds Award, And this goes to the owner of
Speaker 2: Cheesy Toast Shack in Saint Andrew's, Scotland, where they've come
Speaker 2: up with a novel financial product called Seagull Insurance. Basically,
Speaker 2: the Cheesy Toast Shack is swarming with goals and they're
Speaker 2: very aggressive and very good at swooping down and nabbing food.
Speaker 1: So I was actually at the beach last summer in
Speaker 1: Maine and I was walking out with a bunch of
Speaker 1: food from the stall for my family, like you know,
Speaker 1: carrying burgers and fries and whatever, and this seagull swooped
Speaker 1: down and just sold some fries for me, and I
Speaker 1: was both horrified and also so impressed, Like it moves
Speaker 1: quickly and it snatched it so precisely. I was almost like,
Speaker 1: well done. You know, it's really amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is. And you're right, I agree, terrifying
Speaker 2: when that happens, but you obviously know what it's like
Speaker 2: to lose food to a seagull. But apparently whenever it
Speaker 2: happened at the cheesy toast shack, the mom and pop
Speaker 2: business felt bad for the victims, so they'd give them
Speaker 2: free replacement food. And it starts to add up. You
Speaker 2: can imagine if it's happening all the time. So they
Speaker 2: tried a bunch of things to keep the goals away.
Speaker 2: They played the bird calls of predator birds like hawks,
Speaker 2: and they did this over like the loud speaker there,
Speaker 2: and they tried flying kite shaped like the predator birds
Speaker 2: to scare the seagulls away. None of it worked, and
Speaker 2: so finally they came up with this novel solution of
Speaker 2: offering seagull insurance for an extra pound on top of
Speaker 2: the six seventy five for a cheese toast meal or
Speaker 2: is boring one put it peace of mind for a
Speaker 2: piece of sandwich.
Speaker 1: I like the well, congratulations to the cheesytoast shack. It
Speaker 1: is well deserved. Okay, So next up we have the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four Pieace Prize aka the Tough as Snails Award,
Speaker 1: which goes to entomologist doctor Valerie Corone from France for
Speaker 1: her efforts to improve human snail relations. Now I actually
Speaker 1: had no idea about this, but in Australia, invasive species
Speaker 1: of Mediterranean snails are a really destructive force that should
Speaker 1: cost the grain and cereal industries about one hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy million dollars in damages per year.
Speaker 2: Oh a lot of money. So what are the snails
Speaker 2: actually doing?
Speaker 1: Well? They definitely eat the crops, but they also leave
Speaker 1: mucus on plants, which contaminates them and deters other animals
Speaker 1: from eating them, which actually throws off the ecosystem. But
Speaker 1: the biggest problem comes to the fact that the snails
Speaker 1: climb up these tall crops right about the same time
Speaker 1: they're supposed to be harvested, and then the snails go
Speaker 1: into a hibernation. So all of these snail shells end
Speaker 1: up getting into the harvesting machinery, which gems up the
Speaker 1: machinery and it just throws everything off.
Speaker 2: The only thing I'm confused about here is remind me,
Speaker 2: why are we giving out a peace prize here?
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, doctor Coron, along with the help of a
Speaker 1: few other labs, figured out how to deter the snails.
Speaker 1: And the first thing is that everyone thought snails were
Speaker 1: color blind, and they are, but it turns out that
Speaker 1: they're actually really attracted to the color red for some reason,
Speaker 1: which means that farmers can put red steaks or fake
Speaker 1: red stalks into the ground and lure the snails away
Speaker 1: from their prize crops and then collect all these pests. Also,
Speaker 1: Coron and the team discovered that snails are held by garlic.
Speaker 1: Maybe because it feels like foreshadowing to end up, Cooke
Speaker 1: does es cargo, But between some garlic seasoning and painting
Speaker 1: the farm red, the two discoveries actually should help farmers
Speaker 1: out and make for better snail human relations.
Speaker 2: Okay, you brought it around. I like that snail human
Speaker 2: relations the Peace Prize, all right, Well, the next award
Speaker 2: also involves food, but in a very different way. And
Speaker 2: I know we really don't like to get political on
Speaker 2: this show, but this next award is for international law.
Speaker 2: Now it goes to Superior Judge Craig Bobet of Allen County, Indiana.
Speaker 2: But I've got to say this is probably the most
Speaker 2: controversial judgment to come out of Indiana since eighteen ninety seven,
Speaker 2: when the so called Indiana Pie Bill proposed to change
Speaker 2: the value of pie in the state from three point
Speaker 2: one four five, nine, two six to a simpler three point.
Speaker 1: Two, which obviously doesn't work for math, or engineering or
Speaker 1: anything else. So what is this new controversial judgment from Indiana?
Speaker 2: All right, now, I hope you're sitting down for that.
Speaker 2: But it's that tacos and burritos should be considered sandwiches. Sandwiches, man.
Speaker 1: No. I mean, I know that there's so much controversy
Speaker 1: over whether a hot dog is a sandwich, but I
Speaker 1: have never heard anyone debate whether a taco is a sandwich. No, first, well,
Speaker 1: do you think it's a sandwich? I'm not sure where
Speaker 1: I stand on this.
Speaker 2: No, I mean my feelings are that that that tacos
Speaker 2: are just kind of their own thing. We have a
Speaker 2: hard time just acknowledging that sometimes things are their own thing.
Speaker 2: You know, that's my philosophy and life. I'm gonna get
Speaker 2: a t shirt. Sometimes things are their own thing. I
Speaker 2: like the tacos are not. They're just not a sandwich.
Speaker 2: And I don't even have a great defense for it
Speaker 2: other than just saying that they're tacos.
Speaker 3: How about you, Yeah, they seem like tacos to me too. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they're tacos. Are tacos, So tacos lad tacos. That's always
Speaker 3: what I say. And and honestly, you know, I get it.
Speaker 3: I'm not the judge here, and that's the very brave
Speaker 3: man and legal scholar, the honorable Craig Bobay.
Speaker 2: Now you might be wondering why it is that Judge
Speaker 2: Bobe had to rule on this important issue, and this
Speaker 2: story goes back to a Fort Wayne strip mall where
Speaker 2: a local joint called the Famous Taco opened up there. Now,
Speaker 2: the Famous Taco had the blessings of the developer, but
Speaker 2: apparently there was an agreement with the local condo association
Speaker 2: that only made to order sandwich restaurants could open in
Speaker 2: the Strip Mall, so you could put a subway there,
Speaker 2: but fast food places like McDonald's, RB's, and Wendy's weren't
Speaker 2: allowed to set up shop. So for Famous Taco to
Speaker 2: continue serving food there, the Planning Commission insisted that there
Speaker 2: would need to be an amendment to the Strip Mall's
Speaker 2: prior agreement with the condo association. But Judge Bobe stepped
Speaker 2: up and he declared the taco and the burrito are
Speaker 2: Mexican style sandwiches, paiding the way forward for other sandwich
Speaker 2: esque food shops to open up, including places that serve euros,
Speaker 2: bond me or even Kati role. So actually, I kind
Speaker 2: of get it, and I got to give it to
Speaker 2: them for the creativity on this.
Speaker 1: I love that in Indiana now you can legally say
Speaker 1: I want a sandwich for lunch and someone will respond
Speaker 1: what kind of sandwich? And you be perfectly within your
Speaker 1: ris to say a taco sandwich.
Speaker 2: Talk it is. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a
Speaker 2: good point, all right. So what's the next award I'm
Speaker 2: hoping it's not quite as controversial as that.
Speaker 1: I think it's time to do the twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: Botany Award. But before we get to that, let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're giving out
Speaker 2: the forty third annual Part Time Genius Awards.
Speaker 1: Yeah, forty third. It's amazing that we've been doing this
Speaker 1: for this long, but it's historic, very important, and I
Speaker 1: was about to announce the twenty twenty four Botany Award.
Speaker 2: I cannot wait for this one, Mango. So so who's
Speaker 2: it going to.
Speaker 1: Well, this year's Bondani Award aka the You Light Up
Speaker 1: My Life Award goes to Keith Wood, Karen Sarkisian and
Speaker 1: Ilia Jampolski from the firm Light Bio, and they came
Speaker 1: up with a way to make petunias gently glow in
Speaker 1: the dark. Now, over fifteen years ago at Metal Class
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you remember this, but we talked
Speaker 1: to this chef who's the head chef at this restaurant
Speaker 1: called Moto, and he was trying to make a glow
Speaker 1: in the dark tomato plant.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The idea was that you could grow tomato plants in
Speaker 1: your house. But by tweaking the genetics, the tomatoes would
Speaker 1: actually act as gentle night lights. And it was such
Speaker 1: a cool idea. But I also remember we were, like,
Speaker 1: you know, confused whether or not we'd feel comfortable eating
Speaker 1: a glow in the dark tomato. You know, it's a
Speaker 1: change of mindset anyway. Scientists have been trying to make
Speaker 1: glow in the dark plants for a while, mostly by
Speaker 1: inserting the luciferase gene from fireflies into plants, which can work,
Speaker 1: but in the past the plants have only glowed under
Speaker 1: a black light, or they've needed expensive specialized food to
Speaker 1: make them glow. But with this so called firefly petunia
Speaker 1: that the scientists have come up with, they actually used
Speaker 1: a group of genes from some bioluminescent mushrooms. Now, according
Speaker 1: to Scientific American quote, the fungus feeds its light emitting
Speaker 1: reaction with the molecule caffeic acid, which terrestrial plants also
Speaker 1: happen to make. By inserting the mushroom genes into the petunia,
Speaker 1: researchers made it possible for the plant to produce enzymes
Speaker 1: that can convert cafaic acid into the light emitting molecule
Speaker 1: lucifern and then recycle it back into caffaic acid, enabling
Speaker 1: sustained BIOLUMINESCIN. So basically, as long as you water the
Speaker 1: plants and you give it enough sunlight, it'll grow and
Speaker 1: glow for you.
Speaker 2: That is actually amazing. I will be honest, I wasn't
Speaker 2: actually that excited about this award before you talked about it,
Speaker 2: but now now it's one of my favorites so far.
Speaker 2: So what does it look like exactly?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the plant is white during the day, but
Speaker 1: it glows this faint green at night. And you can
Speaker 1: actually buy the plant for about thirty dollars, which feels
Speaker 1: like a lovely thing to have, like lining your garden
Speaker 1: path or whatever for the summer nights or whatever. But
Speaker 1: what's interesting is that the scientists picked petunias for a
Speaker 1: very specific reason. The plants aren't native and they aren't
Speaker 1: an invasive species, so there is very little risk of
Speaker 1: the petunia's modified genes spreading to native plants or disrupting
Speaker 1: any ecosystems.
Speaker 2: That's very cool and very smart. All right, Well, it
Speaker 2: is time for the twenty twenty four Fashion Award aka
Speaker 2: the Wild Style Award, which I know you've been waiting
Speaker 2: for Mango.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this one is always one of my favorites.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: In the past we've given it to the makers of
Speaker 1: the eighties style tracksuits for chickens, which is obviously a
Speaker 1: good look for any chicken. Also, we gave it to
Speaker 1: one of the Japanese designers who made the baby mop,
Speaker 1: which is a onesie with the dust mop stitch to
Speaker 1: the bottom of it so that babies who are crawling
Speaker 1: around your floor can pitch in on housework and learn
Speaker 1: responsibility and a healthy work ethic. But it's very curious
Speaker 1: to see what we've got plucked for the Serious Fashion Award.
Speaker 2: I'd forgotten about the baby mop. If you don't have
Speaker 2: to somebody coming in your house and stealing your wine
Speaker 2: and cleaning your floors, you can just use a baby
Speaker 2: but true, all right, But this year's award goes to
Speaker 2: artists Sarah Ross and her design for Archasuits. Now, the
Speaker 2: designs which she created a while back, just came to
Speaker 2: our attention this last year and their response to the
Speaker 2: hostile architecture in cities. And this is something that we've
Speaker 2: talked about before, but hostile architecture includes things like benches
Speaker 2: that have bars, on them for every seat so that
Speaker 2: the unhoused people can't sleep easily on them, or slope
Speaker 2: surfaces and big planners in public spaces to prevent sitting
Speaker 2: or skateboarding anyway. This defensive style of architecture is basically
Speaker 2: targeted at populations that don't have homes and make it
Speaker 2: uncomfortable for them to rest there. So Ross decided to
Speaker 2: make some leisure whear to counter this. Her Arcasuits are
Speaker 2: four absurdly designed leisure suits that have fins, sloped backs,
Speaker 2: and other cushionny pieces to fill in the negative space
Speaker 2: so that you can sleep comfortably on a bench or
Speaker 2: on a slope, or even help you sit comfortably against
Speaker 2: a fence. Actually, I'm just gonna show you a pick,
Speaker 2: because these things are pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: Oh, these are brilliant. Actually, it's really really fun so funny,
Speaker 1: and they look ludicrous, but I love that you can
Speaker 1: just like lie down on a bench with them. It's
Speaker 1: absolutely and I actually love how it's calling attention to
Speaker 1: the ways we think about public spaces and think about
Speaker 1: our neighbors as well. That's really wonderful.
Speaker 2: Oh totally. I mean the design feels very humane, so
Speaker 2: our esteemed prize committee thought she deserved a prize. But
Speaker 2: here's the thing, Mango, We've actually only got one more award.
Speaker 2: So do you want to do the honors?
Speaker 1: Oh? I would love to. So being a podcast, of course,
Speaker 1: we've got to give out an audio award aka the
Speaker 1: Lift Every Voice Award.
Speaker 2: All right, and who's it going to?
Speaker 1: So the twenty twenty four Audio Award goes to an
Speaker 1: assistant professor of bio engineering at the University of California Law,
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. His name is Jun Chen, and he invented
Speaker 1: a tiny throat patch that can help people speak without
Speaker 1: vocal cords.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, that's incredible. So how did he come up
Speaker 2: with the idea?
Speaker 1: So apparently, Professor Chen was lecturing at the university for
Speaker 1: a few hours, his voice began to wear out, and
Speaker 1: he started thinking about how to solve this problem, not
Speaker 1: only for people like him, but for people who can't speak,
Speaker 1: and that led him and his colleagues to invent a
Speaker 1: little patch that you can stick on your throat. The
Speaker 1: patch uses AI to decode and translate muscle movements into speech,
Speaker 1: and amazingly, it doesn't need a battery to work because
Speaker 1: it uses the muscle movements to generate electricity. And I
Speaker 1: learned all about this from the site Oddity Central, but
Speaker 1: I really really love it.
Speaker 2: It's amazing, like what a little patch can do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, apparently, when it's been tested in the lab, the
Speaker 1: algorithm is about ninety five percent accurate at decoding a
Speaker 1: person's speech, both when the person is speaking aloud but
Speaker 1: also when they're pronouncing words voicelessly, which is just super cool. Anyway,
Speaker 1: there's still more designing to do before this hits the market,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's this very thin, very small, multi
Speaker 1: layered patch and it is really incredible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, we finished with a couple of really
Speaker 2: inspiring ones. I love that, And what a great way
Speaker 2: to end with a contraption that gives the voiceless voice.
Speaker 2: So that is it for our forty third annual Part
Speaker 2: Time Genius Awards. You can catch us later this week
Speaker 2: with a new episode, and if you want to read
Speaker 2: more about these incredible innovations and stories, be sure to
Speaker 2: visit us on Instagram on our handle part Time Genius.
Speaker 2: But from Dylan, Mary, Gabe, Mango and me, thank you
Speaker 2: so much for listening.
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: This show is hosted by Will Pearson and me mongs
Speaker 1: Chatikler and research by our goodpal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's
Speaker 1: episode was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan
Speaker 1: with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced
Speaker 1: for iHeart by Katrina Norvel and Ali Perry, with social
Speaker 1: media support from Sasha Gay, trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.