Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Guess what Will, What's that Mango? I was
Speaker 1: looking through the Ignoble Prizes, which released this week, and
Speaker 1: for those who don't know, these are funny prizes that
Speaker 1: honor academic papers that are so surprising that they make
Speaker 1: people laugh and then think. And one of the articles
Speaker 1: that caught my attention was a Peace Prize that they
Speaker 1: gave out for studying the pleasure ability of scratching an itch.
Speaker 2: I do love that they gave out a Peace prize
Speaker 2: for this, but like, what did the scientists actually find
Speaker 2: in a study?
Speaker 1: So apparently they were looking into when you itch, what
Speaker 1: areas that you can scratch our most satisfying. So they
Speaker 1: looked at a few areas and triggered scratching in people
Speaker 1: in those places, and they came to the conclusion that
Speaker 1: the places where a little scratching is most satisfying is
Speaker 1: on your back.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. I could have guessed that a backscratch obviously
Speaker 2: feels amazing.
Speaker 1: But the other place of high pleasure your ability was
Speaker 1: the ankle. If you get a mosquito bite, for instance,
Speaker 1: on your ankle, scratching it results in the most satisfaction,
Speaker 1: and apparently the higher the scratch on your foot, like
Speaker 1: the closer it is to the ankle, the more satisfying
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 2: You know, I think if you had asked me, like
Speaker 2: where the most pleasurable place to scratch an itch was,
Speaker 2: the ankle might have been tenth on my list. But
Speaker 2: now that you're saying it, and especially when you say
Speaker 2: mosquito bite, I actually sort of get it. It makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I'm so lucky it enough to quiz you
Speaker 1: on all the other.
Speaker 2: Places that you I can name the others, actually I'll
Speaker 2: put to I'll email you a list.
Speaker 1: But all this reading about itching and scratching made you
Speaker 1: want to look into the science of itches, like why
Speaker 1: do we itch? Why does it feel so good to scratch?
Speaker 1: And what's our body trying to tell us from all
Speaker 1: of this? So let's dive in.
Speaker 2: Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Speaker 2: Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
Speaker 2: pal Mangas shot Ticketerter and sitting behind that big booth,
Speaker 2: and he's always up to something interesting. This week, he's
Speaker 2: got a whole bunch of posters behind him, and actually
Speaker 2: these appeared to be homemade but very professional posters behind him,
Speaker 2: one of them of Itchy and Scratchy from The Simpsons,
Speaker 2: one of them the character poison Ivy from Batman. Sorry,
Speaker 2: that one took me a minute. And then I think
Speaker 2: that's a poster of the musician Lee scratch Perry.
Speaker 1: Is that the okay? All right?
Speaker 2: All because we are doing an episode on itching, So
Speaker 2: well done, Dylan. That's our wonderful producer, Dylan Fagin.
Speaker 1: Actually, you know, before we start talking about this, I
Speaker 1: love that he's got that Itchy and Scratchy poster up there.
Speaker 1: And I read this thing about how sometimes the Simpson
Speaker 1: writers used to use the Itchy and Scratchy cart tune
Speaker 1: just for inside jokes. And there's this one episode where
Speaker 1: the writers added a character called Puuci to the mix,
Speaker 1: so it was like Itchy and Scratchy and Poucy because
Speaker 1: apparently a focus group had recommended that they add another character,
Speaker 1: and the whole show ends up being a disaster. But
Speaker 1: what I didn't realize was that it was basically making
Speaker 1: fun of the fact that I think this was in
Speaker 1: the eighth season. The execs at Fox asked the Simpsons
Speaker 1: writers to add a teenager to the family because they
Speaker 1: thought it would I guess make the show more lively
Speaker 1: or something. And the Simpsons writers refused, but they decided
Speaker 1: to mock it on the show in Itchy and Scratchy,
Speaker 1: which I just think it.
Speaker 2: So fun.
Speaker 1: Anyway, I had to throw that tangent in there. But
Speaker 1: let's get started, all right.
Speaker 2: Well, one of the things that I wanted to look
Speaker 2: into is why we say we're itching to do something,
Speaker 2: like when we're eager to do something, and it actually
Speaker 2: comes back to Latin so weirdly, on our skin, we
Speaker 2: have these special itch sensing nerve endings and when they
Speaker 2: get stimulated, this is whether it's by mechanical, thermal, or
Speaker 2: chemical mediators, we get an itching sensation. So those nerve
Speaker 2: endings are called pre receptors. And in fact, the scientific
Speaker 2: word for itching is proitis.
Speaker 1: I actually love when the scientific words for things are
Speaker 1: so different, Like apparently the scientific word for burping is eructation.
Speaker 1: Is it? Really?
Speaker 2: I did not know that?
Speaker 1: So tell me a little bit about proritis.
Speaker 2: All right. Well, Proitis comes from the Latin word periray,
Speaker 2: which means to itch or to long for it's hard
Speaker 2: to say, but that's what it means.
Speaker 1: So the idea of longing and desire is linked with
Speaker 1: this physical sensation of itching.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right. And you know it makes sense
Speaker 2: because when you have an itch, you feel like you
Speaker 2: have to scratch it. Actually, the first recorded definition of
Speaker 2: an itch came from a German physician named Samuel Hoffenreffer
Speaker 2: back in sixteen sixty. So he defined an itch as quote,
Speaker 2: any unpleasant sensation that elicits the desire or reflex to
Speaker 2: scratch or put another If you're scratching something, then the
Speaker 2: sensation that provoked it is, by definition an itch.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about that itch pain relationship a little more?
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. There's a complex relationship between itching and pain.
Speaker 2: The pure receptors I mentioned before are on the end
Speaker 2: of specialized nerve cells called sea fibers, and these sea
Speaker 2: fibers are identical to those associated with the sensation of pain,
Speaker 2: but they are functionally different because they only convey the
Speaker 2: itch sensation. So when they're stimulated on the skin, these
Speaker 2: sea fibers carry signals along the nerve to the spinal
Speaker 2: cord and onto the brain of course, and that's where
Speaker 2: they're processed and that generates this scratching or rubbing reflex
Speaker 2: response to that itch.
Speaker 1: But why is our reflex to scratch it?
Speaker 2: Well, scratching it interferes with the sensations arising from these
Speaker 2: pure receptors, And this is the interesting part. They do
Speaker 2: this by stimulating various pain receptors in the same areas,
Speaker 2: so the pain is almost like a save for the itching.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's not just scratching that will stop
Speaker 2: an itch, like other pain full stuff like heat or capsation.
Speaker 2: Of course, the hot stuff and peppers or even electrical
Speaker 2: shocks can stop itching. I don't know that you'd want
Speaker 2: to take it to that length, but turns out that
Speaker 2: does work. But you know, pain can stop an itch.
Speaker 2: But it's unclear whether the pain and itching are separate
Speaker 2: sensations or like the same sensation. But I don't know,
Speaker 2: just less.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about that relationship a little more.
Speaker 2: There's basically two theories about how this works. So there's
Speaker 2: the intensity theory and the specificity theory. So the intensity
Speaker 2: theory states that the skin is studded with this array
Speaker 2: of nerve endings called no susceptors. Now, their job is
Speaker 2: to relay information about the presence of potentially damaging stimuli
Speaker 2: to the spinal cord and the brain, and so a
Speaker 2: weak assault on these neurons result in an itch, while
Speaker 2: a fully fledged attack results in pain.
Speaker 1: So, like you said, the same sensation but less.
Speaker 2: I nailed it, and I'm glad you understand it now.
Speaker 2: But you know, the specificity theory states that some neurons
Speaker 2: are responsible for pain while a different set cares about
Speaker 2: an itch. Or alternatively, it could be that there's a
Speaker 2: single set of neurons responsible for no susception, but that
Speaker 2: they somehow tell the difference between stimuli that are itchy
Speaker 2: and those that hurt.
Speaker 1: But you would never scratch something that's just hurting you, right,
Speaker 1: Like you don't stub your toe and then scratch at
Speaker 1: it to stop.
Speaker 2: The pain, right, I mean, there are distinct sensations that
Speaker 2: elicit these very distinct reactions. So when something hurts, our
Speaker 2: body responds, you know, with their withdrawal reflex. But you know,
Speaker 2: think about it. You put your hand over a fire,
Speaker 2: the pain makes you yank it back, but the scratching
Speaker 2: reflex brings attention toward rather than away from, the affected skin.
Speaker 2: And you know this is probably evolutionary, like if you're
Speaker 2: looking closer at a quick scratch, or even just mindlessly
Speaker 2: scratching at something, it's pretty effective at removing an insect
Speaker 2: or other unwanted material from your skin or your hair.
Speaker 2: So it actually works.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting about a scratch drawing attention to your
Speaker 1: skin or your body.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so here's how it works. Like, when something
Speaker 2: bothers the skin, like a mosquito bite, the cells release
Speaker 2: a chemical, usually a histamine, as an immune response to this,
Speaker 2: and that release provokes the no susceptors in the skin
Speaker 2: to send a message to the spine, which then relays
Speaker 2: the message through a bundle of nerves called the spinathalmic
Speaker 2: tract all the way up to the brain. So, in
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine, this group of researchers use the
Speaker 2: histamine injection to make the legs of their non human
Speaker 2: primates itch while an electrode monitored what happened inside those tracks.
Speaker 2: And as soon as the histamine was injected, the neurons
Speaker 2: started firing faster. So when the researchers offered up a
Speaker 2: few scratches, those neurons slowed their fire. And what those
Speaker 2: electrodes showed them was that the scratching actually does its
Speaker 2: work in the spinal cord rather than the brain.
Speaker 1: So I'm actually glad that you brought up that spine
Speaker 1: itch connection because I saw something about that in my
Speaker 1: research and decided to look into it a little more.
Speaker 1: But before we get into that, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're talking all
Speaker 2: things itchy. So, Mango, you were just about to talk
Speaker 2: about the connection between the spine and itches.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So this discovery comes from two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: when a professor and researcher named Jufeng Chen at the
Speaker 1: Washington University School of Medicine led a team that was
Speaker 1: looking into the role of a specific receptor called GRPR.
Speaker 1: It's the gastrin releasing peptide receptor, and he was trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what it had to do with itching. Now,
Speaker 1: no one had really studied itch as separate from pain
Speaker 1: before two thousand and seven, but Chen and his team
Speaker 1: were looking at mice that were missing the GRPR gene
Speaker 1: to see if they reacted differently to pain stimuli than
Speaker 1: normal mice did. And while they didn't react any differently
Speaker 1: to pain when they stimulated the GRPR, normal mice. The
Speaker 1: mice starts scratching themselves as if they had this really
Speaker 1: bad itch, and that's how they figured out that the
Speaker 1: pain sensation and the itch sensation are mediated by separate
Speaker 1: sets of genes in the spinal cord, which means potentially
Speaker 1: that drugs can actually be used to suppress the itch
Speaker 1: sensation without affecting the pain sensation. And that's particularly important
Speaker 1: because pain can be kind of this like protective queue
Speaker 1: that warns of danger. So it'd be great to have
Speaker 1: this anti itch medication that doesn't compromise our pain sense
Speaker 1: and capability.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that makes sense. It's best to be
Speaker 2: less itchy and safe ideally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but Chen didn't stop there. So ten years later,
Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen, his teammate another really interesting discovery about itchiness.
Speaker 2: I keep itching, just talking about itching. It's almost like
Speaker 2: when you're in a place and you're not supposed to laugh,
Speaker 2: and then you can't help but laugh. That that is
Speaker 2: the experience I'm having. I don't know about.
Speaker 1: Youah, yeah, totally. I want to scratch my head so badly, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's funny because us, you know, his team actually
Speaker 1: was the ones that discovered that itchiness is contagious. So
Speaker 1: they did this experiment with two different groups of mice.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure why it's always mice. It's never
Speaker 1: like a group of frat guys who lives in Williamsburg.
Speaker 1: But the researchers bred one group of mice to be
Speaker 1: chronically itchy, and then they put the itchy mice in
Speaker 1: a cage next to normal mice, and then they recorded
Speaker 1: hours and hours of both sets of mice, and when
Speaker 1: they analyzed the footage, they discovered that the normal mice,
Speaker 1: just by observing the chronically itchy mice scratching, scratched themselves
Speaker 1: twice as much. Basically, the normal mice became twice as itchy.
Speaker 2: Imagine what fund we could have making other people scratch themselves,
Speaker 2: Mango like, All we have to do is stand around
Speaker 2: them for hours scratching ourselves.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a really good use of time. But
Speaker 1: it turns out there are other ways to get people
Speaker 1: to itch too. So in nineteen ninety nine, German researchers
Speaker 1: found that just listening to a lecture about itching made
Speaker 1: the audience itch and start to scratch themselves. And the
Speaker 1: aim of the lecturers is to present an itch inducing lectures.
Speaker 1: So they showed all these slides that induce scratching, right,
Speaker 1: like pictures of fleas mites, allergic reactions. Then they showed
Speaker 1: slides that induced relaxation and a sense of well being.
Speaker 1: So they showed like pictures of baby skin and soft
Speaker 1: down and a mother with a child in her arms,
Speaker 1: and they discovered a few fascinating things. So first the
Speaker 1: self reported itch sensation and all this observed scratching increased
Speaker 1: after they showed those first set of pictures. But after
Speaker 1: hearing the lectures, discussed the next set of things and
Speaker 1: showing those other pictures, the observed scratching decreased. So you
Speaker 1: can actually lower the itch sensation when you show calm
Speaker 1: soothing pictures.
Speaker 2: I've never really thought about it, like working in reverse,
Speaker 2: So you could potentially soothe an itch by looking at
Speaker 2: calming images.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I guess the question is like, would you
Speaker 1: want to do that?
Speaker 2: What do you mean?
Speaker 1: So? I mean, itch remedies are great, but sometimes itching
Speaker 1: is medically necessary, right, and sometimes isn't the best feeling
Speaker 1: of the world, like a really good backscratch. I mean,
Speaker 1: people have been talking about this forever. In a nineteen
Speaker 1: forty eight paper in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology. This
Speaker 1: neurophysiologist George Bishop wrote, quote, scratching an itch with a
Speaker 1: violence that would cause pain elsewhere maybe experienced as one
Speaker 1: of the most exquisite pleasures. And the poet Ogden Nash
Speaker 1: once said, quote, happiness is having a scratch for every itch.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's definitely true. But you know, like the
Speaker 2: pleasure and pain cocktail of an itch is, it's pretty complicated.
Speaker 2: Like patients with exema have reported that they scratch not
Speaker 2: until the itch has subsided, but until it no longer
Speaker 2: feels good to scratch, So it's a little different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense, although it seems like, you know,
Speaker 1: that could exacerbate the skin conditions.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, not only that, but chronic itching can cause
Speaker 2: psychological distress, and this is something we really don't think
Speaker 2: about that much, but there's a stigma associated with skin
Speaker 2: disorders and scratching. So one study interviewed adults with chronic
Speaker 2: itching conditions, and almost all of them said that itching
Speaker 2: had profound emotional effects, such as depression or guilt or
Speaker 2: panic and you know, sometimes feeling isolated because the resulting
Speaker 2: scratching elicited such negative responses. From other people, and it
Speaker 2: might even have historical roots, like in early European medical practices,
Speaker 2: and itch wasn't just equated with an effectious disease. It
Speaker 2: also conveyed these moral lapses, like like a lack of
Speaker 2: hygiene or social inferiority. So there was a lot wrapped
Speaker 2: up in it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense about the social
Speaker 1: history that you know. I this just reminded me of
Speaker 1: a story when Henry was like three years old. We
Speaker 1: had this couple over to our house for dinner, and
Speaker 1: we were all sitting downstairs and we put Henry to bed,
Speaker 1: or we thought we'd put Henry to bed, and then
Speaker 1: like he walks down completely naked. He's like years old,
Speaker 1: and he goes, guys, I got examat. Oh no, I
Speaker 1: don't even know how we learned the word examon and
Speaker 1: where his clothes were, but it was Yeah.
Speaker 2: So like, weirdly that sort of thing is not socially
Speaker 2: acceptable to just walk into a room naked and announce that.
Speaker 2: So it's just I see what we're talking about here.
Speaker 2: But I mean, you know it, you think back to
Speaker 2: when humans learn to associate certain things with disease, like
Speaker 2: around scratching, or as we're talking about here, that can
Speaker 2: actually trigger a physical disgust response, which is unfortunate, but
Speaker 2: that is what happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like something everyone should be able to
Speaker 1: empathize with because wind to scratch an itch is universal.
Speaker 1: But obviously there's acceptable scratching and unacceptable scratching, right right, And.
Speaker 2: Then there's this itches that don't respond like even to
Speaker 2: excessive scratching, meaning you could scratch and scratch and never
Speaker 2: actually get at these itches.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which sounds like torture.
Speaker 2: No, I really does. And there's actually something called a
Speaker 2: neuropathic or neurological itch which is a type of itch
Speaker 2: under the skin that you actually can't scratch to relieve
Speaker 2: because it's caused by nerve damage rather than issues related
Speaker 2: to the skin, and it can be caused by things
Speaker 2: like diabetes or shingles, brain lesions, or liver diseases. There's
Speaker 2: you know a host of other things that can lead
Speaker 2: to this, and you know, the itch tends to be
Speaker 2: chronic and difficult to treat, and there's really not much
Speaker 2: you can do about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I remember there was like a New Yorker piece
Speaker 1: about a woman who had an itch on her skull,
Speaker 1: and she just couldn't stop scratching at it, and it
Speaker 1: just like led to all sorts of issues, which just
Speaker 1: sounds miserable, but you know, there are also things that
Speaker 1: are kind of the opposite of that. In the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: there was this scientist named J. R. Traver who suffered
Speaker 1: from a condition called delusional parasitosis. It's this condition where
Speaker 1: people have become convinced that they're infested with parasites, which
Speaker 1: leads to itching. And trav refused to accept that this
Speaker 1: was just a delusion, so she published a paper about
Speaker 1: her experience combating what she called skin mites. She visited
Speaker 1: tons of doctors, used dangerous pesticides on herself, tried to
Speaker 1: scratch the phantom mites out with fingernails, and it went
Speaker 1: on for her whole life. Traver's actually started to itch
Speaker 1: und her fortieth birthday and continued scratching at these delusional
Speaker 1: itches until she died forty years later. Now, unfortunately, since then,
Speaker 1: other people with delusional parasitotosis have pointed to travers work
Speaker 1: as evidence that in fact they do have an itchy
Speaker 1: parasitic infection and not a psychiatric condition, which it actually
Speaker 1: is well.
Speaker 2: I mean that also just sounds like torture.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I imagine thinking your body was covered in mites
Speaker 1: for forty years, it would be like constant scabies, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually speaking of that you were talking about
Speaker 2: you looked into scabies, right, Like, can you actually explain
Speaker 2: it a little for uce. I feel like it's one
Speaker 2: of those words that's used without people actually understanding it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and weirdly, I've heard of people getting it recently.
Speaker 1: But scabies is a skin condition that causes almost this
Speaker 1: like unbearable itchness, and it's caused by tiny mites that
Speaker 1: do burrow into your skin. Like. The mites have been
Speaker 1: around forever, but it wasn't until the eighteen thirties eighteen
Speaker 1: thirty four at the Hospital Saint Louis in Paris, that
Speaker 1: the mites were discovered as the cause of scabies, and
Speaker 1: at the time about sixty five percent of the beds
Speaker 1: in the hospital were occupied by patients suffering from scabies.
Speaker 1: It was a Corsican student named sf Ernucci who had
Speaker 1: been taught by peasant women of his home island how
Speaker 1: to extract the mites with a pin, and he showed
Speaker 1: the method to the doctors at the hospital.
Speaker 2: So people actually had to be hospitalized for scabies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it can be really debilitating, and scabies was also
Speaker 1: a big problem during the American Revolution. This was before
Speaker 1: they discovered the cause with skin mites. They called it
Speaker 1: the itch. And in fact, it happens at Valley Forge
Speaker 1: when George Washington is there and he issues this general
Speaker 1: order that proclaims, quote being also informed, many men are
Speaker 1: rendered unfit for duty by the itch. The commander in
Speaker 1: chief orders and directs the regimental surgeons to look attentively
Speaker 1: into this matter, and as soon as the men who
Speaker 1: were affected with this disorder properly disposed in huts, to
Speaker 1: have them anoided for it. I mean, it's crazy.
Speaker 2: It's amazing that the itch was enough of a concern
Speaker 2: in the middle of a very bloody war, Like it
Speaker 2: just speaks to how bad these afflictions are. And so
Speaker 2: I think one of the central questions of life, mango
Speaker 2: and here it is to scratch or not to scratch?
Speaker 1: Yeah, one of Hamlet's lesser known soilquy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a really powerful one. So we all
Speaker 2: have this reflex to scratch an itch. But it's a
Speaker 2: big question, like to scratching help or hurt us, and
Speaker 2: it's a question. Scientists are actually looking into this study
Speaker 2: as recently as twenty twenty three. It was at Harvard
Speaker 2: Medical School and it showed for the first time that
Speaker 2: a common skin bacterium Staphylococcus eras or S RAS, can
Speaker 2: cause an itch by acting directly on nerve cells. So
Speaker 2: this helps explain why common skin conditions like exima and
Speaker 2: atopic dermatitis are often accompanied by persistent itch. So in
Speaker 2: these conditions, the equilibrium of micro organisms that keep our
Speaker 2: skin healthy is often thrown off balance allows this you know,
Speaker 2: bacteria to flourish, and so it can cause an itch
Speaker 2: by instigating a molecular chain reaction that culminates in the
Speaker 2: urge to scratch.
Speaker 1: But why would a microbe like cause us to itch?
Speaker 1: Evolutionary speaking, like, what's in it for the bacterium, It's
Speaker 1: a good question.
Speaker 2: I mean, researchers say that the pathogens may be hijacking
Speaker 2: the itch, sensation and other neural reflexes to their advantage. So,
Speaker 2: for example, previous research has shown that the TB bacterium
Speaker 2: directly activates vagual neurons to cause cough, which might enable
Speaker 2: it to spread more easily from one host to another.
Speaker 2: There's another researcher that speculates that quote the itch scratch
Speaker 2: cycle could benefit the microbes and enable their spread to
Speaker 2: distant body sites and to uninfected host That's interesting.
Speaker 1: I feel like you always hear people say don't scratch,
Speaker 1: it'll make it worse, But what it actually means is like,
Speaker 1: you'll make a better home for the bacteria. But you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes scratching an itch is just a really harmless, joyful pastime.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm guessing you're going somewhere with this, So
Speaker 2: what do you mean exactly by that?
Speaker 1: So have you ever heard of ruyi?
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 1: It's basically a very fancy backscratcher. A rue was a
Speaker 1: ceremonial scepter used by Chinese nobles and monks, and it's
Speaker 1: revered by Chinese people for its symbol of good fortune
Speaker 1: and longevity. But originally it was just designed as a
Speaker 1: backscratching instrument.
Speaker 2: So wait, so noblemen would take this scepter, this important
Speaker 2: symbol of good fortune, and just start scratching themselves with it.
Speaker 2: That just seems pretty casual.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so not exactly. The ruiz popularity peaked during the
Speaker 1: King dynasty, and it was first used by the common
Speaker 1: folk before Chinese emperors and imperial officers took a fancy
Speaker 1: to it, and then to suit the imperial taste and
Speaker 1: exquisite rui was manufactured by the nation's top craftsmen. But
Speaker 1: over time the ruiz stopped being used as a backscratcher,
Speaker 1: and just because of its beautiful craftsmanship, it rose in
Speaker 1: status as almost this preferred choice of imperial gifts.
Speaker 2: So the ruy jumped classes from like practical tool for
Speaker 2: their commoners to this symbol of grand Europe.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But one other cool thing is that in Chinese,
Speaker 1: ru means quote everything goes well. And I feel like
Speaker 1: that's the best way to articulate the feeling you get
Speaker 1: when you're like scratching in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you're locked in on a good scratch, it
Speaker 2: really is a beautiful moment. Like we should focus on
Speaker 2: that for just a second, Like everything goes well when
Speaker 2: that happens.
Speaker 1: So the first time I wanted to scratch because it
Speaker 1: feels good, not just because I'm feeling itchy, but right exactly,
Speaker 1: I feel like I've got to get you a rui.
Speaker 1: But before I do that, why don't we do a
Speaker 1: quick fact though, so here's when to get us started.
Speaker 1: In twenty sixteen, neurologists from Germany's University of Lubec discovered
Speaker 1: that you can soothe an itch by tricking your brain
Speaker 1: with a mirror. So if you look into a mirror
Speaker 1: while itching and scratch the opposite side, itch will subside
Speaker 1: as if you're actually scratching at the point of the itch.
Speaker 1: And apparently the trick can be used to help people
Speaker 1: who have severe skin problems to stop them from further
Speaker 1: hurting areas where their skin is healing.
Speaker 2: All right, well, here's a question that a lot of
Speaker 2: cat owners want answered. Why do cats love clawing at
Speaker 2: your furniture? And I guess the question I would ask
Speaker 2: is why do you have a cat? But either way,
Speaker 2: it turns out there, yeah, there's so many questions here,
Speaker 2: but it turns out there are more than a few reasons.
Speaker 2: So one is the scrape off the nail tip so
Speaker 2: that they can grow fresh, sharper nails. And another is
Speaker 2: that apparently all that scratching works like a massage, so
Speaker 2: after sleeping for sixteen hours a day, all that pawing
Speaker 2: and clawing helps them work out the kinks and their
Speaker 2: back muscles actually, But the main reason, according to cat scientists,
Speaker 2: is it's territorial. So the scratching leaves marks to let
Speaker 2: other cats and humans know who really owns the sofa,
Speaker 2: as well as a personal scent that comes off from
Speaker 2: their papads.
Speaker 1: I mean, the territorial stuff makes sense, But like, I
Speaker 1: never thought of like scratching as like recovery for cats
Speaker 1: who are sleeping a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally didn't. Didn't think about that either.
Speaker 1: So did you know that certain fruits and vegetables can
Speaker 1: make your mouth itch? And this is according to New
Speaker 1: York mags the cut It's related to allergies, So if
Speaker 1: you're allergic to tree pollen, there's a good chance that
Speaker 1: carrots and kiwis will be a problem. If you're allergic
Speaker 1: to summer grasses, tomato and watermelon can make your mouth itchy.
Speaker 1: And if you have trouble with autumn weeds, apples and
Speaker 1: bananas have proteins that trigger those same allergies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hadn't thought about it, but I feel like
Speaker 2: i'd actually get that from certain certain foods like pineapple.
Speaker 2: After I ate it. Sometimes I just feel like something
Speaker 2: has like cut up my tongue.
Speaker 1: Do you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if that's the same thing, but
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to say I relate to it. I'm
Speaker 2: just trying to relate to what you're saying, Mago. But
Speaker 2: all right, well I got another one. So in the
Speaker 2: run up to the Olympics, the French released a scratch
Speaker 2: and sniff stamp featuring that back get the wonderfully Aromatic
Speaker 2: stamp released on the feast day of Saint Honore, the
Speaker 2: patron Saint of bakers, along with an official statement from
Speaker 2: the Post Office that proclaimed, quote, the baguette, the bread
Speaker 2: of our daily lives, is the symbol of our guesstronomy
Speaker 2: and the jewel of our culture. But as The New
Speaker 2: York Times joked, there is no word on if a
Speaker 2: croissant stamp will follow.
Speaker 1: I feel like, just like smelling fresh bread from a
Speaker 1: sticker would make me want to buy, like a loaf
Speaker 1: of fresh bread.
Speaker 2: Like totally good marketing.
Speaker 1: So here's something I learned from our old palas and
Speaker 1: mental flaws. The phrase from scratch, like baking something from scratch,
Speaker 1: weirdly comes from sports. So the idea of starting from
Speaker 1: scratch came from a scratch line that was scratched into
Speaker 1: the ground as the starting line for a race, and
Speaker 1: it kind of evolved to starting at the very beginning
Speaker 1: to eventually starting without help. So when you bake something
Speaker 1: from scratch, you're starting from the origin.
Speaker 2: That makes sense, all right? Well, here is a really
Speaker 2: crazy one about a man named Bill Morgan from Melbourne, Australia.
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety nine, Bill had a heart attack and
Speaker 2: fell into a coma for about two weeks. He was
Speaker 2: just thirty seven years old, but somehow he miraculously woke
Speaker 2: up from it and to celebrate his survival, he went
Speaker 2: out and bought a scratch lottery card and I guess
Speaker 2: in Australia you can win other prizes, but he won
Speaker 2: a car worth about twenty seven thousand dollars. Anyway, when
Speaker 2: the local news heard about the incident, the story of
Speaker 2: him coming back to life and winning the lottery, they
Speaker 2: asked him to recreate this for a news segment. So
Speaker 2: they filmed him going into a shop buying a ticket
Speaker 2: and scratching the foil and when he did he won again.
Speaker 2: This time he won a two hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars jackpot. Is that not nuts?
Speaker 1: That is nuts. It's almost like worth the coma.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, there's a short list of things that are
Speaker 2: worth the coma. But yeah, you're probably right on this one.
Speaker 1: I actually had a fact about scratch lottery tickets too.
Speaker 1: It's about these two artists who make sculptures from discarded
Speaker 1: scratch off tickets to represent discarded dreams. So they use
Speaker 1: like forty thousand dollars of discarded tickets to make a
Speaker 1: dream car sculpture, and they use another seventy thousand dollars
Speaker 1: of discarded tickets to build a dream home. But I
Speaker 1: honestly don't think I can beat that coma fact. It's
Speaker 1: too good. So I'm gonna hand you the trophy right now.
Speaker 2: I need to warn you I got a bunch of
Speaker 2: coma facts for future episodes because I just feel like
Speaker 2: they always they always take it. But thank you. It
Speaker 2: is nice to end an episode about scratching it and
Speaker 2: feeling this satisfied. So we'll be back again next week
Speaker 2: with a brand new episode of Part Time Genius. In
Speaker 2: the meantime from Dylan, Mary 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 Mongas
Speaker 1: Chatikler and researched by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was engineer and produced by the wonderful Dylan
Speaker 1: Fagan with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive
Speaker 1: produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvel and Ali Perry, with
Speaker 1: social media support from Sasha Gay, Trustee Dara Potts and
Speaker 1: Viney Shorey. For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.