Speaker 1: Guess what, mengo. So that will So I read this
Speaker 1: incredible story in a book called Shocked. In year old
Speaker 1: woman goes skiing in Norway and she has this awful accent. Man,
Speaker 1: this doesn't sound good and that's the end of the story.
Speaker 1: So it gets better. So she rolls down this massive
Speaker 1: slope into this frozen stream and she's under the ice. Well,
Speaker 1: basically her skis saver from going fully in, but she
Speaker 1: is under so when the ski patrol finds her, it
Speaker 1: seems hopeless. She has no pulse, no signs of life.
Speaker 1: She's insanely cold. Her body temperature is something like fifty
Speaker 1: seven degrees. So at the hospital she's declared dead. But
Speaker 1: for some reason, and it isn't clear why, but they
Speaker 1: hook her up to a bypass machine which pumps her
Speaker 1: heart and her lungs, and a few hours later her
Speaker 1: heart flutters like it actually starts up again. Then in
Speaker 1: just over a week she comes out of her coma
Speaker 1: and eventually makes this startling recovery. I know, it's miraculous, right.
Speaker 1: The press calls her Ice Woman, and while doctors and
Speaker 1: scientists get really excited about her story, there's one group
Speaker 1: that takes even more joy in her recovery. The cry
Speaker 1: and I love the crying. Yeah, that's the tiny subculture
Speaker 1: of people who have been laughed at for decades, you know,
Speaker 1: a group of people who believe that freezing your body
Speaker 1: for a few hundred years is going to be the
Speaker 1: key to living forever. And that's what we're exploring in
Speaker 1: today's Part Time Genius. Hey there podcast and listen is
Speaker 1: welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as
Speaker 1: always I'm joined by my good friend Manguesh how Ticketer
Speaker 1: hey Man. Today we're talking cryonics, this notion of freezing
Speaker 1: your body with the hope of thawing it out later
Speaker 1: so you can extend your life. So we'll be diving
Speaker 1: into the science of this bizarre field. We'll look into
Speaker 1: how many people have actually signed up for already stored
Speaker 1: in cryonics facilities around the world, and how movies usually
Speaker 1: get it wrong. But as always, will have our Part
Speaker 1: Time Genius quiz with two listeners. Who do we have
Speaker 1: this week? Mango, We've got board game inventors, not only
Speaker 1: board game inventors, but these are like big time, are awesome.
Speaker 1: I'm decided to have them, so we'll talk to them
Speaker 1: in a bid, and I can't wait to put another
Speaker 1: guy to the test. One of our favorite funny people
Speaker 1: SNL writer Streeter side L. That's right, who will test
Speaker 1: with another frozen related quiz? Is that right? Uh? Huh okay,
Speaker 1: good deal and lots of fun stuff to get too,
Speaker 1: So let's dive in now. I've got to tell you, Mango,
Speaker 1: this whole cryonics thing makes zero sense to me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can get behind it in fiction, but in the
Speaker 1: real world, yeah, like it makes for a great TV
Speaker 1: and movies Captain America or like a doctor Evil scheme,
Speaker 1: But personally, I am so uninterested in putting my body
Speaker 1: on ice. And just to be clear, cryonics and this
Speaker 1: hope of living forever is separate from cryogenics, which is
Speaker 1: the study of cold temperatures and their effects on materials.
Speaker 1: But let's get back to this obsession with living forever.
Speaker 1: I have no interest in being a hundred fifty years
Speaker 1: old or however old the founders of Google and all
Speaker 1: these super rich billionaires want to be. Doesn't it make
Speaker 1: more sense just to try to extend your life in
Speaker 1: the present than try to freeze yourself for the future.
Speaker 1: So well, first off, I didn't realize this until we
Speaker 1: dug into the topic. But it's actually illegal to freeze
Speaker 1: yourself alive. Like I always assume these rich people who
Speaker 1: had cancer or whatever, we're freezing themselves before they passed away,
Speaker 1: you know, so that they could be defrosted when a
Speaker 1: cure comes around. But that's not the case. Everyone who's
Speaker 1: frozen in a cryogenic facility is dead, like dead dead dead,
Speaker 1: really dead, or to use the term they use in
Speaker 1: the industry, deanimated. So all these dead people are actually
Speaker 1: waiting to be reanimated like zombies, which feels like a
Speaker 1: tall order. And in addition, they're hoping to be cured
Speaker 1: of whatever disease killed them. I mean, that's so optimistic. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean even the weirder part in my mind, as
Speaker 1: you either get your whole body frozen or you could
Speaker 1: go budget and just do your head. It's just a
Speaker 1: really strange decision to have to make, which is what
Speaker 1: Ted Williams did. The theory is that the head is
Speaker 1: the only important part and the rest of your body
Speaker 1: is completely replaceable. And while that sounds ludicrous, what's weird
Speaker 1: is the science kind of backs this. I mean, the
Speaker 1: truth is head transplants have a surprisingly long history. Back
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventies, scientists at Case Western transplanted a rhesus
Speaker 1: monkey's head onto another monkey's body. This was almost fifty
Speaker 1: years ago, and while this Frankenstein monkey couldn't walk around
Speaker 1: or move from the neck down, mainly because the scientists
Speaker 1: didn't have the technology to connect the spinal cord to
Speaker 1: the brain, they did manage to get the blood flow
Speaker 1: between the neck and the head so it could smell
Speaker 1: and see and even taste. Yeah, the head retained all
Speaker 1: of those functions. The monkey only lived a few days.
Speaker 1: But remember we're talking about nineteen seventy and all of that.
Speaker 1: Science has improved dramatically since then. Like in Japan, they've
Speaker 1: grafted the head of a mouse onto another healthy mouse's body,
Speaker 1: which created this two head monstrosity, but also showed that
Speaker 1: the body could accept the new head. And we know
Speaker 1: scientists have severed the spinal cords of mice to make
Speaker 1: them paralyzed, then repaired their spines, allowing them to walk again.
Speaker 1: Which once you've mastered repairing a spine and grafting a
Speaker 1: head on to its body, well, human head transplants don't
Speaker 1: feel that far away. That's umbly right. You know what
Speaker 1: else is funny that I never thought about and sort
Speaker 1: of backs up your point is let's say you're into
Speaker 1: cryonics and you go for the whole body options, the
Speaker 1: facility will actually store you upside down in their tanks
Speaker 1: of chemicals like you're hanging out bat style, because they
Speaker 1: want to protect your head that way, if the facility
Speaker 1: loses power and your body starts to get accidentally thought,
Speaker 1: they want to make sure your noggin is the last
Speaker 1: bit affected. I kind of like that there's this option
Speaker 1: of the whole body versus just the head. I mean,
Speaker 1: it really does seem like a super stressful if you're
Speaker 1: going to invest in us. But your point about storing
Speaker 1: those bodies. If you're watching a science fiction movie and
Speaker 1: people are getting frozen stored upright, you can tell the
Speaker 1: writers haven't done their research. Yeah, I mean in movies
Speaker 1: and shows, people are always stored up right, and that's
Speaker 1: completely bunk. But back to what you were saying about
Speaker 1: head transplants, Like, the science of cryonics is actually amazing,
Speaker 1: whatever you think about the realistic nous of thawing out
Speaker 1: all these rich people two hundred years from now and
Speaker 1: giving them a second shot at life, which, let me
Speaker 1: be clear, I do not believe will happen. The actual
Speaker 1: research that's come out is not only fascinating, but it's
Speaker 1: really important. And before we get to that, I want
Speaker 1: to finish this thought, and that's at the freezing part
Speaker 1: of cryonics feels like an outdated idea to me. Sure
Speaker 1: I see that. I mean, the whole notion came up
Speaker 1: around the time of refrigeration and innovation of frozen food,
Speaker 1: so it feels like a rich person solution for the
Speaker 1: forties or fifties, Like, if we can reheat a bag
Speaker 1: of frozen feet, why can't we do that with humans? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but today the question is why freeze yourself versus just
Speaker 1: trying to extend your life. And this is a weird tangent,
Speaker 1: but my great grandmother lived to be a hundred three.
Speaker 1: She was born in one and that's two years before
Speaker 1: the Right Brothers took flight. And what she lived through
Speaker 1: is insane, like world wars and moon landing sliced bread.
Speaker 1: She was older than slice impressive, and she lived all
Speaker 1: the way through seven police academies and a couple of
Speaker 1: rush hours even more impressive. Yeah, so you know, that's
Speaker 1: a really full life. But she wanted to stay alive
Speaker 1: for an extra year because I don't know the new
Speaker 1: season of Sherlock was coming out, or something more important,
Speaker 1: like her great granddaughter was getting married. Like I understand
Speaker 1: this very human desire to want a one year extension
Speaker 1: or two year extension or life for something you've been
Speaker 1: waiting for. But the idea of dying, then freezing yourself,
Speaker 1: then waiting two years in the hopes of a cure,
Speaker 1: and then essentially hoping to be turned into a zombie
Speaker 1: to live longer. I don't think you should be a
Speaker 1: spokesperson for the crown of society, by the way, I won't.
Speaker 1: And in addition to how creepy and unrealistic that all
Speaker 1: feels to me, I honestly don't think I could psychologically
Speaker 1: handle it. Like you know, um Japanese tourist struggle with
Speaker 1: Paris syndrome, which is that psychological shock when a trip
Speaker 1: to Paris doesn't live up to your romantic expectations. The
Speaker 1: Japanese embassy actually runs the twenty four hour hotline to
Speaker 1: help citizens deal with it. If you think about that's
Speaker 1: the problem of like people from one modern culture visiting
Speaker 1: another modern culture. So imagine a person from the eighteen
Speaker 1: hundreds waking up today, Like, isn't all this change going
Speaker 1: to be too jarring? If you think about it. People
Speaker 1: don't acknowledge each other as they walk in parks, and
Speaker 1: they communicate through watches, and everyone eats tacos with shells
Speaker 1: made of doritos, which just feels two locos to puffery heads.
Speaker 1: I am sad that your grandmother never got to experience
Speaker 1: the doritos locos taco. So a cryon not from two
Speaker 1: hundred years ago would have died in eighteen seventeen. And
Speaker 1: that's a lot of learning to have to do, catching
Speaker 1: up with the technology, civil rights, women's rights, and so
Speaker 1: many other things. And I'm sure seeing all that change
Speaker 1: has to be thrilling too. And I know you're not
Speaker 1: pro cryonics, but if anyone's going to change your mind
Speaker 1: about yourself, it's Ben Franklin, right. So he put a
Speaker 1: twist on this. He said he didn't want to live forever,
Speaker 1: but if he could be suspended in a drunken state
Speaker 1: in a giant vat of Madeira, and if he got
Speaker 1: to have a few friends come along with him for
Speaker 1: a ride, he'd be excited to wake up a hundred
Speaker 1: years later and see how the country is progressed. Well,
Speaker 1: obviously I'm not gonna argue with Ben Franklin. I mean,
Speaker 1: his idea of getting drunk is really good and bringing friends.
Speaker 1: What do you proposed was basically a hot tub time
Speaker 1: machine colonial edition, I'd see that. But for someone like Franklin,
Speaker 1: he actually created a new country. So of course he's
Speaker 1: going to be curious. And this is just on the side,
Speaker 1: but can you imagine if he was frozen and then
Speaker 1: emerged in two thousand seventeen, how pissed he'd be that
Speaker 1: he doesn't have a pardon helmet like he was in
Speaker 1: so many rooms where it happened, and he dropped zero
Speaker 1: bars in the musical. So unfrozen, Ben's not going to
Speaker 1: see Hamilton's that they sold out for another five years,
Speaker 1: I think at least. But on the other side, I'm
Speaker 1: sure he'd be thrilled by how our post office and
Speaker 1: fire departments work, or that people still use his inventions.
Speaker 1: What team been in, bifocals and swim flippers and that
Speaker 1: whole grabber thing people use it their grabinator, Yeah, the
Speaker 1: grab house. That one is called the grabinator, but that's
Speaker 1: a different episode. So right now, let's get back on
Speaker 1: the frozen track with a quiz. Okay, mango, So who
Speaker 1: do we have on the line today? So today we've
Speaker 1: got two incredible board game in ventors online. We've got
Speaker 1: Mary Joe Ruder from l A and Peggy Brown calling
Speaker 1: in from Milwaukee. Welcome guys. And it turns out you
Speaker 1: guys actually know each other because both of you were
Speaker 1: the winners of the Toy Industries Game Inventor of the Year. Right,
Speaker 1: so you guys are even friends. I think we are.
Speaker 1: We are, yep, we've worked on projects together. It's funny
Speaker 1: in the business of game inventors were all competitor were like, um,
Speaker 1: the Williams sisters were competitors. But we're also friends. We're
Speaker 1: not we're not frend of these like that from from petitors.
Speaker 1: That's a good one. That's a pretty small universe. Being
Speaker 1: game inventors, I hear though, is not all easy. In fact, Peggy,
Speaker 1: I was seeing that that you're suffering from something that
Speaker 1: comes with being a game inventor. You mind telling us
Speaker 1: about that. It's an old affliction that was named gamekeepers
Speaker 1: thumb because Scottish peasant hunters. I think it was used
Speaker 1: to take their catch and strap it with a piece
Speaker 1: of leather over um, wrapping around their thumb and then
Speaker 1: slinging over their shoulder, and it would stretch out that
Speaker 1: ligament and break that ligament between their sum and four fingers.
Speaker 1: So that's how it got the name gamekeeper thumb. But um,
Speaker 1: I've basically rebranded it from cutting out pumping pieces and
Speaker 1: game proponents and cards and everything overall the year, the
Speaker 1: sacrifices you've made for this, Wow, that's crazy occupational hazard.
Speaker 1: Mary Joe, do you suffer from Gamekeeper's thumb? I don't,
Speaker 1: and I'm not envious of that at all. I was
Speaker 1: reading about you though, that you have a pretty strange
Speaker 1: collection of is it ABC books from all of the world?
Speaker 1: It is, Yeah, I collect ABC books. I'm a graphic
Speaker 1: designer by original trade, and I've always loved Bonds. And
Speaker 1: I was trying really hard to learn Danish and I
Speaker 1: learned mostly that I'm not competent in foreign languages. But
Speaker 1: as I was practicing, I picked up an Apple and
Speaker 1: I'm in the kitchen. I'm like, hey, is for Apple?
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, No, it's not. It's that crazy E
Speaker 1: letters that I don't even know how to pronounce. It
Speaker 1: just became a fun thing to do when I went
Speaker 1: to any country that I hadn't sent to you before
Speaker 1: is to find the ABC book. What's the weirdest picture
Speaker 1: that kicks off and off of that book? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: think the weirdest one I have is from Thailand, which
Speaker 1: has a lot of I'm sure not not authorized pictures
Speaker 1: of different people like Snoppy instead of Snoopy happy, and
Speaker 1: then I'm I love the opponents. All right, Well, let's
Speaker 1: get started with our game today, Mango, what are we
Speaker 1: playing today? We're playing a game called the Ice Have
Speaker 1: It where every answer includes the word ice. So if
Speaker 1: we said this is the product Ben and Jerry decided
Speaker 1: to make instead of bagels, you'd say done. All right, Now,
Speaker 1: remember you're playing for a big prize here. Whoever wins,
Speaker 1: we'll get a handwritten note from us to your mom
Speaker 1: or your boss or somebody else important in your life
Speaker 1: to sing your praises. So there's a lot at steak here.
Speaker 1: So Mary, Joe, you were the more prompt on the
Speaker 1: dial ends, so you get to go first. We're gonna
Speaker 1: put thirty seconds on the clock and we're gonna see
Speaker 1: how many you can answer We've got six questions for you.
Speaker 1: Let's see if we can get through all all six
Speaker 1: of them. You ready, remember, I'll give you. I'll give
Speaker 1: you a clue and you have to tell me the answer.
Speaker 1: All right, let's go. Val Kilmer's nickname and top gun
Speaker 1: ice Man got it. One half of an Arnold, one
Speaker 1: half of an Arnold. Palmer iced tea phrase meaning on
Speaker 1: shaky ground. Rapper Robert Van Winkle's hit song from Yes
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven fourigner hit and we are over time.
Speaker 1: We'll see if she can answer this one. I see freezy,
Speaker 1: goodness happy. It's probably a little bit hard when the
Speaker 1: other contestants going, I know this one. I know this one.
Speaker 1: I can't help it. I have a confession to make.
Speaker 1: I wrote five thousand of these clues for a game
Speaker 1: called Buzzword. So how many did you get? How many
Speaker 1: did you get? Right? Mary Joe went four for six.
Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna put thirty seconds on the clock again.
Speaker 1: Are you ready? Peggy? Ready? Help between each one? Mary Joe,
Speaker 1: you may make sure you say I know it. Okay,
Speaker 1: That's That's how I'm going to help al Right, Here
Speaker 1: we go. The star of the movie Friday movie Friday.
Speaker 1: I don't know it all right, solid form of carbon
Speaker 1: dioxide ice, the name for the nineteen U. S. Hockey
Speaker 1: game against the USSR. I do know that one. I
Speaker 1: don't know, like glory on ice or something like. You
Speaker 1: got it. We're gonna give that to you. Same work.
Speaker 1: Dry ice was the other one. Now, A cheap beer
Speaker 1: we drank a lot of in college, made by Miller Brewing.
Speaker 1: Tell Us Well Done One More two thousand two animated
Speaker 1: movies starring a saber tooth squirrel named Scrat. Well Done.
Speaker 1: Let's do this last one together? A reality TV show
Speaker 1: on the History Channel involving drivers who operate giant vehicles
Speaker 1: across frozen rivers and lakes and remote Arctic territories. Wow,
Speaker 1: who was that was? That? Was that Peggy? All right?
Speaker 1: So we'll give Peggy five for six and Mary Joe
Speaker 1: four for six. That's right. So, Peggy, you're gonna get
Speaker 1: a letter to your mom or a friend or a
Speaker 1: boss in the mail shortly. And because we don't want
Speaker 1: anyone's mailbox to feel lonely, Mary Joe, you can wipe
Speaker 1: that sour expression off your face and replace it with
Speaker 1: a different sour expression. Because We're going to send you
Speaker 1: a package of Bob's Frozen Pickles, the only frozen pickle
Speaker 1: pops on the market, so such a great price. We're
Speaker 1: all winners here today. Thank you guys, so much. Good
Speaker 1: luck to both of you. Um and you can't wait
Speaker 1: to see your next inventions. So one of the strangest
Speaker 1: parts about cryonics is that it occurs in nature all
Speaker 1: the time. Yeah, that's right. There are a few animals
Speaker 1: that can freeze and survive. Ice worms do it, painted turtles,
Speaker 1: certain scorpions, but the American wood frog is kind of
Speaker 1: the all star and that's the one that gets talked about.
Speaker 1: Unlike other animals that hibernate by slowing their metabolism down,
Speaker 1: the wood frog actually freezes to a halt. It'll stop breathing,
Speaker 1: it's heart stops. Like you could actually pick one up
Speaker 1: and break off a little legsicle, alexicle, I know it's frozen,
Speaker 1: and in places like Alaska, it'll stay in the state
Speaker 1: for seven months. Then they'll just wake up and hop
Speaker 1: off like no big deal. So scientists were trying to
Speaker 1: figure out the trick because freezing is really hard. Cells
Speaker 1: human cells contain water almost and when the water solidifies
Speaker 1: into ice. It presses down and squeezes the cells and
Speaker 1: causes the cellular death for various reasons. You can poke
Speaker 1: holes or harm the membrane or whatever, and we just
Speaker 1: aren't made for freezing. But the American wood frog is
Speaker 1: totally different. It basically pumps itself full of glucose and
Speaker 1: creates its own anti freeze well, which is essentially how
Speaker 1: croyonots are stored. Right after they pass away, their bodies
Speaker 1: are cooled and they're put on the machine to keep
Speaker 1: circulating their blood until it can be replaced with an
Speaker 1: anti freeze, and then the bodies are packed in sleeping
Speaker 1: bags with ice and store and chambers and incredibly low temperatures.
Speaker 1: So different facilities have very different processes. But what I'm
Speaker 1: kind of fascinated by is that, like the wood frog,
Speaker 1: there's been at least one instance of reported human hibernation.
Speaker 1: So in the book shop, David Casserett tells this great
Speaker 1: story about this thirty five year old Japanese man who
Speaker 1: went to this company picnic and a mountainous area and
Speaker 1: he gets a little tipsy at the picnic, decides to
Speaker 1: walk home, and so you can imagine what happens next
Speaker 1: he slips and breaks his pelvis, and this is where
Speaker 1: the story gets really strange. He's there for twenty four
Speaker 1: days before some hikers find him, just exposed to the
Speaker 1: elements without food or water, and his temperature has dropped
Speaker 1: to seventy one degrees, but his heart was still beating
Speaker 1: slowly and he was breathing, and like the story we
Speaker 1: told at the beginning, he made a full recovery. Now
Speaker 1: there's some speculation about what actually happened during those twenty
Speaker 1: four days, and no one really knows, but it brings
Speaker 1: up this idea of what could happen if you put
Speaker 1: an injury victim in a suspended state by lowering their
Speaker 1: body temperature. Right, And though it sounds so incredibly far fetched,
Speaker 1: the benefits like being able to cool a gunshot victim
Speaker 1: to keep their body in stasis until they can get
Speaker 1: worked on. That could change the way we do medicine,
Speaker 1: like it could help soldiers in the battlefield, or give
Speaker 1: a surgeon more time to conduct a heart transplant. I
Speaker 1: know you were telling me this too, but about that
Speaker 1: study on dogs that showed if the animals were cool
Speaker 1: to a body temperatures seventy seven degrees, that they can
Speaker 1: actually survive circulatory arrest for fifteen minutes and still be revived,
Speaker 1: Like previously the most animal could survive without a heartbeat
Speaker 1: was three minutes. Yeah, that could make a huge, huge
Speaker 1: difference in the survival right. So, but also they're all
Speaker 1: these practical applications that have come out of chronics and
Speaker 1: getting a better understanding of how to freeze and revive
Speaker 1: cells without freezer burn or cellular damage we were talking
Speaker 1: about earlier, Like, scientists have been able to freeze a
Speaker 1: rabbit's kidney than thought and implanted into a rabbit successfully,
Speaker 1: and that technology in itself would be a huge boon
Speaker 1: to humans. I read a figure that twelve people die
Speaker 1: every day waiting for a kidney transplant, and in two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen, even though there were seventeen thousand kidney transplants
Speaker 1: in the US, there were five times as many people
Speaker 1: on the waiting list. But the major reason isn't that
Speaker 1: we don't have enough kidneys. It's that kidneys can only
Speaker 1: be kept alive for thirty hours outside a body to
Speaker 1: still be viable. And this totally upends that. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: supposedly half of the donated hearts and lungs are thrown
Speaker 1: out each year because they don't make it the patients
Speaker 1: in time, so that could all change. But all these
Speaker 1: things like eggs and sperm and even kidneys are all
Speaker 1: relatively simple cell structures to keep on ice, and while
Speaker 1: we know human bodies are way more complicated, it's not
Speaker 1: entirely convincing that cryonics institutes have the answers yet, at
Speaker 1: least so. Our guest today is an incredibly funny guy.
Speaker 1: Got his start in the comedy world as the front
Speaker 1: page editor of College Humor, where he went on to
Speaker 1: become one of the stars of their online skits. Now
Speaker 1: Mango and I were lucky enough to get to know
Speaker 1: him as a huge history buff, which is part of
Speaker 1: why we wanted to have him on today. But in
Speaker 1: recent years he spent most of his time as a
Speaker 1: writer for Saturday Night Live, writing some of the most
Speaker 1: popular sketches of the past couple of years. So Street
Speaker 1: your side all, welcome to part time genius. Thanks for
Speaker 1: having Yeah, it's good to have you. Actually, I was
Speaker 1: curious to uh to hear how you ended up on SNL.
Speaker 1: You know, we hear about the stressful auditions that aspiring
Speaker 1: cat members have to go through to get on the show.
Speaker 1: But how does it work for writers? Well, it's certainly
Speaker 1: not as um terrifying, I guess as the cast. You
Speaker 1: don't have to like stand there and read your sketches
Speaker 1: you've written in front of a quiet room with just
Speaker 1: your bosses. But the way it's done is like a packets.
Speaker 1: You write a packet, which is, you know, maybe five sketches,
Speaker 1: and then you send it in and normally you just
Speaker 1: that's the last you hear of it. Um. But every
Speaker 1: now and then, if you're lucky, like I was, you
Speaker 1: get a response that says, hey, kind of un meet
Speaker 1: some people. And then I got called back to talk
Speaker 1: um with Lauren, which was terrifying. Well, I wanted to
Speaker 1: hear a bit about that, like, you know, when you're
Speaker 1: actually there in the hallways, like, how has it been different,
Speaker 1: like from your expectations going in. I mean, it's it
Speaker 1: really is as cool as I thought it would my
Speaker 1: whole life. I've been such a fan of the show,
Speaker 1: and I've had friends work there and stuff. So I'd
Speaker 1: gone to the show a couple of times and kind
Speaker 1: of gotten a glimpse of it and just felt like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is so great. I wish I
Speaker 1: was a part of it. Um and it really I mean,
Speaker 1: the office is like I think they're redoing it soon,
Speaker 1: but like as of this recording, it's pretty like Dingy
Speaker 1: and Beata up and I like it, like I feel
Speaker 1: like you like feel the history in the place, just
Speaker 1: the amount of hours and chain that people have put
Speaker 1: into the necessilly thing. I know, it's got to have
Speaker 1: been a weird year obviously, with huge ratings, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the highest ratings and years for sn L.
Speaker 1: Much of that I'm sure can be attributed to the
Speaker 1: Donald Trump bump, I think, and and the popularity of
Speaker 1: all the hysterical sketches that are there. But it's been
Speaker 1: fun to see you breaking through with a few sketches
Speaker 1: that have absolutely nothing to do with what's going on
Speaker 1: in politics. Unless there was some sort of hidden message
Speaker 1: in the David S. Pumpkins sketch, which I uh, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think there was. Someone was like, don't you
Speaker 1: get it everyone, it's a it's a metaphor for Trump,
Speaker 1: the big orange guy who scares everyone, who everyone thinks
Speaker 1: it's a joke, and then he scares people like, oh boy,
Speaker 1: you've given You're getting us too much credit. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: we can't let you go without putting you to the test.
Speaker 1: We today's episode is about cryonics, so we thought we'd
Speaker 1: do a little true or false game about things that
Speaker 1: are frozen. Now, if you've seen the movie Frozen, that
Speaker 1: won't help, so that that wouldn't matter. So good. I
Speaker 1: just read a book about Claren's Bird's Eye, so I
Speaker 1: know a little bit about Frozen. Yeah, just the fact
Speaker 1: that there was actually a dude named Bird's Eye, right, Yeah, yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: So here we go. We got four questions for you.
Speaker 1: Let's see how you do, and they're all true. Fault
Speaker 1: you ready, Okay, I'm ready. Question one. A frozen pizza
Speaker 1: brand in Norway is so popular that when it released
Speaker 1: a jingle in two thousand seven, it raced up the
Speaker 1: charts to number one and was played in nightclubs and
Speaker 1: discoes for weeks through or faults. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess I'll go true. Yeah, right, story is too fun
Speaker 1: for it not to be. I know. The gradiosa pizza brand,
Speaker 1: is beloved in the country and multiple jingles have actually
Speaker 1: hit number one. As a New Yorker, I just can't
Speaker 1: I can't imagine a frozen Norwegian pizza brand, being like,
Speaker 1: thinking of that, amazing, but alright. Second question, an anti
Speaker 1: freeze gene from the Arctic flounder has been inserted into
Speaker 1: strawberries to make them more resistant to cold weather through
Speaker 1: or faults. I guess I'll go fault. Oh, this one's
Speaker 1: actually true. It's true. Even though they're rumors that the
Speaker 1: strawberries taste fishy on the internet, that's actually not true.
Speaker 1: They just taste like strawberries. That's good. That's good. The
Speaker 1: strawberries taste like strawberries. So all right, he's one out
Speaker 1: of two. Question number three. While the first Frozen TV
Speaker 1: dinner was a Swanson's Thanksgiving feast made with leftover turkey
Speaker 1: and cranberry sauce, a few people know their second attempt
Speaker 1: goulash with green beans. True or faults? Oh, man, I
Speaker 1: think that might be true. That's actually false. I wanted
Speaker 1: to be true. I want it to be true, but
Speaker 1: it's actually false. There was a part of the Bird's
Speaker 1: Eye book that had we talked about what Swanson like
Speaker 1: their old meals that used to do, and there were
Speaker 1: definitely some weird ones in there. Yeah the chapter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I almost feel like he knew the quiz we were
Speaker 1: going to ask you was like, I better read up
Speaker 1: about frozen and dinners. I'm going to read Mr Birds
Speaker 1: like a better Yeah. I wish that was true that
Speaker 1: I was like, alright, man, go through in this last one.
Speaker 1: This is some hardcore history stuff here, so we'll see.
Speaker 1: So in seventeen French cavalry charged across the Frozen Bay
Speaker 1: at den Helder to capture fourteen Dutch ships. It's the
Speaker 1: only time a naval fleet has been defeated by a cavalry.
Speaker 1: True or false. I mean, I have no idea, but
Speaker 1: I'm I'm gonna get I guess I'm gonna say true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know it's crazy. The Battle of Texel was part
Speaker 1: of the War of the First Coalition between France and
Speaker 1: the Dutch, one of the big wars. Yeah yeah, find
Speaker 1: a book on that. So alright, well, thanks so much,
Speaker 1: street Or. You score two out of four, which means
Speaker 1: you've won our endless admiration. Now you guys can find
Speaker 1: street Or on tour this summer watches gets on SNL
Speaker 1: or find him online at street side l dot com
Speaker 1: whenever you get a chance. Thanks so much, Streeter, thanks
Speaker 1: for having me let's get back to freezing yourself for
Speaker 1: the future and whether it's worth putting stock into. So
Speaker 1: what do you think, mango, Is it really that crazy
Speaker 1: of an idea. So one person that changed my mind
Speaker 1: and how is framing this is Marvin Minsky, you know,
Speaker 1: the m I T scientists who helped develop artificial intelligence.
Speaker 1: Marvin Minsky, of course, the minsker. I was reading this
Speaker 1: two thousand ten New Yorker story by Jillapoor and when
Speaker 1: she realizes that Minsky intends to freeze himself, she writes
Speaker 1: and ask him why, and he sends back these two
Speaker 1: logic charts, and one is about God, right, and it
Speaker 1: shows I'm kind of paraphrasing here, but if you spend
Speaker 1: your life praying and going to church and it turns
Speaker 1: out there is no God, that's not this big loss.
Speaker 1: So you wasted a little time praying. But on the
Speaker 1: other hand, if there does happen to be a God,
Speaker 1: major upside, Yeah, you get to live forever. It's this
Speaker 1: minimal investment with a pretty big potential return. Yeah. That
Speaker 1: basically is Pascal's wager. You know Pascal the famous mathematician
Speaker 1: and philosopher, and his argument was essentially that if you're
Speaker 1: a moral person, there's very little downside to believing in God.
Speaker 1: It's like a low cost insurance policy with a pretty
Speaker 1: big payoff, exactly, and and so that's a pretty common belief.
Speaker 1: But in addition to that chart, Minsky attached a second
Speaker 1: chart with cryonics on it, and it basically said the
Speaker 1: same thing, like, if you invest in cryonics and it
Speaker 1: doesn't pan out, no big loss. But if it works,
Speaker 1: you get to live forever. And basically he viewed a
Speaker 1: belief in cryonics to be as rational or as irrational
Speaker 1: as believing in God. And for him, it was kind
Speaker 1: of a fun side bet, like wouldn't it be delightful
Speaker 1: if this work? All right, I can see that. So
Speaker 1: let's say someone buys in. How does this work? Then?
Speaker 1: I mean, I know in the first iterations, people stuck
Speaker 1: their relatives with the so the families and future generations
Speaker 1: of the first cryon outs were forced to keep paying
Speaker 1: these monthly installments to keep the freezer on. How terrible.
Speaker 1: I mean, it feels like the world's biggest guilt trip.
Speaker 1: And the family didn't make the payments, or if they
Speaker 1: didn't make the payments. This actually happened to quite a
Speaker 1: few people they're frozen. Relative was kicked out of the
Speaker 1: facilities and just thought and buried. You know, it's so depressing,
Speaker 1: But the plants have evolved a little since then. So
Speaker 1: first off, there's a scheme where people use their life
Speaker 1: insurance policies to pay for the freezing, and the big
Speaker 1: companies have all figured this out for you. And now,
Speaker 1: of course they're all these competing cryonics companies all over
Speaker 1: the world, like Russia has Creo Russ for instance, and
Speaker 1: in the US there's the Cryonics Institut in Michigan, which
Speaker 1: was founded by Robert Ettinger, the godfather of cryonics. That's
Speaker 1: kind of the budget option. Actually you pay around thirty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars to get stored there, which is certainly more affordable.
Speaker 1: Or you could pay two thousand in a place like
Speaker 1: al Core, which is the shiny rival and where Minsky
Speaker 1: actually sent his body and Ted Wlliams too. So can
Speaker 1: we talk for just a second about how odd it
Speaker 1: is that there's so much controversy surrounding the two most
Speaker 1: famous people who were supposedly frozen. Whenever you hear someone
Speaker 1: talk about chronics, they bring up Walt Disney. He was
Speaker 1: not buried, he was cremated. The origin of that myth
Speaker 1: is crazy too. Basically, the president of the Chronic Society
Speaker 1: in California came out with a statement after Walt Disney
Speaker 1: passed away that it was a real shame that Disney
Speaker 1: was cremated instead of being frozen, because Disney had been
Speaker 1: interested in the idea, and had he been frozen, it
Speaker 1: would have been great for the science of cryonics. But instead,
Speaker 1: people just heard what they wanted and ran with the rumor.
Speaker 1: Like the myth became so popular that Disney's grandkids heard
Speaker 1: it at school and they believed it, and his daughter,
Speaker 1: you know, their mom was so outraged he released his
Speaker 1: press release to confirm Disney's cremation. And then there's Ted Williams,
Speaker 1: whose head resides at al Core and he might not
Speaker 1: even have wanted it to be frozen. That's kind of
Speaker 1: a bummer, you know, It's like your head is just
Speaker 1: sitting somewhere and you didn't really want that to be
Speaker 1: the case. But it apparently in his will he asked
Speaker 1: to be cremated, and his daughter showed the will as proof.
Speaker 1: And then William's son came with a scrap of paper
Speaker 1: from a trunk that was signed with him as witness
Speaker 1: that said Williams actually made a last minute decision that
Speaker 1: he wanted to be preserved suspect and alcre and ted
Speaker 1: Son moved faster than the daughter did. But the whole
Speaker 1: thing is shrouded in controversy, and he's probably the most
Speaker 1: famous frozen person or frozen head right right. Well, the
Speaker 1: family aspect, in legal aspects can be messy, for sure,
Speaker 1: and today lots of people who want to be preserved
Speaker 1: will wear these thumb drives around their necks with precise
Speaker 1: instructions on how to take care of their dead bodies.
Speaker 1: But the most interesting thing to me is that there
Speaker 1: are actually new facilities being built, Like this is a
Speaker 1: place called Time Ship in Comfort, Texas, which is intended
Speaker 1: to hold fifty bodies, and the thought and planning that's
Speaker 1: gone into this is remarkable. Like New Scientists did a
Speaker 1: cover story on it, and the whole idea was to
Speaker 1: create a facility that works with minimal human interaction. So
Speaker 1: the architects started scouting and laying out ends way back
Speaker 1: in and they actually looked at it from this international perspective.
Speaker 1: They were looking for a place that they had thought
Speaker 1: would be still politically stable, like a hundred years from now,
Speaker 1: looked at Australia and Russia in a few places, and
Speaker 1: they ended up in Texas. And then they looked for
Speaker 1: places that wouldn't be affected by climate change, so they
Speaker 1: picked a precise place and and where there weren't going
Speaker 1: to be natural disasters or nuclear threats. And then they
Speaker 1: looked for ways that this facility could run without power
Speaker 1: from its main source for a number of months. I
Speaker 1: know the facility actually has wind turbines on it. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's so thoughtful. And beyond that, they've actually made space
Speaker 1: to store other genetic information there, like stem cells and
Speaker 1: embryos and DNA starter kits. Plus it's got a butterfly farm. Yeah. Sure,
Speaker 1: So pretty architecture and butterflies I would imagine would get
Speaker 1: people to sign on the dotted line. They're nice perks,
Speaker 1: but fifty thousand clients feels ambitious, especially when you consider
Speaker 1: the actual numbers. Like I remember in that New Yorker
Speaker 1: piece that Eddinger, the father of cryonics, had a really
Speaker 1: tough time getting any clients at first. The first person
Speaker 1: he froze his mom, his first and second wife for
Speaker 1: both clients, but he was so irritated that his dad
Speaker 1: and uncle wouldn't buy in, And it sounded like there
Speaker 1: were only thirty or forty bodies in this facility. I know,
Speaker 1: and jeez, if the only people who wake up with
Speaker 1: you after two years, or your mom and your two wives,
Speaker 1: it really feels like this missed opportunity. That you didn't
Speaker 1: freeze a therapist as well, I'd say, But the numbers
Speaker 1: of actually frozen people seem pretty small. From a two
Speaker 1: thousand thirteen piece, it sounded like Alcor had a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty people or so on. Nice and about a
Speaker 1: thousand people signed up. And you can freeze your pets
Speaker 1: as well, so you can have your dog or your
Speaker 1: ferret saved for later. But again, part of the hard
Speaker 1: part might be that the science of life extension is
Speaker 1: catching up with cryonics. I'd really be curious to know
Speaker 1: how much it costs to to freeze a pet hamster.
Speaker 1: There's this fairly new treatment that's been conducted on mice
Speaker 1: where scientists have figured out how to flush the aged
Speaker 1: and stress cells out of their systems using this thing
Speaker 1: that started out as an anti cancer a drug. It's
Speaker 1: called a P two seven, but the treatment is miraculous
Speaker 1: scientists have realized that in flushing out the old cells,
Speaker 1: not only do the mice have increased stamina and oregon function,
Speaker 1: but these balding, patchy looking mice re grow their hair too.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. The creatures live thirty five percent longer. That's
Speaker 1: not just more life, but good quality life, which gets
Speaker 1: into so many ethical questions. Right, there's a whole who
Speaker 1: gets to live longer aspect, and what happens when we're
Speaker 1: all competing for limited resources? Those are huge questions. Even Inger,
Speaker 1: who was pretty pollyanna about all of this, acknowledged that
Speaker 1: there would be problems, and his solution was that maybe
Speaker 1: humans could live and shift where one group would enjoy
Speaker 1: Earth for a few years and hibern aid, and then
Speaker 1: another group would on though and takeover with I know.
Speaker 1: I mean, we as a species can't even share resources
Speaker 1: like water and food, and the idea that we beat
Speaker 1: Kumbaya enough to like tag in and tag out of
Speaker 1: a freezer seems so unlikely. I'd say, of everything we've
Speaker 1: discussed in this episode, getting people to take turns might
Speaker 1: actually be the biggest stretch. But speaking of taking turns,
Speaker 1: if you're in my favorite part of the show, the
Speaker 1: part Time Genius fact. That's the part of the show
Speaker 1: where we sneak in all the weird and funny trivia
Speaker 1: we couldn't cover. But before we get to that, you know,
Speaker 1: one thing we haven't done is hand out a part
Speaker 1: time Genius Award. Who do you think the prize should
Speaker 1: go to today? I know, in an episode on cryonics,
Speaker 1: we should probably give this to the person who discovered
Speaker 1: dry ice, or the scientists who are grafting the heads
Speaker 1: of one thing onto another thing. But honestly, all this
Speaker 1: talk of ice made me crave something cold, so I
Speaker 1: want to give it to Frank Epperson. Yeah, he's the
Speaker 1: guy who had eleven years old, left a cup of
Speaker 1: flavored water with a stick in it out on his
Speaker 1: porch overnight and accidentally invented the pops. That's right, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm down for that. Mr Epperson. Your family will be
Speaker 1: hearing from us, which sounds like a threat but is
Speaker 1: in fact a very great honor. But back to the fact. Off,
Speaker 1: I'm going to kick this off with a little fact
Speaker 1: about worm memories. Well, first off, the headline and the
Speaker 1: story got me excited because I was like, worms have memories.
Speaker 1: It wasn't exactly that, but apparently one of the biggest
Speaker 1: concerns people have about being frozen and then reanimated is
Speaker 1: whether humans will keep their memories as they get warmed up, Like,
Speaker 1: is Robert Avinger really going to remember his two wives
Speaker 1: and his mom once he gets saw It's a lot
Speaker 1: of birthdays and anniversaries and all that to keep straight.
Speaker 1: And the answer that came from this worm study is
Speaker 1: probably scientists in Arizona took ice worms, trained them to
Speaker 1: react to new sense, and then froze them, and then
Speaker 1: when they thought them, the worms retained their training, which
Speaker 1: is pretty encouraged. I love that you can train worms.
Speaker 1: So I was researching how wealthy cryonots deal with wills, right,
Speaker 1: and I stumbled into this amazing story of Daisy Singer Alexander,
Speaker 1: the heir to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune. Like, she's
Speaker 1: so rich and so nutty that one of her like
Speaker 1: big hobbies with dropping bottles with messages in them into
Speaker 1: bodies of water. I know, And so, uh, that's actually
Speaker 1: how she dealt with her will. And in she penned
Speaker 1: a note that said, quote, to avoid all confusion, I
Speaker 1: leave my entire fortune to the lucky person who finds
Speaker 1: this bottle noy I know. And then in this dishwasher
Speaker 1: named Jack Rum was on a walk when he found
Speaker 1: the bottle, and the executors honored it like Rum received
Speaker 1: this eight million dollar inheritance million dollars and all because
Speaker 1: he loved lung walks on the beach. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: that's really tough to be. All right, Well, here's a
Speaker 1: little fact about Tchaikovsky that I love. All this talk
Speaker 1: of decapitated heads being stored in freezers for hundreds of
Speaker 1: years made me remember that Chaikovsky had a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of irrational fears, and one of them was that his
Speaker 1: head might roll off at name the moment. So often
Speaker 1: when he was conducting an orchestra, he conduct with a
Speaker 1: baton in one hand and keep his arm wrapped around
Speaker 1: the top of his head so the other hand could
Speaker 1: hold his head in place. That's crazy. So this one's
Speaker 1: this one's creepy. Henry Ford's hero was Thomas Edison, and
Speaker 1: that's not the creepy part. Ford had some strange beliefs,
Speaker 1: including that your last breath of air contained your spirit.
Speaker 1: So when Edison was dying, Ford actually convinced Edison's son
Speaker 1: to capture his death breath in a test two friend,
Speaker 1: just in case he could use it to reanimate Thomas
Speaker 1: Edison in the future. You can actually see it in
Speaker 1: the Ford Museum. Okay, yeah, so that's that's that's pretty weird,
Speaker 1: but I've got a good one, all right. So the
Speaker 1: day after comedian Jack Benny passed away, his wife had
Speaker 1: a single stem rose delivered to her, then the next
Speaker 1: day another and she thought it was in poor taste.
Speaker 1: I mean, who was sending a recent widow flowers every day?
Speaker 1: So she called up the florist, who told her Benny
Speaker 1: had it written into his will that a perfect single
Speaker 1: rose should be sent to her every day for the
Speaker 1: rest of her life. Pretty sweet, right, Yeah, that's really romantic.
Speaker 1: I mean unless daisies for her favorite. So I thought
Speaker 1: I had you with that singer sewing machine story. But
Speaker 1: in the end, I think love always wins. I agree.
Speaker 1: That's it for today's show. I'm Ango and I'm Will
Speaker 1: and thanks for listening to Part Time James h. Thanks
Speaker 1: again for listening to Part Time Genius. Be sure to
Speaker 1: subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. And because we're
Speaker 1: a brand new show, if you're feeling extra generous. We'd
Speaker 1: love it if you'd give us a rating on Apple Podcast.
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius is produced by some of our favorite geniuses.
Speaker 1: It's edited by Tristan McNeil, theme song and audio mixing
Speaker 1: by Noel Brown. Our executive producer is Jerry Rowland. Our
Speaker 1: research team is Gay Bluesier Lucas Adams, Autum Whitefield, Medronto,
Speaker 1: Austin Thompson and Meg Robbins. Jason Hooke is our chief cheerleader.