Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas.
Speaker 1: This is part two of our pair of episodes about
Speaker 1: the two thousand twelve Ignoble Prizes. In our last episode,
Speaker 1: we told you what the Ignoble Prizes are and we
Speaker 1: ran through a couple of the winners. We mentioned the
Speaker 1: prize and food dynamics as well as the prize. And
Speaker 1: what was the other one? Neuroscience? Neuroscience, Yes, there was
Speaker 1: a dead salmon and and there's also some spilt coffee
Speaker 1: in the other experiment. Just to rehatch really quickly, ignobed
Speaker 1: Bele Prizes. He's happened every year, put on by the
Speaker 1: Annals of Improbable Research. It is a celebration of the weird,
Speaker 1: sometimes mundane, often hilarious, but ultimately useful scientific studies, real
Speaker 1: scientific studies that happened every year. Uh and uh and
Speaker 1: and why we should care about The aim is to
Speaker 1: make you laugh and to make you think. And I
Speaker 1: think they do both of these really well. Yes, So
Speaker 1: this is the part B of the episode where and
Speaker 1: this one we're just going to run through some of
Speaker 1: the really cool winners from this year. And uh so,
Speaker 1: if you haven't listened to the previous episode, it's not
Speaker 1: required for this one. Um so you can. You can
Speaker 1: listen to this one first and listen to the other one,
Speaker 1: or take them in the order that God intended them.
Speaker 1: But let's let's go ahead and launch into it. The
Speaker 1: first of the prizes that were going to discuss today,
Speaker 1: uh relates to monkeys behind. This is the twelve Anatomy Prize. Yep.
Speaker 1: Franz Dawal, a biologist at Emory University, and Jennifer Pocarni,
Speaker 1: a researcher at Emery, won this prize because, uh, they
Speaker 1: showed that chimps can match the behind of other familiar
Speaker 1: chimps to their faces. Um so, face to butt, right,
Speaker 1: and the two were trying to determine whether chimpanzees can
Speaker 1: interpret gender from appearance. So, first of all, why is
Speaker 1: this study funny? I don't even think we really have
Speaker 1: to say it. First of all, it involves monkeys. Anything
Speaker 1: involving monkeys that doesn't also involving a vicious mauling attack
Speaker 1: or or or a tragic death of some kind is
Speaker 1: going to be hilarious just because monkeys are. You know,
Speaker 1: we can't help it see ourselves in the ways monkeys
Speaker 1: behave and monkeys do ridiculous and grotesque things. Uh. So
Speaker 1: there's that level of it. And then it involves it
Speaker 1: involves butts. Anytime a butt is involved in a scientific study,
Speaker 1: we're all over. It's hilarious, The butt is funny. The
Speaker 1: things that come out of butts are the are the stuff,
Speaker 1: the the the ground floor of of comedy. And in
Speaker 1: this study we have monkey butts, the double good scatology
Speaker 1: humor in this let's get into the specifics. What they
Speaker 1: did is they looked at six adult chimpanzees trained on
Speaker 1: computerized matching to sample. Um, we're shown a sample behind
Speaker 1: when and if you want to get some scientific about it,
Speaker 1: you could say the ano genital region of a chimpanzee.
Speaker 1: And then they were rewarded for selecting a corresponding facial image.
Speaker 1: So it's like three thumbnails, one thumbnail of a monkey's button,
Speaker 1: and then two thumbnails, each with a different monkey's face.
Speaker 1: So I think, I mean, I think the actual paper
Speaker 1: I was reading there's actually a comparison made to like Facebook.
Speaker 1: So you had like monkey Facebook and then monkey butt book,
Speaker 1: and then you have to to to piece the two together.
Speaker 1: So we're studying they're studying this because obviously the way
Speaker 1: that animals identify each other is of endless interest. We're
Speaker 1: very interested in how we identify faces as humans, where
Speaker 1: how other animals identify each other. Like in our previous
Speaker 1: bat episode, we talked about how bats were able to
Speaker 1: perceive other members of their species or peer group via
Speaker 1: the sounds that they make. I mean, it's a vital
Speaker 1: part of how we interact socially with the world around us,
Speaker 1: So we're always interested in that. Monkeys, obviously there's a
Speaker 1: lot of butt going on in any kind of monkey environment.
Speaker 1: There's especially if you've ever been to the zoo, you
Speaker 1: know baboon butts everywhere monkeys are are are naked creatures,
Speaker 1: they're not wearing clothes. The butt is very much a
Speaker 1: part of their social interaction, much in the same way
Speaker 1: of the butt of the dog. It's a part of
Speaker 1: this well like baboon's. I'm thinking too about um. Like
Speaker 1: the estraus, for a baboon, you would be able to
Speaker 1: tell whether or not a female was um was ready
Speaker 1: for mating by looking at her butt. Um so of
Speaker 1: course there's a culture. Yeah, yeah, um, of course. I
Speaker 1: can't help but think of humans and think, you know,
Speaker 1: if if another life form we're testing our recognition capabilities,
Speaker 1: what would they test us on? You know, would they say, no,
Speaker 1: we could pick one another out by hair? Well there,
Speaker 1: I saw a study recently about that about hair. How
Speaker 1: easily we recognize hair, particular hairstyles with an individual. And
Speaker 1: in the study, they would take a celebrity with a
Speaker 1: particular hairstyle like say, I don't know, like a uh,
Speaker 1: just pick anyone like a John Ham. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like like John Ham and his hair, and then another
Speaker 1: celebrity with their sort of signature hair. And if they
Speaker 1: put one celebrity's hair on the on the other head,
Speaker 1: you know, digitally, not with a with a blade or anything.
Speaker 1: No scalping involved. That for at least for a second,
Speaker 1: you identify the person based purely on their hair. So
Speaker 1: take John Ham's hair off, put it on I don't know,
Speaker 1: Ron Howard, and at a first glance you'll be like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's John hamm and they're like, oh no, it's it's
Speaker 1: actually Ron Howard wearing John Ham's scalp A scene. It
Speaker 1: always boils down to those most simple things, right, like
Speaker 1: how our brain is just trained to go into pattern
Speaker 1: recognition mode and create this fact simile of what we
Speaker 1: look like or we think we look like to one another.
Speaker 1: So with humans, we see, we see hair, we see face,
Speaker 1: and we see things like glasses. We all have that
Speaker 1: situation where someone who wears glasses suddenly isn't and we
Speaker 1: don't recognize them, you know, the whole Superman Clark kn't think. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true. You know, actually when I was little, I
Speaker 1: remember when my dad would take off his glasses, I
Speaker 1: would always be a little bit decentered because it wasn't like, hey,
Speaker 1: you're not Dad anymore, you know, when you're very young
Speaker 1: like that, it sort of occurs to you in that way.
Speaker 1: But I do think that this is an interesting study,
Speaker 1: and I do think it's uh. I mean, it is
Speaker 1: about monkey butts, there's no getting around it, um and
Speaker 1: the recognition, but it also says something about being with
Speaker 1: people who are familiar to you in the ability to
Speaker 1: pick out these different things about them and community to
Speaker 1: write because they were talking about familiar faces to them
Speaker 1: and familiar butts. Yeah, and they ultimately found that that
Speaker 1: that they could they could they could pare a butt
Speaker 1: with a face that they knew, but not a not
Speaker 1: a face that they didn't know, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not like it's not that interlinated with them. It's
Speaker 1: not like some sort of magical butt sense that they have. Wow,
Speaker 1: So a Facebook of butts really for the monkeys, So
Speaker 1: it's like butt book, and then we could have hairbook
Speaker 1: as well. I mean these are possibilities. Yeah. I mean.
Speaker 1: The other hilarious thing about this is you can't help
Speaker 1: but anthromomorphize the situation and you start thinking, well, what
Speaker 1: if they did this with humans? And you're like, you
Speaker 1: ask yourself, how many butts in the world could I
Speaker 1: pair with with faces? And uh, you know I I
Speaker 1: have a hard time answering that one. Well, I don't
Speaker 1: think most people wouldn't be able to. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: maybe maybe one, but but it was you're in a
Speaker 1: newdest colony. Well even then, you know, I mean, I
Speaker 1: just don't think we have the butt sense unless there's
Speaker 1: something particular about the butt, Like I could probably pick uh,
Speaker 1: my friend oz Is butt out because I know that
Speaker 1: he was. This is a great story of his that
Speaker 1: I'm stealing here. He was shot with a flaming arrow
Speaker 1: in the arm when he was a kid, because he
Speaker 1: was apparently one of those kids the kind of good
Speaker 1: shot in the arm of the flaming era. So they
Speaker 1: had to take um some butt tissue off to patch
Speaker 1: up his arm. So he has like some sort of
Speaker 1: like he has a big notch out of butt from that.
Speaker 1: Did he grow up in a big carning community? Um?
Speaker 1: I think he was just kind of like a Tom
Speaker 1: Sawyer upbringing. I guess, you know, Um, I thought perhaps
Speaker 1: his parents were in the gym rost circus. I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I just I think it was just kids running while
Speaker 1: with flaming eras like they did back in the day, oh,
Speaker 1: back in the day before helicopter parents. All right, so
Speaker 1: let's move on to the next prize that we wanted
Speaker 1: to discuss, the acoustics prize. Yes, this one is pretty great.
Speaker 1: This one, Uh, it comes to us from a pair
Speaker 1: of researchers in Japan, and they invented this device called
Speaker 1: the speech camera, which the idea here is, and we've
Speaker 1: all been in a situation somebody's talking and you really
Speaker 1: don't want them to talk anymore, You would rather they
Speaker 1: stopped talking, And this could be Yeah, the oscars, it's
Speaker 1: like or you know they're up there. They just keep going.
Speaker 1: When are they going to stop? Yeah? Yeah, what if
Speaker 1: I could put a book push your button and make
Speaker 1: them shut up? And that is what we have here
Speaker 1: and it but but it's the way they went about
Speaker 1: it is they they looked at how we speak, all right,
Speaker 1: when when we're speaking, we're also listening. Words are coming
Speaker 1: out of our mouth, and even though it's not really
Speaker 1: happening on a conscious level, we're checking everything that's coming out.
Speaker 1: We we have a q A department in our mind
Speaker 1: that's making sure that the words coming out of our
Speaker 1: mouth are saying what they need to say and sounding
Speaker 1: the way they need to sound. And if that doesn't happen,
Speaker 1: then it's I mean imagine it's it's like a conveyor
Speaker 1: about at a at a factory. You're building something. You're
Speaker 1: building your words and if they and if things start
Speaker 1: coming out at the other end of that assembly line
Speaker 1: wrong and incorrect, you're gonna shut down the whole line
Speaker 1: and figure out what's wrong. And that's what happens when
Speaker 1: when your speech, if some only things don't seem to
Speaker 1: be coming out right, it shuts it down. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: the speech jamra actually creates this shutting down process by
Speaker 1: playing back the voice of the person who is speaking
Speaker 1: at a really slight delay, and that does cause confusion
Speaker 1: in the parts of the brain that are responsible for
Speaker 1: hearing and processing, and then it causes the person to
Speaker 1: either start stuttering or just stop talking altogether. And I
Speaker 1: do think, as you were saying, it's it's uh, it's
Speaker 1: incredibly Uh. It's just incredible how sensitive um our speech
Speaker 1: and hearing abilities are. That just that's slight which just
Speaker 1: shut everything. So it's not even like a full on
Speaker 1: echo kind of a thing going on here. It's just
Speaker 1: a slight tweak, just enough to make your q A
Speaker 1: department in your brain shut down the line. Uh. Katsuit
Speaker 1: Takakurajara and Colgi Toothka excuse me Soukata are the inventors
Speaker 1: of this, and they said that this technology could also
Speaker 1: be useful to ensure speakers in a meeting take turns
Speaker 1: appropriately uh, and that when the person begins speak, you
Speaker 1: just put this up. I'm just trying to imagine it
Speaker 1: in corporate culture. Yeah, And I think that's one of
Speaker 1: the great things too about it being uh. Some research
Speaker 1: that came out of Japan, because uh, Japan has a
Speaker 1: tendency you think of of the of Japanese culture is
Speaker 1: very very polite and very esteemed and in in the
Speaker 1: ritual of politeness, and out of that you can you
Speaker 1: can sort of imagine a certain amount of passive aggressiveness
Speaker 1: that that that aims at avoiding unpleasantly unpleasantries an awkwardness
Speaker 1: in a social environment. So instead of having to actually say, look,
Speaker 1: you need to be quiet. Now, you're talking too much
Speaker 1: and you shouldn't be talking. Instead you can just push
Speaker 1: a button and shut that down. Right, There's something wonderfully
Speaker 1: passive aggressive about that and and perhaps to an extent
Speaker 1: in a very broad sweeping way, distinctly Japanese. Yes it is.
Speaker 1: This is a polite way of saying please stop. Um.
Speaker 1: All right, So let's go on to the last prize
Speaker 1: that we are going to talk about, the Medicine Prize,
Speaker 1: and once again, but yes, the paper that was honored
Speaker 1: here was titled Colonic gas explosion during therapeutic colonoscopy will Electrocotti,
Speaker 1: which is exactly what it sounds like. It basically has
Speaker 1: to deal with the fact that when you're performing colonoscopies.
Speaker 1: When you're sending in the troops through the back door
Speaker 1: to see what's going on in the rectal region, you're
Speaker 1: basically I mean enough people out there. No, no, exactly
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about here, you're you're We've done podcast
Speaker 1: about some of the technology involved here. We're using cameras,
Speaker 1: we're using devices to see what's going on in the
Speaker 1: rectal area. We're sticking things up there, electric things, and
Speaker 1: we're seeing what's going on. So there are some complications
Speaker 1: that can occur, right, Like we're talking about, like what
Speaker 1: happens if there's some residue in the colin right, there's
Speaker 1: some some fecal residue and you have a laser that
Speaker 1: you're using. Yes, you can cregular the explosion of colonic gases.
Speaker 1: It's rare. It's admittedly it's rare, but when it happens,
Speaker 1: it can understandably be u um uh rather shocking event
Speaker 1: and and and harmful event. Um. You have to have
Speaker 1: just the right amount of gases. They have to you
Speaker 1: have to have the combustible gases hydrogen methane, which is
Speaker 1: produced by the fermentation of non absorbable carbohydrates in the
Speaker 1: colon by calonic bacteria. Uh, you have to have the
Speaker 1: presence of combustive gas, oxygen and the application of a
Speaker 1: heat source. So uh, this and this occurs due to
Speaker 1: the machinery, if you will, that is being introduced to
Speaker 1: the area, right, because think of it in this context.
Speaker 1: You many times they're using lasers to cauterize polyps, right,
Speaker 1: So if they go in there and they find polyps
Speaker 1: and they're going to go ahead and take care of
Speaker 1: those with a laser. So then, as you say, you're
Speaker 1: introducing this element that could be combustible if you have
Speaker 1: let's say, you know, a little release of methane and
Speaker 1: hydrogen gases, electrocottery, You're cauterizing the wound in a colon
Speaker 1: environment where there may be butt gas. And this I
Speaker 1: hate to use the word perfect storm, but this could
Speaker 1: be a perfect storm of of of conditions that could
Speaker 1: lead to a colonic explosion. Now this you know these
Speaker 1: as you say, this is rare, and these explosions have
Speaker 1: happened in the patients have recovered. But if you are
Speaker 1: undergoing this procedure, wouldn't you just feel so much better
Speaker 1: to know that this person, this this Ben Emmanuel events
Speaker 1: hasan worked on this and brought this problem to light
Speaker 1: and said that we need proper surgery preparation. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: they're talking about performing enemas, making sure that the working
Speaker 1: environment is clear before you send in the troops to
Speaker 1: to deal with the problem. So again, it's funny because
Speaker 1: a it involves butts, It involves butt gas, it involves
Speaker 1: foreign objects going into the butt. All three of these
Speaker 1: things are again bedrock comedy. Uh. You know, you go
Speaker 1: back to Canterbury Tales and you have tales of foreign
Speaker 1: objects entering the rectum um. Well, but I'm also thinking
Speaker 1: about that then diagram that we talked about in terms
Speaker 1: of like what makes something funny because it has to
Speaker 1: be in that zone where there's actually uh, there's no
Speaker 1: harm that's going to be done, right, because we're preventing
Speaker 1: harm here. Uh, And yet there's an implied threat of
Speaker 1: a gastro intestinal explosion. Yes, so the gastro intestical explosion,
Speaker 1: colonic explosion, but explosion, whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 1: in and of itself funny plus very very important because
Speaker 1: we're talking about preventing harm to patients who are undergoing
Speaker 1: important procedures, and that's very serious. And and and key too.
Speaker 1: I mean, this whole thing is key to what ignobles
Speaker 1: are all about, finding studies that that are important but
Speaker 1: also hilarious, but and also people who are toiling away
Speaker 1: for hours and hours and no necessarily getting the recognition
Speaker 1: that they need or deserve. So it is a nice
Speaker 1: way to bring light to the subject. Like I have
Speaker 1: a print out of the article here, and I don't
Speaker 1: think like a like not worrying about like the medical
Speaker 1: terminology in it. Like there's no way an eight year
Speaker 1: old could get through this without dying of laughter, just
Speaker 1: because there's you know, it's the whole thing is it's
Speaker 1: about what it's about. It's about colon's and and and
Speaker 1: gas building up there and things going into the rectum.
Speaker 1: It's it's a minefield. Yeah. And I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: this is a great wait to engage kids too, write.
Speaker 1: I mean we always try to say, how can we
Speaker 1: make science interesting to kids? Well, you know, for the
Speaker 1: grotesque aspects here. So there's just so there's an extended
Speaker 1: taste of what the two thousand and twelve ig Nobel
Speaker 1: Prizes were all about. There were some other cool studies
Speaker 1: they were not going to go into here. You should
Speaker 1: definitely look up online people's hair changing colors because of
Speaker 1: the water. Uh. Why a ponytail goes back and forth
Speaker 1: and up and down when a person jogs. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: was one related to Uh uh, it's like boring science
Speaker 1: writing like wi is it like? It's very meta sounding. Oh,
Speaker 1: it was a report on reports and the cost of
Speaker 1: reports and assessing whether or not report another report should
Speaker 1: be done. I believe that was the literature price for
Speaker 1: the Probable. Yeah, so check those out if you were
Speaker 1: at all into science or you're at all into into humor,
Speaker 1: and definitely of those two interest crossover, and I feel
Speaker 1: they do for most of the people listening to this podcast.
Speaker 1: Go check out the Ignabole Prize winners for two thousand twelve.
Speaker 1: You'll find those on the Improbable Research website. Just to
Speaker 1: a search for that. I will also link to all
Speaker 1: of this stuff in the blog post that accompanies these episodes.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you would like to get in
Speaker 1: touch with us, maybe share your thoughts on some of
Speaker 1: these particular studies, some of the studies we didn't mention
Speaker 1: or past winners. You can find us on Facebook and
Speaker 1: you can find us on Tumbler. We are called Stuff
Speaker 1: to blow your mind on both of those. Oh Twitter, However,
Speaker 1: we go by the handle blow the Mind, and you
Speaker 1: can always share your favorite ignoble awards with us by
Speaker 1: emailing us up blow the Mind at discovery dot com
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
Speaker 1: It How Stuff Works dot com