Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In it's Saturday.
Speaker 1: Time to go into the vault for a classic. Today
Speaker 1: we are retrieving last year's Ignobel Prizes episode. That's right,
Speaker 1: This is a tradition for us. Basically what happens is
Speaker 1: generally in mid to late September um the Ignoble Prizes
Speaker 1: come out. These are prizes that celebrate the weird and
Speaker 1: the at times humorous in legitimate scientific investigation. Uh, and
Speaker 1: it always makes for a fun episode. We tend to
Speaker 1: come back and do them after Halloween. Is generally our
Speaker 1: first post Halloween episode or thereabouts. And so yeah, this
Speaker 1: is last year's selection, and we'll give your heads up
Speaker 1: that the next new episode of Stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 1: Mind will be some selections from the Ignoble Prizes. Let's
Speaker 1: jump right in. Welcome to Stuff to Your Mind, a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio's House to Works. Hey, Welcome
Speaker 1: to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert
Speaker 1: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we are revisiting a
Speaker 1: yearly tradition. That's right. Every year, pretty much about this time,
Speaker 1: we look and see what was honored at this year's
Speaker 1: Ignoble Prizes. The prizes themselves come out. I believe that
Speaker 1: the end of September or the very beginning of October
Speaker 1: timing for us, Yeah, because that's when we want to
Speaker 1: get into our Halloween content, and so we always do.
Speaker 1: We just steamroll ahead into the Halloween content. And then afterwards, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, after especially after the dust is sort of
Speaker 1: settled on the Ignobele Prizes, the mainstream media coverage of
Speaker 1: the event has died away, then we come back and
Speaker 1: we picked through the winners and sometimes we cover absolutely everything.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we cover a few choice selections here and there,
Speaker 1: and that's going to be the mo all we're going
Speaker 1: to be employing here. Yeah, we're just gonna take a
Speaker 1: look at a few highlights that stuck out to us.
Speaker 1: So for those who haven't heard before, a quick refresher
Speaker 1: on the Ignobles. Yeah, they've been awarded each year since
Speaker 1: by the publication the Annals of Improbable Research. The purpose
Speaker 1: of the award, according to the editors of Improbable Researches
Speaker 1: to quote honor achievements that first make people laugh and
Speaker 1: then make them think. Furthermore, they stressed that the ten
Speaker 1: prizes aren't necessarily meant to pass judgment on the winners. Instead,
Speaker 1: the official website emphasizes that the prizes quote celebrate the unusual,
Speaker 1: honor the imaginative, and spur people's interests in science, medicine,
Speaker 1: and technology. And the principal individual here is editor Mark Abrams. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: every year it is just a it's you know, it's
Speaker 1: making fun of the idea a little bit of the
Speaker 1: Nobel Prizes, uh, which which celebrate, you know, key advancements
Speaker 1: and and and key examples of work that are really
Speaker 1: pushing forward are our understand ending of ourselves and the universe, nature.
Speaker 1: And the Ignoble Prizes tend to highlight more absurd intreats,
Speaker 1: but none not necessarily intreaes that are you know, that
Speaker 1: are completely useless. And I think that's an important thing
Speaker 1: to stress, and something we've tried to stress in the
Speaker 1: past when covering the event is that studies that are
Speaker 1: honored by the Ignoble Prizes maybe snick or inducing. They
Speaker 1: may seem a little silly at first glance, but they
Speaker 1: are all works of real science, of real ingenuity, and
Speaker 1: if nothing else, they are expanding hoping to expand the
Speaker 1: the threshold of human understanding. Yeah, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: one of our favorite things to explore on this show
Speaker 1: is realizing that there's an interesting question in a place
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have expected to find it, and that's what
Speaker 1: a lot of this research does. And so on that note,
Speaker 1: let us turn to the first Ignoble Prize winning study
Speaker 1: that we would like to highlight here today, and that
Speaker 1: is the two I was in a nineteen Award winner
Speaker 1: in physics, awarded to Patricia yang at All for studying
Speaker 1: how and why wombats make a cube shaped poop. Wombats
Speaker 1: are so cute they are there. They are so adorable
Speaker 1: to look at. I mean, obviously the babies, any baby
Speaker 1: animal is going to be adorable, but even the adults
Speaker 1: look like living Teddy Bear creatures, like living Teddy bear
Speaker 1: marsu fiels. I bet they're just nightmarish, you know, it's
Speaker 1: given how cute they are. I'm sure they kill thousands
Speaker 1: of people every year. Now, I mean, to be to
Speaker 1: be clear, they can protect themselves, and sometimes they do
Speaker 1: harm humans if provoked or I think there have been
Speaker 1: cases where like there was a wombat that had the
Speaker 1: mange or something like that and was therefore a little
Speaker 1: more agitated. So yes, there they can. They are kind
Speaker 1: of tough customers in their own right own right, They're
Speaker 1: not straight up wolverines or anything, but they can. They
Speaker 1: can look after themselves. So this particular paper, how do
Speaker 1: wombats make cubed pooh uh? Came? This was presented at
Speaker 1: the seventy furth Annual Meeting of the APS Division of
Speaker 1: Fluid Dynamics, And I believe this is presented in Atlanta, Georgia,
Speaker 1: where of course we record the show. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: at least part of the team is Georgia Tech, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So the species here, vombat us your sinus, is a
Speaker 1: pudgy herbivore roughly the size of a kind of a
Speaker 1: thick dog, like a really thick dog, and it's a marsupial.
Speaker 1: They have pouches, but since they're burrowers, they have backward
Speaker 1: pouches so as not to fill the pouch up with
Speaker 1: dirt and endanger the young one that may be within
Speaker 1: the pouch. So interesting, so like if they're pulling themselves
Speaker 1: forward on their belly through the dirt, the dirt does
Speaker 1: not go in, right, yeah, because we can all imagine
Speaker 1: the cartoon scenario. They're just filling up with dirt, right.
Speaker 1: They have a slow metabolism. They feed mostly on grasses
Speaker 1: and roots, and they're largely nocturnal or crepuscular, you know,
Speaker 1: so they're gonna you know, they're not going to venture out,
Speaker 1: usually in the brightest light of the day. They may
Speaker 1: come out though on particularly overcast days, and they can again,
Speaker 1: they can put up a fight if threatened. And you'll
Speaker 1: find them in Australia and in Tasmania. They're cute. They're
Speaker 1: not endangered, despite being treated as vermin by some farmers.
Speaker 1: And oh I love this. Groups of wombats are are
Speaker 1: sometimes called a mob, sometimes just called a group, but
Speaker 1: sometimes they're also known as a wisdom of wombats. Oh man,
Speaker 1: that's better than a murder of crows. That is. I
Speaker 1: just imagine these wise, cute, elder wombats that have so
Speaker 1: so much wisdom to share with the world. I don't
Speaker 1: mean to be mean, but they don't necessarily look wise.
Speaker 1: They do look they look more clever than wise. Well
Speaker 1: what would you what would you refer to them as
Speaker 1: It's like a snuggle of wombats. It would be a
Speaker 1: snuggy of wombats. That's pretty good. A slank it of wombats,
Speaker 1: A slank it of wombats. I like that. But one
Speaker 1: of the more puzzling attributes of the wombat has long
Speaker 1: been their poop, because it is cubic. And we're not
Speaker 1: talking necessarily perfectly cubic in a Mattris geometrical sense, but
Speaker 1: yet for a world mostly devoid, pretty much completely devoid
Speaker 1: of natural squares, certainly natural biological squares, this is pretty
Speaker 1: darned cubic. Yeah, totally. I mean, if you come across
Speaker 1: these things in nature, you would think they were made
Speaker 1: by humans. Yeah. They look kind of like chocolate marshmallows,
Speaker 1: like really square chocolate marshmallows. If you see a picture
Speaker 1: of them, yeah, not the cylindrical marshmallows, like the more
Speaker 1: old school like carved out ones with corners. Granted, I
Speaker 1: think the images were both looking at here, they're dried
Speaker 1: a little bit, but still even fresh out the shoot.
Speaker 1: They are there. They are cubic in nature. It is
Speaker 1: really hard to imagine how these things are made just picked.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know how much time one wants
Speaker 1: to spend contemplating a wombad anus, but like, it just
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like a normal thing that would emerge physically
Speaker 1: from a what I would assume to be rounded anus. Well,
Speaker 1: the wombat anus is not immune for the the inquiry
Speaker 1: of science, and that's where Yang and her team come in.
Speaker 1: Uh And again, yeah, Yang is local, based out of
Speaker 1: the School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech, where she's
Speaker 1: a post doctoral fellow. Uh So, since she's local, maybe
Speaker 1: we should have her on the on the show. Because
Speaker 1: she's not just a one time Ignoble winner, she's a
Speaker 1: two time Ignoble winner because she and co author David
Speaker 1: who also shared the two thousand fifteen Ignoble Physics Prize
Speaker 1: for testing the biological principle that nearly all mammals and
Speaker 1: empty their bladders in about twenty one seconds plus or
Speaker 1: minus thirteen seconds. I don't know the plus or minus
Speaker 1: thirteen seconds buys you a pretty big window there, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I find myself very often thinking about this one in
Speaker 1: the bathroom. So, having turned away from the world of urine,
Speaker 1: the researchers were interested by this puzzle of the wombat poop,
Speaker 1: so they looked at how differences and wombats digestive processes
Speaker 1: and soft tissue structures informed this curious structure. So they investigated.
Speaker 1: They used the digestive tracks of wombats that had been
Speaker 1: euthanized following motor vehicle collisions in Tasmania. Uh so you
Speaker 1: have to you have to have some actual bodies to
Speaker 1: look at there, and then it seems like a reasonable
Speaker 1: way to go about getting them. They found that the
Speaker 1: shape occurred towards the very end of the intestines. As
Speaker 1: the matter became increasingly firm, it became clear that quote
Speaker 1: varying elastic properties of wombats intestinal walls allowed for the
Speaker 1: cubic formation. And the result is a cube, the only
Speaker 1: organic cube and nature, they say, and it's not made
Speaker 1: yang stresses by the two typical human methods of creating cubes.
Speaker 1: We because we tend to mold a cube or we
Speaker 1: cut a cube. Right, we slice a cube out of
Speaker 1: something via you know, subtractive manufacturing. But this is a
Speaker 1: third way. This is the way of the wombat where
Speaker 1: it is it is It is formed through the you know,
Speaker 1: the excretion process of the lower intestines. So this would
Speaker 1: be not cutting a cube, not molding a cube, maybe
Speaker 1: pinching a cue cube yeah, pinching cube and then excreting
Speaker 1: a cube. Now you're probably wondering, well, what is the
Speaker 1: why of all of this? Right, if the wombat is
Speaker 1: doing something entirely different with its poop, there has to
Speaker 1: be a reason. Well, scientists believe it comes down to
Speaker 1: the fact that these burrowing nocturnal herbivores depend largely on
Speaker 1: their sense of smell. They largely communicate by smell, and therefore,
Speaker 1: like various other animals that are also smell dependent, their
Speaker 1: fecal matter is their calling card. I mean, you have
Speaker 1: a dog, you know how the how they behave that
Speaker 1: the sort of the the the the heightened importance of
Speaker 1: fecal matter in the dog world. Yeah, out on a
Speaker 1: walk in the neighborhood. Poop is like a Facebook status update.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know that you're interested, you want to
Speaker 1: check it out, Like we just see something we don't
Speaker 1: want to step in. Maybe the in the sense data
Speaker 1: there is just telling us not to step in it.
Speaker 1: But to a dog with heightened, far heightened sensibilities, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of data in the sense emerging from that poop.
Speaker 1: It's interesting stuff. And so while it's something like a
Speaker 1: while something like a cat hides its poop because it
Speaker 1: doesn't want to be known to either it's many prey
Speaker 1: animals or it's many predators. Wombats are a different matter. Today.
Speaker 1: Wombats don't have many natural predators, uh so certainly adult wombats,
Speaker 1: and they use their piled feces to mark territory and
Speaker 1: to communicate with other wombats. And and they don't live
Speaker 1: on a prairie. Their ups and down to the topography
Speaker 1: of their natural habitat. And placing their poops at higher
Speaker 1: elevations such as a tops, some rocks, on top of
Speaker 1: a log, or on a ledge, it makes it stand
Speaker 1: out more visually to other wombats. And again they don't
Speaker 1: have great great a sense of sight, but still you
Speaker 1: put it up there on a ledge, more wombats are
Speaker 1: able to see it, and then the wombats can come
Speaker 1: in and take a more informed a smell of the
Speaker 1: wombat poop and learn something about about its maker. So
Speaker 1: the wombat rectum is sort of designed by evolution to
Speaker 1: create poop monuments like testaments to the will of the
Speaker 1: wombat that occupies this territory, poop that stays put basically,
Speaker 1: which is interestingly quite the exact opposite of the round
Speaker 1: goat feces and many of you've probably seen emerging from
Speaker 1: the rear end of a goat, which is believed to
Speaker 1: have evolved to roll downhill and essentially self hide in
Speaker 1: hilly or mountainous terrain, so as better maybe to throw
Speaker 1: off a cougar that could be pursuing yours. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like for the goat, it's better that the poop just
Speaker 1: gets lost, but for the wombat, the wombat has very
Speaker 1: specific needs. They require the poop to remain in sight
Speaker 1: and to be found. And so yeah, it's basically with
Speaker 1: the wombats, it's it's highly adaptive to be able to
Speaker 1: poop cubes that stay put. It's part of their language
Speaker 1: of expression. Now, naturally there are potential bio mimetic possibilities here.
Speaker 1: In the future, yet, says, we might see human created
Speaker 1: cubes produced not by molding or cutting, but by this
Speaker 1: sort of excretion. So I can't help but wonder if
Speaker 1: this will be the future of our Valentine's Day chocolates.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, like a like a mechanical industrial anus for
Speaker 1: pooping out chocolate and exactly that shape, exactly delicious. So
Speaker 1: that's the Physics Prize, and uh yeah, I just love
Speaker 1: this story because wombats are such interesting creatures and and
Speaker 1: this is ultimately extremely insightful like this is this is
Speaker 1: not this is something that, yes, it's laughable because it's
Speaker 1: poop poop from a cute marsupial, But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: it's it really it illustrates something amazing about evolution, and
Speaker 1: it also highlights where we might go in the future
Speaker 1: when it comes to making cubicle candy. And if you
Speaker 1: want to learn more about this, Patricia Yang also has
Speaker 1: a website Patricia Yang dot net. Excellent. Well, maybe we
Speaker 1: should take a quick break and then when we come
Speaker 1: back we can talk about dirty money. All right, we're
Speaker 1: back dirty money. This is this year's Economics Prize for
Speaker 1: the IGNO Bells. This went to Habibkadek, Timothy A. Voss,
Speaker 1: and Andreas Voss for testing which country's paper money is
Speaker 1: best at transmitting dangerous bacteria. The paper was called Money
Speaker 1: and Transmission of Bacteria in Anti Microbial Resistance and Infection
Speaker 1: Control in and So the authors here start out with
Speaker 1: a pretty obvious fact. Cash gets handled a lot. It
Speaker 1: changes hands. You touch it, I touch it. Tom Atkins
Speaker 1: probably touched it. Ted goes to the bathroom and then
Speaker 1: he touches it. You sneeze, then you handle it. Then
Speaker 1: you pay for your lunch with it. Somebody pays me
Speaker 1: the gambling debts they owe me with that same money.
Speaker 1: It seems like a pretty obvious vector for disease transmission.
Speaker 1: When you were a kid, you probably heard this, and
Speaker 1: if you, like me, are a parent, you've probably said this,
Speaker 1: don't put that money in your mouth. It's filthy, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, for some reason, when I was reading about
Speaker 1: this research, the thing that kept popping into my mind
Speaker 1: is that episode of Parks and Recreation where you find
Speaker 1: out that all the pawnees sit us drink from water
Speaker 1: fountains by putting their mouth over the fountain part. I
Speaker 1: had completely forgotten about this until you mentioned it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was also a skit from the Upright Citizens Brigade right, Yes,
Speaker 1: that we can't go into full detail about here, but
Speaker 1: you can probably figure it out. Somebody who chose to
Speaker 1: pay for things with the fouled pennies that they themselves
Speaker 1: had intentionally be fouled. Right. But as we know, not
Speaker 1: all physical substrata are equally hospitable to germs So the
Speaker 1: authors here tested different national currencies to see how well
Speaker 1: they transmitted various multi drug resistant bacteria, including methicillin resistance
Speaker 1: Staffylococcus aureus or m R s a UH, an extended
Speaker 1: spectrum of beta lactomaces producing E. Coli and vancomycin resistant,
Speaker 1: and Tero coxi or vr E. So here's the method.
Speaker 1: The author has got a bunch of different bank notes
Speaker 1: from different countries, including the euro, the US dollar, can
Speaker 1: Adian dollar, the Croatian kuna, the Romanian lou, the Moroccan
Speaker 1: deer ham, and the Indian rupee. And they first of
Speaker 1: course started off sterilizing the cash with UV radiation. You
Speaker 1: don't want to bring in any pre existing germs, uh.
Speaker 1: Then they inoculated the money with incubated strains of the
Speaker 1: bacteria they were testing, and then the cash was left
Speaker 1: out to dry for several lengths of time, I think
Speaker 1: three hours, six hours, and twenty four hours. And then
Speaker 1: the experimenters tested which bank notes allowed bacterial colonies to
Speaker 1: survive after the various drying periods. And then in the
Speaker 1: second experiment, they also tested the effects of people rubbing
Speaker 1: the bank notes with sanitized hands. Would the would the
Speaker 1: bacteria transfer from the infected bank notes to people's hands.
Speaker 1: So which money came out on top? Well, the Romanian
Speaker 1: lou was one of the most germ friendly. It yielded
Speaker 1: all three drug resistant pathogens after three and six hours
Speaker 1: of drying, and it was the only currency that still
Speaker 1: had a path the gen after a full day of drying,
Speaker 1: and that pathogen was vr E. The Canadian and US
Speaker 1: dollar yielded only m R s A. So I assume
Speaker 1: it's the U S money that Scrooge McDuck swims through
Speaker 1: in his vault. Oh well, maybe he had it purified,
Speaker 1: you know, because I've always heard the scroogeman Duck was
Speaker 1: actually a bit of a germophobe. Oh yeah, they take
Speaker 1: after Howard use. Yeah. Okay. So the Euro yielded only
Speaker 1: the E. Coli strain after three and six hours, and
Speaker 1: vr E after three hours, the Rupie only v R E.
Speaker 1: The Croatian Kuna did not yield any of the pathogens
Speaker 1: at any period. So in the second stage of the experiment,
Speaker 1: they studied the transmission of bacteria from bank notes to
Speaker 1: hands after rubbing. The Euro did not transmit bacteria to hands,
Speaker 1: but the US dollar and the Romanian Lou did, and
Speaker 1: they make sure to point out that all the money
Speaker 1: was sterilized with UV radiation after the testing, so it
Speaker 1: was safe to return to circulation. Uh. And the author
Speaker 1: there's also a point out that this means the type
Speaker 1: of bank note paper in circulation could have epidemiological implications.
Speaker 1: They think major variables here are probably like the materials
Speaker 1: used in creating the fiber of the bank notes. The
Speaker 1: Romanian lou, for instance, which seemed to be the most
Speaker 1: germ friendly, has plastic content that is designed to improve
Speaker 1: durability and make it harder to counterfeit, but it also
Speaker 1: seems to create a more pathogen friendly environment that many
Speaker 1: of the other fibers and materials used in paper money
Speaker 1: don't create. So this would be like the when we've
Speaker 1: we've ever handled currency that basically has like a little
Speaker 1: clear plastic windows in it. Uh. Yeah, it could be that,
Speaker 1: or it could be more spread out through I don't
Speaker 1: know exactly what's going on with the Romanian loop, but
Speaker 1: it has polymer content that apparently is germ friendly or
Speaker 1: even you know, not just German friendly, but like antibiotic
Speaker 1: resistant germ friendly. But the Croatian kuna, you can take
Speaker 1: that and just stick it directly in your mouth. No,
Speaker 1: I mean I wouldn't recommend that, but it seems like
Speaker 1: in this particular test the kuna turned out very well.
Speaker 1: So maybe this is something other countries should consider and
Speaker 1: test out when designing the next generation of paper notes.
Speaker 1: Maybe take some inspiration from how the Croatian kuna has made.
Speaker 1: It seems to be an inhospitable environment for all of
Speaker 1: the pathogens tested. I don't know if this is something
Speaker 1: that has ever even figured into currency design before, have
Speaker 1: like they ever considered how well currency transmits bacteria and
Speaker 1: just how gross money is. Yeah, I mean, granted there
Speaker 1: is less of it that is used on a daily
Speaker 1: basis for many populations, uh, you know, using our cards
Speaker 1: more often, electronic payments, etcetera. But still there's a lot
Speaker 1: of cash out there, and it's troubling to think about how,
Speaker 1: you know, how dirty it is that you get sick
Speaker 1: for money? Uh, you know, not in a spiritual sense,
Speaker 1: which I think we're all accustomed to, but you know,
Speaker 1: in an actual biological sense. You know, even if it's kuna,
Speaker 1: I just say, don't put money in your mouth. Don't
Speaker 1: put it in there, Okay. So also I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about one, not for a long time. Just a
Speaker 1: quick look at the two thousand nineteen Anatomy Prize which
Speaker 1: was awarded to Roger Musette and Boris bin Gudufa for
Speaker 1: measuring scrotal temperature asymmetry in naked and clothed postmen in France.
Speaker 1: And it's not just postman this. They still they study
Speaker 1: bus drivers too, and then people whose professions you don't
Speaker 1: even know. Uh. The original research was published in the
Speaker 1: journal Human Reproduction in two thousand seven. So humans are
Speaker 1: mammals showing bilaterally symmetrical anatomy. If you split us in
Speaker 1: half lengthwise, you will mostly see the halves as mirror
Speaker 1: images of one another. But we're not perfect examples of
Speaker 1: bilateral symmetry. You've got internal organs that are oriented off center.
Speaker 1: Maybe the heart is a little more to one side,
Speaker 1: the liver more to the other, and so forth. Uh.
Speaker 1: And apparently this extends to some aspects of the human scrotum.
Speaker 1: So the authors here begin by noting a discrepancy in
Speaker 1: the anatomical literature. Is the human scrotum on average hotter
Speaker 1: on one side than the other. Uh? Some previous reports
Speaker 1: said that it's equally hot on both sides, while others
Speaker 1: reported that the left side of the scrotum is generally
Speaker 1: hotter than the right. Interesting, and of course this comes
Speaker 1: down to the fact that, of course, on one side
Speaker 1: is one testicle, on the other side is the other testicle.
Speaker 1: And of course part of the whole uh design of
Speaker 1: the testicles has to do with the fact that there's
Speaker 1: a there's an importance of maintaining certain temperatures. Absolutely, I
Speaker 1: mean this is highly reproductively significant information. Temperature of the
Speaker 1: male reproductive organs plays a role in gamme eat production
Speaker 1: and thus in fertility. So in fact, the major biological
Speaker 1: purpose of the scrotum, as you alluded to, seems to
Speaker 1: be thermoregulation to move the testicles near or away from
Speaker 1: the body to help keep them as close to optimal
Speaker 1: temperature as possible. Yeah, this is why sometimes if if
Speaker 1: fertility doctors may ask, okay, are you are you going
Speaker 1: to a hot tub all the time? Do you have
Speaker 1: a really hot laptop setting on your lap a lot?
Speaker 1: You know these sorts of questions because you know they
Speaker 1: are susceptible to outside temperatures exactly. So, the authors here
Speaker 1: wanted to get new data to help clear up these
Speaker 1: discrepant reports, and so their methods were quote retrospective analyzes
Speaker 1: of scrotal temperatures in mid age twenty to fifty two years,
Speaker 1: measured every two minutes with probes connected to a data
Speaker 1: collector in three experiments, so three different experiments. They tested
Speaker 1: this out both naked and clothed in a number of
Speaker 1: different body positions. They also tested it on yes postal
Speaker 1: workers who were working in a standing position for ninety
Speaker 1: minutes at a time, and they also tested out on
Speaker 1: bus drivers who were working in a sitting position for
Speaker 1: ninety minutes at a time, and they found that, especially
Speaker 1: in the clothed state, left scrotal temperature was higher, significantly
Speaker 1: higher than right scrotal temperature. Now why is this? They
Speaker 1: offered a number of possible explanations, including differences in blood
Speaker 1: flow and cutaneous heat receptors, bilateral differences in testicular volume,
Speaker 1: so if like one testicle is bigger than the other,
Speaker 1: that might also affect temperature. But then finally, one thing
Speaker 1: they pointed out as a possible explanation is the resting
Speaker 1: position of the penis, which really seems to naturally go
Speaker 1: more one to one side than the other, and they
Speaker 1: signed a study from nine by Bogart at All that
Speaker 1: found that the penis is naturally positioned to the left
Speaker 1: in about eighty nine percent of cases. So really it
Speaker 1: was an inside job the whole time. It seems very
Speaker 1: likely to be. This study is really interesting to and
Speaker 1: it is looking at like the clothed human and the
Speaker 1: naked human, especially because you really have to think at
Speaker 1: times like how, how to what extent does clothing, you know,
Speaker 1: change the definition of the biological experience? You know, oh sure,
Speaker 1: I mean, clothing is a technological innovation. It comes fairly recently,
Speaker 1: and our evolutionary history is reasonable to say this might
Speaker 1: somewhat change our reproductive behaviors and and how the body's
Speaker 1: reproductive organs respond to the environment. So like part of
Speaker 1: the environment our bodies were shaped for might not necessarily
Speaker 1: be having like the testicles tightly packed against the body
Speaker 1: within some kind of container all the time, right right though,
Speaker 1: I mean to our credit like that that I think
Speaker 1: was a huge accomplishment. Like if you think back to
Speaker 1: a time when when human you know, human beings did
Speaker 1: not have underwear, meaning they did not have as much
Speaker 1: control on like how tightly bound parts of their body
Speaker 1: were to their person. These are things that can get
Speaker 1: in the way of say, chasing after prey or doing
Speaker 1: you know, any kind of physical activity. Sure, but you're
Speaker 1: saying there pluses and minuses. I think so, yeah, But
Speaker 1: then you know the other side is, like the human body,
Speaker 1: the testicles have evolved so that they are there's a
Speaker 1: self regulation of temperature. Uh. The scrotum is supposed to
Speaker 1: be the one in charge of how closely compact the
Speaker 1: testicles are, not the individual who picks out their underwear
Speaker 1: in the morning. Right, So obviously this is a study.
Speaker 1: We can all identify why this study is hilarious because
Speaker 1: he's dealing with French postman with or without their underwear on,
Speaker 1: and temperature differences between one testicle and the bus drivers too. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's it's even funnier actually if you start reading into
Speaker 1: the like their full explanation of their methods, because they
Speaker 1: talk about, uh, like the methods that are used to
Speaker 1: determine testicular volume. There are like units of measure for that,
Speaker 1: and I think like special special apparatus, uh, some that's
Speaker 1: called like an orchidometer or something. This is the probe
Speaker 1: that was mentioned. No, I think that I think the orchidometer.
Speaker 1: The problem is something like that, it's to measure testicular volume.
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly what the deal with the probe was.
Speaker 1: They didn't like have a diagram that I found. But still, again,
Speaker 1: this gets down to human biology re reductive system. So
Speaker 1: it is an important study. Sure. I mean, as we
Speaker 1: said at the beginning, of testicular temperature is reproductively significant.
Speaker 1: This could be useful in a clinical setting when studying
Speaker 1: things about fertility, right. I mean, it's not impossible to
Speaker 1: imagine it could influence underwear design in the future either,
Speaker 1: either reasonably so with you know a situation where a
Speaker 1: doctor is saying, like, okay, we it makes more sense
Speaker 1: for both testicles to be the same temperature, so we're
Speaker 1: going to create underwear in which the penis is positioned
Speaker 1: out of the way of the testicles, or perhaps more likely,
Speaker 1: you have a situation where somebody who just wants to
Speaker 1: sell some underwear looks at this study and this starts saying, Hey,
Speaker 1: you don't want to be one of those asymmetrical testical
Speaker 1: temperature people. You want to have both testicles the same temperature,
Speaker 1: and the only way you're gonna do that is by
Speaker 1: buying this special pair of thirty dollar underwear well against
Speaker 1: that person's marketing concerns. I think the study found that
Speaker 1: while the I think the major differences were when people
Speaker 1: were clothed, but they're also were some asymmetries even when
Speaker 1: people were naked, depending on like what position they were in.
Speaker 1: All right, well, on that note, we're going to take
Speaker 1: another break, but when we come back we will discuss
Speaker 1: diaper changing machines. Alright, we're back. Why does the idea
Speaker 1: of a mechanical diaper changer horrify me? Yes, it horrifies me,
Speaker 1: and yet it is also I think a grand goal
Speaker 1: in human technology. Yeah, that's kind of utopian. It's like,
Speaker 1: at the same time enticing and terrifying. It's a thing
Speaker 1: that you want but you know you should not have.
Speaker 1: It is the very sort of thing that Jeff Goldblum's
Speaker 1: character in Jurassic Park would be irate over right. They
Speaker 1: were so concerned with whether or not they could they
Speaker 1: didn't stop to think if they should exactly. So, I've
Speaker 1: changed a few papers in my time, and uh, and
Speaker 1: I think I've even wondered about the possibility of a
Speaker 1: robot robotic diaper changer. It's the kind of thing you
Speaker 1: fantasize about as you are essentially wrestling with an infant
Speaker 1: or a toddler, and especially the infant, trying to to
Speaker 1: to get at the foul diaper off of them, all
Speaker 1: the while keeping them from say, getting their own foot
Speaker 1: into the poop, uh or and then then flinging the
Speaker 1: poop on the wall with said foot, trying to avoid
Speaker 1: being pete upon, especially if it's a boy, and then
Speaker 1: if there's a girl. There are other concerns about about
Speaker 1: where and where you don't want poop. It's it's it
Speaker 1: is a high. You know, we talked before about how
Speaker 1: driving is a cognitively demanding task. Changing a baby's diaper
Speaker 1: is a cognitively demanding task, and uh, and so you
Speaker 1: you you fantasize, you think, I really wish a robot
Speaker 1: could come in here and do this. But on the
Speaker 1: other hand, I don't think a robot could. And I
Speaker 1: feel like this has also been exit. I feel like
Speaker 1: that the Jetson's probably had a diaper changing robot. I
Speaker 1: could find no evidence of it, but I feel like
Speaker 1: this idea has also worked its way into fiction in
Speaker 1: the past, and so this year's Ignal bells. The engineering prize,
Speaker 1: in fact went to Iranian inventor I'm men of Fara
Speaker 1: Bakas for inventing a diaper changing machine for use on
Speaker 1: human infants. Now, this is a patent. It's US patent
Speaker 1: number one zero zero three four five two, granted on
Speaker 1: July thirty one, two thousand eighteen. And I'm going to
Speaker 1: read to you from the abstract quote. A washer and
Speaker 1: diaper changing apparatus includes a main chamber, a glass window,
Speaker 1: a seat, a leg holder, a safety belt, a diaper
Speaker 1: removing arm, a sprinkler, and a dryer. The main chamber
Speaker 1: is configured to receive an infant therein. The glass window
Speaker 1: is placed on a top wall of the main chamber.
Speaker 1: The seat is movably coupled to the main chamber and
Speaker 1: configured for placement of the infant on the seat. The
Speaker 1: leg holder is movably coupled to the main chamber and
Speaker 1: configured to support at least one leg of the infant.
Speaker 1: The safety belt coupled to the seat and configured to
Speaker 1: retain the infant on the seat. The sprinkler is placed
Speaker 1: inside the main chamber and configured to spray water to
Speaker 1: wash at least a portion of the infant, at least
Speaker 1: a portion of the infant. Yes, like some too, I
Speaker 1: guess all of the infant. Why why am I? Why
Speaker 1: am I picturing those like sealed up self cleaning public
Speaker 1: bathrooms that got in some places like it came across
Speaker 1: these in Switzerland. I don't know I've seen one of these.
Speaker 1: It's like a public bathroom. You go in, it's a
Speaker 1: small little building, and then you use the toilet, and
Speaker 1: then when you're done, like the door shuts and like
Speaker 1: a light comes on outside and it says like cleaning.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that sounds remarkable. I guess they're a little robotic.
Speaker 1: I don't know, sprayers and wipers and stuff in there.
Speaker 1: I don't know what happens on the inside. I couldn't see.
Speaker 1: Surely somebody has has trapped themselves and found out, I
Speaker 1: should hope. So I have to admit. What it made
Speaker 1: me think of was the surgery pod in the sci
Speaker 1: fi horror film Prometheus. Uh. Horrifying scene, but I think
Speaker 1: actually one of the most effective parts of the movie.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, because if if you haven't seen it. Basically,
Speaker 1: the idea is that it is a surgery pod created
Speaker 1: for a specific male individual and an elderly individual, and
Speaker 1: the supposed to take care of any needs that that
Speaker 1: individual has. And then our heroine in the film eventually
Speaker 1: has to use it to remove a zeno more from herself.
Speaker 1: But she's having to sort of uh improvise with the machine,
Speaker 1: and it's terrifying, just like not so much even. I mean,
Speaker 1: certainly it's terrifying when the thing starts cutting into her,
Speaker 1: but just her climbing into it realizing what's about to happen,
Speaker 1: makes for some some great sci fi horror. Uh so yes,
Speaker 1: I thought about that throughout reading this patent. However, the
Speaker 1: pattern does have some sketches, and when you look at them,
Speaker 1: the design looks less like a high tech surgery pod
Speaker 1: and more like a washing machine or an oven dishwasher.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, a dishwasher, not a washing machine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like a front loader, but it doesn't have a
Speaker 1: spin cycle, not to this version. Maybe a future model
Speaker 1: will so um A man of Patobakas is an associate
Speaker 1: professor of Islamic Azad University in Iran, and his engineering
Speaker 1: research involves nanostructures and nanoparticles. So he's so this is
Speaker 1: a legit engineer here that has developed this. Uh, And
Speaker 1: here's a little more from his patent quote. The apparatus
Speaker 1: may be said to be automatic, and some implementations in
Speaker 1: that once the infant is placed inside the apparatus, various
Speaker 1: steps may in some cases be carried out automatically without
Speaker 1: needing the operator to touch the infant or interact manually
Speaker 1: with the diaper or infant during the changing process, which
Speaker 1: may create a more sanitary environment for the ambient area
Speaker 1: and the operator's hands. So I I looked for more
Speaker 1: background on this concept and I wasn't able to find
Speaker 1: much to really shed light on just like how serious
Speaker 1: he is with the proposal as and you know not
Speaker 1: as and is he does he seriously see this as
Speaker 1: a place our technology will get to the human lifespan?
Speaker 1: Or is this more of a sort of an engineering
Speaker 1: thought experiment. If you could create this thing that we
Speaker 1: sometimes fantasize about existing, how might we go about it?
Speaker 1: What might an apparatus like that look like? Sure? Because
Speaker 1: I mean again jokes asiety. As you mentioned earlier on,
Speaker 1: it is a job that people really probably would like
Speaker 1: to outsource if they felt they could do it safely,
Speaker 1: and if it if it is a thought experiment, though,
Speaker 1: it is kind of a perfect thing to think about
Speaker 1: when contemplating the idea of having machines that operate alongside
Speaker 1: humans or upon humans in a human environment, because I
Speaker 1: can think of very few examples of such a highly
Speaker 1: sensitive and specialized job for a machine than changing the
Speaker 1: diaper of an infant, because granted, we desire a mechanical
Speaker 1: baby changer, because number one, it's a gross job. Number two,
Speaker 1: it can be challenging or frustrating to do, and number three,
Speaker 1: it absolutely has to be done. Yeah, it is a
Speaker 1: job that is in extremely high demand and nobody wants
Speaker 1: to do. And certainly we've already thrown machines at jobs
Speaker 1: that felt that all three of these bullet points, such
Speaker 1: as sewer cleaning robots, you know, creating some sort of
Speaker 1: a mechanical device that goes through like a pipe and
Speaker 1: helps clean it out or at least go down there
Speaker 1: and look and see what the clog might be. But
Speaker 1: there's far less risk in cleaning a sewer, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: unlike a clog in a city sewer system, a human
Speaker 1: infant is one the most valuable thing in your life.
Speaker 1: Number two, it's afforded legal protection like it is a
Speaker 1: person and if you if you don't take care of
Speaker 1: it correctly, you could go to prison. And also it's
Speaker 1: susceptible to pain and injury. Getting more into the personhood part,
Speaker 1: like this is this this is a human child and
Speaker 1: not a sewer clock. However, like a clock, the baby
Speaker 1: is limited in its ability to fend for itself, which
Speaker 1: which I think also ties into the horror of letting
Speaker 1: the machine have a go at the diaper. Now, granted,
Speaker 1: we already live in an age of robot assisted surgery,
Speaker 1: such as various you know, prostate surgeries, but in these
Speaker 1: cases we're talking about the machine having an advantage in
Speaker 1: a in its ability to use tiny instruments that humans
Speaker 1: would would have, you know, a little more difficulty operating.
Speaker 1: And then there's also going to be a human operator
Speaker 1: in the room for those and I guess presumably with
Speaker 1: this diaper changing device, the language of it tend tends
Speaker 1: to imply that it's sort of hands off, or it
Speaker 1: could be hands off the robotic baby changer. However, it
Speaker 1: doesn't really benefit from tiny tools. It doesn't really have
Speaker 1: an advantage over human hands or more specifically, human ability
Speaker 1: to roll with what is often a puzzle again. How
Speaker 1: to wipe the poop without the child getting a foot
Speaker 1: in the poop, how not to be pete upon, how
Speaker 1: to keep the child from rolling over, grabbing the diaper
Speaker 1: and flinging it, etcetera. You've ever performed this task, you
Speaker 1: know that a lot of things can go wrong and
Speaker 1: will go wrong on the diaper changing table. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I see a huge difference here in that robot assisted
Speaker 1: surgery is not for the purpose of allowing the doctor
Speaker 1: to not have to do the surgery. Likes to like
Speaker 1: increase the doctor's capability to increase increase the efficiency of
Speaker 1: the surgery. And I do not see a way in
Speaker 1: which having the machine involved improves the efficiency of changing
Speaker 1: a baby's diaper. As such, I would say that this
Speaker 1: sort of machine seems to me to be more of
Speaker 1: an end game of robotics, because creating machines that can
Speaker 1: work alongside us in human habitats, that's challenging. Word, It's
Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine a more challenging place than the
Speaker 1: than the diaper changing station. To throw a machine, uh though,
Speaker 1: that's you know, one of the reasons perhaps that he
Speaker 1: was pursuing the patent, you know, kind of again kind
Speaker 1: of a mechanical thought experiment, and it does serve as
Speaker 1: an interesting way to discuss home robotics. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think this highlights interesting questions about the future of robotics
Speaker 1: and and it reveals our intuitions that that are already
Speaker 1: there about like what are the kinds of places where
Speaker 1: least comfortable with allowing robots to be implemented. I mean,
Speaker 1: even if you came up with a pretty good robotics
Speaker 1: system that worked pretty much all the time, people still
Speaker 1: probably might just not feel comfortable with like allowing robotic
Speaker 1: arms to be moving around near their near their baby, right,
Speaker 1: like one of my very understandable reasons. Yeah, Like like
Speaker 1: one of my I think a very positive area of
Speaker 1: robot exploration is in elder care, particularly in among the
Speaker 1: Japanese robotics companies. And in that case, to you, you're
Speaker 1: looking at aging population with fewer individuals to look after them.
Speaker 1: And also you're dealing with environments where if, for instance,
Speaker 1: if you need help getting up and down from a toilet,
Speaker 1: which is something that you know that that cannon will
Speaker 1: happen with with individual of advanced age, that might be
Speaker 1: the kind of situation where you would say, yes, I
Speaker 1: would prefer to have a robotic helper with to engage
Speaker 1: with me in a situation like that. However, you know
Speaker 1: you're still dealing with you know, you know, a rational
Speaker 1: individual and not a complete infant. Who again, it's just
Speaker 1: so many problems come to mind when you imagine just
Speaker 1: sticking the baby inside of the diaper changing device and
Speaker 1: letting it do its thing. Like best case scenario, you
Speaker 1: put the baby in and you just get an error message.
Speaker 1: It's like trying to operate any printer or all you
Speaker 1: want to do is is get this one thing done,
Speaker 1: But there are a million things that can and do
Speaker 1: go wrong, and you just end up having to do
Speaker 1: something else, change the diaper yourself in this case with printers.
Speaker 1: I think we've talked about this on the show before,
Speaker 1: haven't we. That like printers seem to follow an inverse
Speaker 1: law of technological advancement, where like as most technology becomes
Speaker 1: better and better and more and more user friendly, printers
Speaker 1: always go in the opposite direction, Like every year they
Speaker 1: get worse and more incompatible with everything. Oh yeah, the
Speaker 1: last time I went to buy one, I was thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, Apple makes pretty good uh computers, got they
Speaker 1: make a pretty good printer. How I'm going to buy
Speaker 1: that printer. I don't care of its over priced, And
Speaker 1: of course they don't make a printer their printers that
Speaker 1: are compatible with their machines. But it's almost as if
Speaker 1: they're like, no, we're not touching that. That's just too complicated.
Speaker 1: It would be bad for our brand a printer. We'll
Speaker 1: do the printer when we do the baby changing robot,
Speaker 1: all right, So we're gonna go ahead and call it there,
Speaker 1: because let's see, we covered pooph We covered more poop,
Speaker 1: more poops, qurotums, bacteria you might associate with poop, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the diaper robots really just a good haul overall. Now,
Speaker 1: once again, we did not cover all of the winners here.
Speaker 1: We didn't even list them. There were some more interesting ones.
Speaker 1: There was one about the health effects of eating pizza,
Speaker 1: specifically Italian pizza made in Italy. Does it prevent cancer?
Speaker 1: Stuff that one get picked up in in the media
Speaker 1: a lot. Yeah. There's another one that I think we
Speaker 1: want to return to at some point, just as a
Speaker 1: follow up to an episode we did earlier this year
Speaker 1: about the facial feedback hypothesis, And this had to do
Speaker 1: with the psychologists involved in early research on the facial
Speaker 1: feedback hypothesis participating in failed replications of their own work,
Speaker 1: and and that leads to an interesting, bigger discussion about
Speaker 1: uh you know, the role, like how you communicate scientific
Speaker 1: validity and whether effects are quote real or not. Uh
Speaker 1: So that's worth revisiting, I think absolutely. If you want
Speaker 1: to check out the full list of twenty nineteen winners.
Speaker 1: In fact, if you want to check out the full
Speaker 1: list of all winners from the very beginning of the Ignobles,
Speaker 1: head on over to www. Dot Improbable dot com. That's,
Speaker 1: of course Improbable Research. There the publication that puts out
Speaker 1: the awards each and every year. And if you want
Speaker 1: to check out past episodes of Stuff to Blow your mind,
Speaker 1: go check out our past Ignobel Prize episodes, because again
Speaker 1: we've been doing them every year. We always come. Sometimes
Speaker 1: we cover all the winners, sometimes we cover just a
Speaker 1: selection of the winners. But with without fail, they always
Speaker 1: highlight some some wonderful studies that all so invoke laughter
Speaker 1: every year. It's frank delicious. They make you laugh, they
Speaker 1: make you think yes, yeah. And if you want to
Speaker 1: check out all those episodes Stuff to Blow your Mind,
Speaker 1: dot com is the website if you want to check
Speaker 1: out our other podcast, Invention pod dot com is the
Speaker 1: place to find Invention, a journey through human techno history.
Speaker 1: Believe what, it's November right now. We're doing a lot
Speaker 1: of food related inventions over at Invention, including canning, which
Speaker 1: which is really fascinating you if you take it for granted,
Speaker 1: but canning technology is amazing, no doubt. Check it out huge,
Speaker 1: thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
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