WEBVTT - Ig Nobels 2017: Liquid Cats, Didgeridoos & More 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.880 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from house stuff 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:14.600 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:17.800 My name is Robert Lamb, I'm Christian, and I'm Joe McCormick, 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:20.120 and it's the day after Halloween here in the house 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:23.480 Stuff Works office. How is your Halloween, guys? Yeah, yeah, 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:25.520 I had a good one. I had to go hunting 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:28.920 for like an actual Halloween experience though, because I my 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:30.640 wife and I got dressed up and we took the 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:33.440 dogs out for a walk, and no one in like 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:36.199 a like a mile radius of our house was was 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:39.640 really celebrating Halloween. You're not saying hunting hunting, well, I 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:42.720 was hunt You don't seem like a hunt humans. That's 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:45.400 what you do on Halloween, right, for fine, but not 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:48.440 hunting them for fun, hunting them in hopes of food exactly. 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:50.160 And I prefer the ones that are in costumes because 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:52.640 they taste better. So we had to get in the 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:55.320 car and drive to a suburban neighborhood where there was 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:58.760 like full on Halloween going and it was great. Well, well, 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:02.160 we just went around in our roborhood. UM, my son, 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:05.720 his his friend, uh, their parents, and we all just 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:08.080 walked around at the trick or treating thing and there, 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:10.280 but there was one moment that was there was a 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:13.840 little bit legitimately creepy. I'll say that that kind of 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:17.600 goes in with our recent creepy Posta episode. So we 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:20.240 were finishing up, it was dark, uh you know, one 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:22.120 or two houses left, and there are a lot of 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:24.479 kids on this particular street that we're trick or treating 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:26.640 on and one of the kids turns around and he 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:30.759 points past me, behind my back and says says, he's 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:33.479 dressed as slender Man. And I look around and there's 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:36.399 clearly nobody dressed as slender Man. There's like nobody even 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:39.560 tall enough to be slender Man. And it's like left 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:43.760 me confused for a second, and I for a brief moment, 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:47.640 I considered, is he seeing something that only children can see? 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:50.960 His slender Man back there? And that's actually that would 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:53.800 make the Slenderman thing even creepier if it was only 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:56.640 children could see slender Man. But I wanted to question him. 0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:58.840 I didn't get a chance. I was like, like, hey, hey, kid, 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:02.000 where is slender Man? Point to slender Man. Let's have 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:04.680 a discussion about this. What hey, Joe, what did you do? 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:07.200 I stayed home. Rachel and I stayed home. We gave 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:10.360 out some candy to trig Re treaters. We we reheated 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:13.240 some leftover chili. Kind of nice Halloween feast, and we 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:18.280 watched Toby Hooper's Salem's Lot in many series with all 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:24.800 of the haircuts horror. Yeah, the seventies haircuts unbelievable. That 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:27.359 movie scared the hell out of me when I first 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:29.880 saw it, but I was much younger. Yeah, it does 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:33.639 the scene with the little boy floating up against the window. Yeah, 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:36.560 the vampires in it are really freaky. Yeah. I I 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:38.239 haven't seen it in forever, but I listened to a 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:40.680 lot of Halloween mixes yesterday and there was one in 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:44.919 particular that threw in some samples from the Salem's Lot movie, 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:50.040 the bit where the showdown between the Master and the priest, 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:54.600 Barlow and Callahan. Yeah, yeah, yeah, man, I would sample 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:56.919 the heck out of James Mason in that movie because 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:00.320 he is so smooth. I love how they invert the 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:05.079 classic monsters familiar, like in the Universal Dracula and well 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:08.960 all the traditional Draculas. You get the crazy familiar. You 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:11.880 get Renfield who's out of control, but he's also like 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:15.440 imprisoned and not very potent as a character. In this one, 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:19.720 you've got this smooth, suave James Mason and these fancy suits. 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:23.720 He's basically Captain Nemo outside of the submarine. Hey, I 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:27.359 got a question. Though, we're talking about Halloween and actually 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:31.119 October's over, guys, that means that we can't do Halloween 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:35.640 episodes for another year. That's a bummer, though, you know us, 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:38.120 if you're a regular listener, we kind of slip some 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:40.760 Halloween in all year long, and we'll we'll we'll sneak 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:42.160 it in, I'm sure. But of course we've been talking 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:45.560 about Halloween for a month and in doing that we 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:49.480 we managed to yet again let the Ignoble prizes slipped 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:52.160 past us. So we're gonna make up for that this 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:55.320 week and also provide maybe a kind of a palate cleanser. 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:58.000 I guess for anyone who wishes to move on from 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:00.920 Halloween episodes for a little bit, this will definitely be 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:05.880 like your silly science uh series of episodes. So let's 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:07.680 why don't we tell the audience Maybe some of them 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:10.600 haven't listened to our previous Ignoble episodes, but we generally 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:14.760 cover them every year. What are they Well, they have 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:20.240 been awarded since by the publication the Annals of Improbable Research. 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:23.120 The purpose of the award, according to the editors of 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:26.960 the publication, is to quote honor achievements that first make 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:31.200 people laugh, then make them think. And furthermore, they stress 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:34.880 that the ten prizes aren't necessarily meant to pass judgment 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:37.760 on the winners. Instead, the official website emphasizes that the 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:42.679 prizes quote celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative, and spur 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:46.000 people's interest in science, medicine, and technology. And the principal 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:48.800 individual here and all of this is the editor of 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:52.200 the of the Anials and Probable Research, Mark Abrams. And 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:55.040 I would say that that goes along with our mission here, 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:57.640 and so these kind of work together nicely and that 0:04:57.720 --> 0:04:59.760 like hopefully we give them a little bit of a boost. 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.240 They point out this bizarre research that we can take 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:06.120 a deeper look at, and we have more time on 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:09.039 the podcast than they have in their live ceremony to 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:12.000 actually like dive into the research here. Yeah, and I 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:14.240 think one of the big take homes about it. I mean, 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:16.479 obviously it is a it is a reference to the 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:19.480 Nobel Prizes, where where the like a Nobel Prize, and 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:22.159 chemistry or biology is a big deal, and it's usually 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:24.360 a study that is going to have a huge impact 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:28.760 with the Ignoble Prizes. I think it definitely highlights this 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:32.000 idea that we have touched on before, science as this 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:35.520 slime mold making its way through a maze or a labyrinth, 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:39.960 and and the slime mold of science as it explores 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:42.240 the world, it is going to explore everywhere. It is 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:47.040 going to look in every mundane pantry and closet, and 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:48.640 that is that's one of the things that the the Ignobel 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:51.800 Prize celebrate, some of these studies that we're going to discuss. 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:54.120 It's one of those areas where you can say, why 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:57.640 why did science need to look into that? Why why 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:01.400 did money and effort and and scientific rigor approach this 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:05.119 portion of the world. And the answer is, well, because 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:07.560 science must. Science must go in there. And in some 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:10.400 of these cases it actually turns out to be important, 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:13.040 like stuff that seems totally ludicrous, which I don't know 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:16.320 about you guys, but some of mine seemed totally ludicrous. 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:19.480 But yeah, and and in fact, like other episodes of 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:22.919 our show have built off of the entire premise of 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:27.600 Igno bells, like, for instance, our necrophilia episode. Uh, basically 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:30.159 we got the jumping point off of that from I 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:31.960 think it was like an Igno bell from like five 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:36.599 years ago maybe, yeah. Yeah, And and we were able 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:38.800 to find a whole ton of information. That's one of 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:41.840 my favorite episodes. Yeah. I remember after you guys had 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:44.120 first been talking about doing that, we were in this 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:47.600 long meeting and at the end of the meeting somebody 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:49.640 came over to talk to me about something and I 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:52.320 realized what was on my computer screen was all this 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:56.280 stuff about duck necrophilia. Yeah. Yeah, I hope they liked it. 0:06:56.560 --> 0:06:58.920 And if you out there haven't listened to the episode, 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:02.400 you should because it's really really surprisingly not as grim 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:05.159 as you would think. I mean, it's grim, but it's 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:08.159 also like really educational, both in terms of the animal 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:12.760 kingdom but also psychology of human beings. Yeah. It demystifies 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:15.920 the topic, and I think I managed to do so 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:18.280 in a non exploited way. So what, And it's a 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:20.600 great way to get through a meeting, boring meeting, hit 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:23.920 up the duck necrophilia. So what can we do that 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:26.480 with today? Oh, we have a we have a host 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:29.400 of studies here to touch on. There are ten awards, right, 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:31.080 so this is gonna be part one of a multi 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:34.680 part episode. Correct, how many episodes? Who knows it might 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:36.880 be too, It might be three. Well, we'll see how 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:39.840 it goes. So the approach here, as in previous years, 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:42.320 is we divided these ten prizes up. We each took 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:44.240 three of them, and then there was one left over 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:46.720 and I ended up taking that one just because I 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:48.720 had one of my other papers turned out to be 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:51.040 a bit short. Okay, well, it looks like I'm up 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:53.920 to bat first. All right, what do you have for Joe? Well, 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:56.640 this would be the Physics Prize this year, which was 0:07:56.800 --> 0:08:01.360 offered to Mark Antoine far Dan for use fluid dynamics. 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.320 You probe the question can a cat be both a 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:08.960 solid and a liquid? This is a real Shroggger's cat 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:13.920 slash not scenario, right, Okay, Yeah, I can see that 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:15.920 the cat's both a liquid and a solid until you 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:18.880 look at it. Okay, So it's for a paper called 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:21.720 on the rayology of Cats. So here's an experience I'm 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.240 sure you've all had. You're at a restaurant, you get 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:26.480 some French fries, you want to put some ketchup on 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:29.640 your plate. But the ketchup at your table is the 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:33.319 glass bottle. You know there may be trouble ahead. So 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:36.400 you turn it up, you unscrew the top, you shake, jiggle, 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:38.680 tap and all that, but you can't get the stuff 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:41.440 out of the bottle. It will not flow. You'll have 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:44.160 had this experience. Yeah, that's when you have to It's 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:47.199 probably not very polite, but you have to get the 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:49.880 butter knife. I always take a butter knife. Jam the 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:52.440 knife in, and you did, but then you'd end up 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:55.160 feeling like a real animal, which is always a shame 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:58.760 because I find that the glass bottle of ketchup, you 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:02.000 tend to encounter it at not the highest level of restaurant, 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:03.520 because that kind of place is going to have it's 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:06.920 gonna bring it out to you. And but it's also 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:09.600 not a super cheap restaurant because otherwise you would have packets, 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:11.959 or you would have a plastic squeeze bottle, or you 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:14.480 would have a pump and a little little cups that 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:17.080 you fill it up with. So it's a nice enough 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:21.520 restaurant that you feel awkward jabbing of a knife into 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:24.199 a bottle like an animal, you know, some restaurants take 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:30.760 those glass bottles and then just refill them at a restaurant. 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:32.599 For four years while I was in college, that was 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:35.240 part of the job, was refilling those much cheaper to 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:37.480 buy in bulk and then just pump it back into 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:41.079 But in that case, why wouldn't you use a scort bottle? Anyway, 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:44.160 So if if you have ever had this experience, and 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:47.440 you've ever wondered why won't the ketchup come out, your 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:51.679 interest in the subject of yology has been ignited. Reyology 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:54.640 is the study of how matter flows. So given your 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:58.080 experience with the ketchup bottles, you can probably guess that 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:01.160 this is a surprisingly complex field. A lot of variables 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:04.600 are going to go into how a substance flows under 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:07.840 various conditions. So you know that one glass catchup bottle 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:11.480 sort of cleanly evacuates onto your plate, maybe even faster 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:14.360 than you wanted to, and then the next one, same brand, 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:18.080 same content, same bottle, just will not budge until you 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:21.720 jam the knife in. So what makes the difference. There 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:24.000 are a lot of variables. Temperature is a big one. 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:26.000 You probably know this from cooking, right, You've got a 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:29.080 lot of sauces, soups, so they're edible fluids that are 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:31.760 very runny at a high temperature but almost solid at 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:34.960 a low temperature. And there are just tons of reology 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:40.160 characteristics that you can chart exactly how does a flowing 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:44.679 material react to different types of substrate materials, Like how 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:48.199 does it flow on glass versus on some other type 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:51.840 of material, or how does it like how far will 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:54.920 it bubble up off the lip of a container before 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:57.480 it overflows? There are all kinds of questions like that. 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:02.160 So the measurement of a material's ability to flow is 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:05.959 known as rheometry, And I think this paper technically qualifies 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.720 as a foray into rheometry because it's going to be 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:12.480 measuring cats and how how well cats flow out of 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:15.319 catchup bottles. Uh, not quite catchup bottles, but it gets 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:20.160 surprisingly close. Uh. So reology is actually kind of it's 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:22.440 one of those things that seems kind of dry at first, 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:24.360 but it's more interesting the more you think about it. 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:28.080 The Greek philosopher Heraclitis is famous for this insistence that 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:31.720 the fundamental nature of the universe is sort of constant change. 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:34.599 It's sort of like the static change, since everything is 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:37.360 always changing in a way, everything is always the same. 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:39.719 You've heard that quote that no man ever steps in 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:43.600 the same river twice. That's attributed to Heraclidas. But another 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:46.520 way of expressing this idea is the aphorism panta ray, 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:50.079 which is Greek for everything flows, like we all flow 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:54.360 down here will flow too, and uh and so everything changes, 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:56.679 nothing remains still and far. Dwand points out that the 0:11:56.679 --> 0:12:00.240 field of reology is sort of along the same same 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:03.679 same lines as this idea by Heraclitus. States of matter 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:07.840 are not fixed features of the universe. They're expressed through 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:11.680 a matter of time. So eventually forces act on every 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:16.280 massive particles to make those particles deform or flow in 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:19.720 some way. Uh. Solid matter tends to deform over time. 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:23.240 Liquid or gas tends to flow. Gotcha. Okay, yeah, this 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:26.920 makes sense. So I'm thinking about like we recently talked about, 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:31.200 like these massive glaciers in uh small Bard, and that 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:35.600 some of these glaciers have different states inside of themselves, 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:38.280 so some of them are more liquid and more solid 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:41.000 than other states, and that causes them to move, the 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:44.760 entire glacier to move at different paces. This is somewhat related. Yeah, 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:47.480 but that's a great example because on a long enough 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.240 time scale, glaciers do flow as well, even though they're 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:52.199 solid and you can walk on them if you want 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:54.880 to look over hundreds of years, they're sort of flowing. 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:58.080 Uh So, a major factor in how things flow or 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:00.280 resist flow is the state of matter at her. We 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:02.760 all remember this from you know, elementary school physics. But 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:07.280 by traditional definition, you've got solids, liquids, and gas. And 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:09.679 a solid is the state of matter which has both 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:12.840 a fixed volume it's not going to change in size, 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:15.920 and a fixed shape it's not going to change in shape. 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:18.800 Liquid is the state of matter that's got a fixed 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:22.400 volume but not a fixed shape, and instead it conforms 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:25.240 to the shape of whatever contains it. And then gas 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:27.520 doesn't have either one. It doesn't have a fixed shape 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:30.760 or a fixed volume, but expands to fill whatever container 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:33.920 it's in. Here's where the cat comes in. Now, being 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:36.480 an animal, I think you generally assume the cat is 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:39.920 more or less a solid, right, well, kind of complex. 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:42.920 It's a solid filled with liquids, that's true. Animals are 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:45.920 kind of bags of juice, right and then, but then cats, 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:48.040 I haven't read the study, but ever since I saw 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:50.640 the title, I keep looking at my cat and watching 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:53.000 her move and she does have like a very flowy 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:57.280 liquid movement to totally, but it's not I would say 0:13:57.480 --> 0:13:59.880 it comes through less when the cat is moving around 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:03.160 and walking, and more when the cat is at rest 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:06.560 in various containers and substrates. So you guys are both 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:09.120 cat owners, haven't you seen the way a cat will 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:13.319 sometimes seem to puddle in the bathroom sink or pour 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:16.880 itself into a basket or box. Oh definitely the baskets 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:19.840 and box like that seems to be universal. Yeah, definitely. 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:23.360 My my female cat rowing is she she has an 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:26.640 ability to, like she's a little overweight, which she has 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:29.600 an ability to kind of just make her her mounds 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:33.360 of flesh kind of form around her in a liquid status. Yeah, 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:35.800 I mean, I remember this. I've seen lots of cats 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:38.840 that love to just sort of not just get into 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:44.000 depressions and cavities in various types of containers, but seemed 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:48.240 to fill them perfectly to every edge like a liquid would. 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:52.480 So that inspired some people on the internet to make 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:56.080 posts like cats are liquids, and then far Dan is 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:58.160 basically like I saw a thing on the internet that 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:01.960 said cats are liquids, let's find out. So he essentially 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:05.640 takes a bunch of photos of cats and analyzes them 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:08.640 using the criteria of reology the same way you'd measure 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:12.160 I say, a massive ketchup or paint or mud to 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.760 understand the way it flows. A cat in a jar, 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:19.520 a cat spread across a lot of bars, a cat 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:22.960 in a basket, And what follows in the paper I 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:25.360 would say is mostly just a bunch of in jokes 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:29.080 for yologists, But I do think it's kind of interesting. 0:15:29.840 --> 0:15:32.360 The results are obviously that cats can have some unique 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:37.400 reeological properties, combining apparent features of both solids and liquids. 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:41.480 But wouldn't that be true of basically any mammal Well, 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:46.200 I mean part fur. Yeah, I think the fur, the 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:49.280 fur and the sort of soft body is very crucial 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:51.640 for the cat because probably a little bit solid and 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:56.040 a little bit liquid. Oh yeah, like, well, my bodies liquid. Well, 0:15:56.040 --> 0:15:58.360 I mean we are pretty much blood bags. But I 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:01.000 would say something about the shape of your body. So 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:04.840 imagine yourself trying to get into a sink or a 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:08.040 box or a basket and just fill it the way 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:11.040 a cat appears to like a liquid. It doesn't seem 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:13.680 quite as easy for you and me. Right, One of 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:15.360 the things about cats of course, is that they are 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:18.640 extremely flexible and uh and and then they have these 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:22.320 sort of various resting states that they'll go into, these 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:26.560 kind of uniform uh, you know, resting states. So there's 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:28.000 there's I like to think of it as you have 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:30.880 the bread uh shape where the cat you know, kind 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:33.360 of tucks its legs in and it it's kind of busy, 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:36.000 kind of cat bush cat loaf, Yeah, the cat or 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:38.120 a cat loaf, you could call it. There's also the 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:41.400 bagel in which they curl up, and then there's one 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:43.720 there's one I think most of them do this, but 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:45.720 my cat Mo, she definitely does this one where she 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:48.000 just kind of like lays like she's been hit by 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:50.760 a truck or something, you know, where it's just just 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:54.520 completely sprawled out. But all of these they do look 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:58.000 like different animals in these different shapes, and it's really 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:00.680 hard to nail down exactly what the shape of their 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:05.639 body is. Yeah, but my flesh isn't as loosely hanging 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:08.520 off of my body as it does in my cat's right, Yeah, 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:10.240 and cats you feel like you can just move it 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:12.879 all over the place, and the fur really helps. Also. 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:16.680 The fur gives the illusion that there's like a much 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:19.720 more body there than there actually is, and that part 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:23.000 of the body obviously can be deformed into almost any shape. 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:24.680 That's why when you give a cat of bath, it 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:27.639 is like one of the saddest things ever because they're miserable. 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:30.120 But also they lose this ability you're talking about, right, 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:32.600 So that's part of the thing. A shaved cat would 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:34.840 not appear to be a liquid in the same way 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:38.200 a very furry cat is. But I I think it's 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:40.280 it's pretty funny in the paper, Like a lot of 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:43.400 these are obviously a lot of these things, he says 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:46.200 in the paper are funnier if you are a reeologist 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:49.080 or you're familiar with all these concepts, but they're still 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:51.600 pretty funny even to an outsider. Like one is a 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:54.520 picture of a cat in a basket, and it's a 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:57.679 very small basket. So picture a large cat in like 0:17:57.720 --> 0:18:01.920 a small French fry basket, and it's it's gathered up 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:05.360 into the basket, clearly filling it entirely, but puffing out 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:08.639 over the top and hanging over the sides. And he 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:12.080 analyzes this photo by saying, quote cat on a super 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:19.720 philadophobic substrate, showing a high contact angle. Another one, he's 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:22.520 got a jar turned on its side with the mouth 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:26.359 facing out, and there is a kitten pretty much completely 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:30.240 filling the jar, and he says, quote tilted jar experiment 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:33.639 showing the yield stress of a kitten. So the yield 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:36.080 stress would be like what kind of stress has to 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:38.840 be put on a mass of liquid before it flows 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:41.960 out of a container at a certain angle. So, for example, 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:44.760 the ketchup in the bottle, A lot of times the 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:46.879 ketchup will not come out of the bottle because you 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:50.080 have not adequately met its yield stress in whatever form 0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:52.840 it takes in the bottle. Here we've got the kitten 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:55.320 will not pour out of this jar because it's yield 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:58.800 stress has not been met. So while this is funny, right, 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:01.240 and it's written to be funny, it also seems like 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:05.320 it's probably important because it illustrates the principles of reology 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:08.200 in a way that that basically backs up how well 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:10.119 they work. Yeah, I think that's a good point. I 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:12.400 would say that this paper seems to me to be 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:15.600 jokier than most of the other papers were looking at 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:18.080 this time, Like he actually does do some math in 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:23.040 the paper and actually applies the reheological principles does real analysis, 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:25.560 but it's mostly I think, just for the purpose of 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:30.080 being funny, especially to other reeologists. But I think it matters, 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:32.800 and he mentions in the paper some ways in which 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:35.840 it might matter. Like one thing is that cats are 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:38.840 unlike most other types of liquids you would measure the 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:42.520 flow of because they are self powered and self moving. 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:45.280 And there are some analogies here to other things that 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:48.400 you might actually want to study, like studying the flow 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:51.800 of self powered materials does matter in a lot of scenarios, 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:55.560 like studying the movement of large packs or flocks of animals, 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:59.560 or studying the flow of crowds of humans under various constraints. 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:02.200 And this is sort of me extrapolating, because I think 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:04.760 that would also come into some different kinds of fields 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:07.200 other than reyology. There's probably, you know, such a thing 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:10.119 as just studying crowd dynamics. But but hold on, I 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:13.080 got an idea of how this connects. Okay, So remember 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:16.679 that movie World War Z with the zombies like zombie 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:19.520 flow basically, yeah, exactly, like the zombies like came together 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:21.600 as like a hive mind and could like didn't. There's 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:23.360 even one point where like I think they turned into 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:25.359 a hand or something something dumb like that, Right, They 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:28.000 formed structures kind of like firing'st you're talking about the movie, 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:30.920 the movie, not the book at all. Yeah. Uh, well 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:34.040 they would climb walls by piling themselves up against the 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:37.960 wall and then scaling over. Yeah, exactly. And so you 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:40.119 could Let's say you were one of the c g 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:43.119 I operators on that film and you needed to figure 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:46.080 out how they would flow. You could probably use the 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:53.080 principles of reyology applied based on something like on crowd dynamics. Yeah. Possibly, Well, 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:55.479 I mean I would say that crowd dynamics, studying the 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:59.280 flow of crowds and other self powered uh types of 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:04.880 flow could have real consequences, and say designing environments. For example, 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:08.640 crowd crush and trampling are real things that happen when 0:21:08.640 --> 0:21:10.560