Speaker 1: Guess what will?
Speaker 2: What's that mango?
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure if you're on Twitter, but everyone's
Speaker 1: been talking about buttons this week, Like Kim Jong un
Speaker 1: was bragging about his which caused our Chief of State
Speaker 1: to brag about the size of his nuclear button.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not sure if you have to be on
Speaker 3: Twitter to have heard this news. It feels like it
Speaker 3: has been everywhere this week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is obviously a really fun game for
Speaker 1: world leaders to play, but it's been driving up my anxiety.
Speaker 1: And then I started focusing my attention on all the
Speaker 1: other buttons in this world, Like did you know that
Speaker 1: the Victoria's Secret model Carolina Kurkova was born with a
Speaker 1: medical complication, so she has no belly button. Like every
Speaker 1: time she's in a magazine, they actually have to photoshop
Speaker 1: a button in.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Actually, I didn't realize humans could be born without belly buttons.
Speaker 2: I thought that was just animals that hashed from eggs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I don't think she's a reptile, if that's
Speaker 1: what you're implying. Like, she had an operation when she
Speaker 1: was a child, so she has this strange, smooth belly.
Speaker 2: But apparently she's not alone.
Speaker 1: There are lots of people in the world without belly
Speaker 1: buttons as well, And it isn't just an Adam and
Speaker 1: Eve thing. But that's just the first of our button
Speaker 1: facts on today's Nine Things. Let's dive in.
Speaker 3: Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to part time genius sim
Speaker 3: Will Pearson And as always, I'm joined by my good
Speaker 3: friend mangesh Hot Ticketter and the man on the other
Speaker 3: side of the soundproof glass wearing a very fancy cardigan.
Speaker 3: And those buttons are so big. I actually think are
Speaker 3: those buttons on top of buttons?
Speaker 1: Mango? I think?
Speaker 2: So wow.
Speaker 3: That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. And it's a
Speaker 3: real shame that our regular superstar Nine Things, guess Gabe
Speaker 3: Luesier is not here in studio to appreciate this cardigan,
Speaker 3: but he is joining us by sky.
Speaker 2: Hey there, Gabe, Hey guys, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 3: Well, let's talk buttons. You want to uh, you want
Speaker 3: to go first? Do you have a good fact? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Definitely.
Speaker 4: So since Mango kicked this off by talking about the President,
Speaker 4: I thought i'd tell you about the time that President
Speaker 4: Carter hit a secret panic button in the bathroom. Apparently
Speaker 4: he thought it was the button for a flush, but
Speaker 4: was shocked when a Secret Service agent basically kicked the
Speaker 4: door down, gun in hand, only to find the President
Speaker 4: zipping up his trousers. According to the agent Marty Venker,
Speaker 4: Carter was quote pretty chilly to him after that.
Speaker 3: No way, I really want to know, like where this
Speaker 3: panic button was and how it could be placed somewhere
Speaker 3: that could be confused for like a flush button.
Speaker 1: That's just on top of the toilet.
Speaker 3: Ah, that is so weird. All right, well, I've got
Speaker 3: a slightly different button.
Speaker 2: Fact, I'll go next here.
Speaker 3: So I actually didn't realize this used to be a
Speaker 3: thing in cars, but this was the floor mounted dimmer switch.
Speaker 3: And this actually comes from our old friend Kara kovalcik
Speaker 3: over at Mental Floss, and she told us about this.
Speaker 3: But apparently the switch for high beams used to be
Speaker 3: this little button that was next to the brakes and
Speaker 3: so if you tapped your left foot on it, your
Speaker 3: brightes would then turn on. So this is another one
Speaker 3: for me. Was like, why was it ever thought to
Speaker 3: put it right there? It just seems like a kind
Speaker 3: of a strange place to have it. All right, Mango,
Speaker 3: you got one?
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, so so you know, everyone knows about the
Speaker 1: Staples easy button, right like it was featured in their
Speaker 1: ad campaign forever ago. And you might have known that
Speaker 1: the company sold easy buttons in their store and they
Speaker 1: made a fortune off of them. But did you know
Speaker 1: that they actually came in different varieties. So in addition
Speaker 1: to the one that said that was easy like the
Speaker 1: traditional button that they had, they also had an easy
Speaker 1: for parents button that said things like of course, you're right,
Speaker 1: and your house your rules, as well as an easy
Speaker 1: for kids button that said go ahead and stay up
Speaker 1: late and good news, no homework.
Speaker 3: It's always so strange to me when things like that
Speaker 3: take off. I wonder how many of those they actually sold.
Speaker 3: That's such a bizarre thing. Yeah, definitely, all right, Gabe,
Speaker 3: what's your next fact?
Speaker 4: Here's something I'd never thought about until I came across
Speaker 4: an article and slate, But apparently in early colonial America,
Speaker 4: people used to make their own buttons at home, and
Speaker 4: according to the article quote, working class families counted themselves
Speaker 4: lucky if they owned a handheld button mold. So basically,
Speaker 4: you'd heat up this mold on some coals, fill it
Speaker 4: with lead, and then let it cool into a button.
Speaker 4: Shape and then you'd you know, decorate the heavy button
Speaker 4: or wrap it in fabric something like that.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 3: We're gonna do a little button history here too, because
Speaker 3: I've actually got a button in fact, an old button
Speaker 3: fact as well. So at one point, buttons were so
Speaker 3: popular and often fashions so tiny that your fingers weren't
Speaker 3: actually helpful in getting the button through the loop, and
Speaker 3: so people kept these button hooks around and so basically
Speaker 3: there were these scary looking kind of crochet type instruments
Speaker 3: that you'd used to pull a tiny button through a
Speaker 3: narrow eyehole. And often you'd have to have different button
Speaker 3: hooks for different size. But it just seems like such
Speaker 3: a hassle I have.
Speaker 1: To do all this.
Speaker 3: It is exactly the opposite of what Tristan's got going on,
Speaker 3: where I think, for those huge buttons, you actually need
Speaker 3: two hands to be able to get it through the
Speaker 3: hoop there.
Speaker 2: All right, Mango, what's your next fact?
Speaker 1: That's a funny bit of history. So that actually reminds
Speaker 1: me of something I read about why women's buttons are
Speaker 1: on the left side of the shirt and men's are
Speaker 1: on the right, And there are a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: theories about this, like some people claim men needed their
Speaker 1: dominant hand for holding weapons in the Middle Ages, so
Speaker 1: the button on the right made it easier for their
Speaker 1: non dominant hand to button the shirt. One handed or
Speaker 1: mental flaw says this theory about how women tend to
Speaker 1: hold babies with their left hand so that their right
Speaker 1: hand is free to do things, and that's why the
Speaker 1: buttons are on the left side of their blouses. But
Speaker 1: the theory with the biggest support is that more fancy
Speaker 1: women were dressed by others, and when you're buttoning a
Speaker 1: lot of buttons for an impatient royal or a duchess
Speaker 1: or whatever, having the buttons played to your dominant hand
Speaker 1: is useful. So they're on the handmaid's right or the
Speaker 1: noble woman's left to speed.
Speaker 2: Up the process.
Speaker 3: Oh, actually makes a lot of sense. All right, Gabe,
Speaker 3: what's your last fact of the day.
Speaker 4: Here's a really cool one. So the first remotes for
Speaker 4: TVs were called lazy bones, and they had a wire
Speaker 4: that connected directly to the TV set. But Zenith improved
Speaker 4: on this design in nineteen fifty six with their wireless
Speaker 4: Space command remote, and it worked in a totally different
Speaker 4: manner than you might expect. So when you press the button,
Speaker 4: it would cause a tiny hammer inside to hit an
Speaker 4: aluminum bar that would then cause an ultrasonic tone, and
Speaker 4: the TV would interpret those notes as commands to change
Speaker 4: the channel or turn the set on and off. According
Speaker 4: to Time magazine, the hammer made enough noise when it
Speaker 4: clicked down that people started calling the space command a clicker.
Speaker 3: All right, well, I've got one last fact that I
Speaker 3: was saving this one because it's pretty gross, but also
Speaker 3: because it relates to the Mango's belly button fact at
Speaker 3: the beginning of the show, and that is that scientists
Speaker 3: have figured out how to use bacteria from belly buttons
Speaker 3: and adding milk to make cheese.
Speaker 2: Which I know that.
Speaker 3: Sounds disgusting, right, But the whole point of the exhibit,
Speaker 3: which took place in Trinity College, Dublin, was to expose
Speaker 3: people to the range of microbial communities in the human body.
Speaker 3: But according to NPR, while people started by quote making
Speaker 3: these grossed out faces, they then smell the cheese and
Speaker 3: realize it just smells like a normal cheese.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that makes it any less gross.
Speaker 1: That just makes me think that belly buttons smell like cheese.
Speaker 2: All right, Gabe.
Speaker 3: Since your long distance today, I feel like you get
Speaker 3: to choose who wins today's nine Things.
Speaker 4: I got to give it to you then, I mean
Speaker 4: you brought it full circle with that belly button fact,
Speaker 4: so I think you take the trophy.
Speaker 2: I knew it. I was going to be disappointed if
Speaker 2: I didn't well listeners.
Speaker 3: If we forgot any facts about belly buttons or buttons
Speaker 3: in general that.
Speaker 2: You know, feel free to share those with us.
Speaker 3: You can always reach us part time genius at HowStuffWorks
Speaker 3: dot com. You can also call us on our twenty
Speaker 3: four to seven Fact hotline one eight four four pt Genius,
Speaker 3: or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter. It's been
Speaker 3: really fun hearing from you guys, with lots of ideas
Speaker 3: for some of our future nine Facts episodes, so keep
Speaker 3: those coming and we'll be back tomorrow with a full
Speaker 3: length episode.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.