Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Hey there, podcast listeners, it's Mango here and
Speaker 1: today we're doing something a little bit different.
Speaker 2: It is a trivia game.
Speaker 1: It is a collaboration with my good power Flora Lickman,
Speaker 1: host of the wonderful show Science Friday, and it's called
Speaker 1: the Super Food Science Excellent Trivia Blowout aka as our
Speaker 1: super producer show Shawna calls it the s F S
Speaker 1: e t BO, So remember that. Make sure that's how
Speaker 1: you reference it from here on. But Flora, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for doing this. I know we've been talking
Speaker 1: about a collaboration forever. I'm just so psyched to have
Speaker 1: you on the show.
Speaker 3: I am. I'm so thrilled to be here. This is
Speaker 3: the highlight of twenty twenty five for me.
Speaker 2: And it's been a long year and we're almost.
Speaker 3: At the end. So a lot already happened.
Speaker 2: So are you good at trivia?
Speaker 3: I'm terrible at trivia. My mind is like a sieve.
Speaker 3: Like even though I get to learn things, you know,
Speaker 3: new things every single week on the show, every single
Speaker 3: day on the show, I don't know. I can't I
Speaker 3: have difficulty retaining my kids, or maybe I just freeze up.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I am so so at trivia and as a kid,
Speaker 1: I was so so at sports. But those things then
Speaker 1: diagram really nicely. When you go to the Science Olympics pentathlon.
Speaker 3: Did you did you do that?
Speaker 4: Did?
Speaker 3: Were you there competing?
Speaker 1: We went to nationals and I'm from Delaware, so it's
Speaker 1: a very small state, and so there's only one heat
Speaker 1: to get there.
Speaker 2: But if you're he just said, if you're from California,
Speaker 2: you have to go through like five rounds.
Speaker 1: And so like the kids who get there are really
Speaker 1: good at science, but they cannot throw a frisbee. They
Speaker 1: can't throw like a basketball into a hoop. And so
Speaker 1: we I think we came in fourth in nationals and pentathalon,
Speaker 1: not because we were good at science trivia, but because
Speaker 1: we could do the physical challenges.
Speaker 3: Is amazing you this story took a complete right turn.
Speaker 3: You were like, we were complete underdogs, were you're a
Speaker 3: tiny state, And then you're like, and then we won
Speaker 3: a fourth.
Speaker 2: Is not winning?
Speaker 1: Although I do remember this is how cocky we were
Speaker 1: as like eighth graders or whatever, is that our group
Speaker 1: was the only one that won like medals at nationals.
Speaker 1: And so when we were walking through the metal detector
Speaker 1: at the UH at the airport, we wore our metals
Speaker 1: underneath and then it bothers there.
Speaker 2: You're like, oh, I'm so sorry. It must have been this.
Speaker 3: Excuse me, I'm an Olympian. We'll take the pat down.
Speaker 1: But I'm so excited to do this episode today, so
Speaker 1: we should get started.
Speaker 3: Let's do it. Okay, So let's get started. We reached
Speaker 3: out to Science Friday listeners, many of you threw your
Speaker 3: name in the ring, and we have a very special
Speaker 3: contestant today to play the game with us. Emily is
Speaker 3: a medical student based in Indianapolis. We have her on
Speaker 3: the line. Hey Emily, Hi Emily, are you a trivia
Speaker 3: game veteran?
Speaker 4: Oh? I have to reach kind of far back to
Speaker 4: establish cred. But I talked to my twin sister last night.
Speaker 4: She reminded me that she and I were both not
Speaker 4: only state trivia champions in high school, but also in
Speaker 4: middle school. So from age ten to eighteen, we ran
Speaker 4: the state of Indiana.
Speaker 2: That's incredible.
Speaker 3: You're gonna crush today.
Speaker 1: Today's theme is food science, and I don't think your
Speaker 1: medical training is gonna help you, but we do have
Speaker 1: some pretty fun prizes.
Speaker 2: Emily, are you ready.
Speaker 4: I'm so ready hit me with your food questions.
Speaker 1: So number one, pandas are unable to detect which basic taste?
Speaker 1: Is it a sweet, b sour, c bitter, or d umami?
Speaker 4: Well, all I can picture is panda's eating green leaves,
Speaker 4: so they must not care a lot about sugar. I'm
Speaker 4: going to guess sweet.
Speaker 2: Oh sweet is very very close, but it is actually
Speaker 2: ooh mommy.
Speaker 1: Panda ancestors were carnivores, and now, after millions of years
Speaker 1: on a bamboo based diet, the panda's taste receptors can
Speaker 1: no longer recognize umami, the savory flavor associated with proteins
Speaker 1: like meat.
Speaker 4: All right, so starting stone here.
Speaker 3: While we're here, can I hit you all with an
Speaker 3: additional panda fun food fact. Yes I did not know this,
Speaker 3: but pandas spend up to twelve hours a day eating bamboo,
Speaker 3: which is like me with seaweed snack. But twelve hours
Speaker 3: a day of bamboo, we are talking like eighty to
Speaker 3: one hundred pounds of bamboo a day, according to the
Speaker 3: National Zoo.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but like when you think of caloric density, and
Speaker 4: how much food they actually have to get in their
Speaker 4: body if you're only eating bamboo, like I'd have t
Speaker 4: eat for twelve hours a day.
Speaker 3: Also, that's exactly it. I love having a medical professional
Speaker 3: on the line because they only yeah, they only digest
Speaker 3: a fraction of it, like seventeen percent or something like that.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: I feel like you came up with the rationale for
Speaker 1: that very very quickly, which is brilliant. I'm so glad
Speaker 1: you're on. So why don't we continue Number two? What
Speaker 1: happens when a food experiences a MYR reaction?
Speaker 4: I know this.
Speaker 1: Does it a go bad, B, turn brown, C it
Speaker 1: loses half its nutritional value? Or D it gets really
Speaker 1: really into John Mayer.
Speaker 4: I hope it's not D. It's B. It becomes brown
Speaker 4: and delicious.
Speaker 2: That is incredible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, it turns brown. It is named for the
Speaker 1: French chemist who first described it, and this chemical reaction
Speaker 1: is responsible for the brown color and the complex flavor
Speaker 1: of everything from like baked bread, cooked meat, and even
Speaker 1: dark roast ca my favorite.
Speaker 3: You know, we talked about this on Science Friday with
Speaker 3: a food scientist Ariel Johnson, and apparently, if you want
Speaker 3: to kick the myor reaction off a notch. She gave
Speaker 3: us some tips, so here she is.
Speaker 5: So, if you want more browning, you can think about
Speaker 5: adding more sugar. But if you can increase the amount
Speaker 5: of protein and amino acids you have, you'll get like
Speaker 5: much more browning. It's also very sensitive to pH to
Speaker 5: acidity and alkalinity. You get more browning under alkaline conditions
Speaker 5: and less browning under acidic conditions. So if it's going
Speaker 5: to brown, you can add some acid. If you want
Speaker 5: as much brown as possible, you can add, for example,
Speaker 5: a little baking soda. And that has to do with
Speaker 5: actually like whether the amino end of the amino acid
Speaker 5: is protonated.
Speaker 3: Emily, are you like, yeah, duh pronation duh.
Speaker 4: Was imagining this structure of an amino acid in my head,
Speaker 4: and I was like, all the words she's saying bally
Speaker 4: makes sense. But together, I'm just gonna go with I
Speaker 4: like brown food.
Speaker 1: That sounds great, So we're gonna progress to number three.
Speaker 1: I have a feeling you're gonna get this one too.
Speaker 1: So which American pharmacist developed a scale to measure the
Speaker 1: pungency or spiciness of chili peppers? Wilbur Scoville, Norville Rogers,
Speaker 1: John Pepperton, or doctor Pepper Scoville.
Speaker 4: It's the Scoville heat index.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, you got it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. His scale measures the amount of dilution required before
Speaker 1: the burn of a chili can no longer be felt.
Speaker 3: Are you a chili person a chili pepper person, Emily.
Speaker 4: I'm not. My kid is. I have an eight year
Speaker 4: old who loves spicy foods. He ate with Sabby when
Speaker 4: he was like two years old.
Speaker 3: Well, this is a fun fact just for your kid.
Speaker 3: When you all think about the source of heat in
Speaker 3: chili peppers, where do you think the heat is in
Speaker 3: the pepper?
Speaker 4: I feel like I read recently that like we all
Speaker 4: think it's the seeds, but it's actually somewhere else.
Speaker 3: And well, you know too much. Of course, when you
Speaker 3: have a stage champion trivia person that you already know
Speaker 3: the thing I'm going to tell you that is exactly right.
Speaker 3: Here's Paul Boslin, director of the Chili Pepper Institute and
Speaker 3: a professor at New Mexico State University.
Speaker 6: It is the veins. It's the crosswall the chili that
Speaker 6: has the heat. The seeds have no heat, but being
Speaker 6: very close to those cross walls in the veins. You know,
Speaker 6: one would associate that with the heat, but the walls
Speaker 6: of a chili are not hot. And we always have
Speaker 6: a little joke here. We take someone to our teaching
Speaker 6: garden where we have one hundred and fifty different varieties
Speaker 6: of chilis, and I'll take a hallipenion and eat a
Speaker 6: piece of the wall, and then get somebody. The piece
Speaker 6: of the vein their mouth will get on fire, and
Speaker 6: I'll look like, oh, I'm not bothering me a bit.
Speaker 6: But it's just a little breeder's joke.
Speaker 2: We say, I love that. And a breeder's joke is.
Speaker 4: That sounds diabolical? That's not fair.
Speaker 1: Well, here's question number four. Which of the falling foods
Speaker 1: is so rich in carbon that it can be made
Speaker 1: into a diamond. Is it a beef, b peanut butter,
Speaker 1: see green peppers, or d pop rocks.
Speaker 4: Man, I'm going to go with the carbohydrate based food
Speaker 4: and say it's pop rocks. Please let it pop us.
Speaker 3: Also, like you have a scientific rationale which I really love.
Speaker 3: I want it to be pop rocks too.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, it is peanut butter. During an experiment to reproduce
Speaker 1: the pressure conditions of Earth's lower mantle. The British scientist
Speaker 1: Daniel Frost successfully forged carbon rich peanut butter into microscopic diamonds.
Speaker 1: So I guess in this economy we should be yes
Speaker 1: stocking up on peanut butter.
Speaker 4: It's a good investment.
Speaker 1: Awesome. Okay, so this is the final question. I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's a lot of pressure on you, Emily. This is
Speaker 1: for all the marbles. The unique properties of honey make
Speaker 1: it one of the few foods that can never do
Speaker 1: what is it a expire, B freeze, C evaporate or
Speaker 1: D disappoint.
Speaker 4: I go with expire and disappoint because honey is delightful.
Speaker 3: I'm I'm on disappoint, never can disappoint.
Speaker 1: Yes, you are right on both counts, so you got
Speaker 1: a bonus point.
Speaker 2: But the answer we had here is expire.
Speaker 1: So, due to its low moisture content, natural acidity, and
Speaker 1: the presence of hydrogen peroxide, honey doesn't foster the growth
Speaker 1: of spoilage organisms such as bacteria, and that is how
Speaker 1: archaeologists have been able to find three thousand year old
Speaker 1: pots of honey that are still perfickly edible.
Speaker 4: Would you try that?
Speaker 1: I think I would if someone told me it was safe.
Speaker 1: So Flora, you want to tell Emily what she's won.
Speaker 3: I would love to. Emily, you have won an amazing
Speaker 3: assortment of Science Friday and Part Time Genius merch.
Speaker 1: And as always, we're going to throw in an atomic fireball,
Speaker 1: which is the official sciencey candy of Part Time Genius.
Speaker 4: Amazing. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: But that's not all. Because you did so well, we're
Speaker 3: also going to send you a bottle of Linna Weber's
Speaker 3: Hot Honey, which one just like you, the grand prize
Speaker 3: in this year's Scovie Awards and is made in your
Speaker 3: home state of Indiana.
Speaker 4: All right, Indiana. Thanks guys, thank you, thank you for playing.
Speaker 3: Emily.
Speaker 1: We are so thrilled to crown you with the first
Speaker 1: super Food Science Excellent Trivia Blowout crown as well, So
Speaker 1: congrats on that.
Speaker 4: It's delightful a happy science writer.
Speaker 1: Oh Flora, thank you so much for being here and
Speaker 1: doing this. This colloud felt so much fun.
Speaker 3: So much fun. This was my absolute pleasure and I
Speaker 3: can't wait to do it again.
Speaker 2: I know we have to.
Speaker 1: Give out so many more pickle tattoos. Part Time Genius
Speaker 1: is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. It is hosted
Speaker 1: by my good pal Will Pearson, who I've known for
Speaker 1: almost three decades now.
Speaker 2: That is insane to me.
Speaker 1: I'm the utco host, Mangeshatikular aka Mango. Our producer is
Speaker 1: Mary Phillips Sandy. She's actually a super producer. I'm going
Speaker 1: to fix that in post. Our writer is Gabe Lucier,
Speaker 1: who I've also known for like a decade at this point,
Speaker 1: maybe more. Dylan Fagan is in the bo He is
Speaker 1: always dressed up, always cheering us on, and always ready
Speaker 1: to hit record and then mix the show after he
Speaker 1: does a great job. I also want to shout out
Speaker 1: the executive producers from iHeart my good pals Katrina and
Speaker 1: Norvel and Ali Perry. We have social media support from
Speaker 1: Calypso Rallis. If you like our videos, that is all
Speaker 1: Calypso's handiwork. For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. Visit
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Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. That's it from us here
Speaker 1: at Part Time Genius. Thank you so much for listening.