Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: That's right, Joe is still out on par rental leave.
Speaker 1: But we gotta we gotta keep the show rolling, and
Speaker 1: we find ourselves at that time of year when we
Speaker 1: tend to cover the ig Nobel Prizes. Uh So, this
Speaker 1: episode and probably a second episode are going to look
Speaker 1: at some of the Igno bell winners from this year.
Speaker 1: I mean, we couldn't skip Igno bells just because Joe
Speaker 1: is out on paternity leave. Igno bells are tradition around here,
Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah, we've been covering the Igno bells for
Speaker 1: many years. I'm not even sure when we started covering
Speaker 1: it on the show. We generally don't cover them right
Speaker 1: away because the awards usually come out during September. Usually
Speaker 1: it's like late mid to late September or very early
Speaker 1: October perhaps for a couple of years, and were often
Speaker 1: wrapped up in Halloween stuff by that point. But the
Speaker 1: Ignal bells usually make for a fun episode or two
Speaker 1: in early November for us. In a way. It sometimes
Speaker 1: it's a nice palate cleanser after a bunch of Halloween content.
Speaker 1: Uh so we yeah, again, we tend to use it
Speaker 1: later than usual. But the two thousand twenty two awards
Speaker 1: were handed out septembo. It's kind of like the World
Speaker 1: Series versus Halloween. They both usually end up around the
Speaker 1: same time, and at least in my life growing up,
Speaker 1: it was always kind of a flip of the coin
Speaker 1: whether or not the World Series would interfere with the
Speaker 1: Simpsons annual Treehouse of Horror. It was oh yeah, sometimes
Speaker 1: they would air a Treehouse of Horror really really early
Speaker 1: to get it out of the way beforehand. Sometimes, and
Speaker 1: these were the years I hated the most. They would
Speaker 1: air Simpsons Treehouse of Horror after Halloween, which just flu
Speaker 1: next me. I hated those years. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think you've pointed out before. It's also a reason why
Speaker 1: we can feel feel good about doing halloweeny things in
Speaker 1: the weeks following Halloween because the Simpsons President is there. Yes.
Speaker 1: By the way, Uh, this is real quick. Did you
Speaker 1: watch this year's rob I I didn't. I We as
Speaker 1: a family we rewatch the five or so tree ousis
Speaker 1: that we always rewatch, but I'm I'm I'm just I don't.
Speaker 1: I know. You've given me advice on watching more recent
Speaker 1: episodes in the past, but I'm just I'm kind of scared.
Speaker 1: I just I tend to stick to exactly what I know,
Speaker 1: even though so many of the jokes, not all of them,
Speaker 1: but there are certain jokes that are way outdated or
Speaker 1: haven't stood the test of time, or I just have
Speaker 1: to explain them to my ten year old. The one
Speaker 1: this year, I have to say, was particularly good. I'm
Speaker 1: recommending it to you and to all the listeners out there.
Speaker 1: There was a Baba Duke parody, there was a West
Speaker 1: World parody, and there was a Death Note parody, and
Speaker 1: the Death Note parody was done exclusively in anime style
Speaker 1: and it was gorgeous. So anyway, anyway, if people like
Speaker 1: The Simpsons, or even a few don'ts I don't care,
Speaker 1: go watch this year's Treehouse of Horror in the year two.
Speaker 1: It was beautiful. I'll have to see all the source
Speaker 1: material for those though. I still haven't seen the Baba Duke,
Speaker 1: but I saw the episode of Guiana de Toro's Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities that had the same director. Anyway, Sorry, back
Speaker 1: to the Igno Bells. Yes, yes, so the Igno Bells
Speaker 1: um if you're not familiar with these. The Igno Bells
Speaker 1: are a series of awards given out once a year
Speaker 1: by a scientific humor journal called The Animals of Improbable Research,
Speaker 1: edited for many years now by Mark abrams Uh. Their
Speaker 1: stated purpose is to quote honor achievements that first make
Speaker 1: people laugh and then make them think so um, and
Speaker 1: I'll also without it probably goes without saying that this
Speaker 1: is also kind of a parody of the Nobel Prizes.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that a mistake has been made many times
Speaker 1: in the past. So occasionally the papers that get selected
Speaker 1: are themselves intended to be satirical, and or how satirical
Speaker 1: notes to them at any rate. An example that comes
Speaker 1: to mind was a study of the Disgusted whether cats
Speaker 1: should be considered a solid or a liquid um. You know,
Speaker 1: obviously there is a fair amount of humor already there.
Speaker 1: Other times it's just a straightforward study that deals with
Speaker 1: a topic or deal, or there's some detail to the
Speaker 1: experiment involved that is laughter inducing, or it's just weird,
Speaker 1: or it's other times it's a study that that does
Speaker 1: seem to be sort of testing out or exploring something
Speaker 1: that we just take as a given that just seems
Speaker 1: completely obvious and in perhaps it's a little humorous that
Speaker 1: there's a study about it, even though this is how
Speaker 1: we've sort of scientifically prove out the world around us.
Speaker 1: And I think we're covering both. I think we have
Speaker 1: a wide selection here, covering both the surprisingly impractical and
Speaker 1: the surprisingly practical. Yeah, so in each of these we're
Speaker 1: definitely going to talk about why it is funny, but
Speaker 1: also why it is important, like why it matters because
Speaker 1: again the stated purpose. Uh, stuff different studies and papers
Speaker 1: that make you laugh but then make you think. So
Speaker 1: it's not just that they're funny, they also are are
Speaker 1: legitimate scientific papers. Now there, we're not gonna cover all
Speaker 1: the winners. If you want to see the full list
Speaker 1: of winners for this year plus all subsequent years, you
Speaker 1: can go to the journal's web page at Improbable dot com. Uh.
Speaker 1: Either way, you should definitely check out the website. It's
Speaker 1: just all on one page all the winners throughout the years,
Speaker 1: and it can be a fun exercise. You just search
Speaker 1: for various keywords on that page and see what has
Speaker 1: been honored. So, yeah, we're just gonna trade back and
Speaker 1: forth here on some for this episode, and we'll probably
Speaker 1: come back in the next episode as well. When I
Speaker 1: initially scanned it, another thing about it is that a
Speaker 1: lot of times they are very recent studies. Sometimes they're
Speaker 1: older studies, and sometimes their their studies that are that
Speaker 1: are kind of checking in on a on a strange
Speaker 1: topic and maybe giggle inducing topic that's been around for
Speaker 1: a little bit. And so I was instantly interested in
Speaker 1: the Biology Prize for this year because it does touch
Speaker 1: on a topic, though not a specific study, that Joe
Speaker 1: and I have discussed on the show um at least
Speaker 1: a couple of times. There are a trio of studies
Speaker 1: honored here by the author's Garcia, Hernandes, and Machado and
Speaker 1: uh in particular, there's a there's one just to give
Speaker 1: you a taste of what we're getting into. This one
Speaker 1: is from in the journal Integrative Zoology Short and Long
Speaker 1: Term Effects of an extreme case of auto Tommy colon.
Speaker 1: Does tail loss and subsequent constipation decrease the locomotive performance
Speaker 1: of male and female scorpions? So specific yes, So this
Speaker 1: gets into a really weird area that that again, longtime
Speaker 1: listeners of the show might remember. Needless to say, the
Speaker 1: tale of a scorpion is easily one of the most
Speaker 1: interesting tales you'll find in the animal world. You can
Speaker 1: go vertebrate or invertebrate. The scorpion and is still going
Speaker 1: to be up there at the top, because I mean,
Speaker 1: just just the image of it, this this curled tail,
Speaker 1: just posed and ready to strike out with that stinger.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's so good. It becomes part of our monsters,
Speaker 1: right like we we can't help but blow it up.
Speaker 1: We can't help it blow up the scorpion, as Ray
Speaker 1: Harry Housing did and clash of the of of the Titans.
Speaker 1: But the the scorpions tail or meta soma, is composed
Speaker 1: of five segments as well as the Tellson Tellson isn't
Speaker 1: so much a full segment as just sort of the
Speaker 1: posterior most division of the creature's body, and this contains
Speaker 1: venom glands, which of course feed the zinc harden stinger
Speaker 1: at the end of the tail. The scorpion will use
Speaker 1: this tail stinger, along with its claws, both offensively and
Speaker 1: defensively against its many many enemies, because of course it's
Speaker 1: trying to prey on various creatures. But lots of things
Speaker 1: are trying to prey on it, and it also has
Speaker 1: to deal with the dangers of posed by other scorpions,
Speaker 1: even of its own species. But there's an interesting quirk
Speaker 1: of evolution with the scorpions. Uh. And this is when
Speaker 1: I first read about this. It was in an ed
Speaker 1: Young paper from that appeared on the National Geographic website,
Speaker 1: and in it, Young points out that the scorpions anus
Speaker 1: isn't where you think it might be, so just that
Speaker 1: that's kind of kind of leading into it. But I
Speaker 1: don't know, did did you have set did you have
Speaker 1: a a notion in your head about where you might
Speaker 1: find a scorpions anus. I would compare it to all
Speaker 1: other animals that I'm aware of and put it's below
Speaker 1: the tail. That's where I would put it. Right that
Speaker 1: that would have been my guess. And and even more
Speaker 1: so after discussing this bit about the Tellson, you know
Speaker 1: this idea that it's it's not the tail proper, but
Speaker 1: it's kind of like it's far back on the animals
Speaker 1: you can get before getting to the tail segments. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's already where you're going to have the venom glands.
Speaker 1: It seems to make sense that you would also have
Speaker 1: the termination of the gut there, that that's where the
Speaker 1: anus would be, that's where poop would come out. I
Speaker 1: still think it's a good guess, but it is absolutely wrong.
Speaker 1: The anus is on segment five of the tail, meaning
Speaker 1: that the gut cavity of the scorpion extends through the
Speaker 1: entire tail and then poops out just short of the
Speaker 1: stinger itself. That's fascinating. So then picture in your mind
Speaker 1: if it was typically where you would think it would
Speaker 1: be on on any creature. So move its back legs
Speaker 1: all the way up to the fifth segments you know
Speaker 1: of of the stinger and that's it would It would
Speaker 1: be almost like a like a doc sinto like a
Speaker 1: big long winer dog body. And yeah, that makes sense
Speaker 1: in its own strange way. Yeah, And it's it's so
Speaker 1: different from what we tend to expect from animals that
Speaker 1: have not not even similar morphology, because it's not like
Speaker 1: not like a cow is similar to a scorpion in
Speaker 1: in most major concerns. But but you know, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a certain rhythm to the way things are laid out.
Speaker 1: You you grow to expect to find the anus in
Speaker 1: certain positions compared to the tale of a creature, especially
Speaker 1: when it seems so consistent. Yeah, now this is already
Speaker 1: pretty weird. But the kicker to all of this is
Speaker 1: that there is a rare group of South American scorpions,
Speaker 1: and Young points this out that practice auto Tommy. This
Speaker 1: is the act by which a creature can shed parts
Speaker 1: of its body, typically a tail. The most famous example
Speaker 1: of this our little little lizards like backyard skinks and
Speaker 1: so forth. That I think if you, if you grew
Speaker 1: up in a world where lizards were running about, you
Speaker 1: were familiar with this because occasionally you might catch a
Speaker 1: lizard and its tail would fall off, or you would
Speaker 1: find that tail. Perhaps you'd find a bird or a
Speaker 1: cat playing with the tail as it's still kind of
Speaker 1: bops around with some last you know, last ounce of energy.
Speaker 1: And of course this is generally about enabling a better
Speaker 1: chance of survival for the creature. And I think there
Speaker 1: I remember talking about this in the show in the past.
Speaker 1: There a few different ways of looking at this. It's
Speaker 1: kind of a distracting lure. If a lizard jettison's a
Speaker 1: tail and that tail still moving around, while that distracts
Speaker 1: a predator, it also is kind of a bribe, like
Speaker 1: you're not gonna eat me, but here, here's a piece
Speaker 1: of me. Have at it. I'm delicious, but I'm also
Speaker 1: running away. So we have this rare group of South
Speaker 1: American scorpions that can do this. They can shed their tail,
Speaker 1: but since their anus is on the fifth tail segment,
Speaker 1: they also lose that as well. Um and I believe
Speaker 1: in the case of these scorpions we're talking about the
Speaker 1: the the shed occurring, the the uh that they lose
Speaker 1: the tail somewhere at the second or third segment, which
Speaker 1: which also seems crazy, right because it's like, come on, scorpions,
Speaker 1: if you just you could have the anus on the tail,
Speaker 1: but maybe just an earlier segment, and you could still
Speaker 1: do this without losing your ability to poop. But no,
Speaker 1: there they have the anus on the fifth segment. They're
Speaker 1: losing their tail at the second or third segment, and
Speaker 1: so it leaves the scorpion without a tail and without
Speaker 1: an anush to live out the rest of its life,
Speaker 1: because it does continue to live and and I believe
Speaker 1: that we're talking something like maybe eight months more of life,
Speaker 1: but still enough life to where these scorpions are still
Speaker 1: going to continue hunting for food, feeding, and even successfully breeding. Wow.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, it's like you're saying, if there was
Speaker 1: a focus group to redesign the scorpion, we should either
Speaker 1: move its anus further up on these segments of the
Speaker 1: tail or um have the portion of the tail that
Speaker 1: does disconnect begin after the fifth segments. But but but no, no,
Speaker 1: it's just just kind of a sad Cronenberg situation. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I don't know what the the creation has taken. All
Speaker 1: this is. I actually don't don't care what the creation,
Speaker 1: but it seems like it would it seems like it
Speaker 1: would pose some some some questions. Yeah. So as though, obviously,
Speaker 1: what happens when a creature cannot poop but it's still
Speaker 1: continuing to live and eat, well, it begins to swell up. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they're actually you can find images I think Ed
Speaker 1: Young has some of these in his his article where
Speaker 1: you can see these like white globs through the skin
Speaker 1: of the scorpion. And this is the scorpion swelling up
Speaker 1: with its own extrement because it cannot poop. It reminds
Speaker 1: me of seeing um, perhaps a crab getting ready to molt.
Speaker 1: You know where we're like you can see like it's
Speaker 1: exterior kind of they're they're getting very uncomfortable. In fact,
Speaker 1: I actually just saw some footage last night of a
Speaker 1: of a blue crab. It was given its favorite food,
Speaker 1: and it wouldn't eat any just simply because it didn't
Speaker 1: have room for its body to expand after eating. And
Speaker 1: so what it would do I believe it was a
Speaker 1: piece of mango that the crab would just kind of
Speaker 1: put it in its mouth to taste it and then
Speaker 1: just set it back down because they didn't have room
Speaker 1: for the food inside it's it's too small body. It
Speaker 1: had to wait until it molted to be able to finish. So,
Speaker 1: as Young points out in this article, the scorpion is
Speaker 1: on borrowed time. At this point, it's defensive and offensive
Speaker 1: powers are reduced, plus again steadily swelling up with poop,
Speaker 1: so much so that the swelling apparently sometimes pops off
Speaker 1: one of the remaining tail segments or stumps. They're kind
Speaker 1: of like a vest button bopping, you know, popping off
Speaker 1: of a stuffed human diner in a cartoon. So here's this,
Speaker 1: this steadily swelling scorpion, no tail, no stinger. They have
Speaker 1: to end up having to prey on smaller prey because
Speaker 1: they can't handle the bigger stuff without their their main bioweapon.
Speaker 1: But they still managed to do it. They still managed
Speaker 1: to mate and reproduce in their remaining eight months or
Speaker 1: so on average, So this much was known. These latest
Speaker 1: studies that are that are that are honored by the
Speaker 1: Ignoble Prizes. They look specifically at the scorpions locomotion post autotommy,
Speaker 1: So how are they moving around? How are they continuing
Speaker 1: to function and reproduce after they've lost that tale? Now
Speaker 1: why is it funny? I don't, Well, it's constipated scorpions
Speaker 1: who threw away their anus, So I guess it's it's
Speaker 1: inherently funny on some level or another. And why is
Speaker 1: it important? Well, it is a crucial question about how
Speaker 1: the creatures survive in the wild after losing their tail,
Speaker 1: and given that mating still goes on after this point.
Speaker 1: It's a question with ramifications of evolutionary concern as well,
Speaker 1: because there the selection pressures are still applying. It's not
Speaker 1: one of these situations where you could say, well, they've
Speaker 1: lost their tail, but it's not like they're reproducing anymore.
Speaker 1: You know, they're they're essentially dead. At this point. No,
Speaker 1: they still have life to give and they give it.
Speaker 1: So again, a trio of studies that were honored here
Speaker 1: by Garcia, Hernandez and Machado from one and I'm just
Speaker 1: going to single out the key findings here. Um, we
Speaker 1: read a couple of quotes from from the papers. First quote,
Speaker 1: tail loss has no mediate effect on the locomotive performance
Speaker 1: of scorpions. The long term decrease in the locomotive performance
Speaker 1: of autotomized males may impair mate searching. However, because death
Speaker 1: by constipation takes several months, males have a long time
Speaker 1: to find mates and reproduce. Thus, the prolonged period between
Speaker 1: autotomy and death by constipation is crucial for understanding the
Speaker 1: evolution of one of the most extreme cases of autotomy
Speaker 1: and nature. Fair enough, and also they got to use
Speaker 1: death by constipation twice there um, But then then it
Speaker 1: gets more interesting as well. Quote. Although the male tail
Speaker 1: is used during courtship and sperm transfer, autotomy has no
Speaker 1: effect on male mating success. The combined effect of increased
Speaker 1: mortality and reduced fecundity resulted in automatized females producing nearly
Speaker 1: thirty five percent fewer offspring than intact females. In conclusion,
Speaker 1: the negative effects of tail autotomy are clearly sex dependent,
Speaker 1: probably because the factors that influence reproductive success in males
Speaker 1: and females are markedly different. So the basic take home
Speaker 1: there being that, yeah, it doesn't seem to really have
Speaker 1: an impact on how males are mating, but it does
Speaker 1: have an impact on the way the females are. And
Speaker 1: then finally they point out the stinger loss reduced UH
Speaker 1: their ability to subdue both small and large prey, and
Speaker 1: that tail autotomy is costly because it decreases predation success.
Speaker 1: It just makes these little scorpions less good at being
Speaker 1: little scorpions. Makes sense, So, you know, these are these
Speaker 1: are not studies that I guess um, they're not completely
Speaker 1: groundbreaking or anything. They're not revealing something in the natural
Speaker 1: world that we didn't completely you know, there was just
Speaker 1: a mystery to us. But it does answer more questions
Speaker 1: about this already weird situation that's occurring with UH, a
Speaker 1: particular variety of scorpion in the wild. And it also
Speaker 1: just broadens the mind in general. Like, for exact ample,
Speaker 1: if you would have said to me, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna bet you fifty dollars that you can't show me
Speaker 1: where a scorpions anus is. I would have taken that
Speaker 1: bet before this study. I would have said, of course
Speaker 1: I know where it is. But but now now I
Speaker 1: I just can't take these things for granted. You know
Speaker 1: there there's a broad spectrum of physiology out there. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: thank you. Let's move on to our second story here. Uh,
Speaker 1: this was the Ignoble Economics Prize. This. Let's see our
Speaker 1: our authors are researchers. I believe they're all from Italy,
Speaker 1: So I apologize for my lack of pronouncing Italian names
Speaker 1: as as well as I should. This is by Pluccino,
Speaker 1: Beyondo and Rapisarda, and this is for explaining mathematically why
Speaker 1: success more often goes not to the most talented people
Speaker 1: but instead to the luckiest. So a lot of Western cultures,
Speaker 1: we can speak for us as two Americans here, but
Speaker 1: I think a lot of Western cultures are this way,
Speaker 1: are based on the idea that if you are talented
Speaker 1: and work hard, you will be successful. That's that's the
Speaker 1: thing that everyone tells you, whether it be a teacher
Speaker 1: or a parent. Uh, that that's just how it is.
Speaker 1: Work hard, you know, be, be, be more talented, be smarter,
Speaker 1: study hard, all that stuff. Uh, And if you want
Speaker 1: to really be successful, you need to be more talented
Speaker 1: than everyone else and work harder than everyone else. If
Speaker 1: you want to be a oh whoever, the billionaire dug
Speaker 1: or just picture them in your mind, whicheveryone you're thinking
Speaker 1: of that one? Now, Um, is this true? Can we
Speaker 1: really break this apart? And can we do it with math?
Speaker 1: I think is the most important thing that these three
Speaker 1: researchers were trying to figure out. Now, if you if
Speaker 1: you talk to one of these people, the people who
Speaker 1: are extremely successful, a billionaire, let's say, they will tell
Speaker 1: you that, you know, it's we worked hard, we we
Speaker 1: really put our nose to the grindstone, you know. And
Speaker 1: they'll talk about the virtues of the hustle. You know,
Speaker 1: that's everything you gotta put in all those hours, neglect
Speaker 1: your personal relationships, etcetera, etcetera. They got where they are
Speaker 1: because of a meritocracy. Well, our researchers are here to
Speaker 1: prove that that's just not true using math. So the
Speaker 1: first claim that the researchers will make is that if
Speaker 1: we're primarily talking about two aspects here, which is talent
Speaker 1: and success. They're going to need to find a way
Speaker 1: to apply math to those terms. So talent, they are claiming,
Speaker 1: has a Gaussian distribution. Now, I'm sure even if those
Speaker 1: of you out there aren't mathematicians, you know more or
Speaker 1: less where I'm coming from, even if you don't know
Speaker 1: these terms. A Gaussian distribution, a k A and normal
Speaker 1: distribution is a typical bell curve along the X axis.
Speaker 1: I'm sure most of you can picture that in your mind.
Speaker 1: It's low on the left, it's high in the middle,
Speaker 1: and it's low on the right, with a a cosine
Speaker 1: curve easing in and out of each point. This is
Speaker 1: used all over the place to explain all kinds of
Speaker 1: averages in numbers, but it's extremely common. Is this typical
Speaker 1: Bell curve? Okay, so our researchers are using a Gaussian
Speaker 1: distribution to equate with talent, which they're equating with intelligence
Speaker 1: because intelligence is a very measurable trait. Talent, of course,
Speaker 1: much more difficult to measure. So so so get that
Speaker 1: in your head first. Everyone, picture a little chart, and
Speaker 1: this is for intelligence, and it's a little bell curve.
Speaker 1: There are people with very very little intelligence on the
Speaker 1: left people with extremely high intelligence on the right, and
Speaker 1: then the average most of us right in the middle.
Speaker 1: And that's where the big you know, the big body
Speaker 1: of the bell is in that bell curve. Now, Rob, first,
Speaker 1: is this a fair equivalence? Do you think? Do do?
Speaker 1: Do you think equating talent and intelligence? Is that? Is
Speaker 1: that an assumption you would be willing to make? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's one of those things where
Speaker 1: the alchemy of success and even things like talent and
Speaker 1: intelligence on their own or or are far more complicated
Speaker 1: than something like this is going to really be able
Speaker 1: to represent. But you gotta work with some sort of model.
Speaker 1: You gotta work with some sort of a simplified and
Speaker 1: version of reality in order to apply the mathematics improve
Speaker 1: things out right. And I do think that there is
Speaker 1: talents that of course it doesn't require you know, book learning,
Speaker 1: let's say, and um, perhaps something that you could have
Speaker 1: a typically low intelligence by by all all tests that
Speaker 1: exist in the world, but perhaps are extremely talented in
Speaker 1: your own ways which are not measurable. So so yes,
Speaker 1: let's just go with this. If we're using a way
Speaker 1: to measure talent and we're making that equivalency with intelligence,
Speaker 1: you can measure intelligence. We get a very simple bell curve.
Speaker 1: So let's let's just go with that. We'll fall We'll
Speaker 1: follow their logic on this. So next up, if we've
Speaker 1: already measured our talent, next we're gonna start measuring success. Now. Now,
Speaker 1: their way to find a formula for success is they
Speaker 1: used um wealth, you know, financial gain, financial wealth as success.
Speaker 1: Once again, I'll say, this is perhaps not something you
Speaker 1: could really you know, one to one. You know that
Speaker 1: there's there's personal success, there's creative success, and financial success
Speaker 1: is certainly a type of success, but that's a very
Speaker 1: specific kind. But once again we'll go with it. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the next assertion for this math formula is that
Speaker 1: success are other aspect that we're really trying to measure
Speaker 1: here can be represented with a power law a k A.
Speaker 1: The Parrito principle a k A rule. The Parrito principle,
Speaker 1: named after the economist phil Fredo Parrito, specifies the eight
Speaker 1: percent of consequences twenty the causes um so. Assertions using
Speaker 1: this principle would be things like eighty percent of sales
Speaker 1: come froment of the clients, eight percent of work done
Speaker 1: is from you of the employees, and in the case
Speaker 1: of this study, wealth distribution. So the world has a
Speaker 1: large majority of poor people and a very small number
Speaker 1: of billionaires. Um. But you can find examples of this
Speaker 1: principle everywhere. It's actually a very fascinating thing to look into.
Speaker 1: So this study is positing that to a certain degree,
Speaker 1: wealth equals success. I think there are all kinds of
Speaker 1: successes we could have in this world. But again, we
Speaker 1: need to hammer this down with one simple principle. Rob,
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts for the purpose of the study,
Speaker 1: shure wealth can be success? Um? You know, I think
Speaker 1: that you get into a larger discussion. I think it
Speaker 1: is certainly a very Western uh idea that that wealth
Speaker 1: is like the main market success. I've always liked, or
Speaker 1: not always, but I've long liked the Chinese approach where
Speaker 1: you have the three star gods of Fulu and Show,
Speaker 1: and each one represents a different sort of desired state
Speaker 1: that sometimes I see also kind of translated as luck,
Speaker 1: which is interesting getting into all of this. But one
Speaker 1: represents happiness, one represents wealth, and one represents longevity. So
Speaker 1: wealth is still very much a part of that. With
Speaker 1: one of these three individuals shown, you know, looking very
Speaker 1: much like a wealthy business owner, but on his own
Speaker 1: you're missing out on on on happiness and longevity, Like
Speaker 1: these are two things that are also important. You don't
Speaker 1: want just one of these three statues in your home
Speaker 1: or your business, you want all three because you want
Speaker 1: to balance of these three forces. Yeah, yeah, I mean again,
Speaker 1: we're trying to measure this. So wealth is something that
Speaker 1: can be measured. If you're talking about like artistic success,
Speaker 1: perhaps having like you know, your your your your mission,
Speaker 1: and your message be conveyed through art and aesthetics, that's
Speaker 1: harder to measure. So so, but yeah, I feel like
Speaker 1: in to a larger extent, I feel like, yes, in
Speaker 1: the in the West, we have this idea that wealthiesical success,
Speaker 1: and to a certain extent we can say that's true,
Speaker 1: but also it's a it's a truth that ends up
Speaker 1: muddying so many things. Like we get into it into
Speaker 1: our heads that our hobbies also need to be things
Speaker 1: that we make money at. That it's like like how
Speaker 1: how can you be into a writing or painting or whatever, sculpting,
Speaker 1: whatever your hobby happens to be if it's not producing money,
Speaker 1: Like that's that's not really how hobbies have to work
Speaker 1: like I can. I cannot make money at my hobby.
Speaker 1: I can. I cannot be perfect at my hobby. And
Speaker 1: it's still fine. It's it's it's perfectly acceptable. But we
Speaker 1: can easily sort of fall into that commercial mindset and
Speaker 1: think of it the opposite way. And I think that
Speaker 1: applies to most things, like, for example, physical activity, you know,
Speaker 1: like I love running. I can have all these goals
Speaker 1: in my mind, like oh, I'm gonna go this far today,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go this far without stopping to walk, etcetera, etcetera,
Speaker 1: And that can be very successful at that. There's no
Speaker 1: money involved, I don't get I'm sure with you. You
Speaker 1: don't get paid to go swimming or to do your yoga,
Speaker 1: but you can be very successful at those things in
Speaker 1: our own ways. So yeah, not not to not to
Speaker 1: you know, harsh on people who do find a way
Speaker 1: to turn a hobby or a passion into a business.
Speaker 1: But I think obviously it is not required. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: So so we we will just accept these equivalences and
Speaker 1: and and continue this paper. So let's picture both these
Speaker 1: things in our mind. We're picturing the bell curve for intelligence. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we're all seeing a bell curve in our minds,
Speaker 1: and now for success, we are picturing this eight twenty distribution,
Speaker 1: and if you kind of put those over each other,
Speaker 1: they don't really overlap. So it's like, wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: I thought I thought we lived in a meritocracy. Shouldn't
Speaker 1: these be one to one? And and that that's not
Speaker 1: the case. So what is that mystery ingredient that makes
Speaker 1: all of this compute? Well, they mentioned it at the
Speaker 1: very beginning of the thesis. It's luck. So from the paper,
Speaker 1: I really love this segment. Here. I'm gonna be uh
Speaker 1: quoting most of it, but I'm paraphrasing a couple of
Speaker 1: places quote. There's nowadays an even greater evidence about the
Speaker 1: fundamental role of chance, luck, or more in general, random
Speaker 1: factors in determining successes or failures in our personal and
Speaker 1: professional lives. In particular, it has been shown that scientists
Speaker 1: have the same chance along their career of publishing their
Speaker 1: biggest hit. You know, as an aside, you would assume
Speaker 1: that you would get smarter and smarter and smarter, so
Speaker 1: eventually your biggest hit would come at the end of
Speaker 1: your career. Turns out that's not the case. Oh and
Speaker 1: of course, um in this paper, they've actually uh cited
Speaker 1: their sources for each of these claims. These are not
Speaker 1: just like random claims made by like some podcaster. No no, no,
Speaker 1: These these are well researched claims that all go back
Speaker 1: to two sources. So if you look at the look
Speaker 1: up the real paper, they actually have each of these
Speaker 1: claims cited. So look it up if you're If you're curious,
Speaker 1: I recommend it. So anyway back to it um, it
Speaker 1: has been shown that scientists have the same chance along
Speaker 1: their career of publishing their biggest hit. That those with
Speaker 1: earlier surname initials are significantly more likely to receive tenure
Speaker 1: at top departments. That one's position in an alphabetically sorted
Speaker 1: list may be important in determining access to oversubscribed public services.
Speaker 1: That middle name initials enhance evaluations of intellectual performance. That
Speaker 1: people with easy to pronounce names are judged more positively
Speaker 1: than those with difficult to pronounce names. That individuals with
Speaker 1: noble sounding surnames are found to work more often as
Speaker 1: managers than as employees. That females with masculine monikers are
Speaker 1: often more successful in legal careers. That roughly half of
Speaker 1: the variants and incomes across persons worldwise is explained only
Speaker 1: by their country of residents and by the income distribution
Speaker 1: within that country. That the probability of becoming a CEO
Speaker 1: is strongly influenced by your name or by your month
Speaker 1: of birth, and that even the probability of developing some
Speaker 1: sort of cancer might be cutting a brilliant career short.
Speaker 1: It's mainly due to simple bad luck. And um it's
Speaker 1: it was. It was fascinating to go through all these
Speaker 1: and to check all their their sited sources. But but
Speaker 1: the one thing that all these things have in common
Speaker 1: is that you have no control over any of these things.
Speaker 1: No matter how how much you think you have control
Speaker 1: over any of these you you you really don't. You
Speaker 1: don't determine your own name. For the most part, you
Speaker 1: you can't say what month you're born in. I suppose
Speaker 1: you could lie about some of these things, but but
Speaker 1: but for the most part, you don't have any control
Speaker 1: what country you're born in, etcetera, etcetera. You know where
Speaker 1: where your name lands in the alphabets. Um. But but
Speaker 1: it is an interesting idea to think about, like parents
Speaker 1: choosing their child's name based on like you know, how
Speaker 1: how will I make sure that my son Aaron a
Speaker 1: Aaron Sin is, as you know, at the front of
Speaker 1: every list and has all the advantages I can possibly
Speaker 1: provide for them. Yeah, I mean there's a lot to
Speaker 1: be said about about naming of children, and and different
Speaker 1: ideas about naming of children, and yeah, the the downstream
Speaker 1: results of those names. There's been so many studies and
Speaker 1: about this. In fact, I think I I heard an
Speaker 1: NPR story about a new one just the other day
Speaker 1: that was quite fascinating. Um. But again, yeah, you generally
Speaker 1: don't get to choose it yourself. Often you get to
Speaker 1: tweak it later, or you or you do change it later,
Speaker 1: but you're at least given that starting name that you
Speaker 1: have to deal with. Yeah, for most folks, they're unable
Speaker 1: to change their name until adulthood. So in many ways,
Speaker 1: the cards have already been dealt. You've already lived eighteen
Speaker 1: years of your life. You don't have much control over it,
Speaker 1: perhaps until you're an adult. Yeah. So, because this is
Speaker 1: a mathematics paper that I'm referring to today, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of equations, charts, and graphs, specifically twenty two
Speaker 1: pages worth of testing away. In particular, because we have
Speaker 1: the ability to track success based on their model, and
Speaker 1: a way to track um talent based on their model.
Speaker 1: How are we going to determine luck? So they spend
Speaker 1: twenty two pages determining that, which which will be very
Speaker 1: hard for me to express on a podcast, but but hey,
Speaker 1: they did it. So I recommend you open up this
Speaker 1: paper and you look at it. You'll see a wide
Speaker 1: variety of of ways to measure um uh good luck
Speaker 1: and bad luck and um. If you'll kind of picture
Speaker 1: in your mind, it's a pretty random distribution. Honestly, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's hard to equate because it's not a typical uh
Speaker 1: line like a like an twenty principle or a or
Speaker 1: or a Gaussian curve like these. This is a brand
Speaker 1: new thing to look at, which is the luck and
Speaker 1: a lack of luck curve, which is um kind randomized.
Speaker 1: So I recommend you look it up for details. But ultimately, uh,
Speaker 1: the result is untalented people who don't work hard are
Speaker 1: not successful. Okay, Also talented people who work hard are
Speaker 1: not successful. An average person who is averagely talented and
Speaker 1: works an average amount and is lucky is successful. That's
Speaker 1: how you are successful in this country, which, honestly, I
Speaker 1: think you could look at this in a couple of
Speaker 1: different ways. Um. I think ultimately anyone who is lucky
Speaker 1: and happened to just be a person in the world
Speaker 1: living their life, you know what I mean. Um. Not
Speaker 1: too long ago, we actually had a really interesting, uh
Speaker 1: episode of stuff to Blow your mind. It was called
Speaker 1: Barbara Blatchley on Why we Believe in Luck? And it
Speaker 1: was really fascinating in particular because Blatchly she was she
Speaker 1: was being interviewed in the episode, she was pointing out
Speaker 1: that the biggest part of luck, honestly, there were a
Speaker 1: few factors, but a big part of it was just
Speaker 1: just showing up, just being in the world and existing.
Speaker 1: So you are open to two lucky things happening to you.
Speaker 1: That that's that's that this an enormous part of luck
Speaker 1: is just being a person in the world. So if
Speaker 1: you're an average person with average intelligence, living an average
Speaker 1: life where you just do your life day to day,
Speaker 1: you might get lucky and you might become one of
Speaker 1: these mythical billionaires. But if you are I guess isolating
Speaker 1: yourself too much, then then then you don't have the
Speaker 1: chance for for most kinds of luck. Yeah, they say
Speaker 1: you've got to be in the right place at the
Speaker 1: right time, which means you've got to be you've got
Speaker 1: to go to places. Yes, that's true. It's true. Again.
Speaker 1: If you want to hear more about this, I really
Speaker 1: do recommend Barbara Blatchley on Why we Believe in Luck?
Speaker 1: Look it up in any of the stuff that blow
Speaker 1: your mind feeds. It's it's a fascinating episode. So coming
Speaker 1: back to why it's funny, um, I I think this
Speaker 1: confirms what a lot of horror working people who are
Speaker 1: not as successful as they want to be I want
Speaker 1: to believe is true, which is that, hey, no matter
Speaker 1: how hard I work, this country and perhaps this world
Speaker 1: is not a meritocracy, I cannot just will myself or
Speaker 1: work hard enough to become a billionaire. In fact, in
Speaker 1: the paper they go into this where they're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: how many hours of work can I put into this
Speaker 1: formula to ensure billionaire status? And it's not humanly possible.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's not. You can't track that same thing
Speaker 1: with um all of the aspects. Really, if you can
Speaker 1: go through with the individual elements and be like, how
Speaker 1: can I become a billionaire and you can't determine it.
Speaker 1: The luck has to be there. It's it's it's the
Speaker 1: only factor that is truly determining this crazy segments, So
Speaker 1: you can't discredit it. It's it's all you can really do. So, um,
Speaker 1: I guess it's self fulfilling. It makes the most of us,
Speaker 1: meaning you know, the majority of us who are not
Speaker 1: as successful as we think we should be. It's a
Speaker 1: confirmation of saying, don't worry, it's not your fault. That's
Speaker 1: why it's funny to me. Yeah, But the kind of
Speaker 1: the flip side is that it's also humbling as well,
Speaker 1: because it's like, well, you're you're in the place you
Speaker 1: are as well because of luck, Like you're here and
Speaker 1: not in some more dire situation of which there are
Speaker 1: plenty of of of examples to look at, Like I'm
Speaker 1: I'm not there just because of luck as well, I'm
Speaker 1: I was in the right right place and right time
Speaker 1: to be here, Uh, even if I'm not up here
Speaker 1: in this billionaire room. And that's why I think it's
Speaker 1: important coming to that last segment here, it's that, Um,
Speaker 1: first of all, it's impressive that they were able to
Speaker 1: determine this through math and really kind of cut out
Speaker 1: some um, some possibilities that people who do believe in
Speaker 1: the hustle would claim. It's it's shutting down those arguments. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's also a great reminder that the world is
Speaker 1: sadly not a meritocracy. Luck is a huge factor. Your
Speaker 1: successes are not entirely your own, and neither are your failures.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just an important thing to remember. So uh,
Speaker 1: I think it does confirm what we already think. But
Speaker 1: it's good to know that through math they were able
Speaker 1: to determine its for sure. Yeah. Thank all right, le,
Speaker 1: let's move on to another one of these prizes. I
Speaker 1: decided to go with the physics prize here. Uh. This
Speaker 1: one is a lot of fun. The physics prizes often,
Speaker 1: like a lot of these studies, revolve around things you
Speaker 1: might not expect um. And this one went to Frank Fish,
Speaker 1: Zi Ming Wan uh Ming lu Chen Live Being, Guy
Speaker 1: Uh Chun Yan Yi and Atla Incessic for trying to
Speaker 1: understand how ducklings managed to swim in formation. So the
Speaker 1: physics of ducklings swimming information uh um. And the the
Speaker 1: actual paper that's referenced here energy conservation by formation swimming
Speaker 1: metabolic evidence from ducklings by fish at all published in
Speaker 1: the book Mechanics and Physiology of Animal Swimming. So yeah,
Speaker 1: this is ultimately an older work here, but finally getting
Speaker 1: the the the acclaim that it deserves. So first of all,
Speaker 1: why is it funny? And I think it's obvious because
Speaker 1: it concerns ducks, not only ducks, but ducklings. Um ducks
Speaker 1: studies are somehow intrinsically humorous, perhaps simply because ducks are
Speaker 1: intrinsically humorous if memory serves. A study about duck necrophilia
Speaker 1: from I think two thousand three, or at least honored
Speaker 1: in two thousand three, was also featured in the ig Nobles,
Speaker 1: but various other topics have at least brought up ducks. Furthermore,
Speaker 1: this study is about ducklings and revolves around a complex
Speaker 1: attempt to understand something that ducks simply do. Like I
Speaker 1: feel like most of us have probably seen a mother
Speaker 1: duck followed in the water by her ducklings, and we
Speaker 1: might say something like, oh, isn't that cute? Or oh,
Speaker 1: look at those ducklings, isn't that sweet? But we're probably
Speaker 1: not turning to the person next to us and going, oh,
Speaker 1: my lord, how are they doing that? For? How is
Speaker 1: that possible? And yet, at the same time, the study
Speaker 1: is important because, as the study itself states, quote, the
Speaker 1: study here sheds light on the importance of the fluid
Speaker 1: mechanics on animals behavior and potentially evolution. So there's always
Speaker 1: something I always find find it kind of amusing when
Speaker 1: we have these cases of of physics, very serious physics
Speaker 1: being used, being applied to something that is seemingly mundane
Speaker 1: and thus revealing the hidden complexities of the thing. I
Speaker 1: often find fluid mechanics of papers very interesting for this reason.
Speaker 1: In some cases, they may tackle something seemingly mundane, like
Speaker 1: it might be the way a coffee slashes around in
Speaker 1: a mug or something like that, but it reveals this
Speaker 1: strange world of visible and invisible fluids that we live in,
Speaker 1: not only like liquids that we're interacting in, but also
Speaker 1: gases that we live in and and essentially are swimming
Speaker 1: through throughout our daily life, that we're born into and
Speaker 1: that we die. And but again this this study is
Speaker 1: funny too, just because it's ducks. I mean, think of
Speaker 1: how many cartoon ducks that we have. It's quite a few, right,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for sure, and yeah, I mean picture they're
Speaker 1: funny walk. I'm sure that's that's the big part of it.
Speaker 1: And uh and they're funny little noises they make. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think they make funny noises and they walk funny,
Speaker 1: and that's that's amusing to us. Yeah, so it's why
Speaker 1: we have Donald Duck. We have Daffy Duck, with have
Speaker 1: ducula darkwing duck, the rest, I mean the entire uh
Speaker 1: town of Duckberg, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, we have
Speaker 1: Scrooge mc duck and so forth. And I imagine there
Speaker 1: are a number of of less known duck car well,
Speaker 1: and think about this way too, Marvel Comics. You know,
Speaker 1: they have many serious superheroes running around doing their thing.
Speaker 1: When they want to commit to hero, how are the duck?
Speaker 1: That's so if you haven't seen this before, obviously when
Speaker 1: we're talking about ducks and ducklings in the wild, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just a mother duck in the water followed by
Speaker 1: her ducklings in a straight line. And the obvious question, then,
Speaker 1: if you want to dive deeper, is why are they
Speaker 1: doing this formation? Is this the best formation from an
Speaker 1: energy perspective, because that's often a way of understanding why
Speaker 1: in the animals do the things they do, why animal
Speaker 1: bodies are the way they are, why animal systems are
Speaker 1: the way they are. I mean, there are some complexities
Speaker 1: that arise in some sort of dead ends that can
Speaker 1: occur via evolution, but for the most part, like energy
Speaker 1: is a great place to look because evolution is is
Speaker 1: essentially kind of lazy, and energy conservation is extremely important
Speaker 1: for any organism, like what is the most efficient way
Speaker 1: to achieve some end? So in this case, the researchers
Speaker 1: created a simplified mathematical and numerical model and calculated the
Speaker 1: wave drag on a group of waterfowl in a swimming formation,
Speaker 1: and they highlighted uh two interesting findings too important factors
Speaker 1: in all of this wave riding and wave passing quote.
Speaker 1: By riding the waves generated by a mother duck, a
Speaker 1: trailing duckling can obtain a significant wave drag reduction. When
Speaker 1: a duckling swims at the quote sweet point behind its mother,
Speaker 1: a destructive wave interference phenomenon occurs and the wave drag
Speaker 1: of the duckling turns positive, pushing the duckling forward. More interestingly,
Speaker 1: this wave riding benefit could be sustained by the rest
Speaker 1: of the ducklings in a single file line formation. So
Speaker 1: the the the answer then is that like this, this
Speaker 1: is the most energy efficient way to do it. And
Speaker 1: the ducklings, by riding in in this formation behind the mother,
Speaker 1: are able to essentially be propelled along to a certain degree.
Speaker 1: Like they're they're, they're, they're, they're, they're basically that they're
Speaker 1: literally hiding in her wake. But the way that the
Speaker 1: wave function here works, uh, they're kind of getting a
Speaker 1: little boost. You know. I play a lot of Mario karts,
Speaker 1: and I would have thought that that would have informed
Speaker 1: me that this this is how it goes. But no, no,
Speaker 1: I mean I didn't consider drag and all that at all.
Speaker 1: Like like, if if I was thinking to myself, how
Speaker 1: do they follow in a line, I'd go use their eyes.
Speaker 1: They look at the duck in front of them and
Speaker 1: they just follow that one. You know. But but this
Speaker 1: makes so much more sense. Well yeah, because you I mean,
Speaker 1: on one level, yes, it's like this is the mother.
Speaker 1: It pays to keep your eyes on the mother. You're
Speaker 1: learning from the mother, and you need to go where
Speaker 1: she goes because she's also your protector. She's your source
Speaker 1: of of nourishment and so forth. Um, But there does
Speaker 1: seem to be this added this added level to it,
Speaker 1: this energy efficiency to it. Uh. It also gets interesting
Speaker 1: because the researchers here hypothesized that the energy efficiency of
Speaker 1: this formation might be the driving force behind of course,
Speaker 1: it's use in duck evolution, the reason that ducks continue
Speaker 1: continue and have continued to use this formation. But they
Speaker 1: also ponder its connection to imprinting. So they charge that
Speaker 1: the importance of this practice may influence the duck's primal
Speaker 1: instinct to follow any moving objects they see during this
Speaker 1: crucial period. So imprinting it occurs usually during the first
Speaker 1: day after a hatchling emerges and young ducklings usually, of
Speaker 1: course they're imprinting on the mother duck, but they can
Speaker 1: famously imprint on humans as well. There have been some
Speaker 1: very important studies in which ducklings have imprinted upon a
Speaker 1: human being. Now, don't do this, do not attempt to
Speaker 1: go anywhere and have ducklings imprint upon you. Leave that
Speaker 1: to the scientists. But it's interesting to think about about
Speaker 1: this in in its connection to the swimming efficiency. This
Speaker 1: idea of following, what it means to follow the mother around? Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's uh, it's beyond on just learning
Speaker 1: what she's doing. It's also benefiting, uh from from the
Speaker 1: energy efficiency of following her in the water. It makes sense,
Speaker 1: it makes sense. It's it's it's wonderful with science like
Speaker 1: like like like like we were saying earlier, this is
Speaker 1: the kind of study that I never would have considered.
Speaker 1: I never would have considered the fact that like, oh,
Speaker 1: these ducks do this more or less automatically through instinct
Speaker 1: why you know, And it's it's just and then you
Speaker 1: factor things in like, oh no, this is a this
Speaker 1: is an evolutionary trait that can be you know, that
Speaker 1: lead to to to their existence here in today's world,
Speaker 1: you know, by by by following this, it's like, oh yeah, science,
Speaker 1: you know, A plus B equals see, yeah, I got it.
Speaker 1: And it it drives home why bio mimetics solutions are
Speaker 1: are are often so effective because anything you see animals
Speaker 1: doing like this in the wild, it's not just the
Speaker 1: way they happen to do it. It's not it's not
Speaker 1: like you know, it's easy to compare to things like
Speaker 1: human traditions where it's like, well, why do they wear
Speaker 1: those funny hats? Well, we just wear these funny hats.
Speaker 1: This is the tradition. It's important to us, but in
Speaker 1: the animal world is especially These are these are things
Speaker 1: that have been selected for These are things that have
Speaker 1: undergone like rigorous um uh, evolutionary forces over time and
Speaker 1: so inevitably, like the way that the duck and the
Speaker 1: ducklings are behaving, like this is the most efficient way
Speaker 1: to do the thing. And I'm not sure off the
Speaker 1: top of the top of my head, like where you
Speaker 1: might be able to apply this particular scenario to engineering.
Speaker 1: And maybe there's some sort of like dinghy based um
Speaker 1: application here. But but it's the very reason that many
Speaker 1: cases we can say, well, will we have this engineering
Speaker 1: problem to solve, how can we best do it? Well,
Speaker 1: we could crunch out some numbers, we could we could
Speaker 1: bust out some some some tests and some models. Or
Speaker 1: we could look and see, what's a similar problem that
Speaker 1: has been faced in evolution, has been faced in nature,
Speaker 1: and what lessons seem to have been developed there, what
Speaker 1: seems to be the evolved solution? And can we just
Speaker 1: copy their work instead of doing it all from scratch? Here, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes perfect sense. Let's say you know you you
Speaker 1: are a robotics company who are building robotic freighters to
Speaker 1: send freight across the ocean. For example, if you want
Speaker 1: to spend you know, less on on on fuel. However,
Speaker 1: that may factor into your equation. Perhaps you should follow
Speaker 1: a duckling following its mother formula, you know, perhaps using
Speaker 1: that drag. Keeping that in mind, like one big freighter
Speaker 1: in the fronts and a few baby freighters behind it.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's the best solution. Who knows? Who knows? All right,
Speaker 1: we're looking at the clock here and it looks like
Speaker 1: we've about reached the time limit here for this episode.
Speaker 1: But don't worry. We're gonna come back in the next
Speaker 1: core episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, and we're
Speaker 1: going to continue looking at some but not all, off
Speaker 1: the two Ignobile Prize winners. Yeah, we've got plenty more
Speaker 1: for you. We're looking at a big old list here.
Speaker 1: Some we've already researched, some we still have to research.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we've got a lot more fun on the way.
Speaker 1: That's right, So yeah, check back in with us on Thursday.
Speaker 1: Just a reminder that yeah, two season Thursdays are the
Speaker 1: core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. On Monday's
Speaker 1: we do listener mail on Wednesdays and short form artifact
Speaker 1: or Monster Effect and on Fridays that's when we do
Speaker 1: Weird How Cinema. That's there time to set aside most
Speaker 1: serious concerns and just talk about a weird film. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's see if you want to interact with other listeners
Speaker 1: other followers of Stuff to Blow your Mind. Uh, there
Speaker 1: are at least a couple of places you can go.
Speaker 1: There is still a Facebook group called Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind Discussion Module. You can seek that out there
Speaker 1: and uh asked to join, I think you have to
Speaker 1: answer a very simple quiz to gain access. If you
Speaker 1: would like to join us on discord, well email us
Speaker 1: and I'll shoot that link out to you. And oh,
Speaker 1: if you use letterbox, is L E T P E
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Speaker 1: Cinema has an account on there. It's just us, your
Speaker 1: name weird House. You can follow us there and that's
Speaker 1: where we keep track of all the movies we've covered
Speaker 1: on the show. As always, thanks to Seth Nicholas Johnson
Speaker 1: for producing the show and stitching it all together for
Speaker 1: us and in this case also co hosting. And if
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us via email,
Speaker 1: well send us a message at contact Stuff to Blow
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