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