WEBVTT - Ig Nobel Science of 2013 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.040 Welcome to Stuff to blow your mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:14.440 Works dot com. Hey, we're going to stuff about your 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:16.000 my My My name is Robert lamp and my name is 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:18.720 Julie Douglas. And it's the fall, and a lot of 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:22.960 things happen every fall. There Halloween, there's pumpkins. Hey, hey rides, 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:27.400 leaves fall from the trees. Nobel Prizes. Yes, that's a 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:31.080 big one, especially for anyone who has, uh, who follows science, 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:34.000 either as a hobby, as a as a passion, as 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:37.200 a as a job, or all three. If you're us, Uh, 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:40.159 Ignoble Prize is always a big deal because the Ignoble 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:46.680 Prizes highlight the absurd, the comical, the the strange within 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:50.440 the world of legitimate scientific research, generally generally pure reviewed 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:54.080 scientific research. Sometimes in the world of patents. But it's 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:57.240 always about let's look at the the individuals who are 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:01.440 just really dedicated to study and one in scientific study 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:05.280 in one shaper or another, and some of the strange 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:08.319 corners they work themselves into. Yeah, it is a play 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:12.839 on the Nobel Prize. And uh, the it's from Improbable Research, 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:16.440 which publishes the magazine called the Annals of Improbable Research, 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:18.840 and the whole point of that, they say, is it's 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:21.119 there to make you laugh and then make you think 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:25.080 with as you say, some of these bizarre turns and science. Yeah, 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:28.640 Mark Abrams the main dude there. You know, some people 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:31.160 don't catch the humor of it. They think that it's 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:34.440 making fun of scientists. But I think most people understand 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:37.600 that it's it's a celebration of the of the necessary 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:41.360 absurdity of science. Because you think of science like a 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:44.080 slime mold. We talked about how slime mold solves a maze. 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:46.400 It sends out all these tendrils through the maze and 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:48.760 then just figures out what is the best route, and 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:51.200 then it goes that way. Uh, And in doing so 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:56.480 it can you know, decipher the best trade roots across 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.560 the face of the globe. Science is kind of like that. 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:02.360 Science is all about finding out how things work, how 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:05.360 things work the best, and and what the world and 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:09.240 what the universally consists of. But that also means that 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:12.560 the kindrels of science must sometimes creep into strange areas, 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:16.960 into sometimes strange dead ends, and sometimes into very important 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:20.919 areas of study that we are childish about and still 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:24.919 snicker at. It's true, it does appeal to that, and um, 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:27.880 I think with the Ignoble, what's interesting about that is 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:31.240 you see so much creativity and imagination from the researchers 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:33.639 and the scientists who are working in their respective fields, 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:36.480 and which you might think is really wrote. They have 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:40.600 actually sort of peeled back and found very interesting and 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.000 contextualizing it in ways that you might not have ever 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:46.440 thought of. And what we're talking about here when we 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:50.240 talk about these prizes is each year Ignoble will honor 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:52.640 the achievements that of course make you laugh and then 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:55.519 make you think. In the award tend people these prizes. 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:58.560 The winners trouble from all over the world at their 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:03.640 own expense to a gallus ceremony at Harvard where actual 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:08.280 noble laureates present them with the prize um. This year's 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:12.200 opera was The Bolonsky Device, a tribute to George and 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:15.600 Charlotte Blonsky, who in the early sixties invented a machine 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:19.640 for quote, facilitating the birth of a child by centrifugal force. 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:23.720 Oh wow, so just sling the kid right out? Is 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:28.560 that a great visual of what an Ignoble prize can 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:32.840 be because it's a it's a perfectly logical idea perfectly 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:37.320 logical theory that doesn't really sit well with people outside 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:40.560 of the lab. I think, you know, which, we've discussed 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:42.520 that before, Like it's some of the often the amazing 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:46.360 thing about scientists is that sometimes the scientific answer just 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:49.040 is not going to sit well with anybody outside of 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:52.240 the scientific world, such as, say, uh, creating a spaceship 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:55.440 that is itself edible, or just figuring out a way 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:58.200 that astronauts can eat their own poop on a return 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:02.320 trip from Mars on a very you know, economic scientific level, Yes, 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:04.440 that makes absolute sense, but then the astro not saying, no, 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:07.200 we're not doing that well. And in some ways these 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:10.440 are thought experiments, right, especially the childbirth is probably not 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:13.680 very pragmatic to be shooting out, you know, a child 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:16.120 by a centrifugal force. But what kind of proof do 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:18.240 we have? Do we have scientific proof that it's not 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:21.080 a good idea? One day that might be the thing, right, 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:24.120 you have to build on that research, alright, So let's 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:27.880 highlight a couple of the prizes here, alright. First up, 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:31.560 the psychology prize. This one went to a team of 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:38.080 French researchers including Laurette Bague Alman Zaruni, Baptiste Subra, and 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:43.560 Nidhi or Ba as well as Brad Bushman. And that 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:47.159 was the I think the USA contingent there. Uh. And 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:49.720 that was for confirming that people who think that they 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:53.360 are drunk also think that they are more attractive. And 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:55.599 of course this is great because if you just ask 0:04:55.640 --> 0:04:57.920 somebody that, hey, do you think drunk people think they're 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:00.160 more attractive? Of course they do. It's it's a no brainer, right, 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:03.520 But has it been scientifically proven? Do we know for sure? 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:06.440 And there are a lot of more important questions in 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.120 the history of of the human race that have come 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:10.760 up where someone says, of course, this is the way 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:12.880 it works. Of course, the Earth is the center of 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:14.720 the universe. Of course the Sun is the center of 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:17.600 the universe. But when you apply the light of science 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:20.279 to it, then you get the real answer, um or 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:22.200 you get the evolution of a real answer. So in 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:24.040 the first study carried out in the bar, they found 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:27.440 that the more alcoholic drinks customers consumed, the more attractive 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:30.800 they thought they were. Okay, that's but in Steady too, 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:34.560 they took ninety four non student participants and they put 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:37.080 them in a bogus taste test study they were given 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:41.360 either an alcoholic beverage or a nonalcoholic beverage, with half 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:44.520 of each group believing they had consumed alcohol alcohol and 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:47.200 half believing that they had not, so they had a 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:52.000 balanced pacebo effect. So, after consuming the beverages, they delivered 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:55.360 a speech and rated how attractive, bright, original, and funny 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:58.320 they thought they were. And they videotape these speeches and 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:01.000 they were rated by a team of twenty two independent judges. 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.920 Would they find those people thought they were brilliant and 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:07.599 even if they weren't drunk, is all they had to 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:10.840 do was think that they were drunk, and they instantly 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:15.120 thought that they were, uh like greater than they actually are. 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:18.640 I think this is important information, right for everybody who 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:20.599 is going out there and going to have a couple 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:23.960 of drinks and then perhaps do something that is important 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:28.600 to their livelihood. Perhaps maybe you should reconsider the drinks. 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:31.320 Maybe what you're about to do isn't quite as great 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:34.520 as you think. It's also interesting, um, you know, bringing 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:37.440 up the idea that even a non alcoholic beverage one 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:40.200 have the same effect. Um, And perhaps you can shed 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:42.320 some light in this from your own experience, since you 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:45.240 you gave up drinking. Uh, but I assume you still 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:49.080 find yourselves having a drink, a non alcoholic drink, maybe 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:51.920 in the in the the company of individuals who are drinking, 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:55.719 or or sort of fill that space in the in 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:58.880 the ritual. Because I can think of a time or 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:01.800 two where I've had something non alcoholic and that either 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:05.120 the setting was right or or the company was right, 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:08.120 that I really kind of felt as if I had 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:10.360 been drinking alcohol. Well, I think it boils down to 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:13.480 mirror neurons, because if someone is sitting across from you 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:15.560 and and they're feeling a little bit loosened up, they've 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:18.760 had a drink or two and they began to laugh 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:20.640 a lot, then of course you're going to engage in 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:22.920 the same activity. So it's very easy, I think, to 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:26.760 take on those sort of physical things for yourself. You 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:29.560 begin to fall into the cultural script that has been 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:33.200 provided to you. Yea. What I love about this study 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:36.520 is the title, which is called Beauty is in the 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:40.120 Eye of the Beer Holder. Oh that's great. Yeah, It's 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:42.840 almost like they knew they were going to get ignoble. Yeah. Yeah. 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:44.960 Some I I tend to prefer the ones that are 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:49.560 just really like rigidly scientific and you get the idea 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:53.400 that they're completely oblivious to how ridiculous it might sound 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:58.440 to an outsider. It's got like five prepositions and words long. 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:02.880 All right, let's talk about the Joint Prize in Biology 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:09.440 and Astronomy now. Marie Dack, Emily Baird, Eric Warrant, Marcus Byrne, 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:13.760 and Clark Schultz received this prize for discovering that when 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:17.200 dung beaetles get lost, that they can navigate their way 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:21.120 home by looking at the milky Way. This at first glance, 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:23.040 doesn't seem like I mean, it seems like a sort 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:25.400 of amazing boy. Yeah, okay, what are you talking about here? 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:28.160 It is very cool. Yeah, I mean, obviously the moon 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:30.920 is big money when it comes to night time navigation 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:33.600 out there in the animal world. It's just that everything, 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:36.600 it seems can can use the moon for some form 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:40.719 of navigation. But previously only birds, seals, and humans were 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:43.400 known to use the stars to navigate, I mean that 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:48.160 were to orient themselves. So that's privileged territory. So the 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:51.440 idea that hey, the lowly dung beetle is using this 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:55.600 technique as well, it's amazing. What I like to imagine 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:58.200 is that you know, these dung beetles, they actually like 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:00.600 to run straight lines, by the way, And what I 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:02.760 like to imagine is that when they find a pile 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:06.120 of droppings, which they then roll into a small ball, 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:09.679 and they start pushing it away from the other dung 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:12.400 beetles that might try to eat it, I like to 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:14.719 measure them just getting on top of that ball and 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:19.319 staring up at the milky Way. I'll dowy eyed, and 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:21.680 I want that to be a Pixar movie and it 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:23.959 should be right um. But I think it's very cool 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:26.559 because it was thought that they were taking cues from 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:29.920 from the sun and the moon um. But it was 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:34.400 their capacity to maintain course even on clear moonless nights 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:38.600 that got researchers thinking that it perhaps was something else 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:42.080 that could have been the stars. So lead researcher Marie 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:46.680 doc She took the insects into the Johannesburg Planetarium, where 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.960 she could control the type of star fields beetle might 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:53.680 see overhead so they get their own little planetarium show. 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:57.000 She put them in a container with blackened walls to 0:09:57.080 --> 0:09:59.840 make sure the animals were not using other information from 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:02.600 and marks on the horizon, which in the wild might 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:06.000 be trees, for example, and she found that the Beatles 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:09.920 performed best when confronted with a perfect starry sky projected 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:14.240 onto the planetarium dome, although even in other conditions they 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:18.920 could still find their way. Pretty cool, Yeah, yeah, and 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:22.800 it's the finding represents the first convincing demonstration for the 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:27.200 use of starry sky orientation in insects um and and 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:29.440 provides the first documented use of the Milky Way for 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:33.040 orientation in the animal kingdom. So that's pretty amazing. I 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:35.360 actually was pretty I thought it was amazing because we've 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:38.560 talked about navigation so much in how mysterious it is, 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:41.320 particularly when we talk about birds or butterflies, and now 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:43.480 you've got dune deals and on the game give a 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:47.959 Give a dune beetle is due. Indeed, all right, we're 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:49.720 gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:52.400 we're gonna roll through three more of our favorites from 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:56.439 the two thousand thirteen Ignoble Prizes, all sorts of Google 0:10:56.480 --> 0:11:06.680 and amazing things are gonna happen in those studies. All right, 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:09.720 we're back by the way micro cosmas Um. When that 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:13.120 film first came out, all the DVD or VHS covers 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:16.000 for it had this praying man it's wearing sunglasses on it, 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:19.840 which totally misrepresented the entire picture. Like they were trying 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:22.679 to play up the like like it was a bug's 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:25.640 life or something like it's some sort of cute insects story, 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:27.839 and it's not. It's a It's just a beautifully shot 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:31.800 insight into the world, the violent, the weird, and beautiful 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:36.679 world of insects. Praying man says, do wear right? Not 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:40.160 at all? Oh I don't. You should probably check into that, Okay, 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:43.640 I'll fact check this, all right, all right, now we're back. 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:47.360 We're talking about the two thousand thirteen Ignoble Prize winners, 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:49.200 and we're we're not going through all of them. We're 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:50.959 just covering some of our favorites. You can check out 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:54.400 the rest at the Improbable Research website and we highly 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:56.959 suggest to do that. The next prize, we're going to 0:11:57.040 --> 0:12:00.079 discuss Safety Engineering Prize, and this one went to the 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:04.439 late Gustano Pizzo Um from the US for a nineteen 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:08.880 seventy two patent for an amazing invention that I'm just 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:11.320 floored that we haven't used that we have that we 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:15.960 don't see in every airplane. I love this invention because 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:18.160 on some level I think it appeals to the eight 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:20.440 year olds and all of us as well as the 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:23.719 Bond fans. Yes, there's a little James Bond at this 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:26.520 and a little like it's like an ACME invention from 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:30.200 the road Runner car. Yes. Yes, um. It is actually 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:35.320 an electro mechanical system to trap airplane hijackers. The system 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:39.719 drops a hijacker through trap doors, seals him into a package, 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:43.600 then drops the hijacker through the airplane specially installed bomb 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:47.480 bay doors, through which he is parachuted to the ground, where, 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:52.680 of course police, having been alerted by radio, await his arrival. Yeah, 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:56.320 on ski jets, I think yeah. And there was an 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:58.800 illustration with the patent. I mean the patents you know, 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:03.120 public the public domain, you can you can find it online. Uh. 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:05.360 And and the the illustrations are wonderful because you see 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:07.440 the individual, you see him jettison, you see him in 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:10.760 the little package with the with the parachute, and and 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.319 you're totally right. On one hand, it's it's very James Bond. 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:16.520 And I think it reminds me of of you to 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:19.520 a kill where Christopher Walkin was the was the villain 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:21.439 and he was in a blimp and I'm pretty sure 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:25.040 there's a trap door in that blimp for jettison um 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:27.720 members of his team that we're falling out of line. 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:30.280 But you know, this is we're talking about a commercial 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:32.000 flight here. We don't want people to just fall to 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:35.120 their death and want them to fall safely on a 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:39.240 parachute so that the police can apprehend them. Well, and 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:42.400 you know, in theory, it is a great idea, Yeah, 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:45.600 and it makes a kind of like simple sense. You know, 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:48.319 that's just in the execution, right, because you have to 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:50.079 make sure that the person is standing in the right 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:53.640 area and that you know, he doesn't inadvertently or she 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:57.480 you never know, uh tossed you down and you who 0:13:57.520 --> 0:13:59.800 are not the person who's trying the hijack the plane 0:13:59.880 --> 0:14:03.240 or in you know, jettison down to the police. So 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:07.839 again it's just a matter of logistics here. But I 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:11.040 do really like this, Yeah, I wish on some level 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:13.760 that it would be pragmatic enough that you can actually 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:18.120 use all Right. Up next the Archaeology Prize, and this 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:23.040 one went to Brian Crandall and Peter Stall the Forum 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:26.240 from us the Ladder from Kennedy, us UH for observing 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:30.240 how the bones of swallowed dead shrews dissolved inside the 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:36.520 human digestive system. Now, the the the answer is in 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.880 the in the study there because obviously this is a 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:44.120 study about um humans swallowing the bones of a dead 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:48.000 shrew and then later fishing through the fecal matter to 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:52.239 see how it turned out. Yeah, the shrew was parboiled 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:56.120 and then of course swallowed whole without any sort of chewing, 0:14:56.200 --> 0:15:00.920 and then carefully examined during the ex script ory period 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:04.440 in which would have correlated from when it would arrive 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:08.240 in that excretion. Uh so, Yeah, they wanted to see 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:11.640 how the bones would dissolve inside the human digesticism. But 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:16.560 why you ask why, because they wanted to see how, 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:20.400 or rather help archaeologist to turn whether small animal bones 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:23.200 found a historic sites signified that the animals have been 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:26.480 eaten or died naturally, So that the question is important, 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:29.200 like having the answer to this helps us make sense 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:32.920 of so many archaeological sites and finds around the world. 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:35.640 But the in order to answer it, they took a 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:40.240 very straightforward approach and to the outside viewer perhaps an 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:44.760 undignified um investigation. But that's just the way it is. 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:47.440 Sometimes you want to you want an answer to a 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:50.720 question that sometimes there was a very simple, straightforward way 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:53.240 to do it. Yeah, you could go through some sort 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:56.200 of complex chemical process that mimic the digestion of the 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:59.080 human body. You could essentially build a cloaca bot to 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:03.200 digest this, uh, this tiny rodent for you, or you 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:05.040 could just do what makes sense. You could just you 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:08.400 could just say, screw it, I'm going to swallow this 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:10.360 creature and then I'm going to poop it out, and 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:12.000 then I'm gonna see and I'm gonna have my answer, 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:14.600 and and I'm not gonna need all this ridiculous funding 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:17.720 to do it. Now, if I remember correctly, this was 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:21.920 featured in Mary Richard's Gulp and Um. At the time 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:24.640 of her writing that, I believed that it wasn't revealed 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:28.200 whether it was Crandell or Stall who actually swallowed the 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:30.880 shrew because they didn't want people to focus on who 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:34.840 was combing through their poo to try to find the bones. 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:38.400 They wanted people to focus on how it was actually digested. 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:43.120 And in case you're wondering, uh, the digestive action of 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:47.600 either Crandell or Stall obliterated everything but twenty eight bones 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:50.800 out of one d and thirty one, Way to go, 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:54.280 Way to Go digestive stem. All right, and we're gonna 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:56.960 look at one last study here, and this one is 0:16:57.040 --> 0:16:59.560 the Public Health Prize, and this one comes to us 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:02.320 from high Land. And I have said we we left 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:06.120 this one because you have to leave the penis for last. Really, yes, 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:10.280 because this study had to do with medical techniques for 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:15.840 penile reattachment after amputations, often by jealous lives um techniques 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:19.800 which they recommended except in cases where the amputated penis 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:24.760 had been partially eaten by a duck. Now, yeah, I 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:27.160 need to explain this, and I'm I'm just gonna pull 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:30.399 directly from Mark Abrams article that came out in The 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:33.560 Guardian last year titled why Thai women cut off their 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:37.840 husband's penises. He points out that quote it became fashionable 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:40.680 in the decade after nineteen seventy for the humiliated Thai 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:43.960 wife to wait until her philandering husband fell asleep so 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:46.399 that she could quickly sever his penis with a kitchen knife. 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:49.359 A traditional tie home is elevated on pilings and the 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:52.800 windows are open to allow for ventilation. The area under 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:55.439 the houses home is the home of the family, pigs, chickens, 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:58.440 and ducks. Thus it is quite usual that an amputated 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:01.119 penis is tossed out of an open window where it 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:04.200 may be captured by a duck. Then Abrams goes on 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:07.040 to say, the report explains for readers in other countries. 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:09.960 Quote the Tai saying I better get home or the 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:12.920 ducks will have something to eat is therefore a common 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:17.760 joke and immediately understood at all levels of society. So 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:22.600 in case anybody is visiting Thailand and you happen to 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:24.919 be able to hear this phrase, now you have a 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:28.440 context for it. Yes, So, yeah, I guess there was 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:31.920 a prominent nineteen seventy three case in which a woman 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:35.000 sliced off her husband's penis, and then during the seventies 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:37.640 so were like something like a hundred other Yeah. Basically, 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:40.080 it sounds like it got a tremendous amount of coverage 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:42.240 at the time because it is it's you know, as 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:45.320 we know in the West, um, case like this happens, 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:48.000 the media is just gonna eat it up. Um, no 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:51.240 pun intended, and uh, and so it's it's in the 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:54.080 public mindset, and and so you begin to see other 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:57.080 cases popping up. That's right. That was the great bob 0:18:57.119 --> 0:18:59.760 at Escapade in the US. And I believe that penis 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:04.760 was flung out a car window, yes, but was apprehended 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:08.000 before a duck could inter s and it also was reattached. 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:11.080 It was so basically this whole, the whole stuff. I mean, 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:13.439 the study makes it in because on one hand, it 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:16.480 involves the penis and therefore is inherently funny. Uh. And 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:21.359 then it also is weird and uh and and ties 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:25.720 in this uh, this epidemic of of of peno amputation, 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:28.920 and it involves ducks, and ducks are inherently funny as well. 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:35.440 Even though at the bottom line, even bad philandering husbands 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:39.760 uh probably don't deserve to have their their penises cut off. 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:44.679 I'm not gonna. And I imagine too that um, I 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:48.000 don't have obviously the plumbing, but I would want there 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:50.520 to be quite a bit of study where a man 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:52.760 who's whose penis was cut off and had to be 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:55.360 reattached to make sure that it was done properly. Yes, 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:58.000 I mean, it's it's an injury that is going to 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:01.920 occur in the course of of human events, and it's 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:05.080 better that we do have techniques on hand, that we 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:07.760 do know the best means by which to reattach it 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:11.560 if possible. So it's it's a study that at once 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:14.200 is highly helpful and great and it's wonderful that the 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:18.879 research has contributed to our scientific understanding with it. But 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:21.440 on the other hand, there are a number of inherently 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:25.760 giggle inducing qualities to it. And that's why we love Ignoble, right, 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:29.959 because you get pretty much everything, yeah, from dung beetles 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:33.040 to penises. Yeah, from studies that are that just seem 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:35.439 to sort of fill in one tiny corner of our 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:38.919 scientific understanding or things that or studies that are they 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:43.600 are actually highly important but still induced snickers. So there 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:46.200 you have another Ignable Price ceremony has come and gone. 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:48.119 We've highlighted some of the ones we like. You can 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:51.520 check out the rest online at the Improbable Research website. 0:20:51.600 --> 0:20:53.159 And uh yeah, all of those guys that put that 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:56.040 the magazine out of the PDF and it's always tremendous 0:20:56.040 --> 0:20:58.919 fund to leave through it. In the meantime, if you 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:00.720 want to chat without about it, if you want to 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:04.520 share your favorites from this year's of award winners, or 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.320 you have some past favorites that you still snicker about, 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:09.000 let us know about it. You can find us in 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:10.960 all the usual places. Our mothership is stuff to Blow 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:13.159 your Mind dot com, where you'll find all our videos, 0:21:13.160 --> 0:21:16.520 all our blog posts, our podcasts. Yes, even the episodes 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:19.399 of the podcast that are not available on iTunes or 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:22.040 wherever you like to get your podcast, you will find 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:25.320 them on the website, and you can always drop us 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:27.560 a line with your thoughts that blow the mind at 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:35.760 discovery dot com for more on this and thousands of 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:43.639 other topics, does it, How stuff Works dot com