WEBVTT - 25 Greatest Science Ideas Countdown: Day 5 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:06.559 You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:12.399 and iHeartRadio. Guess what Will? 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:13.200 What's that Mango? 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:16.680 All week we've been counting down the twenty five best 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:19.720 science ideas of the past twenty five years, and today 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:21.640 is exact phonology. 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:22.279 This is it. 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:25.520 We have four stories left, which makes me feel a 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:28.440 little weird that we didn't do exactly five in every episode, 0:00:28.480 --> 0:00:31.080 but I've somehow moved on from that. And to give 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:33.040 you a sense of what's coming today, let's say that 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:36.320 you'll never look at a mosquito, a mushroom, or a 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:39.640 wet book the same way. Again, you thought you were 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:41.320 always going to look at those things the same way. 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:43.400 And if you're unlucky enough to have a roommate or 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:44.960 a partner who snores, guess what. 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:47.040 We have found a way to fix that. 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:50.360 Amazing, So I hope you guys are as excited as 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:51.839 we are. Let's dive in. 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:15.679 Hey their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:17.960 Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:20.880 friend Mangesha Ticketer and over there in the booth icing 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:25.080 an enormous cake. Like enormous doesn't even do it justice. 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:28.959 It is a gigantic That is our palain producer Dylan Fagan. 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:31.399 I had no idea Dylan was a pastry. 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:34.320 Chef for me either, But that is one beautiful cake. 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:38.039 There's writing on it too. It says, make sure you're 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:40.880 subscribed to part Time Genius on your favorite podcast app 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:42.640 and if you like the show, please leave us a 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:46.040 five star rating and review. Yeah, which is impressive. Yeah. 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:49.040 Look, I think it says johnnyus part Time Johnius for anyways. 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:53.200 Close enough. We appreciate the gesture there. Wrote it all 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:56.360 in frosting wine. Know, Paul Hollywood could never. 0:01:57.920 --> 0:01:59.200 All right, mango, be honest. 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:01.720 Have you ever build something on a book or an 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:02.840 important document? 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:03.560 Not? 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:04.440 Really? 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:06.680 Okay? Well, I was hoping free to say yes at 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:06.960 some point. 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:09.760 But you've never spilled coffee or like wine on a 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:10.760 book or something like that. 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:15.320 No, I am one, I'm not really that clumsy. But two, 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:18.160 I'm actually super paranoid about that type of thing. So 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:20.799 like when I have a glass, I tend to keep 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:24.080 my books and my liquid separate. My kids and my 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:26.000 wife do spill a lot of things, so I have 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:27.239 a cleaning up a lot of stuff. 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:30.520 Okay, Okay, Well, our next great idea will definitely help 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:33.600 you out in those situations as well. As librarians are 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:36.880 conservators who have had to rescue water logged materials, And 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:38.359 is there a lot of that, more. 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:38.920 Than you'd imagine. 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:41.880 Actually, think of burst pipes or flooding, or damage caused 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:44.560 by sprinklers. If there's a fire in the building and 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:47.560 wet paper is really hard to dry out. You can 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:49.600 blot it, you can freeze dried, you can put it 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:52.560 in front of fans. But these techniques are time consuming 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:55.359 and laborious, and so if you're not careful, you can 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:58.120 wind up with mildew or pages that end up rippling. 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:01.080 And so someone came up with a way to dry 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:01.680 these books. 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:05.280 Actually, someone came up with the best way to drive books. 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:08.520 His name is Nicki Jaeger, and he is a rare 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:11.600 books librarian, a conservator, and an artist who's had a 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:14.639 long and colorful career in the world of paper arts. 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:16.680 So back in two thousand and two, a friend put 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:19.000 him in touch with a woman named Kate Hayes, who 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:23.560 is an information specialist with the USDA's National Agricultural Library. 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:26.440 She'd been thinking about soggy paper ever since she'd heard 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:29.160 that millions of pentagon documents got soaked on nine to 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:32.320 eleven when all the sprinkler systems turned on. And she 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:34.960 remember the substance that was used in agriculture to help 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:39.000 seeds germinate in dry soil. It's a cornstarch based polymer 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:42.640 called and I'm not making this up, super slurper. And 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:45.680 this stuff holds five hundred times its weight and water, 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:48.840 so it could dry anything out right. She just needed 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:51.720 someone with a conservation expertise to figure out how it 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:54.440 could be applied to paper. So we talked to Nicki 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:56.480 on the phone and he told us that he was 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:59.440 intrigued by the idea. So we asked Kate Hayes to 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:03.000 mail himself super Slurper, which looked a lot like sawdust, 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:05.520 And when it arrived, she gave him a call and 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:07.600 he tested it out while they were talking. 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:10.400 So I walk over to the sink and put a 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:15.280 book under the faucet soak about fifty sixty seventy pages. 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:18.640 I take a handful of this flake and I throw 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:20.640 it into the middle of the wettest part of the book, 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:23.080 close the book, put it in the screw press, and 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:26.840 talk for another minute. Pull it out and twenty pages 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.640 on either side of their bone dry. I mean they're 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:33.880 not like humid, they're dry. Eh, And that's what five 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:36.680 hundred times is waiting water will do. I'm like, this 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.160 stuff is amazing. We got to do something. 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:42.400 Kate agreed to help Nicky get a federal research agreement 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:46.320 to turn Super Slurper into a viable paper conservation product, 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:48.960 but right away they were challenges. For one thing, the 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:51.560 super Slurper turned into a goo in the crevices of 0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:54.960 wet books, and the sawdust like flakes made dense in 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:57.480 the paper as it dried. So he solved that first 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:00.000 problem by just sandwiching a layer of the polymer between 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:03.880 sheets of lab grade filtration paper, and after destroying a 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:06.560 coffee grinder trying to turn the flakes into dust, he 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:09.719 tracked down a manufacturer that sold a powdered. 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:10.880 Version of the super Slurper. 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:13.120 But then the question was how do you keep this 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:15.960 fine powder contained in its envelope of filter paper? 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:21.719 And somebody eventually said something about diapers, and I went, oh, yeah. 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:24.400 Nikki checked out some diaper making equipment, but he realized 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:27.200 that diapers are engineered to hold liquid in without ever 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:29.960 letting it out. They use an adhesive that lets the 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:32.840 absorbent filling blow up when it gets wet, and then 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:36.120 it stays puffy. Super Slurper couldn't do that. It had 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:39.520 to dry flat so it wouldn't damage book spines. Eventually, 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:41.600 after a ton of trial and error, he figured out 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:44.760 how to assemble sheets of super Slurper designed for rescuing 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:47.680 wet books. He used the jury rigged silk screen to 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:50.719 distribute the powder on the envelopes of filter paper coated 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:53.760 with an industrial adhesive that allowed the stuff to swell 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:56.480 up just enough to hold water before going flat as 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:59.320 it dried. Plus, he left a precise border at the 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:01.800 edge of the paper so the slurper wouldn't ooze out, 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:03.960 sort of like an overstuffed PBNJ. 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:08.400 I mean this all sounds so time consuming. 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:10.120 Yeah, and this is taking years. 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:15.279 He's bouncing around rented commercial workspaces and USDA research labs, 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:18.159 getting by with small grants. It was slow going, but 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:20.360 he was homing in on the details that would make 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:24.320 his product, which he decided to call Zorbis, work just 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:26.919 right now. The problem now was finding a way to 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:30.080 manufacture this stuff instead of pasting it together by hand. 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:33.279 But the industrial experts he spoke with didn't understand the 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:36.040 science of zorbis or books the way Nikki did. 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:40.880 Every engineer I spoke to for ten years kept trying 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:46.560 to re engineer it to their standards. No one was 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:51.560 able to comprehend all of my very specific needs and 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:57.000 challenges and answering their questions. I was learning myself what 0:06:57.160 --> 0:06:59.919 the form had to be and why it had to 0:06:59.880 --> 0:07:03.400 be the way it was. So during that period I 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:06.880 also figured out that if I put the sheets of 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:11.600 zorbix about every twenty or thirty pages, then I'm not 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:14.840 swelling the spine of the book. I'm not increasing the 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:19.080 books interior space such that it ruins the spine. 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:21.080 Now, the other problem was money. 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:23.080 So by two thousand and nine he'd built up a 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:26.920 small customer base of librarians and conservation experts. People in 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:29.560 the book business knew the value of zorbix, but finance 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:30.880 guys couldn't quite get it. 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:34.240 I'd managed to get a couple of people investing in this. 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:38.119 I was able to manufacture small batches of it by hand, 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:41.680 and whenever any library saw this stuff, they loved it. 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:44.280 They were like, this stuff is great. But I had 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:48.760 a hard time describing how it was useful. Like, I 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:51.560 tried to go in front of Angel investors, but Northern 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:56.040 California is a high tech industry and this is essentially 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:59.080 be low tech, and nobody understood the importance. So I'd 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:01.400 done research on how many books get wet in a year. 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:04.920 There's over two million books a year in libraries that 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:09.480 get wet from non catastrophic floods, water breaks, leaking roof, 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:13.920 spilling coffee, whatever. Went to these investors and they were like, well, 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:16.200 that's two million books, that's not that big a deal. 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:18.520 He ended up having to take a warehouse job to 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:21.480 support himself while he continued looking for ways to mass 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:24.640 produce sorbis, all while keeping up with the orders he 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:28.320 was getting from librarians. By twenty fifteen, he had hit 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:28.720 a wall. 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:31.600 I called all of my investor and I said, I'm done. 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:33.800 It's you know, it's from two thousand and two to 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:37.480 twenty fifteen. I just I can't do this anymore. And 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:40.960 they went, yeah, well, you prove feasibility, you got a mark, 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:43.600 you built the machine, you wrote the patent, you got 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:47.640 a market. It just didn't succeed financially. Bit just succeeded 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:50.160 in every other way. So I said, all right, I'm 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:51.880 going to celebrate my failure, and I went on a 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:53.280 motorcycle trip around the country. 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:55.559 On his way through ann Arbor, he stopped to say 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:58.920 hi to one of his longtime customers, Shannon Zachary, the 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:01.720 head of conservation and book repair at the University of Michigan, 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:03.560 and he told her about his decision. 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:07.280 She goes, what, He goes, see the stack of book series? Yeah, 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:10.120 she should. We had a flood in our rare book vault. 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:12.640 It was a water leak and we had all of 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:16.240 this mostly nineteenth and twentieth century kind of avant garde 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:19.280 types of materials that couldn't freeze dry and they had 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:21.760 to be flat. She goes, that stack is the last 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:24.480 stack of these, you know, seven hundred books or whatever 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:27.160 it was. And we used zorbis and was great. I said, 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:30.200 I can't keep going. I need ten grand just to 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:32.600 buy a paper. She goes, oh, well, you can't go 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:33.520 out of business. 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:37.319 Shannon rallied the conservation community to place ten thousand dollars 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:40.679 worth of orders back home in California. Nicky got to 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:43.600 work fulfilling them by hand. He plugged away in a 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:46.839 Bay Area industrial building with no heat, sharing this space 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:48.840 with a bunch of burning Man fans who were there 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:51.880 building art carts for the plout, and he set up 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:55.840 his fourteen foot modified screen printing system, his racks, his 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:59.640 stock of filter paper, and powdered super slurper. He covered 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:02.880 it all with plastic sheeting because the roof was leaking no, 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:06.040 but he was still no closer to getting Zorbis into 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:09.720 a proper manufacturing system. After a while, he looked around 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:11.959 and was like, why am I still doing this? You 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:13.120 can imagine the frustration. 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:14.240 Yeah. 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:17.000 Do you know what the difference between being stubborn and 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:20.800 perseverant is? Well, stubborn is what they say about you 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:24.160 when you're doing something and it doesn't look like it's 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:27.119 going anywhere. When they write about it after you succeeded, 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:30.640 they say you were perseverant, and I just said I'm stubborn. 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:31.960 Time to quit. 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:35.600 Well, I guess that is part of science, right, I mean, 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:39.360 sometimes the world just doesn't make space for great ideas. 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:41.720 Yeah, that's pretty much how Nikki felt. So he called 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:43.920 up an old friend from the book world who agreed 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:46.600 to buy the business, But that guy got busy with 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:50.840 other projects, so Zorbix this incredibly complicated, beautifully simple way 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:53.440 to save what books was put on the back burner. 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:56.160 That means it's been a long time since any Zorbis 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:59.520 was produced, but since it's reusable, it is actually still 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:02.240 out there. So we heard from one conservator who's hung 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:04.960 onto her sheets for years because she says it's just 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:06.640 so good at what it does. 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:09.319 It's pretty amazing. So where does this all stand now? 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:12.120 Well, there may end up being a happy ending to 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:15.199 this story. So right before we recorded this episode, actually 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:18.000 got an email from Nikki who said that talking to 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:21.480 us reignited his passion for the project. He's decided to 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:24.040 start writing the story of Zorbis for his blog and 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:26.679 put some demos on YouTube so more people can see 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:29.320 how it works. He's thinking maybe it can turn into 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:32.120 sort of an open source effort. And here's some even 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:34.520 more good news. He was kind enough to mail us 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:37.640 some sheets of Zorbix from his personal stash, and we're 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:40.400 giving them away today on Instagram. So people are going 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:42.120 to go start spelling stuff in order to be able 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:46.640 to use least there, right, So go follow us at 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.240 Part Time Genius and find out how you can win 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:50.240 some Zorbis. 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:53.520 That is pretty cool. Hey, listeners, do not go anywhere. 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:55.320 We've got to pause for a quick break. But there 0:11:55.400 --> 0:12:08.400 is so much weird science waiting on the other side. 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:15.320 Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're talking about 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:18.160 the twenty five greatest science ideas of the last twenty 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:22.760 five years. If you've ever gone hiking or camping in 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:25.200 the US, or even if you've just tried to enjoy 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:27.840 a nightcap on your Porsche, chances are you've had an 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:31.440 annoying encounter with a mosquito. But that's usually all it is, 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:34.200 an annoyance. Now, in other parts of the world, mosquitoes 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:37.400 are a serious health risk. In fact, the CDC calls 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:40.559 them the world's deadliest animal. About a million people die 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:44.480 for mosquito born illnesses each year. For example, despite all 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:47.679 the progress we've made with malaria, the WHO reports that 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:51.080 there were two hundred and sixty three million cases and 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:54.720 five hundred and ninety seven thousand debts in twenty twenty three. 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:57.880 Then there are diseases like denge, which are not often 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:00.600 lethal but can make you really, really ill. We actually, 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:03.720 when I was recording my other podcast, Colin Drive, my 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:07.200 aunt and uncle in India caught it and it truly 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:10.800 sounded miserable. But the worst part is mosquito borne illness 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:13.480 is on the rise worldwide, and here in the US 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:16.040 we're actually starting to see more cases of West Nile 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:17.920 virus Zeka and denke. 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:20.720 So why is this problem getting worse? 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:23.120 Climate change is a big part of it, right, I mean, 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:26.760 as temperatures rise and places get more humid, it's a 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:30.400 literal breeding ground for mosquitoes. Also the lack of adequate 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:33.240 healthcare infrastructure in many parts of the world as a factor. 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:35.400 But the other problem is money. 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:38.120 Like in twenty twenty three, the WHO and It's partner 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:41.120 set a target of eight point three billion to battle 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:44.040 malaria around the globe, but total investment only reached about 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:46.679 four billions, so partners on the ground couldn't buy enough 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:50.400 essential gear like things that are pretty simple like mosquito nets, 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:54.880 also medicines and insecticides, which is why the next breakthrough 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:59.000 is both hilarious and exciting. So in twenty nineteen, a 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:03.840 multinational team of researchers from Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, and Indonesia 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:08.360 discovered that exposing mosquitoes to music can disorient them enough 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:11.120 to tack less and breathe less too. 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:13.439 So you just crank up the tunes and the mosquitoes 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:15.520 kind of freak out and people are less likely to 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:15.959 get bitten. 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:16.640 Or how does it work? 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:18.560 Yees? I mean the study puts it in much more 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:20.760 official scientific terms, but yeah, that's pretty much it. 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:23.600 So is there is there a type of music that's 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:24.680 more effective than another? 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:29.320 In fact, will there was a particular song that they used. Okay, 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:33.640 this study used the twenty ten dub stuff Smash Scary 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:36.560 Monsters and Nice Sprites by Scrillic Cryllics. 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:38.360 Right, that's a Scrillics hit. 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:40.720 Here is a little reminder of what it sounds like, 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:01.560 which I'm sure takes you back your MySpace days, right, 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:06.000 But for mosquitoes, there's no nostalgia, just confusion. So here's 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:09.360 how the experiment worked. The researchers restrained a hamster in 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:13.440 a mesh cage, then unleashed ten hungry mosquitoes, and they 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:15.920 used a stopwatch to track how long it took the 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:18.440 bugs to start biting and how many times they bit 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:21.440 the hamster. So when Scrilliics wasn't playing, some of the 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:24.800 mosquitos started biting just after twenty one seconds in the cage, 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:28.400 and individual mosquitos bit the hamster as many as eleven 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:31.880 times and ten minutes, but when the music was playing, 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:35.040 they didn't start biting until at least sixty nine seconds 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:37.600 had passed, and the highest number of bites from a 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:41.080 single mosquito was seven. They also found that mosquitoes exposed 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:43.400 to the song were slower to initiate mating. 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:46.080 Wow, So what do we think is the science behind 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:46.400 all of this? 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:50.760 Research suggests that noise causes stress in insects, like enough 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:53.680 to change their normal behavior. The other thing that might 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:57.120 be causing delayed biting is the vibration from the sound. Now, 0:15:57.240 --> 0:15:59.800 in the Scrillics study, the scientists were careful to set 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:02.600 up their equipment so the speaker wasn't touching the cage. 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:06.000 But all sound is vibration, right, And it turns out 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:08.480 that the mosquitoes have to make a whole series of 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:12.560 super precise calculations before they suck your blood. First, they 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:15.160 need to locate you, Then they probe for a suitable 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:18.240 blood vessel. Then they insert their style it which is 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:21.320 actually what it's called, and grip your skin while they feed. 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:25.280 And it seems like consistent vibration, so the kind you 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:29.000 might experience in the twenty ten dubsteps Smash scary monsters 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:33.360 and nice brites can really throw these calculations off. There 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:36.200 was another study in twenty eighteen where some researchers played 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:39.320 acdc's back in Black to a group of beetles and 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:41.320 it reduced their feeding as well. 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:43.280 And when you say group of beetles, I assume you're 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:44.200 talking about insects. 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:47.160 Yeah, I don't think ACDC would stop Ringo and Paul 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:50.440 from eating their dinners. But at any rate, it's amazing 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:53.000 to think that blasting music could someday be part of 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:56.760 an affordable and effective global mosquito control strategy. 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:00.480 All right, Well, at the risk of branding myself as 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:03.160 the fungus guy, and I'm I'm always nervous about this, 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:07.280 I'm championing another fungal breakthrough for our count h and 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:09.560 this one has to do with their eating habits. So 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:11.439 for a long time now, we've known that fungi are 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:15.639 basically the garbage disposals of the natural world. Elie practically 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:18.680 anything from the wood of a violin to asbestos to 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:22.040 even jet fuel, which is super weird. In fact, there 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:24.840 are now at least four different species of marine fungus 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:28.120 that can even break down carbon based polyethylene, the most 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:31.200 pervasive form of plastic waste in the Earth's oceans. 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:32.080 That's pretty awesome. 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:33.680 But as helpful as all of this is from a 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:36.359 human perspective, there is one dish on the fungal menu 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:39.760 whose consumption stands to benefit us the most, and that's 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:41.000 actually radiation. 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:43.280 I feel like I've heard about this right. It's some 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:45.320 kind of black fungus at Chernobyl. 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:48.880 Yeah, that's right, And years after the nineteen eighty six meltdown, 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:52.199 scientists discovered patches of black fungus growing on the walls 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:55.359 of the Number four reactor. Surprisingly, the fungi seem to 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:58.240 be growing toward the various sources of radiation, and his 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:01.480 later studies showed it actually the most where the radiation 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:04.320 was highest. Now, for a long time, nobody knew how 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:07.639 the fungus had managed to survive much less flourish, but 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:10.359 in two thousand and seven, two researchers at New York's 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:13.640 Albert Einstein College of Medicine shed some light on the subject. 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:16.520 Their study revealed that the fungus had not only adapted 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:19.119 to what would normally be seen as a lethal level 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:22.199 of radiation, It also developed a way to feed on 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:24.640 the radiation as a way to fuel its own growth, 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:27.960 kind of like the fungal equivalent of photosynthesis. The fungus 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:31.600 absorbed the radiation and then processed it harmlessly to produce 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:34.440 usable energy, just like a plant does with sunlight. 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:36.800 That's pretty amazing. So so what's their trek? 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:39.040 Well, the secret turned out to be the fung guy's 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:42.840 melanin content, the pigment responsible for its dark coloring. These 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:48.240 researchers that I mentioned, Ekaterina Dottakova and Arturo Cascidovol, discovered 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:50.879 that exposure to radiation had changed the shape of the 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:54.400 black fung gui's melanin molecule, making it much more effective 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:58.360 at processing radiation than fungal strains that don't contain melanin. 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:01.520 It's anathing we've talked about and twice on this yeah, 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:04.720 this series. So does that adaptation exist in other strains 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:07.760 of black fungi or is it just the one that's 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:08.760 found at Chernobyl. 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:10.959 Now we actually know of a few different strains that 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:11.760 can do this. Now. 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:15.119 They're called radiotrophic fungi, and the hope is that we 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:18.280 can use them to help contain and possibly reduce radiation 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:21.560 levels and other contaminated sites around the world. Now, to 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:24.520 be clear, the fungi's abilities could have useful applications in 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:28.719 far less extreme places than nuclear disaster sites. For example, 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:31.480 there are a lot of medical and manufacturing devices that 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:34.719 safely use smaller levels of radiation. These can be treated 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:38.600 with radiotrophic fungus to further protect workers from ambient radiation 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:42.080 or maybe help to power them, since the fungus produces energy. 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:44.560 There's also a chance that we could someday harness the 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:48.040 genes possible for the fungui's resilience to radiation and then 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:50.879 use them to create other materials with the same ability. 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:53.920 In the meantime, though, NASA scientists have already fast tracked 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:58.080 another important use for the black fungus protecting astronauts from 0:19:58.119 --> 0:19:59.080 cosmic radiation. 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:03.120 Cool i sometimes forget. In addition to the lack of oxygen, 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:06.879 spaces radioactive. So you know, whether you're walking out in 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:10.080 a spacesuit or chilling inside the rocket, you're being hit 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:11.479 with some level of radiation. 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:14.680 Right, Yeah, it's not exactly a hospitable environment for humans 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:17.080 up there. And the same strain found that Chernobyl was 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:20.000 sent to the International Space Station back in twenty twenty, 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:22.680 and the experiment conducted with it showed that the fungus 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:25.520