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Episode 102: A greengrocer's book
Published 20th September, 2024
Hank Green, Ceri Riley and Daniel Peake face questions about fake facts, ridiculous roads and wrongful words.
HOST: Tom Scott. QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe. EDITED BY: Julie Hassett at The Podcast Studios, Dublin. MUSIC: Karl-Ola Kjellholm ('Private Detective'/'Agrumes') and Josef Bel Habib ('Next to Our House'), courtesy of epidemicsound.com. ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS: Cherimoya, Alex, Chris Schulz. FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott.
Transcript
Transcription by Caption+
Tom:
What are the two most common words that aren't listed in a Scrabble dictionary?
The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Whoever coined that phrase clearly hasn't understood the second law of thermodynamics.
Actually, maybe that's a bit harsh, but then... maybe I'm just lacking enthalpy.
Hank:
(wheezes)
Tom:
So here's the thing.
The producer has sometimes put instructions in these script reads for me. Sometimes it just says, "Take a beat." Sometimes it's got a reading instruction.
And this, just after that, just has in bold, in square brackets, "This is a good pun."
SFX:
(Ceri and Hank laugh)
Daniel:
Oh, it's a great pun! That doesn't mean we laugh at it.
Ceri:
I thought it was gonna be "make a tsss noise."
Gotta get that heat joke, really rub it in.
Tom:
Yep.
Joining us today and having already revealed themselves, thank you very much, we have three players returning to the game.
We start with question writer and researcher Dan Peake.
Daniel:
Hello, good day to you, sir.
Tom:
It is always a little bit scary as a host, having people who write quiz questions and who do this sort of trivia research for a living. I mean, we've got three of you on here today.
How do you find the questions? How do you find things to talk about?
Daniel:
Reading. Reading. Read the internet. Read all of it. Don't—
Well, maybe not all of it. There's some bits you don't want to read.
SFX:
(Tom and Ceri laugh)
Hank:
Don't do that!
Daniel:
Essentially to make— You can make a question interesting by putting a fact into the question.
I love one of the questions that I wrote recently. You could ask, for example, who voiced Bugs Bunny? The answer to which, do any of you know?
Hank:
Mel Blanc?
Tom:
Mel Blanc?
Daniel:
Correct, yes.
Tom:
Among others. It's a dodgy question to ask.
Daniel:
Sorry. Ah, yes. Always pin your questions. This is a good lesson as well.
Tom:
Yes. (laughs)
Daniel:
Sorry, but he's the main person we know.
Tom:
Which actor born in this year, yeah.
Daniel:
Well, or you can pin it, like asking:
Who after a car accident was in a coma for a couple of weeks, two to three weeks, and was then brought about by a doctor asking, "So, how are you today, Bugs Bunny?" and then them answering in character, "Eh, not fine. How are you, doc?" He answered in character.
Tom:
Wow! Amazing!
Daniel:
So if I had a tip for question writers, you can ask who voiced Bugs Bunny. Not a great question because it's got multiple answers, but try and make your questions interesting by putting a fact in them.
Hank:
But that's way more work, Daniel!
Daniel:
Yeah.
SFX:
(Tom and Ceri laugh)
Daniel:
Laziness is lovely.
Tom:
Well, speaking of someone who does way more work than anyone would really expect, since his comedy special about his cancer and his recovery from it... (laughs) is currently streaming on Dropout!
Welcome back to the show, Hank Green!
Hank:
Hello, you can check it out at dropout.tv! I hope that you like it. It is all about cancer!
Tom:
(laughs) It feels a little bit like a loaded question to ask how are you doing. But how are you doing, Hank?
Hank:
I'm doing good! I'm doing good. I probably won't die in the next five years.
Tom:
What are you working on at the minute?
Hank:
(laughs) I actually am working on a book about cancer right now, which is full of fascinating and sometimes horrifying facts. I don't know.
Here's a weird one. Did you know that more men die of breast cancer than testicular cancer?
Daniel:
Wow.
Hank:
That's a big surprise. But it is because testicular cancer is tremendously curable now, which is fantastic. And also, men get it young, and so... men who get breast cancer tend to be much older, and so can handle less treatment.
Which is a very interesting fact, but not a funny one.
Tom:
Yeah, I don't know how to follow that.
SFX:
(Tom and Hank laugh)
Tom:
In hindsight... probably shouldn't have asked the question!
Also joining us today, also from the SciShow Tangents podcast, along with Hank and a small crew of others, we have Ceri Riley. Welcome back to the show.
Ceri:
Hello, thanks for having me again. I didn't embarrass myself out of the first time.
Tom:
(laughs morosely)
Hank:
No, you killed it the first episode.
Tom:
You absolutely did.
Hank:
I was very impressed.
Tom:
But again, professional science communicator, someone who deals with facts for a living, terrifying as a host. Thank you for coming back on the show. You really did well last time.
Ceri:
Yeah, it's a lot of fun. I love the moment, I... When you see the moment when people get something, when you're explaining something scientifically, or you're teaching something, that light in their eyes.
Tom:
Yeah.
Ceri:
It is fun. I think there are fewer opportunities to be on that side of the equation as an adult. Especially when you get into this educator role. And so it is very fun to have that moment of discovery. Even when you're wrong. When you're confidently wrong, that's fun too. When you've got a little crash pad of friends to only laugh at you a little bit.
Tom:
I think you've just summed up this entire show, Ceri. Thank you so much.
Ceri:
Yeah, you can put that in your little trailer. I can do a clean take for your producer.
Tom:
Well, good luck to you all.
We're about to segue into question one. However, we have had some complaints. I do know that we did technically have a first question at the start of the show that I asked the audience.
So if this bothers you, please refer to question x as question x+1. Or if you're a programmer, please re-index so the first question is question zero.
Either way, it's time to increment your question counter by one.
Hank:
(giggles)
Tom:
And we start with a question sent in by Chris Schulz.
In 2007, how did one moment of bad behaviour from 1-year-old Charlie Davies-Carr cause his family to move to a new house?
I'll say that again.
In 2007, how did one moment of bad behaviour from 1-year-old Charlie Davies-Carr cause his family to move to a new house?
Hank:
Was it a big— Was it a big dookie? Just...
SFX:
(group laughing)
Ceri:
Do I know it?
Tom:
Ceri, if you think you know this, you want to take a step back, and we'll see if you're right towards the end?
Ceri:
Maybe, yeah. I'm gonna embarrass myself if this is not true, but...
Tom:
If you realise you're wrong, step back in, but you take a back seat. This one is for Dan and Hank.
Ceri:
Sounds good.
Tom:
Or, as they're known together, Dank.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Tom:
I don't know why I did that! Don't know why I did that, sorry! I regret everything I said just then.
Hank:
That's our new podcast that we're making together. It's the Dank Boys.
Daniel:
Uggh.
Tom:
That was a very Alex Horne in Taskmaster joke. I'm really sorry.
Daniel:
No, it's great, I love it.
SFX:
(Daniel and Hank laugh)
Hank:
Is— Is it— Was the old house okay? Could they— Was it available to sell? Or not?
Tom:
(wheezes)
Daniel:
Yes, did they burn it down?
Tom:
Sorry, sorry, sorry, I just...
The producer just got through saying, "Thank god Dan's name isn't Wes." So...
SFX:
(guests laugh uproariously)
Tom:
That is the first time that David the producer has ever knocked me out with a one-liner just coming through on the messages there. So thank you.
Sorry, Hank, you had a question.
Hank:
Yeah, my question was, is the house— was the house okay? Did they have to move house because there wasn't an— because the first house had a significant enough problem that they couldn't even—
Daniel:
Did the baby somehow set it alight and cause it to burn down or something?
Hank:
It can't be that, but you gotta ask.
Tom:
You do have to ask. This is not the sort of question we ask on the podcast there. There is definitely a more lateral twist to this.
Daniel:
Was it Kevin McCallister? Did they want to go on holiday?
Hank:
(wheezes) They left him home alone.
Tom:
Come back, there's just two dead people there, because movies don't work like real life.
Daniel:
Indeed, indeed.
Hank:
(wheezes)
Daniel:
They've done studies on all the different ways that the people would have been injured. And they died so many times, or would have died so many times in that movie. But movies are known for being hyper-realistic, so we'll give that a pass.
Hank:
Yes.
Daniel:
It's a one-year-old! What can a one-year-old do?
Hank:
Not a lot. Do you— Have you had a child?
Daniel:
No.
Hank:
Yeah, so I had a one-year-old. He's now seven. I still have a child. but I had a one-year-old.
SFX:
(others laughing)
Hank:
And... And... They can move. They're mobile, which is— And before that, the potted plant phase, they call it, is kind of wonderful. It's just like, they scream all the time, but they can't get up to any business. They don't know how to turn over.
Daniel:
Plants don't scream. What?
Hank:
No, but they do— If you put them down in one place, they do stay there, and that's—
Daniel:
Oh, I see. Okay, yes.
Ceri:
(giggles) I don't know what plants you have, Dan, but...
Daniel:
Do you keep your babies in soil or... Oh, no, that doesn't sound right.
Hank:
Yeah, I mean, it's good for the microbiome. The...
SFX:
(Tom and Hank laugh)
Daniel:
Ugh!
Hank:
Yeah, but they can certainly move.
Daniel:
Are they teething at one? When do teeth sort of come through?
Hank:
Yeah, yeah, there's probably some chewing on stuff happening.
Daniel:
So they might be crying, that's what— Are they gonna be making—
Hank:
Oh, they're definitely crying.
Tom:
There's definitely some chewing on stuff happening, Hank.
Hank:
Oh, there is chewing?
Tom:
That will either confirm or absolutely rule out Ceri's guess.
Ceri:
Yes, I think I do know this.
Tom:
Yeah, okay.
Daniel:
Ohh.
Ceri:
Based on some chewing.
Daniel:
Ooh, no.
Hank:
Was there something dangerous about the house? Was there like— I mean, lead paint, that's not gonna be it. But, is there something that you definitely don't want a child to chew on in this particular house?
Tom:
No, the house was absolutely fine.
Daniel:
What if they moved out for a good reason?
Hank:
Oh, was he just— Did he go viral, and they made a lot of money, and they were like...
Daniel:
Yes! Yes, yes, yes!
Hank:
"Let's move to Brighton."
Daniel:
It's exactly that.
Hank:
I tried to name a fancier English town, and I said, Brighton. Is that close?
SFX:
(others laughing)
Tom:
Brighton is reasonably fancy.
Daniel:
You could have gone a lot worse.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Daniel:
I now know where this is taking place.
Hank:
Oh?
Tom:
Where is it taking place?
Daniel:
It's in a car.
Tom:
It is in a car. So, you... Hank, you look like you're the only one baffled here still.
Hank:
Mhm.
Ceri:
I'm surprised you don't know. This feels like a very... 'would be in Hank brain' question to me.
Hank:
Oh, was this, was it— Well, I mean... David After Dentist was not one years old. Are we talking about Charlie biting the finger?
Tom:
We are talking about Charlie, yep. Tap it home, Ceri. Which video was this?
Ceri:
This is Charlie Bit My Finger. "Charlie."
Tom:
Yes, it is.
Ceri:
He bit his little finger, and then it went viral.
Hank:
"Ouch, Charlie!"
Ceri:
Yeah. And then they got money.
Tom:
Yep. One of the first YouTube viral videos.
The ad revenue generated over £100,000 for his family, which let them purchase a new home.
So that is the causal relationship there. They were able to move into a new house because of one second.
Hank:
Chewing!
Tom:
Yep.
Hank:
We got chewing early on for that one.
Tom:
Yes!
Hank:
Fantastic.
Daniel:
The dentist is good for you in surprising ways.
Tom:
(laughs)
Hank:
This is a— They are confusing two different viral videos.
Daniel:
Oh no, yes, that's what I'm doing. They didn't go to the dentist. Sorry, ignore that.
Hank:
No, that's a— That's David. That was David, not Charlie.
Daniel:
Yes.
Hank:
I know the names of these children.
Tom:
Oh, wait, so am I!
Daniel:
Yes!
Tom:
I'm confusing that now! It occurs to me, I don't know where Charlie Bit My Finger is, and we might have to edit that.
Hank:
He's just in a chair.
Ceri:
In a chair.
Hank:
He's in a chair in a home.
Tom:
He's just in a chair! I got my videos confused.
Daniel:
So, I don't know where this is. This is not in a car.
SFX:
(others laughing)
Daniel:
That's true, there have been two viral kids things. To do with dentists and teeth.
Hank:
Yeah.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Hank:
I love a good anesthesia video, man.
Daniel:
(wheezes)
Tom:
(laughs)
Daniel:
They really knock me out.
SFX:
(Ceri and Hank laugh)
Tom:
Each of our guests has brought a question along with them. We will start today with Ceri.
Ceri:
In a 2010 study, two sets of biology facts were given to a randomized student study group. One set was significantly easier to remember than the other, even though it ought to have been more difficult. Why?
I'll read it again.
In a 2010 study, two sets of biology facts were given to a randomized student study group. One set was significantly easier to remember than the other, even though it ought to have been more difficult. Why?
Tom:
I unfortunately have read this study, so— Well, "read" is, at some point... the abstract of this study—
Hank:
He read the title!
Tom:
—skimmed across my feed, and it's stuck in my head.
Hank:
(chuckles)
Tom:
So I'm gonna stay out of this one.
Daniel:
Over to Dank!
Hank:
Over to Dank!
SFX:
(Tom and Hank laugh)
Ceri:
Back to Dank!
Hank:
Was it just a really catchy... They accidentally wrote the song of the summer, but it was about mitochondria?
Daniel:
Well, okay, I know— Biology was never my thing at school. I was a physics and chemistry guy. Eh, I didn't like biology. Biology didn't really like me either.
Tom:
(chuckles)
Hank:
Yeah, I mean, as you get older, it likes you less and less.
Daniel:
Yeah, yeah.
Tom:
(laughs) Sorry, I've got people on this show who are my age. Frequently when we have a couple of— two folks from a podcast or three folks from a podcast, they all tend to be really young Gen Z. And they just keep going on about it.
This is fine. These are my people. Our bodies are starting to fall apart.
Hank:
Yeah. Yeah.
Ceri:
(giggles) I just turned 30, so I'm over the hill now.
Hank:
(laughs)
Ceri:
We got the steep decline.
Hank:
Real middle-aged there. A 30-year-old, recently 29.
Ceri:
I'm fresh-faced and young in my 20s. Any more jokes? What sets of biology facts are there?
Hank:
I mean, I assume that this is some kind of study that's designed to test how easy things are to remember in different circumstances. Like, either a psychologist— like a brain... like a neuroscience test. Or it's a, you know, pedagogy test where you're trying to help figure out how to teach people better. My job is to try and get complicated biology facts into people's heads.
SFX:
(Tom and Ceri chuckle)
Hank:
So I should know this. The... And, you know, the ways that I do it are classic ways, where it's like, rhymes help, and stories help. It helps to contextualize somehow— Was it maybe contextualized in something that was exciting, like sex? Was there a sex component?
Tom:
(cracks up)
Hank:
No, he's laughing at me like there's not a sex component.
Tom:
I'm not laughing at it. I'm just laughing at the idea that that was meant to be more difficult to remember.
Hank:
Well, but maybe there was an unintentionality to it. Like it, you know, like it actually accidentally spelled the word penis or something.
SFX:
(others crack up)
Hank:
Proton Enhanced Nuclear Induction Spectroscopy.
Tom:
Nice.
Hank:
Which is a real thing. Ceri.
Ceri:
Yes?
Hank:
Was there a mnemonic that had something to do with a penis?
SFX:
(Tom and Ceri laugh)
Ceri:
There were no—
Tom:
Specific question of the week!
Ceri:
Yes.
Hank:
(laughs)
Ceri:
No mnemonics or penises were involved. But you're correct, you're on the right path that the biology facts are kind of a red herring. In fact...
Daniel:
Okay.
Ceri:
The biology facts were fictional to begin with. It is about rememb— The thing to focus on is the memory aspect of this.
Daniel:
The way to remember.
Ceri:
Yes.
Daniel:
I know that when they say with passwords, you could generate just a horrible string. And yeah, technically, that's secure. But also you can just string some words together.
Hank:
Yeah.
Daniel:
And that's also a really long string. If you put four or five words together for your password, and that's easier for you to remember.
Hank:
For sure.
Daniel:
So I'm wondering if it's got some... element of that in it.
Hank:
So, but was there a... So, just to set this up, the study— Was the study done to— in order to have... like, here are the two groups of people. We're going to give these people these facts, and these people these facts. These facts are harder. And they had intended for those facts to be harder, but then it turned out that they remembered them better? They remembered the harder facts better?
Ceri:
They remembered the facts that... ought to have been more difficult to remember.
Hank:
But was it on purpose? Did they know that they were... Were they succeeding in their study design? Or was it a surprise?
Ceri:
I think anyone who would read these study results would say, "That's... That seems counterintuitive." If you read the headline, it's like, "That seems counterintuitive." And then if you dig deeper into the reasoning why, then you're like, "Oh, that kinda makes sense actually", why the more difficult fact or the more difficult scenario test case is easier to remember if you think about the rationale.
Daniel:
Is it the same set of facts just just presented differently, or is it two different sets of facts?
Ceri:
I think they're just two— I think maybe for the sake of the study... there are two sets of information. And there is a difference between the way those two sets of information were presented to the study participants.
Daniel:
Visual versus audio versus... Oh, gah. Throw us a bone.
Hank:
(laughs)
Ceri:
It is a visual difference.
Daniel:
It's a visual difference.
Ceri:
Yes.
Daniel:
Bigger font. Bigger f— Different font. Is it going to be, one was written in Comic Sans? Is it going to be that?
Hank:
Wingdings.
Tom:
The minute that Ceri started this question, I wrote the words "Comic Sans" in big letters at the top.
Daniel:
Yes!
Tom:
I don't think it's actually Comic Sans. But I think it's to do with fonts. If it's not, then I'm in completely the wrong place.
Ceri:
No, you're right. And Comic Sans is in the answer.
Daniel:
No!
Ceri:
(laughs) A harder-to-read font improved their recall, improved their memory of the fact. So this was a Princeton University study led by Daniel Oppenheimer, which provided facts about fictional biological species to a pool of students.
87% of the facts were retained when printed in gray, 12-point Comic Sans or Bodoni.
And retention fell to 73% when a standard black 16-point Arial was used.
Daniel:
And so that's going to be, you had to concentrate more to read it, so it went in deeper into your brain. Oh, that's so clever.
Hank:
And also maybe just that it's different. You're having a less normal experience. And so, you're being brought out of the... you know, your everyday experience of reading something and put into a different—
Daniel:
And/or, "That's Comic Sans, I'm not reading that."
SFX:
(Tom and Ceri laugh)
Hank:
Yeah. The, I mean... This aligns with a lot of what I've learned about teaching, which is that oftentimes the thing that makes students better at remembering is the thing that students like less.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Ceri:
So students also performed better when tutors used slides and handouts that had less legible typefaces. And like Dan was saying, like you both were saying, it is thought that the inconvenient presentation causes the brain to slow down and prevent skim reading. So you're not glazing over your Arial textbook notes or whatever.
And in 2018, Australian researchers actually developed Sansforgetica, a font with missing letter sections, which led to a 7% retention improvement over Arial. Which is not as much as the Comic Sans bump actually.
So they did all this work for a font that sounds cool, but is less effective.
Tom:
Here's the next one.
The Staller Saddle is a road connecting southern Austria to northern Italy. A typical driver is regularly forbidden from entering this section of road for up to 45 minutes every hour, even if the road ahead is traversable. Why?
And one more time.
The Staller Saddle is a road connecting southern Austria to northern Italy. A typical driver is regularly forbidden from entering this section of road for up to 45 minutes every hour, even if the road ahead is traversable. Why?
Hank:
My first thought is... that situation where they have to close the road... in different directions. So they close the whole road, so that everybody can go south, and then they close the whole road to the southbound so that everybody can go north. Which happens all the time in Montana during particularly bad weather times.
Tom:
Your first thought, Hank, is completely correct.
Daniel:
Right, okay.
Hank:
Oh no!
SFX:
(group laughs heartily)
Tom:
You're absolutely right.
Hank:
Yeah, this one comes from living in a cold place with big mountains.
Tom:
Yeah, we did. We did ask a question about roads in a cold place with big mountains to someone who lives in a cold place with big mountains.
SFX:
(Ceri and Hank laugh)
Tom:
Yeah, it's a mountain pass that narrows down to a single lane, so you can drive from Austria to Italy on the hour to 15 minutes past. The return journey is open from half past to 45 minutes past the hour.
Hank:
Oh, interesting.
Tom:
And there is a traffic light system with a warning sign that says "You may be waiting for up to 45 minutes."
Daniel:
Wow.
Hank:
Hell yeah.
Tom:
This feels like a thing I should have filmed at some point. Like, I've been to mountain passes in that part of the world. I've done several videos on weird traffic signs and symbols. I feel like I should have known about that, but absolutely nothing.
Hank:
I feel— I'm sorry I ruined it. I feel like I maybe could have stepped out.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Daniel:
I thought— I thought Ceri and I did really well in that question.
Ceri:
Mhm.
SFX:
(Tom and Hank laugh)
Ceri:
Yeah, I think some great teamwork. I think we all contributed equally.
Daniel:
Yes.
Ceri:
We can all take... some shared credit and pride in that answer.
Hank:
Do they actually schedule it, so you can know that if I get there by 12:30, I'll be able to just drive straight through?
Tom:
Yes, there is a sign with a clock there.
Hank:
Yeah, okay.
Tom:
Hank, the next question is all yours.
Hank:
This question was sent in by Cherimoya.
A child lies down in a room, alone. They hold the end of a multicolored piece of string. This helps them feel better, in both the short-term and the long-term. How?
A child lies down in a room, alone. They hold the end of a multicolored piece of string. And this helps them feel better, both in the short- and long-term. How?
Daniel:
Is it that the road is closed for half the time going northbound?
SFX:
(group laughing)
Tom:
Hank, you've read that in the style of the Voight-Kampff test from Blade Runner?
SFX:
(Daniel and Hank cackle)
Tom:
"Why are you not helping the child?" No...
Hank:
(laughs)
Daniel:
First of all... The child is alone. Health and safety services. Are we— Are we sure that the child is okay? Let's just check that the child is okay.
Hank:
The child is okay. I mean, the child is— The child, I mean, is not— It does have problems. There's a reason why the child... I just... That's enough.
Daniel:
Yeah, no.
Ceri:
A child lying in a room alone. It either seems like it would be as a punishment of: You've done something. Now you are sent to this room. You're in timeout. Hold this multicolored string until you've thought about what you've done.
SFX:
(Tom and Hank laugh)
Ceri:
Or... it's like a overstimulation, you need to decompress kind of situation, where for some reason, the multicolored string is calming.
Daniel:
I bet the word "multicoloured" is important here. I have a horrible feeling.
Tom:
Yes, I notice we haven't been told which colours it is. It's green and yellow, and they are holding the earth lead. But no, that's a terrible idea.
SFX:
(guests laugh heartily)
Tom:
Your plug system may be different. I just went with...
Hank:
(continues laughing)
Tom:
My first thought, weirdly, was quarantine? The child is in a room alone, away from anything else?
Hank:
Yeah, you guys are zeroing in on a vibe where it's like, this is to help a child when they have to be alone.
Tom:
Oh, okay.
Hank:
So definitely not a punishment thing. Definitely a calming thing.
Daniel:
Why might a piece of string calm you? I mean, sort of, if— It's well known that if you've got a pet, stroking it releases, sort of, endorphins or something like that, and calms you. And the pet enjoys it as well, but it benefits you as well. So is it a sensory thing? That's my current thought.
Tom:
I mean my thought is what's the other end of the string connected to? It could be their parent holding it, so there's a definite physical connection between the two?
Daniel:
I've got a red balloon in my head and Pennywise the clown. Uh-oh.
SFX:
(Tom and Ceri laugh)
Tom:
That's unrelated to the question. That's just standard for that.
Daniel:
That's just me, yes.
Hank:
In fact, Tom, that is exactly right. The parent is holding the other piece of the string.
Tom:
Okay.
Ceri:
The only thing I can imagine is you either tug to know that your parent is there... Maybe you can see them on the other side of the glass, or it's like a cup phone situation where somehow you can transmit a message. You can talk to them through the multicolor— and the multicolor has nothing to do with the purpose of the wire or the string. It just is communication.
Tom:
Oh, could they be in a CT scanner or an MRI scanner?
Hank:
Very, very close. Yes.
Tom:
Because you can't take anything metal into there.
And, so I once had to have an MRI scan where I had to listen to instructions. And you can't take headphones in or anything like that. So there is a air tube... that goes into special headphones that just... It's basically just a tube with a really big speaker on the other end of it. And it just relays stuff with just plastic into your ears.
So, if this is a multicoloured string, is this to keep them calm while they're having a scan or a test or something where they have to be alone?
Hank:
100%. But the only thing that you're missing is that in an MRI situation, and even with a CT scanner, a parent could be in the room with the child.
Tom:
Oh, yeah, and also they can't move.
Daniel:
Is it a decompression chamber or something?
Hank:
Yeah, yeah, it's closer to that, where you actually— The child has to be, for safety, no one else can be in the room. So there's something...
Tom:
Huh.
Hank:
Something dangerous about the room.
Tom:
X-rays?
Hank:
X-rays, but not in the way that we usually think about X-rays.
Tom:
Wow, okay.
Daniel:
The child emits the X-rays instead?
SFX:
(others laughing)
Hank:
No.
Daniel:
I mean, that'd be cool. That's a superhero genesis story right there.
Hank:
Yeah, so why couldn't anybody else be in the room with the child?
Ceri:
Is it some form of radiation therapy? Where you're in—
Hank:
It is 100% radiation therapy.
Ceri:
Okay.
Tom:
Oh!
Hank:
So the kid, this kid has cancer, needs to get radiation therapy. When you go get radiation therapy – I can speak from experience – you walk in through a thing called the labyrinth, where the room is actually structured so the photons cannot escape from the room.
Daniel:
Ahh.
Hank:
And anybody else who is in there is going to get some marginal additional dose of radiation. That would be dangerous. And so the child is in there by themselves, and the parent should not be in there because they don't want to get dosed with radiation. So, but in order to make the child—
Oh, I should probably just read the notes here.
Tom:
(chuckles)
Hank:
And that could take 20 to 60 minutes. And they'll also lie down while wearing a special mask, which is screwed down to keep their head still.
So if this is radiation therapy that's going to their head in some way, they have to keep their head extremely still. So they've got this mask on. It's just really intense.
So to allay their fears, they are given the magic string to hold. And if they tug on the string, their parent in the next room will tug back to provide reassurance.
And a play specialist at the Leeds Children's Hospital described the string as "one of the best pieces of 'equipment' we own." In quotation marks for 'equipment'.
In addition, the masks can be painted with their favorite characters, so that the children are more likely to enjoy wearing them.
Daniel:
You have to be Spider-Man, right? Bitten by a radioactive spider.
SFX:
(others chuckling)
Daniel:
So, you know.
Tom:
Next question's from me, folks. Here we go.
Publishers of Jean-Paul Sartre's 1943 philosophy book Being and Nothingness were surprised by how well the 722-page tome was selling. It turned out that many of the purchases were Parisian greengrocers. Why?
I'll say that again.
Publishers of Jean-Paul Sartre's 1943 philosophy book Being and Nothingness were surprised by how well the 722-page tome was selling. It turned out that many of the purchasers were Parisian greengrocers. Why?
Hank:
Was there a spicy scene?
SFX:
(others laugh heartily)
Ceri:
Was there a mnemonic that had to do with the letters P-E-N-I-S if you flipped through the pages
SFX:
(guys laughing)
Ceri:
...a little fast enough?
Hank:
And greengrocers are just super into it.
Tom:
I'm not convinced there would be a spicy scene in a Sartre philosophy book, but I would love to read it if there was.
In the original French, of course. I would not be able to read the original French.
Ceri:
Are greengrocers just... like grocery store clerks? Do they only sell vegetables? I guess that is my...
Hank:
Yeah, what's a greengrocer?
Daniel:
Fruit and veg, yeah. Yeah, that sort of thing.
Ceri:
Fruits and veg, yeah.
Hank:
Right, right.
Ceri:
I mean, my first thought is that... and this isn't very kind to the grocers, but you rip out the pages, and you wrap up an apple, and you say, "Here's your apple, sir."
Hank:
The packing material.
Ceri:
Yeah, you use them as packing.
Hank:
It's the cheapest paper available.
Ceri:
Mhm, 722 pages.
Tom:
Not only is that not kind to the greengrocers, it's really not kind to Sartre.
Ceri:
No.
Hank:
Yeah.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Hank:
It's like the best bulk source of paper.
Ceri:
Mhm.
Tom:
Oh...
Hank:
Is that not it? 'Cause that seems like it.
Daniel:
I thought we were onto a winner there.
Tom:
No, you weren't.
Daniel:
Agh.
Hank:
'Cause you said 722 pages. That's a lot of pages.
Daniel:
That is a lot of pages. Sounds like a big book.
Tom:
That is a lot of pages.
Hank:
Did it have a very specific mass?
Daniel:
Oh, greengrocers would need to probably weigh things and... because that's how you'll have a pound of tomatoes, I'll have a kilogram of bananas, something like that. So if—
Hank:
I'll have one philosophy textbook of lettuce, please.
Daniel:
Yes, that feels plausible.
Tom:
It's very plausible. You've basically got it. But I'm going to ask a little bit more about the why.
Daniel:
Why? It must have— So not only did it have a known weight, did it have a very specific known weight? Is that where we're going?
Tom:
Yep, it turned out to weigh exactly one kilo.
Daniel:
One kilo, yes. I had a— I had me finger up. I had me finger up, honest.
SFX:
(others laughing)
Daniel:
I had one for one kilo.
Tom:
But that still doesn't quite answer the why.
Hank:
Well, because other one kilogram weights would have been made of iron. And they needed all the iron to make nails in the colonies.
Tom:
1943.
Hank:
Oh, 1943! All the metal was being used for the War!
Daniel:
Oh, of course!
Tom:
Yes!
Daniel:
They needed a weight, and in the War, all the metal would have been used for... other purposes that needed it.
Hank:
Bombs and stuff.
Tom:
French shopkeepers had surrendered basically all the portable metal objects they had, all their weights and measures.
And someone realised that Jean-Paul Sartre's book weighed exactly one kilo. And so they all ordered it as a new base weight until the War was over.
Hank:
I feel like it'd be better if it weighed just a little more than one kilo. And they knew that if you just tore the first six pages out, then it was exactly one kilo.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Daniel:
I really hope that... Is it that the official kilogram is in a museum in Paris? I really hope that one of their books is next to it. One of their official books.
Hank:
Yeah, that would be great.
Tom:
Dan, it's over to you for the next one.
Daniel:
Over six years, Gareth did his weekly grocery shopping at the local Sainsbury's in Bromley, London. How did his fastidious nature cause him to be featured in news outlets worldwide?
Over six years, Gareth did his weekly grocery shopping at the local Sainsbury's in Bromley, London. How did his fastidious nature cause him to be featured in news outlets worldwide?
Hank:
Was he a penny pincher? Was he just a good coupon boy? Was he just great?
Daniel:
(wheezes) Nothing wrong with using coupons.
Tom:
There's not much of a coupon culture in the UK.
Daniel:
That's true!
Tom:
It's always an American thing, I hear that, where you get the big coupon book in the mail and obsessively track them.
Hank:
Yeah, and then people end up getting paid for their groceries.
Daniel:
Yes, yeah.
Ceri:
Did he insist on bringing a tome of Being and Nothingness with him to weigh all his groceries?
SFX:
(others laugh uproariously)
Ceri:
And they were like, what is this man up to? And then six years in, someone googled it, and was like, "Oh, actually, he's a history buff."
Daniel:
Checking the scales. It's saying three— Oh no, that says that's 1.1 kilos. I think you'll find!
SFX:
(Tom and Hank laugh)
Daniel:
No, nothing to do with Sartre, I'm afraid.
Hank:
Oh, I mean, checking the scales is amazing, though. I love that.
Daniel:
That's true. You have to take their word for it, don't you?
Hank:
Uh-huh.
Daniel:
Oh, I want to check them now.
Tom:
Oh, I've literally— I've gone down that rabbit hole of research.
Like, every so often, they have to have their scales tested. Or, rather, the place they bought the scales from has to have the scales tested.
And then there is... some scales to test those scales, and some scales to test those scales, all the way down until you get back to the National Physical Laboratory or NIST in the US. Someone has the source of truth.
Hank:
Where they've got the book.
Tom:
Yep. (laughs) Where they have a copy of the 1943...
SFX:
(Hank and Daniel giggle)
Ceri:
Mhm.
Tom:
My first thought was that he had kept all his receipts for six years.
Hank:
Mm!
Tom:
And that there was some sort of inflation thing.
Hank:
That could be helpful.
Tom:
Where he's like, I have tracked and graphed all these purchases over six years. This is how the store has been... This is how inflation has not been tracked properly. But there's literal government agencies that do that.
Hank:
Right. I know exactly what blueberries have cost every week for the last six years, which would be useful.
Daniel:
That is such a good answer, Tom. And not at all correct.
SFX:
(Tom and Ceri laugh)
Hank:
Bah!
Daniel:
(snickers)
Hank:
It was his fastidious nature, though. It was something about his fastidiousness.
Daniel:
He was fastidious.
Hank:
This word means particular and... and careful. Like a careful particularness.
Tom:
Okay, so he's not graphing the prices. He is instead opening the packet of peanuts, or the packet of sweets that he's bought every week, tracking how many are in it, and it's going down over time.
SFX:
(Daniel and Ceri laugh)
Daniel:
Shrinkflation, yeah.
Hank:
Shrinkflation.
Daniel:
He's not doing that, but I will say... This is his main shopping trip of the week.
Hank:
Sure.
Daniel:
And it's not related to a specific product.
Hank:
Is it related to the employees? Does he— Is he keeping track of the people?
SFX:
(group laughing)
Tom:
He's keeping track of the steps, and the store is becoming less and less efficient as they keep moving things around.
Daniel:
Oh, don't you just hate it when they rearrange where everything is?
Tom:
(snickers)
Hank:
I do!
Daniel:
It's such a clever ploy though. It works every time.
Hank:
The jelly should be by the peanut butter!
SFX:
(Tom and Ceri laugh)
Daniel:
I will say, he needed to go to Sainsbury's over 200 times for this.
Tom:
Wow.
Hank:
He needed to? Would 198 not have worked?
Daniel:
It wouldn't have worked for this, no. For this particular Sainsbury's, anyway. Would have been a different number for different Sainsbury's.
Ceri:
Interesting. Is it something to do with being a... This is probably off base, but a loyal shopper?
So my partner's aunt received a cake from Wegmans in upstate New York. Wegmans is a grocery store, for being the biggest shopper there in a given year.
Tom:
Wow.
Ceri:
And so, they have a pretty big family. And so, she would go get a bunch of groceries. And then after the year was up, they're like, you've purchased— you're in the top five spenders at this grocery store. Here's a cake. Thank you for spending so much money.
Tom:
One of the UK supermarkets did a Spotify Wrapped but for your groceries.
Daniel:
Yes!
Ceri:
(laughs)
Tom:
Because they have the loyalty card system, and they track everything. And it's like...
Hank:
Oh, no!
Tom:
You are in the top 1% of this chocolate bar purchases in your town, which...
Hank:
Oh no, I would totally be in the top 1% of the fried chicken.
Ceri:
(laughs uproariously)
Hank:
I don't want people to know that.
Tom:
It worked... yeah.
Hank:
(wheezes)
Daniel:
I was the No. 1 purchaser of drain unblocker in Redhill.
SFX:
(others laugh uproariously)
Daniel:
I had just moved in. There were problems with the drains. Ugh!
Anyway, it's not to do with a particular product. In fact, it's not necessarily even to do with being inside Sainsbury's.
So... how do you... When you do your weekly shopping, if it's a big shop... tell me about your shopping trips.
Hank:
My shopping trip, I go to the shop.
Daniel:
Mhm.
Hank:
I go to the grocery store. And then I go in, and I turn right, and I go to the produce first.
Daniel:
(wheezes)
Tom:
To the fried chicken. We established this.
Ceri:
Mhm.
Hank:
(laughs)
Tom:
Did he take every possible route there?
Daniel:
Oh, okay. We're getting close.
Tom:
You said it would work for this Sainsbury's, right?
Daniel:
It's for this particular Sainsbury's, yes.
Hank:
Is it his traveling to the Sainsbury's?
Daniel:
Travel's interesting.
Hank:
Does he have a jetpack? Is he using...
Daniel:
(guffaws)
Ceri:
Is it means of transportation? Are there 200 unique ways, like bus routes that he could take? And then he has helped—
Daniel:
It's a good thought, but he always took the same method of transport.
Ceri:
Okay.
Hank:
Was it a jet ski?
Daniel:
It was not a jet ski. (laughs) But the method of transport is key.
Tom:
The hire bikes. He took every— He took— No, because there's thousands and thousands of those hire bikes around London. He couldn't have got every serial number.
Daniel:
Not a bike, keep naming.
Tom:
Although I do know someone who hunted through those bikes for ages before he found number 12345. They all had five-digit numbers, they all started with one, and he just for months was obsessively looking at every bike before he found it somewhere!
Hank:
That's wild.
Daniel:
It's not— So it's not bikes.
Hank:
Taxis?
Daniel:
Nope.
Hank:
Skateboard?
Daniel:
Nope.
Hank:
Scooter?
Daniel:
Nope.
Ceri:
Is it the... what do you call it, the train?
Daniel:
Nope. How did most people get to the supermarket?
Hank:
The car.
Daniel:
Yeah, car. It's just a car.
Hank:
It's just a car.
Tom:
It's every parking space!
Daniel:
Yes, it is!
Ceri:
(laughs uproariously)
Hank:
Oh, no.
Tom:
Oh, no!
Daniel:
Yes, it is.
Hank:
Oh, no.
Daniel:
To make his weekly shop more fun, he came up with the idea...
SFX:
(others laughing)
Daniel:
of parking in every single space. Excluding the disabled and motorbike bays of course. You don't wanna do that.
Hank:
Unless you have a motorbike.
Tom:
Yeah, but that's gonna be infuriating at the end when you've only got three... three or two or one left 'cause someone will have taken that space every time!
Hank:
Oh, yeah.
Daniel:
He logged his visits on a spreadsheet, and it took him six years to visit all 211 spaces.
Tom:
(laughs heartily)
Daniel:
And when he tweeted about his achievement, media organisations, including The New York Times, ran the story, and he worked it out initially that there were 211 by going on maps and zooming in via satellite.
Hank:
And then he got a motorbike, and then he got in an accident and hurt his ankle. And then he got to be in all of the spots.
Daniel:
Oh yes, that's the next level.
Tom:
One final thing then. At the start of the show, I asked a question that was sent in by Alex.
What are the two most common words that aren't listed in a Scrabble dictionary?
Anyone want to take a quick shot of that?
Hank:
Gotta be (bleep).
SFX:
(others laughing)
Tom:
Here's the thing, Hank. They're in the Scrabble dictionary.
Daniel:
Yeah.
Hank:
Oh, okay.
Tom:
There is actually a bit of a dispute about whether profanities and slurs in particular can be played in Scrabble. And you will find different leagues have different rules on it.
Hank:
True.
Tom:
But, those are in the Scrabble dictionary.
Hank:
Okay.
Tom:
Which two profanities did Hank choose? We'll never know.
SFX:
(guests giggling)
Tom:
(chuckles)
Daniel:
They've gotta be names. I think they've got to be brand names or something. 'Cause if it's a word, it's a word. It would be in the Scrabble dictionary. They're quite wide. In the word list.
Hank:
Is it, yeah, is it like a proper noun situation?
Tom:
No, these are valid English words that... are just, they're words. I don't know how else to phrase it. They're words.
Hank:
And... is there a good reason though?
Tom:
Oh, an excellent reason.
Daniel:
"Help us."
SFX:
(others laughing)
Daniel:
"Scrabble sucks." No, scrabble's a valid word in Scrabble.
Hank:
Is 'scrabble' a valid Scrabble word? What does scrabble mean?
Tom:
Scrabbling. As in a creature scrabbling for dirt.
Hank:
Oh yeah, you scrabble. You scrabble up a hillside.
Daniel:
Is it gonna be COVID?
Hank:
New words.
Daniel:
Yeah, new words.
Ceri:
Or words that don't have enough... letter tiles. I don't know enough about a Scrabble set, but there's only one K or something like that.
Daniel:
Three Zs.
Ceri:
Yeah.
Daniel:
'Cause there's... four Zs actually.
Hank:
Pizzazz!
Tom:
(laughs)
Daniel:
Pizzazz? Yeah, that's really good.
Tom:
Those words are generally listed in the dictionary because you could make them with blanks or something like that. There is a point where they get ridiculously long, and, yeah, not in the dictionary.
Daniel:
Uncopyrightable, 15 letters.
Tom:
But you're basically there, Ceri. You're really, really close when you said, "not enough letter tiles".
Daniel:
It's 16 letter words. Because you can only fit a 15 letter word on the board.
Tom:
Those aren't common.
Hank:
So we're looking for a common 16 letter word.
Ceri:
(giggles)
Tom:
Not quite. In fact, exactly the opposite. There are definitely enough letter tiles in Scrabble to do this, and that's kinda the problem.
Hank:
Oh. A and I?
Tom:
A and I. Spot on, Hank, yep.
Ceri:
Oh.
Daniel:
Ohh!
Tom:
Because they are not valid Scrabble words. You can't get extra points for saying, "Oh, I've put this down, and I've also got three other As and Is in here that I also get points for."
Daniel:
I hate you, Tom.
SFX:
(others laughing)
Hank:
They are definitely words!
Tom:
That one goes to Alex. Thank you very much for sending that question in.
And thank you also to all of our players for joining us again.
What's going on in your lives? Where can people find your stuff?
We will start today with Hank.
Hank:
You can watch my comedy special on dropout.tv. It's a 60-minute special, and I think it's... I think it's good!
Tom:
What's it called?
Hank:
It's called Pissing Out Cancer.
Tom:
(laughs) Alright! Ceri, how about you?
Ceri:
Yeah, if you wanna listen to me, and you can't get enough of Hank, then go to youtube.com/scishowtangents or wherever you get your podcasts and listen to SciShow Tangents. It's a comedy science game show, and we have a good time doing science trivia.
Tom:
And Dan, where can people find you?
Daniel:
You can find me on Twitch and YouTube. I'm QuizzyDan. I stream various quizzes, games, and puzzles.
But not Scrabble! Never Scrabble!
SFX:
(others laughing)
Tom:
And if you want to find out more about this show—
There's some anger there!
And if you want to find out more about this show, you can do that at lateralcast.com, where you can also send in your own idea for a question. There are regular video highlights at youtube.com/lateralcast, and we are at @lateralcast basically everywhere.
With that, thank you very much to the angry at Scrabble, Dan Peake.
Daniel:
Grrrr.
SFX:
(Tom and Ceri laugh)
Tom:
To Ceri Riley.
Ceri:
Thank you.
Tom:
And to Hank Green.
Hank:
Thank you, Tom!
Tom:
I've been Tom Scott, and that's been Lateral.
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