Who Says Science Can’t Be Silly?

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What would the world look like if we only studied things that at the outset had a direct application for humans? Well, for starters, we wouldn't have penicillin. X-rays, or even microwaves, our world is full of incredible scientific discoveries that were made by accident or while looking for something else. But a lot of the time, we don't give credit to the kinds of breakthroughs that curiosity-driven research provides.

Science has a reputation for being serious, but you can find some world-changing results in the oddest of places. So this episode, I'm joined by author and assistant professor Carly Ann York to talk about how silly science turns into serious innovation. Then, speaking of silly science... We'll talk about the Ig Nobel Prize, which was held in September, to celebrate this kind of research. Plus, we'll explore a study showing how plants are speaking and moths are listening.

My name is Dr. Samantha Yameen, and welcome to Curiosity Weekly from Discovery. Early in our science schooling, we learned that one of the first steps in the scientific method is to ask a question. But in practice, there are a lot of follow-up questions to that question. How will this research help humankind? What is the purpose of this work? Why should this work be funded? Why should we care?

These are important questions. They can sometimes take away from a fundamental element of scientific research, which is, ahem, curiosity. Some applications of science don't reveal themselves until you have all the data. You can make a hypothesis, of course, but you don't know what you don't know. And branding this kind of research as useless or frivolous can take away from not just the fun of science, but potentially massive discoveries that do have the potential to change the world. So today...

I'm joined by author, professor, animal behaviorist, and physiologist, Dr. Carly Ann York. Dr. York just published a book called The Salmon Cannon and the Levitating Frog and other series, Discoveries of Silly Science. We're going to talk about the importance of research that's driven by curiosity and how certain studies that were once deemed silly have altered the world we live in today. Thanks so much for joining us, Carly. Thanks for having me.

I am so thrilled to chat with you because I love this topic of silly science and fundamental discovery science, science for the joy of it. And you wrote the whole book on it. I did. Yeah, it was a really fun book to write, too. Yeah, our whole team was so excited about getting to chat with you. I don't want to give too much away about your book because I think people should read it for themselves. But there's everything from sea fireflies inspiring a Nobel Prize to humpback whales affecting...

wind power. Do you have a favorite example of something that might have seemed silly at first having a huge impact in science? Yeah, I think my favorite one is... a researcher that I featured. Her name's Sheila Paddock and she's at Duke University and she studies ultra-fast animal movements. And one of the things that she discovered was how fast a mantis shrimp can punch.

And I think I heard about that actually. Yeah. So this actually was research that ended up getting dragged. It was called just a shrimp fight club. But it has some really neat applications that came from it. They weren't her goal at all. She just wanted to know how... this mantis shrimp can punch so fast like if you are underwater uh they can they can punch a clam and shatter it like can you imagine trying to with the little like they don't even have big they don't have arms no it's just like

Like a little appendage and they just go whack and they can shatter a clam. So it's like incredibly fast and the force is really, really high. So there's a lot of questions that... easily come with that right like

How do you go so fast? Yeah, I have a few. And how do you not destroy your own appendage when you're doing this? So it has a lot of questions that... can be raised for like material sciences and in like engineering fields as well but that was of course like never her goal originally it was just how does a shrimp punch so fast what what made you interested in looking for these types of stories like where does that come from for me it was it was a

personal quest. So I am a scientist who does curiosity-driven research. Most of my work has been done on squid physiology. This has no immediate application whatsoever. And I was actually asked by someone many years ago what my research was going to do. And I didn't have a good answer.

I was not good at articulating the value of this kind of research, and I bumbled it. My husband was actually with me. He's the one who told me just how badly I bumbled it. Our partners tend to do that. They're very critical. Because they believe in us. So this was my attempt to like sit down and really think out an argument as to why this kind of research matters. Speaking of.

Research is expensive and whether the funding is coming from tax dollars, donations, or it's happening in industry with, you know, that corporate money, it's fair to ask about how practical research is and how a certain area is. But how do you balance that with the importance of discovery science? It is absolutely fair for taxpayers to ask. And I think this actually tops into a big problem that we've had with.

just communication between scientists and the general public. But it's absolutely valid for them to ask. And I think it's on us to give them. answers and even if that answer is um i don't know yet but we gained this knowledge and that's great Do you think scientific research needs to necessarily have a goal or application in mind when it's starting? Like, where does that come into the process? personally do not i think you would lose a whole lot of valuable information if you were

just looking to solve a problem. I think of basic research as turning on a light in a dark room. You could be looking for a solution all day long to a problem, but if you don't actually have... all of the knowledge of what's around you, you might just be missing something that is right there. So every little piece of information that we can gain about better understanding our world, I think that's incredibly valuable.

Now you dive into this idea of quote unquote wastefulness in your book and how that can stimmy innovation due to pressure to prove that research is worthwhile before even conducting it. What do you think? needs to change about how research is funded or even just looked at so that we're not focusing so much on predicting the outcome of something before we've even figured it out. so vannevar bush was the mastermind behind the national science foundation and he

was all about curiosity-driven research. And he understood that it was for the greater good, that information leads to innovations. And we need to have that in order to. be a competitive country in terms of innovation technology so he had a really good vision here and so that was created in 1950 and the nsf has been the primary funder for curiosity-driven research along with the nih um sadly though that is that is

being slashed away at as we speak. The 2024 NSF budget was $9 billion and they're talking about slashing it to $3 to $4 billion. I mean, part of that is because you can't guarantee a product or a solution. So industry doesn't want to spend billions of dollars supporting projects where you just might get some neat information from it that...

perhaps in 30 years will be applicable towards something, but also maybe not. So having that federal support is important, but we're going to have to find some other ways too, I think. Scientists and science itself.

tends to have a reputation for humorlessness or stuffiness. Do you think it's important for researchers to embrace silly or funny ideas? As a way to think outside the box? Yes, in terms of the curiosity. And the good thing is that... the things that a lot of normal people would say are silly scientists actually like would never say that's silly um they would just dive right into that curiosity so that at least is is there

I mean, it's also funny because within the sciences, there are a lot of silly things. Like famously, people who study fruit flies named a lot of the big genes that they discovered off, like Sonic Hedgehog was one of them. Because it led to this certain like pattern that looked like the cartoon. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, the reality is that scientists are humans and you're going to absolutely have your group that.

has a lot of fun with what they do i think all scientists have to be passionate about their work otherwise yeah oh my gosh you just you couldn't um how that passion comes through is gonna vary a little bit but And humor is great. And I love the papers that come out with like witty little puns and things like that. Ridiculous titles. I personally love it. I've also.

seen people be like oh so unprofessional and they're like oh yeah well speaking of the fruit fly research some of those genes they discovered and gave silly names to ended up being important in different diseases, including cancer. And so then it became awkward to tell a patient they have a sonic hedgehog mutation. So I get it. Yeah, I've heard that one too. And I'm like, yep.

That makes sense. Fair. Okay. Maybe we do need to be better at bringing people in on the joke at the right time. Right. Yeah. Time is everything. Thank you so much, Carly. We have a link to Carly's book in the show notes. So please be sure to check it out. And thank you for being on the show. Thanks so much for having me.

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Mango, Madewell, and more. And the best part, free shipping, free returns, and easy in-store pickup. So get ready to shop in stores on Nordstrom.com or download the Nordstrom app today. It's Ig Nobel season. And yes, you heard that right. The Ig Nobels, or Iggs for short, celebrate research that makes people laugh, then think.

Since their onset in 1991, the goal of the IGS has been to inspire interest in science, medicine, and technology through the unusual and imaginative. To paint a picture for you, past awards were given for topics like why old men have big ears. why people sigh, and how many mammals are in fact capable of breathing through their anus.

Now, it may all sound silly, and of course it is. The ceremony itself doesn't take itself too seriously. I mean, there's a mini opera and circus, but you never know where curiosity can lead you. And some of the most life-changing science starts from simply asking, But why?

This year, world-renowned scientists, journalists, and enthusiasts gathered at Boston University in Massachusetts to celebrate the 2025 winners. If you follow me on Instagram, you know I was locked in for the entire ceremony where the Ig Nobel Prizes are... physically handed to winners by real Nobel laureates who are having an absolute ball, mind you. I brought the team on to share some of the highlights. We got Cassie, Nick, Teresa. Hey, everyone. Hi.

Hello. Hi. Are you all ready to hear about this chaos? I'm ready. Let's hear about the winners. All right. The first one that I got to tell you about was a nutrition prize. And it was given to people for studying the extent to which a certain kind of lizard chooses to eat certain kinds of pizza. They found rainbow lizards at a resort in Togo in West Africa showed a preference specifically for four cheese pizza over other food offers. Do lizards eat meat? Yeah. Over pineapple?

Pure class. Everybody chooses something other than pineapple. I haven't read the full study to know what all the different ones, but they said of all the pizzas and all the other food they offered, it was specifically for cheese pizza. Wow. Their research question was, what happens when a lizard discovers cheese and carbs? Like, why would a lizard...

adapt to eating this type of mozzarella and carb that doesn't exist in the natural world? Like why? How would that happen? And what does that tell us about if we should be eating that pizza? I think it tells us. we should scientifically proven that it's extra good i would love for them did you guys ever see that i love this

video from a million years ago of the pizza, the rat taking the pizza. I would love to know if rats have a special draw to a certain kind of pizza. It would be very applicable as a girl who lives in New York. I was going to say the most New York scientific study of all time. Fund it immediately. What kind of what what pizzeria do subway rats prefer? Right. Board cheese, I will say, does have like a stronger scent to it.

a stronger smell. And I think it's one of those, you know, blends of cheese. Yeah. Okay. So that was the nutrition prize. Really important work. The next one I have to tell you about, let me tell you the research. So it was researchers from Japan. who won for their experiments to learn whether cows painted with zebra-like striping can avoid being bit by flies. Now that was interesting, right? Yeah.

okay so okay this is another thing that i looked up online because i do the research do zebras not get attacked by flies okay i i i knew i why did i know you'd ask this I should have looked into it more. Apparently not. Apparently they have less, like not zero, but less. That's as far as I went. So should we buy striped clothing? Well.

to know whether it worked. Right. Apparently having the stripes specifically, black and white, reduced the number of biting flies that they experienced. And other types of paint didn't. Stripes are in. Salads are out. Yeah, just black painted stripes didn't do it. No stripes didn't do it. It was the black and white. Pretty cool. I mean, that has a direct agricultural tie, right? Yeah, because you don't want your cows to be stressed. I mean, I don't want them to be stressed at all, you know?

I think that a lot of people would agree with me. I don't want to put any undue pressure or stress on cows. So that's awesome. I'm glad for them. I'm thinking really hard about this for some reason. Did they get rid of the cows' spots?

Or was it just an otherwise solid cow? I think they were, yeah, Japanese black cows. Which I didn't understand how they painted them with just... black stripes as one of the controls because they're already pretty i don't know maybe they needed like more colored yeah they needed that high contrast i certainly have follow-up questions with this one how many more can you handle i got two more

I want to hear them. This is fun. Okay. Okay, this one feels very practical. It was researchers from the Netherlands, UK, and Germany were awarded the Peace Ig Nobel Prize for showing that alcohol... sometimes improves a person's ability to speak in a foreign language. That is 100% true. Wow. I hear this.

All the time. Yeah, I can speak Spanish. I'm taking French classes, but I've got an idea. I'm going to take up drinking. Interestingly, their study found that people didn't feel like they were better. They actually self-reported that they weren't when they were tipsy. But having a low dose of alcohol, less than a pint of beer, made external judges rate them better in pronunciation.

So they hypothesized that it was like a confidence thing, that they weren't being so self-conscious, you know, inhibiting that critical part of the brain that we've talked about in a past episode, perhaps. So that was their theory there. And they did the study because they were at a conference drinking at the bar after.

They were realizing it was like, I guess, a bunch of like Germans and Dutch people. And they were like, hey, your Dutch is pretty good right now. And they're like, do we think it's the alcohol? Let's find out. Let's test it. And so they did. I actually think that that's a very useful study. I'm not sure why yet, but it's going to be useful. I mean, it's interesting.

They did add the disclaimer that they don't recommend alcohol as a tool to learning a language because it, quote, impairs memory, attention, and behavior, the very skills you need to learn a language and generally function in everyday life. Okay. But the one I have to end on is one that we covered on the show before. Can you think of something we've covered that would win? That was silly? Yeah. Can you give us a hint? Give us a hint.

Was that it? That's a really good guess. That's a really good guess, but no. Okay. I mean, digestion, like that had it all, so. I'll put you out of your, take off the pressure. It was the Cacio e Pepe study. The one is, it won the physics prize for, and they were looking at like the phase transitions of making a cacio e pepi sauce that doesn't clump and why you need to emulsify. They won.

And I was like actually kind of fangirling, like, oh my God, we read that, we covered it. And you went all the way to Italy to taste it. Yes, that was the purpose of my trip. So I guess we're a bellwether for the Ig Nobel's. Yeah. So what's next? We have to find the next Ig Nobel winner and cover it here in Curiosity. If they're listening, we want to know if sharks fart. I'd love to talk to these cow painters and see what they're up to. It was so kooky. Like it was wild.

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But can animals hear what plants are saying? And if they can, how do they respond? To find out, researchers set up an experiment using a tomato plant and an Egyptian cotton leafworm. That's a type of moth. These moths love to eat and lay their eggs on the tomato plant. So, inside the lab, the team measured whether the moths would make decisions based on sounds from the plant and published the results in the journal eLife.

The research team had already found that when a tomato plant is stressed out or dehydrated, it emits ultrasonic clicking sounds. The frequency of those clicks overlap with the moth's hearing range. So they wanted to test if moths would be more or less likely to lay eggs on a plant that clicks. The idea here being that the moths would prefer healthy plants, or ones that don't click, because there are more nutrients available for their larvae.

So here's how the experiment went down. Researchers put the moths in the middle of an arena with a tomato plant on each side. For the first round, one plant was healthy and the other was dehydrated. The moths did not hesitate. They went straight for the healthy plant. Then things got interesting. The team removed the plants altogether and brought in speakers that could mimic the little clicking noises dehydrated tomato plants make.

With no real plants involved, the moths suddenly started laying their eggs near the speaker playing the sound. That was pretty surprising to the researchers, since the sound usually comes from the distressed plant, not a thriving one. Their best guess? If no plants are around, female moths will cling to any clue that signals plant life, even if it's not a great one. To them, a stress plan is better than no plant at all. But here's the twist. When the scientists use moths that couldn't hear,

That behavior disappeared. The deaf females didn't show any preference at all and just dropped their eggs randomly. Finally, the team tested two perfectly healthy tomato plants, but added the clicking sound to one of them. This time, The moths actually avoided the noisy plant and went with the quiet one instead. These results are the first evidence of an animal responding to sounds produced from a plant.

The discovery could have major implications for the future of farming and fertilizer, but also for how we understand the natural world and the invisible communication happening all around us. For Warner Brothers Discovery, Curiosity Weekly is produced by the team at Wheelhouse DNA. The senior producer and editorial correspondent is... Teresa Carey. Our producer is...

Kiara Noni. Our audio engineer is Nick Carissimi. And head of production for Wheelhouse DNA is Cassie Berman. And I'm Dr. Samantha Yuin. Thanks for listening.

If you guys could invent your own silly science study, what might it be? You answer first. Okay, I'll go first. I always wanted to be able to fake cry, like just... easily and I can't do that. So I want to know like what's the most potent type of onion I can hide like in my shirt collar or something like that that will make me cry when I'm ready to cry.

That's so interesting. Are you trying to pull out fake tears a lot? I'm just going to walk around. No, I just sometimes imagine myself as a famous actress. And that's the only thing that I can't do yet. That's the only thing holding you back. That's the only thing. I mean, I can do all the stunts and everything. Like, I know how to fall off a building, but crying on demand? No. Yeah. After we covered juggling on the show...

I had so many follow-up questions. My hypothesis is that juggling has an acute effect on reaction time, but maybe not long-term. So I want to like juggle and then I guess... Something with reaction. Maybe someone punches me and then I have to see how many times I get hit, which I think would be a great. I would watch that. So I'll tune in. Yeah, anything for the science.

Dude, did you order... The new iPhone 17 Pro? Got it from Verizon. The best 5G network in America. It never looked so good. You look the same. But with this camera, everything looks better. Especially me. You haven't changed your hair in 15 years.

Selfies? Check, please. New and existing customers can get the new iPhone 17 Pro. Designed to be the most powerful iPhone ever. With eligible phone trade-in and unlimited ultimate. Any condition guaranteed. Best 5G source, root metrics, data, United States, 1H, 2025. All rights reserved. Trade-in and additional terms apply for all offers.

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