I'm Manny, I'm Noah. This is Devin and this is no such thing.
The show where we settle our dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the research. Today's episode is another mail bag episode. We're gonna be talking about eggs, sneezes, medicine, the twenty four hour day, and whether grape or strawberry is the traditional jelly and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
No, there's no no such thing, no such thank no touch, thank touch, thank touch thank all right, We're starting with a question from Fran who is based in London. She says, just had a somewhat heated debate last night with my flatmates about whether eggs should be kept in our fridge or not. Our fridge is small and we only have one shelf each, so all three of us having our own carton of eggs takes up a lot of space.
I personally have always grown up with my family keeping eggs in the fridge, but one of my flatmates keeps harries out on the counter and said we should too. Do they last longer if kept in the fridge or does it remove any nutritional value? So before we get into friend, what do you guys do with regard to eggs.
Oh, you gotta put your eggs fridge?
Yeah, I think I put a lot of stuff in the fridge that maybe doesn't necessarily need.
To be in the fridge, but eggs just out of space, leaving your milk out here.
Yeah, I do think it is a US UK divide perhaps in my head. It's just like, yeah, it's gonna make it last a little bit longer. Yeah, because it's colder in there. What do you leave out of the fridge that could be refrigerated?
Do you think I don't put like potatoes and your stuff like that the fride?
Interesting?
Big?
Uh?
No ketchup in the fridge.
Guy, ever, Now that's no like my ketchup cold.
I want my ketchup. Ketchup.
You just have open ketchup in your cabinet.
It's not Yeah, it's opened as and I used it before and then I toasted that.
Yeah it's open though. Yeah, Yeah, it's not sealed. That's what I mean.
It's it's opened, it's unsealed.
It doesn't need to be refrigerated, does it say that? Yes?
Because look we're getting confused here between there's things that need to be refrigerated.
And there's things that they're that's what we're discussed.
There's things that there's things that they recommend.
Refrigera ketchup is one of those things that they're like, actually, it'll be better if you refrigerated.
Well, how quickly are you going through ketchup?
I got a big one from Costco, so it takes me a while.
So I'm only really using it on like if I get a if I make burgers or something like that, or hot dog.
So it will last a long while.
I've had that ketchup. Look, this is not the first time in life that I've done it. Actually just opened a new, huge thing of it.
So but by the time you're getting to the bottom is you don't notice anything.
No, that's what I'm saying. I've been through this in my life.
Okay, I'm living that way, not just recommending it and not doing it.
I've got bread in the fridge, all vegetables, including potato, butter.
And a fridge.
You put your you put your potatoes in a fridge.
Yeat that often, but I've never I've never done that.
No, I don't put them in the fridge. I don't know.
I try to keep most produce. Well, it depends on the produce. I mean, but like if it's not cut at all, I'm trying to keep it fresh outside, especially like that.
Yeah, once you cut it, then I put it once it's cut.
Yeah, onions. What about butter for you guys? See, butter is interesting because I always grew up butter in the fridge.
Yeah.
Yeah, a couple of years ago I got one of those butterbell devices. Yeah, it's like a little it's kind of like a cover. Yeah, it's like a little contraption. You you put water in the bottom and then you put butter in kind of the top. Nice you store it so it keeps the butter nice and fresh and soft.
Was the water have to do? It?
Like helps seal it once it's in there creates a seal. So if you're having butter like every day and you're gonna actually go through, it's pretty good because it doesn't go bad unless it's like sitting for a long time. Maybe that's it's nice to have really soft butter.
Yes, I don't put I don't have a lot of bread with butter, only using butter when I'm cooking, I'll put it from my eggs and it doesn't really matter.
But to circle back, I got another fifteen minutes on this. All three of us put our eggs in the fridge. Why is that.
I don't know the specifics of it, but I know there's a difference between our eggs and UK eggs for some reason, like we can't have our eggs outside because they'll go bad or something, or we can get I don't know, salmon l or something orreas some way that they process their eggs in the UK that it's okay to keep your eggs on the shelf. That's what I've heard. I don't know what the specifics of it are though, Well.
Just so happens that I do because my wife Mia is an executive editor at Business in Cider overseeing health in science. She's British, so she also knows about this.
Wow more importantly British.
British.
Okay, So the question of whether or not you need to refrigerate your eggs really depends on where you are. So if you're in the US, then yes, you do have to refrigerate your eggs, and you don't have an option. And that's because commercially sold eggs in the US are washed and refrigerated before they're packaged, and that is to get rid of any kind of bacteria or dirt that could be dangerous, such as salmonella, which is a good thing, but the problem with that process is that it removes
the protective outer layer called the cuticle. So when those eggs are shipped and once they make their way to you, you need to keep those eggs in the fridge because they no longer have the protective layer that would defend the egg from bacteria in your kitchen. Something like salmonella thrives in warmth, so if your eggs are on the kitchen counter, salmonella can permeate the shell and get into
the egg. If your egg is made in the US, it's different if you're in Europe because in Europe they don't wash and refrigerate the eggs in processing because their goal is to retain the protective outer layer. In Europe and in the UK, their priority is to package and ship and consume the eggs locally, so you're having them very fresh and they're retaining that protective outer layer, so there isn't time or opportunity for salmonella to permeate the egg.
And that's why in Europe, the best by dates are also shorter, so you usually on the package it will say that you have less than a month to eat the egg, whereas in the US, much bigger country, they're transporting these eggs much further. That's the benefit of refrigerating them, and that's why you usually have like six weeks eight weeks to eat those eggs. So t LDR. If you're in the US, you have no option. You need to keep them in the fridge. In Europe, it's up to you.
You can keep them in the fridge to preserve freshness, but there is perfectly safe outside the fridge as well.
That made sense in tracks with basically what you were saying. I didn't realize exactly what it was. I didn't realize it was literally just what was on the outside of the show. I assumed it was something more like biological almost. Yeah, like, yes, this is actually.
Much more simple.
Yeah, it's funny how many times washing something is actually kind of bad in a way, like the chicken debate that we've had that people are still mad at us about.
Yeah, washing the chicken itself, the raw chicken.
Spreads the bacteria around, and with the eggs, washing it and refrigerating, it kind of removes like a natural protection that it has.
And I believe the questionnaire lives in London but grew up in the US. So that's that's why why there's confusion and they're arguing with their flatmates, as they say, because I was thinking about this, because I was like, I don't know. I definitely have seen people keep their eggs, like you know, upstate or something, and they buy them from the farm next door, and it's like, oh, well they're not. Now it makes sense. It's like they're not
doing this industrialized process of washing them. You just go pick it up from the farm and you can keep it out. Because I knew it are people who have chickens and that sort of thing. They're not keeping them in the fridge and they're eating them that day.
Probably the chickens aren't putting their stuff in the fridge.
They're talking about.
They're keeping them more.
Nobody talks about many.
Fridge in there.
We stayed upstate once and there was like a chicken coop in the backyard and the owners were like, feel free to go back there and pick up any eggs that's for cooking. So we did, and that well know, actually we didn't. We were about to, and then we got an email later being like, oh wait a second, these are the fertilized ones.
And I was like traumatized. If chicken, well, they wouldn't have been born.
It would have been.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the person it was just it was just a clumb themselves.
Sure, sure, sure, I remember during COVID. I don't know if this was like a national thing, but certainly in our friend group, we just started eating a ship ton of eggs because they're just easy to make, you know.
Yeah.
I wasn't really cooking all that much until everything shut down. So I was eating a ton of eggs. And then there was like a lot of discourse on Twitter at the time about how that's actually bad. You shouldn't be eating that much, that many eggs.
I could be shooting up here, What do you want from me? It's like.
Eggs, Yeah, shut the hell.
Up unless you're Unless you do it. It's like, don't turn on me if you're eating ten eggs a day.
Sure, just like anything, Yeah, what's next?
Next up?
We're staying on the expiration dates? Okay. Theme This is from Steph I'm quoting now. That is in stest's voice. Okay, so you know how you buy medicine tail and all prescriptions, NIQ will whatever, and there's a date for when it expires. Why does it expire? Like I get that cheese goes bad, milk spoils, vegetables rot, But what is the actual reason why pills or medicine go back. That's a great question as this.
I don't know if they go bad.
I think they just become less potent, right.
That's my thought, And I always think about this when I go visit my family. There's like the kid's bathroom and you open the closet there and it's like kids. First of all, there's no children living there anymore, so it's like kids advil or kids time. Literally it's from before I was born. It's from like even before my brother was born. I think, like literally stuff from the eighties that's in and it's probably if you open it up, it's probably just like dusts, yeah, or like not even.
But then there have been times when I'm looking for something and it'll be more recent, but then I'll look and it's like expire twenty sixteen. I'm like, oh, it's like you know, it creeps up on you. Yeah, I don't know.
I mean I agree with them, and it won't be that it goes bad in the sense that if you consume it you'll get sick. I've definitely run into this because I'm a gas X connoisseur of sorts power us.
I love using it.
I think it's probably placebo, but it makes me feel better. And they will have expiration dates and I don't know, like I'll take I'll have one after the expiration date and I'll be like, oh, that one didn't do as much as.
So, Yeah, how long do you think that's?
Like?
Typically? Is it like a year?
Is it? Yeah?
It's really long because I'll be like fall, I'll be just digging through trying to find something. Okay, I think the one that I found was like over.
A year old. You take your normal dosage of it.
Yeah, so you didn't like double up one one caveat though, gas X. I hope they're listening to this.
Why there's one of the boxes called maximum strength and the stronger one is called Ultimate strength. Actually, we already passed the maximum so I don't know what I'm doing here.
Like don Draper took up.
Maximum, so it could be possible that I did. I took the same dosage was just two pills, but that it.
Was maximum and not ultimate. I don't know what anyway, Yeah, I mean, what do you go for in the store, like if you were going right, I try to get now.
That I know ultimate is the strong one. I go for Ultimate. Sometimes they don't have it. I don't know why. But also it's just a matter of the dosage, like yeah, I think two or like three maximums is two ultimates or if you do the math. So anyway, all that to say, I've dealt with the medicine expiration dates before, and I would like to know the answer.
You know, this reminds me of I recently, for the first time I ever saw Wolf of Wall Street Crazy.
Oh yeah, and they have that scene what they're taking. Yeah.
Yeah, they're all made in the nine eighties.
They stopped selling whateveryone and they take a bunch of them and they're like, Okay, it's not working, and take more and then they find out that like, actually it just has a longer release times.
They're older.
Oh, they get it extra high. So I'm not sure if that's the same with pills.
I'm not in the issue too. I have this issue with pills because I'm not a real pill popper, you know.
If I'm getting some pills, yeah, I gotta get kind of fucked up to take. Like even like an avil.
You can't you can't swallow it.
No, I can. I can swallow.
I don't want to change. You just don't want to.
I don't like, I don't really get headaches, you know, so if I get a little ache and pain, I'm just.
Taking care of you.
Well, you don't get hangovers.
Because right, So it's like I'm taking I'm maybe taking an avvil.
Twice a year of that.
Wow, but I buy you know, when you buy it, you got to buy a big one because it's the best for money.
Yeah, exactly.
So I'm getting one hundred hundred pails.
They're like two years old now.
Yeah, I'm taking four a year.
It's lasting as long as they're catch up.
So this is this is a good question of like sort of what is happened? I guess I feel like with all things, it's like, yeah, it just loses its oppotents. I don't know what would be happening now, like chemically, Yeah.
Is it the case that twenty years after it actually does literally nothing to you after you take it.
Well, luckily, the good people at Harvard, oh, Harvard Medical School, to be exact, Okay, those are the people you do want to talk to. That that's a good clarification, have looked into this. So in nineteen eighty five, the US Air Force conducted a study where they gathered a stockpile of medications because they you know, countries do have those stockpiles for certain things, you know, for emergencies or obviously
for military et cetera. So they gathered a stockpile of medications worth more than a billion dollars that were close to or pass their expiration dates. They didn't want to just throw them away, so they did studies. They tested to see if they're still safe and effective. This is the US Food and Drug Administration, the FDA, in other words, lets some call them. And the verdict, according to Harvard Retelling, this most medications were still good nearly three years past
their expression. That's nuts. But there are a few caveats to keep in mind, they say. So one, those tests that we're referring to were from the mid eighties and early nineties, so newer medications may not have been tested yet. In this way. Only about one hundred types of drugs were tested, so and some of them were like things that people who are not in the military probably wouldn't be using so much like you know, antidotes for chemical
poisoning or antibiotics from malaria. And some drugs did fail the stability test. So liquid antibiotics, Yeah, antibiotics aspirin, nitroglycerin, and insulin have found signs of physical decay, so not best to use them past the expiration dates. Physical decay. Yeah, but it's like the pills cracked. Yeah, and then yeah, epipends also held up poorly past the expiration dates. This doesn't seem harmful though, it's probably just, like you're saying, not as effective.
Yeah.
So one, it kind of depends how serious the medication is or the what you're trying to fix. You know, you can probably take an allergy medication a month past the expiration date, but a heart rhythm medication is going to be riskier. Yes, Yeah, so you want to make sure that's gonna help you.
So pretty much like the over the counter stuff that's not gonna be life or death, Yes, spring gas X that kind of thing.
Something like that. Yeah, it might not do the trick that you needed to do, but it's not gonna hurt. This also says that generally they keep the expiration dates on the more conservative side exactly for this reason, which makes sense and I agree with as a practice. Yeah. Yeah, And drug makers say that extensive testing for drug stability over prolonged periods of times would be ideal, but it's
too expensive. And yeah. Also in this study, the military study found that by keeping these expired medicines is saved about two hundred and sixty million dollars from the one billion, so it's pretty significant. Yeah, it showed that there was a lot of useful There are a lot of medicine that was still useful. So basically, expiration dates in the US, after a law in nineteen seventy nine, drug manufacturers have to stamp an expiration date on their products. So that's
like where they can guarantee full potency and safety. It's not necessarily means it's gonna not work after that, which makes sense. It's just like a regulation. So it's true that effectiveness of a drug may decrease over time, but much of the original potency still remains even the decade after the expiration date. Placing a medication in a cool place, such as a refrigerator, will help the drug remain potent for many years. That's a good question, right from the
previous question. I also put my dequill in stuff in the fridge, do you guys? No, keep it outside in the closet.
Yeah, I don't.
I'm really only getting that when I have Once again, I don't really take that stuff, so.
I always just have it in the fridge.
Not for any real reason, but that's all you taking. I mean only when I get sick, but like it lasts for during that period.
In the fridge.
Yeah, yeah, No, I don't keep it in the fridge.
Oh yeah, it looks like babies.
Actually they have one for babies and it says four babies. I got the liquid one for Yeah. Yeah, prefer when I'm like out, Like back when we used to work in an office every day, I would bring pills with me. If I'm at home, I'm like a little something to sip on is nice. All right, After the break, we're gonna answer some questions about sneezing behaviors, the twenty four hour day, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or We'll be right.
Back all right, next up? Hi, Have y'all ever argued about why some people sneeze loudly? Is it a learned behavior, maybe to mimic a parent or get attention or clear nasal passages more comfortably or effectively. Or is it biological maybe based on lung size or muscular strength or age. Can a louder soft sneeze to become softer loud, respectively? Or is that dynamic range of sneezes actually small and its variations in hearing sensitivity that we should be arguing over.
Please get to the bottom of this. My doctor has stopped answering my question.
Can I just say, real quick, I love our listeners because we get the funniest fucking questions I've ever heard of the very behavioral.
Science of sneeze loudness. So well, first of all, what what how would you all to describe your individual sneeze styles. I'm pretty controlled, I think, Yeah, I try to keep it on the covers, yeah, like and that same at home. Yeah.
But you know, I'm sure we all have you know, are the classic the dad loud home, shaking the frames on the wall kind of sneeze? So my dad one of the loudest sneezers around the house.
My dad had really bad allergies too, and his sneeze was so like the cat would run a wind up.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and you know, and then yeah, and then there's usually a couple in a row.
Yeah.
That's my other question, and then there's yeah afterwards it's like.
Yeah, yeah.
My follow up bonus question is why the sneeze is coming multiple It's because there's some people who always three. It's not a loud sneeze. It will be like always doing three or more in a string. I'll have maybe one or two I do. I do pretty loud ones. I'll say, Okay, I can control it here, yeah yeah, yeah, but if I'm home, yeah, letting it.
I will say. When I do let a loud one off, it feels good.
Yeah, it's like I'm not holding back, you know, and go for real.
Because sometimes you try to get a low yeah, and.
Then you got it's like it's like plug but myself up.
Ye, try to keep yeah.
Yeah, and it's not it doesn't it's not satisfying. It's like when you when you try to stifle a cough. Yes, that's like the worst feeling in the world. You have to cough in the movies or something, and then you let it go, but then it's still there. Yeah, I have to go to the right Yeah, try to or then I'll try like, okay, maybe I'll choose choose some gum or something like something I was happening here. Maybe I can wait.
You're like waiting for the loud scene of the movie to come, literally, like, okay, there's a car crash coming up.
Let's lessen that.
But it's a great question because you know, if it were behavioral, you would think that you would have a similar sneak to your parents. But that's not the case for me.
No, Well, it's almost it's almost behavioral on the opposite way that you witness you know that women.
Can do to a fan.
Yeah, you've seen the loud sneeze and now you don't want to repeat that.
Yeah, traumas the cycle ends here. Yeah, but I mean, dear kid, is gonna be like I hate how my dad always Yeah, quite a little. It's like a kind of an edible thing.
Yeah, watch this.
Luckily for us our friends at Popular Science magazine, someone I've answered this.
Oh yeah, oh my god.
They did separate articles for both of those questions. So why do people sneeze aloud? And the multiples? I was like, wow, the ones.
I'm really fascinated by the multiples. I know someone who always goes too, and that's it the next time.
So this is from doctor Takashima from the Department of Oto Laryngology. Wow, had a neck and surgery at Houston Methodist Academic Institute. This is a quote from Popular Science. Yes, not on him, insider knows, is a tight mesh of epithelial cells, tiny hairs, and thick mucus. These elements quotes trap particulates so that the lungs can be protected. When those build up, they need to be flushed out. So tiny hairs, that makes sense, tiny hair is mucus whatever, all this stuff out.
Yeah, they don't want you. They don't want that stuff in the lungs.
Yes, and it needs to be flushed out. In your body knows this. It gets triggered somehow, like enough piles up so that really I do think there was a scene. I think Bill Murray sneezes. Yes, yes, everyone flies out, hit all the pressure valves.
They're about to blow this scene.
Great movie, yeah, which you watched that the key to sneezing volume lies in the structure of our respiratory system. The first step of the sneeze reflex involves deep inhalation. You need that air to be able to expel everything out. While air is sucked into our lungs, our vocal cords closed tightly. Once enough pressure has built up in our lungs,
all the air is expelled. It's that gush of air that's pushing through the vocal cords that creates the sound of the sneeze The shape and floppiness of our vocal cords and other soft tissue at the back of the throat influence whether or not we have a quiet or booming sneeze. Lung volume also determines how much air enters and leaves our chests during a sneeze, meaning no single physical measurement will predict sneeze volume, So vocal cords, other tissue,
lung volume. Some people with big lung volumes have very patigue sneezes HM, so this article also has how to sneez quietly. Takashima points out that in Japan there's a heavy cultural emphasis on not inconveniencing others and people manage to suppress their sneezes. So this is what the question asker was asking too about. Is that, you know, kind of a cultural or learned behavior.
Yeah, oh for sure.
So the key here is to minimize the amount of resonant energy flowing through your oral cavity closing your mouth. This will produce the volume of your sneeze.
It doesn't feel as good though.
No hold on, look at the medical literature suggests that sneeze suppression may be a surprisingly bad idea. Oh for sure.
You ever try to hold in your whole body of things, your eyes are gonna You're gonna.
Your eyes blood, my eyes.
Head out of my head.
You want to be if you want to sneeze.
I don't know that.
If anybody sneezing as hard as they can into their elbow, it's.
Gonna be that loud.
Ye let me practice like that was That was bad? That's not out loud. I don't know if I've been peeking on that.
You know, like you're gonna, I'm gonna hear it if you're trying to sneeze in a way, if you don't know you're sneezing.
Not gonna do that.
You're not. You're not really you know, the cat's not gonna run it. Yeah, no, exactly, or the cat needs a tough enough yeah, frankly, all right, So that answers the main basically the bonus about the multiples, Why does that happen? Because that's stranger, that's weird. You can't get it out in one go. So it has to do with the power behind your noses blows.
If you got a weak ass nose, you got to do more.
You need to work that out. It's funny they talk to all different people for this article. Yeah, this is still popular science, yep. So basically, the if the irtint is still lingering after a sneeze, your nose is going to give it another go. So typically a second sneeze means that your first knees didn't do its job.
Yes.
As for the mega sneezer, the person who always seems to sneeze fifteen times in a row, it may mean his or her sneezes just don't pack the same punch's ears. Depending on how her nerves are hardwired, it may mean her sneezes are not as forceful to expel whatever is irritating her. If that's the case. Try to rub your nose or plug your nose. That way you can manually remove the allergen.
Okay, you do some work help it out.
Of course, a foreign irritant may not be triggering your sneeze at all. For about eighteen to twenty percent of the population, staring at bright lights can cause uncontrollable sneezing. What the It's a genetic condition called a photic sneeze reflects phot I see, and its mechanisms aren't very well understood. Some researchers believe that rapid pupil constriction may trigger the
nerves related to sneezing, but no one knows for sure. Oh, because your eyes do that when you're allergic to something. So if you seem to be sneezing over and over while enjoying the great outdoors, maybe avert your gaze from the sun for a little while. That's a cliffhanger to end on eighteen to twenty percent of the I mean almost someone in this room, which one of us I start lights all the time.
I don't.
It doesn't really travel right now.
They gotta start putting some of those warnings.
It's obviously in my head now, but I feel a little bit more tensional. Yeah, I'm not gonna sneeze, but I see it.
It's a division.
Next time I have to sneeze, I'm going to try to make it as loud as possible. I don't think I've ever really tried to be try to have a.
Loud primal scream. Yeah, it might be. It might feel good. All right, what's what's next? This is a real kind of bomb rip, sort of one from Blake. Why are there twenty four hours in a day?
That's all he said?
Any ideas.
Well?
I mean, just like I guess the basic necessity of like measuring, I don't know why they landed on twenty four You would think it'd be something shorter.
I don't know.
Well, I might just say there's twelve hours, but the hours or two hours long or so?
Yeah maybe yeah, that's where, Yeah, I would do a longer segment.
Do you think I'm just talking shit? Yeah?
Well, you know obviously the twenty four hours.
You know what a day is? Yes, is a day, but that's one day?
But why what is a day is when the sun goes around you know? And yeah, because the summer, Yeah, and we're flat we're flat.
Yeah, flat earth. So as soon as the sun the sun.
Yeah, and then at night it's underneath.
Us, it's under its over China. The sun went to sleep. It's gone. Now it's gone the man. Yeah, so it's one cycle.
Now it's one rotation.
Seriously, ye serious, guys, let's not cho.
You know, flatter enough.
So one rotation of the earth.
Yeah, one rotation of the earth. The sun is not rotating. We're evolving around. That's a year. It's one revolution around the sun. So one day is one revolution of there.
So we all agree on that. Yeah, now how do you break that up?
That's the best idea. That's where we get into. Yeah, the specifics here, Yeah.
I mean that's it's great. It may it makes me think it's probably it's religious.
Why sixty minutes right, like.
The twelve hours?
I don't know.
It feels like why does that number come from somewhere?
Yeah?
Great question. Well, luckily our friends at ABC Science I believe this is the Australian Broadcasting Company.
Yeah, yeah, they're real different ABC.
Oh yeah yeah.
My guess is twenty four or twenty four or twelve like has to do with some kind of religious thing, some ancient religious thing.
Let's see what ABC science. That's just say it always goes back to them. What are you about to say it's always them? Is from doctor Nick Lom, Consultant curator of astronomy from the Sydney Observatory. All right, I trust trust observatories. Our twenty four hour day comes from the ancient Egyptians who died them, who divided daytime into ten hours. They measured with devices such as shadow clocks. Yeah, and added the twilight hour at the beginning and another one
at the end of the day time. Oh so that makes They started with ten and then kind of added on an hour an hour, so it's filling for kind of nighttime. Wow. And then because ten is a natural number, Yeah, but it just feels like, Yeah, nighttime was divided into twelve hours based on observations of stars. So there's so there we have ten hours during the day, yeah, plus two more twelve for night preor night when you're looking
at the stars. Egyptians had a system of thirty six star groups called decans d E C A N S maybe dickcans deacons deacons chosen so that on any night, one decan rose forty minutes after the previous one. Wow, these guys were nuts.
Tables.
I guess they didn't have anything else to do. Tables were produced to help people to determine the Yeah, it's like oversee some pyramids being built, or figure.
Out the time.
What I would be doing if if China wasn't keeping me on TikTok, you'd.
Be building, You'd be coming up with a whole new wisdom. You count time.
For the one rat.
Every time it's rat passes, that's about four hours.
I liked it. Tables were produced to help people to determine time at night by observing them. Amazingly, such tables have been found inside the lids of coffins, presumably so that the dead could also tell the time. Wow, that's nice, all right, nice, and then put that in the coffin. In the Egyptian system, the length of the daytime and nighttime hours. I don't know what time it is, you did. The length of the daytime and nighttime hours were unequal and varied with the seasons. Oh so it kind of
adjusted base on everything. Yes, of course, so in summer daytime hours were longer than nighttime hours. Well, in the winter it was flipped ancient Babylonians broke everything up into sixty for hours and minutes. They just like the base number sixty. It seems like, so subdivision of hours and then sixty minutes per hour. So I kind of then just kind of calibrating to what they are from the Egyptian those hours further basically, which is probably when it got a little bit more standardized.
That's now, see, we got we have twelve hours, that's what I said. Sixty minutes was why isn't it like one hundred minutes?
So we got three hundred and sixty degrees in a circle from the Babylonians. Oh wow, they just liked sixty. Babylonians were interested in three sixty because that was their estimate for the number of days in a year.
Oh damn.
Then they had GYBT to be asking either to get it wrong.
Yeah, if you got GPT, it'd be like, yeah, this is three hundred sixty days, close enough, thirty six days.
That's impressive that you already knew that. But was it the case that the Egyptians kind of came up with the framework of time. Yeah, it seems like so before that they were just I mean, I'm sure there were little ways to measure here and there, but they were
mostly just viobally. Yeah, I think generally it was that and then slowly kind of this where okay, and then I'm sure once there's a international order, there's more consensus for you know, we have to have the same time if you're traveling this way.
Yep, all right, but I think that about answers it well. It makes it makes sense that like, all right, you want to count the hours in a day, like before the sun goes away. Yeah, and back then you're like, okay, I have ten fingers. That's how we're going to count this.
Yeah.
But then they just started amending it from me, and then they're like, all right, well we need to figure this out because the stars are doing this. So we got two extra hours, so twelve and twelve all right.
I like amazing stuff. But one of my favorite concision too. I used to watch all those Ancient Aliens shows on History or whatever, and the the big takeaway at the end of every episode is like, how did the Egyptians know that the earth was blue? Like they have some of these higher glyphs, oh, and they're like painted. It's kind of has nothing to do with time. But you know, we don't give just because it's like, look, there's a big as it's a shame that.
You know, we don't really give them their flowers.
No, we don't. Aliens, Yeah, we can't.
They can't possibly be smart then idiots running around the build it couldn't do anything, have any ideas.
Because if they were so smart back then it must mean that we're not that smart. And that's why I feel like, actually they have.
And it just it's it's also just like Egypt isn't that powerful of the nation now, so I don't think there's international push to do it, whereas if this was you know, if this happened in the United States and you never forget we need that you know other places too. But yeah, just put some respect justice for Egypt.
Even the Mayans they got incredible like the astronomy innovations.
We just can't.
But we just can't be like, wow, they were so smart.
We have to say some Aliens stuff.
Well you know what we who we are going to get flower too. The Egyptians for coming up with the twenty four hour clock. Thank you, Thank you Egyptians.
All rights as all right.
Our final question comes from Kaylee.
Hi, Manny Noah Devin as the No Such Thing Team. My name is Kaylee, and my boyfriend was at a bar and the bartender suggested that he do a peanut butter tequila shot, and the suggested chaser was some sort of like fruity selter thing. He doesn't remember the exact flavor, but he then begins to complain to some friends that the chaser was not great flavored, because then it would have been like a peanut butter and jelly shot and chaser.
He den steeds to get in an argument with a stranger, a woman about what is the proper flavor of jelly to use in a peanut butter and jelly She believed it with strawberry, and he believes it's great. So we want to know your opinion. What is the default jelly to put on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Is it grape, is it strawberry? Or is it like a third flavor? Thank you so much for answering my question. Dig Sana the trow have a good one.
Thanks.
Kayley is here. Yeah, I guess first, let's answer it. Yeah, let's go around.
Cake would be that I prefer the jelly to be strawberry. But I also acknowledge that grape is the traditional peanut butter and jet.
I mean, I probably prefer grape still most cases. But yeah, I think you can have your own preference for what jelly you want. But yeah, the default is great, it's great. It's Devin.
See this is tough for me, hm, because I'm not a peanut butter and jelly guy.
I'm just a peanut butter guy.
Yeah.
So I didn't really have peanut butter and jelly almost ever.
Preconception of this. You're a good person to think back to your cartoon.
Yeah, let me say this, peanut butter and jelly was consumed in my home, all right, so there be around it.
Yeah, yeah, I've been. I'm trying to sure. I'm now trying to transport myself.
Take yourself back back to my child, opening your child.
I'm looking at the side.
This is what therapies look.
Yeah, this is what you do.
They tell you close your eyes, and I'm seeing my mom make a peanut butter.
I said, don't put Jolie on the Would you just have peanut butter, just peanut butter?
Yeah, Harry, I guess if your peanut butter is more organic.
It was.
It's the process probably, but I can't even open your mouth. Yeah, so in my mind it was a grape jelly. It was a more purple welch is Yeah, exactly.
I guess.
I just imagine, like you were saying, Noah in a cartoon, the grape color. Remember the thing the otters that, Yeah, there were names were, Yeah.
There we go. There isn't one of them purple or something.
I actually don't I don't remember what color. I don't see color, so I don't know what color they were. Oh, yeah, I remember that show. That was a good show.
Was that their names on Disney.
It was p B Right.
I guess I'm curious because it seemed to be such a debate at that bar from the question or at least that like, where does this idea that strawberry is the default?
From? My guess is they grew up and that was just what their parents made for them. Had to be. Were these people living under a rock? Yeah, we'll do this. Look up who invented the PBJ beer. National Peanut Board has a article about who invented the PB and J Okay sandwich. In the case of the Quintessential American PBNJ sandwich. The most important person in this part of the story is a man named Paul Welch. We know his work. In nineteen seventeen, Welch secured patent for puring grapes and
turning them into jelly. He developed and advertised grape a laid rhymes with mar armalade, marmalade, marmala from concord grapes. It was popular with the troops in World War One, so it was popular to spread grape a laid on bread when the soldiers came home after the war. Wow, finally there's peanut butter. We know doctor George Washington Carver invented.
That black Man.
Yeah, that's right. As grape a laid and pre sliced bread became popular, another happened with peanut butter. Commercial brands found a way to create creamy or peanut butter that didn't stick to the roof of the mouth so easily. During the Great Depression of the nineteen thirties, families discovered peanut butter provided a satisfying, high protein, less expensive meal. Okay, World War Two is the major event that took peanut butter and jelly sandwiches over the top sandwich on the
US military ration menus in World War Two. Peanut butter was a high protein, shelf stable ingredient and easily portable on long marches. Grape blaide had already accompanied soldiers in the First World War and added the sweetness of the sandwich. Pre sliced bread was so easy to use. So the natural inclination was to combine these three things. And PBNJ was part of the American soldier's life.
Wow.
And then those guys came home from the war, kids loved it, parents loved it, and the rest is history. So yeah, I mean, i'd have to say, the default then, is the grape elaide or grape jelly, Yeah, variants, Yeah, and I think center.
Dear listener, if you ever hear someone saying strawberry is the default, you have to tell them that there's absolutely zero evidence to back that up.
They're lying.
Now, I like it more than greate for my PB and JS, or if I'm just having like a piece of toast. But I would never say that that that was the traditional original.
Recipe, like like raspberry preserves. Oh you like preserves? I guess, I don't know. I don't get to eat in the weeds like that. But I like the little bone Mama.
As a sort of final word on this, I just opened up Wikipedia. I command aft Strawberry zero zero, get a few hits, Sarah, they are consider this.
One's not even mentioned once on the It doesn't even have a line like some people like this, not even.
Not even a hint of there's another kind.
Of scary nothing in the pop culture reference a section of strawberry Damn.
It's like it doesn't even exist.
Really, that settles it.
Final word, Thanks for listening to No Such Thing, which is a production of Kaleidoscope Content. Our executive producers are Kate Osborne and mangesh Hati Cador. The show was created by Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman, and Devin Joseph. The theme and credit songs are by me Manny. This episode was mixed by Pran Bandy. Thank you to everyone who sent
their mailbag questions in. We didn't get to all of them, but we hope to get to more of them in a future mail bag, and please keep sending these questions in by either emailing us at Manny Noah Devin at gmail dot com or by calling the number in the show notes and leaving a voicemail that only works if you're in the US, and if you like what you hear, please leave us a five star review wherever you're listening to this, See you next week.
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