The 2015 Ig Nobels: Unboiled Eggs & Urine Speed

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That's where all the podcasts. Like some of you listen to this and think all we do is the podcast, but we've got a lot going on blogging. There's Robert does some amazing content about butts. Yeaheah, there's a there's some science on that galories and there's a monster science both in video form and blog form. The latest one I liked a lot, the cat Bus one. Oh yeah, yeah, I just did one on the cat Bus from Totoro. Just rewatched that film with my family and uh, yeah,

there's some cool science behind cat Bus. I've actually never seen it. You've got to get on there. Well, you know the other new thing that we've got going on, new music at the top of the show, guys, Yeah, how about that welcome a welcome change that was created by our fabulous producer Noel Brown. Bravo to you, sir. But also I didn't notice this until I had heard it a few times. It reminds me of the Doctor Who theme, you know, it's with the with the lead part. Well,

I like to think of us as that that. You know what the Three Doctors is. It's when three friend doctors from different time periods. I'll meet up together with their tartises and hang out and and stop bad things from happening. So we're like the three Doctors, but just obviously the angry doctor. Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm Yeah, I'm the curmudgeon doctor. That would be I guess I'm most like Peter Capaldi. Yeah, that would be the angry doctor. Yeah.

So we've all met up and here we are to talk about, of course what doctor the doctor would talk

about the ig Nobel Prizes, that's right. Yeah, So that we all three decided to come together on this one because there are a lot of studies we want to We want to roll through them in two episodes, each of us taking the head on a different study and not doing a super deep dive, but giving you a nice overview about what this particular study is, why it's ridiculous, why in many cases it's actually important, because that's one

of the keys here. The Ignailed Bell Prizes have been around, uh since I believe, and each year they award ten prizes to various bits of research, pure viewed studies that you know, it's not the kind of stuff you're gonna see capturing the headlines necessarily any scientists do, blind of American not winning an actual Nobel prize. Right here at

how Stuff Works. We've sort of developed a like sub theme for studies like this, which is sometimes we publish these on our Now how stuff works channel, which is there's a study for that, which is the kind of like can you believe somebody did this? But at the same time, I think the thing about the ignobles is that there's always some value and importance to the research. So yeah, like I always think of in cases like this,

I think of science as a slime mold amaze. Right now, the slime mold is expanding outward, exploring its terrain, trying to find food, and so it's going down all the hallways to explore. And that's what science does. And just because a particular area of study seems kind of pointless at first glance, or it seems just very very specific, or it's trying to prove something that we already kind of know in our gut, it's still important that science

go there because science is is mapping the universe. Yeah, and some of the corners of that map are watching elephants p exactly. Well, Okay, I mean I slime mold. Can we stick with the gelatinous cube here? Can we use a gelatinous cube or is a slim mold like a very specific metaphor for ignoble science. Um, I like the slime because slime old this swarm intelligence. Oh okay,

I see what you're saying. Okay, I'll allow it. Uh. So, let's af familiarize the audience with what these things are, because the first time I heard about it was in one of our episodes when we were talking about necrophilia, and we uh, there was a study that had previously won the Ignoble, which was about a guy watching a duck try to have sex with a dead duck. Some of the big ones. It was like seventy minutes of

of him watching that with a notebook. If you really want to hear the whole full story, go back and sense that necrophilia episode. But uh, it's weird, but it also had value to it, and so uh, let's kind of encapsulate what these things are for our audience and then we can dive into the tent studies. Well, the principal individual here is Mark abrams Um. He's the editor and co founder of Improbable Research magazine, which you can find at their website. Let a link to that on

the landing page for this episode. And they regularly cover research of this nature stuff. It's weird stuff that's a little wacky, but it's still science and it's always covered in essentially a loving way. Yeah. They say that it's supposed to make you laugh but also make you think. Yeah. I found this was true about a lot of the

studies we looked at this time. I I like the sense that, um, it is certainly not stroking the ego of the scientists who perform these studies, but it's not really making fun of them either, or maybe sort of making fun of them, but at least not denigrating their work. I think there have only been a couple of cases where because for one thing, you can nominate your own work,

and they get about five thousand nominations each year. But I can only think of two cases offhand where the individuals did not receive it warmly, one of which was the U. S. Air Force over their gay bomb, which they won a prize four two thousand seven. They did not remember hearing about this. Yeah, they did not see the humor in it. No, hold on what were the

details of the gay bomb. The gay bomb, as I recall, was that proposed weaponized afrodisiac that you would be able to throw into the enemy trenches and harmonomy morale by making them, Yeah, get friendly, amorous and confused. It was referenced nicely on an episode of thirty Rocks several years back. But but yeah, the the the Air Force did not see the humor in that. And there there have been a couple of curmudgeons along you know, over the years that have have come out and said, oh, well, this

is just you know, waste of time. For instance, the ve Robert May, the British government's chief scientific advisor at the time, it was a big was a big critic of the Nobel Prizes and he was saying that it should only be used to, you know, to ridicule anti science and pseudo science, and he should leave the the real scientists alone. Uh again, totally missing the point that the scientists are the are the ones who enjoy this

the most. Don't you love people who hate humor? So I let's address that for a second though, because right before we came in here, I watched the almost all of the ceremony for awards, which we just which is what we're going to cover today. I watched a lot of this too, and and I feel like you definitely get the tone that they're going for if you watch the ceremony. They did a great job filming it. It's got multiple camera angles. It's filmed in this beautiful theater

at Harvard University. Um that I saw Spalding Gray at that same theater, like god fifteen years ago or something like that, So it was it was neat to see that. But uh, the humor is very oh wacky. Yeah, it's it's that kind of like academic like we don't want to offend anybody humor that's just a little zany and goofy and so at this at one on one hand, I appreciate it, and I totally understand. Uh, I understand that this guy who was it? Who? Who Robert may

who was so like against it in the first place. Yeah, I don't understand where he's coming from. But I'm also somewhat sympathetic because it's just like whacketty schmackt he do zany like, you know, like jokes and stuff. Even if you're not laughing with the jokes, you're still like, oh, well, that's kind of adorable. Watch the old old scientists get up there and kind of you know, hap uh, you know, yuck it out. But I will confess though that it was unbearable for me to a point that I had to.

I watched it on YouTube, and I had to watch it on double speed, so everybody was talking really fast like chipmunks. But I got the gist of everything, and I paid a special Please stop, Christian, I'm bored. Yeah, yeah, but please please stop. Joe tell them about what's her name, Pootie Pie or I think it's called Sweetie poop child. Pot Pie is the guy on YouTube. Oh, I don't know anyway. Yeah, they have a little character who is

a child who comes up. It's like the Oscar music that starts to play when people get a little too much gratitude in their speech at the Oscars. Uh. And they want to get you off the stage at this ceremony. They've got a child who runs up to you and proclaims boredom and tells you to stop talking. And she's precocious. And then on top of that, then they bring back all the former Sweetie poos. Did you watch that part? Didn't?

Every former Sweetie pooh is a part of the procession. Uh. And they are like the van Ol White that kind of like escort out the winners of the awards and then escort them back in. And they do this whole cute see poo thing where they have the sweetie poo's a'll tease one another in front of the audience. It's a little much. Um. Also, I grew up you have a you have a very dark heart that has no room for for cuteness. Well I do, and I'll allow this as well. I'm from Boston and I'm very familiar

with Harvard University. I lived right near there for a long time, and I'm very familiar with this kind of humor that is, you know, it's very um yeah, twee, I guess is one way to put it. So um. I will warn I will warn our listeners ahead of time that maybe I'm the dark heart here, but I was a little put off by the zany humor. However, the studies themselves are amazing. Well, let's launch into them here, Um, Joe, I believe you're up first, tell us about the chemistry

prize winner, the Ignobil Chemistry Prize winner for two thousand. Okay, so the Chemistry prize went to I'm gonna say their names, and there's a lot of them, so bear with me for a second. Here, Callum Ormond, Colin Raston, Tom Yuan, Stephen Kudla check Samir and couldn't cha Joshua In Smith, William A. Brown, Caitlin Pouglisi, Tivoli, Olson, Mariam eft Car, Greg Weiss. Oh, And that's it them for demonstrating a mechanical process to unboil an egg. So yes, these scientists

all work together. Now, I think the main scientist who has involved in this process, the one at least who has spoken to the media the most about it, was Greg Weiss. But they came up with this mechanical process to unboil an egg. Well, hold on part of an egg, the egg white, and note that this is not uncooking an egg, and that you can't unfry an egg or unscramble an egg or on. I wonder if you could unpoach and egg maybe, but at least what you can

do is unboiled an egg white. So the paper is called and I love the academic alienation of this title sheer stress mediated refolding of proteins from aggregates and inclusion bus. Yes, I can call the paper is a colon and then another long sentence after that. And that's one of the beautiful things about the Ignabel Prizes is this is a great example of where they really got to the heart of what this study is in the way that the

rest of us can enjoy. Yeah, and so it was published in January in Kim Bio Kim And here's what happened. The researchers took an egg and then they divided the whites from the yolk, and then they boiled the egg whites for twenty minutes at about a hundred ninety four degrees fahrenheit or ninety degrees c. And if you have ever seen the white part of a hard boiled egg, you know what we're dealing with is the final product here.

And so egg whites in their natural state are a mixture of water and proteins, including the protein lysozyme, which is a protein associated with immune function and more on that in a minute. When you boil egg whites, the folded proteins that are in the egg whites get d natured, meaning that they sort of lose their precisely folded structure. And that folded structure is what makes a protein do the things that it does, sort of like what determines its role in the in the tiny bio world that

it inhabits. And they also get all tangled together, and they end up forming this solid block of bio jello that we recognize as cooked egg white. Um, so that's what normally happens when you when you boil an egg white. It of course happened in this case as it always does. And how do you fix this problem? So the researchers took the boiled egg whites and dissolved them in a urea solution to turn basically all of it into an untangled up liquid of of unfolded proteins. So that's pretty gross.

It's a cooked egg white slurry. Then the solution was placed into what they called a vortex fluid device. And what this does is it's kind of like a centerfuge but different. It spins a test tube a really high intensity. I read one source saying it was about five thou rpm s, so very very fast for a short time, introducing an amazing amount of sheer stress to the film of fluid, which is about one micron thick that built

up on the walls of the tube. And in a quote given to the Washington Post, Greg Wise said about the proteins in this process, they're like little elastic bands. This stretches and unstretches them and gives them their shape back. So it's kind of like if you, you know, stretch out a tangled up slinky and then get it to reform back into its original shape. But help me out here for a second. So my understanding of the I didn't read this study, but my understanding of what how

you're presenting it here is the dn turing process. By zipping around at this high speed, are they they're renaturing. They're refolding back into the original shape that the proteins were before they were denatured by the heat. So it's not just that they're moving something at such a high speed that it like liquefies. No, it's it's actually re applying the process. Yeah, they're they're undoing the work of

cooking by applying this mechanical stress. And so at the end they were able to refold some of the proteins back into their original shapes without it becoming tangled up with one another in the process. That's another problem that can happen, and it worked at the end. The solution contained proteins comparable to uncooked egg whites, and that immune related protein I mentioned lycenseyme that was also found to

be present in the final product and functional. Okay, So what I want to know though, is did they make a quiche with this afterwards? And how did it take? You know, you couldn't because it's just the egg whites and you really need some miolks for keysh We could otherwise that would be pretty gross and you could make a few different mixed drinks though, right, Oh, you probably could. The New Orleans was sour fizz. What's it? What's it called when you put an egg white in there? Something

jim fizz something something fizz. Gross. That's like when people drink like oyster shots and stuff like that. It's nasty. I have no idea what an oyster? You add oysters, like raw oysters to it, like like a real oyster. Yeah, that's about like having an oyster though. I mean, you need to stop talking. You just mix it with like booze and I think like tomato juice or something like that. Disgusting study. Okay, So so they did it. They managed to unboil egg whites and get them back to the

original state. A couple of things we I guess, in case it needs stating, Why is this ridiculous? Well, I guess it just sort of seems to contradict the folk understanding of entropy that you can't fix what's broken. You can't unscramble an egg, I think is an actual expression. You might not be able to unscramble an egg, but you can unboil an egg. Well, there's so many fun

metaphors that you can reverse with this, right. I think it's also funny because it involves eggs, which apparently some people just think are inherently funny objects, and slightly more when they're boiled, especially because it's life. But but this process actually does have real, very important and interesting applications, not just for fun. It can make a big difference in many kinds of research involving proteins. For example, cancer research in the lab often deals with proteins that have

exactly the same problem that cooked egg whites do. They can become tangled in misshape, and so the proteins get d natured, or they're they're folding gets messed up, or they get tangled together or both, and then scientists have to waste a lot of time trying to restore them to to the original folded shape and structure, to get them to be useful and by conventional means, this is

a really time consuming and wasteful process. So this sheer stress method that they introduced with this the vortex fluid device, could actually make cancer research much more efficient in terms of time and cost. So it was reported in their study that the refolding of protein by sheer stress was faster than the conventional method of quote, overnight dialysis by a factor of more than a hundred times, more than a hundred times faster. So that's why it took eleven

people to to write this paper. There were different people involved with different aspects of it. Like I know, some of the people cited in the paper were people who were working with the vortex fluid device itself. Like the stories like ten more times. I want to just see how many times we can say vortex fluid device throughout the sentence, right, So there's some people working with that, some people who are presumably working with the science of

the proteins. Yeah, yeah, routine labs. So probably some I'm guessing like graduate students in there who did like the scut work. Possibly, I don't know what every single name corresponds to. It's one of those, uh, one of those features of Modern Sciences. That you get a lot of names listed. Yeah, let's see if we can find which one of these has the most people applied to it. Okay, okay,

so I'm keeping track. We got eleven on this one. Well, let's check out the next prize awarded in the physical science. And this one was a lot of fun. I actually read about this before this episode, but Robert, it was about urine, right, oh, yes, And you're definitely uh, you're in for a treat on this one because this is the Physics Prize for bladder speed. And noticed I said physics and not biology here. That's gonna be a key

as we move forward. The paper in particular is a duration of urine does not change with body size by Georgia Institute of Technology researchers Patricia ja Yanga, Jonathan Fama, Jerome Choah, Dave and Dave at l Q. And this was published in the summer two thousand fourteen edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And they're just right down the street these Yeah. I have read several times about the research involving David who in one way

or another. Yeah, I mean we were talking before the episode of the field of fluid dynamics. You see some of the most amazing papers coming up and and this one definitely uh fits the bill. Did they use a vortex fluid device? Not as such. No. So basically, in a nutshell, the study investigated how quickly thirty two different animals you're inate now? Sixteen of these are live viewing the rest or YouTube videos. Um, because they were they

were interesting to animals of varying size. It's YouTube research. Yeah. So the interesting initial finding here though, is that it turns out that it's all about the same at least for animals that weigh at least six point six pounds or three kilograms. They found all animals that weigh more than that urinate in the same space of time. Um. So it doesn't matter if it's an elephants bladder that

is thirty undred times larger than a cat's. Both animals are going to get their being over with and about uh twenty seconds. Okay. And the reason here is, the paper explores, is that as diverse as all these different bladder systems are, um and and all the plumbing, they

all rely on the fundamental principles of fluid mechanics. The researchers found that quote the urethra is a flow enhancing device, enabling the urinary system to be scaled up by a factor of thirty six in volume without compromising its function. One of the idea here is that it's possible that larger animals have a longer urethras, and since the weight of the fluid in the urethra is pushing the fluid out,

the long urethra increases the flow rate. So this is why if you've ever gone online like our researchers and watched a whole bunch of animals uh urinate, you might see the larger animals just really pushing it out there like a sheet of urine hose. Yeah, whereas the smaller creatures, definitely the ones under that six point six pound limit. Uh, they're just throwing out some droplets. Uh. For instance, mice and rats less than two seconds spent urinating bats just

a fraction of the speed. So this would be important, of course, keeping your your p speed up for an elephant because uh, if if an elephant had a shorter ure threat, it would take longer to urinate, and during that time, of course, it would be more susceptible interpretation. Wow, so okay, never, I've never really thought about the evolutionary pressures on urination speed. That just doesn't really occur to me as a thing having a big having a big

impact on your survival or reproduction. Well, it's how much time that you're you're you have to remain stationary and you're somewhere not paying attention to your surrounding. You have to remain stationary and pooping on the move. I haven't tried. I don't know. You've seen you've both seen Burdenmic, I have, so you know what happened. It can't happen when their predators about and you need to go potty. And I'm thinking about my dog, who definitely breaks the twenty second rule.

I mean, he pees for a long time when we go out first thing in the morning, and that's probably because he's got a cushy life and he doesn't have to worry about the pressures of survival. That's a good point. That's a good point. So I probably don't have didn't measure humans as well. I'm not sure if humans were in the in the study. To be honest, you know, I wonder one thing that could be affecting the different times of domesticated animals versus whatever they used in the study.

I'm sure some of those were domesticated, would be whether they are being prompted the urinate or whether they're just urinating whenever they feel like it, because it could be that in under natural circumstances, you will naturally let the amount of urine and build up in your bladder that it will take to evacuate in twenty or twenty one second. But if you're a dog who's inside and can't pee until it's time to go out, you might go beyond

that threshold when and accumulate a lot. You're thinking, okay, so I probably don't have to tell anybody why this study is ridiculous, because of course it involves urine, and urine like eggs, is inherently funny. Um. But as to

why it's important for starters, it's an understudied topic. Not a lot of people are putting a lot of time and effort into the question of urination times for animals, And additionally, the study may help to diagnose urine a problems and animals as well as inspired of the design of quote scalable hydro dynamic systems based on those in nature, So there's a biomimicry potential here. Um, you don't need to necessarily use external pressure to get rid of fluids

in a system quickly. Rather, you can let gravity do the trick with the right bio mimicry. So possible applications include water tanks, UM, backpacks that are used to you know, uh, fire hoses, and UM. A couple of examples here in which the team actually engaged with some additional experimentation. Uh. They actually created a demonstration that empties a teacup, court and gallon of water in the same duration for each using varying links of connected tubes, thus standing in for

the varying urethra links UM links among these animals. And then they connected a second experiment in which the team filled three cups with the same amount of water then empty them at varying rates by using different lengths of tube. So again you don't have to use you know, varying amounts of external pressure to move water through a system.

You can use to use gravity and tube length. This is uh, they're like modern day Da Vincis like this is this is the kind of stuff that Da Vinci used to sit around and ponder about and work on in his sketch books like how to move water more Efficiently. They're just looking to nature's way of doing it. Yeah, yeah, it's it's basically a bio on the medic exercise. Now, so that makes me wonder if the next thing we're going to hear about associated with David who is an ornithopter.

That would be great. Well wait, let's define that for our audience for a second. Oh, if you've listened to the Dune episode, you know all about ornithopters. No, didn't da Vinci designed some mornithopters flapping flapping wing aircraft. Now, I'm afraid that's wrong. That did he design propeller driven or I can't remember other than from playing an Assassin's Creed game where Da Vinci was the guy who made He was like your que to your to your James Bond and he made one of those things for you

to fly around in. Oh nice. Yeah. I don't think there's any evidence that da Vinci made a working flying machine. I think he just yeah, I don't think right, Yeah, I don't think it was. And we'll have to ask Jonathan Strickland. He would probably know. Uh So The next one here, and this is a short one, is the Literature Prize, and it specifically goes to a paper called is Huh a Universal Word? Conversational Infrastructure and the Convergent

Evolution of Linguistic Items? By Mark Dinge Manze, Francisco Torrieira, and Nick j Enfield Uh. And this was in p l OS one published. Okay, so the basics of this study are essentially that the writers involved take a look at the the word sound huh. Specifically throughout the piece they spell it h u h question mark. Yeah, I asked to have the question mark. They used a phrase to describe it that I thought was very appropriate and very interesting. They called it a repair initiator. Yeah. I'll

get to that in a second. But that's essentially the gist of their argument and and why it's important. So they argue, one that is universal, regardless of language, all human beings use a version of huh. And then the second thing they argue is that it is a word. It's not just a grunt. Yeah. Apparently there was some uh people, some conflict apparently about whether or not it was a word or not. And they defined it because they said it's used similarly across cultures, and it's also

a learned, conventional form. And like you said, it's not grunting, it's not crying, it's not just a noise. It's a word that we use that has purpose to it, right, It has a it has a semantic definition. It it means something in conversation. It means I didn't understand what

you just said exactly so. And that's where the other initiated repair thing comes in, right, So huh is used for us to express to someone else, whether they speak the same language or not, that there is something going on where we're having trouble understanding, right, whether it's like some all understanding or actual problem with the noise in your ears, you know the problem hearing it now. They found that across different languages it wasn't always pronounced exactly

the same. That it's sort of the essence of the word hah that comes through yeah. And it has the same variation in form as you would find in any other regular words. So as words kind of spread across cultures and they change slightly, uh, Like they use dog as an example, and how dog changes across different cultures, huh is similar. Well, I mean even in our own usage of it. You have huh, but then you also have yeah. Yeah, so I mean we have I think

multiple versions in English exactly. Yeah. And the way that they conducted the study is and I feel bad for whoever had to sit down and go through all this data. Uh. They compiled data from published literature and thirty one languages to see how it was used in written form, And then they collected data from recordings of naturally occurring conversations from ten languages across five different continents, and basically, you know, looked for usage of huh uh and and how it

was understood. And there's the you know, I won't go through it here too because I think it would be kind of boring, but there's this really interesting uh cable visual table that they applied to the study itself. It wouldn't work well on a podcast to talk about it, basically showing all the different languages and all their locations across the world and how huh is used throughout them.

So of course, why is it ridiculous? Well, it's we're studying such a basic part of human existence that seems like it doesn't really require that deep of an analysis, right uh. And and it's also, you know, just kind of a silly The term itself means I don't understand, and here we are speaking to understand. Yeah, but they make a good case. I think that this is an interesting thing to study, especially because they point out how huh is such a useful and powerful tool in conversation

because it has this uh. It has this complex sort of conversation management role that happens in such a short time span and really helps keep conversations on track and moving quickly because you don't have to stop every time and say I don't understand what you just said. Right. Yeah, It's It's interesting though, because it's easy to dismiss hunt as um, it's just a needless break in a conversation. But but I guess the the the the idea here is that it's as small a break as is necessary.

It's not a verbal pause because it has meaning to it. But yeah, it's a very short, quick, efficient way to say I don't get it. Uh. It's feedback essentially, it with within conversation. Just let the other person you're speaking with no that you need more. Though, this also made me think about how I feel like the word huh has multiple different meanings in English. It certainly is what

they're talking about the repair initiators. So you're in the middle of saying something I miss here part of it, say huh and you repeat. But there's also I noticed I often use huh as a punctuation that essentially means

that's curious. Yeah, that's I feel like that's my primary usage of it is someone will say something interesting, especially if it's like an audio interview over the phone, and you feel like you need to give some feedback that you are interested, and still on the line, you go, yeah. It can also mean now I'm waiting for the listeners to send us in like a super cut of all the times we've all gone to each other. Can do that? You know that Nolan makes electronic music out of our

verbal pauses and weird mouth noises. Right, No, but I'm not surprised. Yeah, he keeps a folder and one day he's going to get rich and famous by using all of ours. Well, there's there's one other thing that I just want to add about this study, and this is they do a little kind of naval gazing dive here in linguistic studies. But it's important because we've actually talked about stuff like this before, especially when we did that

Feral Children episode on the Unlanguaged Mind. They have a kind of universal grammar post structuralist argument going on, or at least they get into that stuff by saying, huh, isn't part of our genetic makeup? They're not. Just because we all use it doesn't mean it's like built into the human code, right, It's not like screaming in pain, Yeah, exactly.

And that Rather, what they're saying is that it's the result of convergent cultural evolution, that as we as humans have evolved together and built up our societies together, this word has been it's it's like this one. I mean, I'm sure there's many other constants, but it is one constant that is between all of these cultures. Mhm. Hey, so I think it's time to take a quick break

to hear about our sponsor for this episode. But after out, we're gonna come right back and talk about more weird science. All right. Well, well, let's move on to another prize here. What do we have in terms of management? The Ignobile Management Prize? I got a good one for you guys. This is this is especially Oh, this is gonna hit a little close to home for for those of us who work in the digital media field. Uh. So this is a paper uh that is called what Doesn't Kill

You Will Only make You More? Risk Loving colin Early Life Disasters and CEO Behavior. It was written in September published rather Uh and let me see if I can pronounce these names. So I'm gonna butcher these but sorry, guys if you're listening. Jennaro Berneil Vanite bag Wat and p Rugga Vendra raw I believe are their names. So this study finds that CEOs who have experienced fatal disasters without stream negative consequences are more likely to be risky

and aggressive businessmen. So I'm assuming by extremely fatal disasters here, that's an extremely fatal to people that are not him, and they can they're still alive. Yeah, they have to be. They're not undead sea. But then also they haven't lost loved ones exactly. Yeah, that's that's the gist of it, is that they whether the event had fatal consequences or not,

or they all do, but it didn't affect them directly. Now, by your use of the term businessmen, does this indicate that all of the people studied in this were male. You know, I'm pretty sure that they were. Yeah. I can't say definitively, but I want to say throughout the paper that they used the pronoun him a lot. But you know, there wasn't any discussion of gender as far as I can remember, So yeah, but it's safe to assume that they were mostly male. Uh. There is also

another part of this argument, which is that, uh. There they also found that similarly, CEOs who witnessed extreme negative consequences during a natural disaster, so like probably seeing their loved ones die in front of them, are more conservative in business. This includes how they deal with cash holdings, leverage, and acquisitions, whereas the other guys are more likely to create debt rather than equity, and they're more likely to

make their companies go through bankruptcy. Hold on, how many ceo s did they find who had been through a natural disaster? Well, let me tell you about their methodology, which I think is a little although okay, I should back up with that. The way the way that they gathered their information is a little weird to me. However, they put it through rigorous, rigorous testing to make sure

that they their data was I guess accurate. Okay, but well, why don't you guys judge by the time we get to the end of this and tell me what you think. So the first thing that they do is they look at a sample of firms from to two thousand and twelve and they identified the CEOs of all these companies and found their basic demographic information, you know, their age, where they grew up, where they were born, YadA, YadA. Right.

Then they cross reference that with a database of all the natural disasters that happened in the United States during those times, and these include earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, severe storms, floods, landslides, and wildfires. And they specifically focused on the period of time when these CEOs would be between the ages of five and fifteen, because they say that medical research shows that this is when our most

lasting childhood memories tend to start and then stop. So, okay, the I want to pause for a second here and say that the research itself, it's very easy to like read and abstract and say, well, these CEOs are more likely to do this thing, and these CEOs are less likely to do this thing. Right, So the actual numbers here what they call leverage ratios. They seem pretty small to me. So the first group is three point four percent higher than the norm, and then the second group

is negative three point seven percent lower. So to me, this seems like it would fall into the margin of error for many other studies that we would look at, So you know, keep that in mind. Uh, it just it's it seems a little low. I I was expecting based on the conclusion that they had, it would be a much higher percentage. To be fair, though, like I said, they built in a lot of safeguards into this to keep data bias and variables out of the studies results.

They even tested the robustness of their own methodology afterwards by applying it in various forms over and over and over again. Uh. And so they argue that this supports the idea that CEOs who have not experienced extreme consequences are desensitized to the negative consequences of risk. Subsequently, those who are are more likely to be cautious. Okay, so what do you think do you think? Like this methodology

sounds valid? You know, in the face of it, it's weird because the study definitely matches up with the stereotype that we a lot of us carry around for the sort of inhuman CEOs that we that we ultimately have

very little personal interaction with. And they they're just this, they seem to be this individual has no connection with the suffering of others, right, And it seems like we, I don't know, we should always be especially careful about scientific results that seem to confirm our intuitions because we're I don't know, we're just susceptible to being lenient with them.

That's why I thought that there was a sort of inherent ridiculousness to this for the Ignoble prizes rights, it seems like it's looking for causality between two seemingly unrelated experiences just to confirm our pre existing bias. But uh, like I said, I mean, I didn't go into it here because again, like it's very dense uh and math essentially that they that they went through here. I don't.

I have to respect them for the diligence that they did in the study, but I don't know necessarily that all that diligence adds up to being able to say that this is accurate. What I would rather see is a study that correlates CEO risk taking behavior with how they play the board game risk. Well, are they a table flipper? Oh nice? Yeah, well, you know, suggest that to the board and maybe they can do that for the next for next year's I Nobel Prizes, although those

are probably getting published already. Uh, but there is all right, So all that aside is an important study though, in the sense that they found a link between CEOs and disaster experience and their corporate policies, and subsequently this has real economic consequences. Right, So basically what they're trying to do is say, like, all right, this is a predictor I assume for hiring or you know, in in some sense a predictor of how well this person is going

to run a company. Yeah. I do think one thing that's useful here is it's just one more thing that helps us remember that ceo s and the people who make top level business decisions are human, and they're very much subject to human biases prejudices towards certain types of actions.

They're not. I think there's sometimes this, uh, at least in the pro business mindset, there is this type of thinking that these people are efficiency optimizing machines who just you know, they make the decision that makes the most money all the time. But I mean there are people there. They make emotion driven the decisions they they are informed by their experiences and their feelings about the world based on the things that have happened to them. It's good

to keep that in mind. Then this is one more tally in that corner. Yeah, and plus it also it's another study that looks at how Evan shape who we are um and in this in this case, it reminds me a lot of discussions I've had with people about comedians, like you have a comedian who didn't who is Jimmy Fallon comes to mind. I remember hearing an interview with Jimmy Fallon where he basically, you know, he wasn't picked on as a kid. He had pretty much had a

nice rhyn of things. And maybe that explains why I don't find Jimmy Fallon all that funny, because he's not coming from this place of bankst or suffering like comedians that you identify with. Yeah, he's not. He's not Schopenhauer's comedian. So maybe he's the CEO of of comedy, you know. As it lines up with this study, Wow, Oh man, you just really blew my mind with that Robert like I am. That gives me pause because I really don't like Jimmy Fallon's humor. Um, I'm gonna have to think

further on this and come back on another episode. And I'm not saying I dislike Jimmy Fallone. Seems like a nice guy, but like Comedy has never spoken to just this comedy. Yeah, I don't know him as an individual. He's like a CEO. I don't know those guys in

he stole my car once. Really well, here's what I think that I got from this study is that what we need to do is make sure that all people who become CEOs of companies saw their parents murdered in front of them when they were children, because then they'll be like Batman Bruce Wayne, and they will run the company really well and clean up all the crime in their city. Is there any evidence of support the idea

that Bruce Wayne was was Slashy is a good CEO? Though, We're gonna have to do some contextual analysis to figure that one out. In fact, I would I would be interested as anyone looked into the various CEOs in the comic book world. He's a better CEO, is it like or is it Wayne? Yeah? Just in terms of a business perspective, Yeah, you know Tony Star, which is a bad or industry go to working like, who is it like? Sometimes having an evil corporation over your shoulder if they're

if they have could benefit. I was gonna say that the benefits at lex Corp Are great, Great, They've got fantastic four O one K, nice hs A package. I mean, business is good when you just manufacture toxic chemicals. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, okay, getting back to the seriousness of this though. Um, the researchers were specifically interested in the strength of the dosage of, you know, experiencing these natural disasters and what their effects would be. And this is a quote from the study.

They say the intensity of life experiences can result in nonlinear effects on subsequent risk taking. All right, we have one more study to look at in this episode, and I believe this one to you again, Christian, the two thousand fifteen Ignobile Prize for Economics. Yeah, so this actually doesn't go to an academic paper. This Uh, this is a pretty funny one. But also I can I can see why they picked it. Uh, the organizers awarded the Thai Land the Thailand Metro Police directly for their efforts

to combat rampant bribe taking among traffic police. So apparently in Thailand it's not all that uncommon for you know, if you break the traffic rules, police pulls you over and you just throw them like three or four bucks or whatever and say, hey, let's why do you forget about this? Okay, So to combat the rampant bribe taking that's going on among these traffic police, the officers in charge said, okay, if you refuse these bribes, you will

receive a cash reward of up to ten thousand bot. So, just for our listeners out there, ten thousand as of today converts roughly into two eighty one dollars or comparison, a police salary in Thailand right now is is on average six thousand bought a month as of data, so they make about a hundred and sixty nine dollars a month. So you know, if they would refuse these bribes, they'd be getting more than a month's paycheck. This raises so many questions about it makes you wonder how much they're

making off bribes in the first place. Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. Um, I guess I can preface this by saying that my family lived in Thailand for a couple of years. I didn't live there with them, but I went and visited and stayed with them. Um, so I'm I visited Thailand. I'm somewhat familiar with Thailand, but I can't really speak to its you know, overall culture and the corruption and

the government. I do know, as many people do that you know, Bangkok is infamous for uh, drugs, prostitution, you name it, you know, and so I think that that was kind of part of the impetus here for this kind of weird policy that they enacted, was to clean up the reputation of Bangkok. But of course, so it's it's sort of ridiculous, so ridiculous that after two weeks the police canceled this policy. Uh. There were so there's so much back to your bribe social media criticism about

this that they thought it was damaging the forces reputation. Uh, and two cops received the maximum award based on them taking three dollar bribes. Yeah, well it's not rather not taking those bribes. It's it's kind of like the whole scenario where somebody unloads the dishwasher and then expects praise for it, like you're supposed to unload the dishwasher. You did your job. Yeah, you did your job. Congratulations. Yeah, there shouldn't be a monetary reward for not taking the bribe,

which is what you're supposed to do to Kenwin. Unsurprisingly, the Metropolitan Police Bureau did not send any representatives to Harvard to receive the award at the ceremony. I wish they did because that would have probably made it quite a bit funnier. Did they not even send a video acceptance? Well, you know what, I didn't catch that they might have, but they didn't get to have what's her name sit there and tell them that they're boring. Oh yeah, it's sweetie. Pooh.

I g I forgot, I forgot to Okay. Uh So, just another thing is that Thailand also received the Ignoble Award for Public Health because they had research that was published about surgical solutions to involuntary penis amputation. I remember this one. Yeah, so you know, they're racking up the points in the Ignoble category. But let's get serious for

a second here. Okay, here's why this is important. So the state officials and the police in Thailand are supposed to face life in jail if they're convicted of taking a bride. Life in jail. Yeah, but it's pretty common, it's extremely common. Uh. Though. The Thai army took power after ousting the first female prime minister uh and they claimed that they had to restore order to the nation because nearly thirty people were killed in political protests against

her being elected. Okay, so that's where this all came from. Uh And after they took power, that's when they launched this campaign to clean up Thailand's image. So this measure, the traffic bribe measure, was part of that campaign. Uh And specifically because that prime minister's brother is an ousted and influential politician who is also a former police officer, and he's known to have allies in the police force and he's got some you know, political influence with them.

He fled the country in two thousand and eight. But really the speculation is that, like, if you look deeper at this, this is more about the military trying to take back control of the police from this you know, allegedly corrupt politician. All right, Well, there you have it. We're gonna cut off right there, and we're gonna pick up in the next episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, where will roll through five more of the winners from

the two thousand fifteen Ignoble Prizes. Uh, there's some gonna be some fun stuff in there, So give you joined this come back from what we're gonna talk about kissing and how many babies you can have in a lifetime. Yeah, we're talking about sticking essentially plungers on the butts of chickens. It's it's gonna be. It's gonna be a golden bees to your genitals. Science. Hey, So in the meantime, be sure to check out stuff to bow your Mind dot com.

That's we'll find all the podcasts. You'll find videos, you'll find blog posts, you'll find links out that those social

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