Freakonomics Radio - Introducing Stephen J. Dubner's new podcast, "Tell Me Something I Don't Know"

Episode Date: November 15, 2016

"Tell Me Something I Don't Know" is a live game show hosted by Stephen J. Dubner of "Freakonomics Radio." He has always had a mission: to tell you the things you thought you knew but didn't, and things you never thought you wanted to know, but do. Now, with "TMSIDK," he has a new way of doing just that. This new show is still journalism, still factual -- but disguised in the most entertaining, unexpected, and occasionally ridiculous conversation you're likely to hear.Audience contestants come on stage and try to wow a panel of experts with a fascinating fact, a historical wrinkle, a new line of research -- anything, really, as long as it's interesting, useful and true (or at least true-ish). The panel -- an ever-changing mix of comedians, brainiacs, and other high achievers -- poke and prod the contestants, and ultimately choose a winner. And there's a real-time, human fact-checker on hand to filter out the bull.This debut episode features Barnard College president Debora Spar, New York Public Library president Tony Marx, and comedian Andy Zaltzman; Jody Avirgan from FiveThirtyEight handles the fact-checking. You can subscribe now on iTunes. And don't worry, Freakonomics Radio isn't going anywhere -- this is just a special bonus episode of Dubner's new side gig.

Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner. I know, I know, it's not time for a new Freakonomics Radio episode to hit your feed. You know what? This is not a new Freakonomics Radio episode. It's a bonus episode. It is the very first episode of Tell Me Something I Don't Know, a brand new podcast I'm launching, something I've long dreamed about. So you should probably pause right now to go subscribe to Tell Me Something I Don't Know

on iTunes or wherever you get your Freakonomics radio. Go ahead. I'll wait. Okay? Now, after you listen to this first episode, we want you to let us know what you think, what you liked, what you didn't like, any ideas you might have. You can tweet us at TMSIDK underscore show, or you can send an email to editor at TMSIDK.com. Remember, subscribe right now to Tell Me Something I Don't Know so that you will get many more episodes like this one. Why do I read?

Why do I have conversations? Why do I travel? Why do I have to go to school? Why do I pay attention? Why do I travel? Why do I have to go to school? Why do I pay attention? Why do I pay attention? Because I want to be amused. Because I want to get outside my comfort zone. But mostly.

Mostly. Mostly. Mostly because. Because I want to. Find out stuff. Find out stuff. Find out stuff. Because I want you to tell me something I don't know.

Okay, how's this? Did you know that every time a new jet engine is coming onto the market, aeronautical engineers have to test it to see how the engine will hold up to things like hail, heavy rain, and bird strikes? A lot of airports are near flight migration patterns. So we'll take dead birds and launch them through the engine using an air cannon. The birds are humanely euthanized before we receive them. So we don't do any part of that.

So in the moment, if all goes according to plan, it goes so quickly that if you blink, you'll miss it. But then you see the high speed video. You can actually click frame by frame and see where the bird hit the fan blade. And you go out there and you see the aftermath of it. And sometimes it's a little gross. It kind of makes a seagull's sashimi.

Welcome to Tell Me Something I Don't Know. I'm Stephen Dubner, and that was the aeronautical engineer Aaron Zimmerman helping us introduce the theme of tonight's show, Strange Danger. Tell Me Something I Don't Know is a new inside-out kind of game show. Rather than quizzing contestants on what they know, we ask contestants to tell us something we don't know, to tell us their IDKs, their I don't knows. In the process, we all hope to get a little bit smarter to judge these IDKs and eventually to pick a winner.

We've put together a panel of extraordinarily well-versed people. Would you please welcome the president of the New York Public Library, Tony Marks, the president of Barnard College, Deborah Spahr, and the president of nothing at all but a brilliant comedian, Andy Zaltzman. Very, very, very happy and grateful to have the three of you here tonight. We'll start with Tony Marks. Here's what we know about you thus far. We know you're a native New Yorker. We know you were president of Amherst College for eight years before taking over New York Public Library in 2011. Tony Marks, tell us something we don't know about you. When I was working on South Africa back in the 1980s in the middle of the Civil War,

I had to effectively lie my way across the border. The government wouldn't let me in, and I had to find a way in for the work I was doing. What kind of work were you doing? Education work, anti-apartheid work. The apartheid government wasn't so keen on that. Thanks. Okay. Our next panelist, Deborah Spahr. Let's see what we know about you.

We know that since 2008, you've been the president of Barnard, one of the oldest women's colleges in the world. We know you've written widely about business, technology, and society, most notably in a book called Wonder Women, Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection. So tell us something we don't know about Deborah Spahr. When I was about seven, I discovered that I could talk backwards. What do you mean talk? Well, I could take pretty much any word and just flip it around in my mind. And your mouth as well?

You can really do it. Yeah, so grapefruit becomes twerfperg. And Tony Marks would be actually sounds like a jazz thing, enote scram. So I do it phonetically. It has absolutely no practical value whatsoever. Did you practice that?

It's not hard. You've got a really simple name. Can you do tell me something I don't know? Let im gnithmas itnodon. You know, now that you say it, I think that might have been a better name. Unbelievable.

And you're Nevit's Renbud. Thank you very much. Deb Spar, very happy to have you here and good to know about your very rare, I assume it's a rare skill. Rare and useless. I'm impressed. All right. Our final panelist, Andy Zaltzman, who doesn't even live in America and yet is here with us tonight.

Welcome, Andy. What do we know about Andy Zaltzman? We know that you are a comedian and political satirist who used to work with John Oliver. We know that you still a comedian and political satirist who used to work with John Oliver. We know that you still host the Bugle podcast. We know, I have a very hard time believing this is true, but I'm assured it is. We know that you delivered your own child with apparently zero experience as a midwife or a doctor. Yeah, I mean it wasn't intended and we didn't plan it that way, but I was briefly a professional midwife, then retired from the game with a career 1-0 record.

Andy Zaltzman, tell us something we don't know about you, then. Well, it's not so much something about me as my family. My great-uncle, my father's uncle, was Nelson Mandela's accountant. My father very briefly met Nelson Mandela at my great-uncle's birthday party once. So that is impressive in a very small way. I guess it's impressive twice removed. That's how it works, isn't it? So I like that our panel tonight has a pair of presidents and the grandnephew of the accountant of a president.

All right, it is time now to play Tell Me Something I Don't Know. Here's how it works. Contestants from the audience will come on stage and deliver their IDKs. Panelists, it will be your job to ask questions, seek out more information, whatever you'd like, and once all the contestants have presented, you will vote on a winner. There are three criteria that you will use to judge the contestants' IDKs. Number one, does their IDK surprise you? Is it something you truly didn't know? Number two,

is it worth knowing? Does it get beyond mere trivia into something that's truly interesting, perhaps even useful? And number three, is their IDK demonstrably true? So to help with that demonstrably true part, I'd like to introduce you to our real-time human fact checker, please welcome Jody Avergan. Hi, Stephen. Hey, Jody. Jody is a podcast host and producer for ESPN and FiveThirtyEight. Jody, you spent a lot of this past year covering the election.

What's harder to fact-check, you think, a presidential debate or an episode of Tell Me Something I Don't Know? Well, the stakes are higher here, clearly. Before we bring up our first contestant, a final word to our panelists. It takes some real courage for our audience members to get on stage and try to impress people as impressive as yourselves. So while you should be firm in your questioning, I also encourage you to be kind. Because later on, you, the judges, shall also be judged when we spin the wheel of maximum danger. It is time to play Tell Me Something I Don't Know. Would you please welcome to the stage our first contestant, Raj Jaiswal.

Hello there, Raj. Tell us a little bit about yourself, please. Hello. My name is Raj, and I'm a writer, actor, and ER doctor. Which go together like... George Clooney. That's who I am. Raj, remember that our panelists are very bright people. So what do you know that's worth knowing that you think they don't know? Okay, so some people may know the concept of paradoxical undressing. Wait, wait, wait, slow down. Some people may know the concept of paradoxical undressing.

Some, not everyone. Show of hands, paradoxical undressing? Okay, none of you know the concept of paradoxical undressing, a phenomena where people suffering from severe hypothermia actually start taking their clothes off. But do you know of another bizarre behavior that people engage in right before they freeze to death? All right, so there's a thing that most people know

except none of us do, and then there's another thing that's like it that's even more obscure. What is it, right? It's pretty clear. And it has to do with hypothermia when you're about to freeze to death. Yes. That's pretty clear. And it has to do with hypothermia, when you're about to freeze to death. Yes.

That's fascinating. So you undress due to hypothermia. It's basically the way that the Canadian nation has reproduced, isn't it? Right. But how do you know? How do you find people about to die of hypothermia? No. So all this evidence that we have is based on real-life cases. People like mountaineers, hikers, people who've been found in severe conditions

and then observed to have some peculiar characteristics. So from Captain Scott's diaries in the Antarctic, was that entry, oh, Oates has just left and he's got his junk out? I don't know if it's that. I mean, junk out is a great research topic in itself, but it may have been. Most of the research is more recent, more contemporary. Are you sure it's not that people have stolen their clothes after they've died?

So that they don't die of hypothermia. Because they're right there. So tell us why it is that people do undress when they are cold. And tell us what is the even more obscure coping method that also doesn't work. So the most well-respected established theory right now is that when people are cold, blood vessels start to constrict. And what happens is that the brain at some point experiences a great rush of blood, especially through the hypothalamus, which controls the temperature. So when the hypothalamus receives all this blood, it thinks that the body is actually hot, that it's almost like on fire because there's so much blood coming through.

So it tells the person to take their clothes off because they need to cool down because they're on fire. Right. Are you sure it's not just mostly men thinking, ooh, I wonder how small it is now? They have not been able to not prove that. There's a lot of holes in this piece of science, aren't there? There is. Are these people women? They can be.

Sounds like hot flashes to me. So what is the thing that they do? What is the other thing that... So they dig a hole and die in it. That's considerate, isn't it? So it's called terminal burrowing. Are you a real doctor? So, yeah, a phenomenon where people seek shelter

in an enclosed space. It's seen as almost like a final ditch effort by the brain to find a warmer environment. Initially seen in mountaineers and hikers, this has also been seen in urban environments, especially in alcoholics. So there are cases where naked dead bodies have been found under beds and couches and futons and inside closets. And obviously when a death like this is discovered, it looks a little bit suspicious. So a lot of these deaths are routinely investigated by homicide detectives. And in even a further twist, there are actually two cases of actual homicides that were staged

to mimic undressing and terminal burrowing to confuse the police even further. Were you involved in either of these? This is really depressing. Before we finish up with Dr. Raj Jaiswal, Jody, our fact checker, what do you know? I've been Googling some stuff. Okay, so both of these phenomena are true. The way that they know about this is through cases

where in anecdotes the Donner Party had some of these anecdotes of people running out of their tent naked and afraid. I started Googling around about other animals that do this because I think this strikes me as maybe like the burrowing instinct as maybe something – They think it's sort of a primal instinct. Sorry, other animals take their clothes off? No, so... Don't get excited. No, it's the... It's the digging part.

Before hibernation, they sometimes do that. So I just ended up on a website that has 26 cute animals that burrow with pictures you need to see right now, and they're adorable. Well, they look adorable, but clearly they're suicidal. Raj, thank you so much for playing Tell Me Something I Don't Know.

Panelists, later you will be asked to rank all our contestants and pick a winner. For now, would you please welcome our next contestant, Sarah Bataglia-Reinach. Hi, Sarah. Hi. WhereReinach. Hi, Sarah. Hi. Where are you from? Buffalo, New York. Oh, so you know a little bit about hypothermia and paradoxical.

Unfortunately, we do. All right, Sarah, the floor is yours. So, there are 60 pounds in households across America of a specific product, collecting dust. Do you have any idea what it might be? Socks.

Socks, that's a good guess. Is it grandmothers? Who froze to death? Not in America. So I know it's not books, because they're not collecting dust. Everyone's reading them. Oh, good delusion there.

I'll give you two hints. One, it's really difficult to get rid of. You can't put it out to the curb with your regular trash. Are you sure it's not grandmothers? I'm still sure. And the second thing is homeowners or apartment renters, they intend on using it again in the future. Televisions that you can't turn on anymore.

You're getting there. Sarah, 60 pounds worth of what in the average American household? So there's a plethora of excess paint. Oh, paint. So 60 pounds on average per household ends up being 6.2 billion pounds across the country. You might need it. You never know. That's what they all say. Paint is a really expensive waste stream to dispose of.

It costs 30 times more than your regular trash per ton. In New York State alone, municipalities spend about $26 million every year to collect excess paint, and they're just scratching the tip of the iceberg they can't afford to collect all of it but you shouldn't just consider your paint cans trash there's actually a way to recycle it i thought there was a product here somewhere i actually purchased paint from recyclers so there's a handful of recyclers across the u.s and canada

that have been recycling paint for some of them up to 30 years. Some of them are new, about five years old. Just out of interest, if there's £60 per household of paint, I mean, could you just paint the entire nation overnight so the people on the International Space Station wake up the next day and look down and, oh, look, America's changed. We could do some really awesome things with this excess paint. Actually, to speak to that,

84% of the paint can be recycled. So we can actually collect the paint and 60% of the liquid can be recycled. And then the other 24% is the can. So the steel and the plastic, they can be shredded and sent to recyclers to mold and do other products. What do you do with it ultimately? Do you mix it all together and it gets brown? And then you have to find somebody who wants like 8 zillion pounds of brown paint? Because these recyclers are managing so much excess paint, they're able to consolidate by color and produce consistent colors. So up to 21 colors. Well, it's still paint now, isn't it?

Sarah Bataglia Reinach, thank you so much for playing Tell Me Something I Don't Know. Great job. Very interesting. Would you please welcome our next contestant, Donald Rettelmeyer. Nice to have you here. Tell us a little bit about yourself. I'm a professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, as well as a practicing physician at Sunnybrook Hospital, Canada's largest trauma center. Excellent. Dr. Rettelmeyer, our second doctor of the evening, the floor is yours. Okay, panelists. Elections are a really important event in any powerful democracy. However, tell me, when is the most dangerous time to vote for the U.S. president on election day?

You mean like the time of the day? The time of day. Classically, the polls are open from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. local time. And people are getting killed? Yeah, we figure that the average American presidential election leads to about 25 individuals who died or are seriously disabled. Is this suicide? That would not have occurred otherwise. Is it?

No, it's not suicide. Would that same number die in that period on any other day? Oh, the way the research is done is by comparing Election Day Tuesday to the Tuesday immediately before and the Tuesday immediately after. What do you vote? Because I've never voted here yet. I might give it a go. I have no problem with electoral fraud.

You can't complain about apathy and complain about electoral fraud. It just shows commitment to the... But do you vote with pencils or...? Sometimes. Right, because we vote with pencils back home, so obviously the earlier you are into the polling station, the sharper the pencil is. Okay.

It could be just like really lethally dangerous. Oh, it's a good point. In the United States, but there's also some places with remote voting and other places with mail-in ballots. And because of that, we think that the number of deaths is actually not as large as it would be.

Is it right before 8 p.m. people driving fast to get to the polling station in time to vote? That's pretty close. Oh, Andy. Are you a political scientist, Andy? He's a comedian. It's the same thing. It is exactly the same thing. It is exactly the same thing. It is exactly the same thing.

Dr. Rettelmeyer, so tell us about what you know and what you've learned. There's about a 19% increase in life-threatening traffic fatalities on election days compared to the normal Tuesday in the United States. That increase rolls over all parts of the country, extends to all recent decades, is significantly larger than the increase that occurs on New Year's Eve, and also occurs regardless of whether a Democrat or a Republican is eventually elected. The worst time is the evening hours between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. The ultimate reason is likely a combination between more driving, more rushing, more distractions,

altered pathways, and unfit motorists. And this is not to suggest a revolutionary change to the democratic process. You don't have to stop voting. Just a gentle reminder about the importance of road safety. But the bottom line is that voting kills. That's what you're saying. A part of it, but if you choose not to vote, that's not necessarily going to save your life because we all share the roads

so that we all can be collateral damage. Jody, the dangers of democracy, call it what you like. What can you tell us? I'm trying to figure out whether there's a greater chance that you will die on election day or that your vote will have an impact on election day. And I think it's that you will die unless you're in a couple of select states. You did mention that the bump, which is true, on election day is higher than on New Year's Eve, but I'm seeing that there's a 10% increase on tax day, which I guess is for some of the same reasons. The deadliest days for driving in the United States tend to be in the summer, and the deadliest day of all is the 4th of July. Yeah, it certainly used to be New Year's Eve, but all of the countermeasures really do work, suggesting that another policy option could be

free public transit once every four years on election day to get out the vote. Donald Rettelmeyer, great stuff. Thank you so very much. It's time now for a short break. Remember, you should subscribe right now. To tell me something I don't know, just go to whatever podcast app you use and sign up. When we return, more contestants, our panelists will pick a winner, and then we spin the wheel of maximum danger. If you would like to be a contestant on a future show or attend a future show, please visit TMSIDK.com. We will be right back. Welcome back to Tell Me Something I Don't Know.

I'm Stephen Dubner. Tonight's theme, strange danger. We've been learning some great stuff about leftover paint, terminal burrowing, and the perils of getting to the poles. Would you please welcome our next contestant, Walter James. Walter, please tell us a little bit about yourself. I'm a sleep medicine physician in Atlanta, Georgia, and the director of the Sleep Disorder Center at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta. Interesting. We are lousy with doctors tonight. I like it.

Dr. James, what do you have for us tonight? If you live to be 90 years old, you will spend about 32 years of your life asleep. My question for you is, why is it necessary for humans to spend a third of their lives asleep? Right? It seems like such a design flaw in the human. I was wondering if you could consult on why I wake up every night at 2.38 in the morning. That's what I do for a living.

I'll give you my number. All right, that sounds good. Is it because life is so annoying? If you were awake for more than 16 hours a day, you'd just go absolutely around a spout within about a week. You are speaking for the world of depressed people. Depressed people actually

do sleep more because their lives are so annoying or depressing. So you may know something about that, but that's not the real reason that we sleep. But we have to, there's, I'm not a scientist of the scientific sort, but I'm a political scientist, but

cells have to be rejuvenated, right? They have to be sort of go into a slumbering state so they can go back and do their cell-like work. So for centuries, people have been trying to define the need for sleep because there's a need for sleep, which is what you're saying. It's circular. You're saying we need to sleep because the cells need to sleep, but why do they need to sleep? Right.

The renowned sleep scientist, Professor John Bon Jovi, he famously came up with the theory that I will live when I'm alive and sleep when I'm dead. You dispute his science. No, he may be right. If he does not sleep when he's alive, he probably won't live quite as long. And as a result, he'll sleep more later when he's dead. Would you like to tell us why? I mean, the answer is essentially, why do we sleep, right? The answer, yes.

So this is something that's been pondered for centuries. Thomas Edison said that sleep was a criminal theft of time. In 2013, some scientists made some dramatic discoveries in mice. And what they found is that many mouse nerve cells in the brain actually shrink during normal sleep. And when the cells shrink, the spaces between the cells widen by as much as 60%. And those spaces in the nerve cells themselves are then bathed by spinal fluid washing through the brain. This was shown to increase the clearance of certain proteins that build up around nerve cells during normal wakefulness, including beta amyloid, which has been shown to cause Alzheimer's disease. So what does all this mean? First, that the actual purpose of normal sleep may be

to cleanse the brain. And secondly, if cleansing the brain means preventing certain proteins from damaging brain nerve cells, it's not unreasonable to assume that normal sleep may serve to prevent dementia. So it's one more reason, perhaps one of the best reasons for getting enough sleep. And also, does it suggest that if you've done this research on mice, so they benefit from lots of sleep, so you shouldn't be putting down traps

for mice, you should just be putting down little shots of espresso coffee for them. When's the last time you saw a demented mouse? If I had a dollar for every time someone's asked me that question, I would be a rich man. And is there a connection to dreaming? So while this cleansing is going on, is it sort of tickling our brain neurons so that we're imagining strange things? Well, actually, you're touching on a logical question for the scientists who work with these mice,

and that is, what stage of sleep is it where the cleansing actually takes the most place? And that's sort of unclear. It looks like it may be mostly what's called stage 3 sleep or deep sleep, which is not the same as REM sleep, where the dreams occur. How do you tell if mice are dreaming? If they're in rapid eye movement sleep, you can make assumptions that they're dreaming,

but they're probably not going to tell you what they're dreaming. If they're in rapid eye movement sleep, you can make assumptions that they're dreaming, but they're probably not going to tell you what they're dreaming. So it's probably... Is it dirty stuff? Filthy little hounds. Little mouse dreams. Jody Avergan, Dr. Walter James is telling us about why we sleep,

a kind of brainwashing, as he describes it. What can you add to it? A lot of amazing things happen when you sleep. Hormones get released. Your heart and your breathing slows. Giving your system a break. You become, I guess, somewhat paralyzed a little bit. And then there is NPT, nocturnal penile tumescence,

a spontaneous erection of the penis during sleep or when waking up. It is worth noting that most healthy men will experience NPT three to six times a night, not just in the morning. Does your Fitbit tell you that? I'm curious. What about mice? There are loads of horny mice in this experiment. Walter James, thank you so much for playing Tell Me Something I Don't Know. Very well done.

Would you please welcome our next contestant, Doug Quattrochi. Doug, nice to have you. What do you do? Well, I studied aerospace engineering at MIT, and now I'm building the first trade association for landlords in Massachusetts. Okay. The mic is yours. All right.

So my question is, how can society best provide homes for homeless people? Is it to build loads of houses? Would that help? It certainly would. How dare you bring your wacky British logic to our shores, sir? The issue in the U.S. is zoning. A lot of not in my backyard. They don't want density.

They don't want a lot of houses. Tony, you've got a bunch of libraries just sitting out there at night, empty. Dormitories, yeah? In your libraries, you could put it all on a memory stick these days anyway. It's just a wasted house, isn't it? Isn't there this thing that, I'm going to not get this right, but if you built like one house on every

quarter acre, you could put the entire world's population in Texas. Would they want to go to Texas? No, that's why there's so much land. I'll tell you. Here, I'll tell you this, though, to get you away from thinking about houses. Landlords in Massachusetts have enough vacant units today to take every homelesslords in Massachusetts have enough vacant units today

to take every homeless person in Massachusetts out of shelter. So it's not a supply problem. Not quite. It's not a demand problem. What's the problem? So traditional homeless shelters are actually only a temporary solution, and they're very expensive. In Massachusetts, we spend $3,000 to shelter one family for just one month,

and the average stay in shelter is close to a year. It's very hard to find a landlord who will accept a rental application from someone with an unstable housing history and bad credit and possibly a minor criminal record. They're worried about a terrible eviction. But it turns out there's a solution to the problem in the form of a public-private partnership. If you use government money that would otherwise go to shelter and instead offer landlords a financial guarantee to cover unpaid rent. Landlords like you.

Landlords like me. I know. So take that with a grain of salt because here I'm advising this. Offer them a guarantee to cover things like unpaid rent, property damage, attorney's fees if there's an eviction. Landlords will actually very quickly rent their apartments. In Seattle, for instance, the county government insures landlords for up to $10,000 for those mishaps. It's called the Landlord Liaison Project. They've housed over 7,000 people in the last five

years. 87% of landlords have filed no claim against the insurance whatsoever. And for those who have filed a claim, the average claim is $1,500, which is far less than their cap of $10,000. The way they do that is they offer landlords legal advice and mediation support, and they also offer supportive services for the formerly homeless tenant. So we're hoping to pilot this in Massachusetts because we have right to shelter, which means if you don't have a place to sleep, we guarantee you a place to sleep. And we have very tough landlord laws, actually. So if we can do this in Massachusetts,

and we think we can, it'll save the Commonwealth money, give people real homes, and take away the perception of risk from landlords. So you're taking the money that would otherwise go to fund homeless shelters, which is an inefficient use of money, you're saying? Yeah.

Take that money, offer the landlord's insurance that they will then take in the tenants that they otherwise would not have. Right, right. And then work with the landlords to make sure that things don't go really haywire. You sure it wouldn't be easier to just build like a giant spaceship that could take four million people? I shall take that under advisement and report back. But does supply and demand meet in the right place?

So are all the apartments sort of where all the homeless people are? Or would you have to ask people to move from Boston to Worcester? There's definitely a supply and demand problem and it's exacerbated by bad zoning. Yeah. But you look at it and you figure out, basically, we have enough units already.

Really interesting. Doug Quattrochi, thank you so much for coming to play Tell Me Something I Don't Know. Would you please welcome our final contestant of the evening, Meg Jacobs. Hello, Meg. Hi. Who are you exactly? I'm Meg Jacobs, and I teach history and public affairs at Princeton University. Excellent.

I'd love you to tell us all something we don't know. Well, here's a question. What event led many supermarket shelves in America to go bare in February of 1974? It was a really interesting test match cricket series between the West Indies and England going on. Very good guess, Andy. Was it fear that as President Nixon approached his impeachment that nuclear war was increasingly possible? Good to mention Watergate. The country was indeed absorbed by this presidential scandal, but that is not the correct answer. Was it connected to the oil crisis? Yes, it was.

In October 73, the first oil shocks hit. Yes. So people were scared that they won't be able to get to the stores. Good. So they raided the store, or they hoarded. It's a very good theory. Is that theory correct? Not exactly.

Not exactly. Although you are correct that there was fear of shortages and that sort of gripped the popular mentality. So I've just written a book called Panic at the Pump about the energy crisis. And when Johnny Carson said there's going to be a shortage of toilet paper. In fact, the next day, people went to the markets and there was hoarding of toilet paper. Was it that because you couldn't buy gas, you wanted to buy whatever else you could to make up for the buying impulse? No.

People are shoving bananas into their cars. Well, you know, it's not that different, is it? I actually remember that not the banana part. I remember lines, lines around the gas station, because it was like the first time Americans thought that we'd be left without something. Yeah. So you know, the symbol of American success, the car is now the seemingly the sign of its decline. It feels like we're sniffing around the true answer, but why don't you tell us the full story? The answer is a trucker's strike that took place during the Arab embargo, Arab oil embargo, when there was a shortage of gasoline. And to save

fuel, President Nixon signed a national speed limit law set at 55 miles per hour to require driving at more fuel-efficient speeds. But truckers drove for a living, and the faster, the better. So they were not very happy about this. And they, along with millions of other Americans, were mad also about the shortage of gasoline and the high prices at the pump. So long-haul truckers, inspired by the social protests of the 60s, used their CBs to coordinate a national shutdown of the highways for 11 days. Supermarket shelves went bare. Produce rotted on the vine, industry slowed down.

And because it was hard to coordinate collective action, they didn't belong to a union, they resorted to violence. So they littered highways with nails, dropped bricks from overpasses, and sniped at driving truckers from the side of the road, which actually resulted in some deaths and the country was watching in fear. How was it resolved, ultimately? Why 11 days?

Ultimately, they needed to go back to work because these truckers owned their own trucks and they didn't belong to a union. And in the end, the Nixon administration was not willing to give very much. And in fact, after 11 days of silence, finally, Nixon denounced them as desperados. Panelists, the great trucker strike of 1974. Did you know about it? I remember the embargo. I don't remember the trucker strike. Was it mostly East Coast? The hardest hit areas were Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia.

But in fact, there were incidents and arrests because of violence and disturbance in 42 states across the country. There were 229 shootings and three people died. And in fact, the strike exacerbated the shortage of fuel by design, because one of the things they did to sort of really try to get the attention and sympathy, well, at least a result from the White House was to blockade gas distribution centers. So it really intensified the gas shortage. Dodie Avergan, keep on trucking, fascinating story of relatively recent history that none of us seem to know much about. What else can you tell us? One thing that's interesting is that they passed this national speed limit, 55, as a kind of emergency measure, but it stayed 55 until the mid-'80s, and then they raised it to 65, and then in 1995 they got rid of the national speed limit. But one thing I'm curious about in your story is rather than all these strikes and the sabotage and all that, could they have just driven faster, like broken the speed limit? Because the noncompliance rate for speed limits is like 85 percent according to the studies I'm seeing.

People just drive faster than the speed limit. It seems like the first move. Meg Jacobs, thank you so much. Let's give Meg and all our contestants a big hand. And now it is time for our panelists to rank their favorite IDKs and to pick a winner. So who will it be? Raj Jaiswal and Terminal Burrowing, Sarah Bataglia-Reinach and Secondhand Paint, Donald Rettelmeyer and Voting Kills, Walter James and Brainwashing, a.k.a. Why We Sleep, Doug Quattrochi and Landlord Insurance for Homeless Tenants, or Meg Jacobs and Keep On Truckin'.

While the votes are being tallied, we'll take a short break. When we come back, we will announce a winner and force the panelists to tell us something we don't know. I'm Stephen Dubner. This is Tell Me Something I Don't Know. We've heard from some wonderful contestants tonight. If you want to be a contestant on a future show,

please visit TMSIDK.com. It is time now to announce tonight's three top vote-getters. In third place, with his IDK about paradoxical undressing and terminal burrowing, Dr. Raj Jaiswal. And we've got a tie for first, a legitimate tie for first. Would you please welcome back to the stage two first place winners, Dr. Donald Rettelmeyer with Voting Kills and Dr. Walter James with Brainwashing or Why We Sleep. For our two winners, what prize could we possibly give that's commensurate with the wisdom you've dispensed tonight?

Well, do you remember back at the top of the show when we heard about testing jet engines by firing birds from an air cannon? And sometimes it's a little gross. It kind of makes a seagull sashimi. All right. So it's not a seagull sashimi, but we are giving you your choice each of three plush toy birds from the National Audubon Society, which supports birdie causes,

but just in case you get the urge, also paired with that, an Airzooka toy cannon. Congratulations, gentlemen. I thought you were going to give them a chicken gyro. It is time now for the final round of Tell Me Something I Don't Know in which we flip the script

and we turn our panelists into contestants. They get to tell us something we don't know on a topic chosen completely at random from what we like to call our wheel of maximum danger.

That's right. It is a spinning wheel with 12 topics that relate to tonight's theme, which is Strange Danger. Panelists, before you panic, we are going to help you out a little bit by teaming each of you with one of the top three contestants. So we've got Team Marks. It's Tony Marks teaming up with Dr. Donald Rettelmeyer. Next, we've got Team Spar. That is Deborah Spar teaming up with Dr. Donald Rettelmeyer. Next we've got Team Spar. That is Deborah Spar teaming up with Dr. Walter James. And finally Team Zaltzman. That's Andy Zaltzman

teaming up with Dr. Raj Jaiswal. We will spin the wheel to pick a topic for each team and then we'll give each of you a few minutes to come up with something we don't know on said topic and our audience will pick a winner. Panelists and contestants, there's no Googling, no outside consultation of any kind. On the very slight chance that one of you tries to make something up, Andy Zaltzman, I am looking at you. What? Don't forget we've got our real-time human fact checker, Jody Avergan, on duty. So, Jody, would you please spin the wheel for Team Marks, please? Martial arts.

All right, would you please spin for Team Spar? Infectious diseases. You lucked out. Now, he's a sleep doctor. Yeah. I don't know how much help that's going to be. Is that infectious? I guess we'll find out.

So now would you please spin, Jody, for Team Zaltzman? Ow. Sharks. Sharks. Okay, panelists and contestants, put your heads together. We'll give you a little bit of time to think and tell us something we don't know. Obviously, I'm going to mic some things up. While they're thinking, please remember to subscribe to Tell Me Something I Don't Know.

And if you think it's worth giving it a five-star rating on iTunes, well, I'm not going to stop you. Thank you. It's really good. That is a fact, isn't it? I mean, spit it out. Okay, time's up. Let's start with Team Marks.

We've got New York Public Library President and CEO Tony Marks paired up with Toronto doctor and medical researcher Donald Rettelmeyer to tell us something we don't know about martial arts. Well, martial arts are a terrific way to work on your strength, your aerobics capacity, your sense of balance, and your overall well-being. But did you know that you can practice martial arts with such intensity and such frequency that you damage the red blood cells circulating in your blood vessels to such an extent that you can develop an electrolyte abnormality, an anemia, and even kidney failure. Well, I mean, you've told us that voting is lethal. Now martial arts. Is there anything in the world that's safe?

Sleep. Sleep. Sleep is very safe, yeah. So Team Mark's telling us that martial arts is great for your health, except when it's terrible for your health. Let's move on to Team Spar. Deborah Spar, president of Barnard College, and Walter James, a sleep doctor.

What can you tell us about infectious diseases? Did you know the origin of the vampire legend? Remember that our topic is infectious disease. All right, let's have it, doctor. So a few hundred years ago in the Transylvania area, which is around Romania, there was an epidemic of tuberculosis. And tuberculosis causes anemia and wasting and death. And so people would get pale, and then they would waste, and then they would die,

and they would be buried. And you'll be interested to know that in those days when they were buried, the gravestone was placed over their stomachs. That was just the way they did it in those days. But it became obvious that their family members and other people, their contacts were then dying after they had been buried. So it was obvious that they were sitting up in the grave, leaving the grave and coming and draining the blood from their free previous contacts and family members who then died

of this pallor disease. And what it actually turned out to be was tuberculosis, but they didn't know that. They thought it was vampires. So they started placing the headstones over the head, that's where the name headstone comes from, to keep them lying down so they couldn't sit up in the grave and come back and bite their family members. I don't even care if that's true. That's such a good story. Phenomenal. Team Zaltzman, you seemed to have been handed a gift with sharks, but going up now against vampires doesn't seem so easy anymore.

Well, I mean, there's so many obvious facts about sharks the average shark needs to eat 34 surfers a day otherwise it just becomes a goldfish true basic science

but what have most sharks ironically never done what have most sharks ironically never done? What have most sharks never done? Most sharks, wait, have never paradoxically undressed. That's probably true, isn't it? Well, they're born undressed, no? Everybody's born undressed.

Are they? You're a doctor. Come on. All right, what have most sharks... Most meaning roughly... Most we've spoken to. We don't have the latest. Most sharks have never watched Jaws.

Which you would have thought they would have really loved as a film. Never. But actually, the latest research is that over 98 of sharks have not have not watched yours uh before we ask our live audience to vote uh let's check in with jody ever again jody what can you tell us about the veracity or lack there are you sure you want to do this yeah i'm sure i want to do it. Man, I... Okay, I've spent a lot of time trying to do the shark jaws thing, and I just can't get to the bottom of that one.

Yeah. I'm looking at shark censuses and so forth, and it's just nothing. Okay, so... Headstones and vampires, I can't find a connection. But is that actually true? Would you like to share with us

how you happen to know this story and set effects? Maybe we'll be a little bit more persuaded. It actually came from a lecture on the history of medicine that I heard once. That guy may have been making it up. There is a history of connection between the outbreak of infectious diseases and vampire myths popping up for exactly the reasons you... So there's a deep connection between tuberculosis and vampirism, but I can't find this headstone thing, and I want to, and maybe I will,

you know, five minutes from now. You're just basically saying if you punch a lot of stuff, you're going to hurt yourself? Okay, that checks out. Thank you, Jody. Very well done. Don't we win just on veracity?

Well, you do have the veracity lead right now, but I have to say the vote now is in the hands of our studio audience. So here's what you do. You get out your phones, and you're going to follow the texting instructions on the screen. Keep in mind the criteria for the panelist team's IDKs. Did they tell you something you didn't know? Was it worth knowing?

And was it true, or at least a little bit true-ish? So who will it be tonight? Team Marks, with their remarkable story about martial arts being very good for you except when they're very bad for you. Will it be Team Spar, with an amazing story about the connection between tuberculosis and vampires? Or Team Zaltzman with a collection of random untruths about sharks?

How can you say it's untrue? You're right. I really did bias the voting. For that, I apologize and do not apologize simultaneously. All right, we will give you a few moments to vote. We have a remarkably poor showing by our third place team, which is also known as the last place team. And this really does surprise me because Team Marks, I did not feel that your IDK was so poor to deserve only 5% of the vote. And yet it did. But Team Zaltzman, I wouldn't exalt with 12%

of the vote. I'm happy with silver. It's still a medal. Which means that our gold medal winners tonight, Team Spar with 83%. Thank you for telling us about the TB Vampire Connection. That is our show tonight.

Thanks to our panelists, Tony Marks, Debra Spahr, and Andy Zaltzman. Thanks to all our contestants. Thanks especially to you for coming to play Tell Me Something. I don't know. Thank you so much. Coming up next week on Tell Me Something I Don't Know, our panelists are the best-selling author Simon Winchester, the social media scholar Dana Boyd,

and the comedian Chris Gethard. The theme? It's alive. One of the pioneering scientists in this field has lab assistants now whose job is to blow up condoms, rub them on goldfish, and dip them in fish tanks so that they'll get envenomated by these snails. I will say this is just another reason why I will not ever go in the ocean. That's next time on Tell Me Something I Don't Know. Tell Me Something I Don't Know is produced by Dubner Productions in partnership with New York Times. Our staff includes Allison Hockenberry, Emma Morgenstern, Harry Huggins, and Brian Gutierrez. David Herman is our technical director. He also composed our theme music. Thanks also to Dan DeZula, Jolenta Greenberg, and to Dan Shriver,

our transatlantic game doctor. Thanks to the New York Times, especially Charles Duhigg, Kinsey Wilson, Samantha Hennig, and Lisa Tobin. And to our good friends at Qualtrics, whose online survey software has been so helpful in putting on this show. You can subscribe to Tell Me Something I Don't Know on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, or at nytimes.com slash idk. You can find us online at tmsidk.com and on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Thanks for listening. Thank you.