Good Job, Brain! - 153: Let There Be Light!

Episode Date: June 5, 2015

Ah, finally, and *enlightening* episode! Let it shine, let it shine, let it...... destroy? Chris tells us about the infamous Las Vegas "death ray" and how a simple CFL lightbulb destroyed his videogame dreams. Bask in facts about glow-in-the-dark toys, fireflies...and "fire-pigs." And yes, the human race have finally invented a mind-boggling material that cannot be any more black. NONE MORE BLACK! And music round is back with some light rock.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hey, hey, hey, hello, happy and hearty, he helpful, hydrocarbon-based humorous and huckable hounds. Welcome to Good Job Brain, your weekly quiz show and Offbeat Trivia podcast. This is episode 153. And, of course, I'm your humble host, Karen, and we are your tricky but truly trustworthy troop traveling by trolley trying to, trying a treasure trove of trivia trapped in a trist-eating trisket. Oh, my goodness. I'm Colin. I'm Dana.

And I'm Chris. That had to be listeners. Yeah. It was very good. We're establishing a dangerous precedent. Yeah. The intro is going to be a third of the show eventually, yeah. Thank you, guys.

You have so much confidence. No, yours are also good. But that one, it was like... Yeah, there were no negative slams on us. We missed all of you, listeners. And hi, you guys. We haven't recorded in a while. No.

It has been a while. We did trivia, though. Yeah, yeah. That's sort of a good job, brain recording that's only for us. Yeah, yeah. That's true. Just tough. Lots of catching up.

I know our schedule was kind of wonky. And it's a lot of things going on. Chris, you just moved to a new house that we're sitting in. Which we're in. Yes. Yep. Colin just got back from Hawaii. That was great.

It was my first trip to Hawaii. Never been there. And I had an awesome time doing nothing productive. Yeah. And that's the state model. Have an awesome time doing nothing productive. And then Dana's engaged. That's right.

Whoa. They said it couldn't be done. All the leading Dana's scientists We proved them wrong That's right Congratulations Yay, thank you The listeners of our show

Have witnessed many life events Yeah Just over what, three years A lot of the things have happened We're growing This is like adult puberty All over again We're changing

We're becoming real adults now We're evolving Collectively Like Pokemon Hair where there was no hair before And then actually the, uh... Ew.

So... Well, in this case, it's like inside my ears and stuff like that, you know? Light hairs. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Coming out of moles and stuff. Yep, yep, yeah, great. Actually, the alliteration from before that you guys were so into was written by Michael from Hartford, Connecticut, who I met, whom I met, I am.

I don't know if you guys, if the people who follow me on social media know that I'm trying to run 50 marathon. in 50 different states. Well, I guess they're only 50. One in each. Just to clarify. Not like, yeah. Fortunately, as it turns out, there are 50 states.

So that kind of works out. So I came back a couple of weeks ago. I was in Connecticut running the Nutmeg State Marathon. Michael and his daughter, Katie, invite me out to a pub trivia. Awesome. We didn't win. I was going to ask. Oh, okay.

Is it intense? Well, okay, so here's my problem It has like a It's not like our trivia And I think Colin you'll hate this Because you're a purist It's a wagering system And so you can answer only a couple

Right but if you wager the right way Then you can totally win Oh, okay You decide how you want to wait your answers Exactly Okay, you know I've heard of there are definitely Trivia leagues that work that way You wager before or after you hear the question

So you wager question by question question. So, so in one round, there's like five questions and you have the option of waiting it with one, three, five, seven, or nine points. And then you, after each question, you decide what number you want to wait it with. That would be in our favor, I would think, because when we're sure, we're pretty sure. But then at the end, there's kind of like a final jeopardy one and it's like, do you bet it all? Yeah. And that, and that kind of, we'll be like this. The other part of it is you need to take an account what do other people know. It's not just how confident am I.

It's if I'm confident I get it right, but everybody else is going to get it right. You know, that's different than if I think I'm the only one who's going to get it. Yeah. So, for example, I mean, I think we did, in terms of like getting correct number of answers, we got a lot correct or most correct. And the last question was a sports question. And then you have to wager before you. But they tell you like Final Jeopardy.

They tell you the category. Yeah, exactly. So it's like, okay. So you wagered nothing, I'm guessing. We did just enough to cover the team, the team, just in case. Eh, it didn't work. It was like name seven of the 10 decathlon, the Greek decathlon activities, track and field activities. Right, right, right.

Which we actually did get it right, but, you know, it's when you say sports, I'm just thinking, like, oh, it's going to be a sports team thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah. So that was my jaunt to Connecticut. Fun. Cool. Which state is that? Out of the 50, what? That is state number six.

Okay. All right. So, 44 to go. Yeah. 44 to go. You also went to New Haven. I went to New Haven. A suburb of which I am from.

Yes. And you had, you ate the most famous New Haven pizza. Oh, is it most famous? Pepe's. Pepe's. Pepe's. I keep calling you Pepe Pizza. Pepe.

Frank Pepe. The original Frank... You guys didn't believe me. Like, New Haven pizza is a different type of pizza. What do you mean we didn't believe it? Oh, I don't mean... I believe you? I believe you.

Yeah. Oh, okay. It's pizza. It's the bread, the crust. It's the cracker type one, right? No, no, with just tomato sauce. Oh, okay. That's the pizza.

That's a plain pizza. Yeah, plain pizza. There's no cheese. It's just marinara sauce. But, of course, I mean, they'll put cheese on the pizza. Oh, it's like a facacha. And most people do. Yeah.

It's like bread with sauce. And then you can put parmesan cheese. Well, it's pizza dough. Yeah, it's pizza dough. Yeah. Why do they do that? I don't know. Well, I mean, because that was how it was done originally, a plain pie was the tomato pie was the pizza dough and the sauce and then sprinkle of Parmesan cheese on the time.

Yeah. I liked it. Yeah. I really liked it. I thought it was super tasty. Yeah, it is. Oh, I went to the Pez factory, too. That was close by.

Did you get anything? They had a scavenger hunt, so I was all into that. I bet. but it was really cool history of Pez they have like just the Japanese versions of Pez

the original Pez from you know like the different designs Disney license the Marvel license very cool and also with all of this

and I'm sad to say that you know one of the reasons why our podcast our new episodes keep getting delayed or recording delayed

as you know all of our schedules and stuff going on and also I just my dog died and it was sad but I know that you guys saw on my Facebook and Twitter I think you guys were all your heartwarming and heartfelt words our whole pub trivia team is named after kind of named after him and he was a cool dog

he was the mascot of everything yeah he was our master which is funny because he was your second dog you know like your first you're Cisco like has all his stuff together you know like he's he's very confident yeah Yeah, he's a, he's a personality already. Otis, your heart just goes out to him. Yeah, he was always so, like, so meek. He was so, yeah, he was so sad. He was just so, he was just so happy to see you, you know, like, he's like, are you really, are you really my friend?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Wow. Yeah. He goes to the vet, and he's like, hi, friends. You know how, like, you know, whereas Cisco, like, you know, smarter dogs are like, I don't like this place. Right. They stick stuff in you. Yeah.

Whereas Otis is so dumb. It's just like, hello. Any context. Yeah. What's this in my book? I mean, that's cool. Sure is a funny feeling. He's such a good dog, so, I mean, that's one of the reasons why it's delayed.

I was trying to, I mean, I was getting, I'm still grieving. I'm still mourning. It's very sad. But, well, hopefully from now on, with all of our traveling kind of done, or hopefully we'll be on a normal schedule soon. And also, shout out to our very, very. patient and very awesome sponsors who obviously, you know, haven't gotten a new episode with ads in it. So I apologize. So the whole episode is ads for the next 30 minutes. I was wondering about that. I was like, should I just combine one thing? No, no, no. But like, relatedly, one of the

questions I get a lot. And I don't, I don't really feel that comfortable talking about it. I'm not comfortable, but it's weird. A lot of people ask us, how do I support you guys? How do I Donate money. Oh, yeah. Like, how come, one person, particularly wrote, like, how come you don't talk about your Patreon page? Because this seems like, I guess, other podcasts. They do. They do talk about donations or supporting.

I don't, I mean, it's just, I don't know. So we have a Patreon page? We do have a Patreon page. We'll happily take your money. Yeah. You can $1 a month. Yeah. And then you can support us that way.

We think about doing cool stuff all the time. We're going to, yeah. As soon as we shift from, like, thinking about. doing cool stuff into actually doing cool stuff mode maybe we'll start pushing the Patreon page a little bit more. That's true. I think we're going to, it's going to happen. We want to make sure we still want to do a live show. Yeah, like a live show

live show. Yeah. Also going to the East Coast. You can also support us by checking out our wonderful sponsor. Squarespace, Audible, which is our other big sponsor. Warby Parker, obviously a lot of the codes and links are going to be in this post. So check it out and help us out.

All right. So much stuff. This episode is going to be long because we have a lot of housekeeping, I guess. But it's good housekeeping. We have a mailbox surprise here. I have a book. It's called Pupendis. The deckline is the inside scoop on every type of use of poop. This is a book, a children's book, sent to us by Lacey. So thank you so much, Lacey, for this wonderful book about a fecal matter. Yeah. You know, for kids. Yeah.

Okay, another segment. In the news, bizarre headlines. Chris, you're going to be happy about this. Am I? Do you remember egg corn? Do you guys remember what in egg corn? Of course. It's a misheard word.

Like when you think that Alzheimer's disease is Alzheimer's disease. Misheard word, but like a... A misheard word, but in a... It kind of makes sense. Like, in a way that sort of makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, backward. Like, old-timers disease.

Right, you know, that makes total sense. So the word egg corn made it into the Miriam Webster Dictionary. Congratulations. It is now an official words. And the word itself is an egg corn for acorn. There are people who call the, what some people call an acorn, some people call an egg corn. I'm not going to make any judgment here. Yes, the dictionary support.

Yeah. Similar, but not identical to, as we discussed. us the Mondegrine, which is a misheard song lyric or a misheard of poetry. Yeah, so another fun egg corn is when you're saying something is jaw-droppingly good. People say jar.

Jar dropping. Because it's so good you drop the jar. I have not heard that one. I have heard that one. That's good. Yeah. I always send you guys ones that I find on the internet. Yes, you do. You find a lot on the internet. You read a lot of forums and things like that, so you catch a lot of things. And you see something, you know it's not a typo.

You know it's, it's an egg corn. Like, you know that that person has like back-solved a word. It is. It's back-solving. They think that this is what it is. Yeah. Okay. All right.

Without further ado, let's jump into our first general trivia segment, pop quiz, hot shot. It's been a long time. It's been a long time. Did you bring the trivia cards? Yes. Oh, okay. Because that was really good. I don't remember how to work this buzzer, you guys.

What will I do? I do something with it. You pull it up. Yeah, naturally. I twist it. Right. You pull it up and it says it. You pop it.

And then it says the name of an animal. And you guys have your barnyard buzzers. And here I have a random assortment of trivia pursuit car from various versions of trivia pursuit. Oh, randomizer? Yeah. The Karen randomizer? Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. Baby boomer.

Okay. Oh, snap. All right. All right. All right. Baby boomer All right Wow

So what is Baby boomer Is a generation Right Yeah Yes The post World War II Until when

I mean Just in those years Like in that You know Decades 60s Yeah Wow

All right Here we go TV All right Blue Wedge Who was Alan Brady's Only female

Writer What Oh Colin It was Mary Tyler Moore But I don't remember the character's name I think That's as far as I can get

I can't tell you Mary something, yeah It is Sally Rogers I still have no idea what show is over here Whoops Well, random All right Okay, it looks like I was wrong

That was Rosemary, not Mary Tyler Moore Rose Murray played Sally Rogers I had the show right it was a Dick Van Dyke show I was it was on Dick Van Dyke show I at least had the TV show right They don't even yeah well sure All right sure Pink Wedge Ford SS I don't know what that stands for

But here we go Well it's the Hitler's The Guard I believe What comic had the second best selling album Of 1960 Wow Best Selling of 1960 Comic as a comedian

Yeah Okay Uh yeah Colin Lenny Bruce Incorrect Chris Collar Bill Cosby

incorrect Steve Martin Incorrect It's too early Bob Newhart Bob Newhart Bob Newhart Bob Newhart

I thought it meant Like comic strip And I was like I have like the Archies Because they had a song They were into comedy albums Oh that's true All right

Next Wedge Yellow was Joseph McCarthy a Democrat or a Republican? Oh, interesting. I'm going to say he was a Republican. What do you guys say? I think he was a Republican.

There was like a flip of the party. Yeah, I know. But I think it happened earlier. I'll say Republican. He is a Republican. Okay. All right. All right.

Tan Wedge, Brown Wedge for publishing. Whose years in the White House corridors were chronicled in Seymour Hershey's 1983 book, The Price of Power? Chris? Richard Nixon? Incorrect. Dana? Kennedy? Incorrect.

LBJ. Incorrect. Not a president. Oh. What? Checker is the dog. Yeah. Whose years in the White House corridors were chronicled in Seymour Hershey's

1883 book The Price of Power Henry Kissinger Correct Not a president Smart Yeah All right

Green Wedge for literature I think Or Latin LT One or the other What word made up of the Latin

for water And the Greek for a sailor made its first appearance in the 1960s Aquamarine Incorrect

Really That was a good guess The Latin for water, which we all agree is aqua. And the Greek for sailor, as in S-A-I-L-O-R. So navigation maybe. Dana. Never mind. It is Aquanaut.

Not a quill. Okay, okay. No, I don't think I've ever heard that word. It also made its last appearance. I mean, it's interesting where it makes sense in, like, cosmonaut, but aquanaut. Is it a sailor? Is it like Jacques Cousteau? Yeah, I would imagine, yeah, like subsurface exploration.

Yeah. All right. Last question on baby boomer trivia pursuit. Orange Wedge, what tower was climbed in the Beatles song, I am the walrus? Oh. Everybody. The Eiffel Tower. Correct.

Awesome. Um, oh, not bad. Good card, good card. You were not very good at that card. But better than what I thought we... It could have been worse. It could have been worse. It could have been worse.

We've done some kind of esoteric shows, but now I think it's time to talk about the source... The element. The element. Of all life itself. Really? The thing without... Well, yeah. Oh, yeah, that's true.

The sun makes the plants and we eat the plants. Everywhere the light touches. Except for the elephant graveyard. For this episode, we're getting back to Basic. Yes, this week we're going to top out light. So, guys, let there be light. Up in my, as you know, I collect video games. I don't know, did you guys know that?

A lot of them, you know, it's hard to escape. In my, in my parents' attic, there's a whole bunch of them. And at one point, and they've all just been sitting there because I moved out a long time ago. I've been trying to get some out, but you know how it is. Yeah. We've all got stuff in our parents' places. Free storage. Yeah, yeah.

It's three thousand miles away. My dad replaced the incandescent light bulb in the attic with a compact, fluorescent light bulb. This is great, you know, uses less energy. And in fact, you can and should just leave it on all the time. Because it uses less energy if you just leave it on. Oh, it's on and off. Right.

What did not kind of hit me until it was too late was that I had a couple of things, including some paper that was sitting there up at the top of the attic steps. And it had a fluorescent UV pumping light bulb pumping light bulb pumping light. onto them 24-7 for years and I went up and it was like a store display

for a video game system with like pieces of paper inserted into it and I look at the paper and it is disintegrating around the margins it is disappearing because of not just like a changing a color

or it was I mean it was fading but it was also it was actually disintegrated Yeah, that is what light can do. We think of light as like, oh, you know, I just lit the room up. It's like, no, you're bombarding the room with low-level radiation. You know, you're bombarding the room with particles. You know, that's why you can't go into a museum and, like, take a flash photograph of the Mona Lisa.

Oh. Because the effect of everybody taking a flash photo. Every, it's just going to hate some of the demise. Karen has and I've done this. No, no, I just didn't know. Oh, yeah, no, the flash photos. If everyone is. If everybody, you know, all day, every day was just aiming their flash at the Mona Lisa and going, I mean, the Mona Lisa would start to fall apart.

And the low lighting in galleries is more than just for setting the mood. It's also, yeah. Right. True or false? It is possible to prevent paintings and photos and such from fading, deteriorating, by using low amounts of light. True or false. To prevent? Prevent.

I'll say, no, I'll say false. False. False. Totally false. All light is. is constantly photo-degrading everything. It's just a matter if you're a museum of having it degrade as slowly as possible. There are certain parts of certain molecules that give that molecule whatever color it's going to have. This is called a chromophore.

It's not the actual like atoms and stuff in the molecule. It's not what it's made up of. It's the structure. It's the way that the atoms are kind of joined. going together and importantly like where do the electrons have to go within that molecule because a molecule can have a ground state and an excited state right the ground state is when it's just like hey what's up and the excited state it's still the same molecule still the same thing but the electrons are they're jumping around a little bit they're moving jumping up and down

yeah the molecule is now at a molecule party okay he's still the same he's still the same he's the same guy who was just flipping burgers at 9 to 5 but now he's at a molecule party things are yeah so depending on how the molecule is structured and where the electrons are and where they have to go when they get hit with photons they will absorb some of that energy and but they will not absorb all of it in in most cases and it will reflect some of it back and if that energy if that radiation is in the visible light spectrum you see that you see that color that gets reflected but the way that we're talking about this here as we learned in college you cannot just go out and party every night like you will start doing permanent damage to yourself um and that is what happens like you can't just get molecules all excited and reflecting photons all the time all the time because they will start they'll start changing their shapes um they'll start bumping into each other and they might start changing their structures. And as soon as the molecules start changing their structures, now they reflect color in a

different way, and they start changing their color. They're hung over. Yes, for the rest of their lives. And we see fading because sometimes what happens is the thing in a, you know, a yellow painting that gives it its yellowness will start to fade away. Yeah. Because the molecules are changing shape and they're not giving off that bright yellow anymore. Oh. Okay. Yeah. So the, So back in your attic, it's that CFL light bulb that keeps exciting or shining photons onto the actual molecules of the poster or what gives the poster the color. And then it just, that excitement just, uh, yeah, and it starts to lose the grip of the, and it starts to change what types of colors it reflects back at you. What you really want to avoid is, of course, UV light or sunlight. Like you can have your lights in your house on with your books.

and things like that. But if you have direct sunlight on them, in addition to, you know, possibly heating them up, which you don't want to do either, UV radiation is the wavelength is smaller, so there's more energy. Yeah. And it gets them even more excited. It gets them a little too excited. You can go up from there until, like, bombarding your objects with x-rays,

which would be a terrible idea. Or gamma rays, which... It really brings the value of your collectibles down. Right, right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And if we're talking about, like, especially plant matter, like paper or leather or animal matter, like, then it will start to disintegrate. Then it will start to cleave and break up. And the molecules will, when it disintegrates, it's like those paper molecules are breaking up. And then you have free atoms and they're looking for other things to bond with. And they'll bond with something in the air. And fly away. Come back. Come back. Yeah. Sometimes the reaction is not fading.

It kind of depends on, like, what the substance is. Vincent Van Gogh's famous sunflower paintings are not fading, but they're turning brown because the sunlight is oxidizing the pigments. Who's putting it in the sun? Well, I mean, it just happens. There's UV everywhere. You can't, like, you can't completely, you can put them in a pitch black room forever. But then why have the painting. Right.

And so that's the issue. It's like if you're running a museum, you have to work. you about this. Like, if you put everything into a pitch black room, great, congratulations. You know, it'll never deteriorate. But the idea is art needs to be appreciated. You need to actually show it to people. So it's a losing battle on a long enough time frame. It's deteriorating. So what happened to your collectible? I put it into a box. It's still deteriorating, but, you know, I mean, it's in a box now. With my bang goes. Yeah. That normal will. Yeah. Yeah. No frills, delivers.

Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC optimum points on your first five orders. Shop now at nofrills.ca. It feels really good to be productive, but a lot of the time it's easier said than done, especially when you need to make time to learn about productivity so you can actually, you know, be productive. But you can start your morning off, and be ready to get stuff done in just a few minutes with the Inc. Productivity Tip of the Day podcast.

You'll hear advice on everything from how to build confidence to how to get the best night's sleep. New episodes drop every weekday, and each one is five minutes or less, so you only have to listen a little to get a lot more out of your weekdays. Listen and subscribe to Inc. Productivity Tip of the Day wherever you get your podcasts. That's Inc. Productivity Tip of the Day, wherever you get your podcasts. All right. So I'm going to talk about black, which is a funny thing to talk about in a show about light, because black is often known as what, the absence of color.

The opposite. The opposite. It also, in physics, is the complete absorption of light. Indeed. There is a new material. It was discovered in 2008. It's called Vanta Black. Oh.

Vanta? Vanta. V-A-N-T-A. It stands for vertically aligned nanotube array. Yes. Oh, it's an acronym. Yes. Is it a carbon nanotubes?

Acronym or abbreviation? Accronin. Acron. Yes, yes. Vanta. Not Fanta. No. Right.

And it absorbs almost all light. It is the closest thing we have to actual black. Wow. It's new. And it's new because it couldn't have existed before. Oh. They basically have to grow it in a laboratory. It's made of carbon nanotubes.

They grow it on aluminum foil. And they grow it. They grow these tiny little. tubes actually grow? You grow it. Yes, and it's super dinsely packed. There's no space between them. They're nanotubes, so that's one millionths of a millimeter.

That's how small they are. They're tiny, and they're tubes, so they absorb all the light. When you wrinkle a piece of paper, you can see all the shades and the, like, you can see the shadows and the reflection of light, you wrinkle this or you try to crumple this up. There are no wrinkles. You can't see it. even think about this. Yeah, it's like, it blows your mind.

There are videos of it. I highly recommend watching some videos. It makes... It just looks the same, whether it's flat or wrinkled. But like, is it like a sheet of paper? Like, like, what is it? It kind of looks like it would be spongy a little bit. It's a little bit thick because they're...

Wow. So they use them for military... Military and NASA. Of course. So it's great for masking things because it absorbs all light. You just, you can't see it. It's like the closest thing we have to maybe being invisible. but you can totally

you could see it but like it doesn't pick it visibility they put it in NASA telescopes because it absorbs all the light and it removes all the distortion from the light going into the telescope so you can get the crystal

clear pictures you can get only the light you want 10 times clearer than anything they've had before wow did you go to you guys this is weird it's like looking into a black hole some people say it's like I feel like everything's being censored you know there's

like a black bar on everything. If you look at an image of it, it looks like somebody went into Photoshop and cut out that whole part of the image, and then just hit delete. Yeah, because there's no light. Because it doesn't reflect anything back to the camera. So if you made like a little black dress out of this,

you would look like a 2D character because there are no shade. There's no contour, no highlights. Oh, wow. Yeah, I was like, that's amazing. I would have tried that. Wouldn't you grow? Like, is it selfie?

They build them up. They build them up, like a, yeah, like in a molecular level. Just imagine a hot glue gun, except for it spits out individual carbon molecules. Vanta black. Wait, what does Vanta stand for again? Vertically aligned nanotube array. So they're all little tubes standing up. Oh, they're standing up, not lying down.

Okay, I was thinking they're lying down, like pick up six. No, no. This is like a little forest, like little trees. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, they absorb 99.96% of all light, the darkest material we've made so far. Oh, my God, that's weird. We're getting so close.

Come on, people. We can do this. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's like, you know, early on, and it's like, well, we got these mirrors down pretty good. We're going to reflect all the light. How hard could it be to go the other direction? Right. Really hard.

Really hard. Wow. Well, speaking of blackness and darkness, in this light episode, I want about two things, but they're combined by my fascination with things that glow in the dark, things that you call glow in the dark. And so let me ask you guys, obviously growing up, you guys had toys, glow worms or, when you have a toy that's glowing dark, what is the first thing you do? You have to do.

You hold it under a light to charge it. Yes. Right, right, right. To the first thing you have to do is charge them. Yeah. And it's something like you just grow up and you're not only like, oh, in order for. for it to, like, you know, glow in the dark. You got to charge it.

Yeah. So you can, like, shine a flashlight on it. Yeah. Yeah. Which is what you're doing, right? It actually is, really is charging. So glow in the dark, I'm talking about the things we see in toys. That classic kind of greenish, yellowish.

Yeah, the kind of snot, snot-colored-looking thing. How does it work? Well, this is a type of phosphor, which is a substance that has luminescence. And what happens is, what Chris said earlier, you have light shining on it, and it gets energized. And so this material then will get excited and slowly kind of calm down. And as it calms down, light is given off. And that's why the Glow and Dark Toys like last, you know, almost two, half an hour, half an hour to an hour, the molecules calming down.

Slowly exhaling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Doing the walk of shame. Yeah, it is. Yes, it is. Back to home. Back to home. I distinctly remember being on, like, a camping trip with another family. And the youngest kid there was his other family's son.

And we had glow sticks, and he ate one. Or what, he bit into a glow stick and got all of the goo, like, in his mouth. Oh, no. So, like, he had it all in his mouth, and his, like, mouth was glowing. It was pretty awesome. So that actually is a different type of glow in the night. Oh, it is. It is.

Because you don't need to charge. Oh, that's why you crack them. So that's a chemical luminescence where it's a chemical reaction. Whereas this phosphorescence is you charge the actual molecules. Also, importantly, don't. Don't do that. No. It's so dangerous.

It's not even a cute. No, it's non-toxic. Oh, is it not toxic? Oh, well, no, I want some. Yeah. But don't do it. That's Dana's scale. It's either toxic or I want some.

That's true. So I've been trying to find, I was going through, like, patent libraries. I was trying to read up, like, when or what was the first glow-in-the-dark toy? Was it an accent? I couldn't find anything. I couldn't find me. Like, I found, like, when they isolated this type of chemical, but nothing like where you probably put it into toy use.

However, back in the day, there were toys that were radioactive. So they did glow in the dark, but, like, that's not the same glow in the dark. They're also slowly poisoning. Yeah, exactly. It's like playing with the mercury, the gold silver. Exactly, yeah. People's toys are really weird. In another example of glow in the dark, I also want to enlighten people with.

We see what you did there. Or fireflies, bioluminescence. Actually, a lot of things in nature do glow in the dark, but definitely firefly is that iconic, like, how is this a live thing blowing? It's like magic. And it's like light. And it's weird. And how it glows is actually a chemical reaction. There is an enzyme called Luciferase, like Lucifer, which actually I didn't know.

Lucifer stands for holding light. Yeah. For fireflies in their bellies, they have Luciferase, which is a type of enzyme. And through chemical reaction, that's how their bellies glow. And here's a fun, weird fact. There is a Baroque painter. Caravaggio. Is he famous?

Yeah, he's famous. Caravaggio, rumor has it. They say that as if it's like a tabloid. Rumor has it. He prepped his canvases with crushed powder of dried fireflies so that the surface is photosensitive. And then he can project the image that he's going to paint onto it. He was cheating. Kind of.

By the rules of painting. He was tracing. I have not heard that. That's cool. Tim's Vermeer. Yeah. The guy who copied some Vermeer paintings by kind of like hypothesizing that Vermeer did not just sit down and do the paintings.

Like he actually used a method of like taking real life and projecting it via a system of mirrors onto a surface. Oh. So then you can paint it, you know, perfectly accurately. Yeah. Yeah. David Hockney has also done a lot of stuff on like reverse engineering. Yeah. The Vermeer practices.

Yeah. So do you count that as cheating? I personally I know, I don't know, I know, I don't. I personally know. No, why wouldn't you use technology to try to create? Or crush fireflies.

Yeah. In this case, a lot of, a lot of dead fireflies. How many fireflies did he have to crush to cover a whole cat? Oh, my God, so many. Still a rumor, but still, yeah, that's a lot. They're tiny.

We had fireflies in Connecticut, so, like, if you catch a firefly and, like, you know, you crush it in between your hands. You go glow in the dark stuff would all be on your hand. They're so easy to crush, I'll tell you. Yeah, let me tell you. Is it my mom's family?

We tried to catch them in a butter dish, and then, like, the lid would come down on one of them, and it would, you'd feel bad, and then it just kept happening. Because they're stupid. They're stupid. So dumb. You don't feel as bad. I was a teenager before I saw a firefly or a glowbook of any. I mean, they didn't have them where I grew up. Right.

Yeah, I mean, I see them in all these stories and, you know, movies and things, and it really, it just seemed like magic. Luciferase is actually really interesting because not only does it help fireflies mate and attract prey. I mean, that's kind of why they light up. Scientists have been using Luciferase in many, many awesome uses, including when they do a lot of studying of cell populations, they would inject cells or the cells that you want to monitor with this enzyme. so it's non-invasive and you can see how the population of the cell is moving and it's not you know it's not killing the animal you can see it without dissecting an animal usually it's mice that they're using it also they have successfully they have successfully engineered many many animals that can glow in the dark using this including pigs Taiwan has three awesome glow in the dark pigs I think there's a beagle somewhere I think there is Yeah, and a tobacco plant also glows and dark, which is, yeah, nothing really compared to, like, a beagle and a dark beagle.

I think the glow and dark pig is my favorite. Yeah. Yeah. And they're pretty, I mean, they seem pretty hot. Like, nothing's weird about them. Yeah, the pigs are like, can't sleep very well, man. It's just so bright. Yeah.

I think glow in the dark pigs may have been an action figure in the 1980s. Some glow in the dark ass. Glove pigs. Well, actually, there is, um, I was looking at. the toys and I saw I saw one that I thought of you Chris Oh yeah Glow scare

Scare glow Scare glow Scare glow Scare glow Scare glow Which is That was the Masters of the universe Skeleton that was glow

In the dark Well so supposedly Scare glow Is the ghost of Skeletor That's how he was described The Ghost of Skeletor But Skeletor Nobody knows if that means

Nobody knows if that means He's a ghost that's in the employ of Skeletor Or if it's... Or if Skeletor actually died and that's his ghost. The Skeletor is a skeleton. They didn't get into it. Partially.

Like he's got muscles, but a skull for a head. Yeah, but Scareglo, of course, everybody had the same body in he name, right? So Scareglo just has a skeleton painted onto the muscle body. It made no sense. He had a cool purple cape that's very rare now. Oh. Just the cape? Just the cape.

The cape is really hard to find. Was he the only one with it? Yeah. Yeah. There's a cloth purple cape. If you got that cape, they're like, we're pushing it. Got to add something extra to this thing.

They were, well, that was one of the later release figures, so they were spending a little bit more money, you know, making a little bit fancier. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, it glows in the dark. Yeah, right, right? So we know we have all been to the city center, which is the complex they just built on the Las Vegas street.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. With multiple hotels and buildings and residences and all kinds of things that they put there. Now, one of the hotel, is called the V-D-A-R-A-H-D-A-V-D-A-V-D-A-V-D-A-V-R-A. The V-S-V-T-S-E-R-A. Okay. The rest is made up.

It opened in, you know, I'd like to buy a vowel. The hotel opened in December 2009. In the summer of 2010, the first summer at the Vodara, the guests are there, they're out by the pool. And one guest was visiting from Chicago. And he's sitting on his lounge chair. And he starts to feel hot. He starts to feel distressingly, uncomfortably hot. And he just like jumps up and he's like, like, I have to get out of here.

I don't want to look like a huge dummy running around. Like, whoo, it's so hot. But he walked out of there as fast as his dignity would allow. And ran to the shade of the bar area out by the. up by the hotel. And he gets, yeah, just him, just him. And he just runs in there. And he's just like, what is that?

What is that smell? It smells like burning hair. And he touches his head and his hair has been burnt. His hair has been singed on the top of his head. Oh, I'll get there. I'll get there. And he's, and he looks at the bartender and the cocktail waitresses and he's like, and he's panicking. He's like, my hair caught on.

fire and the bartender is just like yeah that happens yeah we call it call it the death ray it's like what it's like what you can't so the fancy skyscraper modern towers of the vidara are all of course they're all mirrored all up the tower and unlike most buildings this side of the building is curved nice gentle curve to it nice little curve to it nice little sloping, like so many modern skyscrapers, they want to put in a, you know, this, this nice little curve on the building. And around, you know, around noon time, the sun is high in the sky. It's at a point where it hits the curved windows on the Vodara.

And what happens is they all reflect the sun back. Focusing. Because, yes, because they're all curved a certain way, when they reflect the sun back, they all reflect it back to the same spot. Oh, my God. And it concentrates the heat. And the hotel employees started calling it the death ray. Because if you're in that zone, it's going to get really, really hot.

The hotel had like, oh, like plastic disposable margarita glasses. They'd bring people. Those melted. And they didn't know because this was the first summer after it opened. It was the first summer after it opened. But they knew before they let that guy sit there. Oh, yeah, that's true. That's true.

They did. They knew that. So here's the crazy Here's where it really is crazy There's another building now called It's officially known as 20 Fenchurch Street And it's in London

Just built Very recognizable It too has this crazy curved It looks like a building And a Ren and Stimpy cartoon Where it's like it just got all curved rounded edges and stuff Locals called it the Waukee

Tocky when it was being built It's a huge skyscraper Looks like a giant Like a Waukee Tockey Carty Just sitting in the the middle of, yeah. It looks really cool. It also has a curved, mirrored surface. And as soon as the building went up, people's, people's cars started to melt. The mirrors were just melt. Who are these architects or like? No, you say architects. It's one guy. The guy is named Raphael Vignoli.

He did both buildings. He did both of those buildings. He loves him, his curved surfaces. And nobody he's building death rays all over the world one every other and he's he's kind of upset because like he he he for the for the the London building he had suggested he's like okay well we're going to have to put on like like aluminum fins to um to so so as to not create a death ray they didn't do it like because you know the architect designs the building then he just hands it over to the developer they're like we'll take it under advisement They took them off, and that was a bad idea. And so now they have put the aluminum fins onto it.

It kind of break up the sunlight and reflect it in different directions while maintaining the same look of the building. Rugs inside stores in London got burned. Somebody took an egg in a frying pan and just put it in the hot spot. Oh, for sure. If you can melt a car, you can cook an egg. As the saying goes. Yep.

And so, of course, the solution for 20 Fenchurch was the aluminum fins. the solution for the Vidara is more umbrellas. They just put a whole, they had already, I think, put on the building. They figured this was going to happen. They knew that this was going to be a potential problem. So they put on the building, you know, window coatings that would cause it to be less reflective or would diffuse. Yeah, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough.

And the hot Vegas sun was still just making it super hot. But also, I mean, in terms of, like, sun placement, that's only probably that time. It's certain times of year and certain times of day when it's the worst. Now, you don't have to live directly in the path of a giant skyscraper to be affected by this phenomenon. More and more people are now installing what are known as low E windows, lowly emissive. They block UV rays. They send it out. Well, guess where the UV rays go?

They go to your neighbor's car or your neighbor's house. If you install this window and it's installed improperly, if it's, if it is an, any way concave, it will concentrate the UV rays on things. Somewhere across the street. People's people's like vinyl sighting is melting off their house

because their neighbors put in new windows and then like they park their car in the driveway and the mirror falls off off again. And then they buy a new mirror and it falls off again because there's nothing they can do about it. Yeah, wow. It's a low intensity death ray. That's like a mystery.

It was. Yeah. For a lot of it's like why is this happening and they eventually trace it to these new windows. oh man i'm going vague soon too i can go check out the you should you should go check out

oh i'm gonna see if i can yeah it is summer I'm gonna be at cosmopolitan which is in the same city center can you get me the death ray package please no I can they will they let me cook an egg I don't know if you can cook an egg

in the hotel I wouldn't ask them exactly I would just do it and if it's a pretty yeah and they use this same like they there are solar power plants that use dishes. Oh, too concentrated on a point and then collect the energy there.

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Conditions apply. All right, we got one last segment. Colin, I'm shining it to you. There's some light at the end of the tunnel here, Karen. All right, I have a music quiz for you guys. In the spirit of light, I wanted to put together a themed music quiz. Any excuse I will take? This quiz is called Light Rock.

Oh. But it's not like adult contemporary, I'm guessing. It's not adult contemporary. However, Chris, there are many layers to this course. Yeah, yeah, okay. All right, so when you hear the phrase light rock, if you had to name a decade, what decade would you associate with light rock? The 70s. Yes, the 70s.

Chris and I are on the same wavelength, at least. For me, at least, I consider the 70s as the light rock decade. So, in this quiz, all of the songs come from the 1970s. Okay. We give a wrong answer. And further, every song in this quiz is connected somehow to the word light. Wow. Okay, so I'm helping you guys here.

It's like a lightseption. There you go, lightseption. These are all big, big, big hits, all charted. Use your brains. I'm sure you guys have heard all of these before. Light rock. So for all of these, I just need as an answer, who is the artist performing the song?

Here we go. First track, who is this artist? When the lights go down in the city and the sun shines on the bay. I want to be there in my city Oh I think everybody on this one Journey

It is Journey And the song Lights Oh yeah Lights go down in the city Yes Are they talking about San Francisco? They are talking about San Francisco I did however read that

When he wrote the song originally It was based on the song he wrote about Los Angeles. But after moving to San Francisco, he adapted it and it kind of seemed to work better. All right, here we go. Another track from 1978. Please tell me who is the artist. And be specific.

Ooh. Okay. Okay. I'll get you guys Flashlight I think Dana was first on the draw there, Dana. Uh, Parliament. It is Parliament.

Yes, yes. I would not have accepted Funkadelic. I would not have accepted George Clinton. George Clinton. Yes, Parliament. Flashlight. Oh, that's what he said. Flashlight.

Yes. Oh, I, you know. All right, moving right along. Who is this performer? There's some bloodshot, forget me, not whispered daddy's with an ear shot, save the box shot, turn up the van. And she was blinded by the light. Oh, cut loose like a deuce, another runner in the night. Blinded by the light.

Chris. Is that Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers? It is not Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. At first I thought it was, because it's rambly. I like it. Yeah, it's a little rambly. This is not a one-hit wonder, right? This is not a one-hit wonder, certainly not.

This song is definitely more famous, performed by Manfred Mann, Earth Band. But this is not Manfred Man. This is... Hall of Oates. Not Hollen Oates. This is performed by the man who wrote this song. Mr. Bruce Springsteen. Oh, it did so.

Yeah. Bruce Springsteen off of his first album, 1973. He was told to write a hit for the album. So this was one of the songs he wrote. And it was not a hit for him. It was a hit for Manford Man. Yeah.

Blinded by the light. It's funny. The way he was singing it didn't sound like a radio song. Yeah. Yeah. But he wasn't really on beat. It was kind of radio. It is very jangly compared to the Manford Man version.

It sounded nice, but yeah. jingly. Ninety-three for that one. All right, here we go. 1975, one of the biggest hits of 1975. Who is this artist? Ha, ha, woman, cry and shame. But you ain't got nobody else to blame me.

We have a woman I need a buzzer I need a buzzer Chris Yeah how is it related? Good question Karen Oh, oh, oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh I need a buzzer here Chris buzzed in

Gordon Lightfoot It is not Gordon Lightball It's an electric light orchestra Yes, Dave E-L-O, yeah, with Jeff Lynn there on vocals, Electric Light Orchestra. I get medieval woman. Isn't there like a black magic woman?

So, Karen, I'm about to blow your mind. It's actually evil woman. Oh, not medieval woman. Yeah. Is that an eggorn? Evil woman. Black magic woman by Santana. And then American woman.

It's like all in that era. It's true, you're right. Black magic woman was like, Fleet Woman. Mac covered by Santan. Oh. Oh, snap. You just got trivia. I think we have a Blinded by the Light scenario.

Yeah, as made famous by. Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah. Yes. Evil woman. E.L.O. E.O.

Medieval woman. Medieval. I was like, what else specific? But nothing they're talking about is particularly medieval. Yeah. But okay. The extended cut of the song. I believe to you.

I heard it too. It does sound like it. It does sound like it. Yeah, I'm sure you're not the only one. Manda Green. All right, a couple more here. Here we go. We're getting a little tricky now.

Who was this a hit for? Oh. They keep things loose. They keep things alike. Everybody was dancing in the moonlight. Dancing in the moonlight. Everybody's free. A woman right.

It's such a fine. Everybody dancing in the moonlight We've entered the one-hit wonder portion of the quiz. Anyone? I haven't ever heard of this song. I have a guess. Yeah, go ahead. Throw it out there.

It's not them. Ten C-Cs? No, no. I'm not in love. Yeah, this is Dancing in the Moonlight, one of the biggest hits of the 70s. So good. King Harvest.

Whoa. King Harvest. They came. they had this song and that was their hit. They told us that there would be dancing in the moonlight. You know, you might dance in the moonlight at the king harvest.

Oh yeah. It's a pagan. That's kind of how I imagined it too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It was such a good harvest that you're still dancing. Yeah. For the king.

All right. Last one, not only one of the biggest hits of the 1970s, this is one of the biggest hits of all time. Who is this artist? You've come along, and you light up my life. You give me hope to carry on. You light up my day. Dana.

Dusty Springfield. No. Not Dusty Springfield. You light up my light. Oh, man. I'm going to kick myself because it's, yeah, I know. You want a hint? It's a iconic song.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a singer who has a famous singer for a father. This song... Oh, is it, um... Yeah? Boon? Yes.

Oh, yes, yes, yes. You got the first name? It's a bat boon. It's Debbie, Debbie Boon. Yes. Debbie Boon. Yes. This, this song, it was number of, number one for 10 weeks.

It was, it is still to this day one of the top 10 singles of all time. It's, wow. Yeah. The biggest hit of the 1970s.

You light up my life, Debbie Boone. It doesn't stand up that well. But it does fit into light rock. It does. Oh, it does. Oh, yeah. It's super boring.

Yes. Yes. So it was a song from a movie, but she didn't perform the movie version. She did not sing the soundtrack version. But she, her cover was hands down hit. All right.

good job we got we got some good knowledge there for future trivia rounds i think you guys acquitted yourselves well for not being alive in the 1970s that's true i was not i was not alive no yeah yeah good job us yeah we were negative years old then cool all right and that is our show thank you guys for joining me and thank you guys, listeners, we're listening in. Thanks for your patience. Finally, we're recording new episodes. You can find

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