Good Job, Brain! - 173: A Sticky Situation

Episode Date: February 4, 2016

STICK AROUND for facts and trivia about things that are gooey, sticky, and syrupy. Chris found a bunch of sticky words but they're so sticky that some other letters got rolled in-- see if you can solve his adhesive anagrams. Sticky quiz about desserts and glues, and the bizarre but devastating wave of molasses that destroyed the city of Boston. Learn about some REALLY weird animals that use their stickiness to their advantage.  ALSO: listener challenge answers revealed, Super Bowl pub quiz cheat sheet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, confident committee of cool cats, cacoying for cranial crumbs and kombucha. Welcome to Good Job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. This is episode 173. I'm your humble host, Karen, and we are your eminently enjoyable entertainers, eloquently elucidating every enigma, eliminating ennui, even examining eggorns. I'm Colin. And I'm Chris. That sounds like a listener submitted.

Yeah. You got it. Kyra. Thank you, Kyra. And, oh, Dana's not here. She's moving. It seemed like there was somebody missing. You know, I was like, that could have sworn.

Yeah. Yeah, between you and me. Once it gets past two people, I lose track. It's just a blur. I have a choice for you guys. So we can do pop quiz hot shot. I'll just say the card is kind of boring. Or we can do a surprise quiz that will be very polarizing.

Well, I mean, I think we should go with the surprise quiz. I think this is like a leading question. I can tell by the look on your face you want us to go for the surprise quiz. So I feel like... I'd feel bad for the rest of the day. Like, if we didn't go in, then I would be wondering what it was. Yeah, yeah.

Let's go for the surprise quiz. Okay, one of you guys will be unhappy to have a surprise quiz. That's fine. Oh, does that make it... Okay. Yeah. All right, let's do our surprise quiz.

It's sports. It is sports. Okay. Guess where we are recording right now. We're currently sitting here in San Francisco. Indeed. The heart of Super Bowl City. Super Bowl City.

Super Bowl City. Super Bowl. City. Super Bowl Fiddy. At least as far as the marketing would have you be... Super Bowl L. Yes. The Super Bowl itself will be down in the city of Santa Clara.

Yes. However, it is close enough as far as the NFL is concerned. Well, they're going to be doing all of the activities up here in downtown San Francisco. That's true. Yeah, but the actual ball playing is not here. So they're the San Francisco 49ers at their home stadium. That's where the Super Bowl is going to be held this year. And it's all high tech and nice and new.

It's the newest, the newest stadium. Yeah, the newest football stadium in the league. You can order your food from a phone. You can order your food from your seats, yeah. Yeah. They have curry there. You can get like chicken ticam masala there. Yeah.

Somebody will bring you chicken ticama sala to your seat. Yep. The future. Yeah. So, uh, you, you were joking there, but it actually is not Super Bowl L. They, it is not Super Bowl L. I made the joke. They abandoned the Roman numerals just for this year.

Because it's not Super Bowl L. Yeah. So in sports it has a very specific connotation of loser. Yes. Yes. So it is Super Bowl 50, 5,0. Next year they're going back to the Roman numerals.

Okay. Well, that makes sense. But next year it will be Super Bowl Lee and then Super Bowl Lee and then Super Bowl live and then Super Bowl. Every year our nation's children learn at least one Roman numeral, which is whatever that your Super Bowl is. Okay. Are you guys ready for a sports quiz? Yeah, a Super Bowl quiz. I guess that's fine.

Granted, we know Colin's going to get all of these. Oh, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. But these are questions that will show up in pub trivia. Oh, I see. Sure. There's a lot of superlatives. This is written by my friend James. Can I, okay, can we do it where I get to take a, you know, a stab?

Oh, yeah. Sure, sure, sure. All right. NFL team with the most consecutive Super Bowl appearances. The Buffalo Bills? Oh, my God, yes. Well, famously, they always went to the Super Bowl, and they never won. But consecutive, too.

They lost four in a row, yeah. Oh, okay. That was the joke that Bill stands for, boy, I love losing Super Bowls. Ouch. Whoa. That's pretty good. It's not bad. It's not bad.

For a thing I heard on the playground in fifth grade. So the superlative also applies to Buffalo Bills, the NFL team with the most consecutive Super Bowl losses. Uh-huh. Yeah. Player with the most career Super Bowl touchdowns. I knew this. Oh.

I knew this. The most career Super Bowl touchdowns. Is a touchdown is the man who catches the ball in the end zone? Or is it the quarterback who threw the pass? It can be both. It depends on what the stat is. Yeah. Is the personal receiver?

Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think I would know? Oh, you would know? A famous receiver? Yeah.

I don't know. Ray Finkel. Least is out I guess cherry rice Yes Oh yeah Jerry Rice He has a dog

Also he lives here Oh really He is probably Maybe behind Joe Montana The most famous 49er Yeah ever Gotcha Or at least

Or right with there with Joe Montana I went running with him Did you really Yeah It was for a Nike thing We ran with Jerry Rice Team with the most Super Bowl wins Team with the most Super Bowl wins

Oh okay yeah You want to take a stab Um, Patriots? Incorrect. That is the Pittsburgh Steelers. Correct. Six games. Team with the most Super Bowl losses.

That is not Buffalo Bills. Oh. Oh, the most total, not most consecutive. The Jets. Hmm. Is that hockey? No, the Jets or... Winnipeg Jets?

They're also the New York Jets football team. They're also one of the gangs. Yeah. Yes, the Jets and the Sharks. Yes, as well. That's the whole story. Yeah. Yeah.

Also. Most losses. Geez. All right. So it's got to be a team that's been getting there. The Vikings? Minnesota Vikings. Denver Broncos.

Okay. Five. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Most frequent Super Bowl host venue. Most frequent Super Bowl host venue. The Apollo Theater.

Well, I mean, some of the... I like how you're like, I'm not playing your game. The Apollo Theater. I just call it. that. I mean, for a long time, they would basically just rotate between, like, San Diego, Miami, New Orleans. Like, they were all, like, warm weather. Phoenix would be in there. I'll guess a New Orleans Superdome. Yeah, I'll guess the Superdome. It is Louisiana. Well, the Mercedes-Benz Louisiana Superdome. Okay, sorry, the Superdome. Yes, correct. Located in the great state of Louisiana. Long before the Superdome.

Okay, last question. Longest Super Bowl in actual time. longest Super Bowl Guess how long it took Oh including timeouts and Commercial breaks From kickoff to final 10 second off the clock Beyonce and everything

Closes to the time Closest to the pin I mean geez If you're including the halftime and all that Yeah I'm gonna say that they only get longer over time Right right right Especially when TV

I don't know. Four hours and 37 minutes. I think that's going to be actually pretty dang close. I'll say four hours and 38 minutes. I'm going to price is right you. Four hours and 14 minutes. That price is right at the wrong direction. Right, right, right.

Super Bowl. I don't know one number. This is XLVII. So, uh, well, the winning, the winning move for you is to... Seven?

Yes. Biggest contributed to the extended time. 34 minute power outage in the stadium. Oh, of course. That was the big one. That's right. A couple years ago. Yeah, that was the 49ers against the Ravens.

Though, I mean, the power outage was, it was 34 minutes. Yeah, but it interrupted the game. It was a good puppy bowl that year, too. Everybody just changed channels. A lot of action, yeah. All right, well, good job, you guys. All right. All right, we did better, we did better than I thought we would do.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's some, some deep cuts in here, but those are some general, general pub trivia friendly Super Bowl questions that might show up. Yeah, especially in the next week. or so. Do we know what the next city is? When do they decide? We do know what the next city is because they have to start preparing off top of my head. I'm not sure where it is next year. Super Bowl Lee will be taking place in the NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas. Yes. All right. Well, good job, you guys. Last episode, we had a listener challenge. I played a, it was like a music quiz, but the point of the

quiz wasn't to identify all of the artists. There is a secret theme that strung all the songs together and the songs I played as a recap. change one more time to kill the fame I really I really like you. I really like you by Carly Ray Jepson Last Dance with Mary Jane by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Bad Blood by Taylor Swift.

You can call me Al by Paul Simon. And then weapon of choice by Fat Boy Slim. Now, whenever you can call me Al by Paul Simon comes up and somebody says there's a theme, my mind immediately goes to that the theme would be famous actors appearing in the music video. You are correct. What I have been correct. That is the iconic one I threw in.

You know, I feel like maybe the younger generation might not know. That the kids wouldn't know. And also, like, I think past a certain year cutoff music videos just aren't as prevalent as it was. when we grew up like so that was that was the answer you just there's celebrity cameos and their music videos what were like what were the celebrities in each song okay so uh you can call me elf famously chevy chase chase last dance Mary Jane is a kim basinger i really really like you was a fantastic video uh tom hanks who or he lip synced it right he lip synced the whole song that boy slim weapon of choice of course featured the slick dance moves of christopher walking and bad blood

It actually had a lot of cameos. It was a lot of Taylor Swift's actor and model friends. But the notable actors are Lena Dunham, Cindy Crawford, Mariska Hargetay, Ellen Pompeo, Zendaya, a bunch. Yeah, celebrity cameos is the answer, but I have, what I did not expect was so many people sent me this answer, which I wasn't looking for, but you're correct. It is, it is not only right. It's super right and specific. Evan Benedict first wrote in and said, I'm sure I'm way off.

You're not, and also you're the first person. But the songs all have music videos featuring well-known actors who have appeared on Saturday Night Live. Really? He's not the only person. We certainly won't count you out for being too specific, for being more specific than we had in mind. It just so happens that...

If you're going to be famous enough that someone's going to want you for a cameo in their video, there is probably a good chance. So Evan and also Cody Vest, who also wrote in and told me the Saturday Night Live thing. I was like, what? Awesome, awesome job. And those are such a jaunty tunes. I hope everybody enjoyed that. And in our last episode, we teased what the topic of this episode was going to be.

And I played a clip. It had no dialogue. And it was just sound and score. And I hope some of you guys caught it. It was a scene from the. Incredibles. And it was the scene where Mr. Incredible is running down a hallway and he's being shot at with these like sticky lead balls. It would attach, it was like a big ball. It would attach him. It would grow and it's sticky and he can't like, he can't run anymore. He just kind

of like gets smothered in these sticky balls. Because this week, our topic is balls. It is sticky stuff. Sticky things. Sticky. Things what is sticky. So stick around I decided to come up with of things. I just want to run. I just want to run the game here. If it's sticky, if it's sticky. You do have a baby. I want to know about it.

Yeah, exactly. He knows from sticky. He generates a lot of things that are sticky in various capacities. Which brings to mind, of course, the classic joke, what's brown and sticky? A stick. Hey. I really like that joke. It's a good joke.

It's a good joke. So I have a whole list of things that are sticky. And unfortunately, the words I wrote down are they're so sticky that they actually picked up other letters at some. point along the way, and were thus rolled into, and it became something else entirely. So I'm going to give you the name of something that is sticky, and then I'm going to tell you what letter it picked up, and then you're going to tell me what it turned into. So it's an anagram. It's anagram.

It's a word plus another letter, and then you anagram them. And I will give you a clue as to what. what that final word is going to. For example, a true example. If I were to say the word tar, T-A-R, quite a sticky substance, and that T-R picked up a letter B to give you a spoiled child, you would say. Brat. Brat.

Indeed. I'm going to have you guys use the pens and paper to help you out with your anagramming. Got it. But we can certainly... Are we still buzzing in when we get... You have the pencil and paper. Just use it if you need it. Listeners, if you like...

anagraming and you want to grab a pen and paper you might want to do that or not if you want a head I actually I find them faster in my head sometimes yeah yeah yeah for the short words it's for the short words it's easier for me to do it my head yeah but it depends we'll see well I may change my tune we're gonna start easy and then it gets trickier so here we go here we go our sticky substances picking up extra letters I went and got some sap sap sap plus the letter E gives us a popular side dish. What? Colin.

That's peas. Peas. Peas, indeed. Yes, yes, yes. I was like apse. Apes? Apes. Seen apes?

Not a popular side dish on this planet. I went and got some glue, that glue got stuck to a letter B to become musical instrument. Colin. That was a bugle. A bugle. glue plus B equals Bugle That same glue

While lost the B and picked up an end To become a fencing move A fencing move Glub Karen Lunch Oh snap All right

I got rid of that glue And got myself some gum Some delicious G-U-M gum Very sticky It got stuck to an A And turned into a place In the United States Karen

In the United States, Guam? Guam, indeed. It's a territory. It's a territory, right, yeah, yeah. Not the contiguous United States, indeed. Some gum got stuck to an S, giving us a word meaning self-satisfied. Colin. Smug.

Smug, indeed. All right, they're going to be a trickier now. Acquiring a letter P, I had some honey, and it picked up that P to become an alternate spelling of a word meaning fake. Whoa, everybody. Fony You're a big phony Honey was not what I was looking for

at that time so I went and got myself some tape some sticky at least on one side T-A-P-E Yes yeah

tape plus D gives us a word meaning skilled Colin Adept Adept oh rocking these anagrams

Now here's it Here's an interesting Here's an interesting one for you Tape Plus S gives us another sticky substance.

Whoa, Colin. Pace. Pace. Like paste pot, peat. Pace pot, peat. Of course. Pace pot, peat. Whole pot, cherry.

Getting very meta and good job, Brian, today. Now, let's add an R to paste to get a word meaning a meal. Colin again. Repast. Repast. Wow, I don't even know that word. It means a meal. Any meal or like a specific meal.

nighttime or just a It's kind of just a fancier. You might find that like in a like Game of Thrones for instance. It's kind of just a little more highfalutin. Indeed. All right. All right. All right. Colin, you're so good. How about you add an E to paste to get an obsolete unit

of currency? To get obsolete unit of currency. It was once used in Spain. Oh, wow. I don't know. the estop oh the estop

no not not at all the tapates the tapates oh the espata it is in fact the peseta peseta peseta

yes yes indeed you know what let's stick with foreign currency since that's going so well I like what I just guess we're like a sound Spanish estoppo the you know

cement is also something that is sticky and we can add an eye to that to get an old French coin an old pre-year-old French point. That is the Sontine. The Saultim. Saultim.

And finally, I have one... Sentime. The Sentime. I have one final sticky item for you. And that is, of course, syrup. We took some syrup and drizzled it all over a sea. We would get a Mediterranean country. Karen.

What's geography, though? Cyprus. Cyprus. Very, very good. Cyprus. All right, good job, you guys. Country by itself. Nah, nah.

The country. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I Wikipedia in it. Yeah. Because people confuse it with, like, oh, it's a part of Turkey. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not, it's a country by itself. Right, right, right, right. The Cypriots get very angry.

That's the, that's the gizzard they were thinking of. They're confusing the gizzard and the Cyprus. Oh, now I get to, man, being a dad has changed you. He just slips the dad jokes in so quickly, though. It really has it. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus,

IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. All right, well, we had a game, word puzzle, game from Chris, and I actually have a quiz segment about various sticky things. A lot of things that I like that are sticky. Well, no, you know, like, the sticky makes me think of, like, dessert.

Yeah, okay. And then it makes me think of, like, adhesives, which I use for, you know, for crafty stuff. Adhesives are great. I was going to, you know, where would we be? I was going to, and I didn't really find enough, unfortunately, but as a child, I really liked fun tack for some reason. What is that? Fun hack is the stuff. It's the moldable sort of adhesive that you used to put up posters. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I discovered this in kindergarten. And, like, there was, like, some on the wall. And I was just like, this is the most fascinating thing to me because it's like gum, but it's not gum, but he's putting posters up. And I got into it in a very nerdy way of like I wanted to buy, like, all of the different kinds. Because there were all different kinds. They were all different colors.

Yeah. I like the fact that it was both sort of like Plato, but also useful. Yeah. Okay. There was fun tack, there was handy tack, and then there was blue tack, and it turns out that the original is blue tack. Oh, and things just spun off. Like everything, it was invented by accident. Well, what were they trying to make? I don't know. Something better than that.

Some sort of rubber or something, maybe. Right, right, right. It's like, oh, it's too sticky, but it's perfect for putting up my Metallica posters or whatever. And you guys all have your Barnyard buzzers. And I should say, yeah, I guess anyone at home is confused. I am using Dana's buzzer today My buzzer has gone missing I think your cat took it

This is what happens, Dana, when you don't show up Chaos We left the barn door open And one of the barnyard buzzers rolled away Yeah, my paw is going to be mad I thought I closed the door So for today only, hopefully I am using the cow buzzer Buzzer is rolling down the planes

We got a call from from three farms over. It looks like we got one of your buzzers. That'd be funny. Is this one yorn? Yep, that's my buzzer, all right. I know it by the sound. Farms of just buzzers, like buzzers on the grass.

Right, everywhere. Oh, these are free range buzzers. Okay, you guys have your barnyard buzzers ready. All right. This sticky, brighty tree, one of my favorite, strangely, features an animal in its name, but is actually named after a weird tree. A sticky, okay Chris

He's buying time here Yeah, I was just, I was just I was pretending All right, sticky beddy tree Which is an animal, you know, I was going to say the Welsh rare bit But I don't think that's a bit I don't know that's actually a I guess that's kind of sticky

But it's not sweet But also I don't think that that's like your favorite Anything Churro Well it's cheese and bread Right, right right Has animal in its name But it's animal in its name

Yeah, I don't know But the actual... Hmm. What is Karen like? Yeah. It's a bread. It's a bread. And what's an animal as well as a tree?

Yeah. Hmm. Some of a pig or bird or... Dog, dog, dog tree. Snake. Sticky snakes. Pig. Sticky snake.

Pig dog pudding. Snake churros. Oh, I like snake churros. Yeah, I think we're going to feel really dumb. Monkey bread. Oh. Monkey or the. full name monkey puzzle bread or monkey pull apart bread okay so what do you mean it's named after

a tree it's not named after a monkey what what it wasn't to do with anything with a monkey well i just assumed it was like i mean i didn't think there was monkey in it just to be clear yeah yeah but i don't know i thought the illusion was like it's crazy bread it's monkey bread it's like it's you rip off pieces i don't know so yeah so monkey bread for those you know uh who are not familiar It is basically a bunch of little rolls, like little bread rolls and baked in syrup, like syrupy, brown sugary, cinnamon-y stuff. So it's this one big kind of one big loaf and then you pull apart. Yeah. So because they're all individual little rolls that you can just like share.

It's a great party dish. And it's like a cinnamon bun, but in a different format. It's like a communal cinnamon bun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so the origin of the monkey puzzle bread is named after the. The monkey puzzle tree. Really? Yes.

This is in the 1800s in England where, you know, having gardens and having greenhouses was kind of like a prize, right? Because you're trying to collect all the different, you know, glorious trees and plants. Before you could collect comic books, basically. Yeah. So there was one, Sir William Molesworth. Of course there was. Proud owner. He had one of these trees, and its Latin name is super long.

long. And so he was showing it to his friend because the tree itself is kind of, it looks kind of crazy too. It's kind of like a palm tree with a lot of rungs radiating out from the trunk. Okay. And so one of his friends said, man, this is like a puzzle for a monkey to climb that tree. And it just became colloquially the monkey puzzle tree because no one's calling it by its Latin name. It's just a nice, a nice popular name. The idea of a monkey trying to figure out bread was named after the tree because it kind of looks like it's all like little bits and pieces radiating out. So the story goes. Wow. Okay. So the story goes. So it has to do with the monkey like eventually. Yeah. The second order. It's a second order. It was a second order. Yeah. It was someone

saw a monkey, you know, eating a piece of bread. Let's call it that. Second derivative of monkey. Oh, yes. The rate of change. The SDM. Yeah. All right. Next question. Harry Wesley Cooper Jr. was awarded recently in 2010, the National Medal of Technology and Innovation by President Barack Obama for his invention. This invention once had the name of Eastman 910. What is this? What did Harry Wesley Cooper Jr. invent? Something sticky. It's sticky. It's called Eastman 910. It was invented for Superglue? It is super glue. Technically, cyanide. Sionachrylite. Sorry, can you say it again?

The cyanocrylet. Cyanocrylet. Yeah, I believe that's, yeah. Cyanocrylid. Cyanacrylid. Was discovered in 1942. Harry Wesley Coover Jr. was developing a type of plastic for war efforts for gun sites.

And he discovered this. He's like, it's too sticky. It's useless. See? That's what I'm saying. Yeah. They're all like, it's too useless, whatever. Right, right.

And then it wasn't until in the 50s, like after the war, they went back to it. And at this point, he was working for Eastman Kodak. And then so he, you know, kind of revisit and we're like, oh, we can use this for bonding and as glue. And it first originally had the name of Eastman 910. Got it. He used a lot of super glue and hobby projects as a kid. Man, you know what? And just as important as the super glue remover.

I really like the smell. Yeah, it's a very sweet kind of smell. That's anything that you're not supposed to inhale. Always smells really good. Like chlorine. Like it just smells so clean. me. So, next question.

Despite the branding, this particular sticky stuff does not contain any animal or animal parts. Chris. Monkey glue. No. A gorilla glue. Oh, you know what? That's not what I was going for.

Okay. Well, let's try something else. So it's a sticky substance. Despite the branding. Despite the branding. This is for gluing stuff together or? This is for gluing stuff. together and there's a popular belief that this item has oh does contain oh are you branding you

meaning like elmer's glue because it has a picture of the cow on it oh i see what you're saying oh it's not made out of cows oh not anymore right it never was it never was it was made of case well casein which is a like a like a dairy byproduct but it but it never had any yeah it never it's not like the cow who's were shaven or there's no actual cow in it Because that kind of stuff, it's not technically only for... So why is there a cow on the label? This is the mascot. The mascot.

His name is Elmer. And the funny thing is... He was the first president of the company. Yeah, we didn't want to put him on the label, but he's the boss. Elmer says, I wouldn't let myself be made into anything but the finest glue. So the same company has success designing for another cow for another company, and they just kept designing cows. Oh, really? Yeah.

Funny. They stick with what works. They just, Yeah, they just, yeah, they just crang out of those cows. He's a bull. Okay. All right.

Say it again. Bull. Boal. Bull. Bull. These are regional differences. Yeah, regional differences.

Ferdinand the bull. How do you say it? I say bull. Bull. You keep saying bool. All right. I hear bool. Like bullian?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, how was I was going to say it? Bull. Well, if you say I like that. I say it like the bull and bullet. Yeah. Bullet.

All right. Are we done? Popular dessert, sticky toffee pudding is predominantly composed of what fruit? Colin? Tapioca, is that what you're going for? That's not a fruit. Sticky toffee pudding is predominantly composed of what fruit? Fruit.

Really? I thought it was made of like caramel and bread. What are you talking? Sticky what? Sticky toffee pudding. I don't know what that is. Well, do you want to explain to Colin what sticky toffee pudding? Yeah, it's like a British pudding in the sense of, you know, it's like a steamed pudding and then you pour toffee sauce over it.

It's a really, oh, it's a very popular Eastern and... You got it. Figg! Incorrect. Dang it! I thought it was figgy pudding. Dates. Oh, really?

Okay. Technically date is a fruit, not just chewy sugar. Care for a deep pudding? How about next Thursday? Last question, my favorite sticky stuff quiz. Velcro is a portmanteau of two French words. What are the meaning of the words or if you can give me the actual French words? Oh, Colin.

I did a segment on this. Many, many, many episodes of practice. Well, good thing you remember your own segment. Velour and crochet. Fabric and hooks. Fabric and hooks. Right. Yeah, velvet and hook.

Yeah. Not invented by NASA. Oh, really. Oh, is that popular belief? Yeah. They were like among, they really. popularized it, but it was, yeah, they didn't, they get credit for inventing it, but not invented by NASA. Oh, interesting. Because I think it was invented way before the space program.

It was invented before the space program. Yeah. I mean, the rudimentary, the first Velcro was pretty rudimentary compared to what we have now. Yeah. Out of nylon and aesthetics and stuff. And the inventor, I forget his name, but he was, he was, he was inspired by seeing his dog had come in from outside with all little tiny burrs embedded in his fur. And he's like, okay, I'm inspired It's like, wow, it's really hard to pull these things off. Yeah, yeah. Like, there's something I can work with here. Yeah.

The two surfaces, it's a female and a male. Oh, yeah. And when they come together, they call it mating. Scientifically or technically. Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, that's my quiz. Oh, I didn't mention before.

So that Incredibles clip that I talked about that was in our last episode. So I, you know, I watched that clip. I was like, ha, ha, I wonder if there's a real weapon that does that. And I found something that is kind of similar. Like fires balls of stickiness to slow someone down? Well, fire something stickiness to slow them down. Okay, yeah. Invented and it was kind of popularized in the 90s.

And it was mostly, you know, the military were trying to find ways to deal with rioters in a nonviolent way. And so one of the ways is there is like a gun that you wear and it fires like sticky foam like a lot of it. And it just expands. And the person's, like, stuck and, like, falls and then sticks to the ground. It's paste pot, Pete. You're describing pastepot Pete's weapon. That is, no. And it, and it seemed like I saw some videos of, like, they're testing it.

It works in the fact that it does stop people. Yeah. But there are some concerns because it's like, well, if you shoot someone the face, it might suffocate them. Right, right. And so then your whole, you know, nonviolent thing just turned lethal. Right. So there are some concerns about that. The sticky foam is actually non-toxic.

However, in order to take it off from your skin, debonders or whatever, that might be harsh and that might be, you know, and it's. All right, let's take a quick break. A word from our sponsor. Book Club on Monday. Gym on Tuesday. Date night on Wednesday. Out on the town on Thursday. Quiet night in.

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and I'm spilling the tea on history. Join me every Tuesday for new episodes of the History Tea Time podcast, wherever fine podcasts are enjoyed. And we're back. You're listening to Good Job, Brian, this week we're talking about things that are sticky. Sticky. Sticky situations. So when we're prepping for each week's episode,

you know, we'll send each other little notes about, hey, I'm doing this topic, you know, so we don't kind of overlap accidentally or talk about the same thing. And so I sent to you guys two words from my topic, I said, I'm doing molasses disaster, all right? So now I, you know, hopefully you guys have just been imagining, what could he be talking about molasses. Well, I had a maple syrup disaster once.

Oh, yeah? Yeah, we talked about the Canadian maple syrup heist. That's true. That's true. So, I mean, I'm not going to dress this up more than it needs to. I have a tale of disaster and molasses. And I don't mean, like, a tanker truck of molasses was driving down the road and overturned and made a highway sticky and ruined people's afternoon.

I am talking about a true disaster that produced a wave of molasses, 160 feet wide, and 15 feet high. Oh, my God. Wiping out everything. in its path. But it's still slowly making its way. The setting is 1919. Oh. In Boston, Massachusetts.

This is not good because they don't have the sophisticated molasses defense technology. The anti-malasses. The MDF. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, that was not established. Right. In 1919, in Boston, Massachusetts, specifically the Commercial Street Wharf area, waterfront neighborhood.

In addition to being home to many Italian immigrants and Irish families at the time, it was also home to an absolutely gigantic, above-ground tank of molasses. How big? This tank, Karen, was five stories tall. What? Oh, my God. Who needs that much molasses? This tank was 90 feet in diameter.

What on earth? Nine stories in diameter. Oh, okay. Oh, wow. So it's like five stories high and nine stories on its side. Yep, yep. This tank held 2.3 million gallons of molasses, weighing more than 25 million pounds. Now, who needs that much molasses all in one place?

This tank was owned and operated by Purity Distilling, which was a subsidiary of the United States Industrial Alcohol Company. Now, why alcohol company? This molasses was intended to be distilled into grain alcohol. So, of course, you needed that much molasses because people drank a lot. It's so it's funny that you say that, Chris. So, yeah, so of course, let's just get this out of the way. I mean, molasses, obviously, a popular sweetener. But in addition to making things sweet, you can also ferment molasses to produce ethanol,

which has a lot of uses. In fact, during World War I, purity distilling company, and the U.S. i.a. They made a lot of ethanol from elassas for munitions. And weaponry, anything that, you know, torpedoes, you know, I mean, it's just ethanol. It's clean burning, very

volatile. With the war over and with prohibition sort of looming, you know, any company that had anything to do with alcohol was basically trying to just get rid of it. Just make it as quickly as they can. Right. Make that alcohol.

Make as much money as they can. Before prohibition comes down, you know, whatever, there might be a grace period, but just get it and get it made, get your money. Yeah. So purity distilling and the USAA was just on the ball, making as much molasses into ethanol to turn into grain alcohol before it was outlawed, potentially. Speed over everything, size over everything, as much molasses as they can get shortly afternoon on January 15th, 1919, the tank burst.

You know, I mean, this is not like you spill a jar of molasses on your kitchen table. you don't have time to get out of the way. I mean, we think of molasses as slow. This wave was moving at 35 miles an hour. Oh, my God. Yeah, all right. Because of pressure. Yeah, 160 feet wide, 15 feet tall wave of molasses.

Doesn't it Hussein Bolt run that in his sprint? Yeah. Oh, my God. This was just a horrifying spectacle. I mean, people died. Let me be clear. Whoa. Twenty-one people died in this accident.

Horses were killed. I mean, the entire neighborhood was just wiping. out. Buildings were pushed off their foundations. Oh, my God. It knocked over electrical poles. It was just sending things everywhere. And, I mean, it was just a gruesome, gruesome way to die.

You know, I mean, not like this, not unlike the sticky stuff you were talking about. Yeah, I mean, you're swallowed in molasses. It covers your mouth, your nose. Horrible, horrible, horrible. I have a quote here from the Boston Post, all right, at the time. Talking about... Are you going to read it in a Boston accent? I will not read it in a Boston accent

and embarrass both me and our resident New England or Chris. They're talking about the scene at the hospital with the victims, right? Quote, the whole hospital reeked of molasses. It was on the floors, on the walls. The nurses were covered with it,

even in their hair. So this was everywhere, all right? And so as people are going into the scene and coming back out, they're slowly transferring molasses to just everything that come in contact with. Right, right. All right. So now deaths and the injuries

and the damage is. side, cleaning this thing up as a colossal pain in the bud. You can't just hose it down in water. So they swept as much as they could off into the harbor. They pumped it out of people's basements. I mean, just imagine, like, as bad as a flood is, this is worse, because it's a flood of sticky, sticky molasses. So they did their best to get the liquid-ish molasses out.

But as it started to harden, people were using chisels, hammers, ice picks, saws, like whatever they could bring to bear to get the hardened molasses out of the city. So as I mentioned, you know, the cops and the nurses and everybody were sort of helping spread the spread of molasses inadvertently across the city. Human nature being what it is, there were, of course, gawkers, people coming in just to see the tragedy.

It's like, oh, my God, we're going to go up and see the molasses explosion. When all was said and done, over $100 million in damage, adjusted for inflation in today's... day's money yeah um i guess right uh more than a hundred lawsuits filed against the u s ia you know for obvious with seemingly obvious negligence yeah the u s ia they tried to float their story was this tank is sabotaged by oh sure italian anarchists you know this was this this was just a horrible horrible terrorist act i would you know honestly i mean i'm looking at vermont with their maple syrup business and thinking wasn't that.

Oh, conspiracy theory. Well, so the evidence, you know, as so as... Trying to break apart the union. As they were getting ready to take this to trial, right? And believe me, believe me, the city authorities in Boston were keenly interested in seeing somebody brought to justice for this. Right. It turns out the tank, the tank was basically completely, completely under spec for what they needed.

The steel on the walls was way too thin. It wasn't riveted properly. there weren't enough rivets Worst of all, it turns out the tank had never even been tested once, even with water. They literally just built them. As I mentioned at the

top, you know, speed and money was of the essence. They're all, we need this tank built as quickly as possible to hold as much molasses as possible ASAP. It turns out from day one, this thing was leaking. It was leaking so badly and so obviously that it

kind of became the unofficial source of molasses for the neighborhood. Oh, sure. People would come up and just bring containers up to the side and just catch molasses coming off the side. Oh, my God. I mean, it's streaking out through the seams, you know, neighborhood children bringing sticks up and making their own little molasses

lollipops out of it. It was everyone in the neighborhood knew that this thing was leaky, leaky, leaky. Yep. The judge was basically, you know, I'm going to come down hard on you. You know, see, so the company, the company agreed to a huge out-of-court settlement with all I mean just with with the city with the businesses with the families of the

victims millions and millions and millions of dollars wow and that's 1919 there's a lot of money oh well no sorry it's oh okay tens and tens of cents it was it was hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in 1919 which is millions of dollars today right right so I'm getting a lot of these details and even one amazing photo of the scene that maybe we can find a way to post it on the website or I wish I could share this with you, listeners. I mean, just a shot in a neighborhood. It's just, you know, it just looks like a brown bomb went off and just horrible, horrible.

As a new dad, I know a lot about that. Getting a lot of these details from an article written by Chuck Lyons writing for history today. And so he wrapped up his version of the story with, he wrapped up his version of the story with an anecdote saying that local residents. in the neighborhood insist that a faint smell lingers to this day. They say that on warm summer days the air is still tinged with

the sweet cloying scent of molasses. Oh, phantom smell. Phantom smell. I mean, I find like, you know, tsunamis are intimidating enough, but that's just when it's water. 35 miles per hour. 35 miles an hour, 15 foot tall wave of molasses

coming at you. Here's the photo. I don't even know what I'm looking at. It looks like, it really looks like war time. It does. It looks like a harbor during wartime. Holy cow. The tank apparently was located pretty near one of the elevated trains, and they say it nearly knocked a train off the tracks.

Oh my God. How did I never hear about this? My first two thoughts when I heard the story or so, how have I never heard this before? And I need to share this with good job brain listeners. And to end the show, of course, with a topic like stickiness, there's no way I wasn't going to talk about sticky animals. Because I have some very satisfying and very gross, sticky animal facts. Some interesting.

They have sticky animals now? Well, animals that use stickiness. Oh, okay. Either for defense or for fun. You thought like the way they were breeding, like, glow in the dark pigs. They were breeding, like, sticky puppies. They were like a sticky dog. Yeah, yeah.

Why would you need a sticky dog? We'll let marketing worry about that, Karen. Stick them to stick them to another sticky dog. Yeah. Now you have two dogs. Yeah. I have three weird animal facts that I have to share with you guys. First one is of a bird, and we've mentioned a lot of birds recently.

Weird jerk birds. Birds have jerk behavior, and this is kind of a jerk bird, too. And this is a fulmar. A fulmar is kind of looks like a seagull, but not a seagull. It is a oceanic bird. F-U-L-M-A-R? Yes. Okay, okay.

Ful-M-R. F-M-R. It does sound like pasta. Ful-M-R. This bird, when they make, they make. they make a permanent pair, and then when they have a baby, it's one egg, which is a big gamble for birds or any animals that lay eggs to lay one. You don't want to put all your egg in one basket.

Yeah, well, when you have one, you have one basket. So, of course, I mean, it makes sense that this one egg being by the ocean and there's like predators, when it hatches this one little helpless bird, what can it do to prevent predators from eating it so this weird cute and fluffy little helpless bird has a tactic so this full mar chick will vomit its stomach contents include and it's really unique because it's bright orange what it does is not only does it detract the predators from like hey don't mess with me but what happens is that oil gets on the feathers of the predator birds and it mats the feathers. So, A, it has trouble flying.

B, it's probably going to be like a sea oceanic bird, and it will drown. It will fall and drown because it can't get the stuff off. And the feathers all matted together. Shouldn't have missed with full marf? You just wait and be the second bird. Right, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're just waiting. Right, right. That bird, how many, how many pukes is this chick have?

I know what you're thinking. You vomit up the entire content of this stuff. It's a gamble. And the second animal I want to share with you is the Malaysian exploding ants. It sounds like something that Wiley Coyote orders from the Acmey. It does. He would just get a jar of Malaysian exploding ants. These ants, their head is huge.

And their defense behavior basically is self-destruction. And this is last resort. This is like last resort. So this is communal animal behavior. Right. So save the hive. Yes, exactly.

It's saving the rest of the army. So when provoked or last resort, its defense mechanism, its head is really giant because it has the, the mandibles, right? In the mandibles, there are these glands that run through the entire body of the ant.

And it's filled with poison. And so, you know, when it's last resort, the worker ant will basically, contract its muscles to rupture the gland, which will explode its kamikaze. It's like, it's suicide, and it will explode this sticky spray from the gland and also the rest of the corpse or whatever onto the predator.

And the glue, well, the gland has corrosive properties. It irritates. It might irritate a couple of animals. It might entangle some of the animals because it's sticky. but also I mean if it's depending on what kind of animal it's also like yo back yeah this is not worth the reward this is not worth that we all explode so yeah yeah I'm explode yeah all my friends back there you're not going to be calling 12,000 bluffs so it's I mean it's kind of it's kind of bittersweet I will take one for the team exactly man

it's it's kind of formidable and finally I want to talk about the parrot fish which is the nature's derpeous looking fish. You guys know what a parrotfish looks like, right? No. Parrot, they do look derpy. They're rarely derpy. Yeah. Okay, okay.

Their lips and their eyeballs are kind of very well defined. Got it. So they just sort of look like... So parrotfish, they have this problem where they, there's a type of family of crustacean, very, very small, whose larvae feed on the blood of parrotfish. So during the day, and you might hear this like nature's symbiotic relationship, a parrotfish will seek out cleaner fish in the... cleaner fish will like clean out and that's what they're doing they're eating these little crustaceans

but that's only during the day at night they're pretty vulnerable to to this this crustacean that feed on their blood this is so crazy the parrotfish has developed a mechanism where it secretes a mucus around itself into a sleeping bag what and it sleeps in its own it's really cute Huh. The mucus makes a membrane and so that these crustaceans can't get to them during the night. It can't poke through. This is awesome. And this only happens at night because they have to rest.

And during the day. So they blow a booger bubble. It is a booger bubble. And they sleep in it for protection. And the funny thing is you think, I mean, if they do this every night, you're like, man, that must be really tiring. It only consumes like 2% of their daily energy. to blow the booger bubble. Wow.

It's like the Batmobile with the shield. I'm going to try this tonight. I'm going to let you guys know how well this works. Keep you from your natural predators. I'll send you guys a report. Oh, man. This is better than I had even imagined. It's clear too, so you can see it.

It's coming out from his mouth. It looks like it activated like a little force field. It does. It is a force field. Shields up. It's amazing. He's like, can't get me in here. So if you're like a parrot fish, the nightmare scenario is you, you can case your little

mucus, booger bubble sleeping bag. And then you realize there's one already in there, yeah. It's inside the bubble. But more won't come. So during the day, then get the cleaner fish to clean it out. So there you go. I highly recommend people to go look for a picture. It's actually very adorable.

Wow. So how does it get out in the morning? It's just kind of bust through the side or does it like? Does it eat it? I don't know. Or maybe it disintegrates after. Oh, it's like time lapse. Yeah.

Or he eats it. Yeah, I think it eats. He has to pick his nose and eat it. All right. And that is our show off the rails. Off the rails. Thank you guys for joining me. And thank you guys listeners for listening in.

You can find our show on iTunes, on Stitcher, on SoundCloud, on Spotify, and on our website, good job, brain.com. Thanks for our sponsor, Squarespace. And hopefully Dana will. be available and all done moving and join us next week and we'll see you guys next week. Bye. Bye. dreams. Amanda Boucher, best-selling author of the Kingmaker Chronicle, says, quote,

this book has everything, high stakes action, grit, ferocity, and blazing passion. Julia and Alaric are colliding storms against a backdrop of the brutal dangers of ancient Rome. They'll do anything to carve their peace out of this treacherous world and not just survive, but rule. Enemy of my dreams is available wherever books are sold.