Good Job, Brain! - 303: Pest Control

Episode Date: November 27, 2025

Got hedgehogs eating your tires? Colin has a non-annoying quiz about annoying animal behavior. Karen takes inspiration from the Gros Michel banana and discovers other long-lost plants wiped out by blight. Take Chris' creepy crawly J! movie challenge, and we're giving these "Bugs on Film" two snaps around cocoon and back. And an UPDATE on a certain animal butt. For advertising inquiries, please contact [e-mail]! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, block rock and bloggers blogging about blobfish and blouses. Welcome to Good Job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and off-beak trivia podcast. This is episode 303, and of course, I'm your humble host, Karen, and we are your cordial, corny corgis eating corticopias of cornetos in Cornwall. I'm Colin. And I'm Chris. And we got some sad, sad news this week.

It is kind of sad. You know, on Good Job Brain, we talk a lot about coins, coin history, collecting coins. Big news for America, for United States for America, pour one out because the penny is going away. The very last penny. minted this week on Wednesday of this week two days ago in Philadelphia, one of the oldest minting facilities we have is, yeah, it is sad. It says it's been more than 230 years of penny production. I read an article on AP said, when it was introduced in 1793, a penny could

buy a biscuit, a candle, or a piece of candy. and now it's like in the yeah right and now it says you know of course right now most of them are cast aside to sit in jars or junk drawers and each one costs nearly four cents to make oh I didn't know that oh yes I'll put my cards in table here I'm not really sad that the penny is going away it's such a boondoggle I mean cost more than it costs four X you know as much as a penny to make a penny uh and Colin I think you hit the nail right on the head with the problem is they make all these pennies and they're given out as change for people pay with cash and then people take those pennies and they put them in a jar in their house yeah and that is

where they stay forever yeah so they have to keep making more pennies because there's demand for pennies to give out as change then nobody spends them nobody puts them back in the circulation and in fact they they kind of realized there were so many pennies out there like like hundreds of pennies per person you know yeah just in exchange drawers and everywhere that if they if all those people at once were to decide to cash in their pennies it would be it would be mayhem all we're doing is people get the pennies they don't spend the pennies and then we're spending money to make more pennies to give people to not spend and it's just it's just it's not. And so we're not making pennies anymore.

Great. Sorry. Definitely of two minds. I totally agree. And it does make sense. Like for sure. All of those things that you mentioned, 100% true. Not to take away from that, however, I'm going to take away from a little bit.

I read that the nickel costs almost 14 cents to make. Yeah. And so it is in part for sure that they cost more to make than their face value. But it's really, as you said, more of the utility. They're not being put back into circulation, whereas the good old nickel is, right. I read the dime actually costs under six cents to create, and the quarter is about 15 cents. So both the dime and the quarter are running ahead of cost, yeah. But the nickel, I feel, I still feel like people see a nickel, and they see that as being money.

Yeah. And they spend it, like more so than the penny. I totally agree. I don't even like carrying change on me. So, like, if I do bring home change, it just goes into a change in a change jar. It's like those big Costco mixed fancy nuts where, like, you only pick out the nuts you want and then you leave all the omens. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are the pennies.

Giant jar of Brazil nuts just sitting there. No one likes Brazil nuts. They're so big. Well, they get, you know, they, that's how the jar nuts makes, wait, you know? Put a Brazil nut in there. Coming in, hey guys, what's going on? Yep.

Go away. Well, everybody, I have a quick animal butt update. This is good job, brain. We love animals, particularly animal butts. Yeah. And in our Butts 2 episode, Chris, you introduced us to a very special animal called the Sea Walnut. Do you remember the sea walnut and what its special butt power grows a burrows a butthole only when it needs it, right?

Yes. It has an on-demand butthole. What kind of animals is this? It's a sea walnut. It's like a comb jelly. So it's like floppy, clear, very pretty, like a crystal pepper, I guess, bell pepper. Sea walnut can grow a butthole only when it needs it. Otherwise, there's no butthole.

Amazing. If it doesn't need it, no butthole. Ad hoc butthole. But I have another. Another amazing fact about the sea walnut. Oh, yeah? The sea walnut, they can fuse with each other and become one, one entity? One entity.

And you're like, oh, maybe they're just two animals that are like kind of close together. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. They fuse. And how do the scientists know that they fuse? Well, the team fed the fused entity, the fused jellies, brine shrimp that has been dyed into a fluorescent color. So they can clearly see the fused entity eating the brine shrimp, right? So one comb jelly ate it. Uh-huh.

And the fluorescent dyed brine shrimp food traveled through the gut and then came out from a butthole. from the second combed jump. Oh, no. Wow. Wow. Efficiency. So not only is it on demand, you can have another, your friend poop it out. Right. Right, right, right. Your fused friend can poop it out. Oh, my gosh.

Secondhand food. Out source the pooping. And I wonder if you could fuse more than two together. Can they unfuse, like, or is this, like, are they like a team now? This sounds a little bit gruesome, but. but they would slice the fuse jellies in different spots and separate them. And then within an hour, they could fuse back again. Nine out of ten times, the slice separated jellies can fuse together again. Teamwork makes the dream work.

Well, all right, I think without further ado, let's jump into our first general trivia segment. pop quiz hot shot here are some random trivia cards they're not all trivial pursuit though I have an old favorite entertainment singles Trivial Pursuit and another card we've seen this card before in the past 15 years of Good Job Brain Forte Forte Forte Tripea which is a kind of a knockoff it looks like a trivial pursuit does it has all the colors but it's Forte. Yes, I'm sad to report that the first category I see is Soaps. So love it.

That'll be fun. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Like Irish Spring and, uh, dolls. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Nutri Gina. Yeah. Uh, all right. Well, let's jump into Forte. Here we go. Blue Witch for Soaps. Let's do it. Oh, man.

Who did Dennis Cole portray in the young and the restless? Ooh. I don't know. Oh, my God. I can't even come up with a fake answer. Yes, Dr. Drake Ramore. Joey Tribiani. Colin, do you have a real guess?

I wasn't there some, like, villain on one of these shows called, like, Victor, something or other? It's a very soap opera name. It's Lance Prentice. That is a great soap opera name, Lance Prentice. Drake Permore is really. Good name. Not thinking about it. Yep.

All right. Ooh, Pink Wedge for cartoons. What is the name of the man cub in the Disney film The Jungle Book? Ah. Chris. Mogli. Mogli. Mogli.

Mogli. Yellow for space. Who single Space Race was number one on the rhythm and blues charts? Hmm. Race race. what what what rough decade or generation like is it like is it a 60s i can't even tell you i would i mean all right that was when the space race was happening i don't know if that was you know like based around that i don't know man i never heard of this single this is not my forte billy

preston oh okay okay definitely no billy preston okay okay don't know space race all right brown witch for pairs for pairs p a i r s oh okay oh okay okay yes Yeah, yeah. Which two United States presidents are mentioned in Carl Sandberg's poem, Cool Tooms. Cool Tooms, bro. Cool, tunes. Oh, wow. Cool, too.

Okay, well, Grant. Yeah, Grant and Lincoln, right? Yeah. Yes! Yeah! Because they're in tombs. Yeah. Green wedge for ads.

Sorry, green wedge, green rounded rectangle for ads. Green squorkel for ads. Oh, there is a, there is a name. What was it? We had a segment, how about the Ample Hills creamery where they wanted the scround, square round, scound. That's great. All right. Who makes Mighty Dog, dog, dog food?

I don't think that brand exists anymore. Oh, I've heard, I mean, I kind of remember Mighty Dog, Dog food from whatever the 80s. Oh, Colin? Is it, uh, Ralston Purina? Incorrect. It's not a dog food brand. Oh, associated with what we think is a dog food brand.

Okay. Is it associated with human food? Human food, yes. General Mills. Oh, good guess. It is Carnation. Oh. Let's see.

Okay. So Carnation, the milk company, created this food line in 1973. But soon after that, in 1985, Purina bought the company. Ah. Okay. But they didn't introduce it. Okay, interesting. Last question on the forte card,

Orange for fair play. Why didn't the Orient Express go to Constantinople after 1930? Chris, you got to sing it. Because it's because it's, if you have a date in Constantinople, should be waiting in Istanbul because it was called Istanbul after 1930.

Yes, correct. Kind of a trick question. Is it a trick question? Yeah, you're right. It is. Like it still went to that destination. Yeah, yeah. It's just not called.

that anymore. But it's, but it's, but it's, but it's getable. Yeah. Yeah. It's cheeky. Right. And if you're, if you're, if you're answering the other, you know, five questions on this card. Like we are. Yeah. As a team, most of them. Just a regular Friday night. You know, uh, let's see. All right. Entertainment, singles, Trivial Pursuit, Blue Wedge. Why does this guy's name keep coming up? What was Stingbad's character, David Bronier. occupation on the Sinbad show. Oh my gosh. Sinbad the comedian.

All right. Whoa, Colin. I was going to guess like stand-up comedian, like a la Seinfeld or something. No. Oh, my God. This is interesting. Chris. High school gym teacher.

Oh, that's not bad. Good guess. Yeah, good guess. So, yeah, Sinbad the comedian has his own show. Had a show. It's not still running. His job was computer video game design. Get out of here.

If only I have ever watched that show, that's incredible. I wonder, like, what the fake game is called in the show. Oh, seriously. I mean, I also wonder, it's like, did he, was he an independent creator, or did you work at a game design company? Yeah, I need to know. Wow, how interesting. Okay, we got to jump deeper into the Sinbad lore, some other time. All right.

Pink Wedge for music. What, oh, girl group. crossed into mainstream pop with the 1992 hit, What's Up? Chris? Those would be the four non-blondes. I said, hey. Hey, yeah, yeah. Man, there was a time.

That song was just seemingly everywhere. Colin, you're saying there's a time. That's a trending TikTok meme right now. It is, it is. With the Nicki Minaj cut. My child knows that song. Yeah. is a trap, yeah.

Yellow Wedge for movies. What classic movie is the prequel to the color of money? Ooh. Colin? That is the hustler. The hustler, yes, with Mr. Salad dressing himself. Yes, classic. I'm gonna, I'll take a slight umbrage at the idea that it's a prequel to the color of money.

It is the original film, the color of money is the sequel. A prequel is when you The movie already exists And you do what happened before that Got it I would totally agree with you there Oh I've never thought about that That's a difference

Yeah there's no intention of it The release of the movie Even though chronologically is from before The release of the movie is later That's right It is That's where the word comes from It's it oh you're making a sequel to this movie

Well we're making a prequel Yeah Take that card Excuse me Yeah Purple Wedge for games. What sport using a bow and target became an official sport in the 1900 Olympics? Chris?

Archery? Is it just that simple? Yes, it's archery. Yay! All right. Don't overthink it. Yeah. Don't, if you hear, you know, if you see hoof prints, think horses, not zebras.

Right, right. This is the entertainment card after all. It's not, yeah, going to be deep, deep. deep sports cut here. All right. Green Wedge for Books. What Comedy Central Pundit wrote, I am America,

and so can you. Yes. Chris? Stephen Colbert. Yes. And then last question on this card, wild card. What New York Zoo was founded

from the New York Zoological Society now named the Wildlife Conservation Society? Oh, Colin. Is that the Bronx Zoo? You're not from there. You live there. It is the Bronx Zoo. I did live there. I have gone there.

I didn't live at the zoo either. I mean, but yes. All right. Good job, Bray. Good card. And Colin, you have an announcement for everybody. Your game. Your dice game. My game. My dice rolling deck building game, Bear Bones. It is back. It is back and better than ever for a second edition.

We have upgraded materials across the board. I plugged it on past seasons of the show and maybe you didn't buy it maybe you never heard about it now is your chance you can go to barebonesgame.com check it out we got the whole deal up there photos and rules and all kinds of stuff if you are a tabletop and game loving person

couple family friend whatever go check it out we think you'll like it Roland dice who doesn't love dice playing some cards and now through the end of the year if you go to barebones game.com and if you use the coupon code, good job brain, all one word, we will give you 10% off your order and we think it makes a great gift. So buy one, buy two, buy one for your friends, your enemies, your pets. Guys, I'm in the phase of my life where I just stay up watching videos, mostly two things.

One is pimple popping. Sure. You know, I used to just only do blackheads, but now, like, I've kind of graduate, like, my stomach has grown a little stronger. Fortified. Yes, I can do now, like, when they do cyst removals. Oh, my goodness. Lipoma removals. I'm all into it.

Dr. Pimple Popper just makes very compelling content, and she's very caring. And the other realm of videos, I mean, I don't know if it's me. I don't know. It's the algorithm. It's both of us. and we just keep kind of validating each other's tastes. Yeah. Bee removal videos.

I think I've talked about this before. It is so amazing. Look, I don't really see bees that regularly in my everyday life. But there's like places in the country that just, you know, bees become such a problem. They make hives in everything. So like these bee removal videos, mostly they're like professionals with a heat meter. They can see like, oh, okay. Yes. You see the heat map and it's just like all red. Man, these bees are building hives in model ships. I've seen bees make hives in like barrels, underground in, you know, sheds. It's so interesting because it's such a problem that I don't see, that I don't experience. But it is kind of a nuisance for a lot of these homeowners who now they have to deal with not only like a giant colony of bees in their wall.

After the bees are moved out, now they have to deal with remnants of wax and honey, a big-ass hole in their wall. It just seems like such a, such a nuisance. I thought it would be really cool for a topic to talk about pests and bugs and things that annoy us. So this week, we're doing some pest control. Well, folks, I have a quiz for you that I like to call Bugs on Film. In fact, in fact, it's almost sort of like I actually wrote these like Jeopardy questions. So imagine that it's a Jeopardy category called Bugs on Film, creepy crawly cinema. I am going to give you some, because this is Jeopardy, answers, answers, referring to films in which

bugs of some sort insects of some kind had a starring role possibly and you are going to answer in the form of a question and the answers are all going to be the name of the film. Okay, okay, okay, okay.

They should get more difficult as it goes along so you will collect more fake money, but get those barnyard buzzers ready and we'll just jump right in. Sound good? Let's do it. Let's go. All right. Question one. John Goodman plays exterminator Delbert McClintock

in this 1990 horror comedy. Oh, they took my buzzer again. Oh, no. Oh, man. Well, I mean, Karen, you know, I think the rules of good job, Bray and R are, if you don't keep track of your buzzer, you can't buzz in.

So, Colin could take a commanding lead here. But Colin did buzz in. Colin, what is the question to my answer? What is arachnophobia? What is arachnophobia? Yes. So what's up, Karen? Do you want to try to find the buzzer?

Well, no, I'm trying to find something that... Do you have something on your phone? Something buzzer-like? Oh. Just any sound effect on your phone. Clap two Nike shoes together? Does that Transformers make noise? Is it like a gun?

Scrape a couple of looboos against each other? It's against each other. That's a good idea. Hold on. Oh, God. All right. Here I go. Here we go.

All right. Let's see what sounds like. Size 16 Nike shoes. Yeah, okay. It's not bad. It's not bad. Okay. Okay.

I think you can see me. Oh, my God. It's bigger than my head. All right. Yep. Next question. Much like his previous film showgirls, Paul Verhoven's 1997 sci-fi film about humans going to war with Iraqness.

has become a cult classic. Karen. What is Starship Troopers? Starship Troopers is it. Your next answer. The Battle of the Bugs is how CNN described the release of these two animated films in 1998. Karen. What are ants and bugs life?

Yes, we'll give that to you. What is ants released by DreamWorks as the first motion picture from DreamWorks and, of course, A Bug's Life, lots of by Pixar, lots of controversy between those two movies. Twin movies, but, you know, there was a lot of bad blood between the creators and there was a lot of thought that, in fact, ants, the concept for ants had been had been stolen. Stolen from Pixar. Spionage. Indeed, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, well, next answer. Can't get enough computer animated ants? Well, just watch this movie where main character Lucas is shrunken down and forced to live amongst them. Oh, Lucas.

Okay, that's not it. It's a computer animated film. Can't get enough computer animated ants? Watch this movie where character Lucas is shrunken down and forced to live amongst them. Oh, this sounds sort of failure. Oh, Karen has clapped in. Is it the ant bully? It is the ant bully.

Oh, I was not going to get that. Wow. Yep, yep, yep. The $1,000 answer, in her film debut, this character built a cocoon inside the ruins of Tokyo Tower. Karen. Who what? who is Mothra? Who is Mothra?

Very good. He's a lady. Mothra in her larval form. Good answer. Built a cocoon inside the ruins of Tokyo Tower emerging as emerging in moth form. Good for her. You know what?

What's her name Mothra before she's a moth? Does she have a different name? You know, I haven't asked. Oh, yeah. Name is destiny. Catterpee, yeah. Your next answer, Mr. Grasshopper, Mr. Centipede and Ms. Spider live inside a massive fruit in this 1996 hybrid live action stop motion film. Karen has shoot in again.

What is James and the Giant Peach? What is James and the Giant Peach? a boy just living in a gigantic stone fruit populated by friendly bugs yep squishy yeah they fly him to new york city next answer rolling stone said that this 2007 animated film was quote at its relaxed best when it's about well nothing oh oh everybody that was like a little trivia grenade. Like you throw it in there, wait for it, and then you get it. I think Karen shoot in before Colin could buzz in.

Karen. What is the B movie? What is? Yes. B movie. B. E.E. Starry. Yes, B.EEE movie starring one, Jerry Seinfeld.

Jerry Seinfeld. Yeah. That's a good review. That's a clever. Right? It's clever. Yeah. All right.

A few answers left. You're 18. hundred dollar answer giant preying mantises who can imitate their human prey are the antagonists of this Guillermo del Toro horror film

oh del Toro it's an early I believe it's 97 Guillermo del Toro film human scientists create a bug to wipe out other bugs, but then the bug that they created doesn't die off. It just becomes gigantic and learns to imitate people in the film known as Mimic.

Oh, I didn't know that was Deltaro. That's what it's, it's Deltore. Wow. Yeah. God, I got to take my hands out of these shoes. Out of these shoes. Yeah, exactly. It has been a long, long time since you've heard Mimic.

Marisorvino. Oh, okay. That's right. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Well, a couple more for you. Okay.

Believe it or not, this 1986 horror film was the origin of the phrase, be afraid, be very afraid. 86. Yep. Colin. What is aliens? I'm sorry, no. You lose all your money. Karen

What is alien You also lose Oh no This is This 1886 horror film Okay And not a lot of people know this Because the phrase is just sort of

Enter the Common Lexcon Be Afraid Be Very Afraid Was uttered by Gina Davis In The Fly The Fly

Really? Wow. Okay. Be afraid. Be very afraid. The fly. And finally, if you get this one, I'll be very impressed. Build as MTV's first feature movie, this 1996 box office bomb opened with a chorus of singing cockroaches. Karen. What is Joe's apartment? What is Joe's apartment?

Starring. Jerry O'Connell. I remember that one. Yep. All right. Well, great job, everybody. I think you all win $5,000. Bugs. Yeah, 5,000 bucks.

I'll have those send over here. Yeah. Bug out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bug out. All right, let's take a quick break, and we'll be right back. When you're flying Emirates business class, enjoying a good night's rest in your lie flat seat,

you'll see that your vacation isn't really over. Until your flight is over. Fly Emirates. Fly better. What's something you learned in history class that you feel like wasn't the whole truth? Better yet, what's something

you didn't learn at all that was omitted completely? That's what I like to call redacted history. My name is Andre White, the host of the Redacted History Podcast, the place where histories forgotten events, heroes, and villains

get their story told, one episode at a time. The Redacted History Podcast, Real history never dies. Stream the Redacted History Podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcast. You're listening to Good Job Brain. Smooth puzzles, smart trivia, good job brain. And we're back.

This week we're talking about pests. Colin, what's been annoying you? I am primed to talk about pests. It was a perfect topic, Karen. Like, not one, but two newsy pieces about pests in the last few weeks have crossed my radar. So, yeah, I was ready to, ready to just kind of grab this one. I have a quiz for you, too. We'll do this as a write-down quiz.

Get your implements ready. And we will start with a question about one of these very news articles that I read. Just a few weeks ago, scientists in Iceland reported that for the first time ever, what pest was found there? Oh. That's not good. It's not good when your country is in the same headline as first time a pest has been found there. Right, right, right. All right.

Oh, okay. I'm curious to see. Answers up. Chris says mosquito, Karen says mosquito, Karen said, you hope it's not that, it is the mosquito. Yeah, they found three, in fact, the Natural Science Institute of Iceland has confirmed. They say that they, you know, probably got there through, you know, international trade freight. What's interesting and worrying at the same time is that it appears that they are now able to withstand Iceland's climate. Okay, there have been mosquitoes that have been in the country of Iceland, like on an airplane or something like that, right?

But they've never, they believe they've never been able to kind of get a foothold. And so they've been sort of predicting for a while that, you know, as temperatures globally get a little warmer, mosquitoes might finally be able to inhabit Iceland. And it appears that that day may be upon us. Dang. We'll track this as we go. I'm sorry, Icelanders. Yeah, the mosquitoes, they suck.

I mean, literally, but they don't, they just don't do anything good for us. Have you guys ever played this game called Plague Inc? Where you play as a virus and you're trying to infect the world. One of the places you want to infect so bad is Iceland. And so there are a couple of ways. They're like, okay, well, you know, I got to infect it before they shut down all cruise travel, like ship travel and air travel. And it's the hardest place to get in there.

Right, right. Oh, man. If you live in an area that experiences snowy winters and also has porcupines, you might be at risk of porcupines eating your car tires. Why is that? What? Why is that? Not while you're driving, of course.

If it's snowy and has porcupines? Yes. You are at increased risk of porcupines. eating your car tires. Why might that be? This sounds like a lateral thinking question rather than... Yeah, yeah. Okay, hold on, hold on.

Some of you, I hope, listeners, this has not happened to you, but if it has, right in and let us know. If you know, you know. I have no idea. All right, winters. What could be different about living in a place that has wintery, snowy winters? All right, answers up. Oh, I don't know now. Oh, okay.

I like Karen's. That's wrong if that's your reaction. Yeah, that's true. That is correct. I have absolutely no idea what this could possibly be. Chris has written the snowy tire looks like a ring ding, which is true. True. It does.

Yeah. Karen has written aunt eggs. I like both of these lines of thinking. No, the answer is road salt on tires because I don't know if you knew this. porcupines extremely attracted to salt anything salty they they seek it out and they will gnaw it even digest it sometimes and so they tell people that if you live if you live in a part of the country i found some found some articles and resources from main for example where you have salted roads in the winter sometimes and porcupines present they tell you like come

home you hose your car off if it's exposed because they will they will smell the road salt come chew your tires or any exposed hose any part of your car that they can gnaw on porcupines like salt so much that in you know in parks or places where people might park and leave their car window open porcupines have been known to get into the car no and chew off the steering wheel oh wow at the salt from the sweat that's right on the gross leather steering wheel. Yeah. It's not a typical pest that you might think of, but they can, they can find a way to make themselves a nuisance. Yeah. Oh my gosh. They like their food seasoned. They look, they know what they like and we're giving it to them. I mean, I should say, you know, like maybe at the

start of this quiz, I should have said that some of these animals might consider us the pest, just to be fair. Right. If your garden is being raided by slugs, maybe they're eating your precious tomatoes, someone might recommend you leave out a dish of what common liquid overnight in your yard? Whoa. It's disgusting. Say this again? If you are dealing with slugs in your garden, someone might recommend you leave out a dish

of what common liquid overnight? And come back in the morning and... And it's like intestines. It just looks like intestines. Oh, gross. Well, I'm trying to think of, okay, I'm trying to think of what that could be, but okay. Okay, answers up. All right.

Chris has vinegar. Great guess. I love the way you're thinking. Karen has the correct answer, which is good old-fashioned beer. Yeah. This is a pretty commonly prescribed slug remedy in your garden, right? You put out the beer, the slugs crawl into it. They're attracted by the beer.

You come out in the morning and you've got a dish full of beer. dead slugs. So, all right, does it work? Yes, you will come out in the morning, very likely find dead slugs in your tray. So it did work to kill some slugs. They are attracted to the to the smell of the beer. It brings them, it draws them in. From how far away is it drawing them in? Is it drawing the slugs from your neighbor's yard too? And now you've got more slugs than you bargain for? Yes, Chris, that's essentially sort of the, the unmasking of this. I don't want to call it a myth. And again, like, people swear by this. People have done video experiments with this. And what they find is that, yes, it does draw slugs in, but you might be drawing more slugs than would

otherwise be in the area. And on top of that, they find that many of the slugs kind of just do a little drive by or crawl by. Maybe they'll come, they'll drink some beer, hang out, and then they'll be on their merry way. They don't end up in the dish, right? So what you are catching is, I don't know, maybe the dumbest or the slowest or the most easily inebriated slugs. You are catching slugs, but you might, might, you might be bringing more slugs to the area than you're catching and maybe making your problem worse. Speaking of garden destroyers, have either of you ever been unfortunate enough to run into a skunk or the business end of a skunk? No.

I once found a skunk stuck in a trash can in San Francisco. Okay. And then I made him a little ramp so that it can climb out. Wow. So right, skunks, you know, they don't want to spray, but they will spray if they have to. A skunk, this is a multiple choice question, A, B, or C. A skunk can reliably, okay, with accuracy, hit a target with their spray from how far away? Is it A up to 10 feet away?

Is it B up to 15 feet away? Is it C up to 20 feet away? Skunks have two glands, not one, two. There's one on each side of the anus there that generate. rate the spray. Emphasize. I pronounce that. Yeah.

All right. Answers up. 10 feet, 15 feet, 20 feet. What's the safe zone if you're messing with a skunk? Karen says 20 feet. Chris says 20 feet. No, you guys are overestimating a little bit. It is, in fact, 10 feet with precision.

10 feet with precision. With precision. But they do caution all the skunk experts that like you're still in the splash zone up to around 15 feet. Exactly. Exactly. It's like, come on now. You know, like, like, why chance it?

Why be 15 feet away and say, well, he's not going to precise. Yeah, their last resort. Like, they, it uses resources and it's not, and it's not a small deal for them. If you get a skunk mad enough or cornered enough or a predator riled up enough that they resort to actually spraying, they've got enough kind of, you know, in the chamber for five, six successive sprays. But then-executive. Yeah, yeah. It's not just one.

It's not just one. They can hit you with the double. They can hit you with the triple if they need to. Yeah, right. That's turkey. But if once they run down what's in store, they can recharge up to 10 days it can take. So it's a big deal to use the spray. Yeah.

Did we know on the show? Did we collectively know that skunk spray is flammable? It is. No. Oh, really? Highly flammable, apparently, yes. I don't know if this is true, but I know the home remedy is if you get sprayed, you take a tomato juice bath. You know, I'm glad you brought that up. I did, in the course of my research, come across articles saying, like, despite the fact that you may hear this as a folk remedy, the tomato juice, it is not true. You don't, yeah, the, like a peen or, yeah.

I don't have the right proportions here, but, like, hydrogen peroxide and baking soda are kind of your way to go. Yeah, not tomato juice. Yeah, yeah. Man, who came up with that rumor then? My dad told me that once as a kid. Hunts company, yeah. No skunks anywhere near where we lived at the time. You know, speaking of being out in nature hiking,

one of the many potential pests to watch out for is ticks, disease carriers, unpleasant bloodsuckers. If you find yourself with a tick attached to your skin, another multiple choice, Which of these methods is the best recommended way to remove that tick? Is it A, do you cover it with petroleum jelly or baby oil so it can't breathe and will withdraw? That's A. B, do you hold the end of a burned out match or other hot item to its tail end, causing it to withdraw? or C, do you grab some tweezers and carefully pull it out?

All of these you will find recommended, but one of them is the correct answer. Why is it the most or recommended or the most correct? I have heard all of these from various sources. Yep. All right. All right. Answers up. A, B, or C.

All right. Chris has A cut off the air. Karen has A cut off the air. That was what I always heard, too. was like, yeah, cover them up, smother them. You don't want to do that. Really? No, they can hold out a lot longer than you might think.

And it can agitate them and make them actually dig in a little further. Oh, okay, all right. And same with the burned out match or hot item to their butt. Like, it can agitate them and actually exacerbate the situation. I mean, it wouldn't me. If you put a hot match to my butt, I'd be mad too. Right, right, right. No, if you have a tick, get the finest tweezers you can, get as close.

to the skin as possible and just pull you know gently but firmly and just pull that sucker literally pull that sucker right out of your skin the best you can and you know try and get it in one piece you know the mouth the mouth parts may stay in there do your best to get those out too but you don't yeah you you you want to just pull it out is really the best course of action and then disinfectant and treat it and you know consult your doctor if you have a rash Gives me the shivers All right, we'll move to a much larger pest and nuisance animal A recent study out of the University of Exeter

in the UK suggests that doing what to seagulls makes them less likely to steal your food If you have ever eaten at any kind of beachside restaurant You have seen it, you've seen it the seagulls, they're hanging out They're just waiting to grab something. Yeah, what are you doing? Doing what to them makes them less likely to steal your food. Not doing multiple choice.

Yeah, fill in the blank. We've got some scientific evidence. This may be something that maybe you might do, but now we got some scientific evidence behind it. Really? Maybe you would have never thought of this, but unlikely. All right, answers up. Karen says, squawk back. Chris says yell at them.

I'm going to give the point to Chris. here. Karen, Karen may be close, but Chris, you got it. Shout at them, shouting at seagulls. Oh, that's what I meant. Yeah. Okay, you guys both get the point. You goes, it seems right. It feels right, but, you know, they studied it. Bless their hearts, the scientists. The researchers from University of Exeter, they put a closed box of chips on the ground. I assume they mean what we call fries, because it's from the BBC. They put a closed box of chips on the ground to attract the goals. And they play. played different recordings when the goals would get close, all right? So once a goal approached, they played either a recording of a male voice shouting the words, no, stay away. That's my food. I don't know you. I don't know you.

That's my purse, right? No, stay away. That's my food. or they played the same voice just speaking those words you know in a call just no stay away that's my food

or maybe a somewhat of a control just the bird song of a robin okay so you know another bird but not a girl but not a human they tested like can it differentiate between Yeah, that's right.

Of, yeah, okay. Yeah. And can it tell if you're mad or not? Like, not just are you human, not just are you this specific guy, but are you mad or not, right? They tested 61 goals across nine towns. And, yeah, they found that the shouting voice, maybe no surprise, but you got to study it, the shouting voice was most effective at keeping the goals from eating the chips slash fries. Did I ever tell you the story about the cheeseburger and the Japanese convenience store? Please.

No. First moved to Japan and I like had walked down to like the convenience store that was, you know, closest to the university that I was at and I got a cheeseburger and it's a Japanese convenience store. So it's actually really good food. Yeah, yeah. And they, you know, heated it up for me and I took the cheeseburger and I'm holding it. And I walked out of the convenience store and I walk about two steps away from the door. when all of a sudden, I don't even know what's happening, but multiple things happen.

I get slapped upside the back of the head really hard. It's my head goes down. And I say, as I'm pulling my head back up, the cheeseburger is gone. And I am like, what just like, all this happens in one second. I'm like, what just happened? And I see like a hawk flying away from me with a cheeseburger in its tallow. I didn't even get any of the cheeseburger. It had been circling the convenience store

because it knows that people walk out of there with food, comes down behind me, smacks me in the back of the head with its left wing as it goes over my right shoulder, dips down, clutches the cheeseburger in its mighty talons, and flies off all in one smooth motion. It's like literally just like in the first second, I'm just like, bam, burger's gone.

And I'm just like, I got mugged by a hawk. I got mugged by a hawk. And they do say in, I do see sometimes people post signs in Japan that's like, no refunds if birds seals your food. Like please, please, you know, hold on to your food. Be cautious. Yeah. I was visiting somewhere in Japan and there were some monkeys there and they had a very similar sign of like, yeah, no, like the monkeys will take your food.

Oh, they steal your phone now. Oh, I mean, they'll take more than your food, right. They steal your phone and then and then they ask for food. that they'll give your phone back. Well, that's just genius. Yeah, times changing. All right, let's close it out. We were going to return to the garden for one more garden pest.

You can tell that we deal with a lot of garden pests at our house. Afids are a scourge to many a gardener, tiny little jerks, sucking sap right out of the plants. They can very quickly overtake and kill them. If you are looking for a pesticide-free way to control aphids in your yard, you you might release dozens or even hundreds of what insect into your yard. All right. Answers up. You have both written Ladybugs, indeed the correct answer.

Yes, yes. Have you guys ever done this with the little carton of ladybugs in the yard? It's very satisfying. I think we did. Yeah, we took the carton of ladybugs. We let him go and they all flew away. And it was like, well, there goes 20 bucks. Yeah, we've done it too, right?

You get the little, and for people who don't know, yes, ladybugs, they eat not just aphids, but a variety of other harmful two garden pests. And yeah, you can go to your local garden shop and buy a little container. The one that we bought looked kind of like an ice cream size container, like a pint of ice cream, and it had maybe, I want to say, like 1,200 ladybugs in there. And a common mistake, Chris, that a lot of people do is. They go to the garden shop, they get the ladybugs, they come home, they pop it down, they open it up. Maybe the kids are there.

It's fun. And they all fly away. What sounds right, yeah. What you're supposed to do is you're supposed to do it at night. That's exactly right. You do it at night. Oh. So they're sedate and chilling out.

And then as their natural rhythm hits them, they, you know, sort of work their way into your yard. They don't just take off and bolt. Do you want to hear a crazy fact about aphids? yes yes when aphids give birth to more aphids the aphids that they give birth to are already pregnant babies having babies if it's give birth to live young not eggs I swear they multiply so fast like you come out one day and then you come at the next day and then you just covered all over your leaves yeah How nuts is that? Oh, last little tidbit here, I have to share.

I found a website that will sell you a crate of 72,000 ladybugs. Okay. All right. For a mere 300 American dollars. Okay. If you really need the big guns, yeah. If you guys want to split it three ways. Okay.

All right. I'll tell you what. I'll bring them by your place and scoop out, you know, roughly a third. I'm not going to count them down to the individual bug here. Yeah, you know, give a take. Do my way. Yeah, then I'll send it up your way, Karen. Good, yeah.

Yeah, you know, it's just in today's economy, it only makes sense to go three-way on your bulk lady bugs. Hack the holidays with the PC holiday insiders report. Try this PC porquetta, crackling, craveworthy. You're going to eat that? Who are you? I'm the voice for the next ad, car commercial. But I noticed that show-stopping roast and...

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I have our last segment slash quiz. And that's a big setup. But that's just because there's a lot of interesting things that I want to share. I mean, we just hit our 300th episode. people often ask me like oh what my favorite episode of good job brain is and i always have episode 100 uh has a really special place in my heart but one of the more recent episodes that to me is super memorable and one of my really top favorites um is our episode about guides do you guys remember that as 284 oh yeah yeah your guide to guides chris you had a quiz about maps that you

show up in famous books. Okay. Oh, yeah. And then Colin, you talked about perhaps like the, the hardest test in the world, which is the grueling process of becoming a London cabby. Right. And I had a segment that I think about almost every single day. And it's the fascinating world of apples and designer apples.

And I went from someone who really didn't care about apples because I thought they were like pretty mid. You know, the bread delicious is gross, to now all I want are apples. I just want to try different apples. And that segment was heavily inspired by my friend and coworker who's obsessed with apples. And now I, too, am also obsessed with apples. So much so that we started an impromptu Apple Club at work. Of course.

You know, we just had our inaugural Apple Club meeting this past week. And I'm pleased to share that it was a big success. We had an apple flight. We tried the Kissabelle variety and the Lucy Glow variety. It's like the weird apples where you cut into it, it's pink inside. And then we were talking about like, oh, what other weird fruits do we want to try? And I shared that one of the things that I really want to experience in my lifetime is the Gross Michelle banana. I've mentioned this before.

Gross Michelle has come up on the show a couple times, I think all probably from me. Just to quickly recap, you know, that artificial laughy-taffy, super yellow, fake banana flavor, what we think is a fake banana flavor, but it's actually real. That flavor is indeed based on real banana, but just not the banana we currently eat. I remember learning that from you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That particular banana just doesn't exist anymore or doesn't commercially exist anymore because it's called the gross. Michelle, or the Big Michael, and in the 1950s, a specific fungal disease wiped out the majority of the Gross Michelle banana plantations, leaving us now with the bananas we have, which is the

Cabin dish variety, and they taste different. They taste totally different. So it's like, it's crazy that this banana existed before my lifetime. Yeah, yeah, we have this remnant of it in, like you say, just is in our minds fake banana flavor. So it got me thinking what other blights or pests that majorly changed the course of history in a way with our food crops or plant crops? I know it's like it's a little bit dramatic to describe it as the butterfly effect. But like it's wild to think that things could have gone another way. Right. Right. This will be a write down quiz. Get your pens and paper ready. Before the 1950s,

What country was the largest wine exporter in the world, accounting for nearly two-thirds of the total international wine trade? Once more. Before the 1950s, what country was the largest wine exporter in the world, accounting for nearly two-thirds of the total international wine trade? Hint, it is not the U.S. and is not France. Okay. It's not even in Europe. Okay.

Okay. Hmm. Huh. All right. Okay. All right. All right. I'm just going with meta information.

I don't know. Okay. Answers up. Chris has put Australia. Great guess. Colin has put Japan. The answer is very shocking. It is out.

Algeria, Algeria was the number one exporter and producer of wine for a long time. Why is that? Well, I'll tell you, here's the problem. This is the pest problem. There was something called the Great French Wine Blight. And it's not really limited to France. It's pretty much all of Europe. And it's caused by an aphid, phyloxera aphid.

In the late 1800s, this nearly destroyed all of the vineyards in Europe, almost wiped out the entire European wine industry. People were freaking out. Algeria at the time was under French rule. And so the French ramped up all their wine production in Algeria to kind of fill that French void or that European void until the Algerian independence. Okay. Okay, okay. Algeria is an Islamic country. They didn't want to become too dependent on alcohol sales.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so they diversified their plantations. I didn't think about the colonial root connection there. Again, the French and European wine industry almost completely collapsed. How did they solve the problem of this aphid? Yeah, what was the comeback? Farmers tried everything under the sun. I mean, they were pretty desperate.

They released toads. There were reports that people were electrocuting the soil and plants, homemade poisons and pesticides. None of it worked. And so what actually did help bring back the plants, they grafted onto American vine roots. Turns out this aphid is from America. But American vines had the natural resistance. Wow. You have to graph the French vines onto American vine roots.

That had the natural resistance. Most of what's currently grown in Europe has American roots. Like literally American roots. That is really interesting. That is, I love stuff like that. I really do. That's why we're friends. I like how America introduced this aphid, but then was like, oh.

Oh, our bad. We have just the thing for that, which is our vines. We're on the West. coast. This is before big Western expansion. So there's no Napa. There's no California Wine Valley. Most of the wine was grown in, guess what, Missouri and Texas. A lot of the grapes were grown there. And so that's where a lot of the vine roots that used were from Missouri. And Missouri pretty much saved the vineyard industry in Europe. Good job, Missouri. All right. Next question. In the city of Enterprise, Alabama, you can find the world's First Monument built to honor an agricultural pest.

It's a very classy Greco-Roman-style statue of a woman, and her arms are up, and she's holding up what insect. I think I might know this. The scale is not, the scale is not accurate. Where is it? Enterprise, Alabama. Okay, okay. All right.

I have nothing. Are you kidding me? Answers up. I want my agricultural pest. holding up an agricultural pest in Alabama. All right, the answer is up. Chris has written bowl weevil. Colin has written ball,

bowl weevil. The answer is the bull weevil. Yes. A cotton plant pest. There's a plaque, and let me just read the plaque. It's very sweet in a way. Okay, the plaque says, in profound appreciation of the bull weevil and what it has done as the herald of prosperity.

So in the 1900s, South was cotton country, right? Farmers in this area were just losing crops after crops to the bull weevil, which is a beetle that comes in and destroys all these cotton plants. So farmers were encouraged to switch to growing peanuts. And it was such a big success and it helped diversify their crops. and that's what financially saved this area. And so it's so funny that the townspeople, we got to thank the bull weevil. We have to honor it.

Thanking the haters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The sad thing is people keep vandalizing the statue. No. People keep stealing the bull weevil. This is why we can't have nice bowl weevils. All right. Next question.

One of the most known tea varieties is the Salon tea that hails from what country one of the most known tea varieties is the Salon tea C-E-Y-L-O-N-T that hails from what country? Not going to overthink it. Nope, me either. All right, answers up. Colin put

Sri Lanka. Chris has put Sri Lanka, correct, it is Sri Lanka. Salon is the old term for Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka known for their tea production, but at some point in history, Sri Lanka was known for coffee, especially under the British rule. Turns out, great place to produce coffee. So under British rule, Sri Lanka was a big and successful coffee producer and was not really known for tea until the coffee rust illness destroyed the coffee plants in Asia

and forced Sri Lanka to be like gotta grow something else and they grew tea. Not that they didn't grow tea before, but like almost went the other way. It's almost like a bizarro world. There is a famous dessert called Montblanc, Montblanc, which means mountain white or white mountain. And it is made out of what primary ingredient?

actually very very famous in Japan yeah it's a very popular Japanese what is it mean Mont Blanc so it's like a heap like a mountain of something and it has cream on it so it looks like snow so Mont Blanc white mountain what is this dessert

primarily? I don't know I'm just thinking of a white food I'm just thinking of a white food all right all right Colin has put rice. Chris has put egg white. It is chestnuts. It's like a cake and then there's chestnut puree that they just like squeeze. They almost look like noodles, but they just squeeze this whole heap of chestnut puree. So it looks like a brown mountain and with like a little powder sugar or cream. I like all those things. It's delicious. What does that have to do with pests? Well, and it's very, very similar to the gross Michelle banana.

For a long time, in America, we had what we call American chestnut tree. Grew along the Appalachian, very prolific. Appalachian. We cannot get dinged on that. We cannot get dinged on this again. What I say? Appalachian. You said Appalachian.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. We latch. Appalachian. The American chestnut was this tree. It not only produced chestnuts for people to eat, a great food source, and especially very popular during the wintertime because it's a lot. It's like where a lot of the calories are.

So popular among people and also woodland creatures, I guess. The American chestnut wood is legendary in woodworking. People use this to build furniture, to build houses. Let me tell you, the chestnut we have now is not the same tree. Really? It's not the same plant. The American chestnut was extinct, but it was wiped out by the chestnut blight. And it doesn't really exist anymore.

I think there's some in Maine. So what do we have? Like what are our common chestnuts coming from? Asian chestnut. Asian chestnut trees that came to America. And that's actually what introduced the chestnut blight. So those trees are resistant. But what they came with, the blight destroyed the native American chestnut tree.

And the crazy thing is because this wood is so prized as such a good like woodworking wood that once these trees are gone, they're like wood pirates like people are trying to steal are trying to mine trying to save trying to like pillage for whatever is left of American chestnut wood repurpose because it doesn't exist anymore wow yeah you know and if you know what you're looking for you just spot it and you're like oh it's very valuable yeah wow now it's gone now it's just but a memory but yeah so those are some of the misses that is very interesting And to end the segment, I'm very happy to report. I found a place that sells gross Michelle bananas.

Oh, okay. I want to try one of these. Like, you can't buy it at the supermarket. They're not grown to scale. But yes, there are some places that are breeding and growing gross Michelle bananas. Are they expensive? Okay. One fruit is $17.

That's a lot for one banana. I am extremely curious, I have to say. I don't know if I'm $17 curious, but you wouldn't pay $17 to eat this long-lossed banana? I would. I would. I would. Who am I kidding? Of course I would.

I will report back after our next Apple Club meeting. Maybe I'll buy the Rose Michelle banana and we'll eat it. And that's our show. Thank you all for joining me. And thank you listeners for listening in. Hope you learned stuff today about bugs on film, about skunks and about bananas. You can find us on all major podcast apps and on our website, good job, brain.com. This podcast is part of Airwave Media Podcast Network.

Visit airwavemedia.com to listen and subscribe to other shows like The Past and the Curious Rainbow Puppy Science Lab and the Test Kitchen. And we'll see you next week. Bye. Thank you.