Good Job, Brain! - 304: Spa Day

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

Slap some cucumber slices on your eyes because it's time for some triviatherapy! ...Do you smell that? What is that signature "spa smell" and what does it have to do with koalas and gold? Take Chris' relaxing quiz about popular and unusual spa treatments. And Colin dispels myths about swimming pools and answers your (eye)burning questions about chlorine. ALSO: this season's "Um, Actually..." roundup 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. Hey, hey, hey, all of you hailing heinous hairballs at Outcasts, Heyya haters in hay bales. Welcome to Good Job Brain, your weekly quiz show and Offby Trivia podcast. This is episode 304. course, I'm your humble host, Karen, and we are your squeezable, squishy squires squabbling about squagels. I'm Colin. And I'm Chris. For the record, squiggles are... Square bagel. Square bagels. Yeah. Oh, oh, oh. Naturally. Naturally. Yeah. She didn't know. I would never, I would never squabble about a squagel. If you had a squiggle for me, I would take it gladly. Do you think that the

hole in a squiggle should be a square or it should be a circle? It should be. be a square if they're doing your job right. I feel like you should be round. It would be difficult to pull that off, though. You get a lot of bagels these days, and, you know, they're so big. I mean, there's really not a hole to speak of, yeah, let's not alone a round one. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yep, yep.

It's like a butthole kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a crease. I was thinking it. I wasn't going to say it, Karen, but I should have known that. The bagels starfish. You don't want to lose the cream cheese, though. You know what I mean?

the hole is just a cream cheese. Occupational hazard. It's a leak. It's a cream cheese sink. Right. Look, we're squabbling about squiggles. Once again, we find ourselves here. Yep, we've become the thing we hate.

All right. Well, this week it's episode 304, the penultimate episode of the season. So naturally, it's a good time for our reoccurring omissions, corrections, a clarification segment, an epic one. Oh, really? Accumulation of all of the things that we want to address. So it's time for, um, actually. Um, actually.

What you said just wasn't true. Um, actually. Do you mind if I correct you? Because actually, factually, and quite enthusiastically, I was right and you were wrong. That's exactly what inspired me to write this um actually song. You were wrong. Let's travel back to episode 301, our game show episode. Oh, I was not on that.

It's not me. It wasn't me. You're shaggy. So we had an impossible quiz with our good friends and guests. And the guests and winners of the show, Warren and Sarah. And just a couple of honest mistakes. Thanks to all of you who pointed out, including even the quiz maker himself, Warren, has actually emailed me and don't worry about it. So first things first, Carl Malone, basketball player, Carl Malone.

Oh, I know what you were going to say. And Carl Malone's nickname is the mailman. In the quiz, we called it postman instead of mailman. But my theory is, my theory is why we kind of didn't really catch it. Carl Malone sounds a lot like post Malone. And so I think, so I think Postman, you're like, oh, okay, I get where you're saying. You're like, oh, yeah, that's Carl Malone, post Malone, postman. That's my theory.

Yeah. We have another corrections, a lot of, a lot of Hamilton heads rode in. And yes, wait for it. The song is featured in Weird Al's Hamilton Polka. it is not an impossible answer. So thank you, everybody who wrote in. And then I have some kind of cool follow-up. In our 300th episode, I had a sports quiz I was really into.

I think everybody was really into about team names and mascots. And then I had a question. I asked you guys, out of all of the NFL logos, what is the only team logo that faces your left? Oh, right. And it was the Philadelphia Eagles. And it's crazy. When you look at all of these logos together, it's just one that is, like, facing the other way. And I remember on the show, I was like, oh, that's so weird. I wonder, I wonder why. Well, guess what? We now know why. A lot of people wrote in, David, who runs lateral podcast, he mentioned this. A lot of people wrote in, it's because the eagle's feathers spells out an E. The eagle has to look on that side so that its neck

Otherwise it ruins the E A hidden secret E in the logo And then another follow up I had a question about what are the three major sports teams That are named after a named individual And they're three teams but technically there might be four if you count it this way So the Kansas City Chiefs you're like

Chiefs is not a proper name Kansas City Chiefs. Kansas City Chiefs used to be called the Dallas Texans. And so when that team moved to Kansas City, they can't be called Kansas City Texans. That's kind of weird. Yeah, it would be weird.

They held a naming contest. And so a lot of people wrote in and suggested Chiefs. Sounds good, but it turns out that the mayor of Kansas City at the time, one of the big proponents of having the team move there, his name is Mayor H. Roe Bartle,

his nickname is chief and so you can argue that kansas city chiefs maybe was named after a person because that was his nickname but then they also had a naming contest so that's a in the gray area and i'm going to wrap up with a brilliant explanation and clarification of a weird trivial pursuit question we had oh there was a question about the energy crisis and that paved way for the popularity of cb radio and we're like how does that That work? Why does it conserve energy? I don't get it. So, Mr. Sean Courtney on the Loeb-Trotters group gave us a brilliant explanation. And I'm going to read a little bit of it. And Sean has a podcast called My Weird Record Collection. He did talk about CB Radio. So he did some research. And he said, one of the ways to address the energy crisis was to institute a national speed limit of 55 miles per hour, which is pretty slow, right? So truck drivers, a trip that would take eight hours, now it's going to take 10 hours. And that's not good for making deliveries.

That's right. So truckers would use their CB radios to keep each other informed if they see cops. Got it. That makes so much sense now. So they can warn each other, be like, oh, there's a cop. You better stick to the speed limit. If there's no cop, go for it. Right.

It makes sense to, like, certainly as a kid of the 80s, like so much of the CB slang that filtered through was around like evading smokies and speed traps and you know things like that like it totally now it makes sense it makes so much sense thank you sean for connecting that's very satisfying that's really yeah so that's our um actually round up all right with that out the way without further ado let's jump into our first general trivia segment pop quiz hot shot random Trivial Pursuit cards and you guys have your Barnyard buzzers and we have a debut.

Oh. We have a new Trivial Pursuit Edition debut. Music singles. Ooh. We've been having some entertainment singles but this is a, I haven't seen this before, music singles. And I also have Trivial Pursuit Genus 4.

That's a good one. It's in Roman numeral. Sometimes I have to like stop. And okay, I before the V means minus one. All right. Here we go. Let's do music singles. Your first question, Blue Wedge.

What band has been playing together the longest in rock and roll history? Oh. Oh. Multiple choice or just? No, just open any question? Yeah. The longest in rock and roll history. I mean, gosh.

Are there any bands from the 50s, Chris? Right, right, right. you can think of still, still plugging away. I mean, there could be, there could be some. There could be some. If it's not the 50s, then it's early 60s, right. The Rolling Stones. The who?

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, rolling stones. Okay. All right. It's like, yeah, they, they stretch back a long way and they never broke up. Yeah. Oh, I see. Yeah. I mean, despite, you know, at least one farewell tour, they, they didn't, in fact,

yeah. They didn't, in fact, stop doing what they're doing for good. All right. Next question. Pink Wedge. What Nelly song mentioned sitting next to Vanna White on an airplane? You guys better know this. I don't. You sure do.

Oh, really? Colin. I mean, I know at least one Nelly. Isn't Nellie hot in here, right? Is that? No. Sitting next to Vanna White must be the money. Must be the money.

No, that is not the title. Oh, we got into a fight at Pub Quiz about this song. We got into a big fight with our. Quizmaster about this song. The song name is Ride With Me. Ride With Me. Not must be the money. Not must be the money.

No matter what the MP3 he downloaded off of Napster says. What YouTube video he landed on. All right. Well, you're right, Karen. We should have known. Next question, Yellow Wedge. What is the full name of ASCAP? ASCAP.

Ask Cap. Oh, my gosh. Right, right, right. right, right. It's the American. Yes. Okay. Society? Yes. Um, of? Yes. Yes. Yes. Uh, creative? No. American society of. Is it and publishing and publishers? The A is a real word. Not and. Okay. Okay. Okay. There is an and, but it's not in ASCAP. Okay. It's a silent, it's invisible. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. I've seen this before. American Society of Composers Yes Authors and Publisher Okay, all right, there we go

Perwidge, what style of country Rockabilly music was popularized by Hank Williams? Hmm. Hmm. What style of, now we've got to go deeper into subgenres of Rockabilly. Colin? Is this outlaw country?

Is that what they're looking for? No, all right. Hank Williams. it is honky tonk honky tonk all right honky talk all right green wedge what DJ mixer is known under several

pseudonyms that include Fat Boy Slim, Pizza Man and Fried Food Junk What is his name What is Fat Boy Slim's real name? Do not know Man I don't know if that's in the punch bowl

I'd rack this. Norman Cook. Norman Cook. Wow. All right. Last question on music singles. That's why you're on the team, Karen. Orange Wedge. What 2007 album by Enrique Iglesias was produced with songs written at night while the artist slept during the day? Wow.

I can see how maybe back in 2010, I didn't remember this. Yeah, you might have known this. But it's. The clue is in the question. Okay. Nocturnal submissions by Enrique. It's fantastic. It's fantastic.

Written at night while the artist slept during the day. Nocturnal? It is insomniac. Ah. You can run, you can hide, but you can escape my love. Woof, music singles was tough. What about Genus 4? Hopefully, maybe we'll do better this card.

Oh, yeah. Blue Wedge for people and places. What's the state bird? of a record seven U.S. states. Oh, Chris. The bald eagle. No. Dang it.

I think that's like our national bird. Right. So the states don't want to. Yeah, the states don't want to be like, oh, oh, yeah, that's our state bird too. That's what I figured they were doing. You know what I mean? Like they were sucking up, you know? It's a specific type of bird.

It's a specific type of bird. Okay, okay, okay. One word. It's not like, you know, the, you know, the red hair. titmouse or something. Okay, okay. Common bird. The sparrow. It is the cardinal.

Cardinal. Yeah, it's a pretty bird. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Pink Wedge, Arts, and Entertainment. What TV show star subsisted on a diet of mullet and butterfish? What? Oh, Chris? Mr. Red? Oh, you're so close. Oh!

It's not a human. It's not a human. Oh, uh, Flipper? Flipper. Flipper showed up the other episode too. Lassie, Flipper, Mr. Ed. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I didn't get that it was an animal. I was like, oh, what crazy diet was this? Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, Yellow Edge for history. What Frenchman told his troops to fire at the nose of the great sphinx for target practice? Oh, oh, yeah.

Chris? Napoleon. Napoleon bought a part, yes. Yeah. What a... This is reputed... Oh, okay. Of questionable accuracy.

Okay. Let me just say that I will leave it at that. Yes. All right. What type of vessel did Oliver Evans demonstrate on the Potomac River in 1787? Oh, Colin? Would that be a submarine? Incorrect.

Oh, really? I would have guessed that too. Interesting. I would have guessed that, too. I mean, I remember... Too early. People were trying their best to do submarines. Right, right.

Some people are still trying to do submarines. What, okay, so it's not a submarine. It's not a very sexy answer. Okay, all right. It is a vessel. All right, ready? Yeah. Boat.

What kind of boat? Oh, steamboat? It is a steamboat. Okay, all right. It is a steamboat. Green wedge for sports and leisure. What Red Sox great did team mate Luis Tiant? affectionately nickname Polako.

I'm sorry if I pronounce all those names wrong. Polako. So he's Polish, right? Yes. Yes. Yes. That a bad nickname. What team? Red Sox. Red Sox great. We're all rooting for you, Colin. Yeah. No, I mean, I feel like I should be able to get this. Yistremski? Yes. Yes. Woo.

All right. Carl. Carl, yes, not to be confused with the many other Yistramski's famous in this book. Yes, Carl Yistramski. Wow, good job, brain. I was on thin ice there because I could have gotten both Red Sox fans and Polish people mad at me, Karen. Yeah. But you did it. Yes.

All right. Last card for pop quiz, hot chaw, wild card, orange wedge. What company's mood ratings for songs include gloomy and ecstatic? What company's nude ratings for songs? Is it like, is it like Spotify? No, this is a pretty old card. Yeah, I think this card's too old. Oh, okay.

Oh, Colin. Is it Muzac? The Muzac Corporation? Oh, okay. There we go. All your elevator tunes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good job, Briggs.

Yeah, we did good. So we're all parents, which means, we're all parents of young kids, which means, means, yeah, it means two things. One, we're tired, and two, we spend so much of our time, like, brainstorming methods to get vegetables down our children's throat somehow. Yes. Like, do you guys have any techniques or certain vegetables that you gravitate towards? Billy likes to eat Alfredo pasta or any kind of pasta with a cheese sauce.

Okay. We blend and we try to hide. Oh, you do the blend and hide. Yep. And hide. I want her to just plainly eat vegetables and be like, hmm, it's good. You know what?

That method's not working. So we're resorting to blending. Yep, yep, yep. Collin, any. I mean, we lucked out that our daughter just practically from the jump has loved avocado and has loved edamomime. Past that, it gets a little tricky. Yeah.

So we basically just had to institute a rule of, like, you got to have something green on your plate. You don't have to like it, but you got to eat it. Exactly. So we tried to do that as well. Our younger child, we have discovered that she does like cucumbers. And so we give her some cucumbers on the plate, but she likes it, but then she will always sort of not eat it, you know what I mean, or eat everything else first? And the other day, Regina was like, hey, aren't you going to eat your cucumbers?

And she looks down at her plate and she goes, I. was saving two of them for a spa day. Great deflection. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Fantastic. I'm like, oh, okay. No, you need to eat your vegetables because she knows that from seeing YouTube videos. And she has demanded that we do this, like she puts on a face mask and then the cucumbers, the cucumbers over her eyes. Yeah. If you want to see cucumbers on her eyes for spa day. How about spa day for a topic on good job, brain. We've never done spa day before. Why don't we all take a trip to the spa today and get some therapies and put some cucumbers on our eyes and try to get a little relaxed, you know?

So this week, treat yourself to a spa day. All right. Well, let's, it's time to, time to chillax. Let's head. over to the spa and indulge in some of the many different therapies that you can find at a spa. I have a write-down quiz for the two of you all about the different types of therapies, the different types of things that you might do on a trip to the spa. This is my relaxing spa voice. We're all going to relax. We're going to release all that tension.

for this spa quiz because we are trying to relax the points do not matter and this is not a competition okay so you're ready karen you're ready colin you're ready okay all right the first question if you were to undergo halo therapy you would go sit in a room full of what it's not circles it's not angels if you were to undergo halo therapy you would sit in a room full of what okay

all right halo what is yeah exactly what does that root mean think back to geology class okay Oh.

That was my, how specific? Uh, not specific at all. Huh. All right. Oh, okay. All right. Well, I'm not going to change it before the geology class tip. All right.

All right. Colin says oxygen, uh, that is good. Karen says crystal. It is like halite. It is salt. Oh, I was going to put salt crystal. Is salt therapy. Uh, yes.

They would, um, vaporize or put a vapor containing a lot of salt in a room that you sit in and the healing and therapeutic powers of salt is what you would get with Halo therapy. All right. Get out of the salt room.

Get in the pool. If you are currently getting a massage while in a pool, you might be receiving what is known as Watsu therapy. Watsu is a portmanteau of water

and what other word? If you are getting a massage while in a pool, you might be receiving watsu therapy, which is a portmanteau of water, and what other word? I want to go to there. Karen and Colin both say Shiazu, and you are correct. Watsu is a portmanteau of water and Shiazu, yes.

If you're in a pool and you're in water, doesn't that make you kind of slippery like a dolphin? Right, like a dolphin. I feel like it's really hard to grab, yeah. Shiazhu massage is when it uses the fingers, okay? So actually that leads into our next question. I hope you all studied your Japanese. A practitioner of Shiazzu massage uses the fingers,

while Ashiatsu massage uses this body part. Hmm. Does Shihatsu mean finger in Japan? It means finger pressure. Finger pressure. Yes, Shihatsu, a pressure with the fingers. While Ashiatsu massage uses this body part. Hmm.

All right. All right. Okay, all right, okay, all right. I'm going to restate the question. A practitioner of Shiazu massage uses the fingers, while Ashiatsu massage uses this. body part. Commit to something.

Okay, okay. All right. Karen has written elbow. I thought about that. Colin has written feet. Ashi is Japanese for foot. Ashihatsu is a, is when a Japanese person is stepping on you. Indeed, using the feet to massage your body.

Yes. Next question. This type of therapy is derived from the Greek word meaning a sweet-smelling seasoning or spice. This type of therapy is derived from the Greek word meaning a sweet-smelling seasoning or spice. Karen has written something. Colin is writing something answers up. Karen and Colin both say aromatherapy. Karen and Colin are both correct. Yes. An aroma from a the Greek for a fragrant spice or a fragrant herb is where we get the word aroma, aromatherapy.

Yep. All right. Here's another word derived from Greek. Thalasothotherapy uses what specific kind of water. Another word derived from Greek is thalasop therapy, and it uses what specific kind of water. kind of water. Karen and Colin both say sea water, and you are both correct. Yes, because Thelosophobia.

Thelosophobia. Yep, Thelasso, A, the Greek prefix meaning the sea specifically, that's right. Not just salt water, but water from the sea. Sea water. Now, if you go in for your Thalasso therapy session and you're told that it is going to incorporate some algo therapy, what would you expect to find floating in your seawater? If your Thalasothotherapy section incorporates Algo therapy, what would you expect to find floating in your seawater?

If you're getting some Algo therapy. Colin and Karen, again, have both written seaweed, and they are both correct. Algo therapy. Have you ever gotten like a seaweed wrap? I've heard of a seaweed wrap. I guess that's kind of what we're talking about, right? Like that? Like the SpongeBob's rap album, right?

That's what you're talking about it? So in my mind, I thought it was like a big, like, you know, like a big sheet of seaweed that they wrap you up. Yeah, like a norie. You're like a hand roll. Yes. Like you're a burrito. You're a hand roll. Right, right, right.

But it's not. It's not. They just put pieces of seaweed on you. Oh, okay. That's not that's one. Yeah. That's like, yeah, tebaki therapy, right? Yeah.

All right. Here is the longest word that you are going to write during this quiz. It is a 17-letter word that describes a spa treatment that removes the outer layer of skin from your face. Oh. This 17-letter word describes a spa treatment that removes. removes the outer layer of skin from your face. Count up those letters. Yep. Make sure it's a, it's a self-checking answer. No, that's not it. Uh-oh.

Got to start again, Colin. All right. 17. This 17-letter word describes a spa treatment that removes the outer layer of skin from your face. From your face? Eh, you know. Hmm. Generally, generally on the face. It's not worth it to do it on the other part of your body. Right, right, right.

Because people see your face. It's very involved. I mean, I got two 12 and 13 letters. I'm not able to get to 17 here. Well, Colin, I think you've- All right, Karen's got it, whatever it is. Karen's got something written down. Well, you stopped to show your answer.

I mean, but they're clearly wrong. Well, Colin, what have you been? Yeah, what have you? I wrote down exfoliation and that wasn't it. I wrote down derm abrasion. That wasn't it. And then I kind of ran out of steam. I don't know.

What is the size of the derm abrasion? Yeah. How derm abrasion is it? Could it be microderm abrasion? Karen has written down microderm abrasion, the 17-letter version of this. And that is the word that I was looking for. Not simply abrading the skin, but just a little tiny bead of abrading the skin. to just take off that outer layer

rather than give you road rash. Rather than standing your face. Yeah, with a with a beltstander. It's my macroderm abrasion. It's like a macro answer, yeah. Hey, is it cold in here? This type of therapy

won't bring tears to your eyes, but it might make you shiver. Oh, funny. Okay. Right? Is it funny? Is it cold in here? this type of therapy won't bring tears to your eyes but it might make you shiver oh it's such a different reaction funny and oh god listen it's self-checking again uh karen and colin have both written cryotherapy yes cryotherapy is cold therapy exposing the human body to uh extremely cold temperatures in a controlled

safe way. People love it, man. People do love it. I really, really popular, yeah. Cryotherapy, not about crying. I don't have the guts to do it yet. Don't have the guts to do it. Well, maybe you have the guts to try this, Karen, because some certain spas out there

will give you a facial treatment involving the direct, and I do mean very direct application of the mucus secreted by these shelled creatures. Hey. That was a complicated question. I'll read it again. Some spas out there will give you a facial treatment involving the direct, and I do mean direct application of the mucus secreted by these shelled creatures. Mentioned in an early episode in a segment I did.

How about that? How about that? Comes right back. Colin has written sea snails. Karen has written snails. Colin, two specific. No, it's all right. Snails. It's snails. By directly,

they stick it right on your face and it delivers the healing power of its mucus in a, it's a farm to table type situation. Just don't combine it with the salt therapy. Could work out for you,

maybe not work out for the snail. And finally, finally, the Golden Lamb Hotel in Karlovi Vari, a city in Chequia offers a spa treatment in which you can bathe in and drink as much as you want of this at the Golden Lamb Hotel in Karlovi Vari which is a city in Chequia you can get a spa treatment in which you can bathe in and drink as much as you want of this it can be

it can be so many things it could be any liquid that doesn't kill you right Karen. Take a guess and see. Karen, Karen says chocolate, and Colin says beer. Colin is correct. It is beer therapy, beer spa. You sit in a beer barrel and soak yourself in beer. And sitting next to you are taps for light and dark beer. Oh, so you're not drinking bath beer.

You are not drinking your bath, or anyway, you're not supposed to, wink, wink, and you definitely should not. But no, you have taps for light and dark beer, and you get to drink as much as you want of it while you also sit in beer. So definitely go to Czechia, also known as the Czech Republic. I was going to check that one out, so to speak. You have to check it out. Yeah. Yep. Well, I figured it wasn't wine.

Because someplace in France, surely has like a wine bath. I maybe, perhaps. Yeah. Yep. I know Japan, Japan has like an onsen, a sauna kind of theme park where they have all these different baths that you can smoke in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But when I was a kid, we would take summer vacations in the United States.

We'd often go to Hershey Park in Pennsylvania. Sure, yeah. And Hershey Park is a theme park. by Hershey, the factory and the headquarters, and a hotel, like the Hershey Hotel. So you stay at the Hershey Hotel and then you go to the theme park. But they have a spa at the Hershey Hotel where they have chocolate bath. It's not an Augustus Gloop situation where like... Right, where it's probably like it's mostly water.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if they still have it, but like in my mind, I was like, oh, my God, when I grow up, I'm going to take a chocolate bath. Chocolate bath. Yeah. And you grew up and you never did. And I never did. Hey.

The night's the night, Karen. Get some, get a couple of packets of Swiss miss. Go for it. Honey, I'm going to Costco. Cheaper than lush. Then the marshmallows are so small and so tiny and so sad. Oh, I, I'm glad you think it's, your mind immediately goes to. Well, obviously, it's the one with marshmallows.

Right. Right. All right. take a quick break. We got to wash off the snails and the seaweed and the beer and just quickly shower off and we'll be right back. A world on fire. Nations collapsing, ideologies clashing and ordinary men and women caught in the storm. Hi, I'm Ray Harris Jr. of the History of World War II podcast. And we'll cover the battles that shaped the war from the deserts of North Africa to the frozen forests of the Ardennes.

History isn't just names and dates. It's people, choices, and consequences at World War II podcast.net. You're listening to Good Job Brain. Smooth puzzles, smart trivia. Good job brain. And we're back. This week, we're relaxing because it's a spa day. You guys know I love my trips to Las Vegas, Nevada.

Oh, I do too. When I go and I love planning these trips, you know, and like as soon as I get back from what, I'm planning the next one. And, you know, I stay at different hotels. I move around. I have my favorites. But I always, I always love looking up the spas at the hotels. Yes. Fancy Las Vegas hotels.

It's a big deal for me. I always try to get them a size. when I'm in Las Vegas because the fancy hotel spas generally have nice massage. Yeah, they do. They do. When you go into the website of most of these hotels, the spas and the pools are often lumped together. Yes, in the menu. It's together in the menu, exactly.

It's not the same experience, right? But they do often pair it together, like pool before the spa, spa before the pool. You got your whole relaxation. And I was reading on one of the hotels, they were boasting about their salt water pool. And it got me to realizing, even though I've heard about saltwater pools a lot, my wife swims a lot, I realized I had no idea exactly what that means. I will admit, you know, I had the very naive view of like, well, they just put some salt in the pool, right? It keeps it coming. Yeah. Well, it's not as simple as that.

But the saltwater pool, of course, is in contrast to a traditional chlorinated pool, right? That's what they're advertising. they're saying it's not like the other chlorinated pools it's it's a saltwater pool a very popular thing these days i have a question so you're saying saltwater pools don't have chlorine in it i'm saying they are positioned as an alternative to the traditional chlorinated pool okay very so let's break this down a little bit because i realized that i i don't know too much about the traditional chlorinated pool either i you know it's like again if you asked me it's like well you know it's just you put some bleach in the pool and it, you know, it makes it better, right?

It's not exactly right. Why do we chlorinate pools? Why do we put chlorine in pools? And most every swimming pool, especially the public ones that you encounter, are going to be chlorinated historically, certainly. Why do we do it? Why do we do it, Karen? Why do we chlorinate pools?

To kill germs? Yes, we do it to, yeah, it's really two reasons. The main one is it's to kill microbes, bacteria, bad stuff that, will spread disease and make people sick, especially when you have a large public pool where people have God knows what in the water. And, you know, related, you know, less important, it keeps the water looking and smelling clean, right? You know, the water gets pretty foul.

You got a bunch of, you know, humans splashing around in there. So I got to thinking and researching, what did they do with pools before foreignation, right? This is a relatively modern process of chlorinating pools. What did they do? What do you guys think they did for swimming pools before chlorination? Yeah. What did they do? I think they just changed the water.

And they did nothing. I mean, they add nothing but change the water. You're pretty close to the mark, Karen. Right. Yeah. Prior to chlorination, like, you know, if you had a pool, it was basically fill your pool with water, change it when it's gross. And that's, that's, it's, it's not much more complicated. They did have sand filtration systems, right?

Sand filtration has been known for a long time. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's, exactly, very much like a proto britta. Essentially, you would have your pool. When the water got gross, you would refresh the water. You dump it out. A lot of early pools were intentionally built on sloped ground to make the drainage easier when it was time to get all the bad water out and get the new fresh water in. Depending on how fancy you were and how much money you had,

your pool might have elaborate reservoirs, basically, like containers of the freshwater to replace the bad outgoing water in your pool. And this was fine for what it was, but by the 1890s, scientists were experimenting and, you know, looking into the idea of using chlorine. to keep the water disinfected rather than just basically cycling it all the time or using sand filters. So chlorine, let's talk about this for a moment very quickly. This is not chemistry class, but chlorine.

You guys know it. It's an element. We have a lot of compounds and related substances in our life that have chlorine in them. The most well known, of course, we've talked about it on the show already, is sodium chloride salt, NACL. It's got some chloride right in there. The chlorine that we put in our pools is hypochlorous acid. All right.

We're going to stop with the chemicals there for a little bit. And the history of chlorinating pools, I found, is directly tied to the history of chlorinating drinking water, public water supplies. Okay. Oh. There was, in fact, a bad incident involving sand filters that really led to the popularization of public water chlorination. In the mid to late 1800s, there were. a number of cholera and typhoid fever outbreaks directly related to bad water supplies and bad filtration. And, you know, they were still developing the germ theory of disease at this point.

They were still trying to figure out, like, how are we getting sick, let alone, like, where is it coming from? There was a particularly bad cholera outbreak in 1850s in England. The Broad Street cholera outbreak killed more than six. 600 people. And there was a physician named John Snow, not that one, named John Snow, who really was driving the advancing the theories of how do we disinfect at the source? How do we get these germs out? How do we work and disinfect our water supply in particular?

I know about John Snow because recently I went to London and I went on like an Atlas Obscura hunt. Oh. And one of the things is the water pump mounted on Broad Street. That's right. That's the thing. In Soho, London, that's right. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of this, that's incredible. I love when it all comes around. So they had started continuous chlorination of the water in the UK. The first city in the U.S. to do so was Jersey City in New Jersey. Yeah, in 1908, they started chlorinating the public water. supplies there. So, all right. So we got it in the water and we have these giant pools of water that

people are splashing and swimming around in. So it's a very kind of obvious leap there. The first swimming pool to be chlorinated is credited to the Colgate Hoyt pool on the grounds of Brown University in Rhode Island. As early as 1910, a graduate student at Brown, an immediate obvious, obvious solution. like, oh, yeah, cleans the water, stays clean. This is what we're doing. So starting from 1910 forward, just everyone started chlorinating. If you had a public pool, you would chlorinate it. There's a lot of ways to do it.

I don't know if you guys had a pool growing up. You know, there are tablets, there are powders, there are liquids you can put in. I learned that chlorine gets a little bit of a bad rap because some people are like, I don't like going to the pool. You got that pool smell, you know, that pool smell. And like, it just kind of burns your eyes. I learned that is not chlorine's fault. So it is the fault of chloramine, all right?

So the way this works, chlorine in the pool combines with all of our grossness. It combines with our sweat. It combines with our body oil. And yes, it combines with our urine. And it forms the compound chloramine. And when you get too much chloramine in a pool, that is what creates the so-called pool smell, like where it gets your eyes kind of just watering just from the odor. You know, it means a couple things.

It means, first of all, you're out of whack with your chlorine in your pool. Like, you know, you're not catching up to the oil, sweat, pee that's in there. And sometimes you can catch up. What happens sometimes is people get into this kind of like arms race where they add just a little bit of chlorine and then that just creates more mixture to form more chloramine and you have to resort to what they call a shock treatment which is basically you get everyone out of the pool you just come over the top with just a massive dose of chlorine right just kills everything breaks it down oxidizes it and then you have to wait for it to kind of you know settle down to normal

levels yeah we would we would shock our pool the shock pool right yeah yeah wow wait hold on so i i want I just recap, just so I'm really getting it. Yeah. The smell and all the bad effects of what we think chlorine is chlorine plus all the gross stuff together. That's right. By and large. And it's one reason why a lot of public pools in particular asked you to shower off, rinse off before you get in the pool. It's not just because it's gross to be sweaty and go in the pool, which it is.

It's that it's also, you know, please help us not gin up a lot of chloramine in the pool. I can't believe I've been blaming chlorine for this all this time but it was really it was really me yeah yeah it's you all along yep okay so coming back around to it here eventually salt water pools right so again I've heard from my wife I've heard from Las Vegas hotels a lot of people swear that they love the salt water pools better it's easier on the skin their eyes their hair they feel better the water feels better a saltwater pool it still relies on chlorine, okay? However, the chlorine is produced in a different fashion. So in a saltwater-based pool, you are putting into the pool, N-A-L, I'm sodium chloride. Right, right. The salt, when it goes into the water, it dissolves and it breaks down. And if you have a saltwater pool, you have a saltwater filtration system.

What that system does is it pulls the, salt water into a cell that has specially coated metal plates that trigger a chemical reaction that produces chlorine gas, which then dissolves into the cool water in the form of hypochlorous acid, which is what you were trying to achieve in, you know, that's what you were putting in the pool in this place. That's right. I see. Yes.

And it's using the chlorine that was already there. You're unlocking the chlorine inside the salt. Now, is this better? Subjectively, many, many, many people say it is better. They prefer it, less irritating, overall milder experience. Some people say the water just feels better, like smoother, slicker almost. Now, this could be due to a number of things. And what a lot of the pool experts say is some of the things that it's, you know,

some of the things that contribute to this could be the fact that you have a continuous infusion, right? You've got the system that's releasing it. Yeah, it's a little more stable and steady as opposed to, especially on a manually chlorinated pool, you know, the ups and downs of levels of you like, well, I just chlorinated it. So maybe it's a little stronger, right? Or maybe I shocked it or maybe I mismeasured. Maybe I put it in a little bit too much or a little bit too little this time. At the end of the day, you're still getting chlorine there to kill all the gross stuff. You're just arriving at it at a different way. I see. I mean, there's a lot of good PR related to the saltwater pool because you're like, oh, salt water is sounds natural. Oh, it's like

the sea or the ocean and it's like. That's right. It's like I hear like, oh, chlorinated pool, oh, bleach water. Oh, saltwater pool. Ooh, it's like I'm at the ocean, you know. And it's not, it's not exactly what it is. The salinity is extremely low in a saltwater chlorinated cool. I like the smell. Of chlorine? Yeah. Yeah. Like when you go to a pool and it's like you even feel the vapors, I was like, a little invigorating. All right. It's time for our last spa segment treatment.

If you have ever walked into a spa, you say you open the door, you might notice a few things that tell your brain that you're in a spa you'll probably notice mood lighting right you open the door there's like dimmed lighting not too bright maybe there's like some plants or like wooden features you know in the back wall maybe some bamboo yes right right maybe there's like a water feature like a little mini fountain and it has like the water sounds a little burbling but the biggest thing you might notice that hits you in the face is the smell. It smells like spa. Yes.

There's a smell there that tells your brain, ah, I'm at a spa. Even if you've never set foot in a spa, you probably know or can imagine what a spa smells like. And what is that spa smell? I mean, it could be a mixture of things. You know, different places vary. but most of the time it is eucalyptus how would you describe

the smell of eucalyptus sort of invigorating and minty minty woodsy fresh clean natural there's like an astringent kind of zing to it

by the way the smell that you're smelling when you walk into a spa also known as olfactory priming which we've kind of talked about in the show before. Using scents and smells to strategically influence a person, right? To tap into like a response or a reaction or activate like, you know, some sort of memory. Right, right, right.

And I remember Chris, you had a segment about this. It's like how Disney parks would pump in the smell of like waffle cone or, you know, like delicious food on Main Street USA. So when you walk down the street, you're like, I'm in an old tiny kind of fair. And if you're in a Las Vegas hotel and you're walking by the spa, they're probably pumping spa smells into the hallway to get you thinking about like going into the spa. Yep, yep. Yep. At a spa, yeah, maybe they have products that, you know, have eucalyptus. But chances are they're using aromatherapy or they're using eucalyptus to kind of signal and tell you your brain that this is you're at a spa.

Time to relax. Time to treat yourself. Now, what is eucalyptus? It's a tree. It's a weird tree. It's a real weird tree. And like most uniquely weird living things, it comes from Australia. Australia. Where else?

Where else? Native to Australia, but you probably already knew that because eucalyptus is the primary food source for koalas. Right. Also known as the gum tree. I didn't know that. You know, there's the old Cucobura song. Cucoboosa sits in the old gum tree. The gum tree is eucalyptus.

I did not know that. And then a couple episodes ago, our Australian friends, and guests, Bill and Danny, talked about gum nuts. And those are like eucalyptus seed pods. It's like gum is eucalyptus. By the way, it's a genus. There's like 700 different species of eucalyptus trees. But why is it weird?

Well, okay, how about it's petal-less flowers? Eucalyptus flowers have no petals. It's like pom-poms of stamens. Like, oops, all stamens. There's no. Petals. They grow very tall and they grow super, super fast. And of course, they contain a high amount of oil composed of compounds that contribute to that signature spa eucalyptus smell. Does the plant smell like that smell? The entire plant. The leaves, the bark, but mostly the leaves composed of compounds

that contributes to that signature spa spell. Notably, it's called eucalyptol. Okay. Okay. Which is toxic. to most living things except for a few that have developed a tolerance including koalas. Now, koalas can safely eat eucalyptus trees because their digestive systems have adapted

and they have like a unique gut bacteria that can break down the toxic compounds from eucalyptus and baby koalas, Chris, we learned at the San Francisco Zoo when we went together, maybe koalas acquire these essential bacteria. Yes. From their

mothers. Poop. Poop. They eat it. The mothers feed the baby koalas, their pap, a poop-like substance that has the gut bacteria. So now, you've probably heard this before, and I've definitely heard this before. If you've ever seen a koala, they're pretty sleepy, they're pretty chill. They don't move a lot.

I was always told, oh, they're drunk. They're drunk off of eucalyptus, right? I would led to believe that they kind of get a little high off of it. That was, yeah. Because they eat so much of it. You know, it's toxic to most other animals, but, like, even with their special bacteria, like, they get drunk off of it. That is completely false. No.

That is a fake story. Koalas are like that because they're just so tired. They're like, just get off our back. We're just this tired. They're just tired. They're so sleepy because the eucalyptus leaves that they eat is so low in nutrients that they have to conserve energy. Oh my goodness. Those poor things.

I mean, they've adapted to eating this thing that has like not a lot of nutrients. In order to eat that, well, now they have to have a very slow metabolism. They need more sleep. They need more rest because they're conserving energy. And also, koalas, not really a smart animal. Actually, their brains takes up only a little bit over half of their cranial cavity. Huh. So, you know, most animals, their brains are as big as whatever their skull is, right?

Yeah, yeah. Why would you waste the space otherwise? Why would you waste the space? brains take up a lot of energy and so they've evolved into having smaller brains because brain is one of the most energy consuming organ and so to have a smaller brain they can conserve more energy also their brains are smooth they're not like they are literally smooth brains they're smooth brains oh my goodness not a lot of surface area like and so uh they've done these tests and eating eucalyptus to them is I see eucalyptus leaves

I'm on a tree, I grab leaves and I stuff into my mouth. That's all they know. That's all they know. If you lay out pre-plucked leaves in front of them, like on a table or in a surface, they don't know what to do. Wow. They don't recognize that that's the same leaf

on a tree for me to eat. They're that simple. They need that much context. It has to be, oh my gosh. They don't recognize. They don't make the link that, oh, this thing is the leaf I eat on the tree. I had more respect for them when I thought they were just sitting around getting high than I do now that I know they're just tired and smooth, brain and dumb. But anyways, okay, so back to eucalyptus. So what is eucalyptus used for today other than feeding koalas?

Eucalyptus tree, the tree itself, is used for pulp wood, our tissue paper, our stationary paper, didgeridooze. Didgeridews are made out of eucalyptus trees. Okay. Yep, yep, yep. And, of course, oil, eucalyptus oil, using fragrances, insect repellents, herbal medicine, and, of course, that aromatherapy oil found in your spa. But there's been a discovery that eucalyptus tree has another function. So at some point in your life, you probably have heard your parents tell you, money doesn't grow on trees. You yourself as a parent might have said that to your kids.

Money doesn't grow on trees. Yep, yep. Except if that tree is a eucalyptus. Okay. Scientists have found that in some parts of Australia, there is gold on the eucalyptus leaves. You can find micro amounts of gold. Huh. Real gold.

Real gold. On the leaves in the tree. on the bark, but microscopic amounts of gold. Huh. Why? Why? Well, people are like, oh, maybe it's just particles. You know, Australia has a lot of, like, gold deposits.

Maybe it's, like, in the air and it just kind of accumulates. Well, turns out some species of the eucalyptus tree can grow their roots far, far, far, far, below the earth. Okay. And the trees can absorb gold particles from. from deep underground, suck it in their roots, bring it up in the tree,

and realize, oh no, this gold is toxic to us. We got to expel it. We got to get rid of this gold. You know, because the roots are like, I'm just looking for water.

But they'll pick up very tiny, tiny gold particles underground. And then they will expel the gold from the leaves. They're like, we got to get rid of this. Yes, that's what they found.

That money doesn't grow on trees, but gold grows on eucalyptus trees. Don't get your baskets ready to collect a bunch of eucalyptus leaves. Right. This only happens in places where deep down there is a gold deposit. So parts of Australia, you know, and this is like, what, 100 feet, 30 meters down. It's so hard for people to drill and to get there, but the tree roots can get there, right? Now, I'm curious, maybe you know, Carrie, is the amount of gold on such a tree worth more than the eucalyptus oil?

Or is the oil still more valuable? Well, I found an analogy, you know, I don't know how true it is, but let's say if you're going to make it a gold wedding band, would take a hundred trees to make one tiny wedding band. All right. I'm looking at my wedding band here. Yeah, but the tree is huge, Colin. Right. Well, I'm not going to try it. I mean, I've already got the ring.

I don't need another one, first of all. But, yeah. Well, you know what? People have been trying. Wow. are people who are, you know, going out to those sites and trying to rake up some, some dead leaves and trying to use aqua regia to try to isolate the gold. Okay, okay.

This is like microscopic amount, you know, because it's in the, the root isn't going to suck up a nugget. It's not going to suck up a gold nugget. Yeah. Right. So their new function is not that a gold source. The new function is now the trees help the mining business or scientists to determine what could potentially be a gold deposit site without just drilling willy-nilly in random places. They now have this like a meter, like a gold meter or like a gold detector in a natural

format to tell you, oh, there's gold in the leaves. That means there's probably a gold source way down below. I like that. It feels very sci-fi in a way, but like a lot of the best stuff on Earth does. That's great. there's gold in them there are trees I love that they're literally smooth brained that's fantastic

is that like a it's like an insult if eucalyptus is so low in nutrients why don't they just eat something else incredible no because they've just they don't even have the processing power to even think that consider that you know what they're they're lucky

they're so cute is what they are They're so cute Right Well, that's our show I hope you're relaxed for this little spa day that we had I do feel better Cucumbers on our eyes Thank you all for joining me and thank you listeners for listening in

Hope you learned stuff today About salt therapy, snail therapy, seaweed therapy About pools, saltwater pools, chlorinated pools And about koala poop 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 airwave media.com to listen and subscribe to other shows like spycast the official podcast of the international spy museum what should I read next and triviality we'll see you next week

Bye.