Good Job, Brain! - 63: It's A-MAIZE-ing!

Episode Date: May 28, 2013

(Let's see how many corn puns we can fit in this episode description) Ah shucks! So many kernels of facts in this husky episode about corn. Let's stalk the whereabouts of this golden plant: from car parts to Doritos, from liquor to Beavis & Butthead. Enter the freaky world of corn reproduction and find out the real reason behind corned beef's name. Smile from ear to ear as we explore the corny universe of pick-up lines. ALSO: Fictional language quiz, and Dana's big game debut! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an airwave media podcast. Hello, spectacular, spiffy, spirited sparks. Welcome to Good Job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. This is episode 63, and of course, I'm your humble host, Karen, and we are your symphony of simply sincere synced simians. I'm Dana. I'm Chris. So some of you guys might know this.

Some of you might not. All four of us here, good job, brain. We're in the game industry in some way or the other. And Dana, she is a game designer. And you have a little bit of an announcement to make. Yes. So the game I've been working on for the past year or so. It's called Plants v. Zombies Adventures.

It's on Facebook. Yay. Yay. We went launched, so now you can play it on Facebook. It's free. You can play for $0.00. I know that you came up with some of the punny names in the game. Can you share some of your favorite ones? Sure. It's a game about plants that fight zombies, and the plants all have really punny names. In this game, you have a town that you're taking care of, and they're trees in your town, and they have little smiley faces, and you could click on them to talk to them. And I wanted them to say, like, positive, encouraging things, like have some puny jokes.

So one of the positive silly things that says is like, you're barking up the right tree. Which is so silly. It makes me laugh. It's dumb, okay? But I enjoy it. These trees are called the pleasant trees. Aw. They're really cute.

They're super cute. So check it out. Plants versus Zombies Adventures on Facebook. All right. Without further ado, let's jump into our first general trivia segment, Pop Quiz, Hot Shot. And you guys have your barnyard answer buzzers ready. and I have to say, I was kind of in a rush this morning when I left the house, so I grabbed the wrong cards.

I actually grabbed the Star Wars Trivial Pursuit cards. Oh, no. And Colin's not even here. And Colin's not here. Well, here we go. All right. Here we go. People who don't know about Star Wars throwing down.

All right. I don't know. This is going to be bleak. Let's try it. Okay. All right, here we go. Purple for whatever purple stands for. Who, according to,

Princess Leia exuded a foul stench. Chris. I feel like it might be Jabba the Hut. Incorrect. Oh, that was all I had. Chewbacca. It is Granmoth Tarkin. Oh.

Oh, him? Oh, okay. It's a him, right? What ship has a small retractable laser cannon hidden in the underside of its hull? All of them. Incorrect, Chris The Thai fighter Incorrect

It is the Millennium Falcon Oh, okay I've heard of that before I don't know how do you care about these things I can't even imagine hearing I was told that the retractable laser cannon was actually a modification that Han Solo himself

added to the ship which is a YT-1300 freighter Wait, Han Solo the character Yes, the character. Or the guy who played him. The character. Yeah. No, Harrison Ford definitely did not do the modifications.

Well, he was a carpenter. All right. Yellow Wedge for Star Wars history. Oh, man. What did Admiral Mottie describe as an ancient religion? I don't even know which character that was. The Force. Correct.

Yeah. All right. Points on the board. Jediism. Green Wedge. What battle was Landl Calrissian in when he claims he performed a little maneuver? I don't know. Antietam.

Ballyfor. Yeah. Balephor. It is indeed. Iwo Jima. The Battle of Tanab. Oh. There you go.

That's Benat spelled backwards. That's the key to remembering. Yes. Orange Wedge What species was Jabba Chris Is Hut a species? Correct

Oh okay All right That's awesome I didn't know if that was like his clan or whatever Jabba the hut Right Good job I was like slug

Slug dude Fat fat slug Yeah All right last question Okay It doesn't even Color doesn't matter Yeah

We will we will end this torture round. What type of uniform was Luke wearing when he first met Princess Leia face to face? Dana. Stormtrooper? Correct. Yeah. Nice.

All right. Okay. We can do this. In your face. Good job. So this week, we realize we haven't talked about food in a while. And Chris's fiance, Regina, suggested that we talk about corn. We'll see.

So this week, we're talking about all things. Corn and Corny. The Native Americans call it maize. It's amazing. Sing-song, ding-dong, I take a trip to China. Corn's red and butter beans in back to North Carolina. And corn is red and butter beans and you cross the table. Eating in beans and making love as long as I may go.

Oh, and corn and cotton to and when it's over. So we know that corn is the biggest crop grown in the United States, right? Biggest one. We are the biggest producer of corn in the world by far. We grow a lot of corn. In 2011, says the EPA, 84 million acres of corn were grown in the United States. Wow. So do you know that you might think that that's really far out ahead of the second biggest crop in the United States, but it actually isn't?

In 2011, with 73.8 million acres of United States farmland devoted to it, do you know what the number two? Crop was? Soybeans? It was. It was. It's soybeans. Rice is actually far down the list in the United States. We don't grow a whole lot of rice. It's like number eight or so.

But yes, soybeans is, soybeans could overtake corn one day. Who knows? However, in terms of profit, corn made $63 million, and soybeans made $37 million. Oh, okay. It's almost double. So it's a lot of corn, a lot of money in that corn. What do we do with all that corn? Do we eat it?

Sure. All sorts of things. Some of it, but in fact, the vast majority of it, we do not, it's not served on our plates. We do eat a lot of corn. One estimate says that about a quarter of all food that you find in the supermarket, one quarter of it contains corn in some way. Like high fructose corn syrup. Like high fructose corn syrup. But that's also like high fructose corn syrup is also used in like the fermentation process of some beers.

What have you? A lot of you may know we have considerable government subsidies for farming and especially corn, which keep the price of corn very low. So it's often cheaper to use corn-derived products. Oh, I see. I mean, high fructose corn syrup versus cane sugar is, you know, a notable example. But there are actually a lot more examples. It's cheaper to make corn plastic than regular plastic. Plastic made out of corn is increasingly used in your food wrapping and utensils.

You might go to a takeout place and you'll get a plastic container and that's made out of corn. That's compostable. It is compostable. Now, what's interesting about this is a lot of these things, if you take a them and you just put them in your home compost pile, they will not compost. Like, it's compostable if you use a special, like, composting machine to break it down, basically. Yeah, it's actually becoming a little bit of a problem because all the corn plastic getting sent to recycling facilities, they can't get mixed up with the, with the rest of the plastic, because you break it

down in different ways, yeah. But yes, it is biodegradable materials. So you could be going to a cafeteria and getting a cafeteria tray, like a permanent cafeteria tray, that's made out of corn plastic. Plates made with, you know, parts of corn, forks and knives. Eating, using it to eat corn, like cornception. Using, using corn-based utensils to eat corn off a tray made of corn, off a plate made of corn. Here's just a list of products that use corn in them. Oh, man.

Who, shoe polish, sheetrock, glue, toothpaste, diapers, tire, spark plugs, instant coffee, cosmetics, pills, paint, gum, frosting, vitamins, and explosives. There's corn in your clothes. We're all wearing, using, and tasting corn a hundred different ways right at this moment. If you're listening to this podcast while driving, you are surrounded by corn-based car parts. And your car is partially at least running on corn, if not entirely, if you're using ethanol. Corn everywhere. The children of the corn are here and it is us. All right, I'm going to blow you guys' mind. Oh, okay. But I'm going to go through just a quick anatomy lesson of the actual corn plant. When we think of a corn plant, we think of a corn stalk, like out in the field, really tall.

Basically, it's a really tall grass. I'm going to talk about this in the most scientific way. I don't mean to sound like it's corn porn, but I'm going to talk about how corn reproduces. And it's fascinating. It's insane. And you'll definitely look at corn in a different light. in a sexy light Or with sort of a sideways glance

I know what you do corn So we have the stock of the corn And at the very very top It's known as the tassel And it's like a couple of really thin branches That kind of sprout out And that is the male organ Part of the plant

The tassel actually grows the small flowers Like cornflowers And they're male flowers Because what happens is The flowers release a bunch of of pollen grain grain, and the pollen is the male sex cell. The corn dong, if you will. Sure, yes.

The actual corn, the corn that we're familiar, that we eat, the corn cob, is called an ear, an ear of corn. That whole ear of corn that you see in the supermarket, it's the female organ of the plant. An immature ear of corn consists of the cob, which is a stick, and the egg cells of corn grows on the cob in rows, in neat little rows. So from each little egg cell in each row, a hair-like structure grows out of it. And that's what we know as the corn silk. So each little egg has a silk coming out through the plant and out of its husk.

Right? When we see the corn silk, there's one for each kernel, essentially. Yes. So here's the actual mechanics of corn reproduction. The birds and the bees. It's very, very odd. So the flowers spread pollen. The pollen, when it touches the corn silk, they're self-pollinating.

And so the pollen touches the corn silk. And the pollen or the male sex cell travels down the silk, in the silk. Into the ear, because the ear is all covered up with the green, sort of the husk. Yeah. So that's how it gets in there. Yes, it travels through the corn silk. Huh. It reminds me of avatar for some reason.

Yeah, like plugging in. Yeah. God, it takes about a couple of hours for it to make the journey from the tip of the silk and into the corn and to fertilize the egg cell. So what really happens is when you have a nice hot steaming cob of corn that you're eating, each one of those kernels are fertilized eggs. No. And you might notice that when you buy corn, you'll see on the tip of your corn cob has like weird looking baby kernels. Or unformed kernels? Yeah, dried out.

So those are the egg cells that did not get fertilized. The juicy kernels are eating is fertilized corn. It's weird. It's like you're eating babies. Yes. It's exactly like you're eating babies. You're eating little corn babies. And you'll see sometimes on a cob that like patches of kernels that didn't form.

So those are the ones that the male cell didn't get through the silk and fertilize the kernel. So ironically, when you're eating baby corn, you're not eating babies. Is that, are those little baby corns like, unfernalized? Yeah, you're eating. Baby corn is unfertilized corn. Man. And it's harvested. So baby corn is immature corn cop.

Huh. That's harvested at an early stage before it hardens. So yeah, next time, it's barbecue time almost 4th of July if you're eating a nice, hot, delicious, buttered corn. That's where you're eating. All right. Reproductive system. Don't you feel terrible. I know.

I think I will. We'll look at corn differently from now. There you go. Well, you talked about corn porn. Now I'm going to talk about corn smut. Whoa. Which is not what you think. Unless you think it is corn mold or corn fungus.

We've talked very briefly about this before on another episode. Oh, is this Franken corn? Is this wheat lecoche? Is that what's it called? It is a fungus that grows on corn. Yeah, see, I vaguely remember saying on a previous episode, and then they throw it away, right? It gets all moldy, and then they throw it in the garbage.

A lot of American farmers do, and they're trying to change that. It's a delicacy in Mexico, and it sells for more than regular corn does. Whoa. They call it Mexican truffles, the rebranding. Oh, okay. Rather than corn smut. Although, so corn smut is one name for it. And then the not-all name, like Wheat La Coche, there are different theories about what it means in the original indigenous language.

And one of the theories is like sleep excrement, which is gross. Oh, great. Not better, raven excrement. Great. It looks like that. Corn excrement. So excrements of something. That's what they think.

Maybe it's just anatopoeia for the sound of someone vomiting uncontrolled. It's supposed to be really delicious. I haven't tried it, but after I read, you know, these different articles about it, it was like, okay, I could see. It sounds like it would taste good. Yeah, like we eat blue cheese, I guess. It's like mushroom-like. It's sweet, savory, woody, earthy.

So it's like a mushroom, like a truffle-type mushroom. And it's very good for you, actually. It has nutrients in it that you don't get from regular corn. Something happens when the fungus takes hold. We just need to get over the egg factor. Can I just have footstone's vitamins instead? I'll describe what it looks like because I was like, oh, it just looks like moldy corn. But no, it doesn't.

It looks like the corn, Frankenstein corn, or it got, injected with a mushroom and a mushroom took over that egg cell and like blew it up and it got blue and green. It looks like it's like an elephant man version. That's exactly how I was going to elephant man corn. Well, also like what you said, it does look like a virus has taken hold of a cob of corn and it's taking over. It's like alien like.

Yeah. I can't get over the picture. I've Googled it. This is one of those things that's like nightmare town if you Google it. But then when you think of it like, oh, it's like. like Mexican truffles when you say it like that it's like okay it's kind of fancy and maybe they're just expect like a little pig with a sombrero on is yeah oh yeah now I'm now I'm more down to try it we got to find a place that has it yeah we should have a field trip I don't want to

harvest it you don't want to look at it you want to see it repaired because what my fear is if I am in contact I'm scared that the fungus will take over my body oh yeah you know I thought I thought those things too but I couldn't find anybody saying that it gets it makes it makes you sick. Like, I haven't, I couldn't find any reports of it making you sick. Right, right. So, bouncing off of the idea that corn is in everything, I have a little corny word puzzle for you guys, fresh in the palette. I am going to give you guys some definitions of words, and I want to get back from you a word that contains the letters C, O, R, and N in that order, but not necessarily consecutively. Exactly. So they will definitely be in that

order, they will not necessarily be consecutive. All right. So, for example, we're right to say, a mythical being, you would say. Unicorn. Yeah, exactly. And again, in that case, they are all smashed together, but that is not necessarily the case. So let's go. You have your buzzers ready.

Yes. Okay. To feel or express contempt for something. Karen. Scorn. Scorn is it. Removing the center of an apple. Dana.

Core? No. D-Corn-O. No, sorry. No. Removing the center of an apple. Coring. Coring, yes.

He searched for the seven cities of gold. He was a conquistador. Oh, God. What was his name? Has the letter C-O-R and N in it. Yeah. It's not Cortez. It's not Cortez.

Shall I tell you? Yeah. It is Coronado. Oh, great. Coronado. All right. A family of cheese made from sheep's milk. Feta, not feta.

Karen? Peccorino. Pecorino. Yeah, there you go. A type of book that little kids love. Is it like a series? It's a sort of book, a type of book that little kids love. Pop up.

It's interactive. Speak and spell. Draw right on the page. Coloring a book. Coloring book. A shortened version of a word. Acronym. No.

Karen. Conraction? Contraction. Yes. Accronym. Almost. Yeah, almost. Keeps your pool clean.

Dena. Chlorine. Chlorine. Oh. A three-pointed hat. As worn by. Pirate. The Minuteman or Jack Sparrow.

Oh. Trichorn. Trichorn. Yes. Finally. Barrel making. Oh. Karen.

We had this world. Before. Oh, I was going to say Wainwright, but that's wheels. Or cask making. We have had this before. Cooper. No, not Cooper. Coo.

What? Barrel making. Beryl. Cooping? Cupering. Coopering. Coopering. Coopering is the word.

for. Yes. That's a good crossword. Good, good job overall. Yeah. All right. Let's take a quick break. A word from our sponsor. When you're a forward thinker, you don't just bring your A game. You bring your AI game. Workday is the AI platform that transforms the way you manage your people, money, and agents, so you can transform tomorrow. Workday. Moving business forever forward. Colgate Total is more than just your favorite toothpaste. It's dedicated to advancing oral health. The new Colgate Total Active Prevention System features a reformulated toothpaste, innovative toothbrush,

and a refreshing antibacterial mouthwash, all designed to work together to fight the root cause of common oral health issues, such as gingivitis, plaque, and tartar. Use the full routine twice daily and be dentist ready. Shop the Colgate Total Active Prevention System now at walmart.com. And welcome back. You're listening to Good Job Brain. And this week we're talking about corn and corn. Corny stuff.

I want to share a quick corn fact with you guys. So I was kind of inspired to look for corn snacks. You know, we talked about corn using in food. I was like, oh, what about Doritos? I don't talk about Doritos. So I went researching Doritos, and I found this amazing fact. Do you guys know where Doritos were invented? Where they were invented?

Yeah, what place? Texas. Good guess. The original product or the proto Dorito was made. in none other than my favorite place in the world, Disneyland, Anaheim, California. No. In Disneyland. How did I go about my life not knowing this?

Yeah. That Doritos were invented in Disneyland. We've Wikipediaed things so close to this and never knew that. Never knew that. We figured out where Fritos were invented, all that. Anyways. I also Googled some crazy flavors, which I actually think sound really, really delicious. All of these flavors are either from Japan or other parts of Asia.

Okay. Of course, they would have crazy snack flavors. I want to see if you guys would dare to try them. Coconut curry. That's kind of good. Sounds good. Sure. Maybe.

For America, at least, Doritos is very seen as like kind of southwest Mexican. A lot of the flavors are like nacho cheese or Cool Ranch, very region-specific. And I think worldwide, they kind of just see it as a corn chip. It's not tied to a specific culture. Outside the U.S., Cool Ranch is known as Cool American. Cool American. So I have a corny quiz for you guys, too. The answer is all either have the word corn in them or related to corn.

in some way. We'll just play it by ear. General corniness. General corniness. First question. This popcorn salesman was born in Brazil, Indiana, in 1907, and promises you'll like his popcorn better, or his name isn't what? Otis.

No. Orville Redenbacher? What are you going to say? Otis Spunkbeyer. Oh, that's the cookie guy, yeah. It's a similar name, though. You're right. Who screams, I am the great cornholio.

I need to be from a bunghole. Beavith. It is Beavis. From Beavis and Butthead. Yes. Who created Beavis and Butthead? Chris. Mike Judge.

Yes. He also did King of the Hell. He did. Office space. I actually was going to think that you're going to do a segment on Beavis and Butthead for this episode. I thought it was a little too far out there. You're a super fan. Yeah, but the connection to cornhole.

That's why it's only one question. Yeah, exactly. Right, it's one question in a quiz. It's tendentious at best. All right. This British indie rock band is best known for their 1998 UK number one single, Brimful of Asha. Karen. Corner Shop.

Yes. Oh. Corn is an American new metal rock band from Bakersville, California. True. They wrote a song whose title is an acronym that spells out the name of what popular shoe brand. This is a, this was a, this was a, a hit in the 90s. Huh.

Oh, man, corn. Nike? Nope. Like, I'm trying to think of the song. Yeah. Get a life. All right, it's Adidas. Really?

A-D-I-D-A-S. The lead singer of corn appeared on one of my favorite shows, Audities, and he was buying antique medical devices. What is the lead singer of corn's name? Do you know? Jonathan Davis. Yes. Yes.

Hey. Nice. I'm awesome. I only know this because he's one of, like, they talk about the celebrities who play World of Warcraft and he's one of them. He shows up on a lot of things. That's why it seems fair game. There's a new season of the TV show Arrested Development on Netflix.

What is the name of the device George Booth invented in 1970s and sold on TV? The cornballer. Yes. What did the cornballer do? It just burnt everybody. It made cornballs, like fried cornballs. Okay, all right. What university sports teams were once called the Hawkeyes, the Antelopes, the Old

Gold Knights, the Bug Eaters, and the... the man-killing mastodons, but are now called the Huskers. Man-killing mastod. I mean, it's, it's either Iowa State University or the University of Iowa. You have to pick one. I'm going to go with the University of Iowa. No. Son of a gun. Iowa University.

No. Iowa State. University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Oh. The Hawkeyes, though, are Iowa. Corned beef doesn't have anything to do with corn. What does corn mean in its name? What is corn referring to?

The pepper corns. No. No. Oh, really? That's a good guess. I don't know. Is it just the cooking, the brining method of salting it? Yes, it relates to the corns of salt.

Oh. So you're close. Corns of pepper, coins of salt. The word corn derives from old English, which is used to describe any small, hard particles or grains, and in this context is the salt. Interesting. Yeah. I've always wondered that. Good guess.

Because of corned beef, yeah. Known for hosting a show with both corny and awesome dance. dancing. This presenter was the host of Soul Train from 1971 to 1993, and he passed away last year. Cornelius something. I forgot his last name. Um, no, it's, um, it's, it's, it's something Cornelius. Yes, it's Don Cornelius. Don Cornelius. That's right. That's right. Good job, you guys. Oh, thanks. That was a, I decided to throw a, a real, some real questions in there. Yeah. Yeah. It was written by a cornball. Another quiz.

I'm going to continue our path of cornyness and corny humor. I wanted to learn about corny humor and somehow it just fell into a hole. And a cornhole. Guys. I somehow ended up in corny pickup line world. I found myself in forums and articles and community pages of people who talk about. their adventures in picking up women in tips and tricks, the pickup artist community. I wanted to read about some of the pickup lines that people actually have used and found success.

And I want to share some with you guys. But it's also a quiz. And they're a very basic kind of question and answer, you know, riddle and answer format. Okay. And so I'm going to read the first part, which is a question. And then you tell me what the second part might be. and it's a pun or a play on words. So it's guessable.

Yes. So, for example, if I asked you, hey, are your feet tired, you would say... You're running through my mind all night. Right, right. Yes, yes, okay. You guys sound very excited. You have to say it in a, like, gross way. You have to say with ironic...

Because baby. I came up with one the other day. Oh. You read it on Twitter, right? Baby, you must be a convenience store hot dog, because you've been rolling back and forth in my mind all day. Let's equate the girl, the old-trinked, oily hot dog at a 7-Eleven. Here we go.

Girl, do you have a library card? Oh! I have a bad one. It's because we're due for a date. Oh. Chris. Because I want to check you out. Yes.

Yeah. I like her is not bad All right Baby Are you a parking ticket Are you a parking ticket? Because I'm going to take you to court Because you've got fine

Because you're so fine Yes But you're so fine Oh okay All right Baby Do you know karate Oh, karate, chop, belt, you've got amazing moves.

Because you look like brusely. Because I thought I saw you doing the crane kick on the dance floor because I'm in the Cobra Chi Dojo. Because your body is kicking. Oh. Girl, do you know where I can. can find a dentist. Because you're too sweet?

Yes. Oh, nice. Baby, do you work for NASA? Because you are out of this world. Yes. Because I think you're going to talk about. Hey, did you have lucky charms for breakfast? Did you have lucky charms for breakfast?

Because you've got amazing. Purple horseshoes. Because something with the rainbow, I don't know. Because there's blue diamonds in your eyes. Oh, that's not bad. It's so weird. It is because you look magically delicious. Oh, that is good.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Girl, are you from Jamaica? Because Jamaican me crazy. Yes. Hey, was that an earthquake? I don't know, because I just felt the earth move.

Oh, not bad. Earth move, because you're rocking my world. Oh, because you're rocking my world. It's like a yo mama joke. Yeah, yeah, yeah. These are not yo mama jokes, yeah, exactly. Don't talk about the earth move. That's true.

Yeah, don't accidentally use a your mama joke. They're not. You can't swap those. Hey, baby, do you sit around the house? I know. Last one. Hey, do you have any. raisins?

Do you have any raisins? There's so many things. Oh, yeah. Well, what do you put raisins on? Why would you need raisins? Because two scoops of fun. Oh, yeah. For cereal?

But I was like, it's like dried out grapes. Right. And the answer is, what about a date? Oh. Maybe. These are all pickup lines people have used. Or say they have used Or say they have used

That's true That's true Do you think they work Because people are like Oh I'm so flattered Or they work because it's like Wow That took a lot of hurt

If the joke Goes well Then your first interaction with someone Is they're laughing Which is positive Very corny I think you know what I think you have to have

Self confidence To pull it off Which so it's not really It's not the line It's the sheer amount of self confidence You have to have to say that Yeah Yeah

Girl are you a snake doctor Because these These pythons are six. Like, I was a compliment for yourself. That's good. Isn't that just a vet? Isn't a snake doctor just a vet? I guess.

I don't know. I guess very specific. I've never had cause to call one. Herpetologists. Oh, could be herpetologists. Yeah, they study reptiles. Let's go really deep into the pickup lines. I know they study turtles and lizards.

Anyway, I think we have gotten a little far afield. So I have a segment about actual corn And I have titled it We're drinking corn to get lucky. As we now know, we make a lot of corn here in America And we use it for a lot of things. Somewhere around 40% of the nation's corn. So the vast, the plurality of our corn is used to make ethanol,

drinkable, you know, food grade corn alcohol. Because we have lots of it. Which can also be mixed with gasoline. Now, some cars run entirely off it, and some cars, like, you can have, like, 10% ethanol in your gasoline and, you know, your standard car will run off of it. Now, the first step in the production process of turning corn into ethanol is taking enzyme that is made by microorganisms, and the enzyme is called alpha amylase, and you dump it into the corn. Then when you start kind of, you know, breaking it down, the enzyme breaks the corn down into sugar. So, a bioengineering company called Syngenta recently developed a strain of corn called Enogen, and it got FDA approval in... Sounds delicious.

Yes. It got FDA approval in 2011, and this is what it said. It said in the New York Times, and this is announced, the decision to make it legal to get approval, the decision came in the face of objections from corn millers and others in the food industry who warned that if the corn cross-pollinated with, were mixed with corn used for food, it could lead to crumbly corn chips, soggy cereal, loaves of bread with soupy centers, and corn dogs with inadequate coatings. Oh, no! Won't someone think of the corn dogs? Anyway, it did get approved, and so what is it?

What is Enogen? Enogen is a strain of corn that genetically modified corn with the alpha amylase enzyme in the corn. It's in the endosperm of the corn, which is the inner part of the kernel. So it's already there. So you don't want to use this corn for anything where you want the corn to actually hold up, hold together. Yeah. This is for mashing. Because, yeah, once you start smashing it up, it starts breaking it down. They have this, like, video on their site where it's like, here's normal corn, you know, that we've added a, that we've added the enzyme to it to it, and it's really, really thick and goopy. And then here's the other stuff, and it's already in there. We don't add the enzyme to it at all, and it's super thin. It's like a glow stick. It's like, you know. You know, you need to crack the glow stick to shake it around. Yeah, basically. I don't really see the connection, but it's not. No, but it's like the kernel has the enzyme in it. So when it's mashed up, it releases the enzyme.

It's like a glow stick where you have to break it and, you know, and crack the thing inside. Yeah, it has to come out. You have to get to the end of the storm in the first place for it to start going. Yeah. So it actually, this means, and you can even combine this stuff with regular corn and still get the benefits, you know, if you need to have a combination. So it means your production plant has to use less energy, less time. less resources, less like natural gas, than what have you. But this is only for ethanol.

To get it processed into ethanol. There's a beautiful picture of a cornfield on Syngenta's website where it says, What if corn already knew its destiny? So now why is this controversial? Well, this is not the first time that a type of modified corn has been introduced, not in the slightest. In the mid-1990s, there was a biotech company called Aventus, which came up with the type of corn called Starlink.

And what Starlink did, it was only intended for animal use. It was toxic to insects. There was a protein that was in there that was essentially, you know, the type of insects that would attack corn. It was toxic to them. So insects would leave it alone. It made its own pesticide, essentially. But the FDA worried that the protein might cause an allergic reaction in humans because it was resistant to heat. It didn't break down fully in the digestive system.

So they couldn't determine it for sure. But they were like, we can't determine that it wouldn't be a problem for some percentage of people. So we're only going to approve this for animal use. That's kind of mean. Yeah, well, it would only be allergic to humans. Animals have much, like, tougher digestive systems that really destroy things. Yeah. So they did not plant a lot of it, relatively speaking.

In 2000, Starlink represented one-half of one percent of the total corn in the United States. Okay. But also in the year 2000, they found Starlink corn in Taco Bell Taco Shows. Because as it turns out, it's really hard to separate this corn from that corn due to, like, potential issues with either cross-pollination or just it all going through the same factory and, like, corn dust lands under the corn and whatever. So it comes a huge problem, huge controversy, lots of, like, tests, they recall tons of food. Yeah, because it's not approved for human use. Now, nobody ever got sick. Nobody ever got allergic.

Nothing bad ever happened, but it was like, it just wasn't approved. And the company withdrew its license voluntarily and other companies like Syngenta, which makes Enogen, they make corn with similar proteins in it that are toxic to the insects, but they are now approved for human consumption. So this is not an issue anymore. They do a whole lot of crazy stuff with corn, as it turns out. No frills, delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC optimum points on your first five orders. Shop now at no-frails.ca.

Well, that was quite a journey. We had corn puns, corn mods, corn porn, corn smut, cool corn talk, and time for a last quiz segment. There's nothing to do with corn. This was inspired, actually. I wish Colin was here. Colin told us the story during Pub trivia. An amazing story about how we're all fans of Game of Thrones, the show,

and the book, The Song of Fire. Ice. And he told us a crazy story about how HBO created the language of Dothraki, which is the tribal group in Game of Thrones. HBO held a contest, welcomed submissions from linguists and people who make made-up languages as a hobby to become the Dothraki language. And one guy won, obviously, David Peterson, and HBO basically went with his proposal and used his fake language to become the Duth-Rockey language on the TV show. So I thought what would be fun is to have a quiz about fake languages. Okay.

Jibberish. I guess it's not really gibberish. It's fictional language. Yes. All right. Here we go. What novel features the fictional language called NADSAT, which is a mixture of British Kockney slang and Russian words?

Chris Collins. A clockwork orange. Yes, clockwork orange. Natzat is the Russian word 14, because it was like the youth language, the youth kind of lingo. All right. Quenya and Sindarin are two variants of what famous fantasy language? Clingon. Incorrect.

Any hint about what kind of fantasy? The fantasy. Oh. Is it Tolkien? Yes. It is elvish. Oh, okay. Quenya is High Elvin and Sondaran is Gray Elvin.

They're influenced by Finnish and Welsh. This fictional language is only encountered in written form in the show Futurama. Oh, I could draw pictures of it. I don't know what it is called. It's simply called alienese. Okay. And actually, you can decode it. Oh, yeah?

Yeah, it actually makes sense. Like a letter to symbol code. Hamlet and parts of the Bible were translated into this fictional language. And according to the 2006 edition of Guinness World Records, it is the most spoken fictional language by number of speakers. Klingon? Yes, it is Klingon. And I didn't know this, but James Duhin,

which was the actor who played Scotty, Montgomery Scott, devised the initial Klingon language. He just kind of made a bunch of names. noises and then they hired a linguist to flesh it out. All right. Last question. I'm going to play a bit and I want you guys to identify the fictional language and the singer. Okay.

In this clip. It's a bricktopper as a big dish nurse. Oh, wham. I'm scruly enough. Dana That's Katie Perry. It is Katie Perry. What language is she singing?

Is it a Sesame Street language? No. Good guess, though. It's a video game. It's for a video game. She recorded this. Is this... Oh, I know.

Oh, go ahead. Simlish. Yes, it's Simlish. The fake language spoken in The Sims. and multiple sim games. Which has no, it's no language, it's gibberish. It's completely gibberish. Was that a particular song?

That was last Friday night, which is a Katie Perry song. Because she had her own The Sims expansion. Yes, okay. Okay. Which Sims game debuted Simlish? Oh, I guess. I'm guessing two. It is SimCopter.

Not even the big Sim game. It's SimCopter. Oh, not the Sims. Good job, everybody. And that's our show. Thank you guys for joining me. I thank you guys listeners for listening in. Hope you learned a lot about corny stuff.

Corny pick-up lines. Don't use them, please. That's my disclaimer. Don't use any of those. Those won't work. Maybe as a joke. Maybe as a joke. For a good lot.

Find a lady or a gentleman with a good sense of humor. Maybe they'll like it. Careful of corn allergies and corn porn, corn smut, and corn is in everything. You can find us on iTunes, on Stitcher, on SoundCloud, and also on our website, which is goodjobbrain.com. And hope you enjoyed the accidental Star Wars trivia today. I'm so sorry, everybody. And we'll see you guys next week. Bye.

of the popular science show with millions of YouTube subscribers comes the Minute Earth podcast. Every episode of the show dives deep into a science question you might not even know you had, but once you hear the answer, you'll want to share it with everyone you know. Why do rivers curve? Why did the T-Rex have such tiny arms? And why do so many more kids need glasses now than they used to? Spoiler alert, it isn't screen time. Our team of scientists digs into the research and breaks it down into a short, entertaining explanation, jam-packed with science facts and terrible puns. Subscribe to Minute Earth wherever you like to listen.