Science Friday - They Might Be Giants, Animal Sounds Quiz, Luxury Ostrich Eggs. Jan 1, 2021, Part 2

Episode Date: January 1, 2021

They Might Be Giants With A Timely Reminder: “Science Is Real” Fans of the band They Might Be Giants are likely to be familiar with the band’s version of the 1959 Tom Glazer song “Why Does The Sun Shine?” As they sing, “The sun is a mass / of incandescent gas / a gigantic nuclear furnace.” In their album “Here Comes Science,” the band revisits that song, and follows it with a fact-checking track titled “Why Does the Sun Really Shine?” In the lyrics, they describe the science of plasma. The album also includes an ode to the elements, descriptions of what blood does in the body, and songs describing the scientific process. In a reminder that resonates for the start of 2021, one song is titled “Science is Real.”   In this archival segment from 2009, John Linnell and John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants join Ira in the studio to discuss the album, and to play some science songs. Name That Call: Test Your Animal Sound Trivia Can you differentiate the cry of an Antarctic Weddell seal from the song of an emperor penguin? How about the bellows of a howler monkey from a warthog’s rumbling roar? The animal kingdom is filled with diverse calls and sounds, and for World Wildlife Day earlier this week on Tuesday, we curated them—in a quiz. SciFri’s digital producer Daniel Peterschmidt teamed up with Google Earth to create an interactive quiz that hops you around the world and highlights the many (sometimes surprising) sounds that species make. Daniel challenges Ira to an animal sound showdown. Test your knowledge and explore the wide world of screeches, howls, and growls with the Science Friday Google Earth Animal Sound Quiz! The Luxury Ostrich Eggs Of The Bronze And Iron Age Upper Class Today, if you want to show off that you’ve made it, you might buy a top-of-the-line Rolex watch, or line your garage with Ferraris and Rolls Royces. But in the Iron and Bronze age, one of the luxury goods of choice was to put a highly decorated ostrich egg in your tomb. These status symbols have been found in multiple European Iron and Bronze Age locations, despite ostriches not being indigenous to the area. A team of scientists wanted to know the origins of these eggs—and just how they made it from Africa into the hands of the Iron and Bronze Age elite. Mediterranean archaeologist Tamar Hodos, an author on the study recently published in Antiquity, explains how the team determined that these eggs came from wild ostriches, rather than captive birds, and what this reveals about the ancient luxury trade. See a gallery of these ostrich eggs below! Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato, wishing you a very happy new year and best wishes for 2021. This hour, we're playing some holiday favorites from our archives, including a 2009 visit from They Might Be Giants. But first, some of you may have gotten some fancy gifts over the holidays, but how many of you received a carved ostrich egg? Hands, hands, don't see any. Too bad. Science Friday's Alexa Lim has this story. When you want people to know that you've made it, there are certain symbols, objects that you buy to show that off. Could be a Rolex watch that cost as much as a down payment on a house. Or maybe a garage full of cars, Ferraris, Rolls Races.

Well, back in the Iron and Bronze Age, if you wanted to flaunt your worth, you'd have a tomb full of carved ostrich eggs. Why ostrich eggs? And how did you get your hands on one anyway? That's what a team of scientists wanted to know. Their findings were published in the journal Antiquity. Joining me now is Tamar Hodos, an author on that study and a specialist in Mediterranean archaeology at the University of Bristol in Bristol, England. Welcome to Science Friday.

Thank you. I'm really delighted to be here. I guess my first question when I heard about these ostrichags is, what were they doing with them? They weren't walking around with them in their arms, kind of saying, look at me right here I am. The ones that we find in the Mediterranean are almost always in funerary context, so they're turning up in graves. Some of them are incredibly ornately decorated. They were fashioned into cups or jugs, so they would have had metal fittings, metal attachments to them, but they were also painted or carved with animal motifs, geometric motifs, floral motifs. Sometimes they show charioteers. So they're really ornately decorated. What we're not sure is exactly how they were being used. Were they being used

as part of the funerary rituals, or do they have some other additional, perhaps symbolic value? We really don't know, and it's likely to have differed from culture to culture. In the case of the ISIS tomb in the British Museum, which is the one that kind of kick-started the whole project, there were five. So this is a really, really rich grave. So it was still like Iron Age and Bronze Age. Birdbling, though. Pretty much, yes, bird bling. I like that. And, you know, decorating eggs is in only an Iron Age fad. You know, there were Russian czars that collected Faberjee eggs, Easter's coming up.

You said there's even an international egg art guild? Well, the ostrich egg carving is a popular activity in the United States, in particular North America and also in the Far East in China. There has been an Egg Crafters Guild of Great Britain, although sadly it closed a few years ago because of dwindling interest, but it was very, very active for a number of years and they had competitions that they ran. I conducted an interview with the president of the Egg Crafters Guild of Great Britain because I wanted to learn more about modern egg carving practices. And what she told me was that an egg needs to be left to dry naturally once it's been blown,

once it's been emptied. It needs to be left to dry naturally for at least six months. And ideally, up to two years before it's ready to be carved. And this was something I was unaware of before, but in terms of my interest in the production of these ancient ostrich egg as luxury items, that suddenly added a whole new dimension of the complexity of their production, manufacture process, because it now adds a time element to it. You're not going to get a quick return from stealing your ostrich egg from the ostrich egg from the ostrich's nest.

You now have to wait for it to dry naturally. You can't put it in the oven. You can't leave it out to dry in the sun. It needs to be left in stable conditions for an extended period of time. And that surely adds to its value status because now we know it takes a long time to make as well. Right. And I do want to come back to that. One of the basic questions that you had in your study is, these eggs were found in Italy,

but there aren't ostriches in that part of the world. where were they coming from? That, in fact, was the underlying question that was driving this. Ostrich eggs in particularly the Iron Age in the first millennium BCE do turn up with, I guess I would say surprising frequency in elite contexts, in elite burials. Not only in Italy, but also particularly in Spain, a number have been recorded and elsewhere across the Mediterranean in regions where ostriches are not indigenous. And it does raise a question of where they're coming from.

Ostriches in antiquity were indigenous to North Africa and the Levant. Then they weren't penning these birds locally then? You had to get them where they were. No, no. There's no evidence that ostriches in this era were living in Italy. The eggs themselves were coming from somewhere along the Eastern Mediterranean, possibly North Africa. We conducted isotopic analyses to. look at the chemical elements that underpin the eggshell to determine past diet, past paleo

environments. And what we were able to determine was that the eggs seemed to group into eggs laid in a cooler, wetter environment versus eggs laid in a hotter, drier environment. And the distinguishing line geographically turns out to be 30 degrees north latitude, which just cuts below the Nile Delta. So for the purposes of determining where these eggs in the ISIS tomb came from, unfortunately, we cannot yet distinguish between the Nile Delta and, say, the Phoenician homeland, because they both are represented in that cooler, wetter, environmental condition. But the most startling discovery made in that regard was that just because you could source an ostrich egg locally doesn't mean you necessarily did. So in sites in the cooler, wetter zone, we found occasionally an example of an egg that had been laid in the hotter dryer zone, or where the mother was in a hotter dryer zone during ovulation, and vice versa. That adds a whole new

level of questions about whether the raw eggs themselves, the unworked eggs, were those a source of trade in their own way. So this raises a question of whether there was also a sense of value in eggs that came from a different region. You wanted to know if these were from domestic or wild ostriches. And your study found that these came from wild birds. What does that tell you. Well, it tells us that they came from wild birds. But what that means is that somebody had to go and track the birds to find out or work out, establish where those nests were. And then they had to steal the eggs from the nest. An ostrich is an incredibly dangerous animal. They can kill you with a single kick. And their beaks are nasty. They're really sharp. So the ostrich was well known in antiquity

to be an incredibly dangerous animal. Many cultures talk about them as wild beasts. And so somebody had to go and track, somebody had to go and collect steel, and then there's this aspect of the eggs needed to be stored safely for an extended period of time before they would be ready for decoration. You had to be a very experienced craftsman to carve into these eggshells. What did you find out about the techniques that were used to make? these eggs?

We had bought a fresh ostrich egg, drained the egg, made a lot of cakes and kishas that kept us going for several days, and used a number of tools to try to replicate the smoothing and the polishing and the buffing as well as the incision marks. We were able to reproduce some of the marks that we could see, particularly under the scanning electron microscope, some of the motifs that we see, certain patterns that have been carved in some way. We are not entirely sure how they were made. We were absolutely unable to reproduce those. We have more work to be done in this regard. Okay, so you've figured out these origins of these decorated eggs. So what is this telling you overall about the network of bronze and

Iron Age luxury items, how things were flowing? There's a much more complex mechanism in luxury production. We tend to think about the luxury objects from the perspective of their fine spots, which were with their users, their consumers, if you want. So we find them in these luxury graves. And as archaeologists, we often use this to look at the status of the individual and regard it from the perspective of where it was found. But rarely have we considered the whole mechanism to produce such an object because you're not going to have an elite person going off and trying to steal eggs from a very dangerous animal. And the craftsmen themselves are, they're the craftsmen, they're not the elites, but they're

very highly skilled. And perhaps you needed someone who is a specialist in metalworking to put those metal fixtures onto the vessel. And that may well have been a different person who was the artisan who was carving the egg or painting the egg because different skills are required. And so there's a whole class or variety of people involved in this wider luxury production industry if you want to call it that. I mean, it implies it's on a much bigger scale.

And it affects many more people than just the final users. What other type of luxuries were there during this time? Well, there's the most obvious that we would resonate. with are metals, so gold and silver, but also ivory was a luxury item. Woods, there were luxury woods, ebony wood, cedar wood, cedars of Lebanon, we recognize now. So there are a whole host of other organic luxuries. Giant clamshells, tradacna shells that originate from the Red Sea are found in the Mediterranean, particularly during the first millennium.

They were also carved and painted. We believe they were used as cosmetic containers. But again, that's another piece of evidence of the far-reaching exchange trade mechanisms and that highly skilled artisanship of ancient craftsmen and then this connection to luxury desire by elites. If you were going to decorate your tomb, which one would you choose? Oh, that's a really good question. Oh, I don't know if I could choose. You'd have them all.

I'd have them all. Absolutely. I'd have them all. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you very much for having me. Producer Alexa Lim, speaking with Tamar Hodos, a specialist in Mediterranean archaeology at the University of Bristol in England. We need to take a break, and when we come back,

another nugget from our archives exploring the sounds of the animal kingdom. Stay with us. This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. We're dipping into the SciFri Archives this hour for the new year, and now a piece that dates back to March of 2020. It turns out that was only nine months ago, right? Doesn't it feel longer? And unbeknownst to us, it was a good time to unveil a resource to help people travel the natural world via computer. We know you can't pass up a good charismatic creature story, but how good are you at identifying the sound of your favorite animal? To test your knowledge, we've put together an interactive animal sound quiz that you can play. It's up on our website at science friday.com slash animal quiz. SciFright Digital producer Daniel Petershmit and quiz creator is here to talk about our Google Earth Animal Sound Quiz. He's going to test my recall skills.

Sorry. He's joining us by Skype. Hi, Daniel. Hey, Ira. How's it going? Okay, let's talk about why animal sounds? How did you come up with this idea? Yeah, so the idea came from our events producer Diana Montano, who made a version of this for our last Cyfry Trivia Night, which you co-hosted. You were there.

Yeah, it was great. Yeah, so animals have an incredible diversity and how they look, but they also have an incredible diversity and how they sound and how they look might not match up with their calls. So we made a quiz to see if you can match that animal sound with an animal. And you built this as part of Google Earth's Voyager platform. Can you describe how you built it and what's the quiz? line. Yeah, so Voyager is this editorial platform in Google Earth, and they work with different publishers to make these cool, sciencey, interactive stories using their 3D imagery in streetview. And we have another cool project we did with them where we made a tour of Ness's launch pads

at Cape Canaveral. But with this Animal Sounds quiz, we picked animals from all over the world, so you'll be hopping around the globe a lot in this. And it takes you, when you guess it correctly or incorrectly. It takes you to their habitat. We tried to find these animals in street views, so I was just like Googling Bald Eagle in Street View. And I only found a few of the bald eagle that we ended up going with was from a zoo in Germany. I found a hyena, but it was kind of off in the distance, but it is there. Stuff like the Katie did, which is this small green insect was basically, it's kind of hard to find those since they're so small, but we did our best. I am ready for the short version. Let's play a little short version of the quiz right now.

Go for it. Okay. Yeah. So this first animal sounds like a synthesizer or a Game Boy. It does not sound organic at all. I know I'm joining by Skype, but I promise this isn't those like bloopy sounds at plays when you're connecting to someone. So I'll play it and give you a multiple choice guess after it plays.

All right. Let's play clip number one. Okay, Daniel. Okay. So is that A, a giant golden-crowned flying fox bat? B, is it a Bffen Bay Narwhal? C. Weddell seal? Or is it a clip from Pink Floyd's album Animals? You know, you could not have picked a better sound from my first sound, because I know exactly what that is. I thought you took it off of my cassette tape that I took. When I was in Antarctica in 1979, I watched people investigating Weddell seals under the ice with a microphone.

They stuck it down in the water, and that is the exact sound the Wadale seal makes. So, yeah, you got it. C, ding, number three. Yeah, C is correct. All right, I am not going to give you multiple choice for this next one. Okay. But this next one is a bird, and can you guess which bird makes this call? Wow, I'm thinking of my bird feeder in my backyard, and I'm thinking of three or four birds,

and one of my favorites is a nut hatch. So I know it's not, but I'm going to guess it anyhow. Yeah, good guess. probably wouldn't find this bird in your backyard. This is actually the sound a bald eagle makes. No kidding. Yeah, so that sound you hear in movies and stuff. That's usually like a red-tailed hawk or something like that, you know, the fearsome caw or screech.

I was like looking on the, I was looking for these sounds on YouTube, and I was looking in the comments. And someone said in the comments, like, and this is why you don't hear these sounds, why you don't hear the bald eagle sound in movies. I'm calling Stephen Colbert right up and telling me get rid of that on. Yeah, I know. All right, you have another sound for us. Yeah, let's go for it. Let's go for it. We don't.

That's it. Two sounds. All right. Well, I can imitate the sound for you if you want. Yeah, I would. Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay.

Okay. So sounds something like this. And just going back and forth like that. One more time? It's an animal in the wild, huh? Yes. You stepped on your cat's tail. You're on to it.

Oh, come on. So, yeah, no, it's called Canadian lynx. Ooh. And they sound not dissimilar to, like, humans if they try to make that sound. But they make that sound so that, like, you know, they have this big teeth and big claws. Right. And instead of getting in fights, they just yell at each other, kind of like humans. So how many sounds do you have up there on the website?

Yeah, so we have nine of them, and we have birds, mammals, fish, everything. We got it all. And it's up on our website, what's the address, sciencefriety.com slash animal quiz. Animal quiz. And you must have had a lot of fun doing this, Daniel. Yeah, it was a lot of fun listening to the first drafts and hearing the sounds that Google picked, and it was great. Okay, well, we'll have you on for the next round. Thank you.

Thanks a lot for this. It's Daniel Petershman, a sci-fri digital producer and creator of our Google Earth Animal Sound Quiz. Thank you, Daniel. Great talking to, Ira. And you can play it, as he says, up on our website at ScienceFriety.com slash animal quiz. Now, to really turn on the way back machine, dialing it back to September of 2009, because when we thought about what message we really wanted to start the new year with, we decided you couldn't do better than a reminder that science is real. Science is real. We sure hope so, because you're listening to Science Friday,

and that was Science Is Real by the band. They Might Be Giants. And joining me now in the studio here in New York is John Linnell and John Flansberg, also on the drums, Marty Bell are in the background. We'll be playing a lot of music. Welcome to Science Friday. It's very exciting to be here. Why would you do songs about science?

I mean, I don't only geeks like me like science. Because we're like you. Are you? Well, we love to. You know, this is a really, a big thrill for us because, you know, we've been listening to the show for a long time. It's like suddenly like we're inside the TV set or the radio. It's kind of trippy.

Were you science-y geeks when you're in school? Not exactly, no. I mean, it's actually a little bit of a stretch in a way for us to declare ourselves to be authorities on science. This is the Peter Principle in full blue. Yeah, yeah. And you're stepping into a little quagmire by naming a song, science is real. There are a lot of people who don't believe science. Well, you see, that's not controversial for us.

Not for you. No. But have you heard any reaction from people who say, well, why is well? Well, you know, I don't think judging by YouTube flame comments, you can really get an accurate gauge of what the, in general, it seems like people are actually quite positive about the whole prospect. But people we meet face to face are like you pretty much. Well, that's good. Name the songs on the albums. of people?

Well, meet the elements, photosynthesis, my brother, the ape, I am a paleontologist, Roy G. Biv, which is both the color spectrum, light spectrum. And I don't know, John, what are the other? Cells?

Cells. Why does the sunshine? Yeah. Why is the sunshine? Speed and velocity. And now these all sound like kids songs. Are these aimed at kids? Well, it's kind of a, it's sort of a mixed bag.

There are some songs that are very simple that are kind of, that are good for little kids. And then there are songs that are more fact-packed that probably would, you know, be a little bit too complicated for a toddler. But, you know, if you're – I mean, the song we're going to play – The song Meet the Elements. Like, if this existed in my freshman year of high school, it would have been an incredible godsend for my grades. Well, you know, when I hear a song Meet the Elements, who am I thinking of?

Not a few guys before, way before you guys were born, Tom Ler, right? You remember the Elements song? Do you remember Tom Ler? No, actually. I know the song, I know the song, Pollutioned by Tom Ler. He did a whole song of the elements, so that's much different than you. Probably more satirical than ours. I can't believe that guy, like, invented a time machine and went backwards and stole our ideas.

Yeah, no, I don't know. I'm not familiar with that song. But right, he just go rattles through the table of Elm, periodic table. Well, that's kind of what we're just, that's what we're doing. What made you just. Imagine our disappointment that we find out. But you know what, there's, that's... He was a folk singer.

No, no, no. What made you write this song? Also a little bit about the genesis of this song. Well, we were working on our science album. And I guess the thing is we wanted to cover all of the different areas of science. So we're thinking chemistry, biology, physics, earth science, applied science. You know, we're just trying, stepping into each one. and I find the periodic table of the elements to be kind of a great organizational,

you know, an amazing inspiration, actually. Do you? Yeah, that it's a grid. You can just look at it and it's all laid out simply. It's like a lot simpler than a lot of other science charts that you have to study. So this one seemed like it was, you know, it was something you could stare at and write a song based on. I'm Ira Flato. You're listening to Science Friday from WNYC Studios. This is an interview from our archives, recorded in September of 2009.

And we're going to hear a cut from the album. Here they are. They might be giants playing. Meet the elements. Let's meet them now. Is a metal, you see it every day. Oxygen eventually will make it rust away. Carbon in its ordinary form is coal, crush it together and diamonds are born. Come on, come on and meet the elements. May I introduce you to a brandy elements, like a box of paints that are mixed to make every shade.

They either combine to make a chemical compound or stand alone as they are. Neons of gas that lights up a sign at a pizza place. The coins that you pay with are copper, nickel, and zinc. Silicon and oxygen make concrete bricks and glass. Now add some gold and silver for some pizza place glass. Come on, come on and meet the elements. I think you should check out the ones that call the elements. Like a box of pets.

Cates that are mixed to make every shade. They either combine to make a chemical compound or stand alone as they are. Keep up with other elements forming compounds when they combine or make up a simple element formed out of atoms of the one kind. Balloons are full of helium and so is every star. Stars are mostly hydrogen which may someday dry your car. Hey, who led in all these elephants? Don't you know that elephants are made of elements? Elephants are mostly made of four elements and every living thing is mostly made

of four elements. Plants, bugs, trees, worms, bacteria, and men are mostly carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen Come on, come on and meet the elements You and I are complicated But we're made of elements Like a box of paints That are mixed to make every shade

They either combine to make a chemical Compound or stand alone as they are Team up with other elements Forming compounds when they combine Or make up a simple element formed out of atoms of the one kind Come on, come on, meet the elements They call the elements

Like a box off Make average shade They either combine to make a chemical Come out or stand alone as they are Wow, that was great Thank you That was nothing like That was much better

That's a great stuff We haven't heard the Tomlera I can't possibly comment This was just terrific How long does it take you to write that song? Months, years, decades, lifetime? That's a secret. We can't.

Then people are going to, if we do a work, if we do like some kind of theme for somebody, they're going to want to pass less if we reveal how quickly you can write a song. Well, just to remind our audience, we're talking with the band, they might be giants and their new album is, here comes science. Is it out now? It is out iTunes. As of yesterday, it's out everywhere. You can buy it at Target.

No kidding. Yeah. And you can download it. Right next to Miley Cyrus. We're going to take a break on this New Year's Day and come back with more from my 2009 conversation with John Flansberg and John Linnell of They Might Be Giants, who spoke with us the day after the release of their album, Here Come Science. This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flito, taking a New Year's trip into the SciFry Archive vault to revisit an interview with John Flansberg and John Linnell of They Might Be Giants, recorded way back in September. of 2009. This is Science Friday.

I'm Ira Plato. Sitting in, sitting in, I wish I used to play the accordion. Man, start jamming. Feel free. With the band, they might be giants, and the new album is out just out yesterday. Here comes Science with John Flansberg and John Linnell. Also, they're playing the music for us,

and not to be out done is Marty Bellers here with the drums. The King of the drums. The King of the Percussion. Marty is actually playing an electronic drum kit, which is brand new. It's this brand new thing. That explains why I tried to go over and use my fingers. Oh, yeah.

And nothing happens. It's electronic. You need the magic of electricity. What an age we live. And I'm surrounded by, I guess I'd call them music geeks, music science geeks, because they're writing albums about science. And what's the next song we'd love to hear from you? Well, this has a little story behind it. We used to cover a science song.

In fact, we still do called Why Does the Sunshine, which is from a bunch of science. There's a collection of science songs that came out when we were kids with Tom Glazer. And I don't know if you're familiar with this record. But the song was called, why does the sun shine? And in parentheses, the sun is a mass of incandescent gas. And what we found out was subsequently they figured out that the sun is not actually made of gas after this song and become popular among kids. Sure it is. Well, apparently it's not.

I better re-learn something else. We're here to tell you that there are four states of matter. And the sun is actually super-excited gas, which is called plasma, where the electrons have stripped off, been stripped off, precisely. And so we were forced to write this answer song to our own very popular, why is the sunshine? Which is something we only do reluctantly. This whole fact-checking thing is very difficult for a rock band.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, yeah, musicians don't normally care about, whether there's plasma or gas there. We care about beauty and poetry. Yeah. Those are our main concerns. All our lies are in our past. We're forgetting about the lies. But it speaks very highly of you that you want to change the song to get it right.

Yeah, it was just sort of fun, too. I mean, basically, an engineer we were working with, we were actually talking about the conundrum of the whole thing because we had already We recorded this famous song from our repertoire for this album. And we were just like, well, what are we going to do? It's outdated. It's, you know, science has evolved. The consensus has moved on from the idea of the song.

And this engineer, John Altschiller, actually said, why don't you just write a song called The Sun is a miasma of incandescent plasma? And that's what we did. Is that the name of the song? Yeah, that is the song. All right, here is. There is. Plasma.

Here they is. Here they is. They might be giants from their album here. Here comes science. I forget what you've been told in the past. Electrons are free plasma for state of matter, not gas. Red dwarf. I hope it never morphs into some supernova collapse. Oh, oh, or, or, oh.

Piasma of incandescent plasma. I forget what I was told by myself. L, L, L. L. Plasma, electrons are free. Plasma, full state of matter, not gas, not liquid, not silent. Forget that song. Plasma. That's great.

That's great. Ira, I had to say we've been on a million radio shows, and the reverence with which you show the length and ending of a song is truly a recessive trait in DJs, hosts, radio people. You want to know why that is? It's beautiful. Like when you actually at the top of the thing where you played the entire, song, science is real like, you know,

typically, you know, people just hit the fader, 30 seconds that right before it ends, it's like, oh, we don't have that kind of time. I will tell you why that is. That's why I love, I love public radio. I come from, yes, I come from a public radio FM classical music background. And my, when I was in when I was at my learning days at

WBFO and Buffalo, if I ever faded down one one note of a classical music, I once had an argument that I was the news director, I wanted to fade down the, the music so I could get a bulletin in there. I heard a...

You can't run a bullet, you can't interrupt an FM radio. Right, right. So you were like the king of dead air. So you just let the song go all the way. You wrote the whole song. Why don't we hear the whole song? You actually let a little silence in after that.

Absolutely. Our guy in Boston, I guess, was Robert J. Lertzima, it would seem like he'd fallen asleep. You know, it was his quiet moment. I remember him. Yeah. He was like, that was... That was... But it suggests a whole different kind of...

lifestyle is fantastic. I have a suggestion for a song for you. Oh, sure. You know, you talked about the mistake with the makeup of the sun. How about something about Pluto, not being a planet? Well, we do have a song. We haven't learned how to perform it in this group, but with this arrangement. Oh, is there?

But we do have a song called How Many Planets, where we dodge the question of how many planets there are by simply enumerating everything, planet or not, in the course of the song. Let the people decide. Let the people decide. Yeah, yeah. What's your opinion on that, Ira? I don't think it really matters. You know, I don't think that it matters that Pluto is.

Well, then we're in agreement then, yeah. That's more or less what we're expressing in the song. Who cares? I would, if I were pressed, I'd have to say, yes, there are eight planets, but it doesn't really matter that Pluto has been demoted because it's just a name for something. Yeah, yeah. I think everybody kind of feels for Pluto a little bit, though. Yeah.

I think Woody Harrelson should be a planet, too. So that makes nine. Well, there are people who are, you know, or space cadets, but What's that email address again, Ira? Don't send it to me. Don't send it to me. Send it to John Linnell. That's right.

I'll take questions. Go ahead. I'm willing to debate. Do you have a, you never ask anybody this question, but I'll, you know, you never ask anybody who's your favorite kid, right? And you ask musicians, what's your favorite song that you have? It's funny. Yeah, we do get that.

And we are, yeah, it's like insulting. How could you ask that? Oh, I'm appalled. I remember there was a radio station that used to advertise itself as one of two of America's great radio station, so you never had to ask what the second one is. Well, if we said it's a Tom Lera song, would we suddenly reveal something? Let's see if we get another song in. It's a laughter epidemic. What should we do?

Come on. Oh, let's do My Brother of the Ape. My Brother, Here They are. They might be giants. About evolution, that controversial. fact. Well, I got the information that she sent to everyone.

And I told you family pickets aren't exactly my idea of fun. I did everyone. And that's how you said my brother the year. Terrific. They might be giants. The new album here comes science.

John Flansberg and John Linnell here in the studio with us. Rocking away and also on the drums, is Marty Baller. Back there, not saying very much as I'll bar. Any other folks you play with, any people in your band?

Yes. Yeah. We actually are, we're just about to go out on tour. We're doing some family shows as well as a flood show where we're playing our 1990 breakthrough album Flood in sequence.

That's kind of a once-in-a-lifetime deal for us. And then we're doing this whole new show for adults. But joining us on stage is this fellow named Ralph Carney, who's famous among musicians for being the, guy who plays on all the Tom Waits, sort of the classic Tom Waits, middle period circus music albums. He's a multi-instrumentalist. He plays a lot of different kinds of horns.

And he's going to be joining us. And it'll be very interesting working with somebody who's got such a clear voice as a musician. It's very different. Unlike the rest of us. Yeah. Yeah. We're just hacking along. We also have Dan Miller plays guitar and Danny Weincoff plays bass.

So it'll be a six piece, basically. And where are you going to be? Where can people see you? Everywhere. You've got to schedule a little? You've got to tell us to your next time? Go to our website. Or go to Facebook.

Facebook has got all that information. We've got all these, and also there are all these videos that people want to see videos of these songs. The entire album, HereCom Science has been made into a DVD. So there are all these animated videos accompanying the music. And some of them are really quite remarkable. So we might see you on an MTV video? I don't think MTV is playing videos anymore. But if they were, they certainly, no, I mean, it's shocking to everyone.

Especially musicians. I have two daughters. I know it's more of a lifestyle. Music is more of a lifestyle expression these days. But I don't know if they'd really warm up to science that much. I'm Ira Flato, and this is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. We're on the radio, guys. I'm Ira Flato.

Have you never been on the radio? before? But not on Science Friday. That's a big deal. Wow, I'm very flattered to you. You know, because we all wish we could do something else. I wish I could play a musical instrument. I mean, I think you can play musical. I was just hoping that we'd be on Science Friday.

Well, one of us got our wish. Exactly. And is there a topic you'd like to take on that you haven't done yet a subject matter? We're thinking, we were tossing around ideas for the next Disney-produced giant's record instructional music for young people.

We're thinking maybe there goes your civil rights could be the next one. It was one idea. I think Flansberg had. Yeah. We have come to syndicalists. We could do like a history, like sort of a people's history of America. People's history of America. Well, we've got about two and a half minutes left. Have you got a quick song you can sing?

We can take a minute. Sure. What should we do? Do you want to hear a non-science song? Sure, sure. Whatever. We only got a couple of minutes left. I say that, but I don't have anything.

in your mind. Well, play us out to the end of the show. Why don't we do a song that's factually incorrect? Go ahead. Constantinople. Been a long time gone. Constantinople.

Now, church, a light on a moonlit night. Every gal of Constantinople should be waiting in Istanbul. Even old New York was once to Amsterdam. Why they changed it, I can't say. People just liked it better that way. So, take me back to Constantinople.

You can't go back to Constantinople. I've got a long time gone. Com stand the noble white. I can't stand the Nova. That's no business about it turns. Istanbul. New York was once to Amsterdam. Why they changed it, I can't say.

People just liked it. Better than way. No. You can't go back to come. You aren't going to talk until the music stops. Wow, that's amazing. I love that song. I know that song.

It's an oldie moldy moldy. Yeah, it's super moldy. And that's not on this album, though. No, no. It's still a great song. So if people go to watch you in concert, do you play other stuff besides? Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, these albums are only 40, even when we're doing the flood, like, sort of, you know, tribute to ourselves show.

It's only 40 minutes of the show, and the show's like an hour. The family shows was like an hour of 15. The adult shows are like an hour, 45, sometimes two hours when we're feeling heroic. And when we're our Bruce Springsteen mode, and things start expanding in the mannerist period. Yeah. I think we play more songs per show than Bruce, but probably only about half as long. I'm going to have to drop in the next. Please do.

Please do. I'm going to have to drop in. Yeah, bring your accordion. We try not to talk about that. Plenty of them. Actually, he's one of ours. I just have to bring my chopsticks is the only thing I get here. I'm a frustrated drummer, too.

So I won't even, thank you, Morning. I won't even try to do that. Well, we've run out of time, but you guys were terrific. Thank you. You took up our whole studio with a musical instrument. You're welcome anytime you want to come back. Well, thank you so much. It was really a pleasure.

You're welcome. John Flansberg, John Linnell, also on the drums. Marty Beller. They might be giants. The new album is Here Come Science. And here go, Science because that's the end of our program. Thank you all. Cheers. For taking time to be with us today.

If you missed any part of this program, or you would like to hear it again. Yeah. Subscribe to our podcasts or ask your smart speaker to play Science Friday. Oh, one more thing on our Science Friday Vox Pop app. We miss you. We want to hear what science stories you're thinking about these days. So please send us a message and say hello. That's on the Science Friday Voxpop app. wherever you get your apps. Wishing you and yours the very happiest and healthiest of New

years. I'm Ira Flato.