SciShow Tangents - Bonus Backlog Bonanza - Ep. 24

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

This bonus episode was originally posted on Patreon on March 3, 2023 titled "Bonus Content, Incoming!"Original Patreon description: Another Patreon Bonus Podcast! Listen for your Science Couch Questions, and Check in with Sam on the Every Person's Science Bench?SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents!And go to https://complexly.store/collections/scishow-tangents to buy some great Tangents merch!While you're at it, check out the Tangents crew on socials:Ceri: @ceriley.bsky.social@rhinoceri on InstagramSam: @im-sam-schultz.bsky.social@im_sam_schultz on InstagramHank: @hankgreen on X

Hello and welcome to the SciShow Tangents Patreon, patron podcast. Every week we ask our audience questions for our science couch. And every week we get a bunch that we can't use because we only do one per episode. But then Sari, being an overachiever, always like researches multiple ones to figure out which one's the best one.

And then she's got all that information in her head and there's nothing to do with it except have a SciShow Patreon patron podcast where we answer questions that we got for the Science Couch that we didn't answer on the podcast. We can't just throw them away. No, you've done all that work. You're more important than that. Yeah. And so, and also our audience is more important. The listener and Sari, both are valued highly. We don't want to waste any of their good work.

More important than almost every other person on earth. If I could pick two, it would be the listener and Sari, everybody else, get the ax. Bye, Sam. Sari would have the most popular podcast on planet earth. So that would be amazing. No, I wouldn't because I wouldn't have either of you. It would just be me and the listener.

Well, but you'd have that one listener. So hopefully we won't all die and there will not be only two people left in the world to listen to podcasts. Cause that would be, I think the economy would be a bit in shambles by then. Brand deals, difficult to make. So it could be the CEO of Coca-Cola, Nike.

She could just take them all over. It would be great. But then I would have to produce it too. So I can't be the CEO. How are you gonna, right? It's all collaborative. The world is nothing. This episode's brought to you by Hewlett Packard,

because you could just say whatever you wanted and it would be true. Oh yeah, no one could sue me. Everything would be the big mouse, I would say all of his names. Disney could still get you actually, don't say that one. That's how we're still, they could still come back. Nothing to do with living people.

Please don't even joke about it. It's all just institutions at this point. So we do have a bunch of questions. We're gonna try to lightning round them so we can get through as many as possible. We're gonna start out with Karen Dixon, who asked on YouTube, why do you see shapes and colors when you rub your eyes?

And all I know is that you're kind of depriving something of oxygen. Or of blood and thus oxygen. And so like, I think that the nerve is, is not, it's not getting the signal. It's not, it's not able to like, it's not providing a signal anymore. And so the brain starts to give what it thinks is being sent, even though nothing is being sent, but I might just be making that up. Oh, I would guess just pure squishing, just mechanical. You're just squishing and they're like, no, please.

Because there isn't enough blood getting to the nerve. I could be wrong. Sarah, do you have any idea? I think it's squishing, but it's possible that you also see shapes and colors when your, your eyes are deprived of blood. see shapes and colors when your eyes are deprived of blood. But I think what I found in my research is that at the back of your eye, your retinal ganglion cells are the ones that get stimulated by photoreceptors, which are stimulated by light.

But because we're so squishy, then sometimes those cells can be stimulated in other ways. Oh, okay. So you're actually just squishing them. I was all wrong. You're squishing your eye and then your eye is squishing on those cells and that just like causes them to activate and sends bursts of information that your brain interprets as random bits of light. So... Because it's like these are the eyes, this must be visual. Is that what I mean? that your brain interprets as random bits of light. So, there's a setting signal. Because it's like, these are the eyes,

this must be visual. Is that what I'm making it? Yes, yep, exactly. It's like, nerve, nerve, nerve, but then your brain's like, oh, that's the eye nerve. So you must be seeing something. Mr. Eye, you have something to say? That's probably what your brain says.

So that's why it shapes and colors. And there are other studies that have shown that like cosmic radiation can cause flashes of light or other electrical weirdness around your eyes and visual cortex region. Cause we can get to us here. Um, it's mostly an astronauts that they've studied it. They see stuff.

They can see, yeah, like flashes of light. I think we've done, back in my day, we did a SciShow space about this. There may be a SciShow regular video, because it's so weird. But yeah, because those cells, they can be activated by all kinds of things, including like high energy particles.

And then your brain's like, ah, it must be because we saw something. And then that something is just a generic color or light. I found it's called how cosmic rays make astronauts see stars. That's wild that we can visually detect cosmic rays. Where do cosmic rays come from? Like stars exploding? The Big Bang. Wherever energy comes from in space.

Yeah, that's a big place. Stars exploding. You know. Rubbing my eyes is one of my favorite things to do. Is it bad for you? Should I stop doing that? No, you're good. Because it looks so cool. It gives me headaches sometimes.

I think it doesn't really matter. It's like hitting your knee for fun. Do you ever hit your knee for fun to cause your knee reflex? No. No. I do that. I don't do that for fun. So it's like that.

If you just, if you do it sometimes, it doesn't matter. If you do it too much, maybe it can hurt your knee. A little bruise. Okay, this next question comes from judacraz who asks, how do geckos regrow their tails? I don't know. We do it once. This is always the wild thing to me is that all of us grow two arms One time, but we can't do it a second or a third time

Yeah, but geckos can't they grow they grow when they're babies They grow a whole tail and then they retain that ability to grow a tail again. That's as far as I can guess though That's like pretty much the whole thing. They only grow grow back is kind of screwy too, isn't it? It's not like, it's not as good. Yeah. So development is the time when everything, all your cells are still in their pluripotent state, which is a fancy biology word, meaning that they can become lots of different things or many different things, maybe not everything at that given time, but they can become lots of different things or many different things,

maybe not everything at that given time, but they can really, there's a lot of chemical signaling to arrange bone and skin and different types of tissue and specialize everything. So when geckos regrow their tails, it's only certain species of lizards and geckos are one of them. Then they have some sort of bodily response that they drop their tails as a mechanism. So that's part of the bodily response is being able to drop your tail as this fleshy, meaty bit for a predator to eat so you can scurry away with all your vital organs and whatnot. Then this mass of flurry potent stem cells called a regeneration blastoma. Like we have stem cells in our body, in our bone marrow, we make more blood cells. In the gecko, they just like coalesces at the tail stump and it regrows a lumpy tail

that doesn't have a new spinal column and doesn't have nerve integration. It's more like a cartilage tube that has enough blood flow to keep it alive and fleshy. But it's more like the shape of a tail without being able to wiggle it and move it in the same way. What's the point? I don't know if they can drop it again. Just to, yeah, why they just do it? They might be able to drop it again or just to have it as like an

Extremity to eat or I don't know for balance. There are probably a lot of reasons to have a tail I guess they store fat. They just like you so maybe they keep the The other people they're like other people the other get goes are like, oh nice one If you don't have a tail there, they're like, well, good on you for getting away, but it's not attractive for me. Yeah, that too, maybe. It's like a cool scar, you know? It's like, that guy, he's been through it, sexy. Yeah.

But I guess if it's good to have one tail to drop, might as well have another tail to drop. It had to have been useful before, or else they would have evolved to not have it at all. My first ever online video was about geckos regrowing their tails and how humans can regrow part of their livers through the same or similar mechanisms. Was it a SciShow video or a...? Very poorly. No. It was when I was in college.

I think it's still on the internet. It's very embarrassing. Could you point us in the right direction? Yeah, I can get the patrons. Nice. Why can we grow a liver, but regrow a liver, but not a limb? It's also poorly titled. Oh, that's okay. Oh, I found it instantly.

Oh no. MITK12videos? Sorry. Oh, sorry. A little bit of sorry. All that information, the information in it is debunked? No, no, no, no. The MIT K-12 videos doesn't exist anymore. Oh, defunct. But when I was in undergrad, then...

Whoa, you got to hold real geckos! Yeah, there's so much production value here. Okay, maybe in a future episode we'll do a live watch-along of this video. No! Okay, maybe in a future episode we'll do a live watch along of this video. I did like the part where you were like, I've been directed to stand up in the middle of this line. Uh huh. I was a little bit like, that's maybe asking too much of one person.

Uh huh. Well, it also switched to making me memorize the script day of because I was also at this point TA-ing a class and helping produce all of the memorize the script day because I was also at this point, TA in a class and helping produce all of the other videos besides the one I was hosting and they were like, memorize the script. It's like, okay, Elizabeth and George, I'll try. And that's, come on. You can do better than that, which is why I'm so sweaty.

Are you sweaty in the video? Terrific. Did you animate it? Did you animate it too? I helped animate it. Elizabeth did most of it, but I helped. I did a lot of animation in my college days. It's not great. It's not good. But I used to want to be an animator and then SciShow hired me as a script editor. So multi-talented. Stubborn and as a script editor. So multi-talented. Well, stubborn and tries too many things

and then can't specialize in one. Sarie, thank you for helping us know new things. That was not the most rapid fire answer thing, but we'll get to more next time. And now it's time for the Every People's Science Corner with Sam and our research assistant, AP Faith. Thanks, Hank.

This month we're back with results of more very important research. So in the Tales episode of Tangents, we learned that scorpions pooped out of the end of their stingers, which led us to speculate that maybe they poop on their own heads sometimes. And then Hank asked the most important question of all, which we shared as a poll on Discord. Research assistant, AP Faith, would you please read us the question? Of course, Sam, thank you so much.

So the official question that we asked was, if people had tails with poopers on the end, would they poop on their own heads all the time? And the answers available were yes, how could you resist? No, yes, but only on special occasions or other please specify. So which one do you guys think was the majority answer among this poll? Well, I think it's gotta be a really low percentage

that says yes, they do it all the to be a really low percentage that says yes They do it all the time, which is not the case. I was trying to make Think we do it all the time. I thought we do it sometimes and I guess so I guess what I I feel like is yes But only on special occasions and so I'd like to see hoping for double digits on Yes, but I think that I think by far the winner will be no So I'd like to see, hoping for double digits on yes, but I think that, I think by far the winner will be no.

But I am very curious about other please specify and the specifications that came with it. Terry, what do you think? Oh, I think no is gonna win for sure. But I think I would click again, other please specify because I'm gonna be pedantic about it and be like, yes, but only once, not on special occasions. There's no special occasion besides,

what does it feel like? And then you're done. Well, here's the important lesson I should have learned is listen to the episode again before you write the question. Because I was just going off of vibes, didn't really remember what the question was, but. You thought I thought, man, if I could, I'd shit on my head every day.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe. Who knows? I feel like that's what I remember the vibe being also. Yeah, that's what I think it was, too. But listening to the tapes back, that was not the case. The official results were absolutely nobody said, yes, how could you resist? Not a single person.

Seems right. We did end up with majority no, but only a 52% no, and 47% said yes, but only on special occasions. Yeah, those are my people. So you were basically right, Hank. It's like one time or when it's gonna be really funny for you to poop on your own or someone else's head

We Didn't get any specific answers saying other please specify But we did get a comment saying is it a given that we would try to poop on our siblings heads Yes, and I thought that was a really great point to bring up because of course we were there's not really anything preventing you from doing That right now. Yeah, that's how many people have tried to poop on their siblings, not me. I could poop on my siblings head.

I can't poop on my own. Yeah, but what if it was way easier to do it then? I feel like it would also be way sneaker if you had a giant tail where you're like casually having a conversation with them. And then just like, whoop. Just like doing the little bunny ears. and tail where you're like casually having a conversation with them. I was imagining that mostly we'd poop on our own heads in private just to see what what happened as children because children. Yeah my methodology was flawed. I admit this. That's part of being a researcher. You're never gonna get an honorary PhD like this, Sam. You gotta get in shape for asking questions.

Well, I just have to resubmit my paper after working it, reworking it, right? I guess this is what the advisor is for. This is feedback. Yeah, we're the advisors. You're helping me get my masters or whatever. I think first is that you need, instead of the science, the every people science corner, you need a furniture piece, obviously. We've got the science couch over here. You need to be seated comfortably somewhere.

Shea lounge or something. Yeah, I don't know, you gotta think about it. That's my first piece of advice. The second is... A bench. Common people have a bench, right? Just a bench. Yeah.

And then what's your second piece of advice, please? Oh, really like up your research rigor. If we had to give feedback on this data, I would say a 12 to 11 split is not significantly significant. Okay, I'll take that on your advisement. Also, if you counted really carefully, the percentages do not add up to 100 because I rounded badly. Oh well.

Research assistant AP Faith, come on. Well, this, it's, it's, I'll do better next time, I swear. Okay, me too. I'm sorry, everybody. Now you're really feeling what it's like to be a grad student. Is that how a thesis defense is supposed to go? Yeah, I'm groveling. Should I be groveling?

You should be crying a lot. Yeah, me and Faith stayed up all night working on this, okay? Oh my God, I'm so glad I'm not doing this. Thank you for reminding me of all of the sadness that comes along with the thesis. It's so scary. It's so scary. How are you, like, how am I even supposed to know

if I can get good data? You can't. No. You can't. You can't even know if your question is answerable. Why don't you go for it? Not like here on SciShow, where if the question isn't answerable, we just go to the next one.

Yeah, we're gonna put this audio up either way, you know? I love saying I don't. Who knows? But I do know that a near majority of people thought that they would poop on their own heads, but only on special occasions. Yeah, which I think in that umbrella, trying it once just to see what it's like counts, right? That's like basically, that's the most special occasion of all.

I think it's also very consistent with SciShow Tangents listeners specifically. I feel like if we pulled the general population, the nose would be way up there. I feel like we got, we're weird. Oh, I don't know be way up there. I feel like we got... We're weird. Oh, I don't know. I don't know.

I think we could unleash, I think if we unleash it at large, maybe I'll try it and we'll see what the real dark heart of humanity is. Oh. Yeah. It'd be great if the patrons are like five times more likely to shit on their own heads

than just people on Twitter. Uh-huh. That's a paper. Or we really know the difference between the people who give us a little bit of money every month and the people who just follow on Twitter and that difference is they would shit on their own heads. It would probably really help us target our advertising, I bet. Yeah. Yeah, it's a psychographic.

advertising I bet. Yeah yeah yeah it's a psychographic. Facebook knows all about the very small group of people who would shit on their own heads and they know that they are much more likely to be diehard SciShow Tangents fans. Yeah we'll pay through the nose to get that information too. Well thank you so much to everybody for supporting us on Patreon. We are so glad to be able to make our lovely little podcast with you. Thank you to Sam and Sari and Faith and Tuna for being here to help us record this special Patreon podcast. Sam leaned toward the mic as if he was going to say something. I was going to say something and this is what I just thought of. If more people subscribe to the Patreon, my data will be better. So get out there and spread the word.

You gotta spread the word for the weirdest possible episode of Family Feud of all time. Oh yeah, we can start. Once we get enough, 100 people ready to respond to these polls, we could full on Family Feud. We have more than 100 people on our Patreon, so we could. No, to respond. They got to respond. That's true. You got to get more participation.

You got to show up on that Discord. Yeah. But yeah, you've discovered another part of being a PhD student, Sam, which is fundraising. You've got to make sure of your research. Not only do you have to be interested in your research, but you also have to make sure that someone else will pay you money to do that research. Not only do you have to be interested in your research, but you also have to make sure that someone else will pay you money to do that research. So. Oh, I'm learning so much. I'm going to write all this down. Thank you for your support. Thank you for being a part of what we do, and we will see you next time. Hey! That was a month ago, sorry.

It's a real callback. We'll see who the real listeners are. Hey, it's Wado from That's Who It Is. It's Wado. you