SciShow Tangents - Celebrity Science with Elah Feder

Episode Date: March 5, 2019

For our very first live show at PodCon 2, we were joined by Elah Feder, the co-host and producer of the podcast Undiscovered! Podcasting on a stage with a live audience meant we really had to bring our A-game, so we swapped stories of famous actors, politicians, and other celebrities who also dabbled in science. Sources:[Truth or Fail]http://ancientolympics.arts.kuleuven.be/eng/TC003EN.htmlhttps://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/old-world-high-tech-141284744/[Fact Off]Julia Child:https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2015-featured-story-archive/shark-repellent.htmlhttps://appliedecology.cals.ncsu.edu/absci/wp-content/uploads/Stroud-et-al-2014.pdfhttps://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/4935https://faculty.washington.edu/sisneros/Sisneros%20and%20Nelson%202001.pdfZeppo Marx: [Ask the Science Couch]Brian May’s thesis: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/295744.pdfhttps://www.space.com/5692-queen-guitarist-publishes-astrophysics-thesis.htmlhttp://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_classroom/cosmic_reference/zodydust.htmlhttp://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1994IAUS..160..127D[Butt One More Thing]Dr. Rush’s Bilious Pills:https://io9.gizmodo.com/archaeologists-tracked-lewis-and-clark-by-following-the-1727887223https://www.nps.gov/jeff/learn/historyculture/medrush.htm

Hey everybody, you are about to listen to SciShow Tangents' very first live show, recorded this January at PodCon. So when the episode starts and the audio sounds a little bit funny, that is why. Don't panic. I hope you enjoy this live show, and we'll be back next week with a regular studio recorded episode. Hello and welcome to SciShow Tangents, the lightly competitive knowledge showcase starring some of the geniuses that make the YouTube series SciShow happen. And this week, a very special guest. Joining me as always are Stefan Chin.

Hello, Stefan. Hey. How you doing, buddy? I'm all right. How are you? Great. I'm fantastic. I'm doing just fine.

Not stressed out at all. What's your tagline? We'll go with plus two to charisma. I like that. And we've also got Sam Schultz here. How are you doing, Sam? I'm fine. This is your first live show experience?

Yeah, I think so. Of all, what other live things have you done? I did a SciShow panel at NerdCon. Okay. And that was fine. I couldn't see anybody at that, though, because it was too dark. Now there's all those people you can see their faces. There's a lot of eyeballs looking at me now.

What's your tagline? Definitely not scared. We're also joined by Sari Riley, as always, science communicator, science writer, writer of science things, knower of science things, always more informed than I am. Sari, what's your tagline? I bought a blazer for this extremely auditory thing

we're doing. We also have a very special guest this week. Thank you so much for coming. This is Ella Fetter. Hello. Hi, hello. Thank you for coming to our PodCon live show. Thank you so much for coming. This is Ella Fetter. Hello. Hi. Hello. Thank you for coming to our PodCon live show. Thank you. And taking the responsibility away

from me so that I didn't have to bring a fact. Is that what I'm here for? Mostly in terms of like my mental health, yes. But also you know, you have an audience of your own that you're going to bring over to our podcast. Thanks for doing that. What do you do? I host and produce a podcast called Undiscovered

from Science Friday. And tagline? Oh, yeah, what's your tagline? My tagline, I was prepared for this, I decide to go aggressive because I'm frightened. So in it to win it. All right. It's very hard to win this podcast.

And I'm Hank Green. I am very excited to be here at podcon with our first live episode of scishow tangents and my tagline is i just had a tequila because i just did a booze podcast so this is drunker than i usually am at noon 30. I'm drunker than I usually am at noon 30. So for those of you who don't know, here at SciShow Tangents, every week we try to get together and one-up each other and delight

and amaze each other with science facts, facts about the world or how we found out those facts about the world, and we're playing for glory, but we will also be awarding Hank Bucks, and Hank Bucks go to people who do a good job of amazing us. And we do everything we can to stay on topic, but the podcast is called Tangents.

So if you go on a tangent, you are at risk of losing your HankBuck if the other people on the podcast decide that it was not worthy of the tangent. And as always, we are going to introduce this week's topic with a traditional science poem this week from Sam Schultz. I have to sing, kind of. Oh, God. Hedy Lamarr was a star Of stage and screen Both near and far But did you guys also know she invented

guidance systems for torpedoes? Her work in this field paved the way for the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth we use every day. That was great, Sam. That was pretty good, right? Up the ante.

It's not a poem anymore. It's a song. Yeah, this is way too much pressure. Uh-oh. Disqualified. It's already hard enough with the science poem. So our topic, Sam, of course, gets a Hank Buck.

That's marked down on my little pad of paper here. Basically, you get a freebie for doing the science poem, unless it's real bad. And that's our topic today, is celebrities who discovered science things. Yes, the intersection of celebrity and science, I think, is what it turned out to be more.

Okay. And we're going to start that off with our first segment, which is Truth or Fail. Truth or Fail. That's very good. During Truth or Fail, one of our panelists come to us with three science facts, and two of them

are just lies. And the rest of us have to try and figure out which of those facts are the true one. And this week, Stefan has brought us those three science facts to see if he can trick us. If he tricks us,

he gets the Hank Buck. If we get it right, we get it. Yes. These are ancient celebrities who did science. Turns out it's a little bit difficult to find out how famous people were

in their day. Have I heard of them? I don't know. We'll find out. We'll find out. Right now. Number one. Philostratus was a Greek speaker were in their day. Have I heard of them? I don't know. We'll find out. We'll find out. Right now. Number one.

Philostratus was a Greek speaker, scholar, and Olympian coach in the second and third centuries CE. He wrote several books, including one called Gymnasticus, in which he observed that athletes that lifted weights, raced against horses, and wrestled lions didn't get sick and aged well. I guess as long as they weren't killed by lions. But he also invented the

halteres, which are the original version of the dumbbell. And they were basically like oblong rocks that had a hole carved near the top so you could grab it like a dumbbell. That's number one. What's that guy's name? Philostratus. Just Phil. Who's Gymnasticus? That was his book. Who's Gymnasticus? bell that's number one what's that guy's name uh philistratus philistratus just phil who's

gymnasticus was that that was his book who's gymnasticus that sounds like a really good uh hip-hop artist yeah yeah little gymnasticus number two uh muhammad al-adrisi was an arab geographer and cartographer who lived in the 12th century CE and spent his early life traveling around the world, becoming known for making very accurate maps of the known world at the time. But in his travels, he also picked up some metallurgy techniques from India, which led him to helping develop what's known as Wootz steel, which is what was used to make the Damascus steel swords, which were very sharp and hard to break. And recent testing of those ancient blades and of the Wootz steel itself revealed that their molecular structure included carbon nanotubes. Wootz steel? Wootz. W-O-O-T-Z. Sweet. That sounds fake. Number three. Heron of Alexandria lived in the first century CE and taught at the Museum of Alexandria,

which is less like a museum, I understand, and is more like a university, what we would think of as a university. But he had all kinds of inventions that were way ahead of his time, one of which was the coin-operated vending machine, which was used in temples to dispense consistent amounts of holy water to make sure that the patrons

weren't taking more than their fair share. What? Yeah! That's really, if you made that up, I'm gonna eat my shoe. That's way too good. What was that one's name? Heron of Alexandria. His name after a bird. A very real last person. Okay.

That sounds like, yeah, I've heard of him. Yeah, sure, yeah. Yeah, and I was a fan of his early work. Okay, so we've got gymnastics Phil, who invented the dumbbell. Aladrisi, who was a map maker and made woot steel that had carbon nanotubes in it. And Heron of Alexandria,

who made a coin-operated holy water vending machine. Instead of Red Bull, you got holy water. Yep. Okay. All right, everybody, have at it. Are you not involved in this in any way? Oh, no, I'm involved. I still got a Hank book to give.

Okay, okay, okay, cool. The third one, what's the date kind of range here? First century, CE. Okay. It just seems so complicated. You got to put a coin in a slot and then water comes out in a measured amount. That seems like more plumbing technology

than we would have at the time. Maybe there was a dude in the machine who just like, got it, and poured the water into a bowl. A small boy. A little dude. I mean, Sarah,

I think you might be overestimating the amount of technology it takes to measure water. It's a cup. But you've got to have, like, a reservoir in there. Yeah, well, you fill the reservoir up, the cup goes in, like, you put the thing and you crank the handle, it lifts the thing,

and the cup flops over. You put your mouth and you're like, I feel holy now. I have big muscles. I don't need that dumbbell anymore. That's a good point. Vending machines make me think automatic. And so I was thinking like an analogous thing to that.

But if you had to crank your own thing. There's probably a crank. Or the little human. Or a little dude. Or both of them. Yeah. Could be. Holy water?

Like, was that actually a, like, what, not Christian holy water. Well, it's the first century. It's after Christ. But it hadn't, like, you know. He wasn't on the scene yet. Yeah. Hadn't done the whole thing.

Are there different kinds of holy water? Can you answer? I do not know the variety of holy water that was dispensed. Was it diet? I don't know the calorie content. That's going to be a problem. So gymnastics Phil and his dumbbells. I'm skeptical because I don't know

if we would shape rocks to become a dumbbell. I think we would just lift rocks back in the day. If you were working out, they're there. People have equivalents today. If you grab like a medicine ball, we have workouts with just heavy things. Why would you carve in the middle to make it easier to grab? I don't know.

Somebody had to do it eventually because they are real. I just think we have other priorities back then. Like if you're going to be an Olympian, if you're taming lions, the last thing that would be on my mind is I need to create a divot in this rock so that I can lift it easier.

Wait, wait, wait. Was it a metal bar carved to fit into two rocks or rocks carved to look like a dumbbell? It's a rock that has a hole carved in it near the top so you can grab it. Near the top? It's like a donut. It's not a donut shape? Yeah, more like a kettlebell.

Okay. Oh. Still seems like a lot of work. I mean, they have slaves. Like, you don't have to worry about the amount of work things are when you own people. I'm not saying it's good. Yeah. Just to be clear.

Yes. Dynasticus sounds fake. I mean, if you did make that up, no offense. Yeah, just come right at it. But I feel like it's subtle. It's like fake in a subtle enough way that you might be trying to like slip. But vending machines, man.

Yeah. Well, there's a third one. The carbon nanotubes and the woot steel, which you thought the woot steel also sounded fake. So you're just... It all sounds like video game stuff. It's like carbon nanotubes are from a video game. Woot steel is obviously a video game. Yeah, yeah. It's like carbon nanotubes are from a video game. Woot Steel is obviously

a video game. Yeah, yeah. It's like a Warcraft thing, probably. Yeah, and this coin-operated holy water is basically an arcade game. Yeah.

It's like, oh, I'm gonna do it again. Oh, I got more water. It's the first arcade game. I feel like I've heard something about nanotubes in ancient steel, but that doesn't mean anything.

I also feel like I've, I know there was carbon nanotubes involved in a Roman but that doesn't mean anything. I also feel like I've, I know there was carbon nanotubes involved in a Roman cup. There was like, it was called the Lycurgus cup and there's something to do with when light refracted through it, one way it looked red

and the other way it looked green. We did a sci-show on this. We did a sci-show on it. It's in my brain. That makes me think it's fake. Oh yeah, that's true. My question for all of you is like, do you know anything about Damascus steel?

Because I certainly don't. And I feel like it's one of those things that was a lost technology in my brain. And I, so we could either... Like Hilarion steel, they still have the swords, but they don't know how they were made or you need a dragon or something. We knew it existed, but Greek fire, et cetera.

I'm leaning toward the vending machine myself. Even though I shit-talked it, I'm going to go with the dumbbell because it seems the most plausible. Mm-hmm. And the nanotubes is sketchy. I think it's sketchy to say that you invented a rock. I invented this!

And you're like, no, it's a rock, man. It's just like a slightly better rock. It's easier to lift. Like, the point no, it's a rock, man. It's just like a slightly better rock. It's easier to lift. Like, the point is that it's supposed to be hard. That's like, we made a rock circular, and then it became something. Or like, we made a rock pointy. But like, the thing about working out with a rock

is that the point is that lifting it gives you the action. And so any rock will do that. Not any rock can be a wheel, though. But, again, somebody had to invent all this stuff because it's all real. So eventually, like... I'm going to double down on dumbbell because you're doubling down on vending machine.

So take a stand. Oh, no. I'm all in on vending machine. I really want that one to be real. That one just, it's bait. Yeah, I mean, the way that Ella and Sari feel about Vending Machine is making me think seriously that I'm wrong, but it's okay. What happens when you're wrong in life?

You learn, and that's great. I'm wrong all the time. The public wrongness is a different level of wrongness. Wait, so we're voting for which one we think is fake. I'm going to pick my fake one. Which one is real? Which one is real? There's only one real one.

Oh, the second one. Second one. You think the wood steel is real. No, I'm not saying that that's weird. That's great. I think that's great because then we split our... Yeah, then Stefan doesn't get everything. Yeah.

Okay, final answers? Uh-huh. It was the vending machine. The vending machine. The vending machine. Wow. Wait. Okay, so can you tell us about the content

and the brand of holy water? And the humans involved. Yeah, it was their child inside of the vending machine. No. Slave child. So it was basically a big jar, and you could put a coin in the top, and there was a little beam inside, and the coin would rest on the beam,

and its weight would push one side of the beam down, which would lift the other side up, which removed a stopper from the bottom, and then that would release some of the water, and then the coin would roll off of the beam, and the beam would fall back, and the stopper would place itself back. Ah, it's like a toilet. Yeah, exactly. That's what I thought of.

Yeah. Except that I don't have to pay money for that. Pay money, yeah, to flush the toilet. Well, a very small amount. Actually, in the end, they do send me a bill, now that I think about it. And the water is not holy. It's just the normal...

That's what you think. Well, it's a little bit strange that it's perfectly good drinking water, what you think well it's just it's a little bit strange that it's perfectly good drinking water and then i poo in it uh so it seems like they wanted to automate the holy water distribution so that you could save priests time sure so they didn't have to like pour and then also so that people wouldn't like take more let's be honest they were just trying to make money. Sure. Did anyone cheat?

Was someone watching this vending machine? I'm sure. I can't imagine that you couldn't just poke the stopper and then have the water come out. How badly did people want holy water? I have no idea. This is a science podcast, though. We don't want to hear about why people have holy water. We just hear about it.

Just the distribution mechanisms. That's very good. But could I put a rock in there? have holy water. We just... Just the distribution mechanism. Yeah. That's very good. But could I put a rock in there? Just a round rock? I had invented a very small wheel. And then I put it in and it's just like, ah, ha, ha, I got my holy water.

And then the priests are like, ah, more of these small coin-shaped rocks. Canadian rocks. I was reading a little bit about the history of vending machines and that seems like the key issue to solve with vending machines is like to authenticate

what is being put into the machine. Are most of them like pretty weights? Like just really specific weights or are they looking at shape and texture?

I have no idea. Why don't you know everything about vending machines? You're just coming in here with your vending machine fat, not knowing everything i'm

so sorry i think it's a little of both yeah it's my guess are there are there seeds of truth to your other facts yes uh so with uh gymnasticus phil uh most of that was true i don't know if he was actually an olympian coach or if he just wrote about Olympian athletes. He did write gymnasticus, and in that he talked about all the things that I talked about. But he, I have no idea who invented the halteres. They already had them when he was getting involved in this stuff. And they did use them for weightlifting. But halteres comes from a word that means leaping. And so they were actually primarily used in the long jump. And so you'd like

hold them and it was like a standing long jump and so you'd like swing them forward as you jumped and it would give you like an extra six inches

or something. So they existed. Rocks with holes in them existed. Yeah. That's the part that... Yeah. I just didn't believe

that they put a hole in a rock. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. You know didn't believe that they put a hole in a rock. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. You know, you get that extra oomph from swinging your halteries. Yep, I said that right. Yes, I think so. That's good. And then we got kettlebells.

It seems dangerous, but hey, so was life. Not any more dangerous than wrestling lions. Yeah. No, much less. I wouldn't want to have a halteres if i was going to have nothing or a halteres i wanted one of those i feel like i could hit a line pretty hard with a rock especially had a good grip on that rock yeah got a hole in it that'd be great so then there was uh al-adrisi, which he had nothing to do with steel.

But he did mention he was well-traveled, and he did say at some point that Indian steel is the best steel in the world, and that's where the Wootz steel was made. Did it have carbon nanotubes in it? Yes. Wait, why was it fake then? Because it was just the wrong person. It was just he wasn't involved with that. I see. Yes. Oh. Wait, why was it fake then? Because it was just the wrong person. It was just he wasn't involved with that.

I see. Wow. Yeah. He spent 15 years interviewing people who had traveled the world, and then because he was trying to make a map, and then he was like, here's all the things that people contradicted each other on, and I'm going to discard all of that, but all the things that they agreed on, I'm going to

use that to make a map of the world, and it turned out to be pretty accurate. Like a wiki map. Yeah, yeah. Of sorts, the collective, yeah, that's great. Go on. The map only included Eurasia and the top half of Africa. That's the key part.

Yeah, that's all important stuff. Yeah. So the wood steel was made in India and exported all over the world, and it was used to make the Damascus blades Which do have carbon nanotubes and the production techniques for the steel has been lost But people recently have tried to reproduce it and there does seem to be some people who can make the wood steel pretty reliably But the it seems like they're still trying to reverse engineer the Damascus steel a little bit neat

Ben's my facts those were good facts near the Damascus steel a little bit. Neat. Them's my facts. Those were good facts, Stefan. Yeah, those were good. Thanks. And now we're going to talk more about facts in a little bit. But first, we're going to hear from our sponsors.

All right, and we're back. We've got our points here. Sam, you got two. Good job. You are tied with Stefan, who also has two. Oh, yeah. Who collected those because we got so many people here today. I've got one for getting the vending machine right. Ella and Sarah, you got nothings. You know, I doubted the vending machine right. Ella and Sarah, you got nothings.

You know, I doubted the vending machine and I still stand by that. Wow, you think Stefan was just lying to everyone. No, I just like,

I feel okay about my decision to doubt the vending machine. I understand. Yeah. In fact checking, we're going to get retroactive points.

Okay. I believe the vending machine. Sorry. You look stricken. I believe the vending machine. Sorry. You look stricken. I'm worried now. I mean, you're legit. Yes, your fact is legit. I just don't want to feel bad about my zero points.

So just doing anything to win here. You guys have a chance now because it's time for Sarah and Ella to have their fact off. Oh, no. Yay. Fact off! Oh, that's cute. That was great. So two of our panelists have brought science facts for us today to share

in an attempt to blow the rest of our minds, us on the stage and you out in the audience as well, we hope. The presentees, all of us on the stage, the three of us, each have a Hank Buck to award the fact they like the most. We can throw it away if we hate them, though we never do that, so I'm not sure why we keep it in the podcast.

And we're going to decide who goes first by you guys telling me your first celebrity crush and me deciding which one of those celebrity crushes is better. Oh, my God. one of those celebrity crushes is better. Oh, my God. Neil Patrick Harris from Dr. Horrible's sing-along blog. You're so young.

Oh, my God. I was like, from Doogie Howser? That's weird. I've been thinking about that for a while. Yeah. Oh, my God. First celebrity crush? Yeah. Ever?

I mean, whatever you can remember. Oh, I remember. It's just a very long list. Maybe it's not embarrassing. Why would you ask this? It was Alicia Silverstone in Clueless.

That's a good one. Yeah, no. She's very talented. And a good person, I think. Oh, yeah, she's lovely. She seems and a good person i think oh yeah she's lovely she seems like a great person and uh alicia silverstone and clueless soup's hot um yeah also neil patrick harris and dr horrible sing-along bug i used to think that i looked like neil patrick harris which was just something that someone told me once and that I held on to. Do you still think that?

Have you seen me? I look in the mirror. I know, but do you still think that? That I look like Neil Patrick Harris? No, I do not. Okay. He's very handsome. You're all right.

You're all right. You're a good man. Thank you. Sam, tell me how handsome I am. I think you're very handsome. Scale of one to ten. Scale of one to Neil. Oh, yeah. One to what?

Neil. NPH. Oh, you are... Oh, God. You're a Neil and a half, baby. All that being said, I think I am going to have to go with Neil Patrick Harris over at Silverstone.

Of course. No, that's good. I want to watch Sari at work before I have to. Yeah, that's also good. Not that you haven't heard the podcast. Have you listened to the podcast? How many episodes have you listened to? I have listened to four so far.

Is that respectable? Four out of 11 is not bad. It's an F still. I probably also have listened to four so far. Is that respectable? Four out of 11 is not bad. It's an F still, but... That's probably... I probably also have listened to four. Thank you.

Sari. Yeah? Lover of Neil Patrick Harris from Dr. Horrible Sing-Along Dog. Lover of that horrible doctor. What is your fact?

Okay, let me set the stage for you. It was 1942, the middle of World War II, and the U.S. created a wartime intelligence agency called the Office of Strategic Services, which eventually became the CIA. A lot of battles took place on water, like the Pacific Ocean, and so besides worrying about other militaries, we were deeply, deeply afraid of sharks. Jaws hadn't come out yet, but it was

like a whole thing. People were afraid of sharks and also other dangerous ocean things like barracudas and I guess water things because that's not even ocean necessarily barracudas and piranhas and jellyfish we were scared so they created a department called the Emergency Rescue Equipment

Special Projects Department to take on many projects but in addition to like big military things, they were told to cook up something to repel sharks. And one of the team members was a woman in her 30s named Julia McWilliams, who would later marry, change her last name and become the Julia Child of French cuisine fame. Back then, as far as I can tell, she didn't really know how to cook. She majored in history, not biology or chemistry, so I don't know how she got on this team,

but she was a part of the team developing this anti-shark substance. And according to now- Ooh, sharks are bad. You need to figure out science. Well, prepare the shark. That was her job interview. They're like, okay.

Down two notches, Julia. Wow, you got the job, though. She's the voice of the program. They tried over 100 different anti-shark substances, some of which just straight-up killed the sharks they tested. And they didn't want to just strap a toxin to soldiers, so they turned those down. So eventually they settled on a recipe

with a chemical formed in decaying shark flesh that would hypothetically scare living sharks away. The chemical was called copper acetate, which they mixed with a dark black dye called nigricin and made little packages that could be attached to life vests and things, and they named that Shark Chaser. And until 1974, lots of

branches of the military, the Navy, Army, Coast Guard all used it. But the catches, I don't think Shark Chaser really worked. It didn't work consistently. There are memos from the 1940s when they developed it that said it was over 60% effective in deterring sharks under certain conditions, but it didn't affect

the barracudas and piranhas and all the other ocean stuff that they were worried about. You got to have decaying other fish in that stuff. Yeah. Got to find other chemicals. So I don't know how they got that data to say that copper acetate was effective. And research from the 1960s couldn't replicate the finding at all. So these days we're like, I don't know what they were thinking exactly.

But despite that, I just like the fact that technically one of Julia's child's first famous recipes was a cake made from dye and dead shark smell. What? Yeah, well done. That's it. That was very good. I sort of forgot we had moved on to the real facts part of the podcast. And when you said Julia Child, I was like, that's bullshit.

Do they use something now to chase away sharks so yeah they have like their people are still looking into chemical repellents for sharks

they're looking into chemicals called surfactants which reduce surface tension so like sodium lauryl sulfate they're also

looking into just like shampoo yeah yeah just like why doesn't a shark like they're like ah that doesn't feel good too soapy too bubbly too scummy to bubbles Just like shampoo. Yeah. Why doesn't a shark like, they're like, ah, that doesn't feel good.

Too soapy, too bubbly. Too scum of the bubbles. Yeah. There's also things called semiochemicals, I think, or semiochemicals, which are pheromones or chemicals that convey signals from one organism to another. So. So like there's an even bigger shark around is like the message you might want to send out? Yeah I don't know exactly what

they, these say necromones which make me think they have something to do with like there might be something to do with dead sharks but instead of looking at copper acetate which is a compound that forms in their flesh they're looking specifically for a protein or something that's released as a warning signal

which is like has evolutionarily's released as a warning signal, but just like has evolutionarily involved to be a warning signal. So I don't know if anything is particularly effective. I couldn't find any peer reviewed studies being like, this is our shark repellent. Buy it with your bear spray. Yeah. So possibly people are still looking into it because people are still extremely afraid of sharks.

Is it a big problem, though? Are people getting chomped by sharks in the Navy or whatever? One time is too many times. Yeah, that's true. Might as well keep them away. I don't really want to not get eaten by a shark. I want, like, okay, sorry. I do want to not get eaten by a shark.

But, like, I always want to knock it eaten by a shark. But like, if I'm, I always want to feel like I've done something. Like if I've fallen off my boat and I know there's sharks around, I want to feel like I've done something. So even if it's just like a packet of black dye, I just want to like see it around me and think, oh, I've done something

and the sharks will be less likely to eat my legs off right now for a while, at least, until they come get me. I want a placebo, if nothing else. Like shark holy water or something. Put it in a corner. However they were selling, yeah. Placebo is why they used it for salt. Because the studies that showed that it didn't work started in the early 60s.

But the military used this and through the 70s because they were like well we don't want to send people into sharky waters. Once the life preservers have shark repellent

on them and then like the next one doesn't you're like I think budgets are like yeah we do want to make sure that we don't waste

the public's money but also where'd my shark repellent go? Where's my shark cake? I guess if it's not that common they could have where'd my shark repellent go? Yeah, where's my shark cake? I guess if Sam's right, if it's not that common, they could have been duped into thinking it was working for a very long time. Cool.

Julia Child. Okay, alright. Your fact, time begins now. Here we go. This is not timed, correct? You'll just edit it down into a respectable length? Alright, prepare to settle in then. Zeppo Marx, not just a pretty face.

A Marx brother. A Marx brother. So how well, like, I shamefully am not too familiar with the works of the Marx brothers. Me neither. I know, I've seen Duck Soup. That's the only one. Yes, he was in that.

He was the handsome one, right? That's right. So, okay. So I didn't know much about the Marx Brothers. I was telling my ex-girlfriend about this and she was like, oh, Seppo Marx, you're so lucky. She grew up watching this.

She's well under 60. But anyway. So if you don't know the Marx Brothers well, quick context, five Jewish brothers from New York City made it big in Hollywood with goofy wigs and slapstick and cultural commentary, maybe?

Yeah, Duck Soup is about, it's like an anti-war movie. Yeah, so I watched bits of Monkey Business, which Zeppo was in, in which it's like a comedic romp about trying to immigrate to the United States illegally, which is just so topical. Anyway, it was, I did not find it funny, but again, not the right audience. So Zeppo was the youngest

and the handsomest. He was the straight man, yeah. But he was potentially very underappreciated. So he always got stuck playing the straight man, romantic lead. His brothers got to be goofy and run around in wigs. When he quit, apparently, this is the famous line, the studio tried to cut back their salary because they had one less Marx brother, and they said they were twice as funny without Zeppo.

The studio said that. No, Groucho, his brother, his own brother. Yeah, John says that about me. But half as handsome, obviously. As discussed earlier. Yeah, see, me and Neil. He's.75 of a Neil.

John is.75 Neil. Well, talk to me in three years when I'm his age. Okay. My head has done the thing that his head has. I don't even know what that is. As you get older, everyone knows that your head has. I don't even know what that is. As you get older, everyone knows that your head becomes a different shape.

It's well known. Sorry. Okay, so Zeppo, this is the science part. So Zeppo, tragically handsome and underappreciated, but technically very gifted. Wikipedia says that he was responsible

for maintaining the family car because of his gifts. But in the late 60s, he invented kind of an early Fitbit. So it was called the Lifeguard Watch, which is like a pretty catchy name. It was a watch that had a little heart rate sensor on it. And it had two watch faces. One was like your normal heartbeat, which they said should be roughly 72 beats a minute. And the other watch tracked your actual heartbeat.

And if it went too high or dropped too low, an alarm went off, which probably means that it was not good for exercising. Stop! We've detected you're running. So the idea was it would be good potentially for cardiac patients, and I was trying to figure out what led to this invention. It doesn't say anywhere, but his brother Harpo died of heart failure just two years before he first tried to

apply for a patent for this so i was like oh it's a family love story and harpo wasn't the one who said the mean thing no that was groucho okay who didn't deserve a lifeguard watch so that is what i know about i don't know if it was ever manufactured. I'm kind of thinking no because the way, well, one, I can't find any evidence of it, but also like the way that it measured the heart rate,

it seemed like it was actually like your pulse as it kind of bumped out was supposed to press a button lightly, which seemed like, it's not like, you know,

your wrist isn't, you know, pulsing with life. So presumably he made a prototype, but I imagine if the button was that sensitive, it would have been triggered by all kinds of things. Yeah, just moving your hand around. He also invented, actually, a vapor delivery pad

for distributing moist heat, which is very disgusting. A vapor delivery pad for delivering moist heat? So it's just a hot thing with a wet thing on it. For a second I thought you were going to tell me he invented vape pens. The problem that it was solving was apparently to deliver the moist heat before this,

nurses would wring out warm, wet towels and place them on you, and then you had to keep re-wetting those towels, and this was a consistent moist heat delivery system, which we all... Was there a coin you had to put into it? No, that would be fake.

That would be completely, completely impossible. No. Don't be ridiculous. I read some other things about him that weren't so good that I don't want to share, so... Okay. Thanks for bringing it up. He developed the clamp that delivered the atomic bomb to Nagasaki.

Like, it held the- What? Yes. No, leave with that. It's a clamp. It was a little, yeah, what do they call it? The Marmon clamp? He had a, really? This? It's like a little, yeah, what do they call it? The Marmon clamp? He had a, really?

This? It's like a little metal ring. That's a great clamp. They sell them on Amazon. It's a very bad clamp. They sell them on Amazon? Yeah, no, I've used these. I think they do.

I didn't use it to bomb anyone. It's just a circle. It was like to secure it to the plane. Okay. That's as much as I know about that because that didn't interest me.

What about the moist heat delivery? All right. Okay. Different tricks. Both of his marriages ended in divorce. His second wife

cheated on him with Frank Sinatra. Oh, that means Frank Sinatra. Oh, that means Frank Sinatra. And the very last line of his obituary, Zeppo Marx's obituary, said,

this is like the last line in the New York Times obituary, this marriage also ended in divorce in 1970, and in 1976, Mrs. Marx married Frank Sinatra,

the singer-actor. Oh, God. You're half as funny as your brothers. You accidentally invented a thing that used a bomb, and your heart rate monitor wasn't great, because when your heart stops beating, you probably

know anyway. But he has the moist heat. Yeah, that moist heat's good. I could use some. It's very dry in Montana. Okay, that's it. I'm done. I'm actually done now. Thank you. Thank you. All right, so it's time for us to vote.

We've got Zeppo Marks, who created a bunch of stuff. Most notably, yeah. Go on. Which is your most notable? The Heart Rate Mod, the early Fitbit. Early Fitbit is good. It's cool. Life-saving.

And we've got Julia Child, who created a shark repellent recipe made of dead shark's mouth. Oh, boy. Stefan, you go first, because I don't want to do it. It's very hard. I, well...

Oh, my God. We should, like, shake hands or something. Yeah. It's non-hostile. Yeah, yeah. That's a lie. I don't know why, but I want a life vest

with this pouch of ink for just when I'm walking around on land. Just so if I feel anxious or something, I can just yank the cord and squirt this black liquid around. It sounds like death. Yeah, it'd be a squid, like a land squid. Yeah. I think, oh God, but I really like this lifeguard watch I mean well we have

10 minutes so hurry up I'm going to give it to the lifeguard watch I'm also going to give it to the lifeguard watch because I like the Marx Brothers is this a guest thing no it's not at all because I will take pity

so I'm also giving it to Ella because it was like, here's one thing Zepo Marx did and also here's a bunch of others, including the thing you used to fix an irrigation pipe after you stabbed it with a hoe while planting a cherry tree.

The intended application. Yeah. This applied in World War II. It did other things as well. And I'm sorry, Sarah, and I also kind of did it so Ella would be in first place. You know, Ella was in it to win it. And so...

I vote for you, Siri. Oh, thanks. That's not how it works. No, it doesn't. You don't have a point. We're in brutal competition with each other. We can't be nice to each other right now. After the show, though.

Yeah. We can give each other all the Hank bucks. There were too many facts After the show, though. Yeah, yeah. We can give each other all the Hank bucks. Okay. There were too many facts in your fact, Ella. And now, since we have very little time left to go, we're going to ask the science couch. So we've got some listener... Okay, go.

So we've got some listener questions that have been sent to us, and this one is from the Goose of Death, Minecraft Pia123. Does We've got some listener questions that have been sent to us. And this one is from the goose of death, Minecraft Pia123. Does Brian May's PhD thesis have any applications in spaceflight? I'm going to go ahead and say I have no idea what that means, and hopefully Sari did research.

Okay, yes, but first, can you explain who Brian May is? Because I had to Google him. I had a neighbor growing up named Brian May. He's in Queen. Oh, he's from Queen. Yeah. Sam knows who he is. I told you that we were going to talk about Queen, at least, didn't I? You did tell me that. He was in Queen, one of the

creative forces behind Queen. That's about all I know about him. Cool. He also did a PhD in astrophysics. I mean, he looks like he has a PhD in astrophysics. But like British astrophysics. British astrophysics, yeah, very much so. His thesis is called A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud.

And the short answer is no. But he thought it could have affected spaceflight when he started researching it because it took him 30-ish years to complete his thesis. Oh! I mean, we... Yeah.

He was really busy for a little while there. Yeah, he had some stuff to do in the middle. So he finished it after... He wasn't continuously... It was a 30- there. Yeah, he had some stuff to do in the middle. So he finished it after. It was a 30-year. No, he took a break to be in Queen. Right. That happens. So like many feces, this is very specifically about one very, very specific phenomenon.

The zodiacal dust cloud is all the interplanetary dust in the solar system. So it's mostly between the sun and Jupiter and it scatters sunlight at certain angles. And we can see it on earth because it glows along the horizon. That's called zodiacal light. It's the false dawn when it's seen before sunrise in the eastern sky or after sunset in the western sky. So in the 1970s, Brian May basically rebuilt a spectrometer on one of the Canary Isles off of West Africa. He made 250-ish observations from September to October 1971 and April 1972. And he thought it was interesting

because he was like, there's all this dust in the atmosphere. This is the time when manned space flight was like starting up and we weren't sure if the dust would be bad for astronauts in some way, also could maybe teach us something about the formation of the universe.

Like if there's dust in space, what is it made out of? What collisions created it? And then in his thesis, I read like the first 10-ish pages, but it was 200 something, so I didn't have time. He said,

the writing of my thesis was virtually complete in 1974 but the submission was deferred due to various pressures. He was being a rock star. The various pressures were rock star. But then,

after he did the queen thing, he went back to work in 2006 and graduated in 2007. To do that, he had to take into account new research

about the zodiacal dust but not a lot of people cared about it. Sorry, Brian. That's probably okay. I was waiting for him to come back. Yeah, I was waiting for him to come back, but that's why he was able to finish his thesis because he wasn't scooped or anything. No one else was really researching it. NASA put up an

infrared astronomical satellite and saw how the dust was concentrated in bands and figured that some of that particular dust was made from asteroid collisions. But he was able to do, like, a 30-year literature review, take that into account in his thesis, publish it, and be like,

I know the most about zodiacal dust of probably anyone in the world. Does it have anything to do with spaceflight? No. No, it's just dust. He thought, like, the dust could have interfered with spaceflight, but it just is a thing that exists in the universe.

So it influences spaceflight as much as anything else floating in space does. You're not going to accidentally crash into some of it and have it be a problem? No, I don't think so. They don't have to factor it in to launch calculations? I don't think so. I think it's far enough away

or small enough that whatever radiation shields you build in or whatever other physical shields you need normally with a spacecraft, like this dust and other dust... All good.

All good. It's just more dust. It's just more space dust. It's just stuff. If you want to ask us questions on the science couch, you could do that. You could tweet us your questions

using the hashtag AskSciShow. Thank you to Nyad Dryad and One Round Panda and everybody else who tweeted us your questions this week. Our final scores. Sam, you got two. Stefan, you got two. Sarah, you got, I think, nothing. I've got one. And Ella, you're a winner with three.

Thank you. If you like this show and you want to help us out, it's really easy to do that. First, you can leave us a review wherever you listen. That's super helpful, and it helps us know what you like about the show. Second, you can tweet out your favorite moment from this episode, and we'll see it, and we'll go, ha, I liked that too. And finally, if you want to show your love for SciShow Tangents, you can tell people about the show and all of you in the audience. Subscribe if you have not already. Thank you for joining us. I have been Hank Green. I've been

Stephen Chin. I've been Sam Schultz. I've been Ella Fetter. I've been Sari Reilly. And this, oh, did I say Hank Green already? Yeah, you said yourself first. Okay. SciShow Tangents is a co-production of Complexly at WNYC Studios. It's produced by all of us and Caitlin Hoffmeister. Our art is by Hiroko Matsushima,

and our sound design is by Joseph Tuna-Medish. Our social media organizer is Victoria Bongiorno, and we couldn't have made any of this without our patrons on Patreon. Thank you, and remember, the mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be lighted. But one more thing Dr. Benjamin Rush was a medical professor Surgeon General of the Continental Army During the Revolutionary War

And one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence He was also one of the people who bled George Washington to death on his deathbed. In addition to all this, he helped Meriwether Lewis prepare for the Lewis and Clark expedition and one of the things he gave him was a pill called Dr. Rush's bilious pills

that contained more than 50% mercury and they would make you shit your guts out. They ate a lot of red meat on the Lewis and Clark trail, and they had to shit their guts out. But a cool side effect is that this has helped researchers find where Lewis and Clark camped, because they just look for places where people shit a bunch of mercury out. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right.