The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week - Atomic Priesthood, Space Smells Like Beef, the Power of Pee Fuel

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

Jess brings on science-minded friends Lindsey and Misti to discuss why space smells like a freshly opened beef stew packet, how having to pee makes you better at video games like Elden Ring, and how rituals and priests might be the solution to long-term nuclear waste warning. Follow Lindsey: https://www.twitch.tv/ohlindsey Follow Jess: https://www.twitch.tv/jesscapricorn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is a podcast by Popular Science. Share your weirdest facts and stories with us in our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook group⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠tweet at us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to learn more about all of our stories! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Links to Rachel's TikTok, Newsletter, Merch Store and More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Rachel now has a Patreon, too! Follow her for exclusive bonus content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Link to Jess' Twitch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twitch.tv/jesscapricorn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Link to all of Jess' content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.jesscapricorn.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -- Follow our team on Twitter Rachel Feltman: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Jess Boddy: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/JessicaBoddy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Popular Science: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/PopSci⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Theme music by Billy Cadden: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/artist/6LqT4DCuAXlBzX8XlNy4Wq?si=5VF2r2XiQoGepRsMTBsDAQ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Right now, our listeners get an additional 15% off any annual membership at https://MASTERCLASS.com/WEIRDEST Refresh your wardrobe with Quince. Go to https://Quince.com/weirdest for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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While supplies last, price invalid May 14th or May 27th, U.S. only exclusions apply. See homedepot.com slash price match for details. At Popular Science, we report and write dozens of science and tech stories every week. And while a lot of the fun facts we stumble across make it into our articles, there are lots of other weird facts that we just keep around the office. So we figured, why not sure those with you? Welcome to the weirdest thing I learned this week from the editors at Popular Science. I'm Jess. I'm Lindsay.

I'm Misty. Oh, yeah. Welcome to the show. This is so exciting. Thanks for having us. Yes. Thank you. Oh, my God, my pleasure.

Why don't you guys tell the listeners a little bit about yourselves and what you make and why you're here? Hi, my name's Lindsay. I'm a Twitch streamer. I stream full time. I love it. And why I'm here? Because you asked me, baby. It's all takes.

It's all takes. Misty, what about you? I'm Misty. I am in tech sales by day. I am, I would say, a defunct Twitch streamer by night. I don't think my chat technically knows that I am going by defunct, so I might be breaking some news here. I am also an amateur.

Breaking hearts for sure. It's hard to stream on Twitch and not do that in some capacity, so they're prepped. Yeah, I'm also an amateur perfumer. I'm an etymology enthusiast. and yeah, I mean, I'm here because I'm always looking for an excuse to saddle people with the fact we're going to talk about today. Oh, I can't wait. I can't wait. Excellent.

Well, I'm so stoked. You guys are here. You guys are like truly two of my favorite people in the whole world and two of the most interesting people in the whole world as well. So this is going to be very fun to yap for the next hour. Yeah, I can't wait. I'm stoked. Yeah. Okay, so I'll do our intro that we have as a boilerplate, even though it's incorrect,

but we just are too stubborn to change it. So on the weirdest thing we learned this week, we start by each sharing a fact or story about something that we learned over the course of reading, writing, gaming, having too many tabs open, being on the computer, et cetera, and then we decide which one of us goes first. Then after we all have a chance to spin our little science yarns, we decide what the weirdest thing we learned this week actually was. But we, that's, that's the part that's not true anymore, because we all win and nobody, everyone is weird. Oh, okay. So this is not a competition, in fact. No. It used to be. We don't, we don't do that anymore. When did it cease to become a

competition? A couple, like, like a, at least a full season ago, maybe two. Okay. Maybe more. Is there tea? Was somebody upset that they lost? Not that I know of. That would be funnier. Maybe deep down their hearts Probably somewhere. Okay, I'll start with my tease, which is having to pee makes you better at Eldon Ring. Oh. Wait. I already know.

Yes. This is perfect. Yes, it's an amazing journey that I have went on researching this. Okay. Lindsay, what's your tease? What's your fact about? My tease is space smells like, what? I can't wait to find out.

Misty, what's your tease? So my tease is I'm going to talk about the most terrifying design slash communication challenge of the modern era. That's a big, I know. It's bold, it's bold, but hear me. out, trust me. Trust me, bro. I trust you. Okay, well, I think we should start with Lindsay because I want to know about space. Okay, let's do this. Okay, picture it. It's December 10th, 2024. And I find myself scrolling on TikTok as one does. And I come across a video about a weird perfume called O de Space,

which then sends me on a deep dive rabbit hole, furious Google Sush. I like that you know the exact day. I went and I looked it up. I went and I looked it up when this girl posted. And all about the smell of space, the smell of our universe. And that then opened me into like the world of weird niche sense in general. which is like if you haven't looked into some of the weird perfumes that are out there,

which, Misty, I know you said that you're an amateur perfumist. Yes. You know all about it. There's some weird, in a good way and in a bad way, since out there. It's fascinating. So technically we can't actually smell space because if we did, we would die. But we can smell the molecules that have clung to an astronaut's space suit. and then scientists can use chemistry to recreate molecules that are found in the universe so we can

smell all sorts of spacey things. So cool. Yeah. There's this really impressive space scientist and fragrance designer, which is like such a cool combination. Her name is Marina Barsenia. I hope I'm saying that right. And I'll talk about her a little bit later, but I wanted to mention that right now, and I think

the episode won't be out before this, but she actually has scent recreation on view at the London Natural History Museum right now, where she recreated the possible scents of Jupiter's moons. Shut up. I really wish that I could go see it. It ends on the 22nd. I think this, he said this will be out after that, but she also has recreated what Cleopatra's hair might have smelled like. Why is she the coolest person I've ever? So awesome. It's so cool. And that also reminds me of that video.

I don't know if y'all have seen it where they, this has nothing to do with smells, but where they recreated a mummy's mouth and vocal cords. Yes. Talked about that on this show when it came out because it was so weird. When I saw that she had recreated what Cleopatra's hair smelled like, that's all I could think of. And then I was like cry laughing and I rewatched the video like four times of the of the mummy voice. Anyway, if you haven't heard that, you need to Google recreating mummy voice because it's funny and you will laugh, I promise. Wait, does it say what the Jupiter's moon and the Cleopatra hair smelled like?

Does she describe it at all? I mean, she might have, but I didn't go on another deep dive of that. I'm so sorry. That's for next episode. That's the next time. That's listener's homework. So, okay. So what does space smell like and what have astronauts described?

I don't know about y'all, but I have a really hard time describing what something smells or tastes like. Yes. And I feel like what something smells like to me might be different. Like, I might describe it differently than you would describe it. So it makes sense why there is a. A lot of different things that people have described. And some of them are really, really weird.

A lot of people describe it similar to gunpowder or ozone, which I had actually already Googled what ozone smells like because I had seen it listed as a note in a perfume that I really enjoyed. And what I found when I was Googling is that it kind of smells like static electricity or a laser copier or printer. Okay. Yes. Yes.

I know that exact. Yes. Or like electronics in general, which I think is really interesting. And the perfume that I smelled that had ozone in it did smell kind of electric. What perfume was it? It's called, I think it's called Concrete Lightning. It's by this brand called D.S. and Durga. They're like located here in Brooklyn.

Yeah. And it's honestly. Honestly, it smelled really good. I probably would have bought it, but it was $250. They're so expensive, but I love their scents. Yeah. Yeah. There are one scent called I don't know what is the name. That is like my favorite next to a La Labo scent. Those are the two that I always wear. I love the one called steamed rainbows. Oh, yes. I have it smelled their own. I need to go and smell them all. Oh, my gosh. It's so good. It's so good. It's great. What does that? one like um well let me let me look it up real quick yeah i'll get the notes for you it kind of has like a petrcore um like it's heavy in petrocore it smells kind of like after a rainstorm but there's something kind of like juicy and fruity about it also it's it's very interesting that makes sense of the name they describe it as roy g bib reflections on soft weightless water steaming upwards forever fresh

but the notes are red mann't orange, yellow, elemy, I don't know if I'm saying that right, resin. The heart notes are green cedar, blue almond flower, indigo grass, and then the base notes are violet, vetiver, and vapors. Vapers. It's very interesting. I think it's probably not for everybody, but it's so good. Yeah.

I really liked it. Smell it. Yeah, you should. They have so many cool scents there. But, uh. But ozone. ozone. Yeah. So some people have said that space smells like ozone. Former astronaut Greg Chammatoff said that there's one smell in particular that I quote, is really unique. We just call it the smell of space. There's this really, really strong metallic smell. Astronaut Alexander Gerst said, this is a direct quote. To me, space smells like a mixture between walnuts and the brake pads of my motorbike. What?

What? Ro is a poet. Okay. Like, he knows how to, you know, describe a scent. Me, no. Don Pettett, in a NASA blog after his mission in 2003, said that it reminded him of his college summers, where he labored for many hours with an arc welding torch. He said it reminded me of a pleasant, sweet-smelling welding fume,

which I don't think I've ever smelled welding fumes, but I don't know if I would describe it as. Pleasant. No. So now I'm interested in smelling that. Yeah. Let's get into welding. Yeah. Sometimes I watch videos of people like learning how to weld on the internet and it just looks so hard. Really? Okay, wait. So I have we just got into a discussion a couple friends at like a little get together the other night. We were talking about things that we felt like we would be irrationally good at and mine was literally welding because I look at it and I'm like I could do that like I know well you chain mail you chain mail yes and I feel like that's kind of related they're both

dealing in metallics right yeah I think though it's like you have like to be like a really good welder I think and I don't obviously I don't know what I'm talking about so I don't know but you have to have like your seams like perfect and I feel like mine would be like zigzagged like all over it is like an art form I feel like you really like study surgeon's hand or something. I mean, you go to trade school for it, right? Like, it's like serious business. I think I would be humbled immediately, but irrationally, I think I would be perfect at it. You know what I'm saying?

Yes. Honestly, I've been watching a lot of Olympics recently, and I'm like, I think I could be a speed speed skater. But I know I couldn't, but it looks really fun. I was thinking that with the ski slalom where they go like, side to side a bunch down the hill. I also, I really want to try like a ski jump. You do. You can go to like Park City in Utah. Dude.

And I don't know if like the public, the general public can do this, but they, when they practice their like ski jumps, they do it into a big pool that's like bubbling, like a hot tub kind of so that you don't, you know, slam into the break your life. Still surface of the water. But that's like how they practice and stuff. And I'm like, I want to, I could do that like one time. I mean, I wouldn't be good at it, but it would be fun. But landing on the actual snow, landing on the actual snow, there's no way.

I would break both legs. Maybe my spine. You know what I mean? Yeah. Best case scenario, it's both legs, right? Yeah. Back to space. Okay, other astronauts have simply described there being like a weird tang on their spacesuits

in airlocks after a spacewalk. Some have said it's cold and antiseptive. lots of people describe it as like fried or seared steak like a meatiness in general. I've heard that. Yes. I think I've heard that too, which is fascinating because like what meat is up there to be seared but human flesh? Well, I might get to that in a little bit.

Okay, sorry, I'm jumping to gun. I'm jumping the gun. And then I think my favorite description is that it smells like cream of mushroom soup. Stop. Okay. What do you mean? The soup that I never eat alone and only use to cook other things. Make a casserole.

Yeah. Or something, you know. Yeah. Green bean casserole, baby. So what causes these weird sense in the space? Basically, we don't know. Short answer is we don't know. What's causing this is out.

Hell yeah. But Dr. Lewis Alamendoul. the former director of the NASA Ames Astrophysics and Astrochemistry Lab says that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are likely the contributors. Okay. Now, I went to a private religious school where I was not taught science at all. So I googled that because I was like, what is that? I don't know. And found out that in the most basic terms, there are molecules that are found all throughout the

universe. And on earth, specifically, we can find them in things like soot or burnt toast or charred meat. What? So that explains all the meaty smells that have been described. That's so cool. Wait, you do research and found the connection. Yeah. Back in 2008, NASA commissioned chemist Steve Pierce to reconstruct the smells of space, specifically so that astronauts in training would know the difference between what space smells like and also maybe an unexpected chemical leak or something, which makes sense. They train for literally everything, so you would need to know when like, I don't know, an unfamiliar smell pops up.

So he took the smells described by the astronauts and then used his knowledge of fragrance and aroma chemistry to make the perfume, which I think, or make the scent, I guess. And then fast forward to June 2020, a time I never want to go back to. Correct. A Kickstarter launches with hopes to produce the scent on a bigger scale and make it accessible to the public.

The original goal was $1,969, which is way lower than I expected for a Kickstarter for that, but also a cute nod to the moon landing the year we landed on the moon, which I think is so cute. horrible. Yeah. I love that. Oh, that's really cute.

Unsurprisingly, the Kickstarter, like, blew past the original goal. They ended up raising $6,000, or no, $614,376. Wow. You can currently buy the perfume. It's $49 for 100 milliliters, which for a perfume is not that bad. Yeah. Yeah. But if you, okay, but if you go back to that original TikTok in December of 2024, it was not just the knowledge of this space perfume that caught my attention.

Oh. It was her reaction to the perfume that really sealed the deal of me needing to know more. In the video, she can't even hold the bottle up close to her face while she's showing it off because she can smell it that, like, that much. In the clip of her smelling it, she gags, covers her mouth immediately, and starts, like, violently coughing. What?

She describes it as all of these things she has said, rancid, horrific, scary, sad, that it smells like fear and danger. Her friend said that it's, smelled like the inside of a VCR, ozone, perhaps? Ozone. When I was on my deep dive, I found a bunch of other reviews of the scent, and they all had a super similar reaction.

One website, it has a 2.1 rating with over 140 reviews, which is really funny to me. Some of the review highlights for me are metallic biscuit latex. Um, again. Urinal cake, hand sanitizer, and soon to expire fruit gummies. No, no. Okay, weirdly, that paints a clearer picture for me. Right? That is visceral. Yeah. So, I mean, needless to say, I won't be spending $50. I kind of want to smell it. But, oh, I'm desperate. I'm desperate to smell it. But like, I will take care of that. Okay, okay, Misty's got us. we will smell space together. Perfect. Yes, yes, yes. Oh, that's kind of romantic, even though it smells.

Ooh, yeah. Even if it smells bad. At a picnic, yeah. Yeah. Outside. Yes. They also then released O'D Luna, which is the smell of the moon

as a stretch goal for the Kickstarter. And how we know what the moon smells like, well, people have been there, baby. Charlie Duke of Apollo 16, also, fun fact, the youngest person to walk on the moon, How old was he? 36.

That's how old I am. And I'm like, what am I doing with my life? Dude, imagining 36 and walking on the moon, that's actually unfathomable to me. My ego would be out of control. Literally. Literally. No one would want to know me at that point. I know.

I wouldn't talk about anything else. No. And I don't know. Maybe he didn't. But he said that the moon dust on his suit, like truly moon dust on his suit that he got to smell, that it, he said, he said, it has that taste of gunpowder and the smell of gunpowder too. So that's, I guess, why space smells like gunpowder.

I don't know. Don Pettit, who was the one. Okay, these are just like other like smells of space into the universe. Don Pettit, who was the one who said that space smelled like welding fumes. He also said about the ISS. He was there for six months. When he came back, this is a direct quote from him. He said it smells like half machine shop engine room laboratory.

And then when you're cooking dinner and you rip open a pouch of stew or something and you can smell a little roast beef. Okay. Me when I smell a little roast beef. Yeah. Me when I open my dinner pouch of roast beef. And actually I made beef stew for dinner tonight. And when I opened that, I was like, oh, space. There are you?

I smell of space. I'm basically on the ISS, baby. Literally, you made it. You made it. Okay, but do we ever think about, you know how, like, you can go nose blind to things? Do we ever think about people who spend all this time in space? Like, when they come back to Earth, does Earth smell weird? Like, are we nose blind to Earth?

That's an amazing thought. To research that, but I wish I would have. I mean, that's a good question for astronauts. We got to, we got to email them. Get me an astronaut on the line. Yeah, get me an astronaut. Okay, just like two more little scent facts and then I'm done. Okay, back to Marina Barsenia, that amazing space scientist and fragrance chemist and all that stuff.

She was talking about Jupiter and how it's just like the stinkiest thing to that. She called it a stink bomb. She said Jupiter has several layers of clouds, right? Right. And she said each layer has a different chemical composition, which means they all would smell different. They believe that the top layer is made of ammonia ice. So like cat pee, maybe. Cat pee, ice.

Okay. And then the next layer, you have ammonium sulfide, which would be like sulfur. Like an egg. Imagine a combo of cat pee and rotten eggs. No, thanks. It would, I mean. That is a stink bomb. That is a stink bomb.

That's taking out like an entire Victorian village. Literally. Not even just a Victorian child. Not just the child. The whole village. And then, okay, so when I was doing a lot of this research, I saw a lot of things about space smelling like raspberries. And maybe y'all have seen that as well. Yeah.

Well, Marina set me straight, okay? She said, no, that's not right. She said their researchers have found ethylformate in the Milky Way. Ethelformate is what is the chemical response for the flavor. Oh. Or the chemical responsible for the flavor of raspberries. And that's in specifically Sagittarius B2 in the Milky Way. So some people have said like, oh, the Milky Way must smell like raspberries.

But there's actually like a lot of things that make raspberries smell like that. And also, ethyl formate is in a lot of different things. Like, it's in a bunch of different fruits, but it's also in like nail polish remover and rum. Interesting. So if you hear that space smells like raspberries, it's probably a little bit more nuanced than that. But I think it would be cool. You should definitely tell people. You should stop them and be like, actually, it's a little bit more.

more nuanced than that. It's more nuanced than that. Yeah. Be everybody's favorite person at the party. Yeah. No, I'll just be like, did you know that the ISS smells like when you rip open a pouch of stew? That's what I'll really tell them. And they'll be like, I met this, the weirdest girl at this party, dude. She would not stop talking about smelling stew in space. Oh. Oh. Oh. And that's it. Woo. Oh my God. Incredible.

I love that. Honestly, the beef, the beef stew is what makes me laugh the most. But the awesome thing is what I'm taking away, I feel. Like that is such a cool. Because that is like such a specific scent. No. As soon as I read that, I was like, wait, I know exactly that smell. Because I worked in an office part time in high school and I was the only person that

knew how to like fix the printer. And so anytime someone had an issue. you, I was like in the in the copy or like fixing it. So I I mean, I smelled that thing a trillion times and I like knew exactly what it was when I read there. There's like a whole fragrance family around like ozonic, you know, notes that people enjoy. So it's like it's interesting that that's included in the scent of space. But it's, I guess it doesn't shock me. Like when you dig into it, it seems like it would be included. I think the beef stew is the most shocking note for me, honestly.

That's incredibly funny. Yeah, and it's, I don't know, all because of those molecules that are found in like burnt toast and chard meat. And that's why I think that that's so cool. It's really, really cool. Dang. All right, we're going to take a quick break

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I think that's what you said, and I'm truly, I'm chomping at the bit. I got to know. Okay, okay, okay. What you're talking about. Well, like Lindsay's former topic, which, by the way, incredible, I'm so into weird fragrances that, like, delighted me to sit and listen to that. Yeah. My thing also started with a humble, deep dive. I do not have the date. Okay, I'm not as prepared with my date.

I was able to locate the original image. And I hate to tell you guys that the deep dive I was on is one of the most unscientific things. I think I could have been. I was looking up live, laugh, love, wall art, okay? In a way to make myself feel better about my own design choices. I was getting on this whole, yeah, I know. I saw an ad for like a cricket or something and I was like, what do these things do? Mind you, this was a few years back, right?

And then I'm like, everyone has one of these things. just cutting out like respectfully, I guess a little bit derogatory ugly vinyl lettering for their house all the time. Like what are we doing as a society? And I came across this image that had like it was it was in the style of like a live, laugh, love, you know, vinyl cutout. But the exact wording, I'm going to read it to you really quickly. Okay. Is this what you sent us in Discord? Yeah, I pulled it up right now. Okay. It literally says this is not a place. place of honor, no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here. Nothing valued is here. What is here is dangerous and repulsive. The danger is in a particular location. The danger is still present in your time.

This place is best left shunned and uninhabited. This is on someone's wall. Okay. Can I post this image on the web post? Is that allowed? Please do. I don't know if we articulate how benign the text is. It's like in like Georgia font or something. Like it's like in the corner of someone's office or something. Yes. Next to that lamp from Target, that's like also a shelf. Yeah. There's like a Google Home or something like on the shelf.

Also how long I've looked at this photo trying to understand the person that put this on. They own a vinyl cutter. But they also are like into what we're going to talk about, which is nuclear semiotics. Like who are you? And no punctuation on. No punctuation. No punctuation. So as you can imagine, paging through a bunch of what looks to be like home goods type of wall art and then coming across this, right? I did what anyone would do and I copied the entire text into Google to see what this was it from a video game? Was it from a movie? What are they referencing? This is so odd to just be placed on your wall like with no context. And it, it, it's, it. It brought me to the thing I can't stop thinking about. So nuclear semiotics is what it led me to or long-term waste warning messaging.

Okay. And I know that I kind of opened up with being a little bit of an etymology nerd. I will own that. Most people I know that, you know, get into any kind of like communication or design. Like etymology just seems to be one of those just below the surface interests. A lot of my friends enjoy digging into, right? Right. So yes, myself included. It's, yes, it's so fascinating. And, you know, like, I think in real time we've all seen accounts. I know there's like etymology nerd out there that we'll talk about like how our language is rapidly changing things to like social media and different, you know, linguistic trends and things like that. Nuclear semiotics kind of bridges science and the study of etymology or, you know, really the study of language or communication across what we call deep time. And deep time. are deep time is it's a concept that helps the human mind break down like periods of time that are

almost incomprehensible to our brain, right? Sure, sure. So like they're so big. They're so big that it's just hard. It's like when numbers get too large for our brain, right? And they become difficult for humans like to process the difference between a million and a billion, right? So we have like certain things that can break these down.

nuclear semiotics bridges, I think I've totally derailed here, but nuclear semiotics bridges like language, science, and it bridges it across deep time because what there, there's a problem that we're needing to solve and that is that, you know, in our modern era, we have created nuclear waste and we've created a decent amount of it. That waste could be here on the low end of the spectrum for approximately 10,000 years, on the high end, 200,000 years. So when we look at how rapid, you know, again, on a long enough scale, how rapid language evolves, we're kind of stuck with this issue of how do we warn future generations that we have this thing that could kill them, you know,

if they dig in a certain area or if they, you know, if for some reason they start farming there or, you know, really think of an innumerable amount of scenarios where someone might stumble upon something like this and curiosity get the best of them, right? Yeah. So it's, I think I've been very long-winded in saying that it is, it is basically the problem of how do we communicate danger in a way that balances a warning without it becoming enticing, right? We don't want to draw so much attention that it causes someone.

to seek out what's underneath, right? Reverse psychology. Yeah. It's kind of crazy. How many different, like, how many different principles have been brought in to try and address this. They brought in, you know, linguists and philosophers even, obviously physicists. You name it. They form this kind of task force of people to solve this problem for future generations.

And it's interesting because it's seemingly all done kind of just by this this ethos of like it's our responsibility to warn them, right? There's not really there's not really anything pressing on us to do this. It's kind of just like these people that have banded together to be like how can we solve this problem. Yeah, that's interesting. It's very, it's almost altruistic. Yeah. It feels that way. It feels that way.

I will say that, you know, there are a few government task force in the United States that have been put together, but it's not as, it's not as tightly woven as you would think for something as important as what they're trying to do. And I think my favorite part of this is that, you know, some of the proposed solutions are just, they're just like very wacky. the further that I got into this rabbit hole, the more I realized, like, wow, we really are just like, we pretty much just can do whatever we want. We have free will, you know what I mean? Like, what are they saying to do? Well, there's a couple of, like, there's a couple of, I guess, methods that they are exploring to approach this. Some of them are very, I would say, practical. The most practical one, I think, is what they're calling like the black hole method, which is basically taking an enormous slab of like basalt or a very like obviously dyed like a black dyed concrete and just filling in an enormous space. You know, like a void basically above where the waste is so that no one can farm there or really, you know, get into the site without already having like a decent grasp of technology to get into a site like that, if that makes sense. But, you know, it kind of just like spirals out from there. I feel like somebody had like a very practical idea, this black hole. And then like several other people came in and they're like, yeah, okay, but what about forbidding blocks?

Hear me out. It's a network of hundreds of house size stone blocks. We dye them black and we arrange them in a regular grid that looks maybe like streets, but they're like liminal and ominous and they leave nowhere. And it's like... What? Okay, maybe. Bro loves Minecraft.

Yes. Like it literally, it's like some sort of like Roblox sort of solution. Like I don't know. And I'm kind of thinking, you know, as a human being myself, right? Like granted of the modern variety, I don't know what future human beings will be like. But if I came across that, I feel like it would tiptoe more into that maybe like enticing. You know, I want to see what's going on. here if I'm just like traveling right like across the desert and then you come across this yeah that is

enticing I'm like somebody left this here for me to find that is hidden treasure yes and now I I will find what they want me to you know what they wanted me to see this is a sign to look at this I feel like I am a nosy individual to begin with so if even if I find if I'm like digging and I find that you know giant rock the slab the slab I'm like what what's under the slab. Like there's some important stuff under the slab and I must know. And, you know, I don't know how to dig through it, but I can maybe find someone who does. Yeah, literally.

Get me an astronaut. No, I'm kidding. Get an astronaut on the line. No, it's, you know, there's a bunch of, you know, I guess, ideas that branch out from that initial black hole idea. Another one they had was the landscape. of thorns, which is just a mass of like irregularly sized enormous spikes that protrude out from the ground in all directions. Again, do what?

Are they metal? Yes. Metal or some sort of compound that won't be subject to, like concrete won't really work if it's out and exposed to the elements because over the course of 10,000 or even 200,000 years, it just won't last, right? So, you know, there's, there's, I would say, five to six different, you know, what they're calling physical site designs that are just kind of all equally insane. They seem insane to me. Like if I wandered across these again, you know, in the middle of New Mexico or something out in the desert, I would spend the rest of my life trying to get into these.

Yes, like this is, I would be like this is evidence of an ancient civilization. Yes. And now I'm wondering, okay, you all have seen like Cadillac Ranch in West Texas. It's this place. It's, um, it's near Amarillo, Texas. And it's just a bunch of Cadillacs that are, um, have been like half buried in the ground, like sticking up. Oh.

And you, I don't even, I don't know like the origins of it. I've never actually been there even though I grew up around there. But people will go there, take pictures. They'll take spray paint and spray paint them. But I'm like, what if that is someone trying to like, you know, that's what that is? And we're just like, ooh, fun photo off. Like, I'm going to write my name. That gives me hope then, right?

I'm going to spray paint my name. Right. Yeah. At least they're not digging up the Cadillacs. Like. Yeah, maybe they've tried. I don't know. But yeah.

Maybe they did. Maybe. But also we have, you know, you think about things. like Stonehenge, right? Yeah. This has been around long enough that I guess presumably we could dig up Stonehenge. I don't know that it's necessary. We've probably done all sorts of testing to see if there is anything underneath it,

you know, without having to disturb it. But I don't know that the inclination is immediate, you know, an immediate like exploration in a physical way. So the physical site designs, I think, are interesting. And I do think, I guess they could ward off some of the curiosity. But, you know, there were other people that kind of got into the mix that were saying, we really should have like this layered approach. It can't just be this one, you know, ominous block of, you know, houses that go nowhere.

Like, we can't guarantee. That's not, that's not like sturdy enough, you know, for how important this is. So there was a linguist by the name of Thomas Seabock, again, hoping I'm pronouncing that correctly, that was consulted and came up with the idea of creating a new type of priesthood called the Atomic Priesthood. What? Okay. Yes, right, right?

Where a certain group of selected individuals who act as sort of like stewards over this task are designated to help develop and perpetuate stories and folklore and ritual around, you know, this. That's so cool. Around nuclear semiotics in hopes that it carries down, right? I want like a movie or something about this immediately. Yeah, this is so cool. This is really cool.

It's so interesting. And they thought that this might help in, you know, again, it, we think about how stories and things become corrupted might not be the right word, but they're very malleable, right? And so. Yeah, like a game of telephone, right? Exactly, right? So there is a little bit of, I wouldn't say a little bit, there's a large amount of risk associated with also leaning only on a, like, ritualistic,

I guess, way of handling this. But yeah. Yeah. So, but a layered approach where these two things kind of maybe merge, you know, and there's like rituals around these certain sites that get passed down or, you know, again, we steward the idea of even if symbols change, we ensure that we change the symbols around what these sites actually are over the course of time.

But again, deep time, it kind of works in that way where we can kind of imagine things working for maybe 200, 300, even 1,000 years. But beyond that, it's harder and harder for the psyche to grasp, you know, just how fast our language and symbols can and do change. So that will inevitably, you know, fail us at some level. The last kind of like school of thought, I would say of the main ones. There's kind of other little ancillary ones that branch out.

I will call that homework because it's a pretty deep rabbit hole. But a few folks thought it might be interesting to, you know, sprinkle the area, pepper the area with flowers and foliage that react a certain way. if exposed to radiation. Making them like, we don't, again, these ideas did not get very far. So we don't know if the flowers would glow. We don't know if, you know,

whatever they would do when they were exposed, it would signal to the person that obviously something is occurring here and maybe it's good to proceed with caution. But I will say one of the, the flowers is kind of interesting in itself, But my favorite thing was that someone actually explored the idea of ray cats. And that's where you get that.

Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, if the listeners could see both of me and Lindsay's face and head tilt, we just did in unison. Yes. And Jess and I just finished a nice little romp through a Minecraft server where we actually had an x-ray cat in our house that was from a radioactive mod. right to the game. Yes. And I now know that that is actually paying homage to this idea that they thought they could

at one time in the late 80s genetically modify animals to react to nuclear waste to radiation. Wow. So that, yeah, it's, it's, like a bio indicator, basically. Yes. And again, they explored, you know, glowing. They explored changing color. They even wrote little songs in kind of the vein. of the priesthood and the ritualistic thing.

Yeah. Around, you know, it was like gray cat, gray cat, gray, green cat, go away or something like that. Oh. We would have like this record of, you know. That's so cool. It's very interesting. Like, it is exactly the, you know, crossing of paths that is most interesting to me, which is

I mean, obviously this is a scientific issue, but we're going to have to use something other than science to solve the problem. Like perhaps a cricket machine with a live-left-love style. Can you imagine this one wall just standing alone? Everything else crumbled around it. You know, history has touched everything except this guy's one apartment wall with his vinyl lettering. I'm dying to know what he's got there.

That is so dangerous. Yeah, that's also true. What is he signaling? What's he got in his basement? Yeah. It feels very, I mean, I love. love that we all just immediately assumed this was a man's apartment. This is a male living. Oh my God. Which is the other most terrifying design challenge of all time, male living's cases.

First day, but you go over and there's a nuclear, a long-term nuclear waste warning message on the wall. Oh, my God. Oh. Yeah. So, yeah, I don't know anything about this person that, um, you know, I don't have any any insight into who they are outside of this very tightly cropped photo of what looks to be, like you said, an apartment wall with a target lamp and maybe some sort of Amazon Echo or something on a shelf.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I think that's about it for mine. I mean, I, unless you guys, yeah, have anything else to say about it. But I just, I couldn't stop. I have not been able to stop thinking about this since I learned about it. And now you've cursed us or blessed?

I feel like I'm going to immediately go Google this when I get in bed for the night. It's such a crazy thing because like anything you would do to signal like stay away, it's like it's in the beginning. It just invites attention. Like the glowing flowers like come over here. Like I guess maybe if it would kill a bunch of foliage like then maybe, you know. Right. Who's to say that something else isn't killing it, you know, like it's such a interest. I like the priest and the ritualistic stuff, I think is the coolest piece.

There's like there's some like a sort of multidisciplinary group of like artists also that kind of got involved and they were pitching some ideas for, you know, extremely like sustainable materials that would, you know, kind of span that that length of time that we're talking about. And ironically enough, I think we think of it as very fragile, but one of the materials that they landed on was using actually a lot of glass, a lot of like reinforced glass because it does not break down in the way that other materials do. Oh, interesting. Yeah, there's so many different little offshoots. And I think that's another one of the things that every time I'm brought back to this, it gets kind of fun to dig in if there's any, you know, new updates or like new schools of thought.

But I think the most recent one that I read about was called menacing earthworks, which is very similar to what we kind of already touched on. But I should have brought this up when we were going through all the, I just totally forgot about it. But they were kind of entertaining the idea of shaping the land itself. So like if you flew over, it would be like, you know, lightning bolts all in a circle around the space, right? Like so that from above, from a drone or, you know, an airplane, presumably, you would. Like crop circle style.

Yes, exactly. Cariforming. Yes, it is, it's so Minecraft core. Like, I can't get away from it. But it also marries like, yeah, like honestly, it marries a lot of the things that I find really fascinating, like exactly like crop circles, right? Like things that people of today still study from, you know, previous, who knows, methodologies or whatever was going on with those. like I imagine it to be something like that in the future, right? Hopefully, hopefully, though, no one goes digging.

I know. It's tricky. It's really tricky. Yeah. Amazing. That's so cool. I can't wait too cool. I'm obsessed with this.

Google more about it later. Same. It's really fun. It's really fun. I enjoy reading about it occasionally. I just kind of end up pulled back into it. I don't know. I'll come across something.

I don't blame you. Yeah. There's always more to add, I'm sure. Totally. And lately I've seen some creators like on TikTok and things that have brought up this idea. And I'm like, oh, maybe this is finally like proliferating as something that people care about. But it seems to be just a couple of crazies like myself still.

Well, maybe this is the inflection point. The weirdest thing. Let's hope. Flash in a pan. Yeah. Amazing. Okay. We're going to take one more quick break.

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Okay, we're back. And I'm going to talk about why having to pee makes you better at Eldon Ring, which is, okay, so to start, basically. Lindsay, I know you know about this. Oh, I know all about it. Misty probably maybe, I don't know if you know about this phenomenon, do you? I don't think I know about this. And I feel like I struggled so much with the game that I should have just needed to pee a lot more. This is a new tactic for you.

Okay. So when I play games on stream, sometimes they're like really hard games with like crazy boss fights like Eldon Wing or Blood Born or Dark Souls or Halloween or Night Silk Song or whatever. And something I have documented in my streaming career is that whenever I've been fighting a boss for a while, like, you know, a lot of attempts, time passes. And when time passes, I start to have to go to the bathroom because I've been hydrating after all, you know, toiling away, learning the boss patterns, and eventually I have to pee. So what I've noticed is that if I let myself stay having to pee, I usually play better and beat bosses faster than if I go pee and come back and then I'm playing on an empty bladder. Okay. This is the phenomenon that I have coined pee fuel because pee fuels made me better at Elton Ring. And G fuel.

Literally. It's P fuel, baby. P fuel. And I've talked about P fuel being a thing for years, like since Eldering. So like four, over four years, which is also crazy that Lerring is that old. Honestly, maybe even before or was it Eldonring that you pointed it? I feel like it could have been even as early as like bloodborne. You know what I mean?

I think so too. I could be like five or six year old phenomenon. You've been preaching about P fuel for a long time. He's a phew old truther, so I respect it. Indeed. And, you know, my chat knows about this. And, you know, lo and behold, one morning I opened my Discord server and listeners, I'm going to plug the Discord.

If you want to join my Discord, it's full of weird, wonderful gaming and science freaks like the three of us. And I'll put it in the description if you want to join, or it's Discord.g. slash Jess Capricorn, but, you know, I digress. But anyway, I open my Discord and one of my chatters had linked a study titled this, Inhibitory Spillover, Increased Urination Urgency, Efficiency Facilates Impulse Control and Unrelated Domains. What?

And then I, you know, take a gander. And basically in regular words, this means having to piss makes you make less impulsive decisions. So in the context of something like Eldon Ring, an impulsive decision might be something like going for a greedy hit that gets you killed. Like if you're acting impulsively playing Eldon Ring, you're acting reckless, right? Like you're not thinking, you're not following the patterns, you're being impulsive, you're just going for it. And that usually does get you killed. If you have to pee, apparently that inhibits you playing impulsively or doing things impulsively in general. Oh my God.

This is a study that verifies that P-Fuel works. How? I will explain. So this is a study by, I believe her name is pronounced Merriam Took. She is a psychologist and behavioral scientist at the University of Twent in the Netherlands. I don't know if I'm saying that correctly. But it all started, okay, great, great, great, great. It all started when she was looking into this other phenomenon where having,

whether having one of your main bodily needs unmet, like basically if you were a sim and one of your meters was like in the red. Okay, I'm tracking now. Yes. Yes. Like if having one of your meters in the red could spill over and affect other parts of your life that are unrelated. So like one example that psychologists talk about is that when you're really, really hungry,

you were quicker to buy things, even if it isn't food. Like if you're hungry, you spend more money. You go shopping. And it's like kind of related to the P thing. So like you become more impulsive. You're trying to, you're trying to like fill the hunger itch with like another parallel avenue like by buying something. And if you think about it, it's plausible because, you know, eating a snack that you love

and buying yourself a present are kind of like, they probably activate similar brain pathways or chemical cascades. You know, it's kind of a similar feeling. Totally. So Dr. Took was thinking about this. And one day she was getting a lecture and she drank a bunch of coffee beforehand. And by the end, she really, really had to go. And so she wondered, could having to pee affect other parts of our lives like how being hungry makes us spend more money?

So she went to the lab. As one does. As one does. She gathered a bunch of volunteers for her study and she got to work. She had them do a few different things, but I'll tell you like the most important core part of the study, which was she had the participants drink five cups of water each, or at least as much as they could drink from the five cups. They waited 40 minutes, which is apparently like the average amount of time it takes for water that you drink to reach your bladder. And then she asked them to choose between two different monetary rewards. One, a smaller and quicker reward like $18 tomorrow or a bigger but more delayed reward like $30 in 25 days.

And for people who had to pee the most, they were able to wait the longest for more money. Oh, whoa. Interesting. It's kind of like they're already in this mindset of waiting, like for their delayed gratification of getting to pee later. Yeah. And that's spilling over into also having delayed gratification of $30 in 25 days. So it's like this. That's so wild.

Yeah. It's like you're in this mindset already and your brain doesn't like really differentiate. At least this is her theory. Your brain isn't differentiating between. I'm already in the mindset of, you know, waiting to get to pee later. So when I'm thinking about this money, I'm also stuck in this mindset and I'm going to wait to get more money later. Yeah. So what's a couple more days?

Yeah. Right. Or, you know, and what's what's a couple more seconds waiting before you hit an Eldon Ring boss? Yeah. So yeah, that's like kind of how it connects to actually having to pee and being good at video games. It's like you're you're purposefully waiting and having better delayed gratification and it makes you less impulsive. You're actually just reacting instead of panic button mashing and trying to get in one too many hits on Radon or whoever. Can't relate.

Sorry. And, you know, I guess this also extends beyond video games or whatever. ever. What's beyond video games? I don't know. Nothing that's important. Dr. Took said this in an interview. Quote,

this is, of course, a generalization of experimental evidence, but any type of financial decision making might benefit from increased bladder control. People might be more likely to invest money in retirement funds instead of spending it on more short-term benefits, for example, end quote. Whoa. She's saying if you need to make an important financial life decision or any life decision, and go chug some H2O and wait 40 minutes first. Like it'll put you in the right mindset.

Okay. I'm going to keep that in mind. Yeah. The way I'm going to test that out. I know. The next time I'm ready to pick a fight, I'm going to be like, you know what? Let me get some water on board before I might be overreacting. 40 minutes seems shorter than I would have expected, I think.

I agree. But that's the average time, I guess. Yeah. Me when I find out I have kidney disease. And so yeah, that's basically my fact. And this study also did win an Ig Nobel Prize. Have you guys heard of that? No, I don't think so.

Okay, so they're this really, really fun, like, group of prizes they give out every year at the same time that they give out the Nobel Peace Prizes. But they give them out to, like, the silliest, funniest, coolest studies of the year. And they're also very good science, like sound science. but that's like there's always a handful of these studies that get an Ig Noble IG like Ig Nobel Prize. And like my personal Ig Nobel favorite is the one where they found that Dung Beetles used the stars to navigate. Yeah.

Oh my God. Yeah. So that's it's really fun if you like, you know, want to read about some cool stuff. Just Google like Ig Nobel Prize winners. There's so much good stuff in there. And this is one that won one of those. That will be my homework. That's so awesome.

Yeah. So, but yeah, I also, speaking of testing this out, I kind of want to like do this more in earnest as well, like doing an Eldon Ring run, but only playing when I have to pee. It's tricky though, you know, yeah, you got to do it in a helpful way. In a healthy way. Yeah, you don't want to hold it for too long. No. There's a sweet spot in there somewhere. There is.

Yeah. Um, yeah. That's so cool. Cool. Who knew? P-fuel was scientific. P-fuel is scientific. It blew my mind when I found this. Never doubted you, you know? Like, shame on us for doubting you. The doubters, proven wrong. Doubting your intuition. That's crazy of us. Yeah. Yep. I don't know though. I think I might be, like, broken because when I think about how I am when I have to pee, I am one of the worst people on the planet to be around. Like, really? I don't know that I'm making rational decisions. decisions. Like, I feel like I'm incredibly mad, you know? Oh. Maybe you're making, like, logical delayed gratification decisions, but maybe, you know,

or maybe you're an outlier. Who's to say? Maybe you're just an angry pisser. I don't know. Maybe I'm an angry pisser. I'm, I'm starting to think, like, I'm not going to question the science. It's science, right? I'm not, I'm, I certainly won't start with that. There are always exceptions, right? Yeah. Yeah. I just, I'm imagining, like, the last couple times that I, like, really had. to pee and couldn't. And basically everything on the planet just irritated me. You know what I mean? Yeah.

That's valid. I need to test this out myself. It won't have to deal with Eldon Ring, but I need to test out. I'm going to wait. And then when I have to pee really bad, I'm just going to see how I react to a conversation with my boyfriend. I'll put him on the... Oh, my God.

Can you please update us? Can you please update us? Oh, my God. Well, I'm single. and I am an outwire. You can't know. Gosh. Well, this was too much fun, perhaps.

Thanks for coming on the show, both of you. Thank you so much for asking us. It was really fun. It was really fun. Remind our listeners who you guys are and where they can find any of the stuff you make. Yeah, I'm Lindsay, and you can find me on Twitch at

Twitch.tv.tv slash O-L-L-L-N-D-S-E-Y. I stream all sorts of stuff. I'm playing Final Fantasy 7 right now. It's an incredible time. And vouch for that stream. It is a banger all the time. Great streams.

Yeah. Yes, indeed. I'm Misty and, you know, I just prefer to, I'm going to float out into the ether of deep time. There's no way to contact me. I respect that. But I had a great. time and thank you for the invite this was this was absolutely wonderful my pleasure maybe we'll

one day perceive a cricket cut out wall live left love message about you prepare yourselves i will just just prepare you we are going to meet up and smell space together and that means that inevitably you're going to have to get a wall cut out of something during so i can't wait that's commemorative i'm already excited commemorative excellent The best thing I learned this week is produced by all of our hosts, including me, Rachel Faltman, along with Jess Bodie, who also serves as our audio engineer and editor extraordinaire. Our theme music is by Billy Cadden. Our logo is by Katie Belloff. If you have questions, suggestions, or weird stories to share, tweet us at Weirdest underscore Thing. Thanks for listening, Weirdos. You can't reason with the sun. Trust us. We've tried. This summer, it's time to put that angry ball of fire on mute. Omnishade technology is engineered to protect you from the sun's harsh rays that can burn and

damage your skin. The sun is relentless, but so is our gear. Level up your summer at Columbia.com to spend more time outside and less time slathering on allotion. You're welcome. Columbia, engineered for whatever.