Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Small Wonders: Tiny Inventions. Big Impact.

Episode Date: March 7, 2026

This week, we tip our hat to the tiny, small innovations that make our lives better. Like the tiny arrow on your fuel gauge. And the bread clip. And the miniscule treadwear indicators on your car tires. In every case, the inventor saw something nobody else saw, and their miniature ideas went down in history. Small Wonders.We know you want to listen to all the ads in this show. On the off-chance you don’t, subscribe ad-free here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is an apostrophe podcast production. We're going to show you our big news to dood baker. That's a spicy meat board. What love doesn't conquer. Al-Caseltzer will. What a relief. You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. In 1936, boxer Joe Lewis seemed indestructible.

His record was 27 and 0 with 23 knockouts. He had speed, power, he was tactical, and he had that characteristic all great champions have. He could take a punch. Lewis was on track to fight heavyweight champion James J. Braddock for the title. Before that highly anticipated bout, he was scheduled to fight German boxer Max Schmelling. Schmelling was a former champion and considered a very good fighter.

But everyone considered the bout a mere two-monthsumann. for the championship fight to come. The press said Lewis was the greatest thing to happen to sports, and they predicted a massacre. Joe Lewis was a 10-to-one favorite. While Schmelling wasn't a Nazi, he was celebrated by Hitler as an example of German supremacy. It wasn't the first time a Joe Lewis bout had been politicized.

The year before, Lewis had fought Italian Primo Carnera, Carnara was a giant, standing 6'5-weighing 275 pounds. Lewis was 6.1.5-197. Dictator Benito Mussolini touted Carnara as the symbol of his new fascist Italy. Lewis knocked Carnaro's lights out in the sixth round. The Brown Bomber was unbeatable. A former champion once said his definition of fear, was standing across the ring from Joe Lewis

and knowing he wants to go home early. Max Schmelling was a tactician too. In preparation, he studied film of all Joe Lewis's fights. He observed Lewis closely. He literally watched the films backwards and forwards for hours. Then he spotted something. It was a tiny thing, almost imperceptible. But this small thing was,

consistent. Schmelling locked in on it. At a press conference, Schmelling told reporters, I see something, but he refused to say what. This is what Schmelling saw. After a jab, Lewis had a tendency to drop his left hand low. That low left hand gave Schmelling a split second opening. Schmelling believed that if he could stand close to Lewis and with stand the punishment of Lewis's fists, he would occasionally have that split second to deliver a right cross, which was his best punch.

Lewis would drop his left, Schmelling would deliver his right. As Schmelling would later say, they were made for each other. On the night of the fight, June 19, 1936, the first split-second opening happened in the second round. Lewis jabbed, dropped his left,

and Schmelling delivered a punt punishing right to Lewis's chin. Schmelling continued to hunt for those split-second openings and rocked Lewis each time. Lewis even went down in the fourth. It was the first time he had ever been on the canvas. By the later rounds, those right crosses were taking a big toll. Then, at 229 of the 12th round,

Schmelling's strategy paid off. Smelling got over two more hard right to Lewis's jaw and made Lewis give ground and there smelling straightened up Lewis with hard right and left to the jaw he has stuffed up Lewis's left cheek and Lewis is down Lewis is down hanging to the rope

pounding badly And that was it The Mighty Joe Lewis was counted out It was his first professional loss Max Schmelling did something that had never been done before. He defeated Joe Lewis by spotting a tiny opportunity

everybody else had missed. Some of the most successful inventors in history also utilized what has become known as the Schmelling Effect, the ability to see what others have missed. Today, I want to pay homage to the small inventions and improvements that make our lives better.

Tiny modifications some so small, it's remarkable anybody saw the opportunity. But they were all knockout innovations. You're under the influence. We buy and use a lot of the products we're going to talk about today, and most of us probably don't give them a second thought. Yet, we probably can't live without them. Take the Quick Lock Closure.

You may not recognize the name, but chances are you've had them in your own. home for years. A quick-lock closure is the plastic clip that keeps bread bags closed. It was invented by a man named Floyd Paxton. Paxton was a manufacturing engineer who began his career working at his father's company that produced, among other things, the nails used to close wooden boxes of fruit. Packaged ceiling was in his blood.

The idea for the bread clip came to Paxton one day during a flight in 1952. While he was on that plane, he was enjoying a complimentary bag of peanuts. He wanted to save some for later, but realized he didn't have a way to keep the bag closed. So he pulled his penknife out of his pocket, all the good old days, and took an expired credit card out of his wallet. He whittled a small notch in the card, a slender gap just, big enough to thread the neck of the plastic bag through it and use that to seal the peanut bag.

In those post-war days, plastic was becoming a popular material, and the use of polyethylene bags to package fruit and bakery items was on the rise. That's when Floyd Paxton realized that he just may have invented a cheap, reusable solution to sealing open-ended bags. Paxton's bread clip was easier to use than a twist tie and more convenient than a sticky tag. So he launched the Quick Lock Corporation in 1954 and began manufacturing his clips.

They were first used on bags of apples, then became popular for all kinds of bagged products. According to his company, Paxton was able to secure a patent for his invention and not only created equipment to manufacture his Quick Lock closures, but also invented machinery that put the clips onto bags automatically, which the company still sells to bakeries to this day. The QuickLock Company remains one of the only manufacturers of bread clips

with two factories in the U.S., along with plants in Canada, Australia, Ireland, and Japan. And the company is still owned by the Paxton family. The Bread Clip. A small wonder we take for granted. Chances are there's a familiar blue box in your bathroom cabinet. It says Q-tips on it. Q-tips were invented back in 1923 by Leo Gerstenzang. One day, he observed his wife applying wads of cotton to toothpicks

to clean their baby daughter's eyes, ears, and belly button after her daily baths. Leo wondered if there was a better way to do that. He figured out a way to a way to affect. fix cotton swabs to a small wooden stick. That way the cotton wouldn't come off the stick and get stuck in the ear. Leo Gerstensang designed a package so a parent could open it with just one hand and grab a swab, all while holding a baby. The original working name of the product was Baby Gaze, named for his daughter, who would giggle when they tickled her with a swab. Gerson Zang started a company that very year to manufacture the first ready-made

sterilized cotton swabs for baby care. In 1926, he changed the name of the swab to Q-tips baby gaze, then eventually just to Q-tips. The Q-Tips, the Q-by-the-way, stood for quality.

Mid-century ads always showed men and women cleaning their ears with Q-tips. Then, sometime in the 1970s, Q-70s, Q-tips started putting a warning on their packages, urging people not to put Q-tips into their ear canals. Something must have happened somewhere,

but it doesn't seem to be documented anywhere. Here's a 1983 commercial with Betty White. Notice that she almost says ears, but then she drops the Q-tip out of her hand. Just because nobody ever slips on a cotton swab in the bathtub does not mean you shouldn't be concerned about its safety. This is a Q-tips cotton swab. They call it the safe swab.

That's because Q-Tips has a nice soft cushion of cotton right here at the tip. So they feel nice and soft and safe when you use them on your eyes or on your nose or on your ear. Or even when you drop them on your foot. Q-Tips, the safe swab. Today, there are no ears in Q-Tips advertising. And the caution still appears on Q-Tip packaging, saying, warning. do not insert swab into ear canal. Yet, some reports state that over 50% of the public still stick Q-tips in their ear canals.

But it has to be said, Q-tips can be used for everything from lubricating equipment to mending broken teacups to detailing cars. They are a handy, little invention. Tires are an interesting product. Their tread condition dictates how much trillions. traction your car has in wet and snowy conditions and how much control you have when it comes to handling and cornering. That's why monitoring treadware is so important. Many manufacturers help you keep an eye on that with tread wear indicators. They offer a visual indication of how much tread is left on your tires. Treadware indicators are small raised bars that sit recessed inside the

grooves of your tires. So when these bars become level with the rest of the tread, it means your tires are no longer safe to use. Tire manufacturers usually help you find the treadware indicators by locating the letters TWI on the sidewalls. TWI, of course, stands for Treadware indicator, and when you spot these letters, it means the indicators run across the tire at that very spot. It's a super handy way to make quick checks of your tires. The thickness of a tire is just 11.30 seconds of an inch, or 8 to 9 millimeters. That's all that sits between your family and the road.

And that's why I think Michelin used to have the best slogan ever written for tires. Michelin, because so much is riding on your tires. Michelin also has a unique way of showing you where the tread indicator is on their tires. For close to 130 years, Michelin has had a mascot called the Michelin Man. In the early days, tires were white. And one of the Michelin brothers thought that if you added arms and legs to a stack of tires, it looked like a man. So the white, round Michelin Man was born.

Now, if you own Michelin tires and you look at the side walls, you will spot a tiny Michelin Man embossed on the tires, and he's pointing to where the tread indicator is. Such a smart use of their logo and mascot, and a handy, tiny thing that makes life safer. When you stop and think about it, we have to sign a lot of documents in our lives, mortgages, legal forms, rental agreements, wills, and so much more.

Ever stop to take a good look at that ballpoint pen you use to scribble your signature? It's an ingenious little tool we take for granted. Prior to the ballpoint pen, people generally used fountain pens. As beautiful as they are, fountain pens presented certain problems like smudged ink, you needed to cart around a bottle of ink, and the nib was fragile. The first patent for a ballpoint pen was actually filed way back in 1888. The inventor, John J. Loud, was a inventor, trying to invent a pen that could write on rough surfaces, like wood, leather, and coarse wrapping

papers. Loud's innovation contained a teeny tiny rotating steel ball at the tip of the pen held in place by a tiny socket. His invention didn't work very well, and he let the patent lapse, but he had the right idea. By the late 1930s, a Hungarian newspaper editor was frustrated by his fountain pen and the constantly smeared ink. But he noticed that the ink his newspaper used dried quickly.

He decided to create a pen that used the same type of ink. Enlisting the help of his brother, they successfully coupled an oil-based, fast-drying ink with a teeny tiny ball and socket mechanism. The socket fit tightly around the minute ball so it couldn't fall out while still allowing the ball at the tip of the pen to roll and pick up ink from the reservoir while preventing ink from dripping out of the reservoir at the same time.

And that's why he called it a ball point pen. There is a teeny, tiny ball that rolls as you write. Ingenious. When we come back, a spilled coffee inspires one of the handiest inventions for hands. If you're enjoying this episode, you might also like The Frankenstein Factor, inventors who regret their inventions, season six, episode 11. We tell the story of Philo Farnsworth, inventor of the television set, who also refused to own a TV. You'll find the episode on your favorite podcast app. One day in 1989, Jay Sorensen was on his way to his daughter's school

when he pulled into a coffee shop drive-thru. On the way out of the drive-thru, the coffee burnt his fingers and he spilled the scalding coffee on his lap. At the time, Sorensen was a struggling realtor. But that hot coffee spill gave him an idea. His first idea was to design an insulated cup that wouldn't be hot to hold. But that presented other problems, as thick, corrugated cups were difficult to stack or fold, and they weren't economical for coffee shops.

Sorensen's research also revealed that only 30 to 40 percent of drinks sold at those coffee shops required heat protection. Ice drinks and lattes needed no insulation. With experimentation, Sorensen eventually landed on an insulated coffee sleeve in 1991. which he called the Java jacket. Made of chipboard or liner board, his Java jacket was the perfect solution. By simply slipping the sleeve over the coffee cup,

you could hold a scalding hot drink without discomfort. And they could be shipped flat. The Sorensen house became the company headquarters. Now all he and his wife had to do was sell the idea. Sorensen took his job. Java jackets and started knocking on coffee shop doors. He made his first sale of the back of his car to an Oregon coffee chain. A few weeks later, he went to a coffee trade show

and immediately sold 100 cases of Java jackets. He said he was like a rock star there. He had spotted a solution no one else had seen. In the first year, Sorensen had 500 coffee shop clients and patented his idea in 1995. Today, he sells one billion Java jackets a year. As a result, our hands are safe, Jeff Sorensen is a very rich man, and his humble, compostable, and recyclable cardboard sleeve

now has a place of honor in the Museum of Modern Art in a collection called Humble Masterpieces. Over 50% of the fruit and vegetables grown in North America go to waste. part of the $161 billion mountain of wasted food every year, which is heartbreaking when you realize that around 6.9 million Canadians live in food insecure households.

And that number jumps exponentially in the U.S. One small way to combat that waste in the Praduz Isle is the use of ripeness stickers. Plants produce antimicrobial compounds that protect themselves against diseases once they have been harvested. So a company called Sticks Fresh replicated that by using a blend of natural food-grade compounds and applied it to a sticker. This sticker releases these natural compounds that mimic the plant's own defensive properties

against pathogens and environmental stress. And here's the genius part. The sticker does not have to cover the entire fruit. It's just the size of a quarter, and it emits a vapor that covers the entire surface of the fruit, inhibiting the growth of mold and bacteria. The Sticks Fresh Sticker works best on fruits that suffer from high spoilage rates, like apples, pears, mangoes, and other citrus fruits.

Remarkably, Sticks' fresh stickers can extend the freshness of produce by up to 14 days, or roughly 50% less. longer. The stickers can be applied at any point in the supply chain. They are safe even if consumed, and any logo can be printed on them. It's an amazing, tiny, powerful idea that combats waste. As Sticks Fresh says, it's simple shelf defense. When we come back, a tiny arrow points the way. My wife and I each drive different vehicles, and the gas tank. is on different sides on each vehicle, which I don't always remember

when I'm driving my wife's car. I also travel for business, so I'm often renting cars. And when I pull into a gas station, the perennial question is, what side is the gas tank on? Don't know if you've ever noticed, but there is a tiny arrow on your fuel gauge,

and that arrow tells you which side your gas cap is on. And we can thank James Moylan for that. James Moylan was a Ford engineer who worked for the plastics, paint, and vignals division. On a very rainy day in 1986, Moylan jumped into one of the Ford company cars to drive to a meeting. He immediately noticed the gas tank was empty. So he drove to a gas station and pulled up to the pump. When he got out to refuel, he realized he had parked at. on the wrong side.

Soaking wet, he got back into his car and drove around to the other side. As he stood there pumping gas in the rain, wet and irritated, James Moyland suddenly had an idea. After the meeting, he went back to his office and without taking off his jacket, he began the first draft of a proposal.

It was for a small idea he had for the interior of vehicles. He typed the following words. I would like to propose a small addition in all passenger car and truck lines. The indicator or symbol I have in mind would be located near the fuel gauge and simply described to the driver on which side of the vehicle the fuel fill door is located. Moylan included a little sketch at the bottom of the memo that showed how the symbol might look as part of the fuel gauge. He typed up his proposal, submitted it to his bosses on April 17, 1986,

and promptly forgot all about it. Moyland's manager read the memo, liked the idea, and sent it up the chain at Ford. He said, I think the attached product convenience is worth your consideration. When it reached Ford's top director of interior design, he instantly liked the idea and began prototyping Moylan's indicator symbol on upcoming Ford models. It would become known as the Moylan Arrow. The first time the fuel indicator arrow was ever mentioned

was on page 23 of the 1989 Ford Thunderbird Drivers Manual. Competitors saw the tiny innovation and duplicated it. Today, every car includes Moylan's Arrow. And if this is news to you, just glance down at your fuel gauge. It's even on cars that don't run on gasoline. In EVs, the arrow points to the side with the charging port. So, a hat tip to James Moylan. He gave us a tiny innovation that took a little of the guesswork out of life.

Could there be anything smaller than an arrow on your fuel gauge? Could there be anything tinier than a treadwear mark on the sidewalls of your tires? Could there be anything more incidental than a bread clip? But each of those Lilliputian ideas made life better. The world loves to applaud big inventions, like the airplane, the automobile, and the computer, but I say the minuscule innovations deserve their kudos. Each one born of the schmelling effect.

The inventor spotted something the rest of the world didn't see. Humble, quiet, and seemingly insignificant, these petite modifications made their mark in history. They protect our hands, keep our tires safe, keep our bread and fruit fresh, and they keep us out of the rain at gas stations. You could say they punch way above their weight when you're under the influence.

I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the Terstream Mobile Recording Studio, producer Debbie O'Reilly, Chief Sound Engineer Jeff Devine, research, Shay Grindon. Theme music by Casey Pick, Jeremiah Pick, and James Aiton. Tunes provided by APM music, follow me at Terry O. Influence. This podcast is powered by ACAST. Terry's top slogans of all time. Number 15.

Meow mix. Tastes so good, cats ask for it by name. See you next week. Thank you.