Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - Dr. Swati Mohan

Episode Date: February 27, 2021

Dr. Swati Mohan, Mars Rover scientist, joins us along with panelists Adam Felber, Dulcé Sloan, and Mo Rocca.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. Hey, little Miss Muffet, how about some Curtis and Whey? I'm Bill Curtis, and here is your host, a man wearing a full body mask just to be safe. It's Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill. And thanks once again to our fake audience, which this week is just practicing their mocking applause for when they're allowed back in restaurants

and somebody drops a tray of dishes. We're going to be talking about Mars a lot on today's show. For one thing, our guest later on will be Dr. Swati Mohan, who just landed the rover there. So let's take a moment before we start all that to acknowledge some of the less appreciated planets. Jupiter, you're gorgeous. Saturn, you are the prettiest. Mercury, you're hot.

Uranus, I don't know what you mean. We never make that association. With that out of the way, those of you here on Earth can call in to play our games. The number is 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Let's welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hi, this is Christian Brady calling from Lexington, Kentucky. Hey, Christian, how are you? I am well. I'm glad to hear. What do you do there in Lexington? I am a professor of ancient Hebrew and Jewish literature and interim dean of

the College of Arts and Sciences. You are Professor Christian Brady of Jewish literature. Yeah, you know, I often get the question, what's a nice Jewish boy like you doing with a name like Christian? Not being Jewish is the answer. Oh, I see. Did the fact that you were named Christian, I mean, was this some sort of like teenage rebellion? Like, oh, you named me Christian, Mom and Dad, I'm going to go devote my life to Jewish studies, so there. Something like that, Yeah, absolutely. Well, welcome to the show, Christian. It's a pleasure to have you.

Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, it's a comedian currently hosting shows on the Stereo app, including conversations with Paula Poundstone. It's at Stereo.com slash Adam Felber. That's right. It's Adam Felber. Hello, Adam. Hey there, Christian. Next, a comedian you can see on The Daily Show and on The Great North, Sunday at 8.30 Eastern on Fox, it's Dulce Sloan. Hello. Hello, Frank. Hello,

Christian. And a correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning and author of the New York Times best selling Mobituaries, Great Lives Worth Reliving. It's Mo Rocca. Bless you, Christian. Thank you, Mo. Christian, welcome to the show. You're going to play Who's Bill this time. Bill Curtis is going to read you three quotations from this week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain just two of them, you'll win our prize. Any voice from our show that you might choose on your voicemail. Are you ready to go? I am ready. All right. Well, then here is your first quote. Touchdown confirmed. We are on the surface. That was Dr. Swati Mohan announcing that NASA had landed a rover where? A fellow Cornellian announcing the landing on Mars. That's right,

absolutely. The Perseverance rover landed on Mars last week to huge celebration. The mission is of course intended to find signs of life on Mars, this time in an ancient lake bed, after earlier missions failed to find life in deserts and at the poles. We keep looking for life on Mars. We never find it. Take the hint, humans. Mars just isn't into us. Seriously, we're being ghosted by an entire planet. You know, I was up in my mother's apartment watching the very first images from Mars. Yeah. And my mother said, she said, people today, they are so blasé.

She said in 1969 when they landed on the moon, we were paralyzed with excitement. And it is true because today it's sort of like, okay, I've seen the pictures. What's Kim Kardashian doing? I'm bored. Is she on Mars? It is true. I mean, this is, I didn seen the pictures. What's Kim Kardashian doing? I'm bored. Is she on Mars? It is true. I mean, this is, I didn't realize this.

This is the fifth rover we have landed on Mars. Can you imagine how weird it would be if like an alien race was like constantly dropping cars on us? Think about it. They were very, but come on,

like when the first Apollo mission, the second one, like, oh, which Apollo got, after the Apollos that got to the moon we was like okay we were over apollo that's true right because like we're not still going back to the moon we've done that but that did have some of that deadliest catch ice road truckers appeal because somebody could die uh rovers just don't have that you know you're not watching a rover going like oh my god look out well i don't know that. You're not watching a rover going like, oh, my God. Look out. Well, I should point out, by the way, before we get too far into this, that the person that Bill quoted, Swati Mohan, will be on the show later.

She's our Not My Job guest. We can ask her if it is no less exciting to her because nobody's life is at stake. So we're just going to find that out. Guys, let's remember to act excited about it. It's got to be exciting. We're controlling a radio-controlled car from two years away. That's true. And also, this one, I don't know if you're aware of this.

This is an advancement, a number of advancements over prior rovers. For example, before it was kind of random where it landed. This had this amazing guidance system. They could land it exactly where they wanted so like gps and right exactly but really complicated we're getting so good at this we can land a rover on mars without putting the seat up first and this is the first rover that has a microphone so we have finally heard what it sounds like on mars we've heard the sounds of mars and it's really boring the wind i saw that it was it was breaking wind news right yes exactly

it's breaking it's just basically this it's really it's like mars butt dialed us meanwhile christian here is your next quote he's a rock and roll icon i'm not as cool that was barack obama describing his co-host on his new podcast who's's his co-host? I believe it was Bruce Springsteen. It is Bruce Springsteen. Congratulations. That's right. Spotify announced a brand new podcast co-hosted by Bruce Springsteen and Barack Obama on Tuesday. It's called Renegades Born in the USA, because apparently the former president still isn't over the whole birth certificate thing. The idea of two of the most famous famous admired people in the world talking together sounds fascinating but i don't understand why each episode is just them recapping wandavision i just want them to drive around the whole time

but bruce will be driving yeah that's a reference to one of his songs right no the pot this podcast is great news for anyone who's ever wanted to hear bruce springsteen talk about how back when he was a wild young man after crawling in at 7 a.m he still used to sleep so well on his casper mattress that's a song reference right and a commercial no apparently they're two they're actually friends and they on the podcast will talk about quote race fatherhood and the painful divisions that persist in american society unquote well yeah who cares we want to hear about what it's like to be incredibly rich and famous on today's episode why separate private jets are essential to a healthy marriage also barack and bruce try to remember the last time they were forced to wait

for anything wait didn't bruce brsteen just get a DUI? He did. That's right. No, they took it away. What happened was he had two shots of tequila in a public park, which is illegal. And then he jumped on his motorcycle and he got pulled over and he said, you were just drinking in a public park, sir. That's illegal.

And he had to go to court and the judge fined him $500 and said, how would you like to pay? And he said, I think I can pay right away, he said, being a little dry, a little dry, Bruce was. Is that a song reference? No, it's not. It's a reference to how immensely wealthy he is. I mean, having two shots of tequila and hopping on a motorcycle sounds like any one of Bruce Springsteen's songs. That's pretty much it. I had a second shot

of tequila and got on my bike now. Yeah, pretty much. What's one of his songs that I would know? I was born in a small town, and I live in a small town. That's not him! Oh no, sorry, that's John Cougar

Mellencamp, sorry. Born to Run is one. That's what I was just kind of saying. He was dancing in the dark. Christian, are you still here? I'm here. Just checking. Yeah, we're just going to move on.

Here, Christian, is your last quote. Dairy farmers need to reverse this madness. That was Sheila Chirac, one of many Canadians, churningly mad that their what seems to have gotten a lot harder lately. Well, with the cunning clue, I'm going to guess that it is butter. You're right, sir. Canadians from whatever city is on one side of Canada to whatever city is on the other side of Canada are complaining that their butter has gotten mysteriously harder. They're taking to social media looking for an explanation. I'm no scientist, but have they tried because it's winter?

Bruh. But no, they say the butter, complaining Canadians, which is somewhat of an oxymoron, they say that the butter is even harder at room temperature. This has sent shockwaves throughout Canada, with many people saying something is desperately wrong with Canadian dairy and others bragging that they have quote butter hard abs. And what is it? And is it some sort of oil that's being put in it? Well, that was interesting that you should ask. Yeah. Because of course they wanted to find out. And one of the prevailing theories about what has happened is they suspect that canadian dairy farmers have been feeding palm oil products to the cows in their feed that would result because of saturated

fats in harder butter and apparently there is no difference than than what it is and in fact one of the prevailing theories right now is that this isn't real. Somebody said on social media, hey, I think the butter is much harder than it used to be. And then everybody started saying, yeah, it really is. Everybody convinced themselves that it was true. Can you imagine living in a country with so few real problems that you have to make them up? Too much freedom. Too much freedom. That sounds like too much freedom. That sounds like y'all got universal health care. Your economy's OK. If you're complaining about butter, and that's not a complaining people, as Peter said.

If you're trying to figure out why butter is hard, look for the cow with love and hate tattooed on its hooves. Bill, how did Christian do on our quiz? Christian was hot. He got them all right. Congratulations. Congratulations, Christian. Well done. Thank you all so much.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for playing. Thank you. Bye-. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for playing. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Right now, panel, it is time for you to answer some questions about this week's news. Now, you're all going to get a chance at this one, okay? I'm going to read you the first part of a real headline we saw.

And the headline ended up going from alarming to really terrible because of the last two words right so you have to guess those last two words so i'll read you the beginning of the headline you have to finish it here we go alaskan women using outhouse attacked by bear now mo make it worse with the last two words via Via butt. I'm going to give it to you because the real answer is from below. That's what happened. The woman was fine. This is how she described the incident. I sat down on the toilet in the outhouse and immediately something bit my butt. She screamed and ran out, assuming it was some sort of small animal. And her brother went to check and found quote, a bear face right there,

looking right back up through the hole, right at me. They think the bear got into a door in the back of the outhouse. And she said, quote, it was probably not that bad of a little den in the winter, which is weird because it is in fact the worst time to play our bluff the listener game call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT-TO-PLAY we We'll be back in a minute with more of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR.

Are you ready to take your career to the next level? Well, LifeKit's here to be your career counselor. All this week, we'll have episodes to help you plan your next career move. We'll give our best tips for asking for a raise, finding a mentor, switching careers, and much more. Listen now to the LifeKit podcast from NPR. From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis. We are playing this week with Mo Rocca, Adam Felber, and Dulce Sloan. And here again is your host, a man whose butter is always soft, Peter Sagal.

Thank you, Bill. Right now it is time for the Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me Bluff, the listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play our game on the air. Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hi, this is Tony Richards calling from Nashville, Music City, where I listen to your show on WPLN, the National Public Radio. Oh, we love Nashville. Are you part of the Music City down there? Well, I moved to Nashville to be closer to my family who lives here,

and I've been building electric guitars to keep myself busy. How very cool. Can you build a guitar that has a particular character? Yes, in fact, that's sort of like my little niche there, in that I generally build electrics based on Fender-style guitars. I don't want to get sued by Fender. I like Fender-style guitars. I don't want to get sued by Fender. I like Fender-style guitars. And then I customize them to the person's particular taste

in terms of finish, electronics, hardware, all of that. How very cool. Well, it's very satisfying. That sounds it. Well, welcome to the show, Tony. You're going to play the game in which you must write to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is Tony's topic?

Sorry, Peter. It's not a good time. Bad timing! It's not just the title of an X-rated 1980 erotic film starring Art Garfunkel. It's a thing that happens. Our panelists are going to tell you about an incident involving bad timing. Pick the one who's telling the truth, and you'll win a prize, a VHS cassette of bad timing, which, again, is a 1980 x-rated film starring art garfunkel also harvey kytel really you ready to play i am ready to play all right

let's hear first from adam felber it was back in 2018 when 23 year old kentucky woman leah holland received what she thought was one of the nicest compliments of her life from a friend. Leah felt seen. For the next two years, Leah toyed with the idea of having her friend's compliment tattooed on her arm, a testament and a daily reminder for Leah to continue to be true to herself, to always live out loud. Finally, in March of last year, she pulled the trigger and got the tattoo placed prominently on her left forearm. Mere days later, the COVID-19 pandemic struck Kentucky and the rest of the country really hard, and suddenly her tattoo became a little problematic because it read and reads in bold lettering, quote,

courageously and radically refused to wear a mask. I was mortified, she said. I spent the entire summer wearing cardigans so that it could not be misconstrued. Fortunately, she says, I can laugh about it now. It's hilarious. So that's all good. But still no word on what she's going to do about her other tattoo on the small of her back,

which reads, the privatized power grid in Texas is a workable free market solution that will never fail. A woman got a tattoo proudly bragging about refusing to wear a mask just before the COVID epidemic struck. Your next story of bad timing comes from Dulce Sloan. Helen Bennett of Martinez, Georgia, was known for her come and get it chicken. The savory and a little sweet recipe was a much requested favorite at events all over town. So when the local chicken plant had a contest with grand prize of $5,000 and a discount on chicken for the rest of the year, she knew she had to

enter. The thing is, the secret to her chicken is cannabis oil, which gives her chicken its distinct taste and slight euphoric effect the problem is the day before the competition helen ran out and couldn't get more because it's a controlled substance in georgia so it was time to crime so she called her cousin albert bennett aka little white to get the cannabis she needed to make her soon to be a worn wedding chicken so she made her come and get a chicken, and she gave it a different name. And when the judges voted, Helen's totally legal, nothing to see her chicken won first prize.

She later admitted to using the slightly bad substance, but authorities let her off with a warning on the condition she give them the recipe. A woman uses illegal ingredients in her chicken. Your last story of bad timing not involving the raw carnal magnetism of Art Garfunkel comes from Mo Rocca. As a child, Carol Bagnoli of St. Paul, Minnesota, began a lifelong fascination with folding hand bands. Quote, we had Japanese neighbors and they had the most beautiful fans, silk, linen, some of them lacquered. With the dawn of the internet, Carol connected with other

devotees of this ancient art and was inspired to start an online gallery of fans, a kind of subscription service where members could ogle these exotic beauties. So in 2016, Carol launched OnlyFans.org. The same year, another subscription service of the same name debuted, that one popular with sex workers. Quote, we had only 14 subscribers at first, all of them people I already knew, said Carol. But then we started getting waves of guys demanding hotter content. So I posted my 30-inch bamboo Kabuki classic, hand-painted. Doesn't get any hotter than that. But once these new subscribers started asking that Carol pose with the fans, and not much else, she got wise to the mix-up. Quote, excuse me, these fans are for cooling down, so I recommend those rascals visit my page

after they've been to that other OnlyFans, if you know what I mean. All right. So one of these is a story of bad timing in the news. From Adam Felber, a woman getting a tattoo proudly proclaiming her refusal to wear a mask just before wearing a mask became very important.

From Dulce, a prized chicken recipe uses the wrong ingredient at the wrong time. And from Mo Rocca, a fan enthusiast sets up a website to show off her wonderful fans and gives it the same name as the most popular website for sex workers. Which of these is the real story of bad timing? I believe Adam's telling me the truth on this one. So I'm going to go with that. Your choice then is Adam about the woman who proudly got the tattoo, by the way, in a visible place,

bragging about refusing to wear a mask right before the pandemic. That's your choice? That's the one I'm putting my money down on, yep. Well, we actually spoke to the person in the center of the story to bring you the real one. It's on my forearm, and it just says, courageously and radically refuse to wear a mask. That was Leah Holland talking about her very unfortunate tattoo.

Congratulations, Tony, you got it right. You earned a point for Adam Felber, and you have won our prize, the voice of your choice, on your voicemail. Well done, Tony. I had so much fun. Thank you, guys. You guys were great. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye, Tony.

And now the game where impressive people attempt something that's not that impressive. It's called Not My Job. Let's face it, America, we haven't had a lot of wins recently. That's why it was so exciting to watch NASA and JPL successfully land the newest Mars rover, Perseverance, last week. If you watched it live, the person you saw and heard narrating the events as they happened was lead engineer Swati Mohan. And we are delighted to have her join us now. Dr. Mohan, welcome to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here. I'm very happy to have you. Congratulations, first of all, on the very cool thing that you did. Were you as excited as everybody else was?

Because we were all pretty excited. I think I'm still in shock that it actually happened and went well. But hopefully one day I'll be super excited. I'm still in awe. I know a few engineers and because of their, you know, devotion to facts and measurements and calculations, they tend to be pretty confident. Is that not true? Are you actually just as terrified of screwing up as the rest of us? I would say dealing with all the facts and uncertainty makes me even more humble because there's so much we know we cannot control. I mean, if all of a sudden it breaks down, you can't send out a truck to fix it.

Or if there's a wind gust that knocks you into a cliff. My understanding. Oh, yeah, I guess so. Oh, well, there's $40 million. I don't know how much. How much did it cost? I don't know the actual number, but I think it was in the single-digit billions. Oh, sure. That's about right.

And how long did it take? I've been on the project for about eight years. Eight years. So it would have been a really bad day if it blew into a cliff. It would have been a really bad day, yes. Yeah, I'm beginning to see why you might have been nervous after all. Now your job, as I understand it, was specifically the system that allowed the rover to look where it was going and steer to the right landing space. Is that right? The guidance system? Yes, that is correct. And that's new. We never had that before.

What was new on Perseverance was a new sensor and system called terrain relative navigation that let us see with the camera the surface and determine where we were with respect to that surface. That part was new. Wow. I just have to ask, when my internet in this house is a little bit slow and my son's got a little bit of lag on his video game, he loses his mind. How much lag were you dealing with? What was your ping in trying to land that thing real time on Mars? So the lag was about 11 minutes and change, 11 minutes and five seconds or so. But because of that, we can't joystick it. There's no way we can joystick it. So about an hour before, we actually turned off the transmitter on Perseverance and basically said,

we're not going to tell you what to do anymore. You're on your own. And from that point forward, Perseverance did everything herself. And all the information we got was 11 minutes behind. So when we actually called touchdown, Perseverance had been on the ground, just filling out. So you were the person that everybody was listening to and or watching on landing day. And what was called what we now know is the seven minutes of terror. Can you tell us exactly what that is? Seven minutes of terror refers to the time it takes to get from the top of the atmosphere of Mars to the ground.

It takes seven minutes from when the vehicle hits the atmosphere to when it gets on the ground. It takes seven minutes from when the vehicle hits the atmosphere to when it gets on the ground. And because it takes between 10 and 15 minutes for light to travel between Mars and Earth, those seven minutes are terrifying to those of us in mission control because by the time you received word from perseverance that that hit the top of the atmosphere she was already on the ground either nice and healthy or in a big flat crater uh and you wouldn't know you'd have to wait for that time to pass it's like being a parent of a teenager i mean if you think about it it doesn't matter at all because you wouldn't be able to do anything anyway if you were able to see it live but that does make it worse that you're sitting there and you have no it could

be in a flaming wreck and you have no idea what could it be a flaming car like or could it just crash and then not burn well there's there's a lot of propellant on board so depending on the timing you know there could be there could be some fireworks. I had a question. Why do we keep going to Mars and bothering that planet trying to find stuff that's alive? Like, what is we do? We keep doing this to answer the fundamental question of are we alone in the universe? Is Earth the only place that has life? that has life. There's billions and billions of worlds out there. And Mars is the closest place and most realistic place that we could possibly answer that question. And that's why we keep going back. And that's why every mission builds on the next. Perseverance relies on the knowledge we got from Curiosity. Curiosity found that Mars has water. It has all the building blocks for what we know life on Earth needs. So what Perseverance is looking for is the actual

fossilized record of past life on Mars. And by sampling and preparing those samples to come back to Earth, that'll open up the possibility to do that detailed analysis where we could potentially definitively say that, yes, Mars had life in the past. And that means that Earth was not the only planet to have created life. And that's a big thing. the only planet to have created life. And that's a big thing. You know, Swati, you must have imagined, maybe just lying in bed at night, just imagined what that life might have looked like if it existed. Have you wondered, have you kind of let your imagination kind of picture what it might have looked like? Can you do an imitation of what you think they'd sound like? of picture what it might have looked like. Can you do an imitation of what you think

they'd sound like? The sounds, you actually have a microphone now on the rover that you can listen to. They released that first clip. It was very cool to hear it. It was also a little disappointing because we didn't hear any cool Hans Zimmer

music or like that, for example. It was just... You're going to hear, what the hell is this y'all they just sent some more trash up here i'm tired of sending these little damn cars up to my planet you know what they'd be talking about like do you think they're just hiding from us maybe maybe if we go enough they'll like actually show themselves just to get rid of us that could be one option all right well swathi mohat it it's obviously fascinating to talk to you about this we're all we're all nerds in america now but uh

we have invited you here to play a game that this time we're calling mars is too far you're obviously interested in other planets but what about the many planets to be found here on earth we're going to ask you three questions about earthly planets. Answer two out of three correctly. You'll win our prize. One of our listeners, Bill, who is Swati Mohan playing for it? Rebecca Lee of Minneapolis, Minnesota. All right. Here's your first question. Planet Hollywood is, of course, the movie star themed restaurant chain. The restaurants feature many props from famous movies, including which of these a,

an enormous pile of dinosaur dung from Jurassic park to be a plastic model of the meat slab that was pulverized by Sly Stallone in the film Rocky or see a genuine half smoked doobie from Cheech and Chong's up in smoke. Hmm. I kind of want to go with one. You want to go with the enormous pile of dinosaur dung? Yeah. How many times do I get to pick poop as an answer?

I don't know. To my business. To my business, we don't get to do it very much. Mars doesn't have a lot of poop, you know? So is that the one you're going for? That is the one I'm going for. I'm afraid it was the slab of beef from Rocky. Two more chances. This is not a problem. The planet fitness chain of gyms has the slogan, a judgment free zone. But that turns out not to be strictly true as one New Hampshire man found out when he tried to do what at a Planet Fitness?

A, he brought in his four cats, which he called his workout buddies. B, he tried to ride his own bicycle on the treadmill. Or C, he tried to work out completely naked. I think I'm going to go for C. That's my wild guess. No, you're right. That's what happened. Even worse, he was doing yoga. And yes, he did say as he was being dragged out, he said, I thought this was a judgment-free zone. All right.

Now, this is okay. You still have one to go. And if you get this right, you win. Here we go. The Lonely Planet is a go-to guide for exploring life here on Earth. And it points tourists in one of its books to such hard-to-find earthly wonders as which of these? A particular rooftop in Ankara, Turkey, which if you stand on it and look down,

the building next door looks just like a butt. B, a Starbucks in Shaker Heights, Ohio, which they say has the best coffee of all the Starbucks in all the world. Or C, a public toilet in Hull, England, which they list as one of the 500 most interesting places to visit in the United Kingdom. Oh, this is hard. All right, we'll go with three.

You're going to go with for C, the public toilet in Hull, England. You're right. That's the answer. It is apparently an architecturally and historically significant public facility. Bill, how did Swathi do on our quiz? With two out of three, Swathi landed successfully. Yay! My husband will be very proud of me.

Dr. Swati Mohan was the Guidance and Controls Operation Lead on the NASA Mars 2020 mission, also known as Perseverance Rover. Dr. Mohan, thank you so much for joining us on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, and congratulations again. You made us all proud. Thank you for having me. Thank you. In just a minute, L-I-M-E-R-I-C-K-S. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to join us on air.

We'll be back in a minute with more of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR. Here at Planet Money Industries, we've manufactured t-shirts, we've bought oil, we've even gone to space. But our next Planet Money series, well, let's just say a superhero is born. Coming to a podcast feed near you from NPR. From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis. We're playing this week with Dulce Sloan, Mo Rocca, and Adam Felber. And here again is your host, a man who tries not to think about the fact that with each of these intros I read, he's a little bit older than the one before.

Peter Sagal. Thanks, Bill. I think. In just a minute, Bill rhymages through his basement. It's our listener limerick challenge game. If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news.

Dulce, in one of the worst things to happen during the pandemic, the Wall Street Journal reports that some CEOs are trying to keep up their employees' morale by doing what? Can I have a clue? Can you have a clue? Yes. What would be the absolute nightmare for your boss to do if you're sitting there working at home quite happily? Come to my damn house! Exactly! That's what they're doing! One, that's disrespectful. I'm Southern. You don't come to nobody's house. Exactly. That's what they're doing. One, that's disrespectful.

I'm Southern. You don't come to nobody's house unannounced. Don't you also, too. This is my domain. This is a trailer where I pay rent. Don't you dare show up with your goofy ass. Wait, hold on a second. What if your boss were Stanley Tucci?

Listen, if it's Stanley Tucci, baby, he ain't got to come to my house. He already there. Well, you're right. That's what these guys are doing. As we enter month one million of the lockdown with many people still working from home, employers are trying everything to make their staff feel motivated, including just dropping by. A guy in Austin was actually in the middle of a Zoom work meeting when the doorbell rang and it was his boss there to give him an award. Oh, what can I do to make my employee feel happy and secure?

I know. Ambush him. Mail! That's what the mail is for! Now, other morale-building exercises dreamed up by eager CEOs have included virtual retreats, including a virtual visit to a goat sanctuary, visits from Zoom comedians, which is truly nightmarish, and a cookout in which employees were given s'mores to make at home in front of their computers with a candle. Did it also include something to kill yourself with? I know.

That's the only humane thing to do if I'm making s'mores. I'm living the dream of sitting in front of my laptop making a sad candy sandwich. This is awesome. A s'more is a candy sandwich. Peter, you did it. Mo, many of us have had trouble sleeping

during the pandemic because of anxiety or whatever, but the New York Times is here to help. Their new advice is to simply pretend that you are a what? It's not going to be a sheep.

Simply pretend that you are a beaver inside of a hollowed out log. That's quite lovely. You are the ground, you are the carne asada inside of a taquito.

You're in some place where you just want to be cuddled up and warm. You're getting there. Cuddled. Oh, that you're being swaddled. Because you are. You're treating yourself like a? Like the baby Jesus. No, like an infant.

Yes, exactly. I don't know why you leapt right from the general idea of baby to specifically the baby Jesus. I mentioned the swaddling clothes. That's the most famous baby there is. That little dancing baby. That's true. The answer is, in fact, treat yourself as a baby. New parents struggling to get a newborn to sleep have long sworn by a combination

of swaddling shushing swinging and look what do you want daddy's starting to hallucinate now the times in an article titled seriously can't sleep try being an adult baby recommends that if you're having trouble sleeping you just do the same for yourself you swaddle yourself tight with a weighted blanket or perhaps a straitjacket, and you shush yourself using a white noise machine. Rocking and sucking a pacifier might also help you, freak. Like a giant safety pin that you put into like a cloth, sort of, right? Yeah. By the way, this is all true. I know this because I'm a newborn. Babies, it's called the five S's. The swaddling, shushing, scotch, season two of Shark Tank, and if all that doesn't work, Sanax. Coming up, it's lightning fell in the blank, but first it's the game where you have

to listen for the rhyme. If you'd like to play on air, call or leave a message at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT, that's 1-888-924-8924, or you can click the Contact Us link on our website, waitwait.npr.org. Also, the Wait Wait Live Virtual Comedy Club with Maz Jobrani, Maeve Higgins, Joel Kimbooster, Mo Rocca, and Helen Hong is coming up on March 2nd. Tickets and info at NPR Presents. Hi, you're on Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hi, this is Kate Pearson calling from Somerville, Massachusetts.

Hey, how are things in beautiful Somerville? They've been really sunny these past two days, which is very odd, but we've been enjoying that. What do you do there? I am a student at Tufts University. Tufts University? Yes. That's my alma mater. No way.

Go, go. I lived in Somerville for years. This is Adam Feldman. Do you live near Winter Hill? A little far from Winter Hill, but Somerville's great. Oh, yeah Felber. Do you live near Winter Hill? A little far from Winter Hill, but Somerville's great. Oh, yeah? I heard they closed down Johnny D's. I've never heard of it, so I imagine they have. Not

Johnny D's! Oh, man! Damn! But the Somerville Theater is still there, and that's all that counts, right? God bless. Yes, it is. Tate, welcome to the show. Thanks. Bill Curtis is going to read you three news-related limericks with the last word or phrase missing from each. If you can fill in that last word or phrase correctly in two of the limericks, you'll be a winner. And we should warn you, this week's limerick game is a complete

nerd fest. Here is your first limerick. So the word's root is Greek. You are telling me? Shut up, Dad. You don't help with your yelling, see? I'm competing from home, but I can't check my phone. I'm remotely compete in the... Spelling Bee. Yes, very good. We can all watch tiny nerds be terrified again this year because the National Spelling Bee is back. Other than the final round, of course, the entire event will be held virtually.

So they'll all be on their computers. So in addition to the contestants asking, can you use it in a sentence, they'll be asking, and what search terms might you use to Google it? The 12 finalists will still compete in person, as per tradition, for the championship round. And they'll be on the ESPN campus in Disney World, where they had the NBA bubble. Man, spelling nerds will be living just like NBA stars. I wonder if they're going to sneak out to the same strip clubs. Okay, Tate, here is your next limerick.

Until this darn COVID thing passes, this here tip might just help out the masses. Though everyone tries to not touch or rub eyes, it'll help if you put on some glasses. Glasses, yes! Nerds don't need a vaccine. That's because it turns out people who wear glasses are three times less likely to get COVID. So move over, Johnson & Johnson, we've got Warby and Parker. Apparently, this works because glasses wearers don't touch their upper face or eyes as much because they got glasses on. Instead, they do that annoying thing where they're pushing their glasses up on their noses all the time. We get it.

You're smart. It's also because people who wear glasses, of course, are dorks. So they're less likely to be invited to the cool inside parties. That's kind of what I thought was the reason. Really? It's not a random sampling of people wearing glasses yeah oh wow oh let's not let's not invite four eyes over there to our super spreader event okay he's not cool enough is this pandemic happening inside an 80s teen comedy no what

it really is though it's it's the tape you put on the bridge of the glasses. That's what does it. And the pocket protectors protect your lungs, of course, so it all works out. And if you button the top button of your shirt, you're as good as vaccinated. Here is your last limerick. One, two, three, four, five, six. Has no class, nerd. That's too easy to hack, so I last heard.

I'm truly concerned that we never will learn, because we all have a real simple... Password. Yes, apparently we are all still bad at choosing passwords. A recent analysis of stolen passwords found for sale on the dark web found that the most common password is 123456.

The second most common password was password. Number three was 1234567. For the people who decided stopping at six wasn't complex enough. Can I tell you there was a writer at the New York Times and her name was Jennifer A. Lee.

Like her middle name was literally a number. And all I could think was, oh my God, she would be an amazing password. And I'm just letting everyone out there know I no longer use Jennifer A. Lee as my password for anything. But I liked her writing and I think she's an awesome password. There are some surprising ones on this list of the most common passwords. Number 14, for example, was lemonfish. So we didn't understand why that would be a common password.

We googled the word lemonfish and found out it's a kind of fish. It's known for its mild taste and its habit of opening bank accounts on the internet. Interesting. Didn't Elon Musk just name his child a password with that boring looking girl Yeah he named it this bizarre agglomeration

Of letters and characters His child's legal name is Mother's maiden name Bill how did Tate do in our quiz Tate is tough Strong she got a perfect score Congratulations Tate Thank you so much.

Thank you for playing. Bye-bye, Tate. Have a good one. Bye. Now it's time for our final game, Lightning Fill in the Blank. Each of our players will have 60 seconds in which to answer as many fill-in-the-blank questions as they can. Each correct answer is now worth two points. Bill, can you give us the scores? Dulce has two, Adam has three, and Mo has three.

All right. Dulce, you're in third place. You're up first. The clock will start when I begin your first question. Fill in the blank. On Thursday, millions of pages of blank's financial records were turned over to Manhattan district attorneys. The orange man. We'll give it to you.

Despite pressure from the White House, Louis DeJoy said he would not resign as the head of the Blank. Secretary of the Interior? No, it's actually the post office. On Monday, Virginia became the first southern state to abolish Blank. Slavery. No, the death penalty after being pulled over by police for reckless driving. A man in Florida told them blank. Get off my lawn. He said, I'm sorry,

I didn't know reckless driving was illegal. On Sunday, United announced that they would take two dozen planes out of service after a 777 suffered blank right after takeoff. Engine failure. Right. Following a surprise deep freeze, some families in blank were charged over $10,000 on their electric bills. In Houston. Texas, yes. This week, a drug-sniffing dog in Ohio alerted authorities to a shipment of frosted flakes that were blank. Full of drugs? Yeah, they were frosted with cocaine.

That's just a waste of cocaine! Well, the boxes of cereal which were intercepted by customs officials as they traveled from South America to Hong Kong, were dusted with over $2 million worth of cocaine. The drug-sniffing dog was the first indication that something was up, but officers had their suspicions confirmed when they noticed that the Tony the Tiger printed on the box had a nosebleed. Tony Montana the Tiger. All right, Bill, how did Dulce do in our quiz? Dulce had four right for eight more points. Sheena has 10 and the lead. That was a fine showing.

Okay, Adam, you're up next. Fill in the blank. On Tuesday, security officials testified on departmental failings during the assault on the blank in January. Capital. Right. This week, Dr. Fauci warned that Americans may still need to wear blanks until 2022. Masks. Right. During their first official meeting, President Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Blank vowed to work together to fight climate change. Trudeau. Right.

This week, officials in Minnesota held a name our snowplow contest, but they rejected one of the top entries, blank. Mr. Plow. No, Abolish Ice. Get it? After Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen expressed concerns over cryptocurrencies, blank's price dropped by 20%. Bitcoin. Right.

Following a rollover crash on Tuesday, golfer blank wound up in the hospital with leg injuries. Tiger Woods. Right. According to court records, a man in Scotland required medical attention after he got his tongue bitten off in a fight and then blank. Tried to dance. Right. According to court records, a man in Scotland required medical attention after he got his tongue bitten off in a fight and then blank. Tried to dance. No.

Then a seagull swooped down and ate it. I know. Officers who were at the scene say the man got into a fight with a woman after they bumped into each other on the street. She then bit off a part of his tongue, which was immediately scooped up by a nearby seagull who ate it. That old story. Though it seems like an open and shut case, the woman

got away scot-free because the prosecution's only witness was the man, and no one could understand what he was saying. Wait a minute. Isn't tongue kind of like a Jewish delicacy, right? It is. Yes. So maybe it wasn't a seagull. Maybe it was a seagull.

Ah, it could have been a seagull. Could have been Nate Seagull. Bill, how did Adam do in our quiz? He got five right for 10 more points. He now has 13, and that gives him the lead. Congratulations. That was pretty good. How many then does Mo need to win?

Mo needs five to tie, six to win. I believe in you, Mo. Here we go, Mo. This is for the game. In a televised address on Monday, President Biden memorialized the 500,000 Americans who lost their lives to blank. COVID. Yes. On Wednesday, West Virginia Senator Blank said he would support Biden's choice for Secretary of the Interior. Joe Manchin.

Right. This week, the FDA confirmed that Johnson & Johnson's blank was safe and effective. Vaccine. Yes. On Monday, Dominion Voting Systems sued Mike Lindell, the founder of Blank, for $1.3 billion. My pillow. Yes, Twitter announced a new feature that will allow certain users to Blank. To charge for their tweets. Exactly right. After its huge rally a month ago, shares in Blank once again jumped over 100% on Wednesday. GameStop.

Yes, government officials in Bahrain are asking residents to please be aware of how they're disposing of the country's national dish, otherwise seagulls will blank. They'll choke. No, they'll eat all the leftovers and then get too fat to fly. Makbous. Why is makbous made of tongue? Makbous is a spiced chicken and rice dish beloved by the people of Bahrain and also by the seagulls of Bahrain. According to the government, people are just leaving their leftovers out and the birds are eating so much of it that they're literally becoming too fat to fly. Officials are asking residents to please use trash bins so the seagulls can slim down and get back to doing what they love, screaming at people for more machbus.

Bill, did Mo do well enough to win? Well, he got six right for 12 more points. That means with 15, he is this week's champion. Yay! Congratulations! Oh, Mo Rocca, that was stellar. I'm so proud of you, Mo Rocca. We're all proud.

We're all proud. In just a minute, we're going to ask our panelists to predict, now that we've had Buttergate in Canada, what will be the next dairy-related scandal? Wait, wait, don't tell me. It's a production of NPR and WBEZ Chicago, in association with Urgent Haircut Productions, Doug Berman, Benevolent Overlord.

Philip Godeka writes our limericks. Our public address announcer is Paul Friedman. Our house manager is Gianna Capodona. Our intern is Emma Choi. Our web guru is Beth Novy. BJ Liederman composed our theme. Our program is produced by Jennifer Mills, Miles Dernbos, and Lillian King. Peter Gwynn is the director of the 1980 Art Garfunkel erotic film Bad Timing.

Technical direction is from Lorna White. Our business and ops manager is Colin Miller. Our production manager is Robert Newhouse. Our senior producer is Ian Chilog and the executive producer of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell. Here's Michael Danforth. Now, panel, what will be the next dairy-related scandal? Mo Rocca. Half and half will declare itself non-binary.

Dulce Sloan. In the hope of reducing the environmental impact of dairy and nut milk farming, scientists will develop a synthetic milk called Bove Wine. All the flavor and nutritional benefit of milk and none of the waste. And Adam Felber. The countryside will be terrorized by an outbreak of bovine vampirism,

also known as Vlad Cow Disease. Well, if any of that happens, we're going to ask you about it on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thank you, Bill Curtis. Thanks also to Mo Rocco, Dulce Sloan, and Adam Felber. And thanks to all of you for listening. The snow is melting. I think everything else is too.

I'm Peter Sagal. We'll see you next week. This is NPR.