RecSciPod S01E03 full transcript
Timestamps:
- 0:00 Intro
- 1:30 Lu’s afternoon beef
- 9:22 Sheep shearing study
- 22:40 How to publish anything
- 31:47 Let’s read some mail
- 34:14 What did you learn today, outro
Intro
Tirth: Giant water bottle.
Lu: Please Tirth. Don’t talk during the theme song. Welcome everyone to another episode of Recreational Science. The podcast where we explore creativity in science by examining some of the funniest, wackiest, and most provocative studies ever done. I’m Lu.
Tirth: And I’m Tirth.
Lu: Listeners, please join us on a journey to explore scientific innovation. It’s a journey that’s innovative and boundless. I think I said innovative twice.
Tirth: I think it’s okay. I think it’s boundless…boundless is the part that counts.
Lu: So, you know, three episodes in, I’ve committed myself to coming up with a new introduction on the spot every episode. And really, there’s only so many combinations of the words science, innovation, boundless and exploration. So eventually we’re going to have to come up with something new.
Tirth: Yes.
Lu: Maybe next episode you can take over the introduction.
Tirth: Okay, I’ll try. Maybe I can use some variant like unbounded. Bound free.
Lu: Oh, that’s pretty good. Yeah, save it for the next episode.
Tirth: Okay. I don’t want to shoot my shot right now.
Lu: Yeah, exactly.
Lu’s afternoon beef
Lu: Tirth, so I have a story that I want to tell you.
Tirth: Okay, go ahead.
Lu: This happened to me recently. Well, actually, the first part of it happened to me many months ago…
Tirth: Okay.
Lu: And I’ll start there. And I really want your opinion on this.
Tirth: Happy to.
Lu: I want to know what you think. Because it’s an interesting issue.
Tirth: Okay.
Lu: So, many months ago, like summer of last year, I was riding my bike to work, as I do, because you know, I’m a very environmentally conscious person. Uh, I recycle, I drive an electric car. And you know, it’s a 5-mile ride, got to my lab. I was parking my bike by the bike racks behind some bushes. 5-mile ride…I wasn’t out of breath at all because you know, I’m very fit person.
Tirth: Impressive.
Lu: But as I looked up, suddenly this guy approached me, sort of out of nowhere. Now I don’t want to say he was hiding behind the bushes by the bike racks, but at least part of him was covered by the bushes, which is why I didn’t see him at first.
Tirth: Ah.
Lu: But he seemed like a friendly enough guy. He was holding a phone and he came up to me. He was like, “hey, hey friend, I just got this new phone.” Seemed like a real phone. He was like, “hey, but I don’t know if it’s working or not. Can you give me a text or a call?” I was like, yeah, okay. Because again, you know, I’m a nice guy.
Tirth: Yes.
Lu: I recycle, I drive an electric car.
Tirth: Very good.
Lu: So I was like, sure, yeah, so he gave me his number, and I texted it and nothing. He didn’t get it. So, then he was like, “um, yeah, I guess the phone isn’t working, but can you send me a WhatsApp?” So I sent him a WhatsApp and he actually got that. So we’re both very happy. But by this time, you know, I had to run up to the lab because I had an experimental time point.
Tirth: Of course, science can’t wait.
Lu: So I went up to lab. About an hour went by, when I checked my phone, I got a WhatsApp message from him. It just said, “hey man, thanks again for sending me this WhatsApp.” So I replied, yeah, sure, no problem. You know, again, very nice guy.
Tirth: Yeah, very gracious.
Lu: Me, I’m saying.
Tirth: Oh, of course.
Lu: I’m very nice.
Tirth: Of course. Yes.
Lu: Electric car. So I was like, okay, cool. That’s the end of that. But then five minutes later, he texted me again. And uh, I want to read you exactly what he said.
Tirth: Okay, go ahead.
Lu: He texted, “you should call and text me more often.”
Tirth: What?
Lu: Look, now, you know, I don’t, I’m not homophobic.
Tirth: No.
Lu: In fact, I consider myself to be an equal opportunist.
Tirth: Oh, is that so?
Lu: But I was a little creeped out. So, I immediately deleted the WhatsApp and blocked him.
Tirth: Yes, yes. That’s the right course of action.
Lu: Is that the right course?
Tirth: Absolutely.
Lu: So, what do you think? He just made this whole story up to get my number?
Tirth: Uh, yeah, I think so. I think what’s going on here is this man probably hides behind the bushes every day. Probably been hiding behind different bushes on the Stanford campus.
Lu: Mhm. Okay. Homer Simpson style?
Tirth: Yeah, exactly. Except it’s in reverse because you know, Simpson like Homer actually goes back.
Lu: Yeah, yeah.
Tirth: But you know, my guess is this guy hides around a lot of bushes on the Stanford campus and he probably rotates different times of the day, different parts of the campus, and he probably has different stories, you know, in this case it was a cell phone, maybe in another case he has a laptop and he’s like, hey, can you send me a Facebook friend request, you know?
Lu: I see. I see. Interesting. Okay, so you think I did the right thing by just blocking him? Because admittedly, it’s very creepy.
Tirth: Yeah. Well, listen, listen…
Lu: You know, even if I’m not being homophobic, it’s creepy.
Tirth: It’s very creepy. But listen, as you’ve pointed out, many times, that you’re a very nice guy.
Lu: Very nice. Yeah.
Tirth: So everything you did was obviously correct, you know?
Lu: Uh-huh.
Tirth: Starting from the fact that you chose to ride your bike to work.
Lu: Yeah, exactly.
Tirth: You helped this man out, you replied to him, you took precious time…
Lu: I also recycle. Uh I compost. Yeah.
Tirth: Yes, and you drive an electric car. Let’s not forget.
Lu: Electric car. Yeah, exactly. Only when I need to. Not all the time.
Tirth: Yes, only when you need to. That’s true.
Lu: I bike most days.
Tirth: Most days, yes.
Lu: So, okay, so I don’t have to feel too bad about myself. But actually, you know what, the story doesn’t end there.
Tirth: No…
Lu: Skip now, fast forward many, many months, uh to about a few weeks ago. I get a text from the same number.
Tirth: No…this guy?
Lu: Yes. And it said, this is again, many, many months later, it says, “are you free today? Let’s go eat beef together, afternoon?”
Tirth: What?! What does that even mean?
Lu: I don’t know, I don’t know. “Let’s go eat beef together, afternoon?”
Tirth: Wait, wait, important question, how many question marks are at the end of that question?
Lu: Uh, just one, but there are two questions: “are you free today?” And then “let’s go eat beef together, afternoon?”
Tirth: It’s very forward.
Lu: So, look, again, you know, if he’s coming on to me, I’m flattered, but I’m not, you know, I’m not interested.
Tirth: Right.
Lu: But I don’t want to turn down what could be a very, very promising friendship because look, you know I love beef, you know I love eating beef in the afternoon, right? You know how much I love my afternoon beef.
Tirth: Yes, of course, you’re a beef lover.
Lu: I am. I am. So, you know, I blocked him the first time, but maybe this is a legitimate friendship. So I’m stuck now. What do I do?
Tirth: Well, you could see where this goes. You can say, “Sure, what kind of beef were you thinking?” And maybe send him a winky face.
Lu: Uh-huh. Yeah, I could do that. The winky face… Maybe with an eggplant.
Tirth: Wrong move?
Lu: Are we, are we having eggplant on the side? Is that what you’re thinking? Yeah, no, I see where you’re going with this, Tirth. I’m not going down that route.
Tirth: Yeah, No, no. That’s wrong. I see. Hey, I actually have a perfect response if you want my opinion. You ready for it?
Lu: Yeah. Okay.
Tirth: You should actually reply back and be like, “hey, you want to do a podcast together?” Because there’s no better mark of a friendship than…
Lu: No, no, no. That we’re no, no, no, please. Please. That’s way too much.
Tirth: Is that too much? Oh, I see.
Lu: Look, how long have we known each other? Like 14 years, right? 15 years?
Tirth: Uh, yeah, that’s right. 2011.
Lu: You don’t start a podcast until you pass the 10-year mark. There are stages to friendships…
Tirth: Is that right?
Lu: And podcasting is at the very end.
Tirth: Will you formalize this?
Lu: Of course. Yeah, level one: eat beef together in the afternoon.
Tirth: Okay.
Lu: Level two is eat beef together in the morning, which is much more intimate in my opinion. Uh, level three is sharing a Sundae.
Tirth: Wow, hold on. One or two spoons?
Lu: Please, please, one, of course. Level four, seeing a movie together, just the two of you.
Tirth: We have done that.
Lu: Yeah, very intimate. Yeah. Level five is helping your friend move.
Tirth: Definitely done that.
Lu: Level five, that’s like a three-year friendship, I think. And then at the 10-year mark is starting a podcast together.
Tirth: Okay. So that’s level six. So we’re at level six right now, you and I. We’ve basically attained like Nirvana.
Lu: Yeah, level six. Yeah, we are. Podcasting is very sacred, very sacred.
Tirth: Okay. Very good, and I definitely treat it as such. Make no mistake.
Lu: Mhm, right, well, I guess I’ll let you know next week, uh what I decide to text this guy.
Tirth: Please keep us updated.
Lu: Yeah, I will. I will. Okay, Tirth, do you think we should do some science, talk about some science?
Tirth: Yeah, I’m ready for it.
Sheep shearing from the land of shorn sheep
Lu: Before we get started, I want to give the listeners a peek behind the curtain here. So Tirth and I, we don’t prepare for this at all.
Tirth: Yes.
Lu: Uh like not at all. We should, we probably should have pre-show meetings.
Tirth: We should.
Lu: But we don’t. And the only thing we do is like a day or two before we record, we text each other the first author of the paper we’re about to do, just to make sure we don’t do the same paper.
Tirth: Yes. Sometimes even on the same day.
Lu: Yeah. Like today, uh we forgot to do that and we didn’t find out until like two minutes before we started recording that we picked the same paper, somehow.
Tirth: That’s right. We did.
Lu: How does that happen?
Tirth: Great minds think alike, man.
Lu: Yes, but also idiots think alike.
Tirth: That’s true. The corollary to that.
Lu: Which is I think the conclusion we should draw. I think that’s the null hypothesis here.
Tirth: Yes.
Lu: So we both picked the same paper, but I think it’s going to work out because I actually have a follow up to this paper, which I can talk about. So, do you want to start us off on this paper?
Tirth: All right, for the benefit of the listeners, this paper is titled “An analysis of the forces required to drag sheep over various surfaces”.
Lu: Very interesting.
Tirth: This was published in the journal of Applied Ergonomics.
Lu: Very good journal, very good journal.
Tirth: So, here’s the premise of this study, okay? They’re basically saying that sheep are heavy, there’s a lot of shearing of sheep going on for their wool, and there’s a lot of occupational and safety hazards. So, there’s the applied ergonomics. This is from the year 2002. It was published by a bunch of people in Australia.
Lu: Australia. Yeah, sheep shearing. Makes sense. In Texas, we call Australia the land of the shorn sheep.
Tirth: Is that right? Hey, what do you think Australians call Texas then?
Lu: Uh, the Australia of America.
Tirth: That’s so true though. That’s so perfect.
Lu: Basically is.
Tirth: So, they’re at the University of Ballarat. I hope I’m pronouncing this correctly.
Lu: Great university. Fantastic university.
Tirth: I’ll take your word for it. Um, and I’ll set up the motivation behind this study, okay?
Lu: Mhm.
Tirth: So, as you’ve already pointed out, Australia is the land of shorn sheep. And the authors note quite importantly that there’s some occupational health and safety hazards associated with sheep shearing. And then they detail various aspects of sheep shearing which can cause occupational and safety hazards and they talk about how people who work in the field in this industry, I guess they’re called sheep shearers, is that right?
Lu: Yeah, yep.
Tirth: They can suffer from low back pain, they get knee pain, they suffer other injuries and things of that sort. And uh, you know, for the uninitiated, the authors actually very helpfully go on and explain the various steps involved in shearing sheep and how these can lead to different injuries.
Lu: Mhm.
Tirth: All right, so you ready for this?
Lu: Sorry, what?
Tirth: Well, the authors list all the steps it takes to shear a sheep.
Lu: Oh, yeah. Please, please.
Tirth: Okay. So the first step obviously is to catch the sheep. So they’re saying you have to catch the sheep, then you have to tip the sheep.
Lu: Yeah, mhm.
Tirth: Well, I don’t know if they’re tipping the sheep 15% or 20%, but they’re tipping the sheep.
Lu: Oh. Yeah. Usually, in Texas, we usually tip the sheep after, but it’s okay. Yeah, go ahead.
Tirth: Okay, sounds like you have some experience. I want to hear more about this.
Lu: Yeah. I do. Look, Tirth, Australia might have invented sheep sharing, but in Texas, we perfected it.
Tirth: Okay. Uh-huh. Is that right?
Lu: Yeah, that’s right.
Tirth: Well, should I hear your experience first before I list the steps they talk about?
Lu: Tirth, have you never partaken in sheep sharing?
Tirth: Of course not.
Lu: What?
Tirth: I admire sheep from a distance. In fact, a lot of times I confuse them for clouds.
Lu: No, okay. Well, okay. Let me blow your mind real quick, okay? In Texas, uh I went to high school in Texas.
Tirth: Uh-huh. I know. Yes.
Lu: My high school was uh largely agrarian. Just outside of Houston…
Tirth: Uh-huh. The famous farm lands of Houston.
Lu: Yeah, no, you’d be surprised. Hey Houstonians need food. Astronauts need food. So there was a huge barn on campus because we had very big uh Future Farmers of America program, FFA.
Tirth: Okay, yeah. I see.
Lu: Big fan of the program. And in lieu of dissecting, you know, your frog or whatever in biology class, we got to shear sheep.
Tirth: No. This can’t be true. This is a story from the 2000’s. We’re not talking about the 1950’s, right?
Lu: Yeah. No, no, no. Please, what? Look, we still need wool. We need wool for a lot of things, okay? And this is, you know, this is good experience for high school students.
Tirth: I see.
Lu: So, you know, a group of us would tackle a sheep and then take out some razors and shear it for biology credit.
Tirth: What? How many people does it take to shear one sheep?
Lu: Yeah, man. Well, I mean, there weren’t that many sheep and there were a lot of students. So, yeah, we grouped up. Group of 10 or so.
Tirth: Uh-huh.
Lu: Surrounded a sheep.
Tirth: Uh-huh.
Lu: Tackled it down and shear it.
Tirth: So ok, what were your steps? Let me hear them before I list the authors’ steps.
Lu: It’s the same steps. It’s the same steps, okay?
Tirth: Oh it is?
Lu: Yeah, it’s the same steps. It’s catching the sheep, tipping the sheep, dragging the sheep, shearing the sheep, and then guiding the sheep away. Same five steps.
Tirth: Wow. That’s literally what they say here.
Lu: This is the international standard for sheep shearing, okay? This is recognized by the International Standards and uh Units Committee.
Tirth: Is that right?
Lu: You know the place in France…
Tirth: Yeah, they measure the kilogram.
Lu: Where they have a vault with the kilogram inside, right? That’s the standard kilogram.
Tirth: Yes. Yes.
Lu: In Australia, they have an even bigger vault with the five steps of sheep sharing inside.
Tirth: Wow.
Lu: Yeah. It’s guarded by Swiss guards.
Tirth: What, wait a minute. Why are the Swiss cards in Australia?
Lu: It’s been blessed by the Pope. It’s a big deal, man. This is a big deal.
Tirth: Wow. I’m learning so much.
Lu: Yeah, the five steps of sheep sharing.
Tirth: Wow, very interesting. Okay, so let’s delve into this more then, okay?
Lu: Yep. Go ahead.
Tirth: So you’ve already helpfully listed the steps of sheep shearing. Uh, the authors also then go on and they cite a bunch of sources and they say the most common injuries, as you may expect, would be fractures and sprains, contusions and burns, not sure how that’s happening, but that’s okay.
Lu: Hmm.
Tirth: The most common body location was hand, finger, and thumb, and back. They’re all roughly about the same frequency, like 19 and 22%. They’re also saying that Australian shearers, for whatever reason, suffer injuries at six times the all-industry average.
Lu: That’s interesting.
Tirth: So, I’m not sure if they’re doing something different in Australia. Maybe it’s harder…you know what I think it is? I think it’s harder to shear sheep when you’re upside down.
Lu: Yes. Yes. I think that’s definite…Yeah, but yeah, mate, mate, but how good is that weather? How good is that weather down in Australia, huh, mate?
Tirth: Very good. A+.
Lu: Yeah, yeah, yeah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.
Tirth: All right, so anyway, being the helpful ergonomists that they are, they said, you know what? Can we come up with the standardized method for sheep shearing? And can we try and quantify what surfaces are better, what methods are better.
Lu: So they’ve identified out of the five steps, one single step that’s the most harmful.
Tirth: Yes, the dragging part.
Lu: Right, which is bad for your back. So they wanted to make the dragging part easier.
Tirth: Yeah, and they wanted to see what the minimum and the maximum force required to drag a sheep was. And if there was a difference with the type of surface they used. So, first and foremost, one of the things I liked about this study is the very high number of trials and how systematic they were with this sort of setup. So, you know, as you know, they chose eight men. And what they had these guys do is that they gave them five types of flooring material. So there’s wood battens oriented parallel, wood battens oriented at right angle. So these are slats of wood. And then the same setup with plastics, so either parallel or perpendicular to the direction of the drag. And then lastly, they just had steel mesh.
Lu: Mhm. So these are like five different types of flooring that they drag sheep across to try to reduce the amount of force required.
Tirth: Exactly, exactly. Yes, and then there with each trial, with each person, they’re measuring the drag force. So they’re looking at the angle and all of that to calculate the drag. And then they use five sheep. So total… what it ended up being is that there were eight shearers, five sheep, five surfaces and they had each person do 50 trials each for a total of 400 trials. Let’s just pause for a second. This is a very high number of trials.
Lu: These people are very good scientists. Very, very good scientists. Mhm.
Tirth: Yes, very impressed. What I found interesting is if you actually go along this, there’s some figures of the sheep being dragged.
Lu: I’ve seen them. The sheep, this you can see the face of the sheep and they look very content.
Tirth: They look very happy. I mean, this one here looks very, he looks very smug.
Lu: There’s some very content sheep. They’re living the life. It’s like a slide. It’s like a…
Tirth: Yes, they are.
Lu: It’s like they’re on a slide. Yeah, it’s great.
Tirth: Yeah, they basically made a sheep amusement park for them. I mean, can you imagine you’re a sheep living on this farm and just out of the blue, they’re like, okay, we’re getting dragged like 10 times a day.
Lu: Yeah. We’re just going to drag you. Yeah, PETA, PETA, if you have any problems out there, with the study, just know the sheep are enjoying it, right? This is for their enjoyment.
Tirth: Yes. No sheep were harmed in this study.
Lu: Absolutely not.
Tirth: And then there’s also a little cartoon diagram of a man trying to drag the sheep. It shows the ideal form, which actually looks very similar to what the ideal deadlifting form is. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever deadlifted in your life, Lu, but you know, I’m somewhat of a lifter myself.
Lu: Mhm. Oh, is that right?
Tirth: Yeah, yeah, that’s right.
Lu: Mhm. How much do you deadlift?
Tirth: Uh, we don’t need to get into numbers. I don’t want to embarrass people out there, you know? This is all about positivity, okay? It’s not about competition, okay?
Lu: Uh-huh. Okay. Sure, sure. I believe you. Mhm.
Tirth: So anyway, let’s delve into the results here, okay?
Lu: Okay. So just to recap, each of the eight shearers dragged five sheep across five different types of flooring two times each.
Tirth: Yes. That’s correct.
Lu: For a total of 50 trials per person, 400 trials overall, across five different flooring types. All right. Tell us the results.
Tirth: Okay, so the results are, so they’re comparing, so just remember, they’re comparing the different surfaces, and they’re trying to calculate which surface has the lowest drag, which surface has the highest drag. Well, what they found is that the lowest drag was on the wooden surface, parallel to the direction of the drag.
Lu: Mhm.
Tirth: And maybe not surprisingly, the highest drag was the steel mesh. You know, imagine maybe the steel is not as smooth or you know, there’s a lot of friction when you’re dragging the sheep across it.
Lu: Okay. Yeah.
Tirth: And then the other part that I really liked here is because they had very high number of trials, they were able to do pretty robust statistics.
Lu: Yeah, so quick lesson on science here. I really like this study because you know, there’s a couple of things you want to watch out for when you’re doing science. The first one is random error, which is just the random variations and like measurements of things, right? So, you can measure like the dragging force required to drag a sheep multiple times and it’s going to differ every time just due to natural variations. And that’s why like, for instance in basketball, like the same two teams can play a game, can play several games and the results will be different, right? It’s sort of the same concept, which is why like in the finals, in the NBA finals, you play seven games.
Tirth: A seven game series. Yeah.
Lu: Yeah, so the way to overcome random variation is to increase replication.
Tirth: the number of trials, yeah.
Lu: Number of trials and sample size, which they did. They did a very good job of. So I really like that. So that’s random error. The other type of error is systematic error, which is not random, but it’s more, you know, it’s more systematic, it’s more a consistent error.
Tirth: Mhm.
Lu: So this would be like if they have the sheep shearers drag the sheep across the five different types of flooring in the same order each time. So start with wood, you know, and then end with metal, like every time. There could be a systematic error there and that, you know, maybe they might be more excited to be dragging on the first type of flooring that they come across, right? Because it’s the first time that they’re doing it and then they run out of energy by the last time and that could cause a systematic change, systematic difference.
Tirth: Which by the way, they actually accounted for it, too. They actually mentioned that. They said they tried to vary the times of the day when they were dragging the sheep so they wouldn’t get tired.
Lu: Yeah, exactly. And the way to combat systematic error is through randomization, right? Which is like you randomize which type of flooring they test first each time.
Tirth: Yeah.
Lu: So they did that.
Tirth: Yeah.
Lu: Good. Cool study.
The final boss of recreational science
Tirth: Lu you said you have a follow up to this, so let’s hear it.
Lu: I do have a follow-up. I do have a follow-up. So I like I said, I love this paper, and I wanted to see what papers might have cited this paper.
Tirth: Uh-huh.
Lu: What, you know, what landmark studies this paper led to.
Tirth: Makes sense.
Lu: So I was on PubMed, and actually, there’s only one paper on PubMed that cites this paper. One other paper that cites it.
Tirth: That’s very disappointing.
Lu: It is. And of course I checked out this paper. This paper is titled, “Who says you cannot get published?”
Tirth: Ouch!
Lu: It is written by one Dr. Paul McCrory, and it’s published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Tirth: Hmm.
Lu: Basically this Dr. Paul McCrory, he just listed a bunch of funny papers that maybe should not have been published but were.
Tirth: In his opinion. This is just his opinion?
Lu: In his opinion. But I didn’t actually didn’t read that paper too carefully because what was very eye-catching as soon as I opened this paper on the journal’s website, the British Journal of Sports Medicine, is a red editorial note at the top…
Tirth: Uh-oh.
Lu …of the paper “Who says you cannot get published?” It’s a red editorial note.
Tirth: Okay. This can’t be good.
Lu: It says, “this article has a correction. Please see expression of concern about content of which Dr. Paul McCrory is a single author.” So this led me down a rabbit hole. So I had to figure out who this Dr. McCrory is.
Tirth: Wait, wait, so what does this mean? He plagiarized it?
Lu: So when I opened up the correction, it read, “this paper is authored by Dr. Paul McCrory. During 2021 and 2022, there was an investigation by the British Journal of Sports Medicine which found that some of his work was a product of publication misconduct.”
Tirth: Whoa.
Lu: “Such misconduct includes plagiarism, duplicate publication, misquotation, and misrepresentation in publications in respect of which he was listed as the sole author.”
Tirth: Wow.
Lu: Right? Pretty damning, serious stuff, right?
Tirth: Oh my god. I mean, it just looks like a blog post.
Lu: On what seems like a very inconsequential paper, “Who says you cannot get published?” So I looked this guy up, Dr. Paul McCrory. Turns out he is a neurologist.
Tirth: Yeah. My people.
Lu: He is your people. Yes, exactly. He’s also a sports physician and he’s considered a concussion expert.
Tirth: Okay.
Lu: So he is, get this, he is also the editor in chief of the British Journal of Sports Medicine where this paper was published, “Who says you cannot get published?”
Tirth: I think that’s meta on several levels.
Lu: And on which the editors, I’m guessing not him, placed an editorial note on. So anyways, so that editorial note, the correction was placed on 80 different articles that were authored by this guy from the year 1999 all the way to 2007. 80 in a span of eight years. So about 10 a year or so. Let me just read you the titles of some of these. Just as a reminder, these articles were all published by Dr. Paul McCrory, sole author, in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, and they’ve all been flagged for misconduct.
Tirth: Wow.
Lu: Okay, I’m just going to start listing the titles.
Tirth: Go ahead.
Lu: “The eighth wonder of the world, the mythology of concussion management.” Uh, well, I mean, it’s sports medicine. It’s on point. He’s a concussion expert, you know. Next one: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
Tirth: Okay.
Lu: “Anyone for tennis?” That’s a good one. “All cracked up.”
Tirth: What?
Lu: “What’s in a name?”
Tirth: Mhm.
Lu: “Of UFO’s and other thoughts.” That’s one of my favorites.
Tirth: Okay.
Lu: “The big blue”, “Rage against the machine.” So now here he starts an era in his life where he ended every article title with dot dot dot.
Tirth: Hmm, okay.
Lu: The first one being, “Men are from Mars, dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot”,
“Do not go gentle into that good night. dot dot dot”, “Last orders, gents, dot dot dot.”
Tirth: What?
Lu: “The lean and slippered pantaloon dot dot dot”. Don’t know what that one means.
“Far more important than life or death, dot dot dot.”
Tirth: What?
Lu: “Bad hair day. dot dot dot.”
Tirth: Oh my god.
Lu: “Always look on the bright side, dot dot dot”. Okay, so that was his dot dot dot era.
Tirth: Uh-huh.
Lu: “Blinded by the light”, “Pursuing the dream”, sounds like a movie. Oh, this one’s the best. Listen carefully.
Tirth: Uh-huh.
Lu: “Can woodpeckers play rugby or Charles Darwin, where are you when we need you?” Let me read that again. “Can woodpeckers play rugby or Charles Darwin, where are you when we need you?”
Tirth: What does that even mean?
Lu: What does that mean? What does any of that mean? Why would woodpecker play… anyways, moving on. “Yada yada yada or carpe somnum”. Seize the sleep. I look that up.
Tirth: Hmm.
Lu: “Horses for courses”, that’s a good one. “Smelling salts”, “Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum”, “Elementary, my dear Watson”, “Learning to love Big Brother”, “Breaking butterflies on a wheel”, and then finally, “Is it all too much?”
Tirth: Whoa. It’s very poetic. That’s very poetic.
Lu: Very apt. Yeah. Just as a reminder, these are all published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine and they’ve been flagged for misconduct.
Tirth: That’s insane, man. This thing basically reads like a MySpace page.
Lu: Exactly. Yes. This man, look, I don’t want to make it seem like we’re making fun of this guy, because this guy’s my hero.
Tirth: No. Yes. Aspirational stuff.
Lu: He is the editor of the British Journal of Sports Medicine and he’s treating the journal like his own personal blog. This man is the ultimate recreational scientist and we must have him on the pod. We must have him on the pod.
Tirth: Let’s work on this.
Lu: Dr. Paul McCrory, if you’re listening, please email us. Let’s work something out. We can’t pay you a lot of money, but we’ll let you say whatever you want.
Tirth: Yes. We’ll both mute our own microphones and let you talk.
Lu: And also, I just want to say I don’t know anything of his science. I think I’d read somewhere that he thinks concussions and traumatic brain injury are not related. Not sure about that.
Tirth: Well, makes sense. I mean, like the first title was the myth of whatever, right? The myth of concussion.
Lu: Yeah. So I don’t know anything about his science, but I like his recreational science.
Tirth: Indeed. He’s the final boss of recreational science.
Lu: He is our hero. Anyways, I decided to open up one of these articles that he wrote. The one I picked is “Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.” This was published on October 1st, 2006.
Tirth: Okay. Uh-huh.
Lu: So in this article basically, it’s pretty short, but he introduces it by telling a story where he was watching Pirates of the Caribbean with his nine-year-old daughter, when they realized that they don’t know what the seven seas they talk about in the movie refers to.
Tirth: Mhm.
Lu: So he writes, “this glaring lack of knowledge was right up there with my theory that the Chinese built the Great Wall to keep rabbits out of their backyards.”
Tirth: What? What?
Lu: Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know. So that’s the introduction. So the methods, he started searching the internet for what the Seven Seas refers to. He found that both the ancient Greeks and the Romans use the term The Seven Seas but very differently.
Tirth: Uh-huh. Okay.
Lu: He also mentioned that there’s a 17th century scholar who had a completely different list of the Seven Seas, and also a 19th century scholar who mentions the Seven Seas but did not list the Seven Seas. And then modern geographers, he said, sometimes count seven oceans in the world, North Pacific Ocean, South Pacific Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Southern Ocean, and the Arctic Ocean.
Tirth: Mhm.
Lu: And then, in lieu of a discussion section, he ends the article with “any questions?”
Tirth: I have one. What does this have to do with sports medicine?
Lu: Uh, good question Tirth. Good question.
Tirth: I think we need to have him on. I need to ask him.
Lu: We must have him on. He is amazing. This man is amazing.
Tirth: I want to ask him about the woodpecker article. What’s going on with that one?
Lu: Yeah.
Tirth: Oh man.
Lu: All right, good science today.
Let’s read some mail
Lu: Now, Tirth, I want to do a new segment of the show.
Tirth: Oh? Okay.
Lu: Before we end, it’s called let’s read some mail.
Tirth: We have mail?
Lu: We do. We have fan mail.
Tirth: Wow.
Lu: This particular mail that I’m going to read to you is from our fan Rohit Dummy. I’ve slightly altered his name to protect his anonymity.
Tirth: I know. I noticed.
Lu: So Rohit Dummy says he’ll pay us $5 a word for you to read this piece of literature he wrote. All right, so I’m going to email this to you.
Tirth: Right now.
Lu: Right now. I sent it to your Gmail.
Tirth: Okay, let’s do it.
Lu: And remember…
Tirth: $5 a word. That’s good money, man.
Lu: $5 a word. So please, just read it. Uh don’t read it to yourself.
Tirth: Okay. All right, here we go. This is just a no look read, okay? I’m reading this for the first time. People are listening. Okay. “This episode is brought to you by Tirth, proud fantasy football bottom dweller and honorary member of the Gym Voyeurs Club, trademark. You might think Tirth works out. After all, he goes to the gym regularly dot dot dot. But plot twist, he never actually makes it inside. Every week, he stands just outside the glass, silently judging the equipment, like it personally wronged him. Dumbbells? Too aggressive. Treadmill? Clearly up to something. Squat rack? Not today, Satan. So whether it’s losing fantasy football with style or ghosting gym gains with confidence, continues to blaze a trail no one asked for, but we’re all weirdly invested in.”
Lu: That was actually a really good read, cold read.
Tirth: Thank you. Thank you.
Lu: Good job, Tirth. That was a lot of words.
Tirth: I will do a lot for money. So this is a lot of money right here.
Lu: I want to extend this offer to anybody out there who wants to write in. $5 a word. Tirth will read whatever.
Tirth: That’s correct.
Lu: Literally anything.
Tirth: Yes. And with the same zeal, zest and pizzazz that I just used.
Lu: Absolutely. He’ll read it cold. Very good. All right, well, yeah, listeners, if you want to write in, you can email us at recsidepod@gmail.com or just DM us on social media or comment on any of our posts, comment on the episode. Plenty of ways to reach us. $5 a word, Tirth will say anything.
Tirth: Slide into our DMs.
What did you learn today?
Lu: All right, well that’s the end of this episode of recreational science. Tirth, what did you learn today?
Tirth: I learned today that, uh, you can publish just about anything in a peer-reviewed journal as long as you’re the editor of the said journal.
Lu: Yep.
Tirth: I had always assumed and suspected this was the case. But it’s nice to have it confirmed.
Lu: It’s nice to have a goal.
Tirth: Yes. Indeed.
Lu: It’s nice to have a career goal.
Tirth: What did you learn today, Lu?
Lu: I learned that sheep sharing is baaaaad for your baaaaack. I might take that out. Well, all right, guys, thanks for listening. We will catch you next time.
Tirth: See you later, guys. And remember, if you like our podcast, please review us and tell a friend.
Lu: Yeah, that would really help us out a lot.
Tirth: Indeed.
Lu: All right, bye.
Tirth: Bye.
