RecSciPod S01E06 full transcript
Timestamps:
- 0:00 Intro
- 2:21 Evaluating research proposals from ChatGPT
- 18:18 Double dipping study
- 28:14 Mirror scratching study
- 35:53 What did you learn today, outro
Intro
Lu: 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: Ladies and gentlemen, get your motor running, head out on the highway, looking for adventure in whatever comes our way. Because like a true nature’s child, we were born, born to be wild.
Tirth: Wow, you totally switched up the intro, man. You threw me out for a loop.
Lu: Wasn’t that something?
Tirth: That was something, yes.
Lu: You like it?
Tirth: Uh, like is too strong, too strong of a word. These days, I’m practicing some ethos of Zen Buddhism, so you know, no extremes for me.
Lu: Okay, showing restraint.
Tirth: Restraint, that’s right.
Lu: In your compliments, I see.
Tirth: Sure, if you want to take it that way, sure.
Lu: So, you’re basically a monk now.
Tirth: No, no, no, please, I wouldn’t say that. That’s very extreme, Lu. I said, I’m incorporating some ethos of Zen Buddhism in my life.
Lu: I see. Okay.
Tirth: Yeah.
Lu: The restraint part mainly, not liking things.
Tirth: No, no, I didn’t say not liking. It’s just, I don’t want to reside in the extremes. There’s too much extremity around us these days, you know?
Lu: I see.
Tirth: Yeah. I want to be a force of moderation.
Lu: In the middle of right and wrong, that’s where you want to be. I understand.
Tirth: No, I always…
Lu: We’ve had this discussion many times. I completely understand where you stand on many issues.
Tirth: Thank you for understanding.
Lu: In the middle of right and wrong.
Tirth: No, no, no. I want to be in the middle of right and more right.
Lu: Oh, you don’t want to be more right. You want to be in between right and more right. I see.
Tirth: Yeah, because sometimes being more right is hazardous. Yeah, can’t have too much of that.
Lu: Got it.
Tirth: Can’t have too much of a good thing. Like for example, ice cream. I don’t want to eat a tub of ice cream.
Lu: Is ice cream good? Is it good for you?
Tirth: Very good for you, but only a couple scoops.
Lu: This is your expert medical opinion?
Tirth: No, no, no, no. Listen, I mean, if our listeners have learned anything, it should be that they shouldn’t take anything we take as serious advice of any sort, medical or otherwise.
ChatGPT: budding scientist with a thing for ducks
Lu: That is very well said because you know what Tirth? I want to read to you a comment from one of our viewers, one of our listeners. This is actually on one of our TikTok videos.
Tirth: Okay. I love engaged listeners and viewers.
Lu: So yes, this is on our video titled Scientist vs. ChatGPT. This person by the name of Sleptococcus, which is a fantastic name, commented, “That’s not a scientist.” Now, I don’t know if they are referring to you or ChatGPT.
Tirth: ChatGPT.
Lu: Probably ChatGPT. So that got me asking, who says ChatGPT isn’t a scientist?
Tirth: Well, some people say it is.
Lu: Yeah, that’s what I thought too. So I asked ChatGPT to come up with some research proposals for us to evaluate.
Tirth: Okay. So wait, are we like an NIH study section and ChatGPT is the one writing a grant?
Lu: Sort of. These are not all biomedical related. But yeah, we’re gonna rate them on three different factors:1) Significance, which just means how important is this question. 2) Innovation: So how creative is this idea? Is it a novel idea? And finally, 3) Experimental strategy. So basically, is this experimentally feasible? Does completing the experiments actually answer the question? And is the experiment soundly designed? Okay. Ready?
Tirth: Let’s hear them.
Lu: First one, “could glow in the dark plants serve as natural streetlights?” So the experiment here is genetically engineer plants to express luciferase or some bioluminescent chemical protein. The insight is it’s a greener alternative to electric lighting on the streets at night.
Tirth: Interesting. Yeah. Wow. Let me hear your thoughts.
Lu: I think it’s fantastic. If you replace all the street lamps with these plants that glow in the dark, one, it would look really cool.
Tirth: Pretty freaking cool.
Lu: And two, save electricity.
Tirth: The kids would love this.
Lu: Yeah, everybody will love it.
Tirth: Imagine being a five-year-old and you’re like, oh my god, there’s like a glow up tree at my house.
Lu: Imagine being a firefly. And…
Tirth: Well, you might think there’s a giant firefly out there you could try and mate with it.
Lu: Uh-huh. So, I think significance, I’m gonna say 5 out of 5.
Tirth: Okay.
Lu: Innovation? So, I actually looked into this. This is not a new idea. Companies have been working on this for a while. I think the first bioengineered plant that glows in the dark came out in 2017. There’s a company called LightBio that does this. So, innovation, I say maybe 2 out of 5. Experimental strategy? They didn’t really get much detail. So, 3 out of 5.
Tirth: That’s fine. I agree with pretty much all of that.
Lu: Good. Next research proposal from ChatGPT: “Can you trick your brain into liking broccoli using VR (virtual reality)?” The experiment here is basically you feed someone who’s wearing like a VR headset some broccoli, but make it look like chocolate cake to them in the VR. And then you measure their taste perception, their facial EMG, and also post-experimental rating of the broccoli they just ate.
Tirth: Okay, I see.
Lu: So the insight here is you’re exploring the multi-sensory integration and cognitive biases in taste perception. You know – we know about how, you know – smell and mouth feel, things like that contribute to taste, right?
Tirth: Big contribution.
Lu: But here they’re asking, how does visual perception contribute to taste?
Tirth: Uh-huh.
Lu: Yeah. What do you think?
Tirth: Well, the main question is sound, right?
Lu: Yeah.
Tirth: I mean, like you pointed out, visual perception does play a big role. This is why chefs, you know, they take a lot of pride in dressing up dishes and whatnot. I think significance of this is, I mean, I’m going to trash this. It’s pretty low, man. 2 out of 5. I just don’t think it’s a big, big issue. Innovation? I mean, this is like an idea that was probably cooked up by someone who was high on like, a teenager who’s high could come up with this. So I think from innovative value, I’d give it like a 3 out of 5.
Lu: Okay.
Tirth: Experimental design? It’s not really clear to me how measuring facial EMG is going to even help them determine perception of taste. I’m going to give them like a 2 out of 5.
Lu: Okay. I disagree with you on this one. I think significance, I’d say it’s 4 out of 5. It’s significant. If you improve how we perceive food to taste, that’s very important.
Tirth: Okay.
Lu: In terms of innovation, 5 out of 5. Very innovative. VR, very hot.
Tirth: I know you own a VR set. I know I’ve tried it on.
Lu: Just ask Mark Zuckerberg.
Tirth: Yeah, just ask Mark, yes.
Lu: It’s the future. So innovation, 5 out of 5. Experimental design, I agree. Using facial EMG to measure whether people like the broccoli. What it’s probably going to end up measuring is surprise, right? Like someone thinks they’re eating chocolate cake, but you hand them broccoli, they’re going to have a surprised facial expression. And that’s what you’re going to end up measuring, surprise or amusement, rather than like or not like.
Tirth: Right.
Lu: And then post-experimental ratings. We talk about this a lot when you’re doing a psychology study. People in this study are going to very quickly figure out what the purpose of the study is, and that’s going to affect their ratings.
Tirth: Agreed.
Lu: So experimental design, I’d say, yeah, 1 out of 5.
Tirth: Okay.
Lu: All right. Next research proposal: “can people recognize their own face faster if it’s photoshopped onto a potato?” The experiment here is show participants their face on various objects (potato, rock, toaster) and measure recognition speed. So how fast it takes for them to recognize their own face.
Tirth: Okay.
Lu: Yes. The insight is it probes facial recognition, identity perception and absurdity tolerance…
Tirth: In the world. Okay.
Lu: Okay. Let’s just tackle this one together.
Tirth: Okay. Let’s go.
Lu: Significance, I’m going to say 1 out of 5. I don’t see the – I think maybe some cognitive psychologists will find this interesting – but I don’t really see the…
Tirth: Hey, you know, I just thought of a scenario. You know, I just thought of a scenario where this could be problematic. If you’re Mr. Potato Head yourself…
Lu: Ah, yes. Okay. So for normal humans, not significant, but for Mr. Potato Head and Mrs. Potato Head, 5 out of 5 significance. Okay. Agreed.
Tirth: Or if you’re like a rock type Pokemon, like Geodude or one of those things…
Lu: …or a toaster type Pokemon. Pretty sure there’s a Pokemon that’s just a toaster. Yeah. Innovation, 5 out of 5.
Tirth: Yeah, I agree.
Lu: I think we both can agree on that. Very innovative. No one’s ever thought of this before. Experimental design? Pretty good. I mean, yeah, 4 out of 5.
Tirth: Yeah.
Lu: Next one: “can ducks solve mazes faster if the walls are decorated with duck memes?” So the experiment is, set up identical mazes, one with motivational duck posters and the other plain and then measure the escape time. The insight is, examines emotional priming, visual stimulation and meme-based navigation skills.
Tirth: Okay, very good. But they’re talking about these advice animals, by the way.
Lu: What’s that?
Tirth: They’re talking about the advice animal memes, right? Like on Reddit, this was a thing way back in the day. They don’t do this much anymore. But there’s these ducks that would post like positive messages.
Lu: Oh, yeah. I’m not familiar…
Tirth: At first, it was a bad advice mallard, and then it became good advice mallard.
Lu: Oh, yeah. That sounds familiar. Yeah. Maybe. It sounds to me like what they’re asking is, since ducks are very much sensitized towards recognizing other ducks, right? Pictures of ducks – that if you cover the maze with pictures of the ducks, they might have an easier time navigating the maze because they’re able to recognize where they’ve been and where they haven’t based on the pictures of ducks?
Tirth: Based on which ducks they’re seeing.
Lu: Is that what they’re asking?
Tirth: I think so. I think so.
Lu: Significance, what do you think?
Tirth: Significance, I would say in general is pretty high. They’re talking about navigation. Birds are excellent at navigation. So I think this question is interesting if you have other variables in the environment. So 5 out of 5.
Lu: Wow. Okay. I disagree with you. I’m going to say 2 out of 5. Innovation?
Tirth: Pretty high. I mean, come on, duck memes? This is out of the box stuff, man.
Lu: 5 out of 5?
Tirth: 5 out of 5 again.
Lu: Perfect. Perfect. And experimental design?
Tirth: Experimental design, I would also say high. Like 5 out of 5 also, actually.
Lu: Well designed.
Tirth: Yeah, well designed. I just want to add one thing. I hope they consider the possibility that the ducks actually may take longer to navigate the duck maze because they get so enraptured by looking at these ducks.
Lu: It’s very true. Well, they don’t give a hypothesis. So it could be the other way around.
Tirth: And what if you have a duck that can read? It keeps reading the positive messages, and then it gets all distracted, you know?
Lu: Oh, that could be a confounder, because it’s getting motivated from the posters, and that causes it to solve the maze faster. I see, confounding variable. Okay, let’s take off a point for that. That’s good. Good point. I would further like to take another point off, because they don’t specify the exact memes they’re going to use.
Tirth: Yeah.
Lu: 3 out of 5. Okay, next one. Ready?
Tirth: Let’s do it.
Lu: “Can ducks be used to detect earthquakes?”
Tirth: Okay. By the way, what is it with ChatGPT and ducks?
Lu: I have no idea, man. Look, I did cherry pick these a little bit, but 10% of the research proposals ChatGPT put forward had to do with ducks.
Tirth: Maybe there’s something there. Maybe we’re learning something about ChatGPT.
Lu: Yeah, maybe, maybe. Very interested in ducks scientifically…”Can ducks be used to detect earthquakes?” The experiment is you set up seismic accelerometers near duck ponds, and then compare the pre-quake behavior of the ducks versus like normal times. And the insight “is ducks as feathery seismographs? Maybe.” Thoughts?
Tirth: Thoughts? Initial thoughts are my understanding was most birds will fly away before, like an hour before, an earthquake strikes or whatever.
Lu: Is that right?
Tirth: So I don’t know. Yeah, it’s something like that. A lot of other animals can sense this too. It’s not just, I think they can sense changes in the magnetic field. Or something similar to that. Now, maybe ducks are better. I’m not sure why ducks specifically, other than maybe ChatGPT has a fetish for ducks that we’re learning about.
Lu: Well, let’s not judge.
Tirth: Okay. That’s true.
Lu: That’s the mantra of our podcast.
Tirth: That’s the motto of this podcast. My bad. Transgressed.
Lu: We don’t judge humans, we don’t judge AI.
Tirth: Yes. So significance? It’s a significant question..
Lu: Earthquakes. You want to be able to detect earthquakes.
Tirth: Yeah, especially in California.
Lu: Yeah, I agree. 5 out of 5. Okay. Innovation?
Tirth: Innovation is somewhere in the middle.
Lu: Okay. Because you’re saying people have done this before.
Tirth: I think, yeah, people have definitely observed that birds and animals, they have strange behaviors right before an earthquake strikes.
Lu: Let’s say 2 or 3 out of 5. And then the research design…
Tirth: Research design is fairly on the higher end. I wouldn’t say 5 out of 5, but 4. I mean, the obvious confounder here is maybe the ducks are not in the pond when the earthquake hits. They may be already flying around anyway. They would have to collect probably a lot of these, which I guess in California it’s fine because we have a lot of small earthquakes all the time. So, like a 4 out of 5.
Lu: I disagree with you there. I’m going to give them a 1 out of 5 for research design, because this sounds like a correlation of study. They’re trying to correlate seismic activity with duck behavior.
Tirth: Yeah.
Lu: Which is good and all and maybe they do correlate, but you can’t tell if the ducks are responding to the tremors and the earthquakes or whether they’re causing it.
Tirth: You’re right. I did not think of this possibility.
Lu: This experiment will not distinguish between the two possibilities.
Tirth: Hey, do you have a hypothesis how they could do this? How could they cause tremors?
Lu: Butterfly effect, man.
Tirth: Butterfly effect. Well, duck effect, I guess.
Lu: Yeah, exactly.
Tirth: I see. Okay, fair.
Lu: All right. Here’s the final research proposal from ChatGPT…
Tirth: These are fun.
Lu: They are, and serious. These are serious scientific questions.,.
Tirth: With a dash of absurdity.
Lu: “How many rubber ducks does it take to induce mild existential crisis in adults, adult humans?” Okay?
Tirth: Wow.
Lu: The experiment: slowly increase the number of rubber ducks placed in the participant’s environment daily.
Tirth: Oh my god.
Lu: And then interview them weekly on looking for signs for existential crises.
Tirth: Oh my god. So are they being told this is happening?
Lu: Oh, absolutely not. Absolutely not. Are you kidding? Have you learned nothing from reading psychology studies? No, you don’t tell them what’s going on.
Tirth: So someone’s waking up every morning and there’s more ducks in their house every day. Oh my god.
Lu: Exactly. Rubber ducks. The insight is this is a quirky way to explore environmental influence on stress and perception of the absurd.
Tirth: Okay. Quirky is an interesting word to define it.
Lu: So significance? I’d say 4 out of 5.
Tirth: 4 out of 5. Okay.
Lu: This gets at something deep within our psyche, I think. Innovation? I say fairly innovative. 4 out of 5 as well.
Tirth: I agree with…yes.
Lu: I don’t think there’s been any studies like this. But experimental design? The experimental idea is okay. But problem is, how do you get IRB approval? Right? IRB, institutional review board, all research institutions have them, right?
Tirth: They have to sign off on all the study protocols.
Lu: Yeah. All the studies that involve humans.
Tirth: Yeah.
Lu: So, how would you convince them to approve this, is the question.
Tirth: Maybe you start dropping rubber ducks in there, and you find out who’s on the committee, and then you start dropping rubber ducks in their house.
Lu: Uh-huh. Okay. Yeah. You have to do it without IRB approval. It would be like a Jim Halpert prank on Dwight from The Office.
Tirth: Yes. It’s perfect. Just seeing how long it takes.
Lu: Yeah.
Tirth: He didn’t notice that Jim’s racial profile completely changed and he was almost convinced.
Lu: Huh? What?
Tirth: When Asian Jim replaced Jim.
Lu: Oh yes. I think this is getting at basically the same question as the Asian Jim prank from The Office. Or this is very similar to the other prank where Jim would move Dwight’s desk an inch every time he got up to use the restroom, and by the end of the day, he was like next to the copier.
Tirth: Yeah. He’s like, what’s going on?
Lu: Or my favorite prank, which is Jim put nickels into Dwight’s phone headset. Like every day he put more and more nickels. Until he got used to the weight. And he took all the nickels out. And Dwight just hit his head with the headphone. This is basically that.
Tirth: Yeah.
Lu: So yeah. Okay. Experimental design. Have to get R&B approval. If they can somehow convince an IRB to approve this, then five out of five. Good. Good proposal.
Tirth: Very good.
Lu: I would probably fund at least half of those. All of the duck ones.
Tirth: I think my favorite one was the duck memes and the maze. I think there’s some real potential that I would say that’s a Nobel worthy study. What if we realize that ducks can actually read this whole time?
Lu: Oh, yeah. Interesting. All right, Tirth, should we move on to human proposed science?
Tirth: Let’s do it.
Double dipping, or how to spread good microbiome around
Lu: All right. I have an interesting paper today. Tirth, you’re a well-known double dipper. Is that correct?
Tirth: It’s actually correct. I don’t know who snitched, but this is true. Yes.
Lu: Yes. This is why when we go to Mexican restaurants, I refuse to share salsa with you.
Tirth: Yeah, you get your own little thing of salsa.
Lu: I get my own thing of salsa. Yes. Why do you do it?
Tirth: It’s more efficient.
Lu: To dip twice?
Tirth: Yeah, you’re not wasting that many chips, you’re not wasting that much salsa, right?
Lu: Okay.
Tirth: And it enhances…
Lu: So this is economical. It’s not out of poor planning and in consideration for other people.
Tirth: No, no, no.
Lu: This is a purely economical decision.
Tirth: Yeah, and I think…listen, let’s say I have a chip, right? I want most of the chip covered in salsa, okay? So if I dip once, only part of it is covered in salsa. So I take a bite, but then there’s still the rest of it left. You know, it’s dry. I see nothing wrong in double dipping.
Lu: You don’t?
Tirth: No. Not at all.
Lu: Ah, what this paper that I’m going to present to you today might prove you wrong.
Tirth: Okay.
Lu: The title of my paper is “Effect of Biting Before Dipping (Double Dipping) Chips on the Bacterial Population of the Dipping Solution”. This was published in 2009 in the Journal of Food Safety. Very good journal.
Tirth: Great journal. Food safety is a very important subject.
Lu: Yeah. So double dipping, popularized by you, Tirth, but also in an episode of Seinfeld, George Costanza was asked politely not to double dip. He refused…
Tirth: …threw a fit.
Lu: They’re asking, does double dipping actually increase bacterial contamination of the salsa you’re dipping?
Tirth: Okay.
Lu: Very important question.
Tirth: It’s like kissing 20 people at the party.
Lu: Similar, similar. Yes. French kissing. So for experimental design, they asked subjects to dip low sodium Wheat Thins. The maker is Nabisco, a subsidiary of Kraft Foods, Northfield, Illinois. And of course, I’m reporting all this for reproducibility purposes. So if you’re going to reproduce this study, don’t get the, you know, store brand stuff, right? It has to be Nabisco Wheat Thins. Low sodium.
Tirth: Low sodium Nabisco Wheat Thins. Yes. Got it.
Lu: So they held the cracker with sterilized gloves, dipped for three seconds, three times. It’s total of nine seconds worth of dipping, with or without having bitten into the chip, the cracker. And then they cultured the salsa or whatever they dipped into. So they did three different test conditions, three different little studies. The first one, they just dipped the crackers into sterilized water.
Tirth: Okay.
Lu: And what they found from that experiment is that there’s much, much higher bacterial population when they took a bite before dipping. Double dipping resulted in 2,600 colony forming units per mil of the water they dipped into. Colony forming units, basically how many bacterial colonies they saw per unit of the salsa, which in this case, or water, which in this case is milliliters. So that’s double dipping. Without double dipping, it was only 10 CFUs. 2600 versus 10. Big difference.
Tirth: Pretty big difference.
Lu: Very big difference. You feeling good about yourself so far Tirth?
Tirth: Oh, so far yes. I believe I’m making people more immune. I’m helping their immune system.
Lu: I see. Second study: here, they used three different dipping solutions. They’re all water still, but they have different pHs. So normally water is pH 7. Here they use pH 4, 5 and 6.
Tirth: So pretty acidic.
Lu: And the reason they chose 4, 5 and 6 is that these pHs correspond to some of the more popular dipping sauces.
Tirth: Got it.
Lu: pH 4 corresponds to the pH of salsa. pH 5 corresponds to the pH of chocolate sauce. pH 6 corresponds to the pH of cheese, a cheese dip.
Tirth: Okay. All right.
Lu: So the result here is again, with all three pHs, there is increased bacterial growth with double dipping.
Tirth: Even in pH 4?
Lu: Even in pH 4.
Tirth: Somewhat surprising, but okay.
Lu: Higher than no double dipping. But with double dipping, the low pH, pH 4 had lower bacterial growth than the higher pHs, which is not surprising, right? Because oral bacteria are used to growing in pH 7, and if we put them in pH 4 in much more acidic conditions, they’re not going to grow as well. They might die. And then study 3, finally, they get to real dips.
Tirth: Okay.
Lu: So they use salsa and that’s All Natural Tostitos Chunky Hot Salsa, Tostitos brand Frito-Lay, Dallas, Texas. Chocolate sauce, which is Genuine Chocolate Flavor Hershey Syrup, Hershey Court, Hershey, Pennsylvania.
Tirth: Not Texas.
Lu: Hershey, Pennsylvania.
Tirth: Yeah, I know. I said not Texas. Yeah.
Lu: Please, please. No, we don’t want it.
Tirth: You don’t want it.
Lu: And then finally, cheese sauce, Fritos Mild Cheddar Flavor Cheese Dip, again, Frito-Lay, Dallas, Texas. Tostitos brand. And the results here is across all 3 of these dipping sauces, double dip ended up with 600 colony forming units per mil.
Tirth: Uh-huh.
Lu: Whereas, no double dip was less than 10.
Tirth: Okay. Still a pretty big difference.
Lu: Over 60x difference. But here’s the interesting thing. There was actually a higher bacteria count in the salsa compared to the cheese and the chocolate.
Tirth: Even though it’s acidic.
Lu: The salsa is pH 4.
Tirth: Right.
Lu: So this is contradictory to their experiment 2. So more acidic, but somehow more growth. Do you have any hypotheses on why this might be?
Tirth: Maybe there’s more surfaces in the salsa. The surface area is higher.
Lu: Yeah. I think you’re on the right track. Yeah. So the hypothesis they put forward is that salsa is not as viscous as the chocolate and the cheese sauce. So when you dip into the salsa, you don’t carry a lot of it back with you.
Tirth: Back up into your mouth again, with the second bite.
Lu: Exactly. But with cheese and chocolate, because they’re so viscous, you dip the bitten chip into it, all the bacteria goes into the chocolate, but then the chocolate just gets picked up again by the chip because it’s so viscous and sticky.
Tirth: Yeah.
Lu: That’s their hypothesis.
Tirth: Seems believable. Yeah.
Lu: So, conclusions. Double dipping contaminates the dip. Tirth, you writing this down? Would you like to jot this down?
Tirth: No, no. I don’t need to write it down. It’s all up here, man. The big noggin.
Lu: But also, of course, the viscosity of the dip seems to matter more than the pH of the dip for how much bacteria ends up in the dip, which is interesting, I think. I think it’s interesting.
Tirth: I just want to add once again, maybe I’m just spreading good microbiome bacteria to everyone else at the party. Maybe they should be thankful to me. I’m completely rejecting the premise that I should be shamed. I’m actually putting forward the hypothesis, the theory, that I should be thanked.
Lu: What if people don’t want your microbiome? What if your microbiota is incompatible with those of other people?
Tirth: Please, please, please. That’s not possible.
Lu: Have you considered that?
Tirth: No, it can’t be possible. You know how there are universal donors for blood? I consider myself to be a universal microbiome donor.
Lu: I see.
Tirth: Yeah. Science is just behind. Well, one of these days…
Lu: Blood banks should be collecting your feces..
Tirth: …microbiome banks should be, yes.
Lu: …for fecal transplant.
Tirth: I’m going to become rich someday just based on this idea. It’s okay though. I’ll take you along for the ride. Don’t worry. We’ll ride or die.
Lu: Sounds good. Sounds great. So the question, of course, as you pointed out, is this really harmful? So probably not. Like oral to oral transfer of bacteria, not likely to be pathogenic, except in the case of norovirus, right? That’s the one case where you don’t want to double dip if you have norovirus.
Tirth: No.
Lu: So you should get yourself checked for norovirus every time you go to a Mexican restaurant. What’s interesting is there’s an article on Serious Eats, which is a really cool food website. They say there’s something more important about double dipping that affects the food. Their hypothesis is that amylase in the saliva can actually break down the food, the dip.
Tirth: Oh.
Lu: So can you explain to our listeners what amylase is?
Tirth: Amylase is an enzyme that’s found in your saliva. It breaks down, I think, a lot of like starch and carbs.
Lu: Yeah, exactly. So the author of this article, which is called “The Surprising Reason You Shouldn’t Double Dip”, the author is Switha Sivakumar. She actually tested a few different foods that were thickened with starch, which includes oatmeal, cream of mushroom soup, and cream of potato soup. And then she also had cheese sauce and a creamy mac and cheese. So five different foods. What she did was she licked the spoon and then dipped the spoon into these different foods. And what she found was, when she licked the spoon and put it in the oatmeal, cream of mushroom soup or cream of potato soup, each of the soups or the oatmeal noticeably thinned after 15 minutes.
Tirth: Wow.
Lu: Okay? The viscosity went way down. Presumably because the amylase in her saliva is breaking it down.
Tirth:…is breaking down the starch.
Lu: Yeah. And that makes the, you know, when your cream of mushroom soup is not creamy, what do you have? You just have mushroomy water.
Tirth: Yeah.
Lu: So, you don’t want that.
Tirth: No, but I’ll say this, salsa is already a low viscosity dip.
Lu: Yeah, it’s not…and so no starch.
Tirth: Yeah. Again, I’m not concerned. Again, I’m doing them a favor.
Lu: I see.
Tirth: We know, first of all, just by being there, my presence is a gift.
Lu: Oh, is that right?
Tirth: Yeah, of course. I mean, you know this. You and I have been to many parties together. So, you know this.
Lu: You often get booed and people seem to enjoy booing you. So, in that sense, I think you do contribute a lot to people’s enjoyment of parties.
Tirth: Please, they’re actually saying, good, good.
Lu: Oh, is that right? Okay, I gotta listen more carefully. That’s my bad. That’s my bad.
Tirth: That’s okay.
Lu: But the other two foods that she tested, the cheese dip and the cheese mac and cheese, they actually didn’t break down because their creaminess comes from protein rather than starch.
Tirth: Okay. That’s pretty interesting.
Lu: Interesting. Any other thoughts?
Tirth: No.
Lu: All right. Why don’t you tell us what you got?
Mirror mirror on the wall: itch relief
Tirth: My paper is about itch, a very fundamental sensation.
Lu: Okay. Tirth, this sounds like a very serious question, serious topic.
Tirth: It is a serious topic. So if we’re grading this on significance, I think we would grade this pretty high. And I personally – before even getting into it, I’m telling you right now, the experimental design, I’m rating it pretty high.
Lu: Wonderful.
Tirth: Innovation may be in the middle, but I may be interested in hearing your thoughts at the end.
Lu: Okay.
Tirth: So here’s the title. It’s called “Itch Relief by Mirror Scratching, a Psychophysical Study”. So it was published in 2013 in PLOS ONE. As you know, it’s a great journal.
Lu: One of my favorites.
Tirth: These people are based out of Germany, the University of Lubeck.
Lu: Good institution.
Tirth: In the Department of Neurology. So they’re basically my people. The main goal of the study was to see if you induce an itchy response on one arm. Can you relieve that itch by scratching the other arm, but fooling the participant into thinking that the arm in which the itch was induced was being scratched? With mirrors.
Lu: With mirrors. Good, good.
Tirth: And the rationale for this study is fairly, fairly obvious. I think there’s this concept called phantom limb syndrome. So patients that have had amputations of their arms or strokes or other traumatic brain injury, let’s say they lose the use of one arm, they may still end up getting painful sensation and other sensations in that arm, which is very frustrating because they can’t relieve it because the arm’s not actually there, or they can’t move it. So one of the things that was developed in the 80s or 90s, I think was this mirror therapy, where you have them put an arm in a mirrored box and you have them move the other arm, and then that makes them feel or tricks their brain into thinking that their amputated limb is being moved and it gives them some relief. So they’re basically testing that idea with itch. They actually did two studies here. The first one was done using mirrors. So, they took 26 male participants. They had a mirror between their left and right arm and they induced an itch on the right arm by injecting it with histamine, which causes itch.
Lu: Okay. They couldn’t have used like a feather to tickle…
Tirth: No. And then on the other arm, on the left arm, they actually made a red mark also. So, if the participant is looking at their right or left arm, they would think that they’re roughly the same. So, the way they set this experiment up is that they had four groups. In all four groups, they induced the itch on the right arm.
Lu: Okay.
Tirth: The first group, they injected the right arm, they scratched the right arm, no mirrors. And they just had these people rate their itch on a scale before and after. Before and after scratching.
Lu: Yeah. Okay.
Tirth: That’s the first group. Second group, they induced the itch on the right arm, and then they just scratched the left, no mirrors. So the participant can see that their left arm is being scratched.
Lu: They’re scratching the left arm in the exact same spot where they injected the histamine on the right arm.
Tirth: Yeah. The third group is they put a mirror between the right and left arms, but they had the participant look to the left, so their right arm is hidden. So the participant’s head is on the left side of the mirror.
Lu: So when they try to look at their right arm, they’re actually seeing a reflection of the left arm.
Tirth: That’s correct. So they induce the itch on the right arm and they scratch the left arm. So the condition here is that the perception is that the right arm is being scratched. And then the last group is the mirror is flipped.
Lu: So the head is on the right side now.
Tirth: Right. And they’re scratching the right side, except their head is to the right too. So in the mirror, when they look at the mirror, they think their left arm is being scratched. So before I get into the results, do you want to guess which condition do you think gave them the best relief from itch? This is probably the easiest one.
Lu: Number one.
Tirth: Right.
Lu: Because they caused the itch on the right side. They scratched it.
Tirth: It feels good. And sure enough, there’s some numbers here, but that was the most effective.
Lu: I’m guessing the least effective is ‘itch the right, scratch the left without mirrors.’
Tirth: Yes absolutely. So the question is then, if they ‘itch the right and then scratch the left, but then using mirrors, trick them into thinking they’re scratching the right’, does that cause relief? That is the main question.
Lu: Maybe a little bit, I’m guessing.
Tirth: That’s exactly right. Compared to ‘itch on the right, scratch on the left, no mirrors’, The condition where ‘itch on the right, scratch to left, but there’s a mirror,’ made them think that there was some relief from itch. But what’s interesting to me is ‘itch on the right, scratch on the right, but there’s a mirror so that they think the left is being scratched.’
Lu: The fourth condition.
Tirth: Yeah, they reported slightly lower amount of itch relief compared to the ‘itch on the right, scratch on the right.’
Lu: No mirrors.
Tirth: Even though in both conditions, the same arm is being scratched.
Lu: I see. So they were tricked into thinking the left arm was being scratched a little bit.
Tirth: Yes. Yeah, a little bit.
Lu: I see. Okay. Interesting. Interesting study. What’s the conclusion?
Tirth: Well, the conclusion here is that just like with phantom limb syndrome using mirrors to trick your brain, this also works for a sensation like itch.
Lu: It seems to me, so parakeets cannot recognize themselves in the mirror. When they see themselves in the mirror, they think it’s another bird. Is that basically what they’re trying to get at with humans?
Tirth: I think the right…No, no, no. Not just humans. The right arm. The right arm is looking at the left arm like, yeah, it’s getting confused.
Lu: Uh-huh. You don’t recognize that it’s a reflection of your right arm. You think it’s your left arm.
Tirth: Yeah.
Lu: Humans, susceptible to trickery by mirrors. And in what context is this useful?
Tirth: Well, like one of the things they talk about this is that there’s many people out there with dermatological and allergic conditions, psoriasis, eczema, so on and so forth. And if patients keep scratching the site where they’re itching, you can cause skin breakdown, infection.
Lu: Inflammation, okay. So you scratch the other arm instead. You spread the scratching to both of your arms…
Tirth: Both arms, yeah.
Lu: …to lighten the scratch load on the effector arm. I see. Okay. So people with psoriasis on both arms, they’re just out of luck.
Tirth: That’s right. Maybe they should get one of those fake arms.
Lu: Oh, that’s a good idea. That’s a great idea.
Tirth: They also talk about complex regional pain syndrome and how it can help with that.
Lu: So, every time a patient with psoriasis on one arm only, but not the other, every time they have an itch, they should sit down in front of a mirror…
Tirth: I think so.
Lu: …and get someone else to scratch your other arm. Very practical.
Tirth: Hey, listen, you and I both know a couple dermatologists. Maybe we should send them a message. Maybe try this out with your patients if you’re listening. Report back to us, please.
Lu: Now, are these people affiliated with mirror salesmen?
Tirth: No, unknown.
Lu: Are they pushing out a product here?
Tirth: Unknown.
Lu: Okay. And also this only works for arms. They haven’t shown if this works for legs. Or the torso or the face.
Tirth: Yes.
Lu: Probably not the face.
Tirth: Yeah. For future studies.
Lu: Only applicable to arms. So only applicable to patients with psoriasis on one arm. On their arms. Specifically arms. But just one arm and not the other. Okay. Small patient population. But for those patients, very useful knowledge. Anything else, Tirth?
Tirth: No, I think that’s it.
Lu: Okay. Good stuff.
What did you learn today?
Lu: All right, Tirth, that’s the end of this episode of Recreational Science. What did you learn today?
Tirth: Well, I learned today that by double dipping, I’m essentially giving an invaluable gift to humanity. And I should look into patenting this.
Lu: Patenting your saliva.
Tirth: Technique.
Lu: The technique of double dipping. Oh, you want to patent it.
Tirth: Yeah, my own technique.
Lu: Good luck with that.
Tirth: Thank you. What did you learn today?
Lu: I learned that if you’re a dermatologist, make sure you have a good mirror supplier.
Tirth: Once again, our dermatology colleagues and listeners, please reach out to us and let us know if this is good advice or not.
Lu: Oh, we’re going to supply mirrors. Should we become mirror supply men?
Tirth: We could. Maybe we should pivot.
Lu: Yeah. Let’s do that.
Tirth: We can double our money just by flashing the cash in front of the mirror.
Lu: Great. Pure gold. Well, thanks guys for listening to this episode of Recreational Science. We will look forward to seeing you on the next episode.
Tirth: And listeners, please give us five stars and tell a friend.
Lu: Yeah, that will help us out a lot. All right. Take care guys.
Tirth: All right. Bye.
