RecSciPod S01E15 full transcript
Timestamps:
- 0:00 Intro
- 3:35 Why are some houses haunted?
- 8:35 Sexy fear study
- 23:29 Pumpkin carving study
- 34:54 Let’s read some mail
- 40:04 What did you learn today, outro
Intro
Lu: What was your thing? You said “ha ha”?
Tirth: Police says that, but we don’t know, you know? Police are known to lie so we don’t know.
Lu: Welcome everybody to another episode of Recreational Science, the podcast where we explore creativity in science by examining some of the scariest, spookiest, and most spine-chilling studies ever done.
Tirth: That’s right.
Lu: I’m Lu.
Tirth: And I’m Tirth. Uh, listeners, come with us on this journey, a journey where two brave scientists explore brave science.
Lu: Oh, very on theme, brave.
Tirth: Exactly, for the season.
Lu: Yeah, bravery. Does that adequately describe either of us, though?
Tirth: Uh, I would like to think so.
Lu: You’re not known for being particularly brave, is that correct?
Tirth: Uh, no, no, I’m very brave.
Lu: Are you a fan of Halloween, even?
Tirth: Uh, I like candy.
Lu: But you don’t like the scary stuff, because you’re a scaredy cat.
Tirth: I – it’s not that I’m a scaredy cat, Lu. I think scaring someone is the cheapest form of entertainment there is.
Lu: Interesting. Okay, what’s the most expensive form of entertainment there is?
TIrth: Well, I don’t – okay, okay, first of all, come on, please settle down. Cheapest doesn’t mean in terms of money. I mean, in terms of quality…intellectual. Like this is what children do, okay? A four-year-old will walk up behind their dad or their mom and go, boo! Where’s the fun? There’s no complexity there.
Lu: But you’re talking about jump scares. What about intellectual, more intellectual fears?
Tirth: Like what? What is your number one intellectual fear? Tell me.
Lu: Like failing a test, you know? Do you have those nightmares? You have those nightmares where you’re in school and there’s an exam and you didn’t – never studied?
Tirth: Oh my god, all the time, man. And it’s like, oh, I missed class somehow all semester. Now my test is tomorrow. It’s crazy. It’s crazy. I haven’t been in college in like 15 years and it’s still…
Lu: It’s a good kind of fear. It keeps you on your toes, I guess.
Tirth: Actually, when I was in lab, when I was doing my PhD, some of my nightmares were about experiments. Like I left something…like I left the freezer open or I left like a vial of enzyme out or stuff like that.
Lu: Is that because you’ve done it before and got yelled at by your lab manager?
Tirth: No, never. Me? Never. Please, please. I was a model citizen at the lab, exemplary.
Lu: I see. Well, Tirth, happy Halloween.
Tirth: Happy Halloween to you, buddy.
Lu: Actually, I don’t celebrate Halloween, Tirth.
Tirth: Oh, is it because it’s against the religion or…?
Lu: Because I’m a man of science, Tirth. The paranormal, they don’t interest me. Man of science. Where’s the evidence? That’s what I say.
Tirth: Yeah, there isn’t any, really.
Lu: Also, I don’t celebrate Halloween because I’m a cultured, sophisticated man, as you know. I wear corduroy pants. I eat dinner at 9 p.m, as the Europeans do. You wouldn’t know. You’ve never been to Europe.
TIrth: Yeah, your favorite Spaniards…
Lu: When I go to Costco, I don’t get the hot dog. No, I skip the hot dog. Whenever I pass by the cafeteria and see all those people eating hot dogs – their $1.50 hot dogs – I just go, ugh.
Tirth: Your contempt just boils over.
Lu: Yeah. No, I don’t get the hot dog. I get the chicken bake, though.
Tirth: I was going to ask. I was just about to ask.
Lu: Much more expensive. But you get what you pay for. Much classier. Chicken bake.
Tirth: Yeah. You’re probably the only guy buying chicken bake at Costco, man.
Lu: Well, of course. Not everybody is, you know, classy, sophisticated, cultured like me. As a cultured, sophisticated man, I don’t celebrate Halloween. I celebrate Dia de los Muertos.
Tirth: Oh, wow. Yeah. I should have guessed. Of course.
Why are some houses haunted?
Lu: Tirth I read something funny recently. But first, I want to ask, do you believe in ghosts?
Tirth: No, we just talked about being people of science, man. Come on.
Lu: No, no, that’s me. We didn’t get to you.
Tirth: Oh, I’m also…No, I don’t believe in ghosts, but I do believe in ghost Pokemon.
Lu: Oh, I see.
Tirth: Yeah, they’re real. Very real.
Lu: Well, to me, I believe that ghosts do exist in the same sense that baseball exists, you know.
Tirth: What does that mean?
Lu: In the sense that if you go up to someone and you say, hey, do you know what ghosts are? They’ll likely know, right? They’ll know exactly what you’re talking about, like baseball. And it’s multicultural, right? A lot of cultures have ghosts, a lot of cultures have baseball. You go to Japan and talk about ghosts, they’ll know what you’re talking about. It’s like baseball.
Tirth: I see. I see. So in that sense…
Lu: And if you believe in baseball, you go to a stadium and watch a game of baseball and be like, hey, good game of baseball right there.
Tirth: So what is the analogy if you extend this to ghosts? What does that mean? You go to the cemetery?
Lu: Yeah, if you believe in ghosts, you go to like some place that’s haunted. And you can have a paranormal experience, right? Like, oh, wow, I just experienced a lot of ghostly things. A lot of ghosts in that house. But if you don’t believe in ghosts, you go to the same haunted house, you’d be like, well, it’s just creaky floors and tree branches hitting the windows.
Tirth: Ahh…
Lu: And if you don’t believe in baseball and you go to a baseball game, you can just say, well, this is just a bunch of fat dudes chewing tobacco and throwing a ball around, right?
Tirth: Hey, man, I don’t think they’re chewing tobacco anymore. I think they’re chewing Zyn.
Lu: Big league chew. Oh Zyn.
Tirth: Zyn, yeah. And also, they’re pretty athletic. If you look at Shohei Ohtani, that guy is pretty athletic.
Lu: He is, sure, sure. But, right? Like, I don’t believe in baseball. I don’t believe baseball exists. When I watch baseball…
Tirth: I see your point, I see your point.
Lu: Just a bunch of dudes. Just a bunch of dudes running around, you know. Once in a while, a guy hits a ball with a bat.
Tirth: Yeah.
Lu: You can call it baseball.
Tirth: Very good.
Lu: But a lot of people do believe in ghosts, Tirth.
Tirth: They do. Very seriously, they do.
Lu: They do. And they believe that things are haunted. Houses are haunted, for instance.
Tirth: All sorts of things. Cars, houses.
Lu: Why do you think that is?
Tirth: I mean, I don’t want to speak for other people, but I think part of the reason people believe things may be haunted is they want to preserve or hold on to something that may be dear to them once and now they don’t have it anymore.
Lu: I see. But what if, say, someone goes to a hotel and it’s haunted by the four-year-old girl who was lost like 50 years ago, who they have no relationships with? They’ve never met this girl, yet they still believe that the ghost exists. How do you explain that?
Tirth: That is… I think there’s medications for these things.
Lu: You think it’s a hallucination?
Tirth: It probably is. But actually, I’ll also say this. I’ll say this. The technical term for this four-year-old is a revenant.
Lu: Instead of ghost?
Tirth: Because they’re someone who’s hanging around. I mean, it’s like a subtype of a ghost or a spirit.
Lu: It’s a subtype.
Tirth: But they like hang around, you know, something bad happened to them.
Lu: I see. Well, so I read this article. This is not my study for today, but, it’s just an article. But there’s this man named Shane Rogers. He’s a professor at Clarkson University.
Tirth: Where’s that?
Lu: Potsdam, New York. This article described him as looking like Shaggy from Scooby-Doo: he’s tall, he’s lanky, he has shaggy hair and a goatee.
Tirth: Does he have an oversized green t-shirt too?
Lu: It’s possible, possible. Talking dog….well, actually, instead of a talking dog, he has a bunch of undergrads with him. They decided to investigate why some houses are thought to be haunted. So, they watched several haunted house TV shows to get a list of supposedly haunted houses, went to them and sampled the air inside those houses, and then they sampled some normal houses, houses that weren’t haunted. And guess what they found? They found something very interesting.
Tirth: They did? Carbon monoxide.
Lu: That’s a very good thought. That’s certainly possible that carbon monoxide contributes to why people think some houses are haunted. No, they found that the haunted houses have five to six times more mold spores.
Tirth: There you go. Solved.
Lu: And mold is associated with neurological impairment.
Tirth: All sorts of things, man. All sorts of things. Fungus.
Lu: I don’t know if hallucinations specifically. I don’t know if there’s a clear link between those two things.
Tirth: I mean, we don’t even understand fungus that much.
Lu: I will say, in all likelihood, this is probably a correlation, not a causation. Just because like the haunted houses are older, they tend to be abandoned.
Tirth: You have to control for these.
Lu: So it’s not a controlled study, but…
Tirth: Hey, kudos, kudos to them.
Lu: Possible explanation. Yeah. Anyways, since it’s Halloween, Tirth, I thought we do some Halloween related studies, and I have a good one for you.
Fear is sexy
Lu: My study is about fear, specifically recreational fear, and why we enjoy fear. Well, you don’t, because you again, you’re a scaredy cat. You’re very afraid of fear.
Tirth: No, no, please. I don’t enjoy fear because I’m an intellectual. You know, I find it beneath me. I seek the higher pleasures.
Lu: I see. That’s your assessment.
Tirth: Yeah. It’s too simplistic.
Lu: Can I give you my assessment of why you don’t enjoy recreational fear?
Tirth: Sure. Go ahead.
Lu: It’s because you, while you pretend like you work out a lot and lift weights…
Tirth: I do.
Lu: …you’re actually very weak. And you’re afraid that if you’re confronted by a physical threat, that you would expose yourself to be the weak man that you are. And that’s why you avoid horror movies and any potential dangers. Is that correct?
Tirth: False. No, please. No, that is absolutely false.
Lu: How would you grade my psychological assessment of you?
Tirth: F.
Lu: No, please. Psychological assessments are graded on a scale of A to A plus.
Tirth: No, they’re not.
Lu: That’s how Freud made all of his money, it’s true.
Tirth: I thought he made money by selling cocaine.
Lu: No, grade inflation. But the paper today asks the question, why do we enjoy fear? Why do we like scary movies? Is it because, the study asks, that we confuse the hidden state of arousal, of fear, with another state of arousal?
Tirth: Yeah, sexual.
Lu: Do people get excited and then confuse the reason behind that excitement? Specifically, it asks, do men who are walking across a very scary suspension bridge feel more sexually aroused when approached by an attractive woman?
Tirth: Wait, is the woman coming across them on the bridge or are they two separate scenarios?
Lu: No, no, no. The woman is approaching them on the bridge. The study is titled “Some Evidence for a Heightened Sexual Attraction Under Conditions of High Anxiety.”
Tirth: Some evidence. At least they’re being modest.
Lu: This is a classic social psychology study. It was published in 1974. In the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Tirth: Great journal.
Lu: Very good journal. This was from two Canadians. And in the introduction to the study, they mentioned that there’s a prior study where a professor viciously berated their class for having done poorly on like a recent test. And then the students were shown a photograph from like a scene in a play, like an action-packed photo and asked to write stories based on that photo. This is apparently like a classic test back in the day, in the old psychology days. And the students who got yelled at, who got berated compared to students who are not berated, they wrote more sexual content into their stories. So that’s a strange quirk in human psychology. That’s what led to this paper. All right, so let me set this up for you.
Tirth: Okay.
Lu: So the subjects of the study are men, 18 to 35 years old, unaccompanied by a female companion, who are crossing a very scary suspension bridge. This very scary suspension bridge is in North Vancouver. It is 450 foot long, pretty long, and just five feet wide.
Tirth: Wow. Very, very narrow.
Lu: It hangs 230 feet above the Capilano Canyon. So that’s the height about of a 20 story building. It’s made of wood boards attached by wire cables. And the handrails are noted to be quite low.
Tirth: Oh, so you can easily like topple over.
Lu: I think waist level or lower. It’s very, very wobbly. Very scary suspension bridge. There’s a control bridge. The control bridge is not nearly as scary. It’s a solid wood bridge, it’s further upriver, it’s very wide, very firm. It hangs just 10 feet above this very shallow part of the river. Not wobbly at all.
Tirth: Basically nothing.
Lu: Even you could cross it.
Tirth: Please, I could cross both easily, eyes closed. It doesn’t matter.
Lu: As these male subjects crossed the river, they were approached by an attractive female interviewer on the bridge, who told them that she’s doing a study on how scenic attractions affect creative expression. The process is very similar to the other study in that the men were then given a photograph of like a scene from a play and asked to write a story.
Tirth: And they’re in the middle of the bridge when this is happening?
Lu: Yes, on the five foot narrow suspension bridge. They were just wobbling around, probably in very close proximity because the bridge is very narrow, and this woman is very attractive. I just want to make sure…
Tirth: Is there a picture or anything like that?
Lu: There’s no picture of the woman, which is one of the criticisms of the paper. They were asked specifically to write a short dramatic story. And the picture they were handed was a picture of a young woman covering her face with her hand and then reaching out with her other hand. Just sort of a random picture. So she approached 66 men total. Actually, around 70% of the men agreed to participate. Same on both bridges, around 70%. So there’s no difference there.
Tirth: So about 40, 40 people total, I guess?
Lu: Yeah, around 45 total. And of the 45 stories that they received, they noted that seven were unusable, either because they were incomplete or written in a foreign language, which I don’t understand at all. For presumably…
Tirth: Wait, do they have to write them on the spot?
Lu: Yes, on the bridge. While they’re standing, they’re writing. Some, I guess, chose not to write it in English. And then so they ended up with like almost 40 stories, and they scored the stories on their sexual content…
Tirth: Okay.
Lu: …on a scale of one to five. One being no sexual content, five being explicit mentioning of sexual intercourse. They helpfully gave a scale, a description of the other scores. So if they mentioned the word girlfriend, they got a score of two. If they mentioned kiss or kissing, they got a score of three. And if they mentioned lover, they got a score of four.
Tirth: Damn. Okay. Steamy.
Lu: So here are the results: for the control bridge group, the not very scary bridge, what they call the sexual imagery score, the mean sexual imagery score was 1.4. Maybe half the people mentioned girlfriend.
Tirth: Oh, so not sexual at all.
Lu: Yeah. What do you think the score was for the scary bridge?
Tirth: 3.8. Cranked it up.
Lu: Oh, lover. Everybody was like, I wish this girl was my lover.
Tirth: Yeah. This woman’s…
Lu: A little bit lower, 2.5.
Tirth: So 1.8 and 2.5, got it.
Lu: 1.4 versus 2.5, which is statistically significant. So probably several people mentioned kissing or lover. Maybe one person mentioned sexual intercourse.
TIrth: Well, wait, so this is based on just a picture of a woman with a hand covering her face, that’s it?
Lu: But you’re also talking to a very attractive female interviewer.
Tirth: But that’s all they had to go off of, right? That itself is kind of crazy though, man. How would you even think about lovers and sex just based on that?
Lu: Because they were aroused maybe by the fear of being on a scary bridge.
Tirth: And then subconsciously, wow…
Lu: So after they completed this task, the interviewer, the very attractive female interviewer, then offered to explain the experiment in detail at a later time when she had more time. So she, quote, “tore off a corner of a sheet of paper and wrote out her name and phone number and handed it to the men.” On both bridges, both the control and the scary bridge, around 75% of the men accepted the number. On the control bridge, only two of the men called. So about 10% of the men ended up calling. How many men do you think called on the scary bridge? What percent?
Tirth: I’m gonna say half of them.
Lu: Very close. 40% called. Statistically significant.
Tirth: That’s even more convincing, man, than the story.
Lu: Yeah. That’s, yeah….so, okay, more men on the scary bridge called the very attractive female interviewer, but how do you know this is because of sexual arousal? Maybe it’s because of intellectual arousal. Maybe they were actually aroused and curious about what this experiment actually is, which is why they called, right? It’s not a sexual thing. They were genuinely curious about the study.
Tirth: Hmm…
Lu: So they did a parallel experiment where the interviewer was a man. They didn’t say whether he was an attractive man or not. But again, he approached men on these two bridges – and I just want to note the participation rate was lower. Only 50% of the men agreed to participate in the study, versus 70% for the attractive female. For the control group, the sexual imagery score for their stories was 0.6. Much, much lower. Which I don’t understand how that happens, because the score scale they gave was 1 to 5.
Tirth: 1 through 5. Yeah. How do you even go more less than 0?
Lu: There’s no 0. So another criticism. Don’t understand how it got that low. For the scary bridge group, what do you think?
Tirth: So 0.6…like 1.
Lu: 0.8, yeah.
Tirth: Basically no difference.
Lu: Again, don’t understand how it got below 1. Needless to say, these men were not at all turned on. Not at all turned on by this experience. 0 on a scale of 1 to 5. How many of them, what percent of the men do you think accepted the phone number? Not called, just accepted.
Tirth: Less than 10%.
Lu: Actually 30% accepted.
Tirth: Wow. Okay.
Lu: These are Canadians. They want to be polite.
Tirth: Sorry, eh?
Lu: Yeah, exactly. Very good. And like only one or two of them called in either situation. So no difference. So not intellectual. All right, so I have some criticisms. They didn’t provide the actual stories that were written, so we can’t assess ourselves. Some examples would have been good, give our own scores.
Tirth: Yeah.
Lu: Again, no picture of the attractive female interviewer. The other thing is, while this is a controlled experiment – there’s a control bridge – there was no randomization. They didn’t assign the people to those bridges. Which leads to, I think, a pretty obvious confounder, which is probably the men who chose to go on the suspension bridge were just braver people, right?
Tirth: Yeah, or they were looking for… They were thrill seekers.
Lu: So maybe they’re just more likely to call the woman because they’re very confident guys.
Tirth: You know, I met this woman on this bridge.
Lu: Whereas the people who chose to cross the very safe bridge…like you…
Tirth: Oh, please…
Lu: …wouldn’t call because they’re timid. So they thought of this too. They did a second study where they still approached men. It’s a female interviewer. She still approached men on the suspension bridge for the experimental group. For the control group, she approached men who had just gotten off of the bridge.
Tirth: The same bridge?
Lu: The same bridge.
Tirth: The same type of people.
Lu: But now they’re no longer as scared because they’re off. So they found the same difference. Again, about 75% of them accepted the phone number. And then for the control group, seven of them called, whereas for the experimental group, 13 called.
Tirth: So twice as many.
Lu: So they still found a difference. But another criticism, still not a very controlled situation. And you’re only looking for men who are like thrill seekers. So they did a third study.
Tirth: Oh my God.
Lu: Here, they moved things to the lab. Basically what they did was they recruited 80 male freshmen at their university, the University of British Columbia. And they participated one at a time. They were paired with an attractive female partner for this experiment, who they thought was another participant. But in actuality was…
Tirth: One of the experimental teams…
Lu: A confederate. And they were told that they were participating in a study on how pain affects learning. They were randomly assigned to receive either a weak shock, electric shock, that was described as tingly/enjoyable, or a pretty painful shock. And before they were about to get shocked, the experimenter asked them to fill out a questionnaire. And on the questionnaire, they asked, how much would you like to ask her out on a date? Meaning the female co-subject. And then, how much would you like to kiss her? On a scale of one to five. So for the men, for the male subjects, who were told they were going to receive the mild shock, the really weak shock, they gave a score of 2.8 out of 5.
Tirth: Okay, so right down in the middle.
Lu: So 50-50, for the strong shock, what do you think? For the men who were told they were going to get a strong, painful shock?
Tirth: 3.8.
Lu: Yeah, 3.6. Significantly different.
Tirth: These are a bunch of creeps, man. What the hell?
Lu: Well, they thought they were going to get shocked, and they were excited.
Tirth: Like, yeah, I’m going to do this.
Lu: What do you think?
Tirth: Wow. This is pretty impressive. I’ll say this, man. I don’t know if stuff like this would fly in this day and age, you know? This is the 1970s.
Lu: Oh, no, no, no, no. Yeah.
Tirth: But overall, I’m pretty impressed by the rigor. I have a thought. You know those people that wrote stories in other languages?
Lu: Oh, yeah.
Tirth: Do you think they were also doing a study? They were part of a study where they had to randomly write papers…
Lu: Like spy vs. spy. What language do you think they wrote in?
Tirth: Chinese or Spanish? I don’t know. It’s Canada. Well, it’s the 1970s. I don’t know.
Lu: I think they should have included those people.
Tirth: And had good translators.
Lu: And just graded the sexual imagery score based on what language they used. They used French? 5 out of 5.
Tirth: No matter what they’re saying.
Lu: Italian? 5 out of 5.
Tirth: German?
Lu: German? 0. 0 out of 5.
Tirth: Yeah, exactly. Oh, man. This is great. It’s a great study.
Lu: So take home. Listeners – we like to offer our listeners dating advice every now and then…
Tirth: We’ve done that in multiple episodes before.
Lu: We’ve done that, yeah. And I have some for you guys. Look, if you’re trying to romanticize someone during this lovely Halloween season, here’s what you do. You bring them back to your place, you light a fire, sit them on a couch next to the fire, and then you threaten to shock them with electricity. Don’t actually do it, though. Just threaten them, get the hormones flowing.
Tirth: That will do it. Lu knows what he’s talking about, so yeah, listen to him.
Lu: All right, Tirth, what do you got for me?
Pumpkin carving safety
Tirth: All right, buddy, it’s my turn. Keeping up with the theme of Halloween, my study is about pumpkins. But before we get into it, let me ask you, do you like pumpkins? Yay or nay?
Lu: You know, have you ever had a tempura fried pumpkin at like a sushi restaurant?
Tirth: I have not, no.
Lu: No? Oh, it’s delicious. You ever get the tempura?
Tirth: Yeah, I’ve had tempura.
Lu: Usually, there’s a piece of pumpkin in there. I like pumpkin in that form. I also like pumpkin pie.
Tirth: What about pumpkin spice?
Lu: I’ve never had pumpkin spice. You talk about like Starbucks?
Tirth: Yeah, yeah. PSL.
Lu: No. As a sophisticated man, I drink tea.
Tirth: Yes, of course. Let me ask you a follow up question: do you like carving pumpkins?
Lu: I used to. I don’t do it so much anymore.
Tirth: I think I remember in St.Louis, you posting pictures of them.
Lu: Yeah, I did. When I carve pumpkins, I actually carve them. I don’t drill holes into them. Like people like you would. When you carve a pumpkin, what do you do? You probably drill two holes for eyes and a big…
Tirth: Yeah, and then I’m done. I’m done.
Lu: No, no, no. I actually carved the pumpkin into a sculpture.
Tirth: You’re like Michelangelo.
Lu: Michelangelo of pumpkins, yes. You wouldn’t know you’ve never been to Europe.
Tirth: That’s true. I’ve never been to Europe. Not as cultured as you. Hey, so actually that’s perfect. So when you carve pumpkins, what do you use? You use a normal knife, you use a special knife, your bare hands?
Lu: Special knife, special knife. No, bare hands, please. That’s barbaric.
Tirth: All right, well, so that’s a perfect transition to our study, which is actually about the safety of pumpkin carving tools. This was published in the year 2004 in the Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Lu: Great journal.
Tirth: Great journal. Very fitting. By these authors who – they’re part of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at the State University of New York. So they will know about the safety of knives and stuff.
Lu: Not the Department of Emergency Medicine? Which is what I would have assumed…
Tirth: No, no, no, no. Here’s their motivation, okay? They talk about how every Halloween, people carve pumpkins, they use all sorts of knives, but there’s all these terrible injuries that people get on their hands.
Lu: Oh, is that right?
Tirth: Yeah. In fact, it’s so bad, it has a name. It’s called a pumpkin carver’s hand injury. There’s even a New England Journal article from the 1970s. And the main injury…and I’m going to try and describe this as best as I can for the audio medium, is that the knife can slice the palm of the hand, and it ends up lacerating the tendons inside the palm of your hand.
Lu: Oh, wow. Like it goes that deep.
Tirth: Yeah, yeah. So what happens is – for example – if you’re carving a pumpkin, you’re typically bracing the pumpkin with one hand, or with the palm of one hand, and using the other hand with the knife in the other hand, you’re carving, you’re puncturing the pumpkin, and you’re going in and cutting.
Lu: I have a question, though: are they sure that these were a result of pumpkin injuries and not some satanical act, right? Not people slicing their hands and trying to make a deal with the devil, you know? Try to summon the devil…it is Halloween. That’s something else that happens around Halloween.
Tirth: They don’t know that. They shouldn’t be this gullible, I agree with you. But being the good orthopedic surgeons they are, they are like, “hey, we see these injuries every year. They can be potentially very devastating because the tendons of your wrists are all sliced up…”
Lu: That’s crazy. I didn’t know it got that bad.
Tirth: I didn’t either. Yeah, there’s all these pictures. It’s kind of scary and crazy. So they said, you know what we’re going to do? We’re going to test a bunch of different knives. We’re going to test like regular kitchen knives versus special pumpkin carving knives, and we’re going to see which ones cause the least and the most injuries, which ones require the least and the most amount of force to puncture pumpkins.
Lu: Oh, very good.
Tirth: And based on all of this, they want to see if they can make a recommendation to the public. So here’s the setup they did, okay?
Lu: Where do they get their pumpkin knives from? Party City?
Tirth: No, no, they have manufacturers here. One of them was donated to them. One of them is from the Pumpkin Cutter Company in Santa Maria, California.
Lu: Wow, okay. They got the pro stuff.
Tirth: Yeah, and the other one is from Pumpkin Masters Medium Saw from Denver, Colorado. And then the other two are regular kitchen knives. One of them – they actually got both of them from Target, it says. So there are four knives, okay? Two of them are regular kitchen knives and two of them are pumpkin knives. The very first question they asked is, maybe injuries are happening because people are using a lot of force to puncture the pumpkin. So they said, well, what is the minimum amount of force we need to apply with each of these knives to puncture a pumpkin and to slice a pumpkin? So to test this, they got four pumpkins.
Lu: Oh, good. Numbers check out. Four knives, you got to get four pumpkins.
TIrth: Then what they did is they took this device and it’s like an actuator device. Basically you can stick a knife in it and you can program how much force you want to apply. And it basically brings the knife down with the same force.
Lu: So it’s very precise.
Tirth: Yeah, it’s precise.
Lu: Good. Very scientific.
Tirth: Yeah, yeah. Do you want to guess what they found?
Lu: Guessing maybe the kitchen knives require less force than the professional pumpkin knives.
Tirth: It’s actually the opposite. What they found is that the kitchen knives require a lot more force, more force to puncture and to slice the pumpkin.
Lu: …because they’re not as sharp.
Tirth: They’re not as sharp or they have…
Lu: Or they’re just not designed for pumpkins.
Tirth: Exactly. There you go.
Lu: But so the pumpkin knives require less force to go through the pumpkin, do they also require less force to go through the hand?
Tirth: That’s true, but I think they would argue that there’s less likelihood that they go to the other side to puncture the hand. So that’s the first part. That’s just the force testing. But remember, the main question was which knife is safer? Which knife will cause fewer hand injuries?
Lu: So they got to do this for real.
Tirth: Right, so let me ask you this. What is the perfect experiment? If you wanted to test this, what is the perfect, most realistic, best way to test this?
Lu: Best way to test this would be to get a middle-aged dad with a couple of kids. Get the kids started on carving the pumpkin. Have the dad start off, you know, watching on the sidelines, but as time goes by and the kids are…The kids clearly don’t have any idea what they’re doing. The dad decides to step in, takes a knife from the kids…
Tirth: Dad’s frustrated
Lu: …and then starts carving. And may accidentally get too excited and injures himself. That’s the most realistic experiment.
Tirth: I agree. That is the most realistic and the best way to do it. They didn’t have the patience or the setup to do it.
Lu: Didn’t get the IRB approval.
Tirth: So in my opinion, did the second best thing available. Do you want to guess what it was before I tell you?
Lu: Get a pig to do it?
Tirth: No. They got cadaver arms. They got six cadaver arms from the elbow down. Four of them were left forearms and two of them were right. And then they used, again, they used very precise scientific machines where they fixed the arms. They attached the knife using the same device they used in the first part with the pumpkins…
Lu: Hot glue? They hot glue the knives into the hands?
Tirth: No, they attached it separately, right? So they put the arms, they lowered the knife down. And the mechanism is so that they can slide the arm in and out and left and right into the knife. In order to simulate the forces by which a hand might be gripping the knife, they dissected the tendons and they attached weights to them to pull the tendons back.
Lu: Oh, wow.
Tirth: To also test individual fingers and to make sure the knives doesn’t slice multiple fingers, they manually flexed one finger at a joint and then pushed that to the knife.
Lu: Wow. Wow. Very, very good.
Tirth: Very good scientists. Hey, let me ask you a question: do you remember Anatomy Lab in medical school?
Lu: You know I don’t. You know I never went.
Tirth: I was just about to ask you. How many of those did you attend?
Lu: The first week? I think I went almost every day.
Tirth: Wow. So studious.
Lu: After that? Almost never.
Tirth: What made you not go?
Lu: Waking up at 9 a.m.
Tirth: Anyway, I bring all of this up to test your knowledge. So the tendons they tested specifically are called FDP and FDS. Do you know what they stand for?
Lu: No. I’ve never ever in my entire life knew what those stand for.
Tirth: I had to look it up too.
Lu: FDP is… is P patella?
Tirth: No, profundus. Flexor Digitorum Profundus. It basically flexes the finger and its deep. And FDS is Flexor Digitorum Superficialis. They’re both tendons that are in the middle of the wrist and they flex the finger. So they help you curl when you’re gripping something. That’s what’s being activated.
Lu: And these are the things that got cut by the pumpkin knives?
Tirth: Yes, those are the common injuries. So then, they basically tested each knife on multiple fingers using this contraption where they’re manually stretching the tendons and manually flexing the fingers. And they’re sliding this contraption into the knife, and they’re bringing the knife down with a certain force that they measured in the first part of the experiment. And what they’re doing in this part is they’re seeing how many injuries are you causing and what’s the extent of the injury. Based on what we talked about in the first part, do you want to guess how the different knives did?
Lu: But they used the force corresponding to the knife, particular knife, right? So if it’s a kitchen knife, they used more force, for the pumpkin knives, they used less force.
Tirth: Exactly. Technically, they actually had to – and this is a criticism of the study, and they acknowledge it too – they had to double the force because based on their setup, it wasn’t really enough.
Lu: Oh, I see. Okay, so I would guess that the kitchen knives probably caused more damage to the cadaver arms.
Tirth: Not just that, but way more damage. So both kitchen knives on five out of six arms, they caused skin laceration, FDP and FDS laceration. They even saw neurovascular injuries with the kitchen knives. So a nerve was severed and an artery was severed in one out of six cases. With the pumpkin masters saw, no neurovascular injuries happened, and only one out of six times was there skin laceration. And so based on this, they’re recommending that pumpkin carving knives should be used over regular knives.
Lu: Is there a difference in blade size? Like are the pumpkin knives just smaller blades so they don’t get as deep? That’s part of that?
Tirth: Yeah, yeah. Yep, that’s part of that.
Lu: Now, was this funded at all by the pumpkin knife carving companies?
Tirth: Great question, Lu. The pumpkin cutter company donated two other knives, the value of which was less than $10.
Lu: Okay, might still sway you, $10. Hey, hey, look, anybody out there who’s willing to send us $10, we might be willing to say something nice about your product. Just put in that out there, $10.
Tirth: Or, yeah, forget anything nice about product, I’ll say anything for $10. Just send me… I’ve done this, I’ve done this on air.
Lu: That’s right, that’s right.
Tirth: I’ll read anything.
Lu: Please, write in, listeners.
Tirth: But I will also note, though, remember that two knives, two pumpkin carving knives. The one that was donated to them performed a little worse than the one that they bought themselves.
Lu: Oh, wow. Wow. Betrayal. Very good. Is that it, Tirth?
Tirth: That’s it.
Lu: All right. Good stuff.
Let’s read some mail
Lu: Tirth, we have some mail. So we got to do a segment of Let’s Read Some Mail.
Tirth: Oh, we do?
Lu: Today’s letter is from our musician friend, Dasein.
Tirth: Big fan.
Lu: Big supporter of our podcast, that’s right. He listens all the time. Listeners, if you want to check out any of his work, besides what’s being played on our podcast, please click the link in the description. Check him out. Very talented musician. Dasein said, this is in reference to our last episode: “another great episode. But Tirth disappointed me in the quiz.”
Tirth: He said this? He said this? It’s not just you.
Lu: No, no, no. This is him. So Tirth, I’m going to give you a chance to redeem yourself. I have some rapid fire questions for you. These are different phobias, right? Keeping on theme with Halloween. So you’re going to tell me what the phobia is about.
Tirth: All right, I’ve done some studying, by the way.
Lu: You have?
Tirth: I have. About phobias.
Lu: You thought this might happen?
Tirth: Yeah. I was also looking up some studies, I’m not joking. I know – I learned about a few of them that I didn’t know about, so we’ll see. Let’s see if they come in handy.
Lu: Okay, rapid fire.
Tirth: Okay.
Lu: Pogonophobia.
Tirth: Pogosticks.
Lu: Jesus.
Tirth: This didn’t come up…
Lu: Pogonophobia, think again Tirth.
Tirth: Elephants.
Lu: Beards. Fear of beards.
Tirth: Oh, right. Yeah, we talk about beards.
Lu: Jesus. Start off very poorly. Glophobia. G-L-O-phobia.
Tirth: Circles.
Lu: Close. Globes. Think more globes.
Tirth: Oh, like spheres.
Lu: Yes, they’re spherical. What kind of spheres? I’ll give you a hint. I’m only afraid of these if they’re out of hot air.
Tirth: Oh, balloons.
Lu: Yeah, fear of balloons. Very good. Phobophobia.
Tirth: Phobia of phobias? No, phobia of knowledge.
Lu: Yes. Phobia of phobias-phobias. Oh – okay, wrong. You had it the first time.
Tirth: I should have stuck to my guns.
Lu: Nomophobia.
Tirth: Fear of names.
Lu: No, that’s a good guess. Nomo. N-O-M-O. You may experience this when you need to use the toilet and your battery is on 1%.
Tirth: What? Fear of the dark? I don’t know.
Lu: No, no, no. You may experience this if you need to use the toilet and your battery is on 1%.
Tirth: Oh, boredom. Fear of boredom.
Lu: Close. What’s leading to that boredom in that case?
Tirth: I’m not doing anything with my hands. I’m not…nothing to read.
Lu: Lack of a mobile phone.
Tirth: Oh.
Lu: Omphalophobia.
Tirth: How do you spell it?
Lu: O-M-P-H-A-L-O.
Tirth: Fear of belly buttons.
Lu: Oh, very good. How did you get that one?
Tirth: I think omphalocele. Isn’t that something to do with the belly button?
Lu: Yeah, yeah. Eisoptrophobia.
Tirth: Eisoptrophobia?
Lu: E-I-S-O-P-T-R-O.
Tirth: Oh, fear of Aesop’s fables.
Lu: This is something vampires would not be afraid of.
Tirth: Would not be afraid of?
Lu: Yeah. They would not be afraid of this.
Tirth: Um, darkness?
Lu: No. While vampires may not be afraid of this, the evil queen from Snow White might.
Tirth: Mirrors?
Lu: Yeah. Fear of your own reflection in the mirror.
Tirth: Oh, because they don’t have a reflection. Nice, nice.
Lu: Araki-butyro-phobia.
Tirth: Oh, smell of spiders?
Lu: Not the same arachnid. It’s Araki.
Tirth: Smell of something?
Lu: Araki is a brand of Japanese-styled peanut snacks, that’s my hint.
Tirth: So fear of smell of spice?
Lu: It’s actually not about smell.
Tirth: Oh, butyr is not smell? Taste of spice?
Lu: Close. It’s a fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth.
Tirth: Holy wow. Okay. Yeah.
Lu: Anatidaephobia.
Tirth: How do you spell it?
Lu: A-N-A-T-I-D-A-E.
Tirth: Fear of antennas.
Lu: Anatidae is the family name for water birds, like ducks, geese, swans.
Tirth: Oh, it’s a fear of ducks?
Lu: More specific than that.
Tirth: Fear of baby ducks.
Lu: It’s a fear of ducks doing something.
Tirth: Sex.
Lu: No, not the fear of seeing ducks having sex.
Tirth: Flying.
Lu: No, it’s not the fear of flying ducks.
Tirth: Quacking.
Lu: It’s the fear of ducks watching you.
Tirth: Come on, man.
Lu: You ever get that? When you’re sitting by a pond, sitting by a pond, you’re like…
Tirth: The ducks are minding their own business.
Lu: …what if the ducks are watching me? What if they’re not though? What if they’re secretly watching you, monitoring you, trying to predict your next move, planning their attack.
Tirth: We had a whole episode where we spent a lot of time talking about ducks.
Lu: Yeah, ducks. Very scary. Who knows what they’re up to? Causing earthquakes? Who knows? All right. All right. Thanks again to Dasein for that mail, which inspired that whole thing.
Tirth: None of the stuff I studied for came up.
Lu: What did you study for?
Tirth: It was the fear of holes.
Lu: Wait, what’s that one?
Tirth: It’s tripophobia, I think. It starts with a T. There’s also the fear of monsters, which also starts with a T.
Lu: Well, that’s very logical, fear of monsters.
Tirth: Well, no, like children having a fear of monsters in that context.
What did you learn today?
Lu: All right. Good stuff, Tirth. Great stuff. And that brings us to the end of another episode of Recreational Science. Tirth, what did you learn today?
Tirth: Lu, I learned today that if you were in a relationship and things have gone stale, so to speak, and you want to rekindle the fire, walk across the suspension bridge, and then find a secluded corner in the park, right after that. Better than any kind of therapy. What did you learn today?
Lu: I learned today that if you want to carve a pumpkin this Halloween season, use a cadaver arm. Just hold the pumpkin with a cadaver arm. Much safer.
Tirth: Yes, very wise, really wise. Very good. This is your one stop shop for dating advice and pumpkin carving.
Lu: We got everything. Everything you came for.
Tirth: We got you covered.
Lu: Yeah. All right. Well, thank you guys for listening to this episode. Hope you enjoyed it.
Tirth: And if you guys like listening to us, please give us a like, a five star review and tell a friend on the platform of your choice.
Lu: That will help us out a lot. All right. See you guys. Happy Halloween.
Tirth: Happy Halloween. Stay safe. Bye.
