RecSciPod S01E18 full transcript
Timestamps:
- 0:00 Intro
- 1:25 Lu has a hater
- 10:39 Batman study
- 21:53 Octopus study
- 31:41 What did you learn today, outro
Intro
Tirth: Animal time baby, you know what I say.
Lu: Lies, lies. Welcome everybody 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. Listeners, imagine you’re on your way somewhere, and you’re in an Uber, and your Uber driver is taking you along all these roads, and you don’t know what’s happening. You’re getting scared.
Lu: I only use Lyft.
Tirth: You’re…And you’re confused, and you don’t get to your destination. Now imagine you’re in a Waymo, but there’s actually a driver in the driver’s seat. That driver is me and Lu. That Waymo is also me and Lu. We’re taking you on this journey, this exciting journey of science to the right destination.
Lu: Interesting, interesting. Why did you say Uber to begin with? I didn’t get that part.
Tirth: Waymo is better than Uber.
Lu: I see. Okay, okay. Can I make a suggestion, a change? I think I should be the Waymo, and you should be the driver in the Waymo, because you’re useless, useless.
Tirth: All right. Okay, fine, fine.
Lu: Pretty apt analogy.
Tirth: Listen, it’s the month of giving, and I’m in a giving spirit. You can have it.
Lu: Wow, wow. Thank you, thank you. So kind, such a kind man.
Lu has a hater
Lu: Hey Tirth, I need your opinion on something. I got a story for you. This occurred a couple of weeks ago.
Tirth: Okay.
Lu: Well, it’s a serious matter, so please stop laughing. Very serious. So I got a call one day at like 10 a.m. from a number I didn’t know, which I get calls all the time from numbers I don’t know. I’m very popular.
Tirth: Fans of the podcast?
Lu: Probably. I assume so. So I didn’t answer. I dismissed it. But then I got another call from the same number like an hour later. I dismissed it again. And then every hour for the next four hours, I got a call from the same number.
Tirth: Persistent.
Lu: Five calls from the same number. Didn’t recognize the number.
Tirth: Wow.
Lu: So I decided maybe I should answer because, you know this about me, I have what I call an open door policy. You know this?
Tirth: No, I didn’t, but today I do. Now I’m learning this about you.
Lu: If you want Lu, you get Lu. That’s my open door policy. This guy wanted Lu, he’s going to get Lu.
Tirth: Great policy.
Lu: It’s my policy. So I answered. And for a couple of seconds, there was no sound. There’s like, maybe like a TV in the background. And then this voice came on and the person said, “F you, Lu Yang, F you.” Now he didn’t – you know – he said the full word.
Tirth: Of course. That’s not nice.
Lu: Well, first of all, I appreciated that he got my last name correct, the pronunciation correct. Which is also how I know that it’s not you because you would have said Lu Yang, which is incorrect, by the way.
Tirth: Well, how do you say it, how do you say it?
Lu: Lu “Yang”.
Tirth: Lu “Yang”?
Lu: “Yang”, yeah.
Tirth: Lu, I’ve known you for 14 years and I did not know this.
Lu: Yeah, even though we’ve had this conversation many times before.
Tirth: I don’t remember this.
Lu: That’s okay. But anyways, that’s how I know it wasn’t you.
Tirth: Well, also, I would never call you and say “F you”, you know. Well, in fact, I would say…
Lu: That’s debatable.
Tirth: No, in fact, I would call you and say, “I love you”, you know.
Lu: Oh, wow.
Tirth: That’s more like me.
Lu: That’s why I don’t answer your calls. I have a closed door policy for calls from Tirth.
Tirth: Oh, man. All right, back to this rude person.
Lu: Yeah. But also, you know, this, of course, struck me as odd. I was pretty shocked.
Tirth: Very odd.
Lu: And it’s very odd because, you know, I’m not like you. I don’t go around making enemies.
Tirth: Okay. I don’t either.
Lu: I don’t get a lot of hate calls because I’m well liked, right? You can confirm?
Tirth: Yeah. Well liked. That I agree.
Lu: Beloved. Would you say beloved?
Tirth: Beloved. Absolutely.
Lu: Thank you. Thank you. I don’t think I’ve done anything to anyone to deserve such a hate call.
Tirth: Definitely not.
Lu: It must be someone who listens to our podcast, that’s what I’m thinking.
Tirth: Why would you jump to that?
Lu: Well, I think there are two possibilities for who this might be. After I tell you my possibilities, I want your opinion.
Tirth: Okay.
Lu: The first possibility is the Beef Man, as you…
Tirth: Yeah, we’ve had a whole discussion about him before…
Lu: Because the voice was a man and I detected a slight, maybe a slight South Asian accent. So I think he maybe was a beef man. I believe he was maybe South Asian. It’s unclear. I don’t see race.
Tirth: You don’t. Right. So progressive.
Lu: So maybe it’s him. Maybe, you know, he heard our podcast episode about him and didn’t like it. And he has my number. But then I thought he really doesn’t seem like the type of guy who would do this.
Tirth: No, I think…
Lu: He’s a very friendly guy. Very friendly.
Tirth: Right.
Lu: He invited me to eat beef.
Tirth: Exactly.
Lu: And I don’t think he would get a new number just to call me and say “F you.”
Tirth: This doesn’t sound like him.
Lu: No, he’s a very good guy. The other possibility, I thought, the number, the area code is from DC, Washington, DC.
Tirth: Oh, okay.
Lu: I was like, maybe this is my boy, Kash Patel. You know?
Tirth: My long lost cousin.
Lu: You know my boy, KKKKash? You know KKKKash?
Tirth: Of course. All us Patels, you know, we all know each other, man.
Lu: Yeah, because we’re boys. We josh around all the time like this.
Tirth: All the time.
Lu: Yeah, not unusual. You know, I make a joke about how he makes every sweater he wears look like a turtleneck sweater. You know?
Tirth: He does. That’s true.
Lu: And he would threaten to investigate me for securities fraud or whatever.
Tirth: Yeah, gotta be careful, man. Yeah, gotta be careful.
Lu: So this could be him. You know Kash. You’re boys.
Tirth: Like I said, all us Patels…
Lu: Didn’t he help you out with some legal fees?
Tirth: Uh… let’s talk about that offline.
Lu: Okay. We don’t need to get political.
Tirth: No, no, no, no.
Lu: But then I thought, you know, Kash, he doesn’t have a South Asian accent, right? This probably wouldn’t be him.
Tirth: He has a New York accent if anything.
Lu: Yeah. So I’m stuck. I don’t know who this is. But I think it is someone who listens to this podcast. Do you have any thoughts?
Tirth: Well, there is someone else that you and I both know. There’s a listener.
Lu: Is it uh… Oh, is it your dad?
Tirth: No, it’s not my dad. It could be. Actually, that’s a good point. My dad could be one of them. I was also thinking of Rohit Dummy.
Lu: Rohit. Yeah, it could be Rohit. But he doesn’t seem like the type. Would he have a DC number?
Tirth: No, he does not.
Lu: Right.
Tirth: Now, my dad, that’s very intriguing, Lu, you bring him up. Because yes, my dad did start listening to this podcast.
Lu: That’s right. You told me.
Tirth: Just in the last two weeks.
Lu: Uh-huh. And in the last episode, we didn’t release this, but I did make a crude joke about…we won’t say it. At your expense…
Tirth: Family-friendly.
Lu: …that your dad might have taken offense to, if you show them the unedited version. Did you do that?
Tirth: I did not. But I did leave my laptop open when I was home for Thanksgiving.
Lu: So he could have accidentally heard…
Tirth: It’s possible. It’s possible. You’re on to something.
Lu: Would he have a DC number?
Tirth: No, but it’s easy to get a DC number.
Lu: Oh I see, okay.
Tirth: We have connections. Our boy Kash, for example.
Lu: Oh, we can get Kash on this. Yeah, Kash. If you’re listening, Kash, please help me out. Find out who this is.
Tirth: Yeah. Can you devote some resources to this? We know you’re busy doing stuff, but maybe help us out. Help a brother out, man.
Lu: Busy paying off Tirth’s legal fees for a thing he did a few years ago. We won’t talk about it.
Tirth: Which we won’t talk about. Yeah.
Lu: We won’t talk about. So I guess your dad is the number one suspect.
Tirth: He’s the number one suspect right now, but I will say officially we don’t know for sure. We need to look into this more.
Lu: Should I be concerned for my safety?
Tirth: No, no, no.
Lu: Has this ever happened to you Tirth? I assume all the time, but when was the last time this happened to you?
Tirth: Just this morning actually.
Lu: Oh really?
Tirth: It wasn’t my dad this time. It was someone else, but you know, unlike you, I’m not a very popular man. You know?
Lu: I see.
Tirth: I’m loud. I’m opinionated. I say… You know, I’m a straight shooter.
Lu: You say it like it is.
Tirth: I say it like it is and I walk the walk, my friend. I walk the walk and I talk the talk.
Lu: It’s very easy to tell it like it is if everything you say is a lie.
Tirth: No, please, please. It’s the opposite. I think you got it wrong. It’s easy to tell it like it is when all I do is say the truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God. Okay?
Lu: No, please. Well, anyways, I still think it’s someone who listens to the podcast and I have a message for this man.
Tirth: Go ahead.
Lu: Or any of our listeners, should they wish to – you know, I don’t want to encourage this kind of behavior.
Tirth: No, absolutely not.
Lu: But if they were to call me and say a “F you” – look, first of all, please remember to leave us a five-star review. Tell a friend.
Tirth: Tell a friend. Yes.
Lu: Yeah. Very important. Really help us out. Subscribe. Follow us on social media.
Tirth: Absolutely. Crucial.
Lu: But also point number two: next time, just text, okay? Why are you calling me? Am I right? What decade is this? Who uses their phone to call people?
Tirth: Exactly. That’s another clue, man. That’s another clue.
Lu: Who uses, who makes phone calls anymore?
Tirth: Boomers.
Lu: Just text me. Maybe I’ll respond with a frowny face. It’ll be fun. No need to call me five times. If I don’t answer, you don’t need to keep calling every hour for five hours.
Tirth: Absolutely. Absolutely. Total waste of time for both sides. Both sides. Just text.
Lu: Just text. Exactly
Tirth: Or better yet, send us an email. I’ll read it live and you’ll pay us for it. We’ll make money that way too.
Lu: Does your dad know how to text?
Tirth: He knows how to text. He doesn’t text very much, but he does know how to text.
Lu: Interesting. Interesting.
Tirth: It’s not looking good for him, man.
Lu: I’m piecing things together in my head right now.
Tirth: Not looking good for him. Let’s put a pin in this for now, but I think there’s some digging to be done offline.
Lu: You should check your parents’ house for a burner phone with a DC number.
Tirth: Yeah, when I see them next week.
Lu: Oh, good. Great. Great.
Tirth: Well, I’m sorry that happened to you, man. You know, nobody deserves this.
Lu: Of course.
Tirth: And you’re the last person, last person on this earth who deserves this, you know?
Lu: Yeah, exactly. Because we talk about this all the time on this podcast, I’m a very nice guy.
Tirth: You’re a giver.
Lu: Very nice. In the morning, I always say hi to my neighbors. I shop at Whole Foods. I eat gluten-free crackers. You know, I’m very nice.
Tirth: You drink matcha tea.
Lu: Every morning I drink matcha.
Tirth: Electric car. Bicycle.
Lu: Very nice guy. I don’t deserve this.
Tirth: No, no.
Lu: Tirth, you, on the other hand…
Tirth: Maybe. Maybe.
Lu: Maybe you should be getting some of these calls.
Tirth: I also have a much, much thicker skin. Nothing can get to me, you know?
Lu: Oh, I see. Point number three – next time, call Tirth.
Tirth: That too. We’ll flash the number on the…we’ll put the number in the link.
Lu: Should we move on to some science?
Tirth: Science time, baby.
The Batman Effect
Lu: Tirth, I have a question for you. Do you travel by train?
Tirth: Sometimes.
Lu: Sometimes? Oh, fancy man, like myself.
Tirth: No, no. I’m a man of the people. A train is one of the ultimate forms of egalitarian transportation.
Lu: I see.
Tirth: Everybody’s equal.
Lu: I’m also a man of the people. I travel by train all the time. You know, I go out to SF a lot, take the Caltrain up to SF for the culture, for the sushi. You know, I eat sushi. We’ve mentioned this before.
Tirth: We have, yes, more than once.
Lu: Now, do you also ride buses, other forms of public transportation, subways?
Tirth: Yeah.
Lu: So, let me ask you, have you ever, on a public transportation, given up your seat for a pregnant woman?
Tirth: For a pregnant woman? I don’t remember ever seeing a pregnant woman on public…I know we’re supposed to do this.
Lu: You’ve never done it. The answer I’m getting is no, you’ve never given up your seat for a pregnant woman.
Tirth: I don’t think I remember seeing a pregnant woman, but beyond that, I don’t want to assume.
Lu: Convenient excuse.
Tirth: I don’t want to assume someone’s pregnant.
Lu: Oh well, you can offer. It’s never wrong to offer a seat to someone, right?
Tirth: That’s true. I’ve offered it to old people.
Lu: Oh, that’s pretty nice. That’s pretty nice. But you’re assuming their age, which I think is much worse than assuming they’re pregnant.
Tirth: No, you can see it from their face, man.
Lu: Wow. Wow. What if they’re just fans of tanning salons?
Tirth: Maybe. Maybe. Maybe I was too hasty.
Lu: But I think that’s true for me too. I don’t think I’ve ever given up my seat for a pregnant woman. Not because I wouldn’t, but because I don’t ever remember ever seeing one.
Tirth: Yeah.
Lu: Now, let me ask you this: do you think you’d be more likely to notice a pregnant woman and give up your seat for a pregnant woman if Batman was also on the train? Batman, the Dark Knight himself.
Tirth: Yeah. Yeah, of course.
Lu: Of course. You would.
Tirth: Um, wait, hold on. So in this scenario, Batman’s on the train?
Lu: Batman’s on the train with you. Would he make you…
Tirth: Oh, absolutely. I am deathly afraid of Batman. I don’t want to commit a crime or I don’t want to be rude in Batman’s presence.
Lu: You’ll be on high alert, and if you see a pregnant woman, give up your seat immediately.
Tirth: Extra vigilant. No question.
Lu: And also maybe you’re inspired by Batman, by his greatness, by his heroics…
Tirth: Generosity.
Lu: Generosity. Yeah, I agree. I think I would do the same. This question, Tirth, is a very question asked by the study I’m presenting today. The study is called “Unexpected Events and Pro-Social Behavior: the Batman Effect.”
Tirth: Wow. Did not know there was such an effect.
Lu: It’s from a group in Milan, Italy. It was published in November, 2025.
Tirth: Last month. Wow.
Lu: It’s in the journal, MPJ Mental Health Research.
Tirth: Great journal.
Lu: Good journal. Very good. Now, so they went to a subway system in Milan during busy rush hour. All the train cars were filled, no seats were available. They had a pregnant woman – actually a fake pregnant woman: she’s wearing a prosthetic belly. They couldn’t find a real pregnant woman, but she’s like visibly pregnant, like third trimester pregnant. They had this woman board a train 70 times over the course of the study, and then they counted, how many times do people give up their seat for her?
Tirth: And do they also vary the times a day that she’s boarding?
Lu: This was always the same time.
Tirth: Okay, to control for all the people on the train basically…
Lu: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. What percent of times do you think people give up their seat or offer to give up their seat for this pregnant woman? Visibly pregnant woman.
Tirth: And how long was she on the train for? How many stops did they say?
Lu: One stop, so it was around two to four minutes.
Tirth: Two to four minutes, okay.
Lu: They always picked a car where all the seats were filled up. But it wasn’t too crowded, so that there weren’t that many people standing, less than five people were standing, so people can still see her. So she’s not hidden by the crowd.
Tirth: So they’re also controlling for that too. Okay, so what percentage of people stood up to give their seat to a visibly pregnant woman?
Lu: What percent of the time?
Tirth: I would say like 10%.
Lu: 10%?! Wow. Visibly pregnant woman…
Tirth: Is that high or low?
Lu: They found 38%.
Tirth: Okay, okay. I should have been more generous in giving credit.
Lu: Well, it’s cause you’re not a very generous man. You’re telling me that if this happened to you 10 times, you would only offer your seat once. Yeah. Makes sense.
Tirth: No, I would do it 10 out of 10 times. I just didn’t want to think everybody else would do it.
Lu: Wow. Such little faith in humanity. So 38% without Batman. But what if Batman also entered the train with her?
Tirth: Okay. So hold up. Time out. Is this a guy dressed in a Batman suit?
Lu: This is Batman. No, no, no. Bruce Wayne Batman, the real deal.
Tirth: Well, I want to know their funding situation.
Lu: It’s Christian Bale. Christian Bale.
Tirth: It must have cost them a lot of money. I mean, I think the obvious thing for me to guess is the percentage went up.
Lu: Let me describe the situation before you make a guess. So Batman – it is a guy dressed up as a Batman. Very nice costume: has a cape, has the utility belt, has the bat symbol on the chest, has a cowl…But he’s not wearing the cowl. He’s holding it in his hand because they thought it might be too scary if he wore the cowl and might scare people.
Tirth: It’s like that Baltimore Batman…
Lu: But he entered the train with the pregnant woman, but they didn’t interact. They were strangers basically.
Tirth: Like they were incidentally there.
Lu: Yeah. But they did stand somewhat close to each other, about three meters apart, but they don’t interact at all. So what percentage of times do you think people offered their seat to the pregnant woman? Not to Batman, to the pregnant woman.
Tirth: They should also quantify how often they give it up to Batman too.
Lu: Yeah, they should. 38% for the control.
Tirth: I would expect it went up, not by a lot. I would say 50%.
Lu: 38 to 50.
Tirth: Yeah.
Lu: 67%. Almost double.
Tirth: No interaction, he’s not wearing his mask. And even then almost doubled.
Lu: Uh-huh. Just the presence of Batman alone.
Tirth: Impressive. Impressive.
Lu: And afterwards, the experimenters briefly interviewed the people who offered their seats. In both conditions, they found that women were more likely to offer their seats. Two-thirds of the people who offered were women, which maybe makes sense. Maybe they can relate more.
Tirth: Right, right. More empathy.
Lu: And also women are probably just nicer. You and I, you know, like we already established, we don’t offer our seats to pregnant women. And the mean age, they said, was 40. And here’s what’s interesting. In the Batman condition, almost half of the people who gave up their seats said they did not notice Batman.
Tirth: What?
Lu: They never even saw him.
Tirth: How is that possible?
Lu: So what do you think is going on, Tirth?
Tirth: I think there’s some subliminal stuff going on, man.
Lu: Explain.
Tirth: So I think even if they didn’t like consciously register seeing Batman on the train, I think they must have like, you know, in the peripheral vision or something, they must have at least read, somewhere in their brain, it must have registered. Or maybe these people have Batman neurons. Remember Jennifer Aniston neurons? They have Batman neurons and they’re firing. And they don’t even realize this and they’re doing this. But it’s subliminal, subconscious.
Lu: Yeah, subconscious. Okay, but why would a subconscious image of Batman make them more likely to give up their seat?
Tirth: So I think there’s a few things going on. One is they may want to impress Batman. Like, oh crap, Batman’s here. I better be on my best behavior, you know?
Lu: Right, because you’re scared of him. Because if you don’t give him a seat, he might beat you up. Or worse.
Tirth: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Lu: Or throw a Batarang at you, yeah.
Tirth: You know, it’s just like what people say, like what would Jesus do? It’s like what would Batman do? You know, it’s probably that.
Lu: Oh, it’s a reminder to do your civic duties.
Tirth: Yes, exactly.
Lu: That’s what I thought at first as well. That might very well be a part of it. But what they think – and this is the reason for the study – is that like we were saying, when we’re riding trains or whatever, buses, we never see pregnant women. And that’s very common. People, when they’re on commutes or when they’re riding trains, whatever, they keep to themselves. They’re kind of bored, they’re kind of zoned out.
Tirth: They’re on their phones now these days, right? Or they’re listening to something, and they got ear buds in, whatever.
Lu: They don’t look around.
Tirth: No, no.
Lu: And they don’t notice other people.
Tirth: People try not to make eye contact, like I’ve noticed that too, in a lot of the trains.
Lu: Yeah. So that’s actually the main effect for why most of the time, people don’t offer their seats up for pregnant women.
Tirth: So it’s not like they’re consciously being impolite, it’s just they don’t notice or realize.
Lu: Right. They just don’t notice. But what they’re testing is, if you put something bizarre, unexpected in the train car, will that get people’s attention, make them more aware of their surroundings, and therefore more likely to notice a pregnant woman on the train.
Tirth: Right, right.
Lu: So people will become more mindful. They’re like, oh, Batman! Or maybe they’re pointing and laughing. Maybe they’re elbowing each other.
Tirth: Yeah, this person…
Lu: Look at that guy.
Tirth: Look at this guy…
Lu: He thinks he’s Batman, and then they notice, oh, pregnant woman right there.
Tirth: Yeah. I should do my duty.
Lu: I have some criticisms. They acknowledge this as well, but if they want to argue that this is the effect of having an unexpected thing in the train car, then they should test some other things. Maybe this is just a Batman-specific effect.
Tirth: Right. Right.
Lu: You want to check like Superman. You want to check, maybe you want to check a villain.
Tirth: Yeah. Like the Joker.
Lu: Joker. Exactly. Whether the Joker has the same effect. Or a guy in a bear suit. So can’t rule out that this is Batman-specific.
Tirth: Maybe it’s a future direction for them.
Lu: Another criticism: remember they interviewed the people who gave up their seats afterwards? They said most of them were women. They’re about average age of 40. Well, they acknowledge that they estimated the age and the sex of the people.
Tirth: Wait, I thought they had them fill out a thing.
Lu: No, no, they didn’t. They just estimated.
Tirth: How do they estimate someone’s age?
Lu: It’s unclear. It wasn’t in the methods.
Tirth: Wow. Okay. That’s a major, major flaw.
Lu: So the average age of 40 may not be correct. May not be accurate.
Tirth: That’s harsh, man.
Lu: But that’s something you say you do also, right? You give up your seats to people who look old.
Tirth: But I don’t put a number on the age. I don’t say they’re 40. I’ll say, okay, this person looks old. They’re kind of stooped over…
Lu: Then tell me this: what’s the age cut off for you to offer someone your seat?
Tirth: I don’t have a fixed number. It’s more of a gestalt, you know. If you look like you’re visibly struggling to even climb on the bus, you know, or if you’re like bent over…
Lu: Oh. I see.
Tirth: Or if you have a walker, if you come in with a walker, you’re getting the seat, okay?
Lu: Here’s another tidbit. They registered this study with clinicaltrials.gov.
Tirth: No, they didn’t.
Lu: They did. They have an ID. Which is for clinical trials, like drug trials, right?
Tirth: Yes, it is.
Lu: Unclear to me why they did this, but the ID is NCT06481748. Go look that up on clinicaltrials.gov.
Tirth: Are they enrolling people right now?
Lu: Oh, maybe, maybe.
Tirth: Maybe they’re testing out a new drug, the Batman drug, which is in form of a person, the morality pill. Maybe they’re testing the pregnancy prosthetic in the clinical trial.
Lu: Oh, yeah. What’s the best prosthetic if you want a free seat on the train?
Tirth: Exactly, yeah.
Lu: Okay. Well, there are no more comments, Tirth. I will turn it over to you.
Octopus study
Tirth: All right. Lu, I’m going to open with a one word question for you. Octopuses: yay or nay or meh?
Lu: Wow. Wow. You sure it’s not Octopi?
Tirth: Um, actually, that’s good…I was thinking about bringing that up too. It’s not clear to me. Is it Octopi? Octopuses?
Lu: Well, I think Octopi is technically incorrect, but for the purpose of podcasting, maybe we should say Octopi.
Tirth: Octopi. Okay. Well, I’ve also seen it both ways, but we can use both, it’s okay.
Lu: Just to avoid making this episode explicit.
Tirth: We don’t want the E mark on there.
Lu: I would say yay. I think they’re pretty cool. Have you had Octopus sushi? Very good.
Tirth: I have not. I have not.
Lu: But very intelligent animals. They can open jars.
Tirth: Exactly. Yes. They can open jars, they exhibit some social behavior, they can solve puzzles. They’ve been known to escape from their tanks and go into other tanks and eat fish at night.
Lu: Oh, impressive.
Tirth: So, yes, exactly, I agree with you. They’re very exciting creatures. Normally, I don’t pay any attention to invertebrates. If you don’t have a spine, you don’t count, in my opinion. We’ve talked about intelligence and morality in this podcast.
Lu: Speak for yourself, Tirth.
Tirth: I am. I am speaking for myself.
Lu: Lacking a spine… I meant spineless.
Tirth: Please. I have a very robust spine. Please.
Lu: Please.
Tirth: So we’ve talked about intelligence and morality in this podcast quite a bit.
Lu: Yes. Very important.
Tirth: As you pointed out, octopi or octopuses, they’re highly intelligent. And what’s unusual is they’re invertebrates and they’re very intelligent. Some people claim that they have eight different brains. I think that’s a little inaccurate. They do have a lot of neurons…
Lu: Oh, one per tentacle.
Tirth: One per tentacle. Exactly.
Lu: Makes sense. The math checks out.
Tirth: It’s a little inaccurate. They do have a lot of neurons in their tentacles and they can move them independently of their central brain, so maybe there’s some truth to it. And then in some jurisdictions, in some countries, they’ve even established laws giving them this elevated status, like sentient creatures. So not surprisingly, a lot of scientists and animal scientists are pretty mindful of octopuses. And they’re also very interested in studying octopus intelligence, octopus behavior, so on and so forth. You know, one such scientist, Ringo Starr, he very openly talked about the octopus’ garden.
Lu: A garden…under the sea.
Tirth: Under the sea, exactly. So today’s paper is along those lines. The title is “Evidence of play behavior in captive California two-spot octopuses, Octopus bimaculoides”.
Lu: Evidence of play behavior.
Tirth: Yeah, play behavior. This was published in July 2025 in the journal PLoS One.
Lu: Oh, one of my favorites.
Tirth: I know it’s one of your favorites. Yeah, it’s one of the reasons I picked this. And the question they asked themselves is this: we know that octopuses are intelligent, they can solve puzzles. There’s anecdotal reports that they can exhibit play behavior, but it’s never actually been studied systematically and it’s not been recorded on video. So they said, let’s get some octopuses, let’s put them in a tank, let’s provide them a toy-like object and see if they exhibit play behavior and record it.
Lu: Okay. Now, why is this an important question? Why should listeners be interested in this question?
Tirth: Well, one is that it’s cool. Sometimes we do science because it’s cool. But the more practical reason – I sort of alluded to this – is one way of measuring octopus welfare and well-being in aquariums and other control settings, is to see how active they are and if they’re being enriched enough. So if we have a better understanding of if they play and how they play and if we can quantify this, we can use this to assess their behavior.
Lu: Okay. We can place more toys for them into their aquarium exhibits.
Tirth: Or we can sense if they’re sad or depressed or withdrawn because they’re less likely to play. Maybe you want to put them on Prozac or something, octopus Prozac. But before we can even do that, we need to even know…
Lu: Would you have to multiply the dose of Prozac by eight because they have eight brains?
Tirth: I would think so. That’s a great point. Even if the tentacles aren’t true brains, that makes sense to me.
Lu: Yeah, me too.
Tirth: If we have any pharmacists listening to us, please, please chime in.
Lu: Write in.
Tirth: Please write in. Let us know. So in order to test this play behavior, they got nine octopuses of this particular species. It happens to be one of the most common octopus species in aquariums and everywhere.
Lu: Sushi grade?
Tirth: I don’t think this is the right venue for that.
Lu: Okay, okay. That’s okay.
Tirth: And then they set up two video cameras in their tanks.
Lu: They got them in an aquarium by themselves?
Tirth: They have nine tanks. They’re individually housed in tanks.
Lu: Individual housed. Oh, okay.
Tirth: I think they’re like 40 gallon tanks. They’re big tanks. And they set up cameras, I think two per octopus.
Lu: Oh, okay.
Tirth: And so in the tank, they gave them all sorts of… so they have Lego blocks for them, they have like a little den for them to go sleep in or like hide in or whatever. They have all sorts of other enrichment tools. And in order to test play behavior, this is what they do: they put shrimp in a lab test tube, and they started introducing the test tube to each tank every day.
Lu: They put shrimp in a test tube and they put the test tube in the tank.
Tirth: Exactly. Because before they can even play, you have to see, are they even curious about the test tube? And one way to get them curious about the test tube is put food in it. So if they noticed that the octopus was interacting with the test tube, then they started putting the cap on and tightening it over the next few days. Then they only studied the octopuses that successfully opened the test tube and played with just the cap and nothing else.
Lu: To get the shrimp out?
Tirth: Well, they all took the shrimp out and ate it. That’s the easy part, when it was uncapped.
Lu: And then they want to see if after eating the shrimp, they’ll play with the test tube.
Tirth: Exactly, because you know, there’s a confounder here. If you just put shrimp in a test tube and they just eat the shrimp, then you’re like, oh, they’re just going for food. They’re not really playing just for the sake of playing.
Lu: Why not just put in just the test tube without the shrimp?
Tirth: They should have done that. I think they wanted to see if they engaged with something or not. So effectively, what they’re testing is, can they play catch with a test tube cap by themselves? It’s like you take a five year old and give them a ball by themselves. They recorded them and in order for something to qualify as play, the octopus had to take the cap with one tentacle, release it gently into the water, so it rose to the top. They waited, they grabbed it again, then they threw it back up to the top and they had to do this in a number of times, like more than four or five times.
Lu: Okay.
Tirth: So they have nine octopuses. First of all, do you think all of them exhibited play behavior?
Lu: By that definition, do that exact thing? Throw it up, catch it, and then throw it up and then do that like five times?
Tirth: Yeah, more than five times.
Lu: More than five times? How long do they have to do this?
Tirth: They had the octopuses for an average of 93 days. I don’t know if they tested them every day or not. They don’t say this.
Lu: So in the course of 93 days, did they do this behavior at least once? I’d say the chances are pretty good that all of them did.
Tirth: No, only three out of nine were even able to open the test tube. The other six out of nine are dunces, I guess, because octopus intelligence varies. So that was the first test and six out of nine of them failed it. So then they only studied the three for play behavior. There’s actually videos on here too. It was actually pretty cute the way they do it. We can put the link on our episode. Out of the three, two were males, one was a female. One of them played only once in the entire duration. One of them played twice and the third octopus played five times. The other thing they observed – they also kept track of which tentacles they were using, like front tentacles or back tentacles. It’s not clear to me how you count that, but I think they have a method of doing this. And it seems like they favored their front tentacles more, right or left. So they stopped right there. They said, listen, this is the first such evidence. We’re quantifying this. We have this on video. We’re now going to use this and develop other methods to quantify this play behavior.
Lu: Okay. But you mentioned Legos earlier. That’s just a red herring.
Tirth: Oh yeah. So the Legos are part of the background. It’s like in the tank, so they have something to enrich themselves.
Lu: Okay. Did they play with the Legos? That wasn’t part of the study?
Tirth: They don’t mention it. I think they’re probably playing with it, just like they’re exploring their surroundings, but that’s not part of the study, unfortunately. That would have been a lot cooler. I agree.
Lu: Uh-huh. Very cool. What’s the take-home point?
Tirth: I think the take-home point is that Octopuses are very smart. They can exhibit play behavior.
Lu: Well, does that correlate with intelligence, you think?
Tirth: Well, you tell me. You tell me.
Lu: Play behavior?
Tirth: I think they would say in the category which they belong to, which is invertebrates, probably correlates with intelligence because it shows that you have curiosity, you’re exploring a novel object, and you’re doing something just for the sake of doing it, right? There is no food, there’s no reward, it’s not specifically for food.
Lu: I would say if octopuses were really smart, they would throw it up once, grab it and be done with it. They would figure it out, right? Why repeat it five more times?
Tirth: Well, have you ever played catch before?
Lu: Yeah, just once.
Tirth: Don’t you do it multiple times?
Lu: No, just once. Figure it out. I got it. Acquired the new skill.
Tirth: The point is to keep doing it.
Lu: No, no, no. Practice? No, no, no. If you’re really smart, you only need to do it once.
Tirth: So it sounds like what would impress you more is if they were juggling or something.
Lu: Yeah, on the first try.
Lu: Or solving a Rubik’s Cube.
Lu: Oh, yeah. That would be very impressive.
Tirth: They have eight tentacles to do it. They would be very fast.
Lu: That’s right. All right. Is that it, Tirth?
Tirth: That’s it.
What did you learn today
Lu: Well, that brings us to the end of another episode. Tirth, what did you learn today?
Tirth: Lu, I learned today that if you’re a middle school or a high school student having some problems at school, let’s say you’re getting bullied, getting stuffed into lockers, just bring Batman with you. Just have Batman come to class with you. Everyone’s going to be on their best behavior.
Lu: You learned that today? You didn’t know that before?
Tirth: No, I didn’t. I surprisingly didn’t. I was very ignorant.
Lu: Oh, I see. Yeah.
Tirth: What did you learn today?
Lu: I learned that if you’re a pharmaceutical company making Prozac, sell them to octopuses.
Tirth: Oh, great.
Lu: Make eight times the amount of money.
Tirth: Instant, instant profit. Pfizer, reach out to us.
Lu: Yeah, let’s talk.
Tirth: Yeah, Let’s talk.
Lu: Beautiful. All right, guys, thanks for listening to our show. We really hope you enjoyed it.
Tirth: And if you like listening to us, subscribe, tell a friend, and leave us a five-star review on whatever platform you use. It’ll help us out a lot.
Lu: That’s right. All right. Take care.
Tirth: Bye.
