September 4, 2026 • 45 mins
Will thinks sleep is a waste of time. But will scientists ever find a way to let us survive without it? Why do we sometimes wake up feeling so groggy? And is it true that eating certain foods before bed leads to crazy dreams? Plus, our pal Simone Giertz stops by!
This episode originally aired on June 7, 2017.
Got a question or idea for the show? Call our hotline at (302) 405-5925 or email higeniuses@gmail.com.
Follow us on Instagram @parttimegenius and Bluesky @parttimegenius.bsky.social!
Possibly the greatest photo in the world by Kate Stone Matheson via Unsplash. Thanks, Kate!
Learn more about your ad choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what, Mango?
Speaker 2 (00:01):
What's up, Will?
Speaker 3 (00:02):
So I was reading about this anthropologist, Robert Lohman. And
in the 1990s, Lohman went to Papua New Guinea to
study the Asabano people. So it was his first night there,
and one of the elders keeps apologizing to him because
he couldn't sleep over with him. Like he wanted to
share a bed with Lohman, but he had a few
prior commitments. So Lohman's a little confused, right? But then
he keeps getting these offers from other men, and he
(00:22):
quickly realizes this is not a sexual thing. It's their
version of hospitality. Like to make sure you sleep well
and feel welcomed, The Asobana make it a priority to
offer you some conversation and body warmth. And also, they
tell Lohman, having a local in the room will protect
him from witchcraft.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
So, you know, all good things.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
But what's funny is that sharing a bed with strangers,
especially while traveling, used to be common practice. I was
reading this book, Wild Nights, and in it, the author
talks about how it shows up in Erasmus writing. It's
discussed in Moby Dick. But the funniest account to me
was from the 17th century diarist Samuel Pepys. Why is that?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Well, Peeps used to keep this log of.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
All of his bedmates, scoring them on the quality of
their conversation, making a note if they did too much
tossing and turning.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Can you imagine how nerve-wracking it would be to share
a bed with him?
Speaker 4 (01:06):
I know.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
I mean, I feel like I'd spend the whole night
worrying if I was hogging the sheets or, like, thinking
about if my pillow talk was good enough. I want
a good review.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Me too.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
It's very nerve-wracking. So, well, speaking of pillow talk, what
do you say we dive into this episode on sleep?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Hey there, podcast listeners. I'm Will Pearson.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
And as always, I'm joined by my good friend, Mengesh Hatikader,
and you're listening to Part-Time Genius.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Now, we've got a fun show today.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
We're discussing a topic that you know frustrates me, Mengho.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Uh-huh. Sleep.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
I have never been a fan of sleeping.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I'm definitely in the camp of people who would totally
take a pill if I could.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Avoid it altogether.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
I've always been this way, even in first grade when
Miss Pritchett made us declare our favorite animal, you know
what animal I chose?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
The giraffe. Why?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Not because it was tall, not because it could slam
dunk with ease, because they only have to sleep a
couple hours of night. How sad is this? That was
like the reason that I chose it. And I've always
wondered if humans will ever be able to avoid sleep entirely.
So we're going to get to the bottom of this.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Are you ready?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
I mean like the very bottom.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
We're going to figure this out because I need to
know if I'm going to have my never sleep again
dream come true. But we've got so many other fun
things coming up in the.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Show as well.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
We'll take a look at what happens in our brains
when we're sleeping, what happens in our brains when we're
sleeping in a new place or when we're staring at
a cell phone before we sleep.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
We've got our part-time genius quiz with a couple.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Of Zumba instructors.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Zumba instructors.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Okay. This is awesome.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
And someone I'm super excited to talk to, we've got
one of our favorite inventors, the self-proclaimed queen of crappy robots,
Simone Yetch, who happened to invent a really funny alarm clock.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
I love her.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
So we'll talk about that. She is amazing. But before
we get to all of that, how weird is sleep, Mango?
Speaker 5 (03:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
I know.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I mean, the way we talk about sleep is really funny. Like,
people used to wear it as this badge of honor
how little they slept. I read this thing about Keith
Richards where he talked about being up for five full days.
Speaker 6 (03:17):
Whoa.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Just working and composing and all this while his lazy
bandmates were taking naps.
Speaker 6 (03:22):
Right.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
But it's always this dig from productive people. But of course,
you know, Keith Richards being Keith Richards has disaster stories
about this too, right? So there's this one time he
stayed up for nine days straight.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Good God.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Which sounds horrible. But the way he describes it, he
was riding this adrenaline high and feeling totally awake. And
then all of a sudden, as he was reaching to
put a cassette tape on a shelf, he fell asleep
so hard he collapsed and broke his nose.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
I'm not sure sleep studies should really be conducted on
Keith Richards.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
I'm thinking that's probably not as accurate.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Well, there are definitely these hyperproductive people like Margaret Thatcher
who only need three or four hours of sleep at night.
She needed so little sleep, and she was so committed
to being the best informed person in any room, she'd
stay up and read into the late hours, but then
she'd be up again at five in the morning to
listen to the British Farm Report. And of course, all
her staff was constantly exhausted trying to keep pace.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
I know.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Sleep doctors actually claim she's got this rare genetic mutation
that allows her to function on less sleep, and it
affects about 1% of the population. But It's funny, I
read this beleaguered quote from her husband, Dennis, in the BBC.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Dennis? I know, honestly. You just made that up.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I didn't even know there was a Dennis Thatcher until
I read this piece. But his greatest contribution to the
Republic seems to be trying to get her to sleep. Like,
every once in a while, he was observed desperately reminding her, woman. bed.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Was he a caveman or something?
Speaker 2 (04:45):
I used to talk that way. Of course, my other
favorite Margaret Thatcher fact, and that's in the late 70s
when she went to this economic summit in Japan, the
country tried to supply her with 20 karate ladies as bodyguards.
I know. I just love the phrase karate ladies. There
should be more of that in history books.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
I agree. I agree.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
So there was definitely a time, especially in the 1980s,
where Wall Street execs and rock stars and media moguls
used to brag about how little sleep they got.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Like not sleeping was thought to be glamorous.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
And even as far back as Napoleon, who outlined the
perfect amount of sleep, he would say six hours for
a man, seven hours for a woman, eight hours for
a fool.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Which just sounds so French. It does.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
But now it feels like the complete opposite.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
You look at these world-class athletes like Usain Bolt, LeBron James,
and they really brag about the 12 hours of uninterrupted
sleep they get And they work to protect it.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, there are tons of them. Like Marion Bartoli, who
won Wimbledon. She famously took this long nap before winning.
And Cristiano Ronaldo, the soccer star.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
You know, he sleeps in this totally dark chamber and
he has electric blinds that flip open at 10 a.m.
or whenever he wants to get up. Like that's his
alarm clock. And it's because he doesn't want any artificial
light in his room bothering him.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
I got to remember to turn the lights off in
my chamber. Maybe that's been my problem.
Speaker 6 (06:04):
So.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
There's this clear premium on sleep, but don't you think
it's weird that we spend a third of our lives
pretty much paralyzed and unconscious? Honestly, I'm getting irritated again
just thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Think of all the things you could be doing. I know.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
We should all be Thatchering every night. But one of
the things that's fascinating to me is that there's this
insistence that everyone has to sleep the same way, right?
And I was reading this book, Dreamland, by David Randall.
And in one section, he talks about this history professor
from Virginia Tech who kept finding references in medieval literature
to first sleep and second sleep. He found it in
(06:39):
Canterbury Tales. He found it in old texts. It was
just repeated in lots of places. And what he eventually
sussed out was that historically, people would get two periods
of rest every night. They'd go to bed, then they'd
wake up for an hour and talk and think and
engage in some canoodling. And after an hour, they'd go
back to bed and sleep till morning. And this was
a really common thing.
Speaker 6 (07:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
I mean, it reminds me of Ben Franklin and his
so-called air baths, you know, where Franklin would wake up
at four or five in the morning, work for an hour.
He claimed part of the reason he was so productive
is that he'd do it completely and totally in the bus,
like in front of an open window, hence the term
air bath. But he'd have this euphoric period of productivity.
Then he'd have the best sleep of his life after that.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah, and obviously nude Ben Franklin had genius ideas to
give us, right? But there's this great myth all over
the internet that I so wish was true.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
What's that?
Speaker 2 (07:30):
And it's that Ben Franklin invented the first mechanical bull. Oh,
that's got to be true, right?
Speaker 1 (07:35):
I mean, that's his.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Have you heard this? The story goes that Ben Franklin
made a prototype bull and let John Adams ride it.
And it was so unrideable that Adams ended up with
a third-degree burn on his bottom.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
I'm going to say this has got to be true.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
It's so specific. But the part that makes it, like,
feel believable is that the primary reason Ben invented the
thing was to get people's bowels moving. Right. Which is,
you know, a total lie. But I love that some
fifth graders probably included it in his school report.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Oh, that's brilliant. That's brilliant.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
But let's get back to this first sleep, second sleep thing,
which is fascinating. I mean, to me, the most interesting
part is that it's been recreated in science experiments. Like
when people are isolated from their screens, humans actually return
to this natural human sleep pattern. And it brings up
all sorts of questions about our circadian clocks. But let's
take a step back and talk about that. I mean,
(08:24):
we all know our bodies have a natural clock or
what we call a circadian rhythm. And as part of
that 24-hour cycle, we know we get tired at night,
then we wake up in the morning.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
But why have we evolved to do any of this?
Speaker 3 (08:36):
I mean, it seems like just the act of going
to sleep must have been so dangerous for our ancestors
not wanting to be eaten by predators. In fact, there's
this well-known sleep researcher at the University of Chicago named
Alan Redstoffen who said, if sleep doesn't serve an absolutely
vital function, it's the greatest mistake evolution has ever made.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
So there's got to be a really good reason, right?
Speaker 2 (08:59):
I mean, there is, right? There's strong evidence that sleep
is important for our nervous system and our immune system.
But the latest research on what's happening in our brains
when we sleep is some of the most compelling. There's
a tendency to think of sleeping this time when our
brains are inactive.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
It's actually the opposite.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Without getting too deep into it, we should probably run
through the five stages of sleep.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
So the first and second stages are really light. And
in fact, the first stage is so light that you
might not know that you're sleeping. But by the second stage,
your brain starts pinging out some sleep-specific waves. These are
just flashes that last a few seconds at a time.
Then the third and fourth stages move into this deep sleep,
and your brain starts sending out these long rhythmic bursts
called delta waves. This is where you start floating away
(09:42):
from consciousness. And in the fourth stage particularly, that's where
you can get disoriented. So I don't know if this
has happened to you, but if you've ever had sleep drunkenness,
like if you've ever woken up at the wrong cycle
and felt totally groggy, That's because you were interrupted in
the fourth stage.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
You're saying this all in such a soothing voice. I
think I need to share.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
A fact about waking people up in that fourth stage.
So there are actually all these ridiculous alarm clocks meant
to wake up really heavy sleepers. Like we've got Simone
Yetch later today who made one of the funniest.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Alarm clocks I've seen.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
But there's this other great fire alarm clock from Japan,
and it works by spraying wasabi into your room.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Wasabi.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Wasabi. Which I guess makes sense since horseradish up your
nose is definitely going to get you out of bed.
But I kind of think about it like this, like
what's worse than your house being on fire? It's learning
your house is on fire by having wasabi sprayed.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Up your nose. Yeah, it sounds terrible. But let's get
back to the stages because there's only one more.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Okay, sorry for the interruption.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
So we've gone over the first four where your brainwaves
have gradually slowed down, your body temperature has dropped, and
you've gradually become immobile. You're in this deep sleep. So
those four stages occupy about 80% of your sleep time.
But then we move into the fifth stage, which is
REM or rapid eye movement. And this is where our
brains get really going again. And your eyes tend to
(11:03):
dart around under our eyelids. And that's the stage where
we really dream. Like, in a good night's sleep, you'd
move through these stages multiple times.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Right.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
And that immobility part is important. I saw this weird
cat study. Wait, is that new?
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Well, I read a cat study.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Where a researcher named Michael Jouvet in France made tiny
cuts in a cat's brain and turned off the part
that triggers immobility in sleep. So when these cats hit
the REM stage, instead of just playing the dreams out
in their head, they started acting them out in real life.
The cats started hissing and clawing and arching their backs
(11:40):
and jumping onto people and counters. You know how I
feel about cats, so this is terrifying to me. All
in a dream state. And when they were woken up,
they were, you know, very cat about it, like, eh,
no big deal.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yeah, we both share that fear of cats because I
think it's because they seem so unpredictable. But the fact
that in their sleep, they're actually dreaming about clawing and
attacking you, that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yeah, it is crazy.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
And, you know, sleep studies on other animals are just
as fascinating. So for years, we've known that dolphins and
whales and birds and other animals sleep with only half
their brain at a time. So the other half can
stand guard and look out for predators. And in mallard ducks,
for example, when they're all in a line, the two
outermost birds will often be the only ones to keep
(12:21):
half their brains awake to look out for danger. Like
they just know to stand guard for all the other
ducks in the line. It's crazy and fascinating. But the
weirdest thing is that previously we didn't think humans did this.
But it turns out we do. There's this thing called
first night effect, which happens when we stay– In a
new place, our brains revert to their animal instincts and
(12:42):
they go into survival mode to make sure nothing fishy
is going on. So instead of sleeping restfully, your brain
takes turns allowing one half of your brain to sleep
while the other half of your brain stays more aware
of its surroundings. It's why you don't get a great
night's sleep in your first night or a hotel or
somewhere else new. And strangely, the effect is almost completely
gone by night two.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
That's so crazy.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
But before we get back to whether or not humans
will ever be able to go without sleep, why don't
we take a quick break for a quiz? Okay, Mango,
so who do we have on the line to play
with us today?
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Today we've got two part-time Zumba instructors on the line,
Stacy and Githanjali.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Zumba, this is exciting.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
I know, super exciting.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
When we put out a call for Zumba instructors, we
didn't know what to expect, but we've got two really
good ones on the line. So our first one works
in corporate communications by day and is a Zumba instructor
at night.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Githanjali, welcome to Part-Time Genius.
Speaker 5 (13:40):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
And our other one is a voiceover actor by day
and a Zumba instructor at night.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
So, Stacey, welcome to Part-Time Genius.
Speaker 6 (13:48):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
So, you know what? I have to ask you guys.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Just to get a better understanding of what Zumba is.
I have to confess I've never been to a Zumba class.
I think I'm planning to go. You guys were nice
enough to tell us we should... come by one of
yours at some point. But Githanjali, let's start with you.
Explain to us the difference between Zumba and just say
regular aerobics.
Speaker 5 (14:12):
With regular aerobics, you kind of break down everything. But
with Zumba, you just go, go, go. And it's similar
that it's in the sense that it's a dance cardio format,
but it has all sorts of world dance. The emphasis
is that you do a little bit of Latin American,
a little African, a little Indian Bollywood. And so you
get a little taste of the world while you dance
(14:34):
and have fun.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
And Stacey, you mentioned you have a background in ballroom
dance and Chinese opera. Is that required to go to
a Zumba class?
Speaker 5 (14:42):
Yes. No, no.
Speaker 6 (14:45):
I mean, you don't need to have any sort of
dance background at all. I think it just influences my
own classes because, you know, I just noticed I'll throw.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
In some elements.
Speaker 6 (14:55):
Sometimes even I'm not even conscious of the fact that
they're in there, you know, but sometimes the way I
hold my arms or maybe the way I use my
hands are inspired by ballroom or by Chinese opera classes. Um,
but you know, what I love about being that is I,
the honest truth is I actually hate exercising. When I'm
(15:15):
in a Zumba class, I just feel like I'm at
a party. And hopefully that's what my classes are like too.
I just feel like we're at a party, we're dancing,
we're having fun. And I don't even care that there's
sweat all over the floor and that, you know, my
hair is wet all the way down to the end.
We're just having so much fun.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
That's awesome. That's kind of the way we feel about podcasting.
We're always so sweaty. I know.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
But it's worth it.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
I'm just dripping. All right.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
So we are playing a game today.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
What's it called?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Nonsensical Sleep Rhymes.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Nonsensical Sleep Rhymes. So this is a pretty dumb game.
Really dumb. It's a really dumb game. We invented this
based on the phrase, you snooze, you lose. So every
answer starts, you snooze, you blank. And the blank is
some rhyming word. It rhymes with lose and snooze. So
if we were to give you the clue, what happens
if you drink martinis in your sleep? You'd say you snooze.
(16:13):
You booze, right? So every answer is going to be
exactly that moronic. And what are we playing for here, though, today, Mango?
You're playing for the big prize. Whoever wins will get
a handwritten note from us to your mom or your boss.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
It's your choice.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Singing your praises. But actually, we're going to put them
on the same team today.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
You know what?
Speaker 3 (16:32):
So they both get this opportunity. We're going to put
you on the same team, and let's see how this goes.
You guys ready to play You Snooze.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
You Lose? Absolutely.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
All right.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
So, Githanjali, we're going to start with you. If you
have any problems, though, we're going to throw it to Stacey,
and then we're going to go back and forth. And
our goal is for you guys to get all nine
of these correct.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Let's go quickly. You ready? Here we go.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
What happens when you communicate with cows when you're sleeping?
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Snooze you moo?
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Yes. Well done.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
All right, Stacey, what happens when you board a carnival
ship when you're sleeping?
Speaker 6 (17:07):
You snooze, you cruise.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Well done.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Gathangeli, what happens when you put Pantene in your hair
when you're sleeping?
Speaker 5 (17:14):
You snooze, you shampoo.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
I love how you can hear it in her voice
that she's like, is the quiz really this dumb?
Speaker 1 (17:22):
But it is.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
You snooze, you shampoo.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
All right, Stacey, what happens when you have anemia and
you bump into things in your sleep?
Speaker 6 (17:32):
You snooze, you bruise.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Man, you guys are so good at this. Four out
of four so far.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
All right, Gathangeli, what happens when you start attaching things
with a bottle of Elmer's in your sleep?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
You snooze, you glue.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Now said with confidence.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
She's bought in. I know. All right.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
All right, Stacey, what happens when you sneeze in your sleep?
Speaker 1 (17:51):
I like this one. You snooze, you... Oh, no, I'm blanking.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
You sneeze.
Speaker 6 (17:57):
You snooze you.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
What sound do you make when you sneeze?
Speaker 5 (18:00):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
I'm blanking.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
You've got to help me. Aha.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Well, it's not a the.
Speaker 5 (18:05):
It's a you snooze you achoo.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yes. Oh, my.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
You achoo.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
No, I have no idea.
Speaker 5 (18:12):
What is it?
Speaker 1 (18:13):
That's it. You got it. You got it right. All right.
We're coming back to you, Gathangeli. Here goes.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
What happens when you play a buzzing kids instrument in
your sleep?
Speaker 5 (18:23):
You snooze, you caboose.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
What is that?
Speaker 3 (18:28):
It's a really simple instrument you put to your mouth
and sounds. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
You got it.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
You snooze, you kazooze.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
All right.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
This is the dumbest quiz.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Every time we do a quiz, I'm like, they can't
get any dumber, and this may be the dumbest.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
We set the bar lower. We do. We do.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
All right.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Stacey, number eight. What happens when you construct an Inuit
shelter in your sleep?
Speaker 1 (18:49):
You snooze, you igloo. Well done.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
All right, to bring it all home, let's see, you
guys can, we'll let Gathangeli answer this one. What happens
when you dine with pandas in your sleep?
Speaker 5 (19:01):
Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Think about what they might munch on.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
Oh, you snooze, you bamboo.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yes, nine out of nine. That was a tricky one.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
It was really dumb, that's right.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Our hands are going to be pretty tired from writing
these notes. This is great.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah, well, we're not only sending them home with notes,
we're also going to be mailing them a canned witch,
which is the number one peanut butter and jelly in
a can on the market.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Wow, for nine out of nine.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
If you love sandwiches and things that are stored in
pop-top containers, you'll love canned witches.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Are they one of the sponsors or something? No, no, no.
We just love sandwiches. We just want to promote them.
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Well, we will have to check out a Zumba class.
You guys have us sold on this. Kathangeli and Stacey,
thank you so much for joining us on Part-Time Genius.
So as we discussed before the break, I hate sleeping.
(20:00):
I don't know why we have to do it. It
feels extravagant and lazy and a perfect waste of time.
So convince me, Mango, why do we need sleep?
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Well, it sounds like a tall order, but the first
thing is that our brains are using it for some
major memory consolidation. Like, just think about all the things
that happen during a single day. Every time your brain
learns something, which is pretty much every waking second, the
connections between your neurons are strengthened and new connections are created.
But if you stop and think about how many short-term
memories your brain is creating in, I don't know, like
(20:30):
a 12 or 14-hour period, It's staggering. So our brain
needs a way to sift through all that information and
file away the important learnings. And there are all these
experiments that confirm this. Like there was this Harvard study
where kids were trained to catch a ball in a cone.
Like over the course of a half hour, the kids
got better at it. And their technique improved from, let's say, 50%
to about 70%. But then the group was split into
(20:53):
two sets. And one of the groups got great sleep.
And their ability to catch the ball jumped up to 85%.
But the other group, which I guess was just pestered
through the night or allowed to stay up and watch
movies or something, they got poor sleep. And their rate
dropped to below 50%, which is worse than where they
started from. And that's because their brains didn't have time
(21:14):
to reprocess that information. And actually, there's a rat study.
There are a lot of cat and rat studies, so
get used to it, listeners. But in trying to understand sleep,
listeners looked at how clusters of neurons worked in rat brains.
And the same neurons that lit up when a rat
was awake and learning a new task, those lit up
(21:34):
again at night. It's like they were replaying these learnings
over and over.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Which is fascinating.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
But the thing is, those clusters were lighting up super
fast in their dreams. So let's say it took the
rats a couple of seconds to walk over and pick
up a piece of food. In their sleep, that same
brain activity would only take a fraction of a second.
It's like because your brain isn't juggling between all the
distractions of when you're awake, it's able to process these
things that much faster. And in replaying these events, it
(22:03):
turns your important memories into long-term ones.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
You say important memories, like getting food is a really
memorable one for a rat. It is. What are the
unimportant ones?
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Well, that's a good question.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
But there are so many little things we don't really
need to commit to long-term memory. Like you were saying,
the millions of things that happen in any given day, right?
And we know that it would be too taxing for
our brain to hold on to everything. So our brains
are really good at cleaning themselves out at night and
purging the insignificant ones. There's a team of researchers from
the University of Wisconsin-Madison that recently found that our brains
(22:35):
actually shrink during sleep.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Isn't this unbelievable?
Speaker 3 (22:38):
That the number and size of our brain synapses shrink
by as much as 20% in the mice that they
looked at.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Rats study.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
No, no, no.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
These were not rats. They were mice.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
But this is how our brains deal with all the
information we've learned in a day. which allows us to
wake up and start fresh the next day.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
You know, this makes me think of those people with
insane super memories, you know, the people who remember every
single detail in their lives. And I wonder if that's
actually related to a sleep disorder.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Yeah, it would be complete torture to have this happen.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
I know there are people like this.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Fortunately, I can barely remember each time I get a
snack from the snack basket, which, I don't know, maybe
it's unfortunate because maybe it explains the seven granola bar
wrappers sitting right beside me.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
So So we've heard for years now that.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
It's a bad idea to spend time reading our phones
and e-book devices just before bed. I'll admit I'm terrible
about this, not just before bed but in the middle
of the night. If I wake up, whenever it is,
I'll roll over, grab my phone, check email, read a
little news because apparently I need to know what's going
on in Asia while we sleep.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
I don't know. But this is really not good for
my sleep, is it?
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Yeah, I'm pretty bad about this too. And it all
comes back to our circadian clocks. Like as humans, we're
obviously wired to get sleepy after the sun goes down
and wake up when the sun comes up. But if
we're exposed to too much blue light in the evening,
that can delay the release of our melatonin and throw
off our clocks. And speaking of circadian rhythms, I have
to tell you this thing I read about Monday night football.
(24:10):
Apparently when East Coast teams play on the West Coast,
they have a massive disadvantage because the West Coast teams
are just more awake. And when researchers from Stanford and
Harvard analyzed the numbers from 40 years of these games,
they found that the West Coast teams overperformed by like
two touchdowns.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
And often beat the spread from Vegas by seven points.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
That's crazy.
Speaker 5 (24:29):
I know.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
If you ever get access to a time machine, you
should go back and bet on West Coast teams.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
All right.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
So where were we? Cell phones. That's right.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
So several studies have shown that reading on a light-emitting
device causes people to take longer to fall asleep versus
just reading on a good old-fashioned paperback, right? And it
tends to cause you to spend less time in REM sleep.
But the weirdest part to me was that even after
a good night's rest, like, say, eight or nine hours
of uninterrupted sleep, those who read on devices woke up sleepier. Wow.
(24:58):
I did finally change my phone to the night shift setting,
kind of just because I like saying my phone is
on the night shift.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
After 10 p.m.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
It feels so productive.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
It really does.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
So it adjusts to the warmer end of the spectrum
and stays that way through the night. So I'm still
game in case there's a good news story from Asia
at 3 a.m. But let's talk about something else that
supposedly affects people's sleep, and that's food. I feel like
we're scientists because in our own studies we found that
Sometimes people don't sleep well after they eat, I don't know,
say the all-star breakfast from Waffle House at midnight.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
And that effect seems to be more profound on 38-year-old
bodies than it was on 20-year-old bodies.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Definitely, definitely. But our studies show that it was totally
worth the 3 a.m.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Discomfort, even if our participants, being us, may not have
agreed at 3 a.m.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Yeah, that's just good science.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
You bet it is.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Let's talk about dreams specifically and this long-held belief that
certain foods make us dream crazier dreams. You know what's
funny is that I never realized people blamed food for
bad dreams until I started reading Garfield books in second grade.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Garfield.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
It was a real education. Garfield made me realize that, A,
people hate Mondays.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
They definitely hate Mondays.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
And, B, if you eat too much lasagna or spicy
foods late at night, it can give you crazy dreams about,
I don't know, lasagna.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
You might have been better off studying your science from
somebody other than Garfield.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
But, you know, anyway. But I'm certain there will be
listeners who disagree with this.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
But there doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence
that certain foods cause bizarre or disturbing dreams.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
At least there aren't a lot of studies that show
this conclusively.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah, you know, I'm the worst at this. Like, I
don't really remember most of my dreams. And I don't
really remember having nightmares as a kid. Isn't that weird?
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Well, maybe your dreams aren't scary because 90% of your
diet is cereal. Although cereal does contain the number one
thing people blame for crazy dreams, and that's dairy. Actually,
I always thought of it as being spicy foods, but
spicy foods come in second for most people claiming they have.
crazy dreams because of food. So maybe your crunchy sriracha flakes,
that's the deal?
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Got to start the day right. I can't even think
about two wet scoops of sriracha in a box. But
don't you wonder why we dream and what's the evolutionary purpose?
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Well, we of course have to mention Freud. He thought
we dream as a way of thinking through our subconscious desires.
Speaker 6 (27:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
And while that might happen sometimes, most of the time
we're dreaming about real life experiences. And so these are
the dreams you're not necessarily going to remember. because they're
not all that exciting. But as we discussed, they're important
because they help you sort through your experiences and figure
out what's important to take away from them. And that's
all going in the non-REM phase.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
But those REM dreams, the crazy ones that you're likely
to remember, why in the world would we need to
remember these?
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Well, even those can be useful from an evolutionary perspective,
because even though they're really strange, they do help us
think through all the possibilities of dangerous scenarios from this
really safe state. But they seem real, right? And that's
because the brain activity in REM sleep is really similar
to that of an awake brain.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Okay, but you remember the dream I was telling you
about where Michael Stipe and the Harlem Globetrotters and I
were deep sea fishing and Michael got mad and threw
a fish at me, hit me right.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
In the chest. That was somehow useful?
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Super useful. I mean, I don't have answers for you, Will,
but I can tell you we're at the part of
the episode that we want to give out a part-time
genius award.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Oh, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
This episode, I thought it would be good to give
it to someone who literally dreamed something genius in their sleep.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Good idea, good idea.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
And so initially I was thinking maybe Paul McCartney, who
came up with the tune for the song Yesterday in
a Dream. But I thought it might be even better
if we gave it to Dmitri Mendeleev, who came up
with the idea for the periodic table while snoozing.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
You know, it's been a while since Mendeleev won an award,
so I think that we should do it. I second
that nomination. Congratulations, Dimitri Mendeleev. You have won this episode's
part-time genius award. And I know we normally like to
write a letter to our award winner's mother or boss
or someone else close to them, but considering Mendeleev, his mother,
all his bosses, and pretty much anyone else he would
(28:50):
have known would be dead now, why don't you just say,
in his honor, we'll write a note to the American
Chemical Society saying, keep up the good work.
Speaker 5 (28:57):
Brilliant.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
Our guest today is someone we've been crazy excited to
have on the show her youtube videos are smart incredibly
funny and so full of failure She describes herself as
the breaker of transistors, the mistress of malfunction, the mother
of terrible inventions, and as being really good at building
really bad things. So, Simone Yetch, welcome to Part-Time Genius.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Thank you. That was a really nice intro. Yeah, I've
been working on it for weeks.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
I'm like, it's good that we're doing only audio because
I think I might be blushing.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
A little bit.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
I'm just like all flustered.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
I'm glad you survived. So Simone, I have to confess
the first video I ever saw of yours was the
wake-up machine.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
And I could not stop laughing at this.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
It was something about seeing someone awaken so rudely by
a rubber hand spinning around and slapping them on the
face that was just so funny to me. So for
our listeners who have not yet been so lucky as
to see any of your inventions, can you give just
a quick overview of what it is that you do?
It's hard to pitch.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
I feel like whenever I'm in a lift or in
a taxi and they ask what I do, I'm like,
How do I explain this? Basically, I build useless machines
like it's some sort of robot comedy or like engineering.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Comedy, I'd say.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
But I make different weird machines that hurt me usually
in different kinds of ways or like pour milk and
cereals everywhere. And I post them on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Right, right.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
And it was your toothbrush helmet that helped you kind
of get the start in this useless robot direction.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:44):
So I did a skateboard helmet that has a little
robot arm on the front of it, like a unicorn,
and a little toothbrush attached to it, and it brushes
your teeth. Yeah, that was the first one that I
posted online, and it went kind of viral.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
It went totally viral.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
That's how I learned about you.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
But it's funny because now it's your bar.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Like higher and higher every time.
Speaker 4 (31:09):
So looking back at it, I was like, yeah, it's
an okay project. But back then I was like, it was,
I felt like I was sitting in front of the
computer and there was like wind blowing out of the
screen because I was just.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Like, oh my God, the internet is all over it. But, yeah,
that was the first, like, crappy robot. Can I say * * * * robot?
You can say that.
Speaker 5 (31:28):
You're going to beep it, maybe.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Go for it. We're going to beep most * * * *
you say. * * * * robot.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
It was the first * * * * robot that
I built. I'm fed up.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Yeah, let's beep robot. Then people won't know what it is.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
So we've seen, what, a cereal-feeding robot, a lipstick applier,
a shampoo machine, a little hand robot that wipes dandruff away, what,
a butt-wiping robot.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
I mean, there's just so many– Hands. Horrible and lovely inventions.
So many hands.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
So these robots that you build, once they're in a video,
do you end up keeping these all somewhere or do
you end up dismantling them?
Speaker 4 (32:01):
I try to not dismantle them. I used to do
that all the time because it's so tempting to just
like borrow parts.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
But I travel a lot with.
Speaker 4 (32:08):
Them and I bring them on to different shows and
events and stuff like that. So I try and keep them.
Most of them are in pretty rough shape, though, because.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
They've been like thrown away.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
In and out of a suitcase, and they're just barely working.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Do you get questions about them at airports? Why are
all these hands and robot parts in your suitcase?
Speaker 5 (32:25):
Every time.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
I always wonder that.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
I mean, it's the same if I'm staying in a
hotel room and the bag, because I have this big
Pelican robot suitcase. And I always wonder what the housekeeper,
what they think about it, because it must look like
a very bizarre thing. But no, they always check it
on airports. And that's how I recruit new subscribers.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Speaking of other weird projects that you've taken on, you
recently locked yourself in a bathroom for 48 straight hours.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Now, remind us again why you did this.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
I made my own space program because nobody else would
have me. So I really want to go to space,
but like I'm not qualified enough to go with NASA
or I don't think I'm cool enough.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
To be with SpaceX.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
So I was like, I'll do my own space program
and I'll see if somebody.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Wants to pick me up.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
So I did like a three episode web series where
I did my own astronaut training program. And as a
part of that, I needed to practice like isolation and
being in a confined space.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
So I locked myself in.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
My bathroom for 48 hours.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
I have to confess that the real reason for this
interview is in that video that you're talking about. You
held up a copy of one of my favorite kids'
books in recent years, Dragons Love Tacos.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Were you being serious about your love of this book?
Speaker 3 (33:41):
It is so funny.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
So should we play this quiz?
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Yes, let's play a quiz. All right.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Yeah, get ready. We're going to throw you off here.
What is it?
Speaker 4 (33:50):
What is it? What are we doing?
Speaker 3 (33:51):
We're going to tell you.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
You'll see.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
So first of all, it's required that you're on a houseboat.
Are you on a houseboat right now?
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Yes, I am on a houseboat right now. Excellent. All right.
So in Sweden.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Do I need to get in the water?
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yes, you do. You need to get in the water
for this quiz.
Speaker 4 (34:05):
No, no, no.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
You're good. You can stay. You can stay. Okay. It's Sweden.
It's Sweden.
Speaker 5 (34:10):
All right.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
So in Sweden, do you count sheep to go to
sleep or is that just an American thing?
Speaker 1 (34:15):
I think we count sheep.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Okay.
Speaker 6 (34:17):
All right.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
But I don't think I ever did it.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
No, that's familiar.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
All right. So good deal.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
This is a section where we would normally call it
true or false sleep edition, but today we're calling it sheep.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Or bull sheep. So we're going to read you a sentence.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
We're going to read you a sentence. And if you
think it's nonsense, all you have to do is say
bull sheep. And Mango, what is she playing for today?
Speaker 2 (34:41):
As always, the celebrity guest is playing for our unadulterated admiration.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
I actually, you had my hopes up that I was going.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
To get something.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
I feel the hopes.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Came up, and then they crashed down very quickly. But okay, admiration,
I'll take it.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
We'll maybe add to that, you know, setting up a
play date with the authors of Dragons Love Tacos.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Oh, my God. Can you hear?
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Yes, okay, I'm game.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
She's in.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Bring it on.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Bring it on. Here we go. Sheep or bull sheep.
Here we go. Question number one.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
The first Australian ultramarathon runner was a 61-year-old shepherd. He
won the 500-mile race handily. by running through the night
and tricking himself into believing he was running after his sheep.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Sheep or bull sheep?
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Sheep.
Speaker 6 (35:30):
It's true.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Really?
Speaker 5 (35:32):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Cliff Young?
Speaker 4 (35:34):
Yeah, I'm thinking that it's... I haven't heard the other ones,
but I'm thinking that that one's too weird to be
able to.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Come up with. What was his name?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Yeah, his name was Cliff Young, and he was mocked
for running in boots and shuffling along, but... He kept
running while everyone else slept.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
All right. Well done, Cliff.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
My hero.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
Can I be friends with him?
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Yeah, let's see if we can arrange. We're going to
go ahead and say yes. I have no idea. This
is really sad.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
You're like, yes, we'll get your friends.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
We're just going to find some dude and be like,
this is him. He's your friend.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
All right.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Let's see. Question number two. Sheep or bull sheep?
Speaker 3 (36:12):
There's a sheep from Scotland that lives on the beach
and has a diet made up almost entirely of seaweed.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
I did.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
I was in Scotland recently, just a couple of weeks ago,
and I saw a lot of sheep. There were mainly
goats on the coast. I'm going to call bull sheep.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Oh, it was actually sheep.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
Really?
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Yeah, there's a sheep that lives in Orkney, and they're
one of the only mammals that can survive exclusively on
this seafood buffet.
Speaker 4 (36:40):
Wow. But I thought you meant one sheep. That it
was a single, like, poor Bernard.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
The seaweed sheep.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
That was what I thought.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Okay, like a celebrity sheep.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
The Harambe sheep.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Well, we're getting to a celebrity sheep, so question three.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Oh, really?
Speaker 4 (36:57):
Dolly?
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Is it Dolly? Got it. All right. So here we go.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Dolly the sheep was named for Dolly Madison because the
scientists got the idea for cloning the sheep while bored...
On an historic tour of James Madison's home at Montpelier.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Sheep or bull sheep? Bull sheep.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Yeah, you're right. Dolly was named for Dolly Parton.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Number four.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Sheep have amazing memories and can remember up to 50
other sheep for several years.
Speaker 4 (37:28):
I mean, they're known for being stupid. But at the
same time, they're like herd animals. Or I mean, they
have like their sheep pack or whatever it's called.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
A school of sheep?
Speaker 3 (37:38):
What's like the count? Pack of sheep?
Speaker 1 (37:42):
I think a buddy system. A murder of sheep?
Speaker 4 (37:45):
But I'm going to call sheep because I want them
to be smart.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Oh, you're right.
Speaker 6 (37:49):
Oh, really?
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Yeah, they can get thrown off by haircuts occasionally. They
can recognize other sheep.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
I can relate to that.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
So you went three for four. Great job, Simone.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Introduction's coming. Thank you, guys.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
So if you've not seen Simone's videos, definitely check them
out because her name has a crazy Swedish pronunciation. Her
last name is actually spelled G-I-E-R-T-Z, but we've included the
link in the show description. So, Simone, thanks so much
for joining us today, and thanks for putting smiles on
so many faces with all of your nonsense.
Speaker 5 (38:25):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
I have to say that after all our research and discussion,
I'm not exactly feeling optimistic that I'll be getting my
live-asleep-free-life pill anytime, well, in my lifetime.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
I mean, you could Balzac it and have 60 cups
of coffee a day. Or if you don't love that
caffeine crash, there are pills that can keep you up
for maybe 30 hours at a time without much of
a drop-off. It's funny because armies throughout history have invested
in this sort of stuff, like the Incas used coca
leaves and the Greeks played with opium and the Nazis
(39:07):
used methamphetamines to make their soldiers march for 40 miles
at a clip. But there are always these massive negative
side effects, right? And even today we're searching for that cure.
Like there's this drug modafinil and some army officers and
even some presidents have been rumored to take it to
work longer. And while it's used in the field, supposedly
it can make you overconfident. And even though you're fully awake,
(39:30):
you might be more prone to making bad decisions.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
So there's still.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Research to be done. But for the most part, you're right.
Sleep is still this completely opaque thing. And it's strange
that while we know that not sleeping will eventually kill you,
we still don't understand why.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
Well, and even beyond all the uncertain parts, just recognizing
the things we are beginning to understand, that sleep appears
critical to memory consolidation, all the stuff that we were
talking about before of how we run through these memories
so quickly in our brains is just fascinating to me.
And the cleaning out of our brains, it just doesn't
seem possible that anything in the coming decades will be
(40:06):
able to replicate these processes without sleep. I mean, as
the researchers from the University of Wisconsin study we mentioned
earlier said, Sleep is the price people pay for brains
that are able to keep learning new things. I mean,
the brain is just such a crazy, complicated organ. So
while I'm disappointed that I won't be able to stop
sleeping anytime soon, I will admit I feel better knowing
(40:28):
just how much is going on when we're asleep. It
doesn't feel quite as much like a waste of time.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
I am so glad this part-time genius therapy session was productive.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Thank you. Thank you. But we're not done yet. You
know what time it is.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
The fact off?
Speaker 1 (40:44):
You bet.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
It's that time of the show where we get to
throw out some of the crazy, fascinating things we learned
about sleep that we didn't get to mention yet.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
All right, Mango, you first.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
So I know we talked about Keith Richards at the
top of the show and his self-reported nine days of
staying awake. But the record for the longest period without
sleep is 11 days.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
11 days?
Speaker 2 (41:03):
I know. And it's set by a student in California
named Randy Gardner way back in 1964. And what's cool
about it is that the local paper mentioned he was
going to try to set this record. And when scientists
at Stanford got wind of it, they documented it. So
there's all this documentation of Randy getting worse and worse
at math problems as he stayed up and getting increasingly
(41:24):
paranoid and getting annoyed by the people who promised to
help him stay up this long. I mean, 11 days
is a long time.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
It's an insanely long time.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
I know. And somehow Randy pulled it off. He was
doing it for a science fair project, which I don't
even know if he won, but... That part's never mentioned.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
I love that this kid comes up with the idea
and rather than people around him being like, it's a
horrible idea to stay up for 11 days, like Stanford
people and the paper.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
And everybody like, do it.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
Let's study this. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I haven't gone
that long without a Snickers bar, much less my sleep.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
So, all right, here's a fact.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
So in Finland, they celebrate National Sleepyhead Day on July 27th.
It's a tradition that dates back to the Middle Ages, actually,
and the idea is that the person sleeping the latest
that day would be the least productive member of the
family that year. So it was decided that whoever the
last sleeper was would be woken up by throwing them
into a lake or a sea or just by throwing
(42:19):
water on them. And it's particularly great because the townsfolk
will throw local politician into the water and everybody just
gets behind it.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
I like it. So, you know, Dr. Spock, the child psychologist,
in one of his early books, he has this weird
suggestion for making sure your toddler doesn't leave their crib.
And basically, he advises getting a badminton net, cutting it
in half, sewing it so it's twice as tall, and
then wrapping it around the crib to form a baby
cage every night. How crazy is that?
Speaker 1 (42:48):
Yeah, the badminton net is the weirdest part.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Like, why not a tennis net or 15 ping pong nets?
Speaker 1 (42:53):
I don't know. All right, here's another one.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
You're less likely to have an accident in your car
after daylight saving time ends and evidence points to the
extra hour of sleep as being the main reason.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
When you're tired, your sense of smell shifts into high gear,
but only for food. So it's actually why you can't
control yourself around midnight feasts late at night.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Oh, that's good. All right. All right.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
Well, people who grew up with color television tend to
dream in color. But older people who grew up with
black and white.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
TVs and movies... They actually are more likely to be
dreaming in black and white.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
I'm guessing millennials dream in gifts.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
So want to know what sea otters do to prevent
drifting away from each other when they go to sleep?
Speaker 1 (43:30):
What's that?
Speaker 2 (43:30):
They hold paws. Like sea otters actually hold hands when
they go to sleep.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Oh, come on, Mango.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
You know I can't compete with a cute fact about
sea otters. And you were just toying with me when
you threw out that moderately interesting fact about badminton.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
All right, I'll give it to you. You are this
episode's winner of the Part-Time Genius Fact Off.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Thank you so much. I have so many people to thank.
I want to start with my agent, Bobby Reynolds, my manager.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
All right, Noel, can you cue the music? Get him
off the stage. Thanks so much for listening to this
episode of Part-Time Genius with Will and Mango.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Sweet dreams.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
¶ ¶.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Thanks again for listening to Part-Time Genius. Be sure to
subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. And because we're
a brand new show, if you're feeling extra generous, we'd
love it if you'd give us a rating on Apple Podcasts.
Part-Time Genius is produced by some of our favorite geniuses.
It's edited by Tristan McNeil, theme song and audio mixing
by Noel Brown.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Our executive producer is Jerry Rowland.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
Our research team is Gabe Luzier, Lucas Adams, Autumn Whitefield-Madrano,
Austin Thompson, and Meg Robbins.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Jason Hoke is our chief cheerleader.
Speaker 5 (44:47):
Thank you.
Guess what, Mango?
Speaker 2 (00:01):
What's up, Will?
Speaker 3 (00:02):
So I was reading about this anthropologist, Robert Lohman. And
in the 1990s, Lohman went to Papua New Guinea to
study the Asabano people. So it was his first night there,
and one of the elders keeps apologizing to him because
he couldn't sleep over with him. Like he wanted to
share a bed with Lohman, but he had a few
prior commitments. So Lohman's a little confused, right? But then
he keeps getting these offers from other men, and he
(00:22):
quickly realizes this is not a sexual thing. It's their
version of hospitality. Like to make sure you sleep well
and feel welcomed, The Asobana make it a priority to
offer you some conversation and body warmth. And also, they
tell Lohman, having a local in the room will protect
him from witchcraft.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
So, you know, all good things.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
But what's funny is that sharing a bed with strangers,
especially while traveling, used to be common practice. I was
reading this book, Wild Nights, and in it, the author
talks about how it shows up in Erasmus writing. It's
discussed in Moby Dick. But the funniest account to me
was from the 17th century diarist Samuel Pepys. Why is that?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Well, Peeps used to keep this log of.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
All of his bedmates, scoring them on the quality of
their conversation, making a note if they did too much
tossing and turning.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Can you imagine how nerve-wracking it would be to share
a bed with him?
Speaker 4 (01:06):
I know.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
I mean, I feel like I'd spend the whole night
worrying if I was hogging the sheets or, like, thinking
about if my pillow talk was good enough. I want
a good review.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Me too.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
It's very nerve-wracking. So, well, speaking of pillow talk, what
do you say we dive into this episode on sleep?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Hey there, podcast listeners. I'm Will Pearson.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
And as always, I'm joined by my good friend, Mengesh Hatikader,
and you're listening to Part-Time Genius.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Now, we've got a fun show today.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
We're discussing a topic that you know frustrates me, Mengho.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Uh-huh. Sleep.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
I have never been a fan of sleeping.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I'm definitely in the camp of people who would totally
take a pill if I could.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Avoid it altogether.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
I've always been this way, even in first grade when
Miss Pritchett made us declare our favorite animal, you know
what animal I chose?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
The giraffe. Why?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Not because it was tall, not because it could slam
dunk with ease, because they only have to sleep a
couple hours of night. How sad is this? That was
like the reason that I chose it. And I've always
wondered if humans will ever be able to avoid sleep entirely.
So we're going to get to the bottom of this.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Are you ready?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
I mean like the very bottom.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
We're going to figure this out because I need to
know if I'm going to have my never sleep again
dream come true. But we've got so many other fun
things coming up in the.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Show as well.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
We'll take a look at what happens in our brains
when we're sleeping, what happens in our brains when we're
sleeping in a new place or when we're staring at
a cell phone before we sleep.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
We've got our part-time genius quiz with a couple.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Of Zumba instructors.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Zumba instructors.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Okay. This is awesome.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
And someone I'm super excited to talk to, we've got
one of our favorite inventors, the self-proclaimed queen of crappy robots,
Simone Yetch, who happened to invent a really funny alarm clock.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
I love her.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
So we'll talk about that. She is amazing. But before
we get to all of that, how weird is sleep, Mango?
Speaker 5 (03:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
I know.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I mean, the way we talk about sleep is really funny. Like,
people used to wear it as this badge of honor
how little they slept. I read this thing about Keith
Richards where he talked about being up for five full days.
Speaker 6 (03:17):
Whoa.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Just working and composing and all this while his lazy
bandmates were taking naps.
Speaker 6 (03:22):
Right.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
But it's always this dig from productive people. But of course,
you know, Keith Richards being Keith Richards has disaster stories
about this too, right? So there's this one time he
stayed up for nine days straight.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Good God.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Which sounds horrible. But the way he describes it, he
was riding this adrenaline high and feeling totally awake. And
then all of a sudden, as he was reaching to
put a cassette tape on a shelf, he fell asleep
so hard he collapsed and broke his nose.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
I'm not sure sleep studies should really be conducted on
Keith Richards.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
I'm thinking that's probably not as accurate.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Well, there are definitely these hyperproductive people like Margaret Thatcher
who only need three or four hours of sleep at night.
She needed so little sleep, and she was so committed
to being the best informed person in any room, she'd
stay up and read into the late hours, but then
she'd be up again at five in the morning to
listen to the British Farm Report. And of course, all
her staff was constantly exhausted trying to keep pace.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
I know.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Sleep doctors actually claim she's got this rare genetic mutation
that allows her to function on less sleep, and it
affects about 1% of the population. But It's funny, I
read this beleaguered quote from her husband, Dennis, in the BBC.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Dennis? I know, honestly. You just made that up.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I didn't even know there was a Dennis Thatcher until
I read this piece. But his greatest contribution to the
Republic seems to be trying to get her to sleep. Like,
every once in a while, he was observed desperately reminding her, woman. bed.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Was he a caveman or something?
Speaker 2 (04:45):
I used to talk that way. Of course, my other
favorite Margaret Thatcher fact, and that's in the late 70s
when she went to this economic summit in Japan, the
country tried to supply her with 20 karate ladies as bodyguards.
I know. I just love the phrase karate ladies. There
should be more of that in history books.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
I agree. I agree.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
So there was definitely a time, especially in the 1980s,
where Wall Street execs and rock stars and media moguls
used to brag about how little sleep they got.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Like not sleeping was thought to be glamorous.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
And even as far back as Napoleon, who outlined the
perfect amount of sleep, he would say six hours for
a man, seven hours for a woman, eight hours for
a fool.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Which just sounds so French. It does.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
But now it feels like the complete opposite.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
You look at these world-class athletes like Usain Bolt, LeBron James,
and they really brag about the 12 hours of uninterrupted
sleep they get And they work to protect it.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, there are tons of them. Like Marion Bartoli, who
won Wimbledon. She famously took this long nap before winning.
And Cristiano Ronaldo, the soccer star.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
You know, he sleeps in this totally dark chamber and
he has electric blinds that flip open at 10 a.m.
or whenever he wants to get up. Like that's his
alarm clock. And it's because he doesn't want any artificial
light in his room bothering him.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
I got to remember to turn the lights off in
my chamber. Maybe that's been my problem.
Speaker 6 (06:04):
So.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
There's this clear premium on sleep, but don't you think
it's weird that we spend a third of our lives
pretty much paralyzed and unconscious? Honestly, I'm getting irritated again
just thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Think of all the things you could be doing. I know.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
We should all be Thatchering every night. But one of
the things that's fascinating to me is that there's this
insistence that everyone has to sleep the same way, right?
And I was reading this book, Dreamland, by David Randall.
And in one section, he talks about this history professor
from Virginia Tech who kept finding references in medieval literature
to first sleep and second sleep. He found it in
(06:39):
Canterbury Tales. He found it in old texts. It was
just repeated in lots of places. And what he eventually
sussed out was that historically, people would get two periods
of rest every night. They'd go to bed, then they'd
wake up for an hour and talk and think and
engage in some canoodling. And after an hour, they'd go
back to bed and sleep till morning. And this was
a really common thing.
Speaker 6 (07:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
I mean, it reminds me of Ben Franklin and his
so-called air baths, you know, where Franklin would wake up
at four or five in the morning, work for an hour.
He claimed part of the reason he was so productive
is that he'd do it completely and totally in the bus,
like in front of an open window, hence the term
air bath. But he'd have this euphoric period of productivity.
Then he'd have the best sleep of his life after that.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah, and obviously nude Ben Franklin had genius ideas to
give us, right? But there's this great myth all over
the internet that I so wish was true.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
What's that?
Speaker 2 (07:30):
And it's that Ben Franklin invented the first mechanical bull. Oh,
that's got to be true, right?
Speaker 1 (07:35):
I mean, that's his.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Have you heard this? The story goes that Ben Franklin
made a prototype bull and let John Adams ride it.
And it was so unrideable that Adams ended up with
a third-degree burn on his bottom.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
I'm going to say this has got to be true.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
It's so specific. But the part that makes it, like,
feel believable is that the primary reason Ben invented the
thing was to get people's bowels moving. Right. Which is,
you know, a total lie. But I love that some
fifth graders probably included it in his school report.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Oh, that's brilliant. That's brilliant.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
But let's get back to this first sleep, second sleep thing,
which is fascinating. I mean, to me, the most interesting
part is that it's been recreated in science experiments. Like
when people are isolated from their screens, humans actually return
to this natural human sleep pattern. And it brings up
all sorts of questions about our circadian clocks. But let's
take a step back and talk about that. I mean,
(08:24):
we all know our bodies have a natural clock or
what we call a circadian rhythm. And as part of
that 24-hour cycle, we know we get tired at night,
then we wake up in the morning.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
But why have we evolved to do any of this?
Speaker 3 (08:36):
I mean, it seems like just the act of going
to sleep must have been so dangerous for our ancestors
not wanting to be eaten by predators. In fact, there's
this well-known sleep researcher at the University of Chicago named
Alan Redstoffen who said, if sleep doesn't serve an absolutely
vital function, it's the greatest mistake evolution has ever made.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
So there's got to be a really good reason, right?
Speaker 2 (08:59):
I mean, there is, right? There's strong evidence that sleep
is important for our nervous system and our immune system.
But the latest research on what's happening in our brains
when we sleep is some of the most compelling. There's
a tendency to think of sleeping this time when our
brains are inactive.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
It's actually the opposite.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Without getting too deep into it, we should probably run
through the five stages of sleep.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
So the first and second stages are really light. And
in fact, the first stage is so light that you
might not know that you're sleeping. But by the second stage,
your brain starts pinging out some sleep-specific waves. These are
just flashes that last a few seconds at a time.
Then the third and fourth stages move into this deep sleep,
and your brain starts sending out these long rhythmic bursts
called delta waves. This is where you start floating away
(09:42):
from consciousness. And in the fourth stage particularly, that's where
you can get disoriented. So I don't know if this
has happened to you, but if you've ever had sleep drunkenness,
like if you've ever woken up at the wrong cycle
and felt totally groggy, That's because you were interrupted in
the fourth stage.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
You're saying this all in such a soothing voice. I
think I need to share.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
A fact about waking people up in that fourth stage.
So there are actually all these ridiculous alarm clocks meant
to wake up really heavy sleepers. Like we've got Simone
Yetch later today who made one of the funniest.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Alarm clocks I've seen.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
But there's this other great fire alarm clock from Japan,
and it works by spraying wasabi into your room.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Wasabi.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Wasabi. Which I guess makes sense since horseradish up your
nose is definitely going to get you out of bed.
But I kind of think about it like this, like
what's worse than your house being on fire? It's learning
your house is on fire by having wasabi sprayed.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Up your nose. Yeah, it sounds terrible. But let's get
back to the stages because there's only one more.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Okay, sorry for the interruption.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
So we've gone over the first four where your brainwaves
have gradually slowed down, your body temperature has dropped, and
you've gradually become immobile. You're in this deep sleep. So
those four stages occupy about 80% of your sleep time.
But then we move into the fifth stage, which is
REM or rapid eye movement. And this is where our
brains get really going again. And your eyes tend to
(11:03):
dart around under our eyelids. And that's the stage where
we really dream. Like, in a good night's sleep, you'd
move through these stages multiple times.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Right.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
And that immobility part is important. I saw this weird
cat study. Wait, is that new?
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Well, I read a cat study.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Where a researcher named Michael Jouvet in France made tiny
cuts in a cat's brain and turned off the part
that triggers immobility in sleep. So when these cats hit
the REM stage, instead of just playing the dreams out
in their head, they started acting them out in real life.
The cats started hissing and clawing and arching their backs
(11:40):
and jumping onto people and counters. You know how I
feel about cats, so this is terrifying to me. All
in a dream state. And when they were woken up,
they were, you know, very cat about it, like, eh,
no big deal.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yeah, we both share that fear of cats because I
think it's because they seem so unpredictable. But the fact
that in their sleep, they're actually dreaming about clawing and
attacking you, that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yeah, it is crazy.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
And, you know, sleep studies on other animals are just
as fascinating. So for years, we've known that dolphins and
whales and birds and other animals sleep with only half
their brain at a time. So the other half can
stand guard and look out for predators. And in mallard ducks,
for example, when they're all in a line, the two
outermost birds will often be the only ones to keep
(12:21):
half their brains awake to look out for danger. Like
they just know to stand guard for all the other
ducks in the line. It's crazy and fascinating. But the
weirdest thing is that previously we didn't think humans did this.
But it turns out we do. There's this thing called
first night effect, which happens when we stay– In a
new place, our brains revert to their animal instincts and
(12:42):
they go into survival mode to make sure nothing fishy
is going on. So instead of sleeping restfully, your brain
takes turns allowing one half of your brain to sleep
while the other half of your brain stays more aware
of its surroundings. It's why you don't get a great
night's sleep in your first night or a hotel or
somewhere else new. And strangely, the effect is almost completely
gone by night two.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
That's so crazy.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
But before we get back to whether or not humans
will ever be able to go without sleep, why don't
we take a quick break for a quiz? Okay, Mango,
so who do we have on the line to play
with us today?
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Today we've got two part-time Zumba instructors on the line,
Stacy and Githanjali.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Zumba, this is exciting.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
I know, super exciting.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
When we put out a call for Zumba instructors, we
didn't know what to expect, but we've got two really
good ones on the line. So our first one works
in corporate communications by day and is a Zumba instructor
at night.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Githanjali, welcome to Part-Time Genius.
Speaker 5 (13:40):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
And our other one is a voiceover actor by day
and a Zumba instructor at night.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
So, Stacey, welcome to Part-Time Genius.
Speaker 6 (13:48):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
So, you know what? I have to ask you guys.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Just to get a better understanding of what Zumba is.
I have to confess I've never been to a Zumba class.
I think I'm planning to go. You guys were nice
enough to tell us we should... come by one of
yours at some point. But Githanjali, let's start with you.
Explain to us the difference between Zumba and just say
regular aerobics.
Speaker 5 (14:12):
With regular aerobics, you kind of break down everything. But
with Zumba, you just go, go, go. And it's similar
that it's in the sense that it's a dance cardio format,
but it has all sorts of world dance. The emphasis
is that you do a little bit of Latin American,
a little African, a little Indian Bollywood. And so you
get a little taste of the world while you dance
(14:34):
and have fun.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
And Stacey, you mentioned you have a background in ballroom
dance and Chinese opera. Is that required to go to
a Zumba class?
Speaker 5 (14:42):
Yes. No, no.
Speaker 6 (14:45):
I mean, you don't need to have any sort of
dance background at all. I think it just influences my
own classes because, you know, I just noticed I'll throw.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
In some elements.
Speaker 6 (14:55):
Sometimes even I'm not even conscious of the fact that
they're in there, you know, but sometimes the way I
hold my arms or maybe the way I use my
hands are inspired by ballroom or by Chinese opera classes. Um,
but you know, what I love about being that is I,
the honest truth is I actually hate exercising. When I'm
(15:15):
in a Zumba class, I just feel like I'm at
a party. And hopefully that's what my classes are like too.
I just feel like we're at a party, we're dancing,
we're having fun. And I don't even care that there's
sweat all over the floor and that, you know, my
hair is wet all the way down to the end.
We're just having so much fun.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
That's awesome. That's kind of the way we feel about podcasting.
We're always so sweaty. I know.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
But it's worth it.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
I'm just dripping. All right.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
So we are playing a game today.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
What's it called?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Nonsensical Sleep Rhymes.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Nonsensical Sleep Rhymes. So this is a pretty dumb game.
Really dumb. It's a really dumb game. We invented this
based on the phrase, you snooze, you lose. So every
answer starts, you snooze, you blank. And the blank is
some rhyming word. It rhymes with lose and snooze. So
if we were to give you the clue, what happens
if you drink martinis in your sleep? You'd say you snooze.
(16:13):
You booze, right? So every answer is going to be
exactly that moronic. And what are we playing for here, though, today, Mango?
You're playing for the big prize. Whoever wins will get
a handwritten note from us to your mom or your boss.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
It's your choice.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Singing your praises. But actually, we're going to put them
on the same team today.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
You know what?
Speaker 3 (16:32):
So they both get this opportunity. We're going to put
you on the same team, and let's see how this goes.
You guys ready to play You Snooze.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
You Lose? Absolutely.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
All right.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
So, Githanjali, we're going to start with you. If you
have any problems, though, we're going to throw it to Stacey,
and then we're going to go back and forth. And
our goal is for you guys to get all nine
of these correct.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Let's go quickly. You ready? Here we go.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
What happens when you communicate with cows when you're sleeping?
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Snooze you moo?
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Yes. Well done.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
All right, Stacey, what happens when you board a carnival
ship when you're sleeping?
Speaker 6 (17:07):
You snooze, you cruise.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Well done.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Gathangeli, what happens when you put Pantene in your hair
when you're sleeping?
Speaker 5 (17:14):
You snooze, you shampoo.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
I love how you can hear it in her voice
that she's like, is the quiz really this dumb?
Speaker 1 (17:22):
But it is.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
You snooze, you shampoo.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
All right, Stacey, what happens when you have anemia and
you bump into things in your sleep?
Speaker 6 (17:32):
You snooze, you bruise.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Man, you guys are so good at this. Four out
of four so far.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
All right, Gathangeli, what happens when you start attaching things
with a bottle of Elmer's in your sleep?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
You snooze, you glue.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Now said with confidence.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
She's bought in. I know. All right.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
All right, Stacey, what happens when you sneeze in your sleep?
Speaker 1 (17:51):
I like this one. You snooze, you... Oh, no, I'm blanking.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
You sneeze.
Speaker 6 (17:57):
You snooze you.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
What sound do you make when you sneeze?
Speaker 5 (18:00):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
I'm blanking.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
You've got to help me. Aha.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Well, it's not a the.
Speaker 5 (18:05):
It's a you snooze you achoo.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yes. Oh, my.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
You achoo.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
No, I have no idea.
Speaker 5 (18:12):
What is it?
Speaker 1 (18:13):
That's it. You got it. You got it right. All right.
We're coming back to you, Gathangeli. Here goes.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
What happens when you play a buzzing kids instrument in
your sleep?
Speaker 5 (18:23):
You snooze, you caboose.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
What is that?
Speaker 3 (18:28):
It's a really simple instrument you put to your mouth
and sounds. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
You got it.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
You snooze, you kazooze.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
All right.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
This is the dumbest quiz.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Every time we do a quiz, I'm like, they can't
get any dumber, and this may be the dumbest.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
We set the bar lower. We do. We do.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
All right.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Stacey, number eight. What happens when you construct an Inuit
shelter in your sleep?
Speaker 1 (18:49):
You snooze, you igloo. Well done.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
All right, to bring it all home, let's see, you
guys can, we'll let Gathangeli answer this one. What happens
when you dine with pandas in your sleep?
Speaker 5 (19:01):
Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Think about what they might munch on.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
Oh, you snooze, you bamboo.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yes, nine out of nine. That was a tricky one.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
It was really dumb, that's right.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Our hands are going to be pretty tired from writing
these notes. This is great.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah, well, we're not only sending them home with notes,
we're also going to be mailing them a canned witch,
which is the number one peanut butter and jelly in
a can on the market.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Wow, for nine out of nine.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
If you love sandwiches and things that are stored in
pop-top containers, you'll love canned witches.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Are they one of the sponsors or something? No, no, no.
We just love sandwiches. We just want to promote them.
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Well, we will have to check out a Zumba class.
You guys have us sold on this. Kathangeli and Stacey,
thank you so much for joining us on Part-Time Genius.
So as we discussed before the break, I hate sleeping.
(20:00):
I don't know why we have to do it. It
feels extravagant and lazy and a perfect waste of time.
So convince me, Mango, why do we need sleep?
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Well, it sounds like a tall order, but the first
thing is that our brains are using it for some
major memory consolidation. Like, just think about all the things
that happen during a single day. Every time your brain
learns something, which is pretty much every waking second, the
connections between your neurons are strengthened and new connections are created.
But if you stop and think about how many short-term
memories your brain is creating in, I don't know, like
(20:30):
a 12 or 14-hour period, It's staggering. So our brain
needs a way to sift through all that information and
file away the important learnings. And there are all these
experiments that confirm this. Like there was this Harvard study
where kids were trained to catch a ball in a cone.
Like over the course of a half hour, the kids
got better at it. And their technique improved from, let's say, 50%
to about 70%. But then the group was split into
(20:53):
two sets. And one of the groups got great sleep.
And their ability to catch the ball jumped up to 85%.
But the other group, which I guess was just pestered
through the night or allowed to stay up and watch
movies or something, they got poor sleep. And their rate
dropped to below 50%, which is worse than where they
started from. And that's because their brains didn't have time
(21:14):
to reprocess that information. And actually, there's a rat study.
There are a lot of cat and rat studies, so
get used to it, listeners. But in trying to understand sleep,
listeners looked at how clusters of neurons worked in rat brains.
And the same neurons that lit up when a rat
was awake and learning a new task, those lit up
(21:34):
again at night. It's like they were replaying these learnings
over and over.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Which is fascinating.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
But the thing is, those clusters were lighting up super
fast in their dreams. So let's say it took the
rats a couple of seconds to walk over and pick
up a piece of food. In their sleep, that same
brain activity would only take a fraction of a second.
It's like because your brain isn't juggling between all the
distractions of when you're awake, it's able to process these
things that much faster. And in replaying these events, it
(22:03):
turns your important memories into long-term ones.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
You say important memories, like getting food is a really
memorable one for a rat. It is. What are the
unimportant ones?
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Well, that's a good question.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
But there are so many little things we don't really
need to commit to long-term memory. Like you were saying,
the millions of things that happen in any given day, right?
And we know that it would be too taxing for
our brain to hold on to everything. So our brains
are really good at cleaning themselves out at night and
purging the insignificant ones. There's a team of researchers from
the University of Wisconsin-Madison that recently found that our brains
(22:35):
actually shrink during sleep.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Isn't this unbelievable?
Speaker 3 (22:38):
That the number and size of our brain synapses shrink
by as much as 20% in the mice that they
looked at.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Rats study.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
No, no, no.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
These were not rats. They were mice.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
But this is how our brains deal with all the
information we've learned in a day. which allows us to
wake up and start fresh the next day.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
You know, this makes me think of those people with
insane super memories, you know, the people who remember every
single detail in their lives. And I wonder if that's
actually related to a sleep disorder.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Yeah, it would be complete torture to have this happen.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
I know there are people like this.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Fortunately, I can barely remember each time I get a
snack from the snack basket, which, I don't know, maybe
it's unfortunate because maybe it explains the seven granola bar
wrappers sitting right beside me.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
So So we've heard for years now that.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
It's a bad idea to spend time reading our phones
and e-book devices just before bed. I'll admit I'm terrible
about this, not just before bed but in the middle
of the night. If I wake up, whenever it is,
I'll roll over, grab my phone, check email, read a
little news because apparently I need to know what's going
on in Asia while we sleep.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
I don't know. But this is really not good for
my sleep, is it?
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Yeah, I'm pretty bad about this too. And it all
comes back to our circadian clocks. Like as humans, we're
obviously wired to get sleepy after the sun goes down
and wake up when the sun comes up. But if
we're exposed to too much blue light in the evening,
that can delay the release of our melatonin and throw
off our clocks. And speaking of circadian rhythms, I have
to tell you this thing I read about Monday night football.
(24:10):
Apparently when East Coast teams play on the West Coast,
they have a massive disadvantage because the West Coast teams
are just more awake. And when researchers from Stanford and
Harvard analyzed the numbers from 40 years of these games,
they found that the West Coast teams overperformed by like
two touchdowns.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
And often beat the spread from Vegas by seven points.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
That's crazy.
Speaker 5 (24:29):
I know.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
If you ever get access to a time machine, you
should go back and bet on West Coast teams.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
All right.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
So where were we? Cell phones. That's right.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
So several studies have shown that reading on a light-emitting
device causes people to take longer to fall asleep versus
just reading on a good old-fashioned paperback, right? And it
tends to cause you to spend less time in REM sleep.
But the weirdest part to me was that even after
a good night's rest, like, say, eight or nine hours
of uninterrupted sleep, those who read on devices woke up sleepier. Wow.
(24:58):
I did finally change my phone to the night shift setting,
kind of just because I like saying my phone is
on the night shift.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
After 10 p.m.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
It feels so productive.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
It really does.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
So it adjusts to the warmer end of the spectrum
and stays that way through the night. So I'm still
game in case there's a good news story from Asia
at 3 a.m. But let's talk about something else that
supposedly affects people's sleep, and that's food. I feel like
we're scientists because in our own studies we found that
Sometimes people don't sleep well after they eat, I don't know,
say the all-star breakfast from Waffle House at midnight.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
And that effect seems to be more profound on 38-year-old
bodies than it was on 20-year-old bodies.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Definitely, definitely. But our studies show that it was totally
worth the 3 a.m.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Discomfort, even if our participants, being us, may not have
agreed at 3 a.m.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Yeah, that's just good science.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
You bet it is.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Let's talk about dreams specifically and this long-held belief that
certain foods make us dream crazier dreams. You know what's
funny is that I never realized people blamed food for
bad dreams until I started reading Garfield books in second grade.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Garfield.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
It was a real education. Garfield made me realize that, A,
people hate Mondays.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
They definitely hate Mondays.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
And, B, if you eat too much lasagna or spicy
foods late at night, it can give you crazy dreams about,
I don't know, lasagna.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
You might have been better off studying your science from
somebody other than Garfield.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
But, you know, anyway. But I'm certain there will be
listeners who disagree with this.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
But there doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence
that certain foods cause bizarre or disturbing dreams.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
At least there aren't a lot of studies that show
this conclusively.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah, you know, I'm the worst at this. Like, I
don't really remember most of my dreams. And I don't
really remember having nightmares as a kid. Isn't that weird?
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Well, maybe your dreams aren't scary because 90% of your
diet is cereal. Although cereal does contain the number one
thing people blame for crazy dreams, and that's dairy. Actually,
I always thought of it as being spicy foods, but
spicy foods come in second for most people claiming they have.
crazy dreams because of food. So maybe your crunchy sriracha flakes,
that's the deal?
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Got to start the day right. I can't even think
about two wet scoops of sriracha in a box. But
don't you wonder why we dream and what's the evolutionary purpose?
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Well, we of course have to mention Freud. He thought
we dream as a way of thinking through our subconscious desires.
Speaker 6 (27:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
And while that might happen sometimes, most of the time
we're dreaming about real life experiences. And so these are
the dreams you're not necessarily going to remember. because they're
not all that exciting. But as we discussed, they're important
because they help you sort through your experiences and figure
out what's important to take away from them. And that's
all going in the non-REM phase.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
But those REM dreams, the crazy ones that you're likely
to remember, why in the world would we need to
remember these?
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Well, even those can be useful from an evolutionary perspective,
because even though they're really strange, they do help us
think through all the possibilities of dangerous scenarios from this
really safe state. But they seem real, right? And that's
because the brain activity in REM sleep is really similar
to that of an awake brain.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Okay, but you remember the dream I was telling you
about where Michael Stipe and the Harlem Globetrotters and I
were deep sea fishing and Michael got mad and threw
a fish at me, hit me right.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
In the chest. That was somehow useful?
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Super useful. I mean, I don't have answers for you, Will,
but I can tell you we're at the part of
the episode that we want to give out a part-time
genius award.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Oh, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
This episode, I thought it would be good to give
it to someone who literally dreamed something genius in their sleep.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Good idea, good idea.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
And so initially I was thinking maybe Paul McCartney, who
came up with the tune for the song Yesterday in
a Dream. But I thought it might be even better
if we gave it to Dmitri Mendeleev, who came up
with the idea for the periodic table while snoozing.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
You know, it's been a while since Mendeleev won an award,
so I think that we should do it. I second
that nomination. Congratulations, Dimitri Mendeleev. You have won this episode's
part-time genius award. And I know we normally like to
write a letter to our award winner's mother or boss
or someone else close to them, but considering Mendeleev, his mother,
all his bosses, and pretty much anyone else he would
(28:50):
have known would be dead now, why don't you just say,
in his honor, we'll write a note to the American
Chemical Society saying, keep up the good work.
Speaker 5 (28:57):
Brilliant.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
Our guest today is someone we've been crazy excited to
have on the show her youtube videos are smart incredibly
funny and so full of failure She describes herself as
the breaker of transistors, the mistress of malfunction, the mother
of terrible inventions, and as being really good at building
really bad things. So, Simone Yetch, welcome to Part-Time Genius.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Thank you. That was a really nice intro. Yeah, I've
been working on it for weeks.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
I'm like, it's good that we're doing only audio because
I think I might be blushing.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
A little bit.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
I'm just like all flustered.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
I'm glad you survived. So Simone, I have to confess
the first video I ever saw of yours was the
wake-up machine.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
And I could not stop laughing at this.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
It was something about seeing someone awaken so rudely by
a rubber hand spinning around and slapping them on the
face that was just so funny to me. So for
our listeners who have not yet been so lucky as
to see any of your inventions, can you give just
a quick overview of what it is that you do?
It's hard to pitch.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
I feel like whenever I'm in a lift or in
a taxi and they ask what I do, I'm like,
How do I explain this? Basically, I build useless machines
like it's some sort of robot comedy or like engineering.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Comedy, I'd say.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
But I make different weird machines that hurt me usually
in different kinds of ways or like pour milk and
cereals everywhere. And I post them on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Right, right.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
And it was your toothbrush helmet that helped you kind
of get the start in this useless robot direction.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:44):
So I did a skateboard helmet that has a little
robot arm on the front of it, like a unicorn,
and a little toothbrush attached to it, and it brushes
your teeth. Yeah, that was the first one that I
posted online, and it went kind of viral.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
It went totally viral.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
That's how I learned about you.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
But it's funny because now it's your bar.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Like higher and higher every time.
Speaker 4 (31:09):
So looking back at it, I was like, yeah, it's
an okay project. But back then I was like, it was,
I felt like I was sitting in front of the
computer and there was like wind blowing out of the
screen because I was just.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Like, oh my God, the internet is all over it. But, yeah,
that was the first, like, crappy robot. Can I say * * * * robot?
You can say that.
Speaker 5 (31:28):
You're going to beep it, maybe.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Go for it. We're going to beep most * * * *
you say. * * * * robot.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
It was the first * * * * robot that
I built. I'm fed up.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Yeah, let's beep robot. Then people won't know what it is.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
So we've seen, what, a cereal-feeding robot, a lipstick applier,
a shampoo machine, a little hand robot that wipes dandruff away, what,
a butt-wiping robot.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
I mean, there's just so many– Hands. Horrible and lovely inventions.
So many hands.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
So these robots that you build, once they're in a video,
do you end up keeping these all somewhere or do
you end up dismantling them?
Speaker 4 (32:01):
I try to not dismantle them. I used to do
that all the time because it's so tempting to just
like borrow parts.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
But I travel a lot with.
Speaker 4 (32:08):
Them and I bring them on to different shows and
events and stuff like that. So I try and keep them.
Most of them are in pretty rough shape, though, because.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
They've been like thrown away.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
In and out of a suitcase, and they're just barely working.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Do you get questions about them at airports? Why are
all these hands and robot parts in your suitcase?
Speaker 5 (32:25):
Every time.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
I always wonder that.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
I mean, it's the same if I'm staying in a
hotel room and the bag, because I have this big
Pelican robot suitcase. And I always wonder what the housekeeper,
what they think about it, because it must look like
a very bizarre thing. But no, they always check it
on airports. And that's how I recruit new subscribers.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Speaking of other weird projects that you've taken on, you
recently locked yourself in a bathroom for 48 straight hours.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Now, remind us again why you did this.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
I made my own space program because nobody else would
have me. So I really want to go to space,
but like I'm not qualified enough to go with NASA
or I don't think I'm cool enough.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
To be with SpaceX.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
So I was like, I'll do my own space program
and I'll see if somebody.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Wants to pick me up.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
So I did like a three episode web series where
I did my own astronaut training program. And as a
part of that, I needed to practice like isolation and
being in a confined space.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
So I locked myself in.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
My bathroom for 48 hours.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
I have to confess that the real reason for this
interview is in that video that you're talking about. You
held up a copy of one of my favorite kids'
books in recent years, Dragons Love Tacos.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Were you being serious about your love of this book?
Speaker 3 (33:41):
It is so funny.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
So should we play this quiz?
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Yes, let's play a quiz. All right.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Yeah, get ready. We're going to throw you off here.
What is it?
Speaker 4 (33:50):
What is it? What are we doing?
Speaker 3 (33:51):
We're going to tell you.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
You'll see.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
So first of all, it's required that you're on a houseboat.
Are you on a houseboat right now?
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Yes, I am on a houseboat right now. Excellent. All right.
So in Sweden.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Do I need to get in the water?
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yes, you do. You need to get in the water
for this quiz.
Speaker 4 (34:05):
No, no, no.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
You're good. You can stay. You can stay. Okay. It's Sweden.
It's Sweden.
Speaker 5 (34:10):
All right.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
So in Sweden, do you count sheep to go to
sleep or is that just an American thing?
Speaker 1 (34:15):
I think we count sheep.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Okay.
Speaker 6 (34:17):
All right.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
But I don't think I ever did it.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
No, that's familiar.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
All right. So good deal.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
This is a section where we would normally call it
true or false sleep edition, but today we're calling it sheep.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Or bull sheep. So we're going to read you a sentence.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
We're going to read you a sentence. And if you
think it's nonsense, all you have to do is say
bull sheep. And Mango, what is she playing for today?
Speaker 2 (34:41):
As always, the celebrity guest is playing for our unadulterated admiration.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
I actually, you had my hopes up that I was going.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
To get something.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
I feel the hopes.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Came up, and then they crashed down very quickly. But okay, admiration,
I'll take it.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
We'll maybe add to that, you know, setting up a
play date with the authors of Dragons Love Tacos.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Oh, my God. Can you hear?
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Yes, okay, I'm game.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
She's in.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Bring it on.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Bring it on. Here we go. Sheep or bull sheep.
Here we go. Question number one.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
The first Australian ultramarathon runner was a 61-year-old shepherd. He
won the 500-mile race handily. by running through the night
and tricking himself into believing he was running after his sheep.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Sheep or bull sheep?
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Sheep.
Speaker 6 (35:30):
It's true.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Really?
Speaker 5 (35:32):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Cliff Young?
Speaker 4 (35:34):
Yeah, I'm thinking that it's... I haven't heard the other ones,
but I'm thinking that that one's too weird to be
able to.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Come up with. What was his name?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Yeah, his name was Cliff Young, and he was mocked
for running in boots and shuffling along, but... He kept
running while everyone else slept.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
All right. Well done, Cliff.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
My hero.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
Can I be friends with him?
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Yeah, let's see if we can arrange. We're going to
go ahead and say yes. I have no idea. This
is really sad.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
You're like, yes, we'll get your friends.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
We're just going to find some dude and be like,
this is him. He's your friend.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
All right.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Let's see. Question number two. Sheep or bull sheep?
Speaker 3 (36:12):
There's a sheep from Scotland that lives on the beach
and has a diet made up almost entirely of seaweed.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
I did.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
I was in Scotland recently, just a couple of weeks ago,
and I saw a lot of sheep. There were mainly
goats on the coast. I'm going to call bull sheep.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Oh, it was actually sheep.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
Really?
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Yeah, there's a sheep that lives in Orkney, and they're
one of the only mammals that can survive exclusively on
this seafood buffet.
Speaker 4 (36:40):
Wow. But I thought you meant one sheep. That it
was a single, like, poor Bernard.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
The seaweed sheep.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
That was what I thought.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Okay, like a celebrity sheep.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
The Harambe sheep.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Well, we're getting to a celebrity sheep, so question three.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Oh, really?
Speaker 4 (36:57):
Dolly?
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Is it Dolly? Got it. All right. So here we go.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Dolly the sheep was named for Dolly Madison because the
scientists got the idea for cloning the sheep while bored...
On an historic tour of James Madison's home at Montpelier.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Sheep or bull sheep? Bull sheep.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Yeah, you're right. Dolly was named for Dolly Parton.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Number four.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Sheep have amazing memories and can remember up to 50
other sheep for several years.
Speaker 4 (37:28):
I mean, they're known for being stupid. But at the
same time, they're like herd animals. Or I mean, they
have like their sheep pack or whatever it's called.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
A school of sheep?
Speaker 3 (37:38):
What's like the count? Pack of sheep?
Speaker 1 (37:42):
I think a buddy system. A murder of sheep?
Speaker 4 (37:45):
But I'm going to call sheep because I want them
to be smart.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Oh, you're right.
Speaker 6 (37:49):
Oh, really?
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Yeah, they can get thrown off by haircuts occasionally. They
can recognize other sheep.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
I can relate to that.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
So you went three for four. Great job, Simone.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Introduction's coming. Thank you, guys.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
So if you've not seen Simone's videos, definitely check them
out because her name has a crazy Swedish pronunciation. Her
last name is actually spelled G-I-E-R-T-Z, but we've included the
link in the show description. So, Simone, thanks so much
for joining us today, and thanks for putting smiles on
so many faces with all of your nonsense.
Speaker 5 (38:25):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
I have to say that after all our research and discussion,
I'm not exactly feeling optimistic that I'll be getting my
live-asleep-free-life pill anytime, well, in my lifetime.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
I mean, you could Balzac it and have 60 cups
of coffee a day. Or if you don't love that
caffeine crash, there are pills that can keep you up
for maybe 30 hours at a time without much of
a drop-off. It's funny because armies throughout history have invested
in this sort of stuff, like the Incas used coca
leaves and the Greeks played with opium and the Nazis
(39:07):
used methamphetamines to make their soldiers march for 40 miles
at a clip. But there are always these massive negative
side effects, right? And even today we're searching for that cure.
Like there's this drug modafinil and some army officers and
even some presidents have been rumored to take it to
work longer. And while it's used in the field, supposedly
it can make you overconfident. And even though you're fully awake,
(39:30):
you might be more prone to making bad decisions.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
So there's still.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Research to be done. But for the most part, you're right.
Sleep is still this completely opaque thing. And it's strange
that while we know that not sleeping will eventually kill you,
we still don't understand why.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
Well, and even beyond all the uncertain parts, just recognizing
the things we are beginning to understand, that sleep appears
critical to memory consolidation, all the stuff that we were
talking about before of how we run through these memories
so quickly in our brains is just fascinating to me.
And the cleaning out of our brains, it just doesn't
seem possible that anything in the coming decades will be
(40:06):
able to replicate these processes without sleep. I mean, as
the researchers from the University of Wisconsin study we mentioned
earlier said, Sleep is the price people pay for brains
that are able to keep learning new things. I mean,
the brain is just such a crazy, complicated organ. So
while I'm disappointed that I won't be able to stop
sleeping anytime soon, I will admit I feel better knowing
(40:28):
just how much is going on when we're asleep. It
doesn't feel quite as much like a waste of time.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
I am so glad this part-time genius therapy session was productive.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Thank you. Thank you. But we're not done yet. You
know what time it is.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
The fact off?
Speaker 1 (40:44):
You bet.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
It's that time of the show where we get to
throw out some of the crazy, fascinating things we learned
about sleep that we didn't get to mention yet.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
All right, Mango, you first.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
So I know we talked about Keith Richards at the
top of the show and his self-reported nine days of
staying awake. But the record for the longest period without
sleep is 11 days.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
11 days?
Speaker 2 (41:03):
I know. And it's set by a student in California
named Randy Gardner way back in 1964. And what's cool
about it is that the local paper mentioned he was
going to try to set this record. And when scientists
at Stanford got wind of it, they documented it. So
there's all this documentation of Randy getting worse and worse
at math problems as he stayed up and getting increasingly
(41:24):
paranoid and getting annoyed by the people who promised to
help him stay up this long. I mean, 11 days
is a long time.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
It's an insanely long time.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
I know. And somehow Randy pulled it off. He was
doing it for a science fair project, which I don't
even know if he won, but... That part's never mentioned.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
I love that this kid comes up with the idea
and rather than people around him being like, it's a
horrible idea to stay up for 11 days, like Stanford
people and the paper.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
And everybody like, do it.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
Let's study this. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I haven't gone
that long without a Snickers bar, much less my sleep.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
So, all right, here's a fact.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
So in Finland, they celebrate National Sleepyhead Day on July 27th.
It's a tradition that dates back to the Middle Ages, actually,
and the idea is that the person sleeping the latest
that day would be the least productive member of the
family that year. So it was decided that whoever the
last sleeper was would be woken up by throwing them
into a lake or a sea or just by throwing
(42:19):
water on them. And it's particularly great because the townsfolk
will throw local politician into the water and everybody just
gets behind it.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
I like it. So, you know, Dr. Spock, the child psychologist,
in one of his early books, he has this weird
suggestion for making sure your toddler doesn't leave their crib.
And basically, he advises getting a badminton net, cutting it
in half, sewing it so it's twice as tall, and
then wrapping it around the crib to form a baby
cage every night. How crazy is that?
Speaker 1 (42:48):
Yeah, the badminton net is the weirdest part.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Like, why not a tennis net or 15 ping pong nets?
Speaker 1 (42:53):
I don't know. All right, here's another one.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
You're less likely to have an accident in your car
after daylight saving time ends and evidence points to the
extra hour of sleep as being the main reason.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
When you're tired, your sense of smell shifts into high gear,
but only for food. So it's actually why you can't
control yourself around midnight feasts late at night.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Oh, that's good. All right. All right.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
Well, people who grew up with color television tend to
dream in color. But older people who grew up with
black and white.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
TVs and movies... They actually are more likely to be
dreaming in black and white.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
I'm guessing millennials dream in gifts.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
So want to know what sea otters do to prevent
drifting away from each other when they go to sleep?
Speaker 1 (43:30):
What's that?
Speaker 2 (43:30):
They hold paws. Like sea otters actually hold hands when
they go to sleep.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Oh, come on, Mango.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
You know I can't compete with a cute fact about
sea otters. And you were just toying with me when
you threw out that moderately interesting fact about badminton.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
All right, I'll give it to you. You are this
episode's winner of the Part-Time Genius Fact Off.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Thank you so much. I have so many people to thank.
I want to start with my agent, Bobby Reynolds, my manager.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
All right, Noel, can you cue the music? Get him
off the stage. Thanks so much for listening to this
episode of Part-Time Genius with Will and Mango.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Sweet dreams.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
¶ ¶.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Thanks again for listening to Part-Time Genius. Be sure to
subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. And because we're
a brand new show, if you're feeling extra generous, we'd
love it if you'd give us a rating on Apple Podcasts.
Part-Time Genius is produced by some of our favorite geniuses.
It's edited by Tristan McNeil, theme song and audio mixing
by Noel Brown.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Our executive producer is Jerry Rowland.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
Our research team is Gabe Luzier, Lucas Adams, Autumn Whitefield-Madrano,
Austin Thompson, and Meg Robbins.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Jason Hoke is our chief cheerleader.
Speaker 5 (44:47):
Thank you.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.