December 26, 2025 • 28 mins
Handel wanted the day off, so here's some of the best stories he covered throughout 2025, including the garlicky breastmilk, the "Ignoble Awards" for the silliest research articles published in 2025, and why do women seem to live longer than men???
Happy holidays!!!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty, the bill Handle
Show on demand on the iheartradiop.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I think I'm going to pass on the shive. Yeah
you said, she.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
My cat is alive, and well she just needs medication
on a regular basis right now.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Okay, we'll see.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
We're gonna do a is a cat dead or alive
report for the rest of the holiday season.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Fair enough?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Okay, I think lifting will Do you have a Do
you have a pet?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
No, they're all dead. Excellent, That's what I wanted to
do here and.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Now handle on the news, ladies and gentlemen, here's bill Handle,
bill Handle.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Here KFI AM sixty Today we're doing something a little different.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
It's the best of the bill Handle Show.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
No kidding, that's different, The best of the bill Handle Show.
Give me a break from five now. The ig Nobel Prizes,
this is fun. This is given to scientists who do
studies a little weird maybe, but there are legitimate studies
being done. The Physics Prize went to a group of
(01:16):
Italians regarding pasta sauce.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
They study pasta sauce.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So here's another one, and this is the Pediatrics Prize
goes to Julie Manela and Gary Bouchamp. They were awarded
the Pediatric Prize for studying what a nursing baby experience
experiences when the baby's when they eats garlic.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Basically vampire babies.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Now, garlic has a history of warding off the undead,
It produces flavors and cow's milk and does can affect
body odors in humans. Sounds like a Zelman's commercial, doesn't it.
In this study, they had mothers who ingested garlic capsules
and then produced milk that had a more intense odor
(02:01):
peaked at about two hours, and the infants whose mother
ingested the garlic remained attached to the breasts for longer
periods of time.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
So there is the study.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
If you think your baby is not feeding enough and
you want your child to suckle on your breast a
longer period of time, you suckle up garlic. Better understanding
of how sensory experiences during breastfeedings. Okay, fair enough, Then
you have the Literature Prize. This is a good one.
(02:34):
This is the late doctor William Bean for persistently recording
and analyzing the rate of growth of one of his
fingernails over a period of thirty five years. There's an
ignoble prize, and he kept very detailed records and were
written in all kinds of flowery pros, referencing everything from
(02:55):
Moby Dick to medieval astrology. And his final surt the
Nail provides a slowly moving keratin chemograph that measures age
on the inexorable obsesssa of time. In other words, you
look at someone's nail over thirty five years, and it's
like rings on a tree, you can tell how old
(03:18):
someone is. This is a scientific, very scientific endeavor. Here
one of my favorites. And this was given to a
group of Japanese scientists and this is the Biology Prize,
and it went to them for their experiments to learn
whether cows painted with zebra like striping can afford can
(03:43):
avoid being bitten by flies. Now, is there a method
to this madness? Yes, because they noticed that zebras are
surprisingly unfazed and unbothered by flies, unlike cows that are
bothered by flies. They have to constantly swat the flies
(04:04):
away with their tails shake around their ears. So the
question is do zebra stripes have power over flies? So
to find out, the team painted cows with black and
white stripes like a zebra.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
That's a visual.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
The fake zebra stripes actually did decrease the.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Number of biting flies.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So to make cows feel better and not deal with flies,
let's say dairy herds, and then that now the extrapolation
is going to happen. Does that mean that you are
going to get more milk cows that are less stressed
because they're dealing with flies and all you have to
do is paint zebra stripes on the cows. Okay, not bad? That,
(04:57):
by the way, was the Peace prize? No, no, the
Peace priz No, no, no, no, no, Well, I don't
know what that prize was. I think it was in
the Physics prize. Now, the Peace Prize went to Fritz
Renner and a few other people for showing that drinking
alcohol sometimes improves a person's ability to speak in a
(05:19):
foreign language.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Now, how does that work? Here was a test.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
The idea was that alcohol improves language fluency.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
So the team recruits fifty.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Native speaking German native German speaking undergrads in the Netherlands
who were also fluent in Dutch. They were bilingual, and
they divided into two groups. One group had vodka with lemon.
The other one received playing water and then the group
that had the vodka became drunk and then engage in
conversation in Dutch, and then they were asked to rate
(05:52):
how well they thought. It turns out that being drunk
did not increase the inability to speak the other tongue.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
It made it easier.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
So if you want to speak a foreign tongue, if
you're learning to speak another language, get drunk.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
That's what that study shows.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
And then Aviation Prize went to a group studying whether
alcohol can impair a bat's ability to fly and also
their ability to echolocate. You know they use that sonar business. Now,
alcohol in the animal kingdom happens all the time. Some mammals, birds, insects,
(06:35):
they eat fruit full of ethanol and they get drunk.
So in this study, the team looked at Egyptian fruit bats,
a known to avoid fruits with ethanol, but they were
given alcohol laden fruits and yes, the bats were slower.
They echolocation faltered, much like human speech becomes slurred. And
(06:57):
the bottom line is, don't drink and fly if you're
a bat. It's pretty impressive stuff. The ig Nobel Prizes.
I think we're going to do that on an annual basis.
You know, we have to bring back the Darwin Prizes too.
We haven't done that in years. The Darwin Awards, you've
(07:20):
got honorable mentions where people don't die, and then you
have finalists where people do die. One year, the best
Darwin Prize came out of Egypt where a chicken fell
into a well and then the kid who owned the
chicken jumped into the well to save the chicken. And
then the father saw her, his son thrashing about in
(07:42):
the well. He dived. He dove in to save his son.
Both of them died and the chicken survived. That was
the Darwin winner the Darwin Award that year. To remove
these folks from the gene pool. All right, KFI am
six bill handle here today would take you back through
the top stories and well not the top sort of
(08:06):
the medium stories and moments of twenty twenty five. Now
here's a question, medical question, and it is very simple.
New York Times did an article on this. Why do
women live longer than men? Considering that women aren't as strong,
aren't as smart, they don't have the skill set.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Sorry, I'm looking at science here. I'm looking at science
that women aren't as smart.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Well, okay, maybe I'm extrapolating here and maybe I have
that wrong. Okay, but getting back to the actual facts,
in the US, women have a life expectancy of about
eighty eighty years. It's seventy five years for men. And
this is regardless of where women live in the United States,
(08:55):
doesn't matter geographically how much money they make.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
It's across the.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Board, it's all of it. It's costs every demog demographic,
every geographic area. Women simply live longer than men by
statistically five years. And they're trying to figure out what happens.
By the way, that's during times of famines and epidemics,
and even when the whole country is starving, women last longer.
(09:24):
So there's a doctor Dina Duball, professor of neurology at.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Uc San Francisco, that's one of the lead scientists looking at.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
This, and what she says is, let's look at some
of the reasons. Very complicated, and what we do have
to look at is not just longevity, because women living
longer than men doesn't necessarily mean they are living better. Women,
even though they are living longer, tend to have shorter
(09:55):
health spans the number of healthy years that women have.
We're talking qual of life. I mean, we've often said,
I've often said, the last thing I want to do
is be a vegetable. My dad, before he died, he
made me promise for twenty years, Bill, if I'm ever
(10:16):
in a wheelchair or I ever cannot get out of
a hospital bed, you have to kill me. You promise me,
you'll kill me, give me your word. He was so
frightened of not having any quality of life, and of
course I promised him. And at the black my mind thinking,
if you think I'm going to prison for twenty years
to help you out, old man, you're out of your mind.
(10:36):
So I had no intention, and he willed himself to
die by the way he did. It's quality of life
that women don't have as well as men do. Also,
women are physically more frail than men in old age. Again,
quality of life, more vulnerable, particularly after menopause, to develop
(10:56):
cardiovascular disease Alzheimer's disease. Have a greater share of Alzheimer's
disease for all of these reasons. So here's what we
know so far. The studies have been done and we're
just starting to really get the idea. There's a growing
body of research that now we go to the molecular
level that the double X set of female chromosomes women
(11:20):
are double X men or x y that may impact
longevity the very hormone itself, although they don't know exactly why.
There's the twenty eighteen study doctor Dubal did looked at
genetically manipulated mice with different combinations of sex chromosomes, reproductive organs,
and real simple two X chromosomes. The ovaries lived the longest.
(11:45):
Mice with mice with X Y chromosomes shorter lifespan. So
they're trying to figure that out. Don't know exactly what's
going on. There was something something about that second X
chromosome that was protecting mice from dying earlier in life,
even if they have scientifically what's known as testes vernacularly
known as gonads, balls, nuts, uvas, cahones. Do you understand now, Neil,
(12:13):
what I'm referring to.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yes, sir, okay, thank you very much, clear picture, okay.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
And then there here's a word that's kind of fun.
Epigenic factors. What the hell is an epigenic factor? Environment
h how about that for a spelling bee Uh. Environmental
or lifestyle elements, climate, uh, stress, chronic stress, all of
that impacts genes. How it's done, we don't know. Does
(12:42):
it affect a role in lifespan? Uh? We don't know,
And there's a lot we don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
And they're just trying to figure this out.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Uh. And does it widen to shrink the disparities between
men and women? What we do know is women live longer.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
It's that simple.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
It turns out out there's data just came out that
at least before menopause, the female immune system tends to
be better, more on it, responses are better. They're just
trying to figure out the difference between men and women,
and not just the obvious ones. You know, we have
(13:19):
different plumbing and men are I guess they're you know,
Neil and I mean, well, there are some sort of givens.
Are men more excitable than women? I think women are
more excitable. I think as a general idea, I mean,
certainly we know women are much worse drivers. As a
matter of course, that's a matter of science. We know that,
(13:43):
particularly if there's certain ethnic varieties of women who drive.
I'm not going to get into that because I don't
need the emails, but there are just some givens. Behavioral
play plays a key role. Women are generally less likely
than men to smoke or drink heavily, more men alcoholics,
(14:08):
more men's smokers than women. Women also tend to be
more health promoting, and they're more conscious of their own
health than men do.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
They go to doctors more so, more regularly.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
It's just they just think of themselves and their bodies,
and in a much greater way than men do. Now
do men really care about their bodies very much? Neil?
You ever look at yourself in the mirror when you
wake up in the morning. Do I ever look at
myself in the mirror when I wake up in the morning.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I look the other way. I try and avoid it.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Yeah, me too. Women are much more conscious about what
they look like. And if you're less conscious about what
you look like, I mean, it's sort of a given.
But I'm talking about science here. Just that he's been done,
then you let yourself go to pot. So the other thing.
During COVID, men died at a higher rate. Why because
they were more likely to hold jobs that expose them
(15:12):
to the virus. Food preparation, construction, more likely to be homeless,
more likely to be in prison where COVID spread. And
when you look at, for example, the number of men
who are in prison versus the number of women, we
have the highest population in the world of our citizens,
(15:36):
our residents in prison, not only in terms of sheer numbers,
but also per capita, and prison does not do well.
And if you have more men, let's say prison was
the only factor, women would last a whole lot longer
than men simply because of the number of men they're
(15:57):
in prison. So they're trying to figure it out. How
am I going to end? Let's go back to the
nineteenth Amendment when women were given the right to vote. Okay,
let's not because I don't need the grief from Amy
or Ann on this one.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Bill Handle here KFI AM six forty. Today we are
rewinding the clock. No, we're not. Time continues on and
we're pulling out some of your favorite moments, well my
favorite moments. I don't care what your favorite moments are.
From twenty twenty five. Okay, talking about kind of stupid
(16:40):
Katy Perry is the topic of an op ed piece
in the Atlantic, and usually I don't do these when
a single person writes an op ed piece. But based
on the fact that the response to Katy Perry going
up in the Blue Origin rocket ship, what she did and.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
What followed immediately.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Cause and uproar on social media, all of it making
fun of her and everybody, all these astronauts. And they
were up for eleven minutes, and I think wait lists
for three minutes. And I'm just gonna and people pay
fortal cost twenty million dollars something insane. She brought instead
of a medal or a little token, she brought up
(17:24):
a daisy because her daughter is named Daisy. And she
was looking down on the earth and she started singing, Well,
she's been singing since she was a kid at a
Pentecostal church that her parents belonged to. And she talked
about singing from her heart and what was before her
(17:46):
eyes the world. Okay, I mean people do that, except
she sang about the world. Right, it's a whole New
World Disney song. She lands back on earth, kisses the
ground much like the pope does.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
Yeah, she was the little drama. Yeah, she saying about
she said I kissed the world, and I liked it.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, that's and after being I asked by a reporter
because she's now officially an astronaut, you know, you get
your astronaut's wings when you go above whatever number of
miles above the earth. She said that the experience showed
her how much love you have to give and how
loved you are.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
What by going up in space all of a sudden, you're.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Loved eleven for eleven minutes, and people have been walking
her like crazy. Also, she said that she was studying
string theory to prepare for her trava peet.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Really, that's what she's quoted as saying.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
One engineer said, as an engineer, I'm disgusted by the
way string theory is probably not a prerequisite for going
up into space and just sitting around.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
It's hilarious.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Perry became famous twenty years ago, as you know, and
this story is about what happened twenty years ago, and
it's true. Twenty years ago. Pop music, well it was
dumber back then, and it was the world got a
lot more sophisticated.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
She didn't.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
At some point all of us started demanding, like, for example,
who celebrities were voting for what their views were new
crop of singers. Chappelle, Roan Rowan, You've got Sabrina Carpenter Chapel,
Sorry about that, Billie Eilish. They're just sharper and they're
(19:40):
just more in tune than the pop stars of twenty
years ago. I mean, you go back way back when
it was just you know, Moonspoon June kind of stuff.
Her most recent album is described as a bouncy, brain
dead pan or pan to pleasure, an uncomplicated empowerment. I
(20:03):
have to share this with you because I live with this,
writer said. It's lead single. Woman's World has lyrics like
an ad for panteliners and a beat like the preset
on a child's electric keyboard.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
You gotta admit that'sasio. That's pretty out there.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
That really is. Uh.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Didn't she announce what the song list was for her
new album, There is just it wasn't just like a
big pr thing for her.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I don't and I don't pay attention. I just I
was just looking at this article of this piece. Now
let's talk about sophistication. Okay, a couple of things about
what she has done. First of all, she showed up
at a met gala dressed like a hamburger.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Okay, not the end of the world.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
But during her act in Las Vegas, you talk about sophistication.
Now keep in mind you've got Taylor Swift that has
the production that is beyond insane, and you've got other
rock stars in Law Vegas. Part of her act was
she sat next to a sixteen foot toilet, talking to
a turd, talking to a guy dressed like poop man.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
I just described my job.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
It does.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Oh that's very funny. Okay, where's your toilet?
Speaker 1 (21:18):
All right? See that's not charing.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Not true. So you get the facts right.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
And now here's Heather with real news like right now
news Bill handle here kfi am six forty. Today we
take you back through the top stories and well not
the top, sort of the medium stories and moments of
twenty twenty five. Now here's a story that is troubling
(21:46):
and unfortunately growing, and it's about fake service dogs. One
of the things about service dogs is they are extraordinarily
well trained. My daughter Pamelet has a service dog, and
I'll tell you about that in a second, because it
is just a terrific story. I think in any case,
the difference between a fake service dog and A real
(22:07):
service dog is maybe six hundred hours of training and
an extraordinarily bright animal who maybe five percent of applicants
make it through. It's very, very difficult to have become
a real service dog, and people are coming out and
there's no national requirement. By the way, in terms of licensing,
(22:31):
I mean, there are certifications, but you can get a
certification from almost any place. Real organizations give certifications, and airlines,
for example, recognize those. I mean, remember support animals, for
God's sake, anybody, because they asked my support animals. So
they were bringing ferrets on airplanes and birds and pigs.
(22:54):
This is my emotional support animal.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
They stop that.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Now you've got service animals, primarily dog. Now I know
there's one organization that, for some reason, I don't know
how they do it, they train seeing eye chickens because
they're not that expensive to yet.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
But as I said, a real service dog.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Is almost impossible to train and to get a very
very few make the grade. So people come up with
their fake service dogs. They go into restaurants and the
dogs pee on the legs of the chair or they
grab food. Now, a real service dog would come into
a restaurant, you sit outside right, sit right next to you,
(23:37):
buy the chair, doesn't ask for food and just sits
there and waits until his or her owner gets up
and leaves and doesn't move. Same thing getting on an
airplane with a real service dog. I don't know if
you've ever been on a plane with a service dog.
Usually they get the bulkhead seat at the very front
and the dog just sits at the feet of it
(24:00):
owner and does not move, does not whimper, doesn't cry,
doesn't move around, just sit there and they are totally socialized.
That's what they're trained to do, and these fake ones
are ruining it for the real ones. So now the
story of my daughter who has a service dog. My
(24:22):
daughter wanted a dog for years and years and my
ex kept on saying nope, nope, nope, so my daughter
didn't end around. Now she is on anti anxiety drugs
because this is the my genes.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
So my two daughters are on anti anxiety drugs.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
And at Kaiser you need a psychiatrist to get those drugs.
And I go once a year, for example, for fifteen
minutes to have the psychiatrist go ahead and give me
a prescription and ask questions, are you any changes are
you okay? You know anything going on? I go no,
but I have this incredible desire to run over kittens.
(25:01):
That was last time, And the shrink said what what
and started typing.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Furiously. I said, I'm joking, stop it.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
So anyway, Pamela got her shrink to prescribe a service dog.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Okay for anxiety.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
She also has a medical condition with her heart beats
fast and Kendall man can read it immediately and goes
over there and calms her down.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
I mean, Kendall is an amazing dog.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
So let me tell you how much it costs to
get a service dog. Now, in many cases, the dogs
are free because these are charities that run them, that
train the dogs, and there's a waiting list. People that
have the money just pay for the dog, the training
and are you ready for this? That dog Kendall cost
(26:02):
me twenty eight thousand dollars. That's how expensive it is
to train a dog. And this is a nonprofit that
trains the dogs, and it can take years. Matter of fact,
Pamela waited eighteen months to get Kendall because not only
is the training extraordinary, but they actually matched the personality.
(26:23):
When Pamela went to get Kendal. There were a group
of dogs and a group of people that were there.
Kendall literally ran out into the room Pamela was sitting.
She was cross legged. Kendall jumped into her lap. Boom done.
So she knew. So let me tell you about the
(26:43):
end of this story. By the way, it was a
nonprofit so I was at least able to deduct the money.
And that is that these dogs are so highly trained
that the owner has to keep on working with the dogs.
You know, you have to practice over and over again
and work with the dogs. And my daughter doesn't do that.
(27:06):
So you know what I have. You know what she has.
She has a twenty eight thousand dollars dog. It's a dog,
the same kind of dog you go to a shelter
and you pay two hundred bucks.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
For the shots. But it's a great dog. It is
a great dog. Huh. But it's a real service dog,
it really is.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Well. The other thing about service dogs, and Kendall to
a great extent does is obviously I'm exaggerating a bit,
but not much, and that is service dogs, when they
have their vests on, they go to work. I mean,
they do what they're supposed to do. Take that vest off,
and they're just dogs. And they romp and they play
and they have a good time. Put the vest back on,
(27:55):
they go to work, and they're extraordinary.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
They really are extraords. I should have put a picture
of Candle up there, romping around.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Okay, and now it's time for some news that's not recorded,
because we're playing you a recording, but we're pretending I'm
still here.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI A
M six forty
You're listening to KFI AM six forty, the bill Handle
Show on demand on the iheartradiop.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I think I'm going to pass on the shive. Yeah
you said, she.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
My cat is alive, and well she just needs medication
on a regular basis right now.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Okay, we'll see.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
We're gonna do a is a cat dead or alive
report for the rest of the holiday season.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Fair enough?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Okay, I think lifting will Do you have a Do
you have a pet?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
No, they're all dead. Excellent, That's what I wanted to
do here and.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Now handle on the news, ladies and gentlemen, here's bill Handle,
bill Handle.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Here KFI AM sixty Today we're doing something a little different.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
It's the best of the bill Handle Show.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
No kidding, that's different, The best of the bill Handle Show.
Give me a break from five now. The ig Nobel Prizes,
this is fun. This is given to scientists who do
studies a little weird maybe, but there are legitimate studies
being done. The Physics Prize went to a group of
(01:16):
Italians regarding pasta sauce.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
They study pasta sauce.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So here's another one, and this is the Pediatrics Prize
goes to Julie Manela and Gary Bouchamp. They were awarded
the Pediatric Prize for studying what a nursing baby experience
experiences when the baby's when they eats garlic.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Basically vampire babies.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Now, garlic has a history of warding off the undead,
It produces flavors and cow's milk and does can affect
body odors in humans. Sounds like a Zelman's commercial, doesn't it.
In this study, they had mothers who ingested garlic capsules
and then produced milk that had a more intense odor
(02:01):
peaked at about two hours, and the infants whose mother
ingested the garlic remained attached to the breasts for longer
periods of time.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
So there is the study.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
If you think your baby is not feeding enough and
you want your child to suckle on your breast a
longer period of time, you suckle up garlic. Better understanding
of how sensory experiences during breastfeedings. Okay, fair enough, Then
you have the Literature Prize. This is a good one.
(02:34):
This is the late doctor William Bean for persistently recording
and analyzing the rate of growth of one of his
fingernails over a period of thirty five years. There's an
ignoble prize, and he kept very detailed records and were
written in all kinds of flowery pros, referencing everything from
(02:55):
Moby Dick to medieval astrology. And his final surt the
Nail provides a slowly moving keratin chemograph that measures age
on the inexorable obsesssa of time. In other words, you
look at someone's nail over thirty five years, and it's
like rings on a tree, you can tell how old
(03:18):
someone is. This is a scientific, very scientific endeavor. Here
one of my favorites. And this was given to a
group of Japanese scientists and this is the Biology Prize,
and it went to them for their experiments to learn
whether cows painted with zebra like striping can afford can
(03:43):
avoid being bitten by flies. Now, is there a method
to this madness? Yes, because they noticed that zebras are
surprisingly unfazed and unbothered by flies, unlike cows that are
bothered by flies. They have to constantly swat the flies
(04:04):
away with their tails shake around their ears. So the
question is do zebra stripes have power over flies? So
to find out, the team painted cows with black and
white stripes like a zebra.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
That's a visual.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
The fake zebra stripes actually did decrease the.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Number of biting flies.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So to make cows feel better and not deal with flies,
let's say dairy herds, and then that now the extrapolation
is going to happen. Does that mean that you are
going to get more milk cows that are less stressed
because they're dealing with flies and all you have to
do is paint zebra stripes on the cows. Okay, not bad? That,
(04:57):
by the way, was the Peace prize? No, no, the
Peace priz No, no, no, no, no, Well, I don't
know what that prize was. I think it was in
the Physics prize. Now, the Peace Prize went to Fritz
Renner and a few other people for showing that drinking
alcohol sometimes improves a person's ability to speak in a
(05:19):
foreign language.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Now, how does that work? Here was a test.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
The idea was that alcohol improves language fluency.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
So the team recruits fifty.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Native speaking German native German speaking undergrads in the Netherlands
who were also fluent in Dutch. They were bilingual, and
they divided into two groups. One group had vodka with lemon.
The other one received playing water and then the group
that had the vodka became drunk and then engage in
conversation in Dutch, and then they were asked to rate
(05:52):
how well they thought. It turns out that being drunk
did not increase the inability to speak the other tongue.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
It made it easier.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
So if you want to speak a foreign tongue, if
you're learning to speak another language, get drunk.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
That's what that study shows.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
And then Aviation Prize went to a group studying whether
alcohol can impair a bat's ability to fly and also
their ability to echolocate. You know they use that sonar business. Now,
alcohol in the animal kingdom happens all the time. Some mammals, birds, insects,
(06:35):
they eat fruit full of ethanol and they get drunk.
So in this study, the team looked at Egyptian fruit bats,
a known to avoid fruits with ethanol, but they were
given alcohol laden fruits and yes, the bats were slower.
They echolocation faltered, much like human speech becomes slurred. And
(06:57):
the bottom line is, don't drink and fly if you're
a bat. It's pretty impressive stuff. The ig Nobel Prizes.
I think we're going to do that on an annual basis.
You know, we have to bring back the Darwin Prizes too.
We haven't done that in years. The Darwin Awards, you've
(07:20):
got honorable mentions where people don't die, and then you
have finalists where people do die. One year, the best
Darwin Prize came out of Egypt where a chicken fell
into a well and then the kid who owned the
chicken jumped into the well to save the chicken. And
then the father saw her, his son thrashing about in
(07:42):
the well. He dived. He dove in to save his son.
Both of them died and the chicken survived. That was
the Darwin winner the Darwin Award that year. To remove
these folks from the gene pool. All right, KFI am
six bill handle here today would take you back through
the top stories and well not the top sort of
(08:06):
the medium stories and moments of twenty twenty five. Now
here's a question, medical question, and it is very simple.
New York Times did an article on this. Why do
women live longer than men? Considering that women aren't as strong,
aren't as smart, they don't have the skill set.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Sorry, I'm looking at science here. I'm looking at science
that women aren't as smart.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Well, okay, maybe I'm extrapolating here and maybe I have
that wrong. Okay, but getting back to the actual facts,
in the US, women have a life expectancy of about
eighty eighty years. It's seventy five years for men. And
this is regardless of where women live in the United States,
(08:55):
doesn't matter geographically how much money they make.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
It's across the.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Board, it's all of it. It's costs every demog demographic,
every geographic area. Women simply live longer than men by
statistically five years. And they're trying to figure out what happens.
By the way, that's during times of famines and epidemics,
and even when the whole country is starving, women last longer.
(09:24):
So there's a doctor Dina Duball, professor of neurology at.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Uc San Francisco, that's one of the lead scientists looking at.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
This, and what she says is, let's look at some
of the reasons. Very complicated, and what we do have
to look at is not just longevity, because women living
longer than men doesn't necessarily mean they are living better. Women,
even though they are living longer, tend to have shorter
(09:55):
health spans the number of healthy years that women have.
We're talking qual of life. I mean, we've often said,
I've often said, the last thing I want to do
is be a vegetable. My dad, before he died, he
made me promise for twenty years, Bill, if I'm ever
(10:16):
in a wheelchair or I ever cannot get out of
a hospital bed, you have to kill me. You promise me,
you'll kill me, give me your word. He was so
frightened of not having any quality of life, and of
course I promised him. And at the black my mind thinking,
if you think I'm going to prison for twenty years
to help you out, old man, you're out of your mind.
(10:36):
So I had no intention, and he willed himself to
die by the way he did. It's quality of life
that women don't have as well as men do. Also,
women are physically more frail than men in old age. Again,
quality of life, more vulnerable, particularly after menopause, to develop
(10:56):
cardiovascular disease Alzheimer's disease. Have a greater share of Alzheimer's
disease for all of these reasons. So here's what we
know so far. The studies have been done and we're
just starting to really get the idea. There's a growing
body of research that now we go to the molecular
level that the double X set of female chromosomes women
(11:20):
are double X men or x y that may impact
longevity the very hormone itself, although they don't know exactly why.
There's the twenty eighteen study doctor Dubal did looked at
genetically manipulated mice with different combinations of sex chromosomes, reproductive organs,
and real simple two X chromosomes. The ovaries lived the longest.
(11:45):
Mice with mice with X Y chromosomes shorter lifespan. So
they're trying to figure that out. Don't know exactly what's
going on. There was something something about that second X
chromosome that was protecting mice from dying earlier in life,
even if they have scientifically what's known as testes vernacularly
known as gonads, balls, nuts, uvas, cahones. Do you understand now, Neil,
(12:13):
what I'm referring to.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yes, sir, okay, thank you very much, clear picture, okay.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
And then there here's a word that's kind of fun.
Epigenic factors. What the hell is an epigenic factor? Environment
h how about that for a spelling bee Uh. Environmental
or lifestyle elements, climate, uh, stress, chronic stress, all of
that impacts genes. How it's done, we don't know. Does
(12:42):
it affect a role in lifespan? Uh? We don't know,
And there's a lot we don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
And they're just trying to figure this out.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Uh. And does it widen to shrink the disparities between
men and women? What we do know is women live longer.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
It's that simple.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
It turns out out there's data just came out that
at least before menopause, the female immune system tends to
be better, more on it, responses are better. They're just
trying to figure out the difference between men and women,
and not just the obvious ones. You know, we have
(13:19):
different plumbing and men are I guess they're you know,
Neil and I mean, well, there are some sort of givens.
Are men more excitable than women? I think women are
more excitable. I think as a general idea, I mean,
certainly we know women are much worse drivers. As a
matter of course, that's a matter of science. We know that,
(13:43):
particularly if there's certain ethnic varieties of women who drive.
I'm not going to get into that because I don't
need the emails, but there are just some givens. Behavioral
play plays a key role. Women are generally less likely
than men to smoke or drink heavily, more men alcoholics,
(14:08):
more men's smokers than women. Women also tend to be
more health promoting, and they're more conscious of their own
health than men do.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
They go to doctors more so, more regularly.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
It's just they just think of themselves and their bodies,
and in a much greater way than men do. Now
do men really care about their bodies very much? Neil?
You ever look at yourself in the mirror when you
wake up in the morning. Do I ever look at
myself in the mirror when I wake up in the morning.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I look the other way. I try and avoid it.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Yeah, me too. Women are much more conscious about what
they look like. And if you're less conscious about what
you look like, I mean, it's sort of a given.
But I'm talking about science here. Just that he's been done,
then you let yourself go to pot. So the other thing.
During COVID, men died at a higher rate. Why because
they were more likely to hold jobs that expose them
(15:12):
to the virus. Food preparation, construction, more likely to be homeless,
more likely to be in prison where COVID spread. And
when you look at, for example, the number of men
who are in prison versus the number of women, we
have the highest population in the world of our citizens,
(15:36):
our residents in prison, not only in terms of sheer numbers,
but also per capita, and prison does not do well.
And if you have more men, let's say prison was
the only factor, women would last a whole lot longer
than men simply because of the number of men they're
(15:57):
in prison. So they're trying to figure it out. How
am I going to end? Let's go back to the
nineteenth Amendment when women were given the right to vote. Okay,
let's not because I don't need the grief from Amy
or Ann on this one.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Bill Handle here KFI AM six forty. Today we are
rewinding the clock. No, we're not. Time continues on and
we're pulling out some of your favorite moments, well my
favorite moments. I don't care what your favorite moments are.
From twenty twenty five. Okay, talking about kind of stupid
(16:40):
Katy Perry is the topic of an op ed piece
in the Atlantic, and usually I don't do these when
a single person writes an op ed piece. But based
on the fact that the response to Katy Perry going
up in the Blue Origin rocket ship, what she did and.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
What followed immediately.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Cause and uproar on social media, all of it making
fun of her and everybody, all these astronauts. And they
were up for eleven minutes, and I think wait lists
for three minutes. And I'm just gonna and people pay
fortal cost twenty million dollars something insane. She brought instead
of a medal or a little token, she brought up
(17:24):
a daisy because her daughter is named Daisy. And she
was looking down on the earth and she started singing, Well,
she's been singing since she was a kid at a
Pentecostal church that her parents belonged to. And she talked
about singing from her heart and what was before her
(17:46):
eyes the world. Okay, I mean people do that, except
she sang about the world. Right, it's a whole New
World Disney song. She lands back on earth, kisses the
ground much like the pope does.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
Yeah, she was the little drama. Yeah, she saying about
she said I kissed the world, and I liked it.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, that's and after being I asked by a reporter
because she's now officially an astronaut, you know, you get
your astronaut's wings when you go above whatever number of
miles above the earth. She said that the experience showed
her how much love you have to give and how
loved you are.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
What by going up in space all of a sudden, you're.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Loved eleven for eleven minutes, and people have been walking
her like crazy. Also, she said that she was studying
string theory to prepare for her trava peet.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Really, that's what she's quoted as saying.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
One engineer said, as an engineer, I'm disgusted by the
way string theory is probably not a prerequisite for going
up into space and just sitting around.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
It's hilarious.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Perry became famous twenty years ago, as you know, and
this story is about what happened twenty years ago, and
it's true. Twenty years ago. Pop music, well it was
dumber back then, and it was the world got a
lot more sophisticated.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
She didn't.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
At some point all of us started demanding, like, for example,
who celebrities were voting for what their views were new
crop of singers. Chappelle, Roan Rowan, You've got Sabrina Carpenter Chapel,
Sorry about that, Billie Eilish. They're just sharper and they're
(19:40):
just more in tune than the pop stars of twenty
years ago. I mean, you go back way back when
it was just you know, Moonspoon June kind of stuff.
Her most recent album is described as a bouncy, brain
dead pan or pan to pleasure, an uncomplicated empowerment. I
(20:03):
have to share this with you because I live with this,
writer said. It's lead single. Woman's World has lyrics like
an ad for panteliners and a beat like the preset
on a child's electric keyboard.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
You gotta admit that'sasio. That's pretty out there.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
That really is. Uh.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Didn't she announce what the song list was for her
new album, There is just it wasn't just like a
big pr thing for her.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I don't and I don't pay attention. I just I
was just looking at this article of this piece. Now
let's talk about sophistication. Okay, a couple of things about
what she has done. First of all, she showed up
at a met gala dressed like a hamburger.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Okay, not the end of the world.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
But during her act in Las Vegas, you talk about sophistication.
Now keep in mind you've got Taylor Swift that has
the production that is beyond insane, and you've got other
rock stars in Law Vegas. Part of her act was
she sat next to a sixteen foot toilet, talking to
a turd, talking to a guy dressed like poop man.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
I just described my job.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
It does.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Oh that's very funny. Okay, where's your toilet?
Speaker 1 (21:18):
All right? See that's not charing.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Not true. So you get the facts right.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
And now here's Heather with real news like right now
news Bill handle here kfi am six forty. Today we
take you back through the top stories and well not
the top, sort of the medium stories and moments of
twenty twenty five. Now here's a story that is troubling
(21:46):
and unfortunately growing, and it's about fake service dogs. One
of the things about service dogs is they are extraordinarily
well trained. My daughter Pamelet has a service dog, and
I'll tell you about that in a second, because it
is just a terrific story. I think in any case,
the difference between a fake service dog and A real
(22:07):
service dog is maybe six hundred hours of training and
an extraordinarily bright animal who maybe five percent of applicants
make it through. It's very, very difficult to have become
a real service dog, and people are coming out and
there's no national requirement. By the way, in terms of licensing,
(22:31):
I mean, there are certifications, but you can get a
certification from almost any place. Real organizations give certifications, and airlines,
for example, recognize those. I mean, remember support animals, for
God's sake, anybody, because they asked my support animals. So
they were bringing ferrets on airplanes and birds and pigs.
(22:54):
This is my emotional support animal.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
They stop that.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Now you've got service animals, primarily dog. Now I know
there's one organization that, for some reason, I don't know
how they do it, they train seeing eye chickens because
they're not that expensive to yet.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
But as I said, a real service dog.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Is almost impossible to train and to get a very
very few make the grade. So people come up with
their fake service dogs. They go into restaurants and the
dogs pee on the legs of the chair or they
grab food. Now, a real service dog would come into
a restaurant, you sit outside right, sit right next to you,
(23:37):
buy the chair, doesn't ask for food and just sits
there and waits until his or her owner gets up
and leaves and doesn't move. Same thing getting on an
airplane with a real service dog. I don't know if
you've ever been on a plane with a service dog.
Usually they get the bulkhead seat at the very front
and the dog just sits at the feet of it
(24:00):
owner and does not move, does not whimper, doesn't cry,
doesn't move around, just sit there and they are totally socialized.
That's what they're trained to do, and these fake ones
are ruining it for the real ones. So now the
story of my daughter who has a service dog. My
(24:22):
daughter wanted a dog for years and years and my
ex kept on saying nope, nope, nope, so my daughter
didn't end around. Now she is on anti anxiety drugs
because this is the my genes.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
So my two daughters are on anti anxiety drugs.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
And at Kaiser you need a psychiatrist to get those drugs.
And I go once a year, for example, for fifteen
minutes to have the psychiatrist go ahead and give me
a prescription and ask questions, are you any changes are
you okay? You know anything going on? I go no,
but I have this incredible desire to run over kittens.
(25:01):
That was last time, And the shrink said what what
and started typing.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Furiously. I said, I'm joking, stop it.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
So anyway, Pamela got her shrink to prescribe a service dog.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Okay for anxiety.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
She also has a medical condition with her heart beats
fast and Kendall man can read it immediately and goes
over there and calms her down.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
I mean, Kendall is an amazing dog.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
So let me tell you how much it costs to
get a service dog. Now, in many cases, the dogs
are free because these are charities that run them, that
train the dogs, and there's a waiting list. People that
have the money just pay for the dog, the training
and are you ready for this? That dog Kendall cost
(26:02):
me twenty eight thousand dollars. That's how expensive it is
to train a dog. And this is a nonprofit that
trains the dogs, and it can take years. Matter of fact,
Pamela waited eighteen months to get Kendall because not only
is the training extraordinary, but they actually matched the personality.
(26:23):
When Pamela went to get Kendal. There were a group
of dogs and a group of people that were there.
Kendall literally ran out into the room Pamela was sitting.
She was cross legged. Kendall jumped into her lap. Boom done.
So she knew. So let me tell you about the
(26:43):
end of this story. By the way, it was a
nonprofit so I was at least able to deduct the money.
And that is that these dogs are so highly trained
that the owner has to keep on working with the dogs.
You know, you have to practice over and over again
and work with the dogs. And my daughter doesn't do that.
(27:06):
So you know what I have. You know what she has.
She has a twenty eight thousand dollars dog. It's a dog,
the same kind of dog you go to a shelter
and you pay two hundred bucks.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
For the shots. But it's a great dog. It is
a great dog. Huh. But it's a real service dog,
it really is.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Well. The other thing about service dogs, and Kendall to
a great extent does is obviously I'm exaggerating a bit,
but not much, and that is service dogs, when they
have their vests on, they go to work. I mean,
they do what they're supposed to do. Take that vest off,
and they're just dogs. And they romp and they play
and they have a good time. Put the vest back on,
(27:55):
they go to work, and they're extraordinary.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
They really are extraords. I should have put a picture
of Candle up there, romping around.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Okay, and now it's time for some news that's not recorded,
because we're playing you a recording, but we're pretending I'm
still here.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI A
M six forty
The Bill Handel Show News
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