What’s lurking in the weirdest corners of the scientific universe? – Let’s talk about that. (gentle upbeat music) – Good Mythical Morning! – You know him from “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Only Murders In The Building.” He’s also one of the creators of a brand new gaming app called Homeschooled. Please welcome Jesse Williams! Give us one of these. – Thank you. – Yes! Yes. – Welcome to the show man. – Thank you so much, guys. – Excited to have you here and also excited about the Homeschooled app because it teaches to celebrates history and culture using trivia and you guys should check it out wherever you get your apps. – Uh-huh. Okay, Jesse. – Yeah? – Are you one of those guys who, in like, normal, everyday conversation, says things like, “You know, a recent study found that…” – No. – All right. – I may say something like, “Oh, I just read this new article,” or “I just heard this or-” – This article based on a study? – I don’t know if I’m using study unless I’m like- – See, study, that’s like- – I recently published periodical. No. – Yeah. – I feel like that’s a little out of my depth. I feel like unless I’m in… – Article’s good. But when somebody drops study, it’s like, oh, oh, man! That’s a conversation changer. – It suggests you read a study, which you very didn’t do. – Exactly! That’s what I’m getting at. My point is, we need to be ready for the next time somebody says, “A recent study,” so that we can know if they’re just making it up. – Right, right. – But how on Earth would we get good at that? – It seems like trial and error with some experimental game. – What if we played a game? – Yeah, yeah. – Yeah, yeah. What if we played a game that- – Can we arrange a game and play it right now that tackles this very question? – Now? Talk about problem solving. All right. – (snaps) Yes, ;et’s do it. It’s time for “Science is Amazing! Except for When It’s Stupid with Jesse Williams.” – [Jesse] Did my name have to be so close to stupid? (group laughing) (screen whooshing) (playful music) – [Stevie] Okay, guys, here’s how this is gonna go. Each round, a couple of totally certified scientists are going to present you with two ridiculous scientific studies and it’s up to you to decide which one was actually conducted and which one we just made up. – See? – [Stevie] Each answer will be represented by a mysterious concoction. If you drink the one tied to the right answer, it should taste pretty good. If you choose the wrong answer, let’s just say some bad science may start happening in your stomach. – And we gotta drink it with these? – Yeah. – Syringes. I mean, what? – [Stevie] You can choose how much liquid you want to syringe. – I’ve been drinking with syringes lately, so I’m betting. (crew laughing) – It’s an indicator of confidence how much you commit to. – Okay. There you go. I think it’s like a bet. – It’s an arrogant… – I think it’s an indicator of mouth size. Yeah. (crew laughing) And I got a pretty little mouth. So I’m not… – I got a pretty little mouth. (Rhett laughing) – I’m not saying that. – I got a 50 mil mouth. – [Stevie] Scientists, please go ahead and tell us about your studies. – Hello. I’m a scientist. (crew laughing) I conducted an experiment on a 60-year-old patient who couldn’t stop hiccupping. These hiccups lasted so long that they needed medical attention, so I conducted an experiment on the person by massaging the rectum with a finger. (Rhett and crew laughing) And it worked! No more hiccups, but a few hours later, they came back. – Yeah, they did. (group laughing) – To test my theory- – For more treatment. Yeah. – I tried to massage the rectum again with a finger and completely proving my theory that by massaging the rectum with a finger, it works. (David faking hiccups) Got the hiccups. – Somebody’s gotta help out David. (crew laughing) Any volunteers? (Jesse and Rhett laughing) – Mikayla, I’m sorry you had to stand beside him as he told us about that. – It was intriguing, though. It’s very intriguing. – That was a 60 year old patient, right? – Yeah, yeah. 60. – Okay. Good. – All right. Hello. I am a scientist. (crew laughing) I’m from Stanford University and I studied the physical effects of violent sneezing, AKA intractable sneezing. – Violent sneezes? – Yeah, so, to do so- – Stabby. – I attached a accurate representation of a human adult skull and a child’s skull to a paint shaker and shook ’em up. And then I found that it’s possible for teeth to fall out or fly out of a child’s skull through the shaking, if they sneeze hard enough. So it’s never happened to a human adult, but it could. – What? – That sounds like a real study. You know, because- – Somebody can sneeze so hard… – The tooth comes out. – But a finger will go up your rectum? – Yeah, yeah, yeah. (Jesse laughing) – Yeah, I think he might be getting confused a little bit. – It’s also a child’s tooth and children are the ones who have loose teeth that fall out. – Right. – So I’m wondering about the dataset there. Do they not have loose teeth? – And the paint shaker where that comes into play. It sort of, that resembles a sneeze? – A paint shaker’s very violent, now that I just finally actually realized what the hell that word means. – Right. – What that refers to. – And so you wanna suck from the orange if you think that she’s being for real about that because… – So we got two stories. Are we picking from? – This is- – This is rectum. – [Jesse] Oh, got it. Got it. – [Link] This is finger rectum. – This is rectum juice. – Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. – Tooth juice. Tooth juice, rectum juice. – Rectum juice. – Good Lord, why did I sign for this? – I mean, I know that there’s people who they can’t stop hiccuping forever. – Yes. – Sometimes you get desperate, man. – And one of the top moves to solve any problem is a finger up the rectum. – (laughs) Yeah, right. – People are looking for excuses to- – Right. – [Rhett] Yeah. – I’m trying it for medical reasons. – If all else fails, hey, listen, guys. I’m going rectum juice. 50 mil of rectum juice. – There’s no way it’s rectum juice. – Violence. Yeah, I’m… – That’s a lot, guys. – I did not expect to use this phrase today, but I, too, am going rectum juice. (Rhett laughs) – Dude, y’all are crazy! – Yeah, I know. That’s how science works. – If that works- – Here we go. – Here we go. (syringes squirting) We’re right! – How are you right? – Yeah! – Correct. – And that was a lot of force, too. – Yeah, yeah. – You got tooth juice all over my leg. – That’s nice. – Sorry. – Real nice. – [Stevie] It turns out that researchers in 1990 at the Bnai Zion Medical Center in Israel found that massaging your rectum can stop a nasty case of the hiccups. (bell dings) And so the purpley-blue drink was just Gatorade and Link, you got a bunch of citric acid. – Wow. – Well, that’s Vitamin C, right? – Yeah. – I’m gonna stick with the hiccups. – Yeah. (screen whooshing) (lively music) – Oh, it looks like we’ve got two new scientists. – We have so many scientists working for us here, Jesse. – Yeah, they’re nice. They’re color coded so we can keep track of them. – Are you guys scientists? – I’m a scientist. – Rhett Yeah. Okay. – Yeah, I’m a scientist. – Oh, both. Great. – Let’s hear it. – Hi, I’m a scientist. (group laughing) I spent time and money conducting an experiment that answers the question, why do wombats make cube-shaped poop? That’s right. Wombats are the only animals who make cube poops and I just had to find out why. You see, their feces begins as a wet, yogurt-like slurry in their stomach and ends as a solid with six flat sides and eight distinct corners. – Wow. – Also known as a cube. Did I get to the bottom of why this cube poop happens? You bet I did. – Cube poop. – Cube poops. – I’d like to make some cube poop. – Hold on. You’re not gonna tell us? – I was waiting on the. Okay. (crew laughing) All right. – That’d be a little party trick. You know? – I remember seeing a model of a toy, a bad toy of like, you know, like, the Play-doh things you would slide in? – Yeah, yeah, yeah. – Star shaped or whatever for the Play-Doh. – Yeah. Extrusions. – But they did that for kids’ poop. I think it was a fake toy. It was made in the 70s. You never know, but… – It was to remind you what kids’ poop looks like? – So it could change the shape. Make the kids’ poop push out into the shape. – You supply your own star poop. – Like star poop. – Yeah. Like star poop. Exactly. – Oh, wow. You just put that on your rectum and you don’t hiccup ever again. – Right. Exactly. Problem solved. All right. – I think it’s so the poop doesn’t roll downhill. – So it just sits. – You know, they put it where they want it. – Yeah ’cause the wombats are always on slopes. – And that’s how you can tell whether it’s gonna be spring for another two months. – Oh, wow. We’re the scientist. – In Australia or something. – All right. – Green scientist. – Hi, I am a scientist. – I led a group of researchers who wanted to know how sea otters respond to pop music. So we played the sea otters pop music while monitoring their serotonin levels. We played them like, The Weekend. We played them like… (crew laughing) Ed Sheeran, who’s pop. Other pop artists of the modern times. Towards the end of the study, we recorded massive levels of serotonin when the otters were listening to Taylor Swift, but really bottomed out levels when they were listening to Justin Beiber. – Whoa. – Wow. Wow. – Wow. – Wow. – The pronunciations are offering a really nice twist. – Wow. The Weekend. – Otters? – The Wiccan version of The Weekend. – Yeah. I’m interested. – I would like to see cans on an otter. – Actually, I think studying the impact of music on animals, I feel like I totally buy that somebody’s doing that. – Right. – As much as curious as I am about the wombat, it presupposes we all agree that wombats make cube poop, which I’m not sure I’m entirely sold on. – Yeah ’cause how would you do that? I mean, how would that even happen? – You’d have to… – Back to the rectum. – Gastroenterologist involved. – You got an angular rectum and you just, I don’t know. It could happen. Yeah, you know what? So what? – [Jesse] Which one? Okay. – [Link] I’m going for it. – [Jesse] All right. – [Rhett] Well, I was kind of throw you guys off. I’m going milky. Milky stuff. – I’m going pop otters. – [Link] Okay. – All right. – Let’s do it. (syringes squirting) (Jesse gagging) (crew laughing) – What you got? What? Oh, you need this? (Rhett and crew laughing) – Wow. I was right. (Rhett and crew laughing) – Holy. – I actually knew. – No, you were wrong. – That is so salty. – Did you know about the cube poop? Because I did. – You did? – You guys, when we were in Australia- – [Link] Yes. – You guys got to go to the wombats. I couldn’t ’cause I had to stay in the room with Shepherd. – And there were signs everywhere that said, “Don’t pet the wombats. Don’t put your fingers in.” – In their rectum. – In the rectum. – Was touch a wombat, but- – And he got his finger bit. – That was the one thing thing I remember was that he was like, “Dad, they make cube poop.” – Really? See, I did not have that information. – I was hoping you wouldn’t remember that. – But why did this taste like crap, too? – [Stevie] Oh, it’s just coconut milk. – It’s just coconut milk. – I love coconut milk. – Oh, here. Take. – I can wash it down coconut milk for real? – Yeah. – [Stevie] The wombat poop study actually won the scientists a Nobel Prize. And we have, here’s the 3D model of the cube shape wombat poop from the study. – [Link] Oh, wow. – [Jesse] It’s more like a bale. – [Rhett] Yeah, it’s like- – Link Yeah. – [Rhett] It’s as close to cube as you can get with a rectum. – Wow. Yeah. Well, I mean, if they give ’em the hiccups. Give the wombat the hiccups. Now, we’re in business. Wow. All right. – I could look at that all day. – Are we sure nobody’s ever put headphones on an otter and played them Taylor Swift? I feel like… – Yeah, it does feel like. – We now know our calling. – Well, now we know this is a great anti-venom, too. What is this salty discharge that I just drank? – [Stevie] It’s just salt, yeah. – Wow. – It’s just salt water. (screen whooshing) (lively music) – We’re learning so much. Do you have capacity for more science? – I feel like this pushed me to the edge, but as long as we have a nice, creamy antidote somewhere on hand. – Yeah, we’ll get that coconut milk. – Good Lord. – It looks like we’ve got two new scientists that look like some of our previous scientists. – Hi, I’m a scientist. – Rhett Yeah, still a scientist. – So, with the exception of water, my colleagues and I drank only Diet Coke for three months to learn how the chemical makeup would affect the average adult’s hearing. – Hearing? – Hearing. – You’ve been drinking Diet Coke? (crew laughing) – Maybe. (laughs) At the end of- (crew laughing) – She knows I don’t listen to her. (Jesse and Rhett laughing) – At the end of the trial period, we found our ability to hear low frequencies actually improved. – [Rhett] Oh! – That’s because the levels of acid in Diet Coke strengthen the retinoic acid enzymes in our ears. Duh! (Rhett laughs) – Of course they did. – I love it when a scientist duh’s me. – Yeah, that’s how you know they have a degree. (crew laughing) Okay. Very interesting twists and turns in that. – Diet Coke makes you hear lower frequencies. That’s dumb. – Yes, it does. – Or other things that happen when you’re dying, a lot of things can happen in the way your senses respond. – Right. (laughing) Exactly, exactly, exactly. – It changes your perception. – I’m another scientist. – [Jesse] Okay. – So there’s a well-known account of the old Inuit man who wanted to live out on the ice, but his family wanted to move him into a settlement. In an effort to prevent him from going out into the wilderness alone, they took away all of his tools and took him back to their igloo. One night, dark and stormy. Let’s say it was a winter gale of some kind. He walked outside and defecates on the ground. He rolls the defecation into the shape of a blade and then sharpens and hones the blade with a splash of his saliva. After that, he uses the knife to kill a dog, local dog. – Wait, wait. Hold on. (Jesse and crew laughing) – Sorry, I’m not- – It was local. It was local farm raised dog. – [Crew Member] Excuse me. I’m almost there. – How is this a study? – Is this a study or like, an epic movie? – Science is epic. – Science is epic. Inspiration comes from everywhere. He kills a dog and he rips its ribcage out, which he fashions into a sled. He uses the dog’s hide to harness another dog, friend of the first dog, and he escapes into the night, never to be seen again. – This sounds like Pickle Rick. – Anyway, you know, I did a study to see if you can make a knife out of human poop. (crew laughing) – Oh, oh, oh. – Way to land the plane there at the end. – Thank you. – All right. – The old poop knife. – (laughs) Get your head around that? – We keep going back to this rectum poop well. I’m embarrassed, Jesse. – Well, it was also, keep in mind, it was a gale of some sort. – Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. – That’s really the center. (laughing) I believe that hardened poop can be fashioned into a blade at those temperatures. – I agree. – So I’m gonna, for the second time today, go with poop. Poop water. – Oh, I’m 100% on poop knife. – I think the saliva was in quotes. Was there suspicion behind that? – Yeah. What was up with that? I noticed that. – It says saliva, but what are talking about here? – [Jesse] Other bodily fluids. – This guy had rules that he lived by. – Uh-huh. Uh-huh. – Yeah. I’m definitely team poop now. – I’m going green. Poop knife it is. – [Link] Well, I’m not because… – Which means you’re Diet Coke hearing loss. Hearing gain. – Hearing gain. – Yeah. – Yeah. I wasn’t buying it, but. – I drink Diet Coke and I haven’t noticed hearing any lower things. I can’t understand elephants. – All right, let’s give it a shot. – Suck it, boys. (syringes squirting) – Mine get sound effects and we’re correct! – Yeah, that’s right. – Another one, please. – It’s got something that’s fishy of some sort. – [Stevie] Yeah, it’s hot dog water and tuna water mixed together. (Rhett laughs) – Oh, I’m so glad I didn’t get that. – Curious? – Is it really? – Yes, it is. – That’s vile. – [Stevie] Hot tuna water. – It ain’t no Diet Coke, I’ll tell you that. – Wow. (Rhett laughs) – [Stevie] So, researchers at Kent State University attempted to create the poop knife. Ultimately though, they couldn’t do it, but here’s a picture from the study of a frozen poop knife failing to cut through a pig’s hide. – [Jesse] Pig’s hide. So it’s pretty… – [Rhett] Wow. That’s not what I was expecting. – High standard. – I thought it would go full tang. – I thought, is that point? – [Stevie] Full what? – Tang. – Full tang, you know. – [Stevie] Oh, okay. Well, we were talking about buttholes, so I just wanted to confirm what you said. – You know, the tang is when the blade goes into the handle, but you’d have to have a poop handle and a- – Yeah, if the blade goes all the way. – Yeah, that’s asking a lot. – To the bottom of the handle, that’s full tang. – That’s called poop tang. – Wow. Okay. This is more like a cleaver, like a poop cleaver. – Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. – Without a handle. – This is not poop tang. – The things we’re learning. – And they’re cutting a pig taint, ironically. – Right, yeah. Exactly. – You’re catching on. (Rhett and Link laughing) (screen whooshing) (lively music) (screen whooshing) – Oh, it looks like we might have a new scientist. – [Jesse] Oh, look at that. (crew laughing) The scientists’ wardrobe department is killing it. – Wow. Now, this is tough because we’ve sort of got like, purple and blue. I mean, it’s like- – Our scientists are kinda like the Wiggles. – Could have been a little more contrasting. (Jesse and crew laughing) – It’s in caliber. – From the university that brought you to Teletubbies. – Right. (group laughing) Let’s hear it. – Hi, I’m a scientist. – [Link] Yeah, we know. – I used my expensive education to find out if feces of infants has any positive effects on skin grafts. – Was this intentional? (crew laughing) Was this theme intentional? – Skin grafts. – Quite a common denominator. – I gathered up as much baby poo as I could and I smeared it all over the skin grafts of willing participants. – [Jesse] Okay. – It was that easy. Now, me and my researchers found that due to the materials ingested during the time the infant spins in the uterus, baby poo actually does reduce scarring and prevents infection. Give that poo! (Rhett and crew laughing) Give me that. – That was a punctuation. Okay. – Wow. – Why would you agree to be a subject in that study? – Well, if it’s a skin graft, it means that’s an open sore. It’s not sealed. It’s open. – I know. – And we’re putting fecal matter in it. However, the wonders of like, the healing powers of breast milk. I think about like things in that come out of the birth canal. – Right. – And they being so healing and nutrient rich. – It’s probably that someone had had an experience where they like, had just gotten a fresh skin graft and then they were like- – Holding a baby? – Changing their baby’s diaper. – Go on. – And all of a sudden they were like, oh, wow, this really healed up better than this arm. And then they were like, we should do a study and they went to the scientist over here. – They get caught in the staples and stuff. – Yeah, yeah, yeah. It would be bad, but. – All right. It’s possible. – Hey, guess what I am? – Scientist? – Nailed it. I conducted a study called an oreology, the fracture and flow of milk’s favorite cookie. As a serious scientist- – [Jesse] Sure. – I used my big brain to find out if we can evenly distribute the cream by twisting the Oreo in a certain way. I twisted hundreds of Oreos to no avail and I have found that it is impossible to evenly distribute the cream between two Oreos when twisting it. – [Link] What? – Science? (crew laughing) – So… – I’m with you. That makes sense. – Completely release it though, right? – Well, I think that means we’re all scientists then ’cause all Oreo eaters have been trying this. – [Rhett] Right, yeah. – Even subconsciously. – Trying to what? – To evenly distribute that cream in the middle, right? – Oh, on both sides. – So it’s kind of adhered to one side more than the other, so you kind of twisting, even absent mindedly talking and trying to give it a twist. ’cause you want an even in your dunk distribution. – Yeah. That ain’t gonna happen. – This one’s got all the cream and this one’s just bare naked afterwards. You’re trying to scrape some on the side. Am I the only one that used to do this? – I try to get a full, clean release from one side. – You want it to be all one side? – So I can just have one, just a nice ratio of cream and cookie on one side and then just like, one cookie to follow it up. – Oh, okay. – You know? – Oh, okay. – I don’t know. I’m just trying things. – I’m more of a soft batch man. – So you just avoid Oreos altogether? – Yeah, yeah. – Oh, okay. I thought for a minute they were soft batch Oreos. – No. – Okay. – That’s a thought. – It does feel like something that like, Oreo would pay for as a study as a PR stunt. – Yeah. Yeah. And it’s working terrifically for them. – [Rhett] Right, exactly. – I think I heard that Oreos are also vegan. Anyway. – I can buy that. – I’ve heard that. I’ve heard that. – I can buy that. – So… – So this is David. He’s wearing purple, right? So I’m going Oreo. I feel like Oreo…. – Oreo’s the safe bet. – [Rhett] You can’t put poop on your burns. – The healing power of baby poop. You sold me yourself, Jesse. – [Jesse] Yeah. – [Link] I’m assuming you’re with me, but maybe you’re not. Maybe you’ve changed your mind. – I think Oreo’s almost too obviously plausible that I’m gonna take a risk. This better not be tuna hot dog water. – [Rhett] It’l be something new. – All right. – It’ll be something bad. – We’re poop on- – Let’s dink it. – Stomach staples. – And sink it. – Sweet Lord. (syringes squirting) (crew laughing) – I got out scot free. I got out scot free. (bell dings) – It’s somewhat familiar. – It’s like, tickle-y. – [Stevie] It was just sauerkraut juice, guys. – Sauerkraut juice. – That was- – Wow. Okay. – I thought it was pickle juice. – Was I right about where that Oreo? – [Stevie] Well, yeah, so it’s crazy. This time, we actually did not go with the poop or butt related realness here. – No, you didn’t. – [Stevie] The Oreo study involved three researchers from MIT twisting apart Oreos. They created the oreometer. – Wow. – [Stevie] A 3D printed apparatus which used rubber bands and weighted coins to represent the force of twisting apart the cookies. – [Jesse] From the three stoner freshman at MIT. – [Link] Right. (crew laughing) – [Jesse] Wow. – [Rhett] This is so overkill, guys. – [Link] Look at it. The animation is still going. – [Jesse] Loaded pennies! – [Link] Look at this. So they didn’t twist it with their hands. – [Jesse] No. To make sure it’s even every time. – No, no, listen. That’s how I separate Oreos. I put pennies in one hand and I wait until it just rotates. – You could sell that apparatus, I’m sure, on like, QVC. – Okay, well. – We should. Let’s go in together on that. – Wow. – Feel free. You can take this home, as well. – Yeah, that was… – Or the coconut milk. – Really wild things happening to my palate today. – Jesse, this has been a lot of fun. Thanks for being here. Those are some very stupid ways to use your brain, but Jesse’s app Homeschooled is not. So be sure to download the Homeschooled app wherever you get your apps. – Yes and thanks for subscribing and clicking that bell. Now you say, “You know what time it is.” – Now you say, you know what time it is. (Rhett and crew laughing) – Hi there, I’m Emma. This is Jesse. We’re at Exploration Place in Wichita, Kansas, and it’s time to spend the Wheel of Mythicality. (dinosaur roars) – Okay. – That’s a very cooperative dinosaur. – Yeah, well, nobody’s standing that close to him. – Click the top link to watch us discover the craziest animal experiments in history in Good Mythical More. – And if I know whether Wheel of Mythicality is gonna land. Check out our podcast Ear Biscuits. We did a little thought experiment where we were giving crazy scenarios and had to guess what the other guy would do. Wherever you get your podcast. Check it out.