June 7, 2017 • 45 mins
Will thinks sleep is a waste of time. But how far are scientists from a cure? Plus, ridiculous facts about Margaret Thatcher, tips on NFL gambling and why you can’t trust science from Garfield. Featuring Simone Giertz.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what mango? What's up? Will? So I was reading
about this anthropologist Robert Lohman, and in the nineties Loman
went to popa New Guinea to study the Assabano 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 Loman, but he had a few prior commitments. So
Loman's a little confused, right, But then he keeps getting
(00:21):
these offers from other men, and he 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 Assabana make it a priority to offer you some
conversation and body warmth. And also they tell Loman having
a local in the room will protect him from witchcraft.
So you know, all good things. But what's funny is
that sharing a bed with strangers, especially while traveling, used
(00:43):
to be common practice. I was reading this book Wild Nights,
and and if the author talks about how it shows
up in Erasmus writing, it's disgusted moby dick. But the
funniest account to me was from the seventeenth century diarist
Samuel Peeps. Why's that well? Peeps used to keep this
log of all of his bed mates, scoring them on
the quality their conversation, making a note if they did
too much tossing and turning. Can you imagine how nerve
(01:04):
racking of you to share a bed with him? I mean,
I feel like I spend a whole night worrying if
I was hugging the sheets, or like, think about if
my pillow talk was good enough. I want a good
review too. It's very nerve wracking. So well, speaking of
pillow talk, what do you say? We dive into this
episode on sleep Hei their podcast listeners. I'm Will Pearson
(01:37):
and as always I'm joined by my good friend Mangesh Ticketer,
and you're listening to Part Time Genius. Now we've got
a fun show today. We're discussing a topic that you
know frustrates me. Sleep. I have never been a fan
of sleeping. I'm definitely in the camp of people who
would totally take a pill if I could avoid it altogether.
I've always been this way, even in first grade when
(01:57):
Miss Pritchett made us declare our favorite animal. You know,
an animal I chose the giraffe. Why 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 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
(02:19):
gonna get to the bottom of this, are you ready?
I mean, like the very bottom. We're gonna figure this
out because I need to know if I'm going to
have my never sleep again dream come true. But but
we've got so many other fun things coming up in
the show as well. 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.
We've got our part time genius quiz with a couple
(02:41):
of Zomba instructor Zumba instructors, right, Okay, that's kind this
is awesome, And someone I'm super excited to talk to.
We've got one of our favorite inventors, this self proclaimed
Queen of Crappy Robots, Simone Yet who happened to invent
a really funny alarm closs. So I'll talk about that.
She is amazing. So but before we get to all
(03:02):
of that, how weird a sleep mango? I know? I
mean the way we talk about sleep is really funny,
like people used to wear it, does this badge of
honor how little they slept. I've read this thing about
Keith Richards where he talked about being up for five
full days just working and composing and all this while
his lazy bandmates were taking naps. But um, it's always
(03:24):
this dig from productive people. But of course, you know
Keith Richard's being. Keith Richards has disaster stories about this too, right,
So there's this one time he stayed up for nine
days straight, which sounds horrible, but the way he describes it,
he was writing 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
(03:45):
asleep so hard he collapsed and broke his nose. I'm
not sure sleep studies should really be conducted on Keith Richards.
I'm thinking we're probably not as accurate. So well, there
are definitely these hyper productive 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
(04:05):
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. I know,
sleep doctors actually claimed she's got this rare genetic mutation
that allows her to function on less sleep, and it
affects about one percent of the population. But it's funny.
I read this beleaguered quote from her husband Dennis in
(04:28):
the BBC. I didn't even know there was a Dennist
stature 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 talked that way. Of course.
My you know my other favorite Margaret Thatcher fact, and
(04:49):
that's in the late seventies, when she went to this
economic summit in Japan. The country tried to supply her
with twenty karate ladies I know. I just loved the
phrase create ladies, like there should be more of that
in history books. I agree. I agree. So there was
definitely a time, especially in the nineteen eighties, where Wall
Street execs and rock stars and media moguls used to
(05:10):
brag about how little sleep they got, like not sleeping
was thought to be glamorous, 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, which just sounds
so French, it does, but now it feels like the
complete opposite. You look at these world class athletes like
(05:32):
Hussain Bold Lebron James, and they really brag about the
twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep they get and they work
to protect it. Yeah, there are tons of them, like
Marion Bartoli who won Wimbledon. She famously took this long
nap before winning. And uh, Christiano Ronaldo, the soccer star.
You know, he sleeps in this totally dark chamber and
he has electric blinds that flip open at ten am
(05:54):
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. I gotta remember to
turn the lights off in my chamber. Maybe that's been
my problem. So 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 just thinking about it. Think of all the things
(06:17):
you could be doing. I know 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
(06:37):
second sleep. He found it in Canterbury Tales. He found
an old text. It was just repeated in lots of places,
and what he eventually sussed out was that historically people
will 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 canoe ling, and
after an hour they'd go back to bed and sleep.
(06:57):
Till morning, and this was a really common thing. Yeah,
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 box, like in front of an open window,
hence the term air bath. But he'd have this eufork
(07:18):
period of productivity. Then he'd have the best sleep of
his life after that. 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. What's that? And it's that then Franklin invented
the first mechanical bull. That's gotta be true, right, I mean,
that's it. That's like the story goes that Ben Franklin
(07:39):
made a prototype bull and let John Adams ride it,
and it was so unwriteable that Adams ended up with
a third degree burned on his bottom. I'm going to
say 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 live But I love that some
fifth grade is probably in it in his school report.
(08:01):
That's brilliant. That's brilliant. 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 returned 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
(08:23):
about that. I mean, we all know our bodies have
a natural clock, or what we call a circadian rhythm,
and as part of that twenty four hour cycle, we
know we get tired at night, then we wake up
in the morning. But why have we evolved to do
any of this? 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.
(08:45):
In fact, there's this this well known sleep researcher at
the University of Chicago named Alan Retstaffen who said, if
sleep doesn't serve an absolutely vital function, it's the greatest
mistake evolution has ever made. So there's got to be
a really good reason, right, 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
(09:07):
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. It's actually
the opposite. Without getting too deep into it, we should
probably run through the five stages of sleep. 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
(09:28):
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
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,
(09:50):
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. You're you're saying this all in such
a soothing voice. I think I need to share a
fact about waking people up in that fourth stage, so
they're actually all these ridiculous alarm clocks meant to wake
up really heavy sleepers, Like we've got simone yatch later today,
who made one of the funniest alarm clocks I've seen.
(10:12):
But there's this other great fire alarm clock from Japan
and it works by spring was Sabby into your room
was sobby, and which I guess makes sense since horse
radish 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 was
sabby spread up your nose. Yeah, it sounds terful. But
(10:35):
let's get back to the stages because there's only one more. Okay,
sorry about for the for the interruption. So we've gone
over the first four where your brain waves have gradually
slowed down, your body temperature has dropped, and you've gradually
become a mobile. You're in this deep sleep. So those
four stages of occupy about eighty percent of your sleep time.
But then we moved into the fifth stage, which is
(10:56):
r e M or rapid eye movement, And this is
where our brains get really going again, and your eyes
tend to dart around on your eyelids. And that's the
stage where we really dream, like in a good night's sleep.
You'd moved through these stages multiple times, right, And that
immobility part is important. I saw this weird cat study.
Wait is that more a cat's study. We're a researcher
(11:23):
named Michael Juve and France made tiny cuts and a
cat's brain and turned off the part that triggers immobility
and sleep. So when these cats hit the r EM 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 bags and jumping
onto people encounters. You know how I feel about cats,
(11:44):
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 no big deal. 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 yeah, it is crazy. And and you know, sleep
studies on other animals are just as fascinating. So for
(12:04):
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 half their brains to
look out for danger, like they just notice stand guard
(12:25):
for all the other ducks in the line. It's it's
crazy and I'm 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 they go into
survival mode to make sure nothing fishy is going on.
(12:46):
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
So and strangely, the effect is almost completely gone by
night too. But before we get back to whether or
(13:06):
not humans will ever be able to go without sleep,
why don't we take a quick break for a quiz. Okay,
man goes, So, who do we have on the line
to play with us today? Today? We've got two part
time Zoomba instructors on the line, Stacy and Zoomba. This
is exciting, super exciting. When we put out a call
(13:27):
for Zoomba 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
as a Zoomba instructor at night. Gathongeli, welcome to part
time Genius. Thank you. And our other one is a
voiceover actor by day and a Zoomba instructor at night.
So Stacy, welcome to part time Genius. Hi. So you
(13:50):
know what I have to ask you guys, just to
to get a better understanding of what Zoomba is I
have to confess I've never been to a zoomba class.
I think I'm planning to go. You guys are nice
enough to tell us we should come by one of
yours at some point. But Gathangela, let's start with you
explain to us the difference between zoomba and just say,
(14:10):
regular aerobics. With regular aerobics you kind of break down everything,
but with zumba you just google go and um. It's
similar that it's in the sense that it's a dance
audio format. Um, but it has all sorts of world dance.
The emphasis is that you do a little bit of
Latin American, little African, a little Indian Bollywood, and so
(14:31):
you get a little taste of the world while you
dance and have fun. And uh and Stacy, you mentioned
you have a background in ballroom dance and Chinese opera.
Is that required to go to a zoomba class. Yeah, okay, no, no,
I mean you don't need to have any sort of
dance backgrounds at all. Um. I think it's just influences
my own classes, because you know, I just noticed, I'll
(14:54):
I'll throw in some elements sometimes even I'm not even
conscious of the fact that I that they're in there,
you know, but since actually I hold my arms or
maybe Wally I use my hands are inspired by ball
room or by Chinese opera. Um, but you know what
I love about seeing that is I the honest truth
is I actually hate exercising. I'm in a zoom but class,
(15:17):
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 didn't even care that they're sweat all over
the floor and that, you know, my hair is wet
all the way down to the end, you know, But
we're just having so much fun. That's awesome. That's kind
of the way we feel about podcasting. We're always so
(15:38):
sweaty and just like, but it's it's worth it, alright.
So we are playing a game today. What's it called
nonsensical Sleep rhymes. Nonsensical sleep rhymes, So this is a
pretty dumb actually really. We invented this based on the
phrase you snooze you lose. So every answer starts you
(16:01):
snooze you blank, and the blank is some rhyming word.
It rhymes with loose and snooze. So if we were
to give you the clue what happens if you drink
Martini's in your sleep, you'd say you snooze, you booze, right,
So every answer is going to be exactly that moronic.
And what are we playing for here? Though? Today? Mango,
(16:21):
you're playing for the big prize. Whoever wins will get
a hand written note from us to your mom or
your boss. It's your choice. But actually we're gonna put
them on the same team today, you know, so they
both get this opportunity. We're gonna put you on the
same team. And let's see how this goes. You guys,
ready to play? You snooze, you lose, all right? So Gothogeli,
(16:43):
we're gonna start with you. If you have any problems, though,
we're going to throw it to Stacy and then we're
gonna go back and forth. And our goal is for
you guys to get all nine of these correct. Let's
go quickly, you're ready, Here we go. What happens when
you communicate with cows when you're sleeping? Yes, well done, alright, Stacy?
What happens when you board a carnival ship when you're sleeping?
(17:07):
You snooze you crew well, Gothongeli. What happens when you
put pantine in your hair when you're sleeping? You snooze?
You shampoo. I love how you can hear it in
her voice that she's like, is the quiz really this done?
But it is? Snooze your shampoos? Right, alright, Stacy? What
happens when you have anemia and you bump into things
(17:30):
in your sleep? You snooze? Man, You guys are so
good at this. Four out of four so far? Alright, Gothongeli.
What happens when you start attaching things with a bottle
of Elmer's in your sleep? You snooze? You glue with confidence?
She's bought in. Alright, alright, Stacy? What happens when you
sneeze in your sleep? Like you? Oh no, I'm blanking
(17:56):
you sneeze, you snooze you? What sound do you make
when you sneeze? Aha? It's well, it's not as you snooze. Yes,
that's it, you got it, You got it right? All right,
(18:16):
we're coming back to you, Juli. Here goes. What happens
when you play a buzzing kids instrument in your sleep?
You snooze? You? What is that it's a really simple
instrument you put to your mouth and sounds. You got it.
You snooze you kazoos. Right, this is the dumbest quizz
(18:38):
Every time we do a quiz, I'm like, they can't
get any dumber, and this may be the dumbest we do.
We do all right, Stacy number eight, What happens when
you construct an Inuit shelter in your sleep? Sneeze you iglue?
Well done? All right, to bring it all home. Let's
see you guys can Well, we'll let Gethanoli answer this one.
What happens when you dine with pand is in your sleep?
(19:01):
Thank goodness, I think about what they might munch on.
Oh you knew you bamboo? Yes, it was really dumb.
That's right. Our hands are going to be pretty tired
from writing these notes. This is great. Well yeah, well
we're not only sending them home with notes, We're also
going to be mailing them a canned which which is
(19:23):
the number one peanut butter and jelly and a can
on the market sandwiches and things that are stored in
pop top containers. You loved canned which are they one
of the sponsors. That's awesome, Well, we will have to
check out a zoomba class. You guys have us sold
on this. Cathogeli and Stacy, thank you so much for
(19:44):
joining us on part time Genius. So, as we discussed
before the break, I hate sleeping. I don't know why
we have to do it. It feels extravagant and lazy,
perfect waste of time. So convince me, mango, why do
(20:06):
we need sleep? 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 happened during a single day. Every
time your brain learned 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
(20:26):
about how many short term memories your brain is creating
and I don't know, like a twelve or fourteen hour period,
it's staggering. So our brain needs a way to sit
through all that information and file away the important learnings.
And they're all these experiments that confirmed 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
(20:48):
their technique improved from let's say about But then the
group was split into two sets, and one of the
group's got great sleep and their ability to catch the
ball jumped up to But the other group, which I
guess was just pestered through the nine or allowed to
stay up and watch movies or something, they got poor
sleep and their rate dropped to below, which is worse
(21:10):
than where they started from. And that's because their brains
didn't have time to reprocess that information. And actually, there's
a rat study study. There are a lot of cat
and rats 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
(21:32):
a new task, those lit up again at night. It's
like they were replaying these learnings over and over, which
is which is fascinating. 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
(21:54):
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 turns your important memories into long
term ones. You say, important memories like getting food is
a really memorable one for a rat is one? Are
the unimportant ones? Well, that's a good question. If there's
so many little things we don't really need to commit
(22:16):
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 onto 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 actually
(22:36):
shrink during sleep. Is this unbelievable that the number and
size of our brains synapsies shrink by as much as
in the mice that they looked at. No, these were
not rats, they were mice. 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. You know, this makes me think of those
(22:58):
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. Yeah, it
would be complete torture to have this happened. I know
there are people like this. Fortunately, I could 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 rappers sitting right beside me.
(23:25):
So we've heard for years now that 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 little news because apparently
I need to know what's going on in Agia while
we sleep. I don't know, but this is really not
(23:46):
good for my sleep, is it. Yeah? I'm I'm pretty
bad about this too. And it all comes back to
our circadian clocks, like as humans were. 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 melotone and throw off our clocks.
And speaking of circadian rhythms, I have to tell you
(24:07):
this thing I've read about Monday night football. 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 analyze
the numbers from forty years of these games, they found
that the West Coast teams overperformed by like two touchdowns
and often beat the spread from Vegas by seven points.
(24:28):
That's crazy. You know, if you ever get access to
a time machine, you should go back and West Coast
teams all right, So where were we? Cell phones? That's right?
So 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 R E. M. Sleep. But the weirdest part to
(24:49):
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 sleep here. I did finally
change my phone to the night shift setting, I kind
of just because I like saying my phone is in
the night shift. It really does. So it adjust to
the warmer end of the spectrum and stays that way
through the night. So I'm still game in case there's
(25:11):
a good news story from Asia three am. So, but
let's talk about something else that supposedly affects people 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 eight I don't know, say they all
star breakfast from waffle house at midnight. And that effect
seems to be more profound on thirty eight year old
bodies than it was on twenty year old Definitely, definitely,
(25:33):
But our studies show that it was totally worth a
three am discomfort, even if our participants, being us, may
not have agreed at three am. Yeah, that's just good science.
Let's talk about dreams specifically, and this long held belief
that certain foods make us dream crazier. Dreams. Like. You know,
what's funny is that I never realized people blame food
for bad dreams until I started reading Garfield books in
(25:54):
second grade. It was a real education. Garfield made me
realize that a people hate money. Definitely, if you eat
too much lasagna or spicy foods late at night, it
can give you crazy dreams about I don't know, lasagna.
You might have been better off studying your science from
somebody other than Garfield, But you know, anyway, But I'm
certain there will be listeners who disagree with this. But
(26:16):
there doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence that
certain foods cause bizarre or disturbing dreams. At least there
aren't a lot of studies that show this conclusively. 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? Well,
maybe your dreams aren't scary because of your diet is cereal.
So all the cereal does contain the number one thing
(26:38):
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 you're crunchy saracha flakes.
That's the deal, got to start the day, right, I
can't even think about two wet scoops of sharracha. But
(26:59):
don't you wonder why we dream? And and what's the
evolutionary purpose? While we of course have to mention Freud,
he thought we'd dream as a way of thinking through
our subconscious desires. Yeah, 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
(27:20):
your experiences and figure out what's important to take away
from them. And that's all going in the non r
e M phase. But those R e M dreams, the
crazy ones that you're likely to remember, why in the
world would we need to remember these? 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.
(27:43):
But they seem real, right, And that's because the brain
activity in r M sleep is really similar to that
of an awake brain. Okay, but you remember the dream
I was telling you about where Michael Stipe and the
Harlem Globe Trotters and I were deep sea fishing and
Michael got mad and through a fish at me hit
me right in the chest. So that was somehow useful,
super useful. I mean, I don't have answers for you will,
(28:05):
but I can tell you we're at the part of
the episode that we want to give out a part
time genius, right, Yeah, this episode, I thought it would
be good to give it to someone who literally dreamed
something genius and the and so Interially 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,
(28:25):
who came up with the idea for the periodic table
while snoozing. You know, it's been a while since mendel
have won an award, so I think that we should
we should do it. I second that nomination. Congratulations, you
have won this episode's part time Genius Award. And I
know we normally like to write a letter to our
award winners mother or boss or someone else close to them.
(28:45):
But considering Mendel of his mother, all his bosses, and
pretty much anyone else he would have known, would be dead. Now,
why don't you just say, in his honor, will write
a note to the American Chemical Society saying, keep up
the good work, brilliant. Our guest today is someone we've
(29:07):
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, Yah,
welcome to Part Time Genius. Thank you we are. It
(29:30):
was a really nice intro. Yeah, I've been working on
it for weeks. I'm like, it's good that it's only
we're doing doing only audio because I think I might
be blushing. It's like, all flustered. I'm glad you survived,
So Simone, I have to confess, the first video I
ever saw of yours was the Wake Up Machine, and
I could not stop laughing at this there was there
(29:53):
was something about seeing someone awakened so rudely by a
rubber hands 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. I
it's it's hard to pitch, or it's like I feel
(30:13):
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 inineering comedy, I'd say,
but I make the different weird eugenes that hurt me,
usually in different kinds of ways, or like poor milk
and cereals everywhere, and I post them on YouTube right right,
(30:37):
And it was it was your toothbrush helmet that helped
you kind of get the start in this useless robot direction.
Is that right? Yeah? So I did a scapeward helmet
that has a little robot arm on the front of it,
like a unicorn, and a little cheese brush attached to
it and it brushes your teeth. Yeah, that was the
first one that I posted online and it went like
kind of viral. Um. I was like, that's how I
(31:00):
learned about you. Yeah, it was. But it's funny because
like now it's it's it's your your bar like higher
and higher every time. So looking back I did it,
I was like, it's in a kay 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 like, oh my god, all over it. But yeah,
(31:24):
that was the first like crappy robot. Can I say
the robot? You're gonna go for it. We're just we're
gonna beat most. It was the first. Yeah, let's let's
beat robot. Then people won't know what it is. So
we've seen what a serial feeding robot, a lipstick apply
or a shampoo machine, a little hand robot that wipe
(31:46):
standardf away, want a butt wiping robot? I mean, there's
just so many horrible and lovely invention, so many hands. Yeah,
So these robots that you build, once they're in a video,
do you end up keeping these all somewhere? Do you
end up dismantling them. I try to not dismantle them.
I used to do that all the time because it's
so compting to just like borrow parts. But I travel
(32:08):
a lot with 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 they've been like thrown in and
out of a suitcase and they're just like barely working.
You get questions about them at airports, like why are
all these hands and in your suitcase? Every time. I
always wonder that. I mean the same if I'm staying
(32:28):
in a hotel room and like the bag because I
have like this big, like Pelican Robots suitcase, and um,
I was wondering what, like the housekeeper like, what they
think about it, because it must look like a very
bizarre thing. Um. But no, they always check it on airports,
and that's how I recruit new subscribers. Speaking of other
weird projects that you've taken on, you recently locked yourself
(32:51):
in a bathroom for forty eight straight hours. Now remind
us again while you did this, I made my own
space program because nobody else would have me, so I've
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 to be with SpaceX. So I was like,
I'll do my own space program and I'll see if
somebody wants to pick me up. So I did like
(33:12):
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.
So I locked myself in my bathroom for forty eight hours.
I love that. 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
(33:33):
my favorite kids books in recent years, Dragons Love Tacos.
Were you being serious about your love of this book?
It is so funny? So should we play this quiz? Yes,
let's play a quiz? Alright? So, oh my god, get ready,
we're gonna throw you off here. So what is it?
What is it? What are we doing? We're We're gonna
tell you'll see. So, um, first of all, it's required
(33:55):
that you're on a house boat or you on a
house boat right now? Yes, okay, excellent, all right, So
in Sweden, do you need to get in the water, Yes,
you do. You need to get in the water for
this question. No, no, no, you're good. You can stay,
you can stay, okay, Sweden. Al right, So in Sweden,
do you count sheep to go to sleep? Or is
that just an American thing? I think we count sheep? Okay, alright,
(34:17):
so I don't think I ever did it. Yeah, no,
that is that's familiar. All right, so good, good deal.
This is a section where we would normally call it
true or false sleep addition, but today we're calling it
sheep or bull sheep. So we're going to read you
a sense. Okay, okay, We're going to read you a sentence.
And if you think it's nonsense, all you have to
(34:37):
do is say bullshep and mango. What is she playing for? Today?
As always, the celebrity guest is playing for our unadulterated admiration.
I actually you had my hopes up something. I feel
the hopes came up and then they crashed down her. Okay, admiration,
I'll take it. We'll maybe add to that, you know,
(34:59):
setting up a a date with the authors of Dragons
Love Tacos. So, oh my god, yeah, okay, I'm game on.
Here we go sheep or bulls sheep? Here we go
Question number one. The first Australian ultramarathon runner was a
sixty one year old shepherd. He won the five hundred
(35:20):
mile race handily by running through the night and tricking
himself into believing he was running after his sheep sheep
or bull sheep? Sheep? Oh my god? Yeah, yeah, I'm
thinking that it's but if I haven't heard the other ones,
but I'm thinking that that one's too weird to be
able to come up with. What was his name? His
(35:42):
name was Cliff Young, and he was mocked for running
in boots and shuffling along, but he kept kept running
while everyone else slept. All right, my hero, Can I
be friends with him? We can. We're gonna go ahead
say yes. I have no idea, really sad to really yes.
But then we'll get your friends. We're just gonna find
(36:03):
some dude and be like, this is him, he's your friend. Yeah,
all right, let's see question number two. Sheep or bull sheep.
There's a sheep from Scotland that lives on the beach
and has a diet made up almost entirely of seaweed.
I did. I was in Scotland recently, just a couple
of weeks ago, and I saw a lot of sheep.
(36:24):
They were mainly goats on the coast. I'm gonna call
bull sheep. It was actually a sheep the north. Yeah,
there's a sheep that lives in Orkney and they're one
of the only mammals that can survive exclusively on this seafood.
I thought you meant one sheep. There was a single
(36:45):
like poor Bernard sheep. That was what I thought, okty sheep, harambe.
Well we're getting to a celebrity sheep, so question there
are real Dolly is a Dolly? Got it all right? Oh?
Here we go. Dolly the sheep was named for Dolly
Madison because the scientists got the idea for cloning the
(37:06):
sheep while board on an historic tour of James Madison's
home at Montpelier. Sheep or bullshep, bull sheep, Yeah, you're right,
Dolly was named for Dolly Pardon number four. Sheep have
amazing memories and can remember up to fifty other sheep
for several years. I mean, they're known for being stupid,
(37:31):
but at the same time they're like herd animals, or
I mean they have like their sheep packed or whatever.
It's called a school of sheep. What's like the count
pack of sheep a murder of sheep? But I'm going
to call sheep because I want them too smart. You're right,
So yeah, they can get drawn off by haircuts. Occasionally
(37:53):
they can't recognize other sheep. I can relate to that.
So you went three for four. Great job, Simone introductions.
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,
(38:14):
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.
(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.
I mean, you could fall zacket and have sixty cups
of coffee a day, or if you don't love that
caffeine crash, there pills that can keep you up for
maybe thirty hours at a time without much of a
drop off. It's funny because armies throughout history have invested
(39:00):
in this sort of stuff, like the Incas used coca leaves,
and the Greeks played with opium, and the Nazis used
meth amphetamines to make their soldiers march for forty 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 modaphanel, and some army officers and
(39:21):
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,
you might be more prone to making bad decisions. So
there's still 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
(39:42):
eventually kill you, we still don't understand why 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, you know,
so quickly in our brains is just fast and to me,
and the cleaning out of our brains, and it just
(40:03):
doesn't seem possible that anything in the coming decades will
be 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
(40:24):
sleeping anytime soon, I will admit I feel better knowing
just how much is going on when we're asleep. It
doesn't feel quite as much like a waste of time.
I'm so glad this part time Genius therapy session was
productive and thank you, thank you, But we're not done yet.
You know what time it is, the fact off, you bet,
(40:44):
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. All right,
Mango you first, 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 eleven days even days,
I know, and it's set by a student in California
(41:06):
named Randy Gardner way back in nineteen sixty four. 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 paranoid and getting annoyed by the people who had
(41:26):
promised to help him stay up to this long. I mean,
eleven days is a long time. It's an insanely long time,
I know. And uh, somehow Randy pulled it off. Um
he was doing it for a science fair project, which
I don't even know if he won, but that part's
never mentioned. 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 eleven days,
(41:48):
like Stanford people on the paper and everybody like, dude, it,
let's start do this. Yeah. I'm pretty sure I haven't
gone that long without a Snicker's bar, much less my sleep.
So al right, here's a fact. So in Finland they
celebrate National Sleepy Head Day on July. It's a tradition
that dates back to the Middle Ages actually, and the
ideas that the person sleeping the latest that day would
(42:09):
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 water upon them.
And it's particularly great because the townsfolk will throw local
politician into the water and everybody just gets behind it.
I like it. Um. So you know Doctor Spotted the
(42:30):
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 advises getting a batman net, cutting
in half, sewing it so it's twice as tall, and
then wrapping it around the crib to form a baby cage. Everybody,
how crazy is that he had the bad ment net
is the weirdest part, Like why not a tennis net
(42:51):
or fifteen ping pong nets? So I don't know. All right,
here's another one. You're less likely to have an accident
in your car after daylight saving time ends, and evidence
it's to the extra hour of sleep as being the
main reason 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.
Oh that's good, all right, all right, Well, people who
(43:13):
grew up with color television tend to dream in color,
but older people who grew up with black and white
TVs and movies, they actually are more likely to be
dreaming in black and white. I'm guessing millennial dreaming gifts exactly.
So I want to know what sea utters due to
prevent drifting away from each other when they go to sleep.
What's that they hold pause? Like sea otters actually hold
(43:33):
hands when they go to sleep. Come on, Mango, 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. All right, I'll
give it to you. Are this episode's winner of the
part time genius fact off. Thank you so much. I
have so many people to thank I want to start
with my agent, Bobby Manuals, my manager, all right the stage.
(43:58):
Thanks so much for listening to the episode of Part
Time Genius with Will and Mango Sweet Dreams. Thanks again
for listening to Part Time Genius. Be sure to subscribe
(44:20):
wherever you listen to your podcast, And because we're a
brand new show, if you're feeling extra generous, we'd love
it if you give us a rating on Apple Podcast.
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. Our executive producer is Jerry Rowland. Our
research team is Gay Bluesier, Lucas Adams, Autumn Whitefield, me Toronto,
Austin Thompson, and Meg Robbins. Jason Hok is our chief
(44:43):
cheer leader.
Guess what mango? What's up? Will? So I was reading
about this anthropologist Robert Lohman, and in the nineties Loman
went to popa New Guinea to study the Assabano 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 Loman, but he had a few prior commitments. So
Loman's a little confused, right, But then he keeps getting
(00:21):
these offers from other men, and he 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 Assabana make it a priority to offer you some
conversation and body warmth. And also they tell Loman having
a local in the room will protect him from witchcraft.
So you know, all good things. But what's funny is
that sharing a bed with strangers, especially while traveling, used
(00:43):
to be common practice. I was reading this book Wild Nights,
and and if the author talks about how it shows
up in Erasmus writing, it's disgusted moby dick. But the
funniest account to me was from the seventeenth century diarist
Samuel Peeps. Why's that well? Peeps used to keep this
log of all of his bed mates, scoring them on
the quality their conversation, making a note if they did
too much tossing and turning. Can you imagine how nerve
(01:04):
racking of you to share a bed with him? I mean,
I feel like I spend a whole night worrying if
I was hugging the sheets, or like, think about if
my pillow talk was good enough. I want a good
review too. It's very nerve wracking. So well, speaking of
pillow talk, what do you say? We dive into this
episode on sleep Hei their podcast listeners. I'm Will Pearson
(01:37):
and as always I'm joined by my good friend Mangesh Ticketer,
and you're listening to Part Time Genius. Now we've got
a fun show today. We're discussing a topic that you
know frustrates me. Sleep. I have never been a fan
of sleeping. I'm definitely in the camp of people who
would totally take a pill if I could avoid it altogether.
I've always been this way, even in first grade when
(01:57):
Miss Pritchett made us declare our favorite animal. You know,
an animal I chose the giraffe. Why 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 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
(02:19):
gonna get to the bottom of this, are you ready?
I mean, like the very bottom. We're gonna figure this
out because I need to know if I'm going to
have my never sleep again dream come true. But but
we've got so many other fun things coming up in
the show as well. 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.
We've got our part time genius quiz with a couple
(02:41):
of Zomba instructor Zumba instructors, right, Okay, that's kind this
is awesome, And someone I'm super excited to talk to.
We've got one of our favorite inventors, this self proclaimed
Queen of Crappy Robots, Simone Yet who happened to invent
a really funny alarm closs. So I'll talk about that.
She is amazing. So but before we get to all
(03:02):
of that, how weird a sleep mango? I know? I
mean the way we talk about sleep is really funny,
like people used to wear it, does this badge of
honor how little they slept. I've read this thing about
Keith Richards where he talked about being up for five
full days just working and composing and all this while
his lazy bandmates were taking naps. But um, it's always
(03:24):
this dig from productive people. But of course, you know
Keith Richard's being. Keith Richards has disaster stories about this too, right,
So there's this one time he stayed up for nine
days straight, which sounds horrible, but the way he describes it,
he was writing 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
(03:45):
asleep so hard he collapsed and broke his nose. I'm
not sure sleep studies should really be conducted on Keith Richards.
I'm thinking we're probably not as accurate. So well, there
are definitely these hyper productive 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
(04:05):
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. I know,
sleep doctors actually claimed she's got this rare genetic mutation
that allows her to function on less sleep, and it
affects about one percent of the population. But it's funny.
I read this beleaguered quote from her husband Dennis in
(04:28):
the BBC. I didn't even know there was a Dennist
stature 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 talked that way. Of course.
My you know my other favorite Margaret Thatcher fact, and
(04:49):
that's in the late seventies, when she went to this
economic summit in Japan. The country tried to supply her
with twenty karate ladies I know. I just loved the
phrase create ladies, like there should be more of that
in history books. I agree. I agree. So there was
definitely a time, especially in the nineteen eighties, where Wall
Street execs and rock stars and media moguls used to
(05:10):
brag about how little sleep they got, like not sleeping
was thought to be glamorous, 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, which just sounds
so French, it does, but now it feels like the
complete opposite. You look at these world class athletes like
(05:32):
Hussain Bold Lebron James, and they really brag about the
twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep they get and they work
to protect it. Yeah, there are tons of them, like
Marion Bartoli who won Wimbledon. She famously took this long
nap before winning. And uh, Christiano Ronaldo, the soccer star.
You know, he sleeps in this totally dark chamber and
he has electric blinds that flip open at ten am
(05:54):
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. I gotta remember to
turn the lights off in my chamber. Maybe that's been
my problem. So 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 just thinking about it. Think of all the things
(06:17):
you could be doing. I know 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
(06:37):
second sleep. He found it in Canterbury Tales. He found
an old text. It was just repeated in lots of places,
and what he eventually sussed out was that historically people
will 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 canoe ling, and
after an hour they'd go back to bed and sleep.
(06:57):
Till morning, and this was a really common thing. Yeah,
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 box, like in front of an open window,
hence the term air bath. But he'd have this eufork
(07:18):
period of productivity. Then he'd have the best sleep of
his life after that. 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. What's that? And it's that then Franklin invented
the first mechanical bull. That's gotta be true, right, I mean,
that's it. That's like the story goes that Ben Franklin
(07:39):
made a prototype bull and let John Adams ride it,
and it was so unwriteable that Adams ended up with
a third degree burned on his bottom. I'm going to
say 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 live But I love that some
fifth grade is probably in it in his school report.
(08:01):
That's brilliant. That's brilliant. 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 returned 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
(08:23):
about that. I mean, we all know our bodies have
a natural clock, or what we call a circadian rhythm,
and as part of that twenty four hour cycle, we
know we get tired at night, then we wake up
in the morning. But why have we evolved to do
any of this? 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.
(08:45):
In fact, there's this this well known sleep researcher at
the University of Chicago named Alan Retstaffen who said, if
sleep doesn't serve an absolutely vital function, it's the greatest
mistake evolution has ever made. So there's got to be
a really good reason, right, 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
(09:07):
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. It's actually
the opposite. Without getting too deep into it, we should
probably run through the five stages of sleep. 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
(09:28):
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
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,
(09:50):
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. You're you're saying this all in such
a soothing voice. I think I need to share a
fact about waking people up in that fourth stage, so
they're actually all these ridiculous alarm clocks meant to wake
up really heavy sleepers, Like we've got simone yatch later today,
who made one of the funniest alarm clocks I've seen.
(10:12):
But there's this other great fire alarm clock from Japan
and it works by spring was Sabby into your room
was sobby, and which I guess makes sense since horse
radish 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 was
sabby spread up your nose. Yeah, it sounds terful. But
(10:35):
let's get back to the stages because there's only one more. Okay,
sorry about for the for the interruption. So we've gone
over the first four where your brain waves have gradually
slowed down, your body temperature has dropped, and you've gradually
become a mobile. You're in this deep sleep. So those
four stages of occupy about eighty percent of your sleep time.
But then we moved into the fifth stage, which is
(10:56):
r e M or rapid eye movement, And this is
where our brains get really going again, and your eyes
tend to dart around on your eyelids. And that's the
stage where we really dream, like in a good night's sleep.
You'd moved through these stages multiple times, right, And that
immobility part is important. I saw this weird cat study.
Wait is that more a cat's study. We're a researcher
(11:23):
named Michael Juve and France made tiny cuts and a
cat's brain and turned off the part that triggers immobility
and sleep. So when these cats hit the r EM 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 bags and jumping
onto people encounters. You know how I feel about cats,
(11:44):
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 no big deal. 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 yeah, it is crazy. And and you know, sleep
studies on other animals are just as fascinating. So for
(12:04):
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 half their brains to
look out for danger, like they just notice stand guard
(12:25):
for all the other ducks in the line. It's it's
crazy and I'm 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 they go into
survival mode to make sure nothing fishy is going on.
(12:46):
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
So and strangely, the effect is almost completely gone by
night too. But before we get back to whether or
(13:06):
not humans will ever be able to go without sleep,
why don't we take a quick break for a quiz. Okay,
man goes, So, who do we have on the line
to play with us today? Today? We've got two part
time Zoomba instructors on the line, Stacy and Zoomba. This
is exciting, super exciting. When we put out a call
(13:27):
for Zoomba 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
as a Zoomba instructor at night. Gathongeli, welcome to part
time Genius. Thank you. And our other one is a
voiceover actor by day and a Zoomba instructor at night.
So Stacy, welcome to part time Genius. Hi. So you
(13:50):
know what I have to ask you guys, just to
to get a better understanding of what Zoomba is I
have to confess I've never been to a zoomba class.
I think I'm planning to go. You guys are nice
enough to tell us we should come by one of
yours at some point. But Gathangela, let's start with you
explain to us the difference between zoomba and just say,
(14:10):
regular aerobics. With regular aerobics you kind of break down everything,
but with zumba you just google go and um. It's
similar that it's in the sense that it's a dance
audio format. Um, but it has all sorts of world dance.
The emphasis is that you do a little bit of
Latin American, little African, a little Indian Bollywood, and so
(14:31):
you get a little taste of the world while you
dance and have fun. And uh and Stacy, you mentioned
you have a background in ballroom dance and Chinese opera.
Is that required to go to a zoomba class. Yeah, okay, no, no,
I mean you don't need to have any sort of
dance backgrounds at all. Um. I think it's just influences
my own classes, because you know, I just noticed, I'll
(14:54):
I'll throw in some elements sometimes even I'm not even
conscious of the fact that I that they're in there,
you know, but since actually I hold my arms or
maybe Wally I use my hands are inspired by ball
room or by Chinese opera. Um, but you know what
I love about seeing that is I the honest truth
is I actually hate exercising. I'm in a zoom but class,
(15:17):
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 didn't even care that they're sweat all over
the floor and that, you know, my hair is wet
all the way down to the end, you know, But
we're just having so much fun. That's awesome. That's kind
of the way we feel about podcasting. We're always so
(15:38):
sweaty and just like, but it's it's worth it, alright.
So we are playing a game today. What's it called
nonsensical Sleep rhymes. Nonsensical sleep rhymes, So this is a
pretty dumb actually really. We invented this based on the
phrase you snooze you lose. So every answer starts you
(16:01):
snooze you blank, and the blank is some rhyming word.
It rhymes with loose and snooze. So if we were
to give you the clue what happens if you drink
Martini's in your sleep, you'd say you snooze, you booze, right,
So every answer is going to be exactly that moronic.
And what are we playing for here? Though? Today? Mango,
(16:21):
you're playing for the big prize. Whoever wins will get
a hand written note from us to your mom or
your boss. It's your choice. But actually we're gonna put
them on the same team today, you know, so they
both get this opportunity. We're gonna put you on the
same team. And let's see how this goes. You guys,
ready to play? You snooze, you lose, all right? So Gothogeli,
(16:43):
we're gonna start with you. If you have any problems, though,
we're going to throw it to Stacy and then we're
gonna go back and forth. And our goal is for
you guys to get all nine of these correct. Let's
go quickly, you're ready, Here we go. What happens when
you communicate with cows when you're sleeping? Yes, well done, alright, Stacy?
What happens when you board a carnival ship when you're sleeping?
(17:07):
You snooze you crew well, Gothongeli. What happens when you
put pantine in your hair when you're sleeping? You snooze?
You shampoo. I love how you can hear it in
her voice that she's like, is the quiz really this done?
But it is? Snooze your shampoos? Right, alright, Stacy? What
happens when you have anemia and you bump into things
(17:30):
in your sleep? You snooze? Man, You guys are so
good at this. Four out of four so far? Alright, Gothongeli.
What happens when you start attaching things with a bottle
of Elmer's in your sleep? You snooze? You glue with confidence?
She's bought in. Alright, alright, Stacy? What happens when you
sneeze in your sleep? Like you? Oh no, I'm blanking
(17:56):
you sneeze, you snooze you? What sound do you make
when you sneeze? Aha? It's well, it's not as you snooze. Yes,
that's it, you got it, You got it right? All right,
(18:16):
we're coming back to you, Juli. Here goes. What happens
when you play a buzzing kids instrument in your sleep?
You snooze? You? What is that it's a really simple
instrument you put to your mouth and sounds. You got it.
You snooze you kazoos. Right, this is the dumbest quizz
(18:38):
Every time we do a quiz, I'm like, they can't
get any dumber, and this may be the dumbest we do.
We do all right, Stacy number eight, What happens when
you construct an Inuit shelter in your sleep? Sneeze you iglue?
Well done? All right, to bring it all home. Let's
see you guys can Well, we'll let Gethanoli answer this one.
What happens when you dine with pand is in your sleep?
(19:01):
Thank goodness, I think about what they might munch on.
Oh you knew you bamboo? Yes, it was really dumb.
That's right. Our hands are going to be pretty tired
from writing these notes. This is great. Well yeah, well
we're not only sending them home with notes, We're also
going to be mailing them a canned which which is
(19:23):
the number one peanut butter and jelly and a can
on the market sandwiches and things that are stored in
pop top containers. You loved canned which are they one
of the sponsors. That's awesome, Well, we will have to
check out a zoomba class. You guys have us sold
on this. Cathogeli and Stacy, thank you so much for
(19:44):
joining us on part time Genius. So, as we discussed
before the break, I hate sleeping. I don't know why
we have to do it. It feels extravagant and lazy,
perfect waste of time. So convince me, mango, why do
(20:06):
we need sleep? 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 happened during a single day. Every
time your brain learned 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
(20:26):
about how many short term memories your brain is creating
and I don't know, like a twelve or fourteen hour period,
it's staggering. So our brain needs a way to sit
through all that information and file away the important learnings.
And they're all these experiments that confirmed 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
(20:48):
their technique improved from let's say about But then the
group was split into two sets, and one of the
group's got great sleep and their ability to catch the
ball jumped up to But the other group, which I
guess was just pestered through the nine or allowed to
stay up and watch movies or something, they got poor
sleep and their rate dropped to below, which is worse
(21:10):
than where they started from. And that's because their brains
didn't have time to reprocess that information. And actually, there's
a rat study study. There are a lot of cat
and rats 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
(21:32):
a new task, those lit up again at night. It's
like they were replaying these learnings over and over, which
is which is fascinating. 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
(21:54):
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 turns your important memories into long
term ones. You say, important memories like getting food is
a really memorable one for a rat is one? Are
the unimportant ones? Well, that's a good question. If there's
so many little things we don't really need to commit
(22:16):
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 onto 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 actually
(22:36):
shrink during sleep. Is this unbelievable that the number and
size of our brains synapsies shrink by as much as
in the mice that they looked at. No, these were
not rats, they were mice. 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. You know, this makes me think of those
(22:58):
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. Yeah, it
would be complete torture to have this happened. I know
there are people like this. Fortunately, I could 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 rappers sitting right beside me.
(23:25):
So we've heard for years now that 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 little news because apparently
I need to know what's going on in Agia while
we sleep. I don't know, but this is really not
(23:46):
good for my sleep, is it. Yeah? I'm I'm pretty
bad about this too. And it all comes back to
our circadian clocks, like as humans were. 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 melotone and throw off our clocks.
And speaking of circadian rhythms, I have to tell you
(24:07):
this thing I've read about Monday night football. 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 analyze
the numbers from forty years of these games, they found
that the West Coast teams overperformed by like two touchdowns
and often beat the spread from Vegas by seven points.
(24:28):
That's crazy. You know, if you ever get access to
a time machine, you should go back and West Coast
teams all right, So where were we? Cell phones? That's right?
So 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 R E. M. Sleep. But the weirdest part to
(24:49):
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 sleep here. I did finally
change my phone to the night shift setting, I kind
of just because I like saying my phone is in
the night shift. It really does. So it adjust to
the warmer end of the spectrum and stays that way
through the night. So I'm still game in case there's
(25:11):
a good news story from Asia three am. So, but
let's talk about something else that supposedly affects people 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 eight I don't know, say they all
star breakfast from waffle house at midnight. And that effect
seems to be more profound on thirty eight year old
bodies than it was on twenty year old Definitely, definitely,
(25:33):
But our studies show that it was totally worth a
three am discomfort, even if our participants, being us, may
not have agreed at three am. Yeah, that's just good science.
Let's talk about dreams specifically, and this long held belief
that certain foods make us dream crazier. Dreams. Like. You know,
what's funny is that I never realized people blame food
for bad dreams until I started reading Garfield books in
(25:54):
second grade. It was a real education. Garfield made me
realize that a people hate money. Definitely, if you eat
too much lasagna or spicy foods late at night, it
can give you crazy dreams about I don't know, lasagna.
You might have been better off studying your science from
somebody other than Garfield, But you know, anyway, But I'm
certain there will be listeners who disagree with this. But
(26:16):
there doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence that
certain foods cause bizarre or disturbing dreams. At least there
aren't a lot of studies that show this conclusively. 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? Well,
maybe your dreams aren't scary because of your diet is cereal.
So all the cereal does contain the number one thing
(26:38):
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 you're crunchy saracha flakes.
That's the deal, got to start the day, right, I
can't even think about two wet scoops of sharracha. But
(26:59):
don't you wonder why we dream? And and what's the
evolutionary purpose? While we of course have to mention Freud,
he thought we'd dream as a way of thinking through
our subconscious desires. Yeah, 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
(27:20):
your experiences and figure out what's important to take away
from them. And that's all going in the non r
e M phase. But those R e M dreams, the
crazy ones that you're likely to remember, why in the
world would we need to remember these? 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.
(27:43):
But they seem real, right, And that's because the brain
activity in r M sleep is really similar to that
of an awake brain. Okay, but you remember the dream
I was telling you about where Michael Stipe and the
Harlem Globe Trotters and I were deep sea fishing and
Michael got mad and through a fish at me hit
me right in the chest. So that was somehow useful,
super useful. I mean, I don't have answers for you will,
(28:05):
but I can tell you we're at the part of
the episode that we want to give out a part
time genius, right, Yeah, this episode, I thought it would
be good to give it to someone who literally dreamed
something genius and the and so Interially 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,
(28:25):
who came up with the idea for the periodic table
while snoozing. You know, it's been a while since mendel
have won an award, so I think that we should
we should do it. I second that nomination. Congratulations, you
have won this episode's part time Genius Award. And I
know we normally like to write a letter to our
award winners mother or boss or someone else close to them.
(28:45):
But considering Mendel of his mother, all his bosses, and
pretty much anyone else he would have known, would be dead. Now,
why don't you just say, in his honor, will write
a note to the American Chemical Society saying, keep up
the good work, brilliant. Our guest today is someone we've
(29:07):
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, Yah,
welcome to Part Time Genius. Thank you we are. It
(29:30):
was a really nice intro. Yeah, I've been working on
it for weeks. I'm like, it's good that it's only
we're doing doing only audio because I think I might
be blushing. It's like, all flustered. I'm glad you survived,
So Simone, I have to confess, the first video I
ever saw of yours was the Wake Up Machine, and
I could not stop laughing at this there was there
(29:53):
was something about seeing someone awakened so rudely by a
rubber hands 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. I
it's it's hard to pitch, or it's like I feel
(30:13):
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 inineering comedy, I'd say,
but I make the different weird eugenes that hurt me,
usually in different kinds of ways, or like poor milk
and cereals everywhere, and I post them on YouTube right right,
(30:37):
And it was it was your toothbrush helmet that helped
you kind of get the start in this useless robot direction.
Is that right? Yeah? So I did a scapeward helmet
that has a little robot arm on the front of it,
like a unicorn, and a little cheese brush attached to
it and it brushes your teeth. Yeah, that was the
first one that I posted online and it went like
kind of viral. Um. I was like, that's how I
(31:00):
learned about you. Yeah, it was. But it's funny because
like now it's it's it's your your bar like higher
and higher every time. So looking back I did it,
I was like, it's in a kay 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 like, oh my god, all over it. But yeah,
(31:24):
that was the first like crappy robot. Can I say
the robot? You're gonna go for it. We're just we're
gonna beat most. It was the first. Yeah, let's let's
beat robot. Then people won't know what it is. So
we've seen what a serial feeding robot, a lipstick apply
or a shampoo machine, a little hand robot that wipe
(31:46):
standardf away, want a butt wiping robot? I mean, there's
just so many horrible and lovely invention, so many hands. Yeah,
So these robots that you build, once they're in a video,
do you end up keeping these all somewhere? Do you
end up dismantling them. I try to not dismantle them.
I used to do that all the time because it's
so compting to just like borrow parts. But I travel
(32:08):
a lot with 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 they've been like thrown in and
out of a suitcase and they're just like barely working.
You get questions about them at airports, like why are
all these hands and in your suitcase? Every time. I
always wonder that. I mean the same if I'm staying
(32:28):
in a hotel room and like the bag because I
have like this big, like Pelican Robots suitcase, and um,
I was wondering what, like the housekeeper like, what they
think about it, because it must look like a very
bizarre thing. Um. But no, they always check it on airports,
and that's how I recruit new subscribers. Speaking of other
weird projects that you've taken on, you recently locked yourself
(32:51):
in a bathroom for forty eight straight hours. Now remind
us again while you did this, I made my own
space program because nobody else would have me, so I've
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 to be with SpaceX. So I was like,
I'll do my own space program and I'll see if
somebody wants to pick me up. So I did like
(33:12):
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.
So I locked myself in my bathroom for forty eight hours.
I love that. 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
(33:33):
my favorite kids books in recent years, Dragons Love Tacos.
Were you being serious about your love of this book?
It is so funny? So should we play this quiz? Yes,
let's play a quiz? Alright? So, oh my god, get ready,
we're gonna throw you off here. So what is it?
What is it? What are we doing? We're We're gonna
tell you'll see. So, um, first of all, it's required
(33:55):
that you're on a house boat or you on a
house boat right now? Yes, okay, excellent, all right, So
in Sweden, do you need to get in the water, Yes,
you do. You need to get in the water for
this question. No, no, no, you're good. You can stay,
you can stay, okay, Sweden. Al right, So in Sweden,
do you count sheep to go to sleep? Or is
that just an American thing? I think we count sheep? Okay, alright,
(34:17):
so I don't think I ever did it. Yeah, no,
that is that's familiar. All right, so good, good deal.
This is a section where we would normally call it
true or false sleep addition, but today we're calling it
sheep or bull sheep. So we're going to read you
a sense. Okay, okay, We're going to read you a sentence.
And if you think it's nonsense, all you have to
(34:37):
do is say bullshep and mango. What is she playing for? Today?
As always, the celebrity guest is playing for our unadulterated admiration.
I actually you had my hopes up something. I feel
the hopes came up and then they crashed down her. Okay, admiration,
I'll take it. We'll maybe add to that, you know,
(34:59):
setting up a a date with the authors of Dragons
Love Tacos. So, oh my god, yeah, okay, I'm game on.
Here we go sheep or bulls sheep? Here we go
Question number one. The first Australian ultramarathon runner was a
sixty one year old shepherd. He won the five hundred
(35:20):
mile race handily by running through the night and tricking
himself into believing he was running after his sheep sheep
or bull sheep? Sheep? Oh my god? Yeah, yeah, I'm
thinking that it's but if I haven't heard the other ones,
but I'm thinking that that one's too weird to be
able to come up with. What was his name? His
(35:42):
name was Cliff Young, and he was mocked for running
in boots and shuffling along, but he kept kept running
while everyone else slept. All right, my hero, Can I
be friends with him? We can. We're gonna go ahead
say yes. I have no idea, really sad to really yes.
But then we'll get your friends. We're just gonna find
(36:03):
some dude and be like, this is him, he's your friend. Yeah,
all right, let's see question number two. Sheep or bull sheep.
There's a sheep from Scotland that lives on the beach
and has a diet made up almost entirely of seaweed.
I did. I was in Scotland recently, just a couple
of weeks ago, and I saw a lot of sheep.
(36:24):
They were mainly goats on the coast. I'm gonna call
bull sheep. It was actually a sheep the north. Yeah,
there's a sheep that lives in Orkney and they're one
of the only mammals that can survive exclusively on this seafood.
I thought you meant one sheep. There was a single
(36:45):
like poor Bernard sheep. That was what I thought, okty sheep, harambe.
Well we're getting to a celebrity sheep, so question there
are real Dolly is a Dolly? Got it all right? Oh?
Here we go. Dolly the sheep was named for Dolly
Madison because the scientists got the idea for cloning the
(37:06):
sheep while board on an historic tour of James Madison's
home at Montpelier. Sheep or bullshep, bull sheep, Yeah, you're right,
Dolly was named for Dolly Pardon number four. Sheep have
amazing memories and can remember up to fifty other sheep
for several years. I mean, they're known for being stupid,
(37:31):
but at the same time they're like herd animals, or
I mean they have like their sheep packed or whatever.
It's called a school of sheep. What's like the count
pack of sheep a murder of sheep? But I'm going
to call sheep because I want them too smart. You're right,
So yeah, they can get drawn off by haircuts. Occasionally
(37:53):
they can't recognize other sheep. I can relate to that.
So you went three for four. Great job, Simone introductions.
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,
(38:14):
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.
(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.
I mean, you could fall zacket and have sixty cups
of coffee a day, or if you don't love that
caffeine crash, there pills that can keep you up for
maybe thirty hours at a time without much of a
drop off. It's funny because armies throughout history have invested
(39:00):
in this sort of stuff, like the Incas used coca leaves,
and the Greeks played with opium, and the Nazis used
meth amphetamines to make their soldiers march for forty 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 modaphanel, and some army officers and
(39:21):
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,
you might be more prone to making bad decisions. So
there's still 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
(39:42):
eventually kill you, we still don't understand why 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, you know,
so quickly in our brains is just fast and to me,
and the cleaning out of our brains, and it just
(40:03):
doesn't seem possible that anything in the coming decades will
be 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
(40:24):
sleeping anytime soon, I will admit I feel better knowing
just how much is going on when we're asleep. It
doesn't feel quite as much like a waste of time.
I'm so glad this part time Genius therapy session was
productive and thank you, thank you, But we're not done yet.
You know what time it is, the fact off, you bet,
(40:44):
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. All right,
Mango you first, 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 eleven days even days,
I know, and it's set by a student in California
(41:06):
named Randy Gardner way back in nineteen sixty four. 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 paranoid and getting annoyed by the people who had
(41:26):
promised to help him stay up to this long. I mean,
eleven days is a long time. It's an insanely long time,
I know. And uh, somehow Randy pulled it off. Um
he was doing it for a science fair project, which
I don't even know if he won, but that part's
never mentioned. 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 eleven days,
(41:48):
like Stanford people on the paper and everybody like, dude, it,
let's start do this. Yeah. I'm pretty sure I haven't
gone that long without a Snicker's bar, much less my sleep.
So al right, here's a fact. So in Finland they
celebrate National Sleepy Head Day on July. It's a tradition
that dates back to the Middle Ages actually, and the
ideas that the person sleeping the latest that day would
(42:09):
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 water upon them.
And it's particularly great because the townsfolk will throw local
politician into the water and everybody just gets behind it.
I like it. Um. So you know Doctor Spotted the
(42:30):
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 advises getting a batman net, cutting
in half, sewing it so it's twice as tall, and
then wrapping it around the crib to form a baby cage. Everybody,
how crazy is that he had the bad ment net
is the weirdest part, Like why not a tennis net
(42:51):
or fifteen ping pong nets? So I don't know. All right,
here's another one. You're less likely to have an accident
in your car after daylight saving time ends, and evidence
it's to the extra hour of sleep as being the
main reason 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.
Oh that's good, all right, all right, Well, people who
(43:13):
grew up with color television tend to dream in color,
but older people who grew up with black and white
TVs and movies, they actually are more likely to be
dreaming in black and white. I'm guessing millennial dreaming gifts exactly.
So I want to know what sea utters due to
prevent drifting away from each other when they go to sleep.
What's that they hold pause? Like sea otters actually hold
(43:33):
hands when they go to sleep. Come on, Mango, 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. All right, I'll
give it to you. Are this episode's winner of the
part time genius fact off. Thank you so much. I
have so many people to thank I want to start
with my agent, Bobby Manuals, my manager, all right the stage.
(43:58):
Thanks so much for listening to the episode of Part
Time Genius with Will and Mango Sweet Dreams. Thanks again
for listening to Part Time Genius. Be sure to subscribe
(44:20):
wherever you listen to your podcast, And because we're a
brand new show, if you're feeling extra generous, we'd love
it if you give us a rating on Apple Podcast.
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. Our executive producer is Jerry Rowland. Our
research team is Gay Bluesier, Lucas Adams, Autumn Whitefield, me Toronto,
Austin Thompson, and Meg Robbins. Jason Hok is our chief
(44:43):
cheer leader.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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