Introducing Stephen J. Dubner's new podcast, "Tell Me Something I Don't Know"

"Tell Me Something I Don't Know" is a live game show hosted by Stephen J. Dubner of "Freakonomics Radio." He has always had a mission: to tell you the things you thought you knew but didn't, and things you never thought you wanted to know, but do. Now, with "TMSIDK," he has a new way of doing just that. This new show is still journalism, still factual -- but disguised in the most entertaining, unexpected, and occasionally ridiculous conversation you're likely to hear. Audience contestants come on stage and try to wow a panel of experts with a fascinating fact, a historical wrinkle, a new line of research -- anything, really, as long as it's interesting, useful and true (or at least true-ish). The panel -- an ever-changing mix of comedians, brainiacs, and other high achievers -- poke and prod the contestants, and ultimately choose a winner. And there's a real-time, human fact-checker on hand to filter out the bull. This debut episode features Barnard College president Debora Spar, New York Public Library president Tony Marx, and comedian Andy Zaltzman; Jody Avirgan from FiveThirtyEight handles the fact-checking. You can subscribe now on iTunes. And don't worry, Freakonomics Radio isn't going anywhere -- this is just a special bonus episode of Dubner's new side gig.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by PNC Bank. Boring. Great word, bad rep. Yet, time and time again, here at Freakonomics, we find that when something culture-changing happens, boring things like calculations and careful planning are usually behind it. Which begs the question, why not apply it to other aspects of life, like banking, for example? Well, PNC Bank did, since its inception, proving time and again that the best banking strategy isn't the exciting type, but the steady, reliable, definitely-not-yolo type. PNC Bank: brilliantly boring since 1865. Brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. PNC Bank, National Association, Member FDIC.

• 0:48Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by hotels.com. Hotels.com helps you find and book the right stay for work faster. With business preferences, save your travel must haves, like gym access or breakfast, just once, then get tailored results whenever you search for work-travel. Plus, with a free membership, you can save up to 20% on hotels and earn rewards on every stay for future travel. Book now at hotels.com. Visit hotels.com for details.

• 1:20Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 1:53Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 2:28Stephen J. Dubner?

  Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner. I know, I know, it's not time for a new Freakonomics Radio episode to hit your feed. You know what? This is not a new Freakonomics Radio episode. It's a bonus episode. It is the very first episode of Tell Me Something I Don't Know, a brand-new podcast I'm launching, something I've long dreamed about. So you should probably pause right now to go subscribe to Tell Me Something I Don't Know on iTunes or wherever you get your Freakonomics Radio. Go ahead. I'll wait. Okay? Now, after you listen to this first episode, we want you to let us know what you think, what you liked, what you didn't like, any ideas you might have.

• 3:08Stephen J. Dubner?

  You can tweet us at @tmsidk show, or you can send an email to [email protected]. Remember, subscribe right now to Tell Me Something I Don't Know, so that you will get many more episodes like this one.

• 3:28Stephen J. Dubner?

  Why do I read? Why do I have conversations?

• 3:30Speaker 01

  Why do I travel? Why do I have to go to school? Why do I pay attention?

• 3:34Speaker 02

  Why do I pay attention? Because I want to be amused. Because I want to get outside my comfort zone.

• 3:40Speaker 03

  But mostly.

• 3:41Speaker 02

  Mostly.

• 3:42Speaker 03

  Mostly because.

• 3:42Speaker 02

  Because I want to.

• 3:43Speaker 03

  Find out stuff.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  Find out stuff.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  Find out stuff.

• 3:47Stephen J. Dubner?

  Because I want you to.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  Tell me something I don't know.

• 3:52Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay, how's this? Did you know that every time a new jet engine is coming onto the market, aeronautical engineers have to test it to see how the engine will hold up to things like hail, heavy rain, and bird strikes?

• 4:06Speaker 04

  A lot of airports are near flight migration patterns, so Bill'll take dead birds and launch them through the engine using an air cannon. The birds are humanely euthanized before we receive them, so we don't do any part of that. So in the moment, if all goes according to plan, it goes so quickly that if you blink, you'll miss it. But then you see the high-speed video. You can actually click frame by frame and see where the bird hit the fan blade. And you go out there and you see the aftermath of it. And sometimes it's a little gross. It's, it's, it kind of makes a seagull sashimi.

• 4:48Stephen J. Dubner?

  Welcome to Tell Me Something I Don't Know. I'm Stephen Dubner, and that was the aeronautical engineer Aaron Zimmerman helping us introduce the theme of tonight's show, Strange Danger.

• 5:13Stephen J. Dubner?

  Tell Me Something I Don't Know is a new Inside Out kind of game show. Rather than quizzing contestants on what they know, we ask contestants to tell us something we don't know, to tell us their IDKs, their I-don't-knows. In the process, we all hope to get a little bit smarter to judge these IDKs and eventually to pick a winner. We've put together a panel of extraordinarily well-versed people. Would you please welcome the president of the New York Public Library, Tony Marx, the president of Barnard College, Deborah Spar, and the president of nothing at all but a brilliant comedian, Andy Zaltzman.

• 5:54Stephen J. Dubner?

  Very, very, very happy and grateful to have the three of you here tonight. We'll start with Tony Marx. Here's what we know about you thus far. We know you're a native New Yorker. We know you were president of Amerist College for eight years before taking over New York Public Library in 2011. Tony Marx, tell us something we don't know about you.

• 6:13Speaker 05

  When I was working on South Africa back in the 1980s in the middle of the civil war, I had to effectively lie my way across the border. The government wouldn't let me in, and I had to find a way in for the work I was doing.

• 6:30Stephen J. Dubner?

  What kind of work were you doing?

• 6:32Speaker 05

  Education work, anti-apartheid work. The apartheid government wasn't so keen on that.

• 6:37Stephen J. Dubner?

  Thanks, okay. Our next panelist, Deborah Spar. Let's see what we know about you. We know that since 2008, you've been the president of Barnard, one of the oldest women's colleges in the world. We know you've written widely about business, technology, and society, most notably in a book called Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection. So tell us something we don't know about Deborah Spar.

• 7:00Speaker 06

  When I was about seven, I discovered that I could talk backwards.

• 7:04Stephen J. Dubner?

  What do you mean, talk? What do you mean?

• 7:06Speaker 06

  Well, I could take pretty much any word and just flip it around in my mind so that...

• 7:13Stephen J. Dubner?

  And your mouth as well? You can really do it?

• 7:15Speaker 06

  Yeah, so grapefruit becomes twurfperg. And Tony Marx would be, actually, it sounds like a jazz thing, enote scram. So I do it...

• 7:25Stephen J. Dubner?

  Holy...

• 7:26Speaker 06

  ...phonetically. It has absolutely no practical value whatsoever.

• 7:29Speaker 05

  Did you practice that? Did you practice this?

• 7:30Speaker 06

  Not hard. You got a really simple name.

• 7:33Stephen J. Dubner?

  Can you do "Tell me something I don't know"?

• 7:36Speaker 06

  Let im gnethmas, it snowdon.

• 7:39Stephen J. Dubner?

  You know, now that you say it, I think that might have been a better name.

• 7:44Speaker 06

  No, sorry.

• 7:46Stephen J. Dubner?

  Unbelievable.

• 7:46Speaker 06

  And you're Nev eats Renbud.

• 7:48Stephen J. Dubner?

  Thank you very much. Deb Swar, very happy to have you here and good to know about your very rare, I assume it's a rare skill.

• 7:56Speaker 06

  Rare and useless.

• 7:57Stephen J. Dubner?

  I'm impressed, alright. Our final panelist, Andy Zaltzman, who doesn't even live in America and yet is here with us tonight. Welcome, Andy. What do we know about Andy Zaltzman? We know that you are a comedian and political satirist who used to work with John Oliver. We know that you still host the Beagle Podcast. We know, I have a very hard time believing this is true, but I'm assured it is, we know that you delivered your own child with apparently zero experience as a midwife or a doctor.

• 8:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it wasn't intended, we didn't plan it that way, but I was briefly a professional midwife, then retired from the game with a career 1-0 record.

• 8:38Stephen J. Dubner?

  Andy Zaltzman, tell us something we don't know about you, then.

• 8:44Speaker 02

  Well, it's not so much something about me as my family. My great uncle, so my father's uncle, was Nelson Mandela's accountant. My father very briefly met Nelson Mandela at my great uncle's birthday party once.

• 9:02Stephen J. Dubner?

  So that is impressive in a very small way.

• 9:06Speaker 02

  I mean, it's, I guess, it's impressive twice removed, isn't that how it works?

• 9:13Stephen J. Dubner?

  So I like that our panel tonight has a pair of presidents and the grandnephew of the accountant of a president. Alright, it is time now to play Tell Me Something I Don't Know. Here's how it works. Contestants from the audience will come on stage and deliver their IDKs. Panelists, it will be your job to ask questions, seek out more information, whatever you'd like, and once all the contestants have presented, you will vote on a winner. There are three criteria that you will use to judge the contestants' IDKs. Number one, does their IDK surprise you? Is it something you truly didn't know? Number two, is it worth knowing?

• 9:53Stephen J. Dubner?

  Does it get beyond mere trivia into something that's truly interesting, perhaps even useful? And, number three, is their IDK demonstrably true? So to help with that demonstrably true part, I'd like to introduce you to our real-time human fact-checker. Please welcome Jody Avirgan.

• 10:14Stephen J. Dubner?

  Hi Stephen. Hey Jody. Jody is a podcast host and producer for ESPN and 538. Jody, you spent a lot of this past year covering the election. What's harder to fact check, you think, a presidential debate or an episode of Tell Me Something I Don't Know? Well, the stakes are higher here, clearly. Before we bring up our first contestant, a final word to our panelists. It takes some real courage for our audience members to get on stage and try to impress people as impressive as yourself. So while you should be firm in your questioning, I also encourage you to be kind. Because later on, you, the judges, shall also be judged when we spin the Wheel of Maximum Danger.

• 10:58Stephen J. Dubner?

  It is time to play Tell Me Something I Don't Know. Would you please welcome to the stage our first contestant, Raj Jayswal.

• 11:09Stephen J. Dubner?

  Hello there Raj, tell us a little bit about yourself, please.

• 11:11Speaker 07

  Hello, my name is Raj and I'm a writer, actor, and ER doctor.

• 11:16Stephen J. Dubner?

  Which go together like a...

• 11:19Speaker 07

  George Clooney, that's who I am.

• 11:21Stephen J. Dubner?

  Raj, remember that our panelists are very bright people. So what do you know that's worth knowing that you think they don't know?

• 11:28Speaker 07

  Okay, so some people may know the concept of paradoxical undressing.

• 11:34Stephen J. Dubner?

  Wait, wait, wait, slow down. Some people may know the concept of paradoxical undressing.

• 11:38Speaker 07

  Some, not everyone.

• 11:40Stephen J. Dubner?

  Show of hands, paradoxical undressing?

• 11:42Speaker 07

  Okay, none of you know the concept of paradoxical undressing. A phenomenon where people suffering from severe hypothermia actually start taking their clothes off. But do you know of another bizarre behavior that people engage in right before they freeze to death?

• 12:00Stephen J. Dubner?

  All right, so there's a thing that most people know, except none of us do. And then there's another thing that's like it, that's even more obscure. What is it, right?

• 12:09Speaker 07

  It's pretty clear.

• 12:09Stephen J. Dubner?

  And it has to do with hypothermia, when you're about to freeze to death.

• 12:13Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 12:14Speaker 02

  Fascinating, that paradox... So you undress due to hypothermia. It's basically the way that the Canadian nation has reproduced, isn't it?

• 12:25Speaker 06

  But how do you know? How do you find people about to die of hypothermia?

• 12:33Speaker 07

  No. So these, all these, this evidence that we have is based on real-life cases. You know, people like mountaineers, hikers, people who've been sort of found in severe conditions and, you know, then observed to have some peculiar characteristics.

• 12:51Speaker 02

  So from Captain Scott's diaries in the Antarctic, there's that entry where, oh, Oates has just left and he's got his junk out.

• 12:57Speaker 07

  I don't know if it's that... I mean, junk out is a great research topic in itself, but it may have been, most of the research is more recent, more contemporary.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  Are you sure it's not that people have stolen their clothes after they've died?

• 13:15Speaker 07

  So...

• 13:16Speaker 05

  So that they don't die of hypothermia? Because they're right there.

• 13:20Stephen J. Dubner?

  So tell us why it is that people do undress when they are cold? And tell us what is the even more obscure coping method that also doesn't work?

• 13:31Speaker 07

  So the most well-respected established theory right now is that when people are cold, blood vessels start to constrict. And what happens is that the brain at some point experiences a great rush of blood, especially through the hypothalamus, which controls the temperature. So when the hypothalamus receives all this blood, it thinks that the body is actually hot, that it's almost like on fire because there's so much blood coming through. So it tells the person to like take their clothes off because they need to cool down because they're on fire.

• 14:04Speaker 02

  Right. Are you sure it's not just mostly men thinking, "Ooh, I wonder how small it is now"?

• 14:11Speaker 07

  They have not been able to not prove that, so, you know.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  There's a lot of holes in this piece of science, aren't there?

• 14:16Speaker 07

  There is, there is.

• 14:17Speaker 06

  Are these people women?

• 14:19Speaker 07

  They can be.

• 14:20Speaker 06

  Sounds like hot flashes to me.

• 14:23Stephen J. Dubner?

  So what is the thing that they do? What is the other thing that...

• 14:26Speaker 07

  So they dig a hole and die in it.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  That's considerate, isn't it?

• 14:33Speaker 07

  So it's called terminal burrowing.

• 14:37Stephen J. Dubner?

  Are you a real doctor?

• 14:41Speaker 07

  So, yeah, a phenomenon where people seek shelter in an enclosed space. It's seen as almost like a final ditch effort by the brain to find a warmer environment. Initially seen in mountaineers and hikers, this has also been seen in urban environments, especially in alcoholics. So there are cases where naked dead bodies have been found under beds and couches and futons and inside closets. And obviously, when a death like this is discovered, it looks a little bit suspicious. So a lot of these deaths are routinely investigated by homicide detectives. And in even a further twist, there are actually two cases of actual homicides that

• 15:25Speaker 07

  were staged to mimic undressing and terminal burrowing to confuse the police even further. Were you involved in either of these?

• 15:33Speaker 06

  This is really depressing.

• 15:35Stephen J. Dubner?

  Before we finish up with Dr. Raj Jayswal, Jody, our fact checker, what do you know?

• 15:43Speaker 08

  I've been Googling some stuff.

• 15:46Speaker 08

  So, okay, so both of these phenomena are true. The way that they know about this is through cases where, you know, anecdotes. The Donner Party had some of these anecdotes of people running out of their tent naked and afraid.

• 15:59Speaker 08

  I started Googling around about other animals that do this because I think, you know, this strikes me as maybe like the burrowing instinct is maybe something, you know...

• 16:08Speaker 07

  Right, they think it's a sort of a primal instinct.

• 16:10Speaker 05

  Sorry, other animals take their clothes off?

• 16:12Speaker 07

  No, so, no, don't get excited. No, it's the, it's the, it's the digging part. So, before hibernation, they sometimes do that.

• 16:23Speaker 08

  So I just ended up on a website that has 26 cute animals that burrow with pictures you need to see right now, and they're adorable.

• 16:29Speaker 07

  Well, they look adorable, but clearly they're suicidal.

• 16:34Stephen J. Dubner?

  Raj, thank you so much for playing Tell Me Something I Don't Know.

• 16:42Stephen J. Dubner?

  Panelists, later you will be asked to rank all our contestants and pick a winner. For now, would you please welcome our next contestant, Sarah Bataglia-Rynak.

• 16:54Stephen J. Dubner?

  Hi, Sarah.

• 16:54Speaker 09

  Hi.

• 16:55Stephen J. Dubner?

  Where are you from?

• 16:56Speaker 09

  Buffalo, New York.

• 16:57Stephen J. Dubner?

  Oh, so you know a little bit about hypothermia and paradoxical...

• 17:00Speaker 09

  Unfortunately, we do.

• 17:02Stephen J. Dubner?

  All right, Sarah, floor is yours.

• 17:04Speaker 09

  So, there are 60 pounds in households across America of a specific product, collecting dust. Do you have any idea what it might be? Socks. Socks? That's a good guess.

• 17:16Speaker 02

  Is it, uh, grandmothers?

• 17:21Speaker 09

  Who froze to death? Not in America.

• 17:26Speaker 05

  So, I know it's not books, because they're not collecting dust. Everyone's reading them.

• 17:31Stephen J. Dubner?

  Oh, good delusion there.

• 17:35Speaker 09

  I'll give you two hints. One, it's really difficult to get rid of. You can't put it out to the curb with your regular trash.

• 17:41Speaker 02

  Are you sure it's not grandmothers?

• 17:44Speaker 09

  I'm still sure. And the second thing is, homeowners or apartment renters, they intend on using it again in the future.

• 17:53Speaker 06

  Televisions that you can't turn on anymore.

• 17:55Speaker 09

  You're getting there.

• 17:56Stephen J. Dubner?

  Sarah, 60 pounds' worth of what in the average American household?

• 18:00Speaker 09

  So, there's a plethora of excess paint.

• 18:03Stephen J. Dubner?

  Oh, paint.

• 18:04Speaker 09

  So, 60 pounds on average per household ends up being 6.2 billion pounds across the country.

• 18:12Speaker 05

  You might need it. You never know.

• 18:13Speaker 09

  That's a thing I'll say. Paint is a really expensive waste stream to dispose of. It costs 30 times more than your regular trash per ton. In New York State alone, municipalities spend about $26 million every year to collect excess paint. And they're just scratching the tip of the iceberg. They can't afford to collect all of it. But you shouldn't just consider your paint cans trash. There's actually a way to recycle it.

• 18:41Speaker 05

  I thought there was a product here somewhere.

• 18:43Speaker 09

  I actually purchased paint from recyclers. So there's a handful of recyclers across the US and Canada that have been recycling paint for, some of them up to 30 years. Some of them are new, about five years old.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  Just out of interest, if there's 60 pounds per household of paint, I mean, could you just paint the entire nation overnight? So the people on the International Space Station wake up the next day and look down and, "Oh, look, America's changed."

• 19:10Speaker 09

  We could do some really awesome things with this excess paint. Actually, to speak to that, 84% of the paint can be recycled. So we can actually collect the paint, and 60% of the liquid can be recycled, and then the other 24% is the cans. So the steel and the plastic, they can be shredded and sent to recyclers to mold and do other products.

• 19:32Stephen J. Dubner?

  What do you do with it ultimately? Don't you, do you mix it all together and it gets brown? And then you have to find somebody who wants like eight zillion pounds of brown paint?

• 19:41Speaker 09

  Because these recyclers are managing so much excess paint, they're able to consolidate by color and produce consistent colors. So up to 21 colors.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  Well, it's still paint now, isn't it?

• 19:55Stephen J. Dubner?

  Sarah Bataglia-Rynak, thank you so much for playing "Tell Me Something I Don't Know." Great job. Very interesting. Would you please welcome our next contestant, Donald Redlmeyer. Nice to have you here. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

• 20:14Speaker 10

  I'm a professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, as well as a practicing physician at Sunnybrook Hospital, Canada's largest trauma center.

• 20:24Stephen J. Dubner?

  Excellent. Dr. Redlmeyer, our second doctor of the evening. The floor is yours.

• 20:29Speaker 10

  Okay, panelists. Elections are a really important event in any powerful democracy. However, tell me, when is the most dangerous time to vote for the US president on Election Day?

• 20:47Speaker 06

  You mean like the time of the day?

• 20:49Speaker 10

  The time of day. Classically, the polls are open from 8:00 AM until 8:00 PM local time.

• 20:57Speaker 06

  And people are getting killed?

• 21:03Speaker 10

  Yeah, we figure that the average American presidential election leads to about 25 individuals who died or are seriously disabled.

• 21:15Speaker 06

  Is this suicide?

• 21:16Speaker 10

  That would not have occurred otherwise.

• 21:17Speaker 05

  Is it?

• 21:18Speaker 10

  No, it's not suicide. That may come later.

• 21:20Speaker 05

  Would that same number die in that period on any other day?

• 21:24Speaker 10

  Oh, the way the research is done is by comparing Election Day Tuesday to the Tuesday immediately before and the Tuesday immediately after.

• 21:34Speaker 02

  What do you vote, because I've never voted here yet. I might give it a go. I have no problem with electoral fraud. You can't complain about apathy and complain about electoral fraud. It just shows commitment to the process. But do you vote, you vote with pencils or?

• 21:49Speaker 06

  Sometimes.

• 21:51Speaker 02

  Because we vote with pencils back home. So obviously, you know, the earlier you are into the polling station, the sharper the pencil is.

• 21:57Speaker 10

  Okay.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  It could be lethally dangerous if you...

• 22:02Speaker 10

  Oh, it's a good point. In the United States, but there's also some places with remote voting and other places with mail-in ballots. And because of that, we think that the number of deaths is actually not as large as it would be.

• 22:15Speaker 02

  Is it right before 8:00 PM, people driving fast to get to the polling station in time to vote?

• 22:24Speaker 10

  That's pretty close.

• 22:25Speaker 05

  Oh, Andy, are you a political scientist?

• 22:27Speaker 06

  He's a comedian, it's the same thing.

• 22:30Speaker 02

  It is exactly the same thing. It is exactly the same thing.

• 22:36Speaker 10

  Dr. Redelmeier, so tell us about what you know and what you've learned. There's about a 19% increase in life-threatening traffic fatalities on election days compared to the normal Tuesday in the United States. That increase rolls over all parts of the country, extends to all recent decades, is significantly larger than the increase that occurs on New Year's Eve, and also occurs regardless of whether a Democrat or a Republican is eventually elected.

• 23:10Speaker 10

  The worst time is the evening hours between 4:00 PM and 8:00 PM. The ultimate reason is likely a combination between more driving, more rushing, more distractions, altered pathways, and unfit motorists. And this is not to suggest a revolutionary change to the democratic process. You don't have to stop voting, just a gentle reminder about the importance of road safety.

• 23:41Stephen J. Dubner?

  But the bottom line is that voting kills. That's what you're saying.

• 23:45Speaker 10

  A part of it, but if you choose not to vote, that's not necessarily going to save your life because we all share the roads, so that we all can be collateral damage.

• 23:58Stephen J. Dubner?

  Jody, the dangers of democracy, call it what you like, what can you tell us?

• 24:03Speaker 08

  I'm trying to figure out whether there's a greater chance that you will die on Election Day, or that your vote will have an impact on Election Day. And I think it's that you will die, unless you're in a couple of select states. You did mention that the bump, which is true, on Election Day is higher than on New Year's Eve, but I'm seeing that there's a 10% increase on Tax Day, which I guess is for some of the same reasons. The deadliest days for driving in the United States tend to be in the summer, and the deadliest day of all is the 4th of July.

• 24:43Speaker 10

  Yeah, it certainly used to be New Year's Eve, but all of the countermeasures really do work, suggesting that another policy option could be free public transit, once every four years on Election Day to get out the vote.

• 24:57Stephen J. Dubner?

  Donald Redlmeyer, great stuff. Thank you so very much. It's time now for a short break. Remember, you should subscribe right now to tell me something I don't know. Just go to whatever podcast app you use and sign up. When we return, more contestants, our panelists will pick a winner, and then we spin the Wheel of Maximum Danger. If you would like to be a contestant on a future show or attend a future show, please visit tmsidk.com. We will be right back.

• 25:35Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Quince. You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing on repeat? The sweater that goes with everything? The perfect pair of pants? Or the tea you somehow always reach for first? Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy, and that's what Quince does best. Quince focuses on high-quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and merino wool. The styles are timeless, versatile, and designed to become the dependable pieces you reach for day after day. And it's not just clothing. Quince brings that same approach to everything they make, from hotel-quality bedding and bath to kitchen essentials and thoughtfully designed furniture. Find your next fall favorites at Quince.

• 26:19Stephen J. Dubner?

  Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com/freak. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash freak. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Southern New Hampshire University. The best investments are the ones you make in yourself, and no one knows that better than Southern New Hampshire University. With more than 200 online degree programs, no set class times, and low online tuition, Southern New Hampshire University is built to fit your life today and set you up for success tomorrow. Education is an investment. Why not make it a smart one?

• 27:03Stephen J. Dubner?

  Apply for free at s n h u dot edu slash Freakonomics. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by hotels.com. Hotels.com helps you find and book the right stay for work faster. With business preferences, save your travel must-haves, like gym access or breakfast, just once, then get tailored results whenever you search for work travel. Plus, with a free membership, you can save up to 20% on hotels and earn rewards on every stay for future travel. Book now at hotels.com. Visit hotels.com for details.

• 27:48Stephen J. Dubner?

  Welcome back to Tell Me Something I Don't Know. I'm Stephen Dubner. Tonight's theme: Strange Danger. We've been learning some great stuff about leftover paint, terminal burrowing, and the perils of getting to the polls. Would you please welcome our next contestant, Walter James. Walter, please tell us a little bit about yourself.

• 28:10Speaker 11

  I'm a sleep medicine physician in Atlanta, Georgia, and the director of the Sleep Disorder Center at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta.

• 28:18Stephen J. Dubner?

  Interesting. We are lousy with doctors tonight. I like it. Dr. James, what do you have for us tonight?

• 28:24Speaker 11

  If you live to be 90 years old, you will spend about 32 years of your life asleep. My question for you is, why is it necessary for humans to spend a third of their lives asleep?

• 28:41Stephen J. Dubner?

  Right? It seems like such a design flaw in the human.

• 28:46Speaker 06

  I was wondering if you could consult on why I wake up every night at 2:38 in the morning.

• 28:50Speaker 11

  That's what I do for a living. I'll give you my number.

• 28:54Speaker 06

  All right. That's how it's good.

• 28:56Speaker 02

  Is it because life is so annoying? That if you were awake for more than 16 hours a day, you'd just go absolutely round the spout within about a week?

• 29:07Speaker 11

  You are speaking for the world of depressed people. Depressed people actually do sleep more because their lives are so annoying or depressing. So you may know something about that. But that's not the real reason that we sleep.

• 29:22Speaker 06

  But we have to... I am not a scientist of the scientific sort, but...

• 29:27Speaker 11

  What kind of scientist are you?

• 29:30Speaker 06

  I'm a political scientist. But cells have to be rejuvenated, right? They have to be sort of go into a slumbering state so they can go back and do their cell-like work.

• 29:42Speaker 11

  So for centuries, people have been trying to define the need for sleep because there's a need for sleep, which is what you're saying. It's circular. You're saying we need to sleep because the cells need to sleep. But why do they need to sleep?

• 29:56Speaker 02

  Right. The renowned sleep scientist, Professor John Bon Jovi, he famously came up with the theory that I will live when I'm alive and sleep when I'm dead. You dispute his science.

• 30:13Speaker 11

  No, he may be right. If he does not sleep when he's alive, he probably won't live quite as long, and as a result, he'll sleep more later when he's dead.

• 30:22Stephen J. Dubner?

  Would you like to tell us why we... I mean, the answer is essentially, why do we sleep, right?

• 30:28Speaker 11

  The answer, yes. So, this is something that's been pondered for centuries. Thomas Edison said that sleep was a criminal theft of time. In 2013, some scientists made some dramatic discoveries in mice. And what they found is that many mouse nerve cells in the brain actually shrink during normal sleep. And when the cells shrink, the spaces between the cells widen by as much as 60%, and those spaces and the nerve cells themselves are then bathed by spinal fluid washing through the brain. This was shown to increase the clearance of certain proteins that build up around nerve cells during normal wakefulness,

• 31:13Speaker 11

  including beta amyloid, which has been shown to cause Alzheimer's disease. So what does all this mean? First, that the actual purpose of normal sleep may be to cleanse the brain. And secondly, if cleansing the brain means preventing certain proteins from damaging brain nerve cells, it's not unreasonable to assume that normal sleep may serve to prevent dementia. So it's one more reason, perhaps one of the best reasons, for getting enough sleep.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  And also, does it suggest that, you know, if you've done this research on mice, so they benefit from lots of sleep, so you shouldn't be putting down, you know, traps for mice? You should just be putting down little shots of espresso coffee for them.

• 31:59Speaker 11

  When's the last time you saw a demented mouse?

• 32:01Speaker 02

  If I had a dollar for every time someone's asked me that question, I would be a rich man.

• 32:06Speaker 06

  And is there a connection to dreaming? So while this cleansing is going on, is it sort of, you know, tickling our brain neurons so that we're imagining strange things?

• 32:15Speaker 11

  Well, actually, you're touching on a question, a logical question for this, for the scientists who work with these mice, and that is, what stage of sleep is it where the cleansing actually takes the most place? And that's sort of unclear. It looks like it may be mostly what's called stage three sleep or deep sleep, which is not the same as REM sleep, where the dreams occur. But they have-

• 32:36Speaker 06

  How do you tell if mice are dreaming?

• 32:38Speaker 11

  If they're in rapid eye movement sleep, you can make assumptions that they're dreaming, but they're probably not going to tell you what they're dreaming.

• 32:46Speaker 11

  But so it's probably in deep-

• 32:47Speaker 02

  Well, is it dirty stuff? Is that what mice are doing? Filthy little hounds?

• 32:51Speaker 11

  Little mouse dreams.

• 32:53Stephen J. Dubner?

  Jody Avirgan. Dr. Walter James is telling us about why we sleep, a kind of brainwashing, as he describes it. What can you add to it?

• 33:04Speaker 08

  A lot of amazing things happen when you sleep. Hormones get released, your heart and your breathing slows, giving your system a break. You become, I guess, somewhat paralyzed a little bit. And then, there is NPT, nocturnal penile tumessence, a spontaneous erection of the penis during sleep or when waking up. It is worth noting that most healthy men will experience NPT three to six times a night, not just in the morning.

• 33:33Stephen J. Dubner?

  Does your Fitbit tell you that? I'm curious.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  What about mice?

• 33:40Speaker 02

  There are loads of horny mice in this experiment.

• 33:42Stephen J. Dubner?

  Walter James, thank you so much for playing Tell Me Something I Don't Know. Very well done.

• 33:49Stephen J. Dubner?

  Would you please welcome our next contestant, Doug Quatrochi.

• 33:57Stephen J. Dubner?

  Doug, nice to have you. What do you do?

• 33:59Speaker 12

  Well, I studied aerospace engineering at MIT, and now I'm building the first trade association for landlords in Massachusetts.

• 34:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay, the mic is yours.

• 34:09Speaker 12

  All right, so my question is, how can society best provide homes for homeless people?

• 34:16Speaker 02

  Is it to build loads of houses? Would that help?

• 34:21Speaker 12

  It certainly would.

• 34:22Stephen J. Dubner?

  How dare you bring your wacky British logic two hours short, sir?

• 34:26Speaker 12

  The issue in the US is zoning. A lot of not in my backyard. They don't want density. They don't want a lot of houses.

• 34:32Stephen J. Dubner?

  Tony, you got a bunch of libraries just sitting out there at night, empty. Dormitories, yeah?

• 34:37Speaker 02

  In your libraries, you could put it all on a memory stick these days, anyway. It's just like a wasted house, isn't it?

• 34:42Speaker 06

  Isn't there this thing that, I'm gonna not get this right, but if you built like, one house on every quarter acre, you could put the entire world's population in Texas?

• 34:51Speaker 02

  Would they wanna go to Texas?

• 34:52Speaker 06

  No, that's why there's so much land.

• 34:54Speaker 12

  No, I'll tell you, here, I'll tell you this, though, to get you away from thinking about houses, landlords in Massachusetts have enough vacant units today to take every homeless person in Massachusetts out of shelter.

• 35:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  Ah, so it's not a supply problem?

• 35:09Speaker 12

  Not quite.

• 35:09Stephen J. Dubner?

  It's not a demand problem?

• 35:10Speaker 12

  Yeah.

• 35:11Stephen J. Dubner?

  What's the problem?

• 35:12Speaker 12

  So, traditional homeless shelters are actually only a temporary solution, and they're very expensive. In Massachusetts, we spend $3,000 to shelter one family for just one month, and the average stay in shelter is close to a year. It's very hard to find a landlord who will accept a rental application from someone with an unstable housing history, and bad credit, and possibly a minor criminal record, they're worried about a terrible eviction. But it turns out there's a solution to the problem in the form of a public-private partnership. If you use government money that would otherwise go to shelter, and instead offer landlords a financial guarantee to cover unpaid rent...

• 35:48Stephen J. Dubner?

  Landlords like you.

• 35:49Speaker 12

  Landlords like me, I know, so take that with a grain of salt, because here is, I'm advising this, offer them a guarantee to cover things like unpaid rent, property damage, attorney's fees if there's an eviction. Landlords will actually very quickly rent their apartments. In Seattle, for instance, the county government insures landlords for up to $10,000 for those mishaps. It's called the Landlord Liaison Project. They've housed over 7,000 people in the last five years. 87% of landlords have filed no claim against the insurance whatsoever, and for those who have filed a claim, the average claim is 1,500, which is far less than their cap of $10,000. The way they do that is they offer landlords legal advice and mediation support, and they also offer supportive services for

• 36:34Speaker 12

  the formerly homeless tenant. So we're hoping to pilot this in Massachusetts, because we have a right to shelter, which means if you don't have a place to sleep, we guarantee you a place to sleep. And we have very tough landlord laws, actually. So if we can do this in Massachusetts, and we think we can, it'll save the Commonwealth money, give people real homes, and take away the perception of risk from landlords.

• 36:57Stephen J. Dubner?

  So you're taking the money that would otherwise go to fund homeless shelters, which is an inefficient use of money, you're saying?

• 37:02Speaker 12

  Yeah.

• 37:03Stephen J. Dubner?

  Take that money, offer the landlords insurance that they will then take in the tenants that they otherwise would not have.

• 37:09Speaker 12

  Right, right. And then work with the landlords to make sure that things don't go really haywire.

• 37:13Speaker 02

  You sure it wouldn't be easier to just build like a giant spaceship that could take...

• 37:18Speaker 12

  Send the homeless people to the moon?

• 37:20Speaker 02

  Four million people.

• 37:22Speaker 12

  I shall take that under advisement and report back.

• 37:26Speaker 06

  But, but does, do supply and demand meet in the right place? So are all the apartments sort of where all the homeless people are? Or would you have to ask people to move from Boston to Worcester?

• 37:38Speaker 12

  There's definitely, there's definitely a supply and demand problem, and it's exacerbated by bad zoning. Yeah. But, but you look at it and you figure out, basically, we have enough units already.

• 37:49Stephen J. Dubner?

  Really interesting. Doug Quatrochi, thank you so much for coming to play Tell Me Something I Don't Know. Would you please welcome our final contestant of the evening, Meg Jacobs. Hello, Meg.

• 38:07Speaker 13

  Hi.

• 38:08Stephen J. Dubner?

  Who are you, exactly?

• 38:10Speaker 13

  I'm Meg Jacobs, and I teach history and public affairs at Princeton University.

• 38:15Stephen J. Dubner?

  Excellent. I'd love you to tell us all something we don't know.

• 38:18Speaker 13

  Well, here's a question. What event led many supermarket shelves in America to go bare in February of 1974?

• 38:32Speaker 02

  Was it, there was a really interesting test match cricket series between the West Indies and England going on.

• 38:39Stephen J. Dubner?

  Very good, very good guess, Sandy.

• 38:41Speaker 05

  Was it fear that as President Nixon approached his impeachment, that nuclear war was increasingly possible?

• 38:50Speaker 13

  Good to mention Watergate. The country was indeed absorbed by this presidential scandal, but that is not the correct answer.

• 39:01Speaker 06

  Was it connected to the oil crisis?

• 39:04Speaker 13

  Yes, it was.

• 39:05Speaker 06

  Because in October 73...

• 39:09Speaker 06

  The first oil shocks hit.

• 39:12Speaker 13

  Yes.

• 39:12Speaker 06

  And so people were scared that they won't be able to get to the stores.

• 39:18Speaker 13

  Good.

• 39:18Speaker 06

  And so they raided the store, or they hoarded.

• 39:21Stephen J. Dubner?

  It's a very good theory. Is that theory correct?

• 39:23Speaker 13

  Not exactly.

• 39:25Stephen J. Dubner?

  Not exactly.

• 39:25Speaker 13

  Although, although you are correct that there was fear of shortages and that sort of gripped the popular mentality. So I've just written a book called Panic at the Pump about the energy crisis. And when Johnny Carson said there's going to be a shortage of toilet paper, in fact, the next day, people went to the markets and there was hoarding of toilet paper.

• 39:47Stephen J. Dubner?

  Was it that because you couldn't buy gas, you wanted to buy whatever else you could to make up for the buying impulse?

• 39:54Speaker 13

  No.

• 39:56Speaker 02

  Well, people are shoving bananas into their cars, thinking, well, you know, it's not that different, is it?

• 40:01Speaker 06

  I actually remember that, not the banana part, but I remember lines, lines around the gas station because it was like the first time Americans thought that we'd be left without something.

• 40:13Speaker 13

  Yeah. So, you know, the symbol of American success, the cars now the seemingly the sign of its decline.

• 40:21Stephen J. Dubner?

  It feels like we're sniffing around the true answer, but why don't you tell us the full story?

• 40:25Speaker 13

  The answer is a truckers' strike that took place during the Arab embargo, Arab oil embargo, when there was a shortage of gasoline. And to save fuel, President Nixon signed a national speed limit law set at 55 miles per hour to require driving at more fuel-efficient speeds. But truckers drove for a living and the faster, the better. So they were not very happy about this. And they, along with millions of other Americans, were mad also about the shortage of gasoline and the high prices at the pump. So, long-haul

• 41:08Speaker 13

  truckers, inspired by the social protests of the 60s, used their CBs to coordinate a national shutdown of the highways for 11 days. Supermarket shelves went bare, produce rotted on the vine, industry slowed down. And because it was hard to coordinate collective action, they didn't belong to a union, they resorted to violence. So they littered highways with nails, dropped... Bricks from overpasses and sniped at driving truckers from the side of the road, which actually resulted in some deaths, and the country was watching in fear.

• 41:50Stephen J. Dubner?

  How was it resolved ultimately? Why 11 days?

• 41:54Speaker 13

  Ultimately, they needed to go back to work because these truckers owned their own trucks and they didn't belong to a union. And in the end, the Nixon administration was not willing to give very much. And in fact, after 11 days of silence, finally Nixon denounced them as desperadoes.

• 42:13Stephen J. Dubner?

  Panelists, the great trucker strike of 1974, did you know about it?

• 42:18Speaker 13

  I remember the embargo, I don't remember the trucker strike.

• 42:21Stephen J. Dubner?

  Was it mostly East Coast? Was it?

• 42:23Speaker 13

  The hardest hit areas were Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia. But in fact, there were incidents and arrests because of violence and disturbance in 42 states across the country. There were 229 shootings and three people died. And in fact, the strike exacerbated the shortage of fuel by design because one of the things they did to sort of really try to get the attention and sympathy, well, at least a result from the White House, was to blockade gas distribution centers. So it really intensified the gas shortage.

• 42:58Stephen J. Dubner?

  Doty Avirgan, Keep On Truckin', fascinating story of relatively recent history that none of us seem to know much about. What else can you tell us?

• 43:06Speaker 08

  You know, one thing that's interesting is that they passed this national speed limit, 55 as an kind of emergency measure, but it stayed 55 until the mid 80s and then they raised it to 65 and then in 1995, they got rid of the national speed limit. But one thing I'm curious about in your story is, you know, rather than all these strikes and the sabotage and all, like, could they have just driven faster? Like, broken the speed limit?

• 43:30Speaker 13

  Uh...

• 43:31Speaker 08

  Because I'm looking, because the non-compliance rate for speed limits

• 43:35Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 43:36Speaker 08

  is like 85% according to the studies I'm seeing. People just drive faster than the speed limit. It seemed like the first move.

• 43:41Stephen J. Dubner?

  Meg Jacobs, thank you so much. Let's give Meg and all our contestants a big hand.

• 43:49Stephen J. Dubner?

  And now it is time for our panelists to rank their favorite IDKs and to pick a winner. So, who will it be? Raj Jayswal and Terminal Burrowing, Sarah Betaglia-Rynak and Secondhand Paint, Donald Rettelmeier and Voting Kills, Walter James and Brainwashing, aka Why We Sleep, Doug Quatrochi and Landlord Insurance for Homeless Tenants, or Meg Jacobs and Keep On Truckin'. While the votes are being tallied, we'll take a short break. When we come back, we will announce a winner and force the panelists to tell us something we don't know.

• 44:42Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Granola. You know that moment when a meeting ends and someone says, "Let's circle back on this next week," and everyone nods but no one writes it down? Then next week rolls around and it's radio silence? That's why Granola exists. Granola is an AI-powered notepad built for the way real people actually meet. You take rough notes like you normally would, and in the background, Granola securely transcribes the meeting. Then, it turns everything into clean, structured, actually useful notes when the meeting ends. And the best part? Granola works through your device's audio, which means it integrates seamlessly into the video conferencing tools you already use. No setup, no awkward bots. It's just your normal meeting with superpowers. If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free.

• 45:26Stephen J. Dubner?

  Just head to granola.ai/freakonomics. That's granola.ai/freakonomics to get your time back. Try it for free at granola.ai/freakonomics.

• 45:44Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Southern New Hampshire University. The best investments are the ones you make in yourself, and no one knows that better than Southern New Hampshire University. With more than 200 online degree programs, no set class times, and low online tuition, Southern New Hampshire University is built to fit your life today and set you up for success tomorrow. Education is an investment. Why not make it a smart one? Apply for free at SNHU.edu/freakonomics. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by hotels.com. Hotels.com helps you find and book the right stay for work faster. With business preferences, save your travel must haves like gym access or breakfast just

• 46:29Stephen J. Dubner?

  once, then get tailored results whenever you search for work travel. Plus, with a free membership, you can save up to 20% on hotels and earn rewards on every stay for future travel. Book now at hotels.com. Visit hotels.com for details.

• 46:49Stephen J. Dubner?

  I'm Stephen Dubner. This is Tell Me Something I Don't Know. We've heard from some wonderful contestants tonight. If you want to be a contestant on a future show, please visit tmsidk.com. It is time now to announce tonight's three top vote getters. In third place, with his IDK about paradoxical undressing and terminal burrowing, Dr. Raj Jayswal.

• 47:19Stephen J. Dubner?

  And we've got a tie for first, a legitimate tie for first. Would you please welcome back to the stage two first place winners, Dr. Donald Redlmeyer with Voting Kills and Dr. Walter James with Brainwashing or Why We Sleep.

• 47:39Stephen J. Dubner?

  For our two winners, what prize could we possibly give that's commensurate with the wisdom you've dispensed tonight? Well, do you remember back at the top of the show when we heard about testing jet engines by firing birds from an air cannon?

• 47:53Speaker 04

  And sometimes it's a little gross. It's, it's, it kind of makes a seagull sashimi.

• 48:01Stephen J. Dubner?

  All right, so it's not a seagull sashimi, but we are giving you your choice each of three plush toy birds from the National Audubon Society, which, which supports birdie causes, but just in case you get the urge, also paired with that, an Arazuka toy cannon. Congratulations, gentlemen.

• 48:24Speaker 02

  I thought you were gonna give them a chicken gyro.

• 48:29Stephen J. Dubner?

  It is time now for the final round of Tell Me Something I Don't Know, in which we flip the script and we turn our panelists into contestants. They get to tell us something we don't know on a topic chosen completely at random from what we like to call our Wheel of Maximum Danger. That's right. It is a spinning wheel with 12 topics that relate to tonight's theme, which is strange danger. Panelists, before you panic, we are going to help you out a little bit by teaming each of you with one of the top three contestants. So, we've got Team Marx. It's Tony Marx, teaming up with Dr. Donald Redlemeier. Next, we've got Team Spar. That is Deborah Spar, teaming up with Dr. Walter James.

• 49:14Stephen J. Dubner?

  And finally, Team Zaltzman. That's Andy Zaltzman, teaming up with Dr. Raj Jayswal. We will spin the wheel to pick a topic for each team, and then we'll give each of you a few minutes to come up with something we don't know on said topic, and our audience will pick a winner. Panelists and contestants, there's no Googling, no outside consultation of any kind on the very slight chance that one of you tries to make something up. Andy Zaltzman, I am looking at you. What? Don't forget, we've got our real-time human fact-checker, Jody Avirgan, on duty. So, Jody, would you please spin the wheel for Team Marx, please?

• 49:58Speaker 08

  Martial arts.

• 49:59Stephen J. Dubner?

  Oh. All right, would you please spin for Team Spar?

• 50:08Speaker 08

  Infectious diseases.

• 50:09Stephen J. Dubner?

  Oh. You lucked it. Now, he's a sleep doctor.

• 50:14Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 50:14Stephen J. Dubner?

  I don't know how much help that's gonna be.

• 50:16Speaker 03

  Is that infectious?

• 50:17Stephen J. Dubner?

  I guess we'll find out. So now, would you please spin, Jody, for Team Altzman?

• 50:26Speaker 08

  Sharks.

• 50:27Stephen J. Dubner?

  Sharks. Okay, panelists and contestants, put your heads together. We'll give you a little bit of time to think and tell us something we don't know.

• 50:37Speaker 02

  I mean, obviously, I'm gonna make some things up.

• 50:43Stephen J. Dubner?

  While they're thinking, please remember to subscribe to Tell Me Something I Don't Know. And if you think it's worth giving it a five-star rating on iTunes, well, I'm not gonna stop you. Thank you.

• 50:54Speaker 03

  It's really good.

• 50:56Speaker 02

  That is a fact, isn't it? I mean, we can spit it out.

• 51:03Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay, time's up. Let's start with Team Marx. We've got New York Public Library President and CEO Tony Marx, paired up with Toronto doctor and medical researcher Donald Redlmeyer, to tell us something we don't know about martial arts.

• 51:21Speaker 10

  Well, martial arts are a terrific way to work on your strength, your aerobics capacity, your sense of balance, and your overall well-being. But did you know that you can practice martial arts with such intensity and such frequency that you damage the red blood cells circulating in your blood vessels to such an extent that you can develop an electrolyte abnormality, an anemia, and even kidney failure?

• 51:55Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, you've told us that voting is lethal. Now martial... Is there anything in the world that's safe? Sleep. Sleep.

• 52:01Speaker 11

  Sleep is very safe, yeah.

• 52:04Stephen J. Dubner?

  So Team Marx telling us that martial arts is great for your health, except when it's terrible for your health. Let's move on to Team Spar, Deborah Spar, president of Barnard College, and Walter James, sleep doctor. What can you tell us about infectious diseases?

• 52:20Speaker 06

  Did you know the origin of the vampire legend?

• 52:24Speaker 11

  Remember that our topic is infectious disease.

• 52:27Stephen J. Dubner?

  All right, let's have it, doctor.

• 52:29Speaker 11

  So a few hundred years ago, in the Transylvania area, which is around Romania, there was an epidemic of tuberculosis. And tuberculosis causes anemia, and wasting, and death. And so people would get pale, and then they would waste, and then they would die, and they would be buried. And you'll be interested to know that in those days, when they were buried, the gravestone was placed over their stomachs. That was just the way they did it in those days. But it became obvious that there are family members and other people that were their contacts were then dying after they had been buried. So it was obvious that they were sitting up in the grave, leaving the grave, and coming and draining the blood

• 53:12Speaker 11

  from their previous contacts and family members, who then died of this pallor disease. And what it actually turned out to be was tuberculosis, but they didn't know that. They thought it was vampires. So they started placing the headstones over the head. That's where the name "headstone" comes from. To keep them lying down, so they couldn't sit up in the grave and come back and bite their family members.

• 53:34Stephen J. Dubner?

  I don't even care if that's true. That's such a good story.

• 53:38Stephen J. Dubner?

  Phenomenal.

• 53:41Stephen J. Dubner?

  Team Zaltzman, you seemed to have been handed a gift with sharks. But going up now against vampires doesn't seem so easy anymore.

• 53:50Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, there's so many obvious facts about sharks. Like, you know, the average shark eats, needs to eat 34 surfers a day. Otherwise, it just becomes a goldfish.

• 54:03Speaker 02

  True. It's just basic science. Seen it happen. But what have most sharks ironically never done?

• 54:12Stephen J. Dubner?

  What have most sharks never done? Most sharks, wait, have never paradoxically undressed.

• 54:19Speaker 02

  That's probably true, isn't it? Well, they're born undressed, no? Everybody's born undressed. Are they?

• 54:29Speaker 02

  You're a doctor, come on!

• 54:33Stephen J. Dubner?

  Alright, what have most sharks...

• 54:34Speaker 02

  Most sharks...

• 54:35Stephen J. Dubner?

  Most meaning roughly...

• 54:36Speaker 02

  Most we have spoken to. We don't have the latest... Most sharks have never watched Jaws.

• 54:45Speaker 02

  She would have thought they would have really loved us a film, but uh...

• 54:47Stephen J. Dubner?

  Never.

• 54:48Speaker 02

  But actually...

• 54:49Stephen J. Dubner?

  Didn't pull well.

• 54:49Speaker 02

  The latest research is that over 98% of sharks have not watched Jaws.

• 54:59Stephen J. Dubner?

  Before we ask our live audience to vote, let's check in with Jody Avirgan. Jody, what can you tell us about the veracity or lack thereof?

• 55:06Speaker 08

  You sure you want to do this?

• 55:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah, I'm sure I want to do it.

• 55:09Speaker 08

  Man, I... Okay, I've spent a lot of time trying to do the shark jaws thing, and I just can't get to the bottom of that one.

• 55:15Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah.

• 55:17Speaker 08

  I'm looking at shark censuses and so forth, and there's just nothing. Okay, so, headstones and vampires, I can't find a connection. But is that actually true?

• 55:28Stephen J. Dubner?

  Would you like to share with us how you happen to know this story instead of facts? Maybe we'll be a little bit more persuaded.

• 55:34Speaker 11

  It actually came from a lecture on the history of medicine that I heard once.

• 55:38Speaker 08

  Alright, that guy may have been making it up. There is a history of a, you know, connection between the outbreak of inflexious diseases and vampire myths popping up for exactly the reasons you... So there is a, you know, deep connection between tuberculosis and vampirism, but I can't find this headstone thing, and I want to, and maybe I will, you know, five minutes from now. You're just basically saying if you punch a lot of stuff, you're gonna hurt yourself? Okay, that checks out.

• 56:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  Thank you, Jody. Very well done.

• 56:08Speaker 05

  Don't we win just on veracity there?

• 56:12Stephen J. Dubner?

  Well, you do have the veracity lead right now, but I have to say, the vote now is in the hands of our studio audience. So here's what you do: You get out your phones, and you're going to follow the texting instructions on the screen. Keep in mind the criteria for the panelists' teams' IDKs. Did they tell you something you didn't know? Was it worth knowing? And was it true, or at least a little bit true-ish? So, who will... Will it be tonight? Team Marx with their remarkable story about martial arts being very good for you, except when they're very bad for you. Will it be Team Spar with an amazing story about the connection between tuberculosis and vampires?

• 56:54Stephen J. Dubner?

  Or Team Zaltzman with a collection of random untruths about sharks?

• 56:59Speaker 02

  How can you say it's untrue?

• 57:01Stephen J. Dubner?

  You're right, I really did bias the voting. For that, I apologize and do not apologize simultaneously. All right, we will give you a few moments to vote.

• 57:16Stephen J. Dubner?

  We have a remarkably poor showing by our third-place team, which is also known as the last-place team. And this really does surprise me because Team Marx, I did not feel that your IDK was so poor to deserve only 5% of the vote. And yet it did. But Team Zaltzman, I wouldn't exalt. With 12% of the vote-

• 57:38Speaker 02

  I'm happy with silver. It's still a medal.

• 57:40Stephen J. Dubner?

  Which means that our gold medal winners tonight, Team Spar with 83%. Thank you for telling us about the TB-vampire connection. That is our show tonight. Thanks to our panelists, Tony Marx, Deborah Spar, and Andy Zaltzman. Thanks to all our contestants. Thanks especially to you for coming to play Tell Me Something.

• 58:03Stephen J. Dubner?

  Thank you so much.

• 58:12Stephen J. Dubner?

  Coming up next week on Tell Me Something I Don't Know, our panelists are the bestselling author Simon Winchester, the social media scholar Dana Boyd, and the comedian Chris Gethard. The theme: It's a Lie.

• 58:26Speaker 14

  One of the pioneering scientists in this field has lab assistants now whose job is to blow up condoms, rub them on goldfish, and dip them in fish tanks so that they'll get envenimated by these snails.

• 58:38Stephen J. Dubner?

  I will say, this is just another reason why I will not ever go in the ocean.

• 58:45Stephen J. Dubner?

  That's next time on Tell Me Something I Don't Know. Tell Me Something I Don't Know is produced by Dubner Productions in partnership with New York Times. Our staff includes Alison Hockenberry, Emma Morgenstern, Harry Huggins, and Brian Gutierrez. David Herman is our technical director. He also composed our theme music. Thanks also to Dan DeZula, Jolenta Greenberg, and to Dan Schreiber, our transatlantic game doctor. Thanks to the New York Times, especially Charles Duhigg, Kinsey Wilson, Samantha Hennig, and Lisa Tobin, and to our good friends at Qualtrics, whose online survey software has been so helpful in putting on this show. You can subscribe to Tell Me Something I Don't Know on iTunes or wherever you get

• 59:27Stephen J. Dubner?

  your podcasts, or at nytimes.com/idk. You can find us online at tmsidk.com and on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Thanks for listening.

• 1:00:08Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Ozempic. Innovation happens through rethinking what's possible, and when it comes to GLP-1s, Ozempic pill does just that. Learn more about Ozempic semaglutide tablets, 4 and 9 milligrams, by calling 1-833-OZEMPIC or visit ozempic.com to view the medication guide and ask your doctor what's possible with FDA-approved Ozempic pill.

• 1:00:39Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Southern Company. The world and its energy needs are always changing. Southern Company's commitment to meeting this demand stays the same. That's because Southern Company believes energy is more than a utility. It's what powers possibilities. So they are looking ahead and investing $80 billion in infrastructure upgrades and are committed to fueling growth in ways that benefit all customers so that reliable and affordable energy is accessible for generations to come. Go to southerncompany.com to learn more. Southern Company, building the future of energy.

• 1:01:17Speaker 15

  Hey, listeners, I'm Ash.

• 1:01:19Speaker 03

  And I'm Elena.

• 1:01:20Speaker 15

  And we are so excited to have joined the SiriusXM family.

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  And you know what? If you want to keep hearing new episodes of Morbid ad free, subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit siriusxm.com/podcastsplus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. Let's go.

• 1:01:46Speaker 16

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