‘Common Side Effects’ And An All-Healing Mushroom | The Unique Smell Of Snow

In "Common Side Effects," the starring scientist finds a mushroom that can heal any ailment. But powerful people will do anything to stop him from cultivating it. And, a combination of environmental factors and the way our bodies function play a role in how we perceive the smell of snow.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  WNYC is supported by Bayer. Science is about asking questions, testing, trying again. It's not easy, but it's relentless. It evolves, and that's why science delivers. Learn more at sciencedelivers.com.

• 0:18Flora Lichtman?

  This is Science Friday. I'm Flora Lixman. Today on the podcast, why does snow smell the way it does? But first, a new animated TV show makes fungi the star.

• 0:28Speaker 02

  If there were a medicine that could cure almost anything, what would that look like? And mushrooms seemed exciting from a storytelling perspective.

• 0:38Flora Lichtman?

  In the new Adult Swim show, Common Side Effects, an eccentric scientist has a secret. He's discovered a strange mushroom that can cure any illness or injury, and he wants to get it to the people in need. The only problem is that a pharmaceutical company doesn't want that secret to get out and will do anything to make sure he's stopped. The show is pioneering a brand-new genre that I hope will dominate my algorithm: the mycological thriller.

• 1:06Speaker 03

  This might look like individual fungi, but what you're seeing is a single intelligence.

• 1:11Speaker 04

  The Blue Angel Mushroom could have effects 100 times anything we've ever seen.

• 1:17Speaker 03

  They want it nipped in the bud. I'll call the DEA right now, whatever it takes.

• 1:24Flora Lichtman?

  Joining me now to talk about this fungal drama are the show's creators, Steve Healy and Joe Bennett. Steve was a writer for 30 Rock and Veep, and Joe is creator of the animated sci-fi show, Scavengers Reign on Max. Welcome to Science Friday.

• 1:39Speaker 02

  A pleasure to be here. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us.

• 1:42Flora Lichtman?

  OK, so this story revolves around a magical mushroom. Are either of you fungi freaks?

• 1:49Speaker 02

  We're both enthusiasts of mushrooms as insane phenomena. It's hard not to be interested in mushrooms, and the more you learn about them, the more interesting they become. Some of them will kill you. Some of them are delicious. Some of them make you feel funny. They communicate. There's...

• 2:10Speaker 02

  So much we have to learn about them.

• 2:11Speaker 05

  Older than humans.

• 2:13Speaker 02

  Older than plants and animals. Yes, I think it's fair to say we're pretty interested in mushrooms.

• 2:19Flora Lichtman?

  Yeah, you you talk about them lovingly and you write about them lovingly. Let me um, let me play a quick clip.

• 2:24Speaker 06

  A mushroom.

• 2:25Speaker 03

  Not just any mushroom, the caviar, the ghost orchid of mushrooms. I mean, the chances of this growing naturally. Francis, it's like a one in a billion Goldilocks situation, a special valley, isolated by mountains. The fog lasts just long enough. The humidity is just right. The limestone in the soil is perfect to produce a rare, specific kind of grass. And in this grass grows a very, very intense mushroom.

• 2:58Speaker 03

  And I found it.

• 3:00Flora Lichtman?

  Did you base your mushroom off of a real mushroom? Like, was there some inspirational mushroom for you?

• 3:07Speaker 02

  There is a mushroom in New Zealand, I forget the scientific name for it, that's like bright blue. But I had gone to, I wrote a book about a journey I took through South America and I tried some of the various plant medicines on offer down there, like ayahuasca and stuff like that. And Joe and I were talking about this and we got to talking about a sort of thought experiment of if there were a medicine that could cure almost anything, what would that look like and what would happen? And a mushroom felt right because mushrooms are strange and our human interactions with them are a little strange. They're kind of hard to grow. Humans have a long history of harvesting plants and fruits and nuts and stuff, but mushrooms are a little, they feel like they're difficult to contain. And that seemed exciting from a storytelling perspective.

• 3:53Flora Lichtman?

  The bad actor in your story is a pharmaceutical company. And of course, you know, right now, there's tremendous pushback and discontent with the pharmaceutical industry. Why did you want to explore this?

• 4:05Speaker 02

  Joe and I are interested in how interacting with the healthcare system is. Annoying.

• 4:12Flora Lichtman?

  Yeah, we all know.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, but on the other hand, it brings us all these wonderful things. I mean, people keep asking us like if Big Pharma is the enemy, but we're all grateful to Big Pharma for the wonderful products they've provided. But on the other hand, once you have systems that are profit driven and motivated by things like stock price and shareholder value, warped incentives enter into the system and our villains in the show aren't exactly, we don't intend for it to be like a particular evil person, but rather like the way the system kind of warps and changes and creates these twisted outcomes for people.

• 4:47Flora Lichtman?

  You know, on the same note, I think, I think scientists can often be flattened in pop culture, like in TV and movies. This is a pet peeve of mine, like they end up just being like the jargony, dweeby.

• 4:59Speaker 02

  Right.

• 4:59Flora Lichtman?

  Socially challenged man. And I didn't feel that way about your scientists. And I wondered if you thought about that, like breaking that stereotype at all.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  Well, we were thinking about that. There are a whole bunch of characters who are kind of on the fringe of science, like people who are out there kind of pushing it. And sometimes what they're doing is not fully accepted right away and it takes a while for it to enter into the mainstream. And they're often, they can seem a little strange, but as you mentioned earlier, they can be kind of charismatic and exciting.

• 5:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, on from that kind of fringe side, John LaRoche from Annotation.

• 5:33Flora Lichtman?

  Mm hmm. Right. The movie based on the orchid thief.

• 5:36Speaker 05

  Right. We kept going back to this guy. Like, he's such a, you know, he's maybe a little, he's a little dirty. He's a little unhinged. He's, he's got dirt under his nails, but he's super confident. He's, he's extremely smart. He would always just sort of represent himself in court, you know, he can kind of like find the loopholes and things and ways of getting around things.

• 6:00Speaker 02

  And these characters are also funny and they often have contradictions. Joe and I, we went to visit a great desert botanist out in the Mojave Desert. And, you know, this is a person who's very in touch with the natural world and knows how to raise all kinds of desert plants. And we went to see her and she just had like a 32 ounce Carl's Jr. Like Pepsi on her desk and, and both the blend of like, you know, the stuff that we eat and drink and the natural stuff and chemicals and all that mix up seemed exciting to us.

• 6:28Flora Lichtman?

  Joe, why animation for this show?

• 6:32Speaker 05

  I came from a sort of independent animation background and animation for me was just a means to tell a story. I've fallen more and more in love with the idea of 2D animation and things that are hand drawn. It just feels like, especially this day and age, you know, it's just, it's nice to see like this is a scene that was crafted by a human person and, and, you know, people really like labored over this and you kind of see it.

• 6:58Flora Lichtman?

  Joe, let's talk about your other show, Scavengers Rain, a little bit. So this is an animated show about a group of people trying to survive after they crash on an alien world. And to me, it was sort of like Miyazaki meets David Attenborough, like nature documentary set in another world. Let's play a clip.

• 7:20Speaker 04

  This place, nothing really makes sense. It's like a puzzle.

• 7:28Speaker 07

  We just can't help the instinct to give meaning to things we don't understand. Oh, God, I think there's something out there.

• 7:38Flora Lichtman?

  Joe, how are these two shows related in your mind?

• 7:42Speaker 05

  Uh, I think a big part of it was just humans and their relationship with nature. You know, I, I grew up in the woods. My parents built a log cabin and I was surrounded by 20 acres of woods. I had no neighbors. I guess like as a child, there were times where it felt a little insufferable, but kind of in hindsight, I feel like it really fostered my creativity. And also, I developed a profound respect for an interest in nature. And I think, I would say that the main overlapping themes of these two things are our relationship with nature and the sort of certain fragility and I guess the repercussions on when it's being abused. And I guess thinking about sort of mycelium, the idea of mycelium as

• 8:26Speaker 05

  a neural network that's connecting all of these plants and organisms, you know, and I just got really inspired by all that. And even today, we're like, we're, we're still uncovering all of this incredible stuff in nature. Just trees are able to talk to each other, you know, like that's just insane to think about. And that was like a more recent discovery. It's just wild.

• 8:48Flora Lichtman?

  Yeah, no. I mean, I love the creatures in Scavengers Reign. Like, I just find them so engaging. And I wondered, what's your process for dreaming up, you know, animals or nature on another planet?

• 9:02Speaker 05

  Well, it's funny that you ask that because me and my co-creator, Charles, we really had a difficult time trying to come up with something that doesn't already exist in nature on Earth. It was like, oh, it's almost all of it's already here, and we're just not aware of it. So a lot of it was just sort of cherry picking from that. And you say David Attenborough. I mean, I was watching Nature Dogs nonstop. And I was like, it's just, it's all there. There's so many mind-blowing symbiotic relationships that are just so inspiring and almost kind of like, I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel here.

• 9:39Flora Lichtman?

  That came through. I mean, for nature lovers, it felt like there were all these kind of Easter eggs, you know, when you saw the aliens doing these behaviors that we know exist on Earth, like organisms enlisting other organisms to collect their food for them. So I really appreciated that about the show. Steve, Veep and 30 Rock, you know, obviously, you're exploring politics and the world of TV. Do you think there's like untilled ground for comedies that take place in a science context?

• 10:08Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, totally. I mean, there's a lot that's weird and paradoxical and strange about science and biology. And it's both funny and strange that we are walking around in these biological units that are confining and also exciting and we'll never quite understand. And we're all trying to master them with our brains, which are, of course, also part of the biology. So it's a mess when you start to think about it, and that makes for comedy.

• 10:37Flora Lichtman?

  Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, this is my secret hope, not secret, because I'm telling you. I really want someone to make The Lab like an office-style show.

• 10:48Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:49Flora Lichtman?

  Set in the lab.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  Let's collab off-channel.

• 10:53Flora Lichtman?

  I'm here for it. Help me make this happen.

• 10:55Speaker 02

  We try to live every day like it's Science Friday.

• 11:00Flora Lichtman?

  All right, well, that seems like the perfect place to leave it. Thank you both for taking the time to chat.

• 11:04Speaker 05

  Thanks for having us.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  Thank you, Flor. It's a pleasure to be here.

• 11:07Flora Lichtman?

  Steve Healey and Joe Bennett are the creators of the series Common Side Effects, now airing on Adult Swim and streaming on Max.

• 11:17Flora Lichtman?

  We have to take a quick break, but don't go away. When we come back, what makes the smell of snow so distinctive?

• 11:25Speaker 06

  Snow itself is porous and spongy, so it's really good at grabbing on to odors and trapping them.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  Science Friday is supported by PBS, presenting Going Wild. If you love learning about the natural world and meeting the scientists who help us understand it, be sure to check out the new season of Going Wild with Dr. Ray Wynn Grant. It's the chart-topping and Webby Award-winning podcast from the folks at Nature on PBS, now with a video companion series. In this season of Going Wild, host acclaimed wildlife ecologist Dr. Ray Wynn Grant heads out into the field to explore the animals, people, and stories that make nature worth saving. Stops include a hibernating black bear den in Arkansas and an underwater shipwreck site off the Florida coast. If you're looking for a place to start, check out the season's debut episode, where Ray joins beloved biologist and influencer Jordan King in the Florida Everglades to learn about

• 12:19Speaker 00

  his unlikely journey into science and how to study a wetland when it's not very, well, wet. So don't miss out. Follow Going Wild with Dr. Ray Wynn Grant on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. WNYC is supported by Bear. Every day in America, science delivers. Not just in the headlines, but in the moments that matter most. Science is a journey, one of curiosity, persistence, and progress. It's about asking questions, testing, learning, and improving again and again. Science delivers harvests that feed families, tools that help farmers grow more with less, and new ways to protect land for generations to come. Let's keep asking, keep testing, keep discovering, so science can keep delivering.

• 13:04Speaker 00

  Learn more at sciencedelivers.com.

• 13:07Speaker 06

  And from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, working to enhance public understanding of science, technology, and economics in the modern world.

• 13:19Flora Lichtman?

  Sci-fi producer Rasha Aridi is out in the cold doing some reporting for us. Rasha, give me the snow down. Where are you right now?

• 13:27Speaker 06

  Yeah, I am right outside my apartment building. We just had a big snowstorm come through, and I'm standing in like seven inches of like very fluffy snow, which is the most I've seen in like years. So it's a big day, and it also brings back a familiar scent, the smell of snow.

• 13:45Flora Lichtman?

  I'm not sure I know the smell of snow. Can you describe the smell of snow?

• 13:52Speaker 06

  Okay. It smells clean and fresh and like a lot of nothingness. But part of it is also the feeling, like the air is so cold that my nose is tingling, and the air in my lungs is really sharp. And so altogether, it just, it tells me there is snow, even if I would close my eyes. So I got to thinking, why does snow have a smell? It really is just water? So what is this that I'm sniffing?

• 14:22Flora Lichtman?

  Surely someone knows what snow smell is made of. And maybe you should go somewhere warmer for this part.

• 14:29Speaker 06

  Yeah, don't have to tell me twice.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  I like snow, and I've experienced snow a lot in my life.

• 14:37Speaker 06

  Dr. Yuan Lundström isn't just a snow aficionado, but an olfactory expert. He's trying to untangle how smell works at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.

• 14:47Speaker 02

  Born and raised also in northern Sweden, where we are quite familiar with snow, and we have it from basically September to April.

• 14:56Speaker 06

  So Flora, here's the first thing you need to know. Snow itself is porous and spongy, so it's really good at grabbing on to odors and trapping them. So when you smell snow, you're mainly smelling what it kind of sponged up.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  Let's say you're scoping up the snow from a bundle of roses. The chemical that you are smelling is going to be alcohol, it's called phenylalkyl, which basically are in plants and roses.

• 15:22Flora Lichtman?

  My snow never smells like roses.

• 15:24Speaker 06

  Yeah, me too. I'm in a city, so I'm, you know, picking up notes of pollution, fumes from cars, asphalt, stuff like that. So unfortunately, not roses.

• 15:36Speaker 06

  Okay, so the next thing you need to know is that when you sniff snow

• 15:39Speaker 02

  is actually physical objects that you are smelling. So those physical objects, very, very small chemicals are traveling up to your nose.

• 15:47Speaker 06

  And those chemicals bind to odor receptors and that info gets sent to your brain. Then those molecules can get absorbed into your body. So Flora, chew on that next time you're in a stinky public bathroom.

• 15:59Flora Lichtman?

  Absolutely not. I will not chew on that. Okay, here's a question for you, Rasha. Why weren't you picking up car exhaust in your snow bouquet?

• 16:09Speaker 06

  Yeah, so the snow holds on to those odors. But the air itself has been kind of cleaned up by the snow. Kind of like a natural air purifier. In fact, the air will probably smell the cleanest a few hours into a snowfall once it's kind of scrubbed the air. And because snow holds on to odors, it'll probably smell worse after it's been piling up on the ground for a few days versus if it's falling fresh.

• 16:34Flora Lichtman?

  That adds up to me.

• 16:35Speaker 06

  Yes, so the other thing that we need to take into consideration is that even though there are odors in the snow for us to sniff, whether or not we actually pick up those scents is another question. And that's for a couple of reasons. One is the air itself. When the temperature drops, so does humidity. And the odors end up kind of moving in slow mo, so they're less likely to waft up into our noses.

• 17:00Flora Lichtman?

  Oh, my gosh, is that why a pile of garbage is so much stinkier in summer than it is in the winter?

• 17:07Speaker 06

  Yes, exactly. Things are stinkier in the heat, including us.

• 17:11Flora Lichtman?

  Speak for yourself, Rasha.

• 17:13Speaker 06

  Fair enough. And another reason we might not be picking up the subtleties of the snow bouquet is that our noses just don't work as well in the cold. Like, we're snottier, for example, which gets in the way of smelling.

• 17:26Flora Lichtman?

  Rasha, is the smell of snow related in any way to petricor? You know, that smell after it rains?

• 17:33Speaker 06

  Yeah, so some scents might be similar. Like, you might pick up that earthy, musty smell of a chemical called geosmin. It's found in soil and water. So if it rained right before it snowed, or if snow is like sitting on a pile of fresh soil, it might pick up that scent. And our noses are actually really good at sensing geosmin. Like, if you poured a teaspoon of that chemical into like 200 Olympic-sized swimming pools, you'd still be able to smell it.

• 18:04Flora Lichtman?

  Wow.

• 18:05Speaker 06

  Okay, so the last thing you need to know about the snowy smell doesn't have as much to do with our noses as much as it has to do with our memory.

• 18:13Speaker 02

  Only those odors that have some kind of meaning to us, particularly if they have an emotional meaning, tend to be remembered.

• 18:21Speaker 06

  Smells that are most distinct to you tend to be associated with happy memories. Yuan says it might have to do with how our brains are wired. So the part of our brain that processes smells sends that information straight to our limbic system, which includes parts of the brain like the hippocampus and amygdala, which are key in regulating emotions and memory. Other senses take, quite literally, a longer route to get to the limbic system, but smell has a shortcut.

• 18:49Speaker 02

  This intimate, unfiltered connection between the sense of smell and the memory asset of the brain are helping us to really encode and remember odors for a very long time. So every time I smell snow that has a very wet character, I'm taken back to our cabin up north, just around the Arctic Circle. If we go there in the spring sometimes and the lakes start to open up, then you have this very strong wet snow smell, which is, for me, is a very pleasant experience.

• 19:24Flora Lichtman?

  Hmm. Rasha, do you have memories that you think make your brain sensitive to the scent of snow?

• 19:31Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think so. Every time I smell snow, it takes me right back to being like a little kid, having snowball fights with my little brother, Nibel, and sitting in front of the TV, like hoping and hoping that school would be canceled the next day. So, uh, yeah, really happy times.

• 19:48Flora Lichtman?

  Maybe that's why it's so distinctive to you.

• 19:50Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think so.

• 19:52Flora Lichtman?

  Rasha, I wish you many more trips down memory lane.

• 19:55Speaker 06

  Oh, thank you, Flora. Same to you.

• 19:58Flora Lichtman?

  Thanks, Rasha.

• 20:02Flora Lichtman?

  And that is about all we have time for. Lots of folks helped make the show happen, including

• 20:08Speaker 03

  Jason Rosenberg.

• 20:10Speaker 02

  Dee Peterschmidt.

• 20:11Speaker 07

  Sandy Roberts. Shoshana Buckstun.

• 20:13Flora Lichtman?

  I'm Flora Lichtman. Thanks for listening.