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Hey, Wowzer fans, Mindy here.
And before we start the show, I gotta let you know that this November, with a special new episode featuring our friends at Circle Round and Terrestrials on Radiolab for Kids,
And don't miss when Elmo from Sesame Street stops by Wow in the World to make us all belly laugh on November 24th.
Oh, but that's not all, Reg.
On December 1st, we are sharing our 250th episode of Wow in the World with all of you.
We think this one is going to be music to your ears.
Literally.
Did I mention it's a musical?
And if you're a member of the World Organization of Wowzers...
Oh boy, do I have a surprise for you.
You can listen to our 250th episode early with me and other members from around the world on Saturday, November 22nd, at 7pm Eastern.
That's right, we are throwing another listening party.
Join us as we dance along to our new songs.
React to the episode with other members in the chat and more.
Grownups.
If you want your wowzer to join this members-only listening party, you can sign up to become a member today at Tinkercastcom.
Slash wow.
Already a member?
Well, you can find the link and password to join the event when you sign in at Tinkercastcom.
Slash wow.
That's it.
It's going to be a November to remember.
But for now, let's get on with the show.
Woo!
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Take a behind-the-gates bus tour for an exclusive look at NASA's legendary launch sites and the future of space exploration.
Visitors also have the chance to meet an astronaut.
Talk about a core memory in the making.
And get this, our friends at Kennedy Space Center have offered our listeners $7 off admission.
Just use code WOW at checkout.
With missions to Mars, rocket launches, and deep space exploration...
No trip to Orlando is complete without landing at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
Discover something real.
The windows gotta make sure we've covered every nook and cranny.
I know i am so excited to get my gingerbread mansion in shape for hosting game night tonight and, thanks to you reg, this place is looking tasty um.
What game do you think we should play tonight?
I mean there's a musical stairs, the one where everyone runs up and down my crumbling gingerbread staircase.
And then the last person to fall through the stairs wins the game.
It's an intense game of survival.
Yeah, you're right.
Maybe it is a little too intense.
Oh, I know.
How about bobbing for Scrapple?
Everyone loves waterlogged pork scraps.
I'm running out of ideas, Reg.
Pin the snails on the zombie?
Well, what else is there to play?
Reggie, our guests are going to be here for game night any second now.
Oh, that's them.
They're here.
Coming.
Walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk.
Kicking down the door.
Thomas Fingerling.
Surprise.
Ah, you should have seen your face.
Nope, not a surprise party.
It's game night.
But so happy to see you, Thomas Fingerling.
Hey, where's Grandma G-Force?
Up here, Mandy, on the roof.
What?
G-Force, how'd you get up there?
Well, I just shimmered up the drainpipe.
Thought I'd make my grand entrance.
It's okay to have diarrhea, Mandy.
Just drink lots of fluids.
Knock, knock.
Oh, the door's all smashed again.
Dennis!
What's in your hands there?
Oh, nothing.
Just a little gift for the hostess.
Oh, wow.
A poster-sized autographed photo of you, Dennis.
Thanks.
Oh, don't mention it.
Okay.
I mean, you can mention it a little.
I was just trying to... Hey, Mindy.
Hey, Dennis.
Hey, Rozzy!
Sorry I'm a little late to the game night.
I hope I haven't missed anything.
Oh, no, you're fine.
Everyone's still just arriving.
OK, well, this is for you.
Ooh, a bouquet of kale?
An organic bouquet of kale handpicked by yours truly.
And look, the ribbon is your favorite color.
So should I put this in a vase or hide it in a smoothie?
Maybe feed it to a rabbit, or Whoa?
Mindy, I love what you've done with the place.
Though I have to say, the marshmallow sofa is not really working in that configuration and I preferred your cups being in the cabinet next to the fridge.
I don't understand why you moved them.
Wait, Dennis, have you actually ever even been inside of my gingerbread mansion?
No.
Oh!
Is that a chandelier made of candy?
A candy-lear?
Oh, and look at the craftsmanship on the exposed pretzel beans.
Now, hopefully that's a pressure-treated pretzel.
Hey, Mindy, mind if I change the music?
I just put together a great party playlist.
Oh, yeah, sure.
Do whatever you want, Guy Raz.
Um, has anyone seen Grandma G-Force?
I thought she was up on the roof having diarrhea.
What's that elevator music sound I'm hearing?
Oh, it's elevator music.
This song is called... Excuse me!
Excuse me, has anyone seen Grandma G-Force?
Mindy, she said she was coming in through the chimney.
What?
First one to catch me wins a free ham.
Ooh, ham.
Don't fall.
Oh, yeah.
G-Force, I said don't fall.
Oh, sorry.
Couldn't hear that.
Okay, well, now that everyone's here for the neighborhood game night, how about a party game?
Oh, I love party games.
Are we going to pick teams and then team names?
I call Team Razzmatazz.
Oh, no, you don't.
Oh, yes, I do.
What kind of party game is this, Mindy?
Great question, Guy Raz.
What kind of party game is this?
Well, it's a...
Guessing game.
Where everyone wears a blindfold?
Oh, well, good thing I always carry a blindfold on me.
Okay, there we go.
Now what?
Then we... Mindy, it sounds like you're trailing off there.
We put on blindfolds and then what?
Uh, Mindy, do you have a game planned or are you just making this up as you go along?
Because when I host game night, I make out a planning spreadsheet where I list all of the.
Excuse me, what'd you say?
Uh... Hey, Forrest, can't you hear nothing?
What?
There's chimney shut stuck inside my ears and I can't hear the sweet sound of sounds.
Sounds?
Yes, sound.
It is a sound game, a blindfolded guess the sound game.
Go on.
And to play.
One person or pigeon makes a sound and then everyone else has to guess what that sound is.
Oh, there.
Got that shut out.
I can hear again.
It's a miracle.
Any questions about the game?
What game?
Grandma G-Force.
Okay, then.
Yeah, I think we got it, Mindy.
We're playing Name That Sound.
Yes, that is the name of the game that I have been planning and preparing to play with you all for months now.
Quit bragging about your phony game and get your blindfold on already.
Oh, right.
Here's a blindfold for you, Grandma G-Force.
You want me to put a brown paper bag over my head?
And here's a blindfold for you, Dennis.
Mindy, this is a diaper.
Yeah, sorry.
I ran out of paper bags.
Reggie, my head is not shaped like a butt.
And for you, Guy Raz, I have a bucket blindfold.
You can put it on your head.
Mindy, this bucket is filled with fried chicken.
Whoops.
Let me just dump that out right there.
Here you go.
Aw, I was gonna eat that.
Now, is everyone ready to play the game?
I'm ready.
Absolutely.
You got it, dude.
Talk louder.
Okay, great.
Now that you're all wearing blindfolds, I will make the first sound, and then you have to guess what that sound is.
Okay?
Here we go.
Huh.
What is that?
Uh...
It's a goat eating a watermelon rind.
No, it's wet gummy bears and plastic rinds.
Stop smacking your gum!
I almost had it.
And it looks like we have a winner for round one, folks.
That was the sound of me smacking my gum.
Please never do that again.
Next up, it's Grandma G-Force.
All right, let me just get out of this chair here.
G-Force?
Oh, I know.
It's a duck.
Now, that was just the warm-up act.
Okay, Grandma G-Force, whenever you're ready.
Make that sound!
Oh, I like that we all say it together.
Hmm.
Let's see now.
Some sort of liquid?
It's a bowl of something.
Oh, bowling ball.
Please stop slurping your soup.
That sound, it's, it's... Oh, yeah.
It's correct.
Guy Raz, you are two for two.
Let's keep the momentum going.
Thomas Fingerling, you're up.
All right.
You are never going to guess what I'm going to do.
It's time to make that sound.
Ha, cha-cha.
Uh, tree branches breaking into a million pieces.
Chicken bones thrown down a staircase.
Walnuts being crushed by a leather hammer.
One, two, three.
That popping sound, it's unbearable.
Is it unbearable, Guy Raz?
Or is it correct?
The answer is Krakenucks.
Guy Razzy, you are really crushing it at this game.
OK, final round, everyone.
This one's for all the marbles.
Dennis, you're up.
Oh, boy.
No no no no no no, no.
Will not sit here anymore and listen to knuckle cracking or gum smacking or soup slurping.
These sounds, they're like an attack on my brain.
That's okay, Guy Raz.
We can stop playing.
I'll just sit here quietly and eat these potato chips.
Ow.
Ow.
Ow.
Ow.
Ow.
Ow.
Ow.
Ow.
Ow.
Roz, I'm no doctor, but I wonder if you might be suffering from a relatively newly understood condition known as mesophonia.
Meso-what-ia?
Mesophonia!
It's a condition where a person has a strong reaction to specific sounds.
I just read a study about it in the journal Scientific Reports.
What?
Are you suggesting that there may be a scientific reason for the way I reacted to all those awful sounds?
I mean, maybe, but also maybe not.
See, this study came out of the University of Amsterdam and it was led by a professor of psychiatry named Damien Daines.
And by psychiatry you mean the branch of medicine that deals with the mind and emotions and behavior right,
Exactoritos!
And while scientists and doctors have known for a while that certain sounds can cause people to go you know, bonker balls there really hasn't been a whole lot of research on misophonia.
In fact, some would argue that maybe it's not even that big of a deal at all.
Not a big deal?
Mindy, when I heard those sounds, I wanted to...
Now that's what I call some good fried floor chicken.
Guy Raz.
Knowing that many people in the world go just as bonker balls as you do when they hear certain sounds, Dr Danes decided to head to his lab to figure out why.
Why?
Why do some people feel like their heads are going to explode whenever they hear the perfectly natural sound of someone chewing potato chips or slurping soup or smacking gum?
And did he have any ideas as to why?
Maybe even a hypothesis or an educated guess?
You know it, Guy Raz.
So Dr. Danes thought that the answer could lie somewhere in the human brain.
So to get closer to the answer, he decided to conduct an experiment.
Oh, I love an experiment.
For this experiment, Dr. Danes invited 44 people into his lab.
21 of those people with misophonia and 23 people without it.
And then, while monitoring or studying their brains...
He had them watch some videos.
Huh.
What kind of videos?
Well, two kinds, actually.
The first videos showed people making some common sounds that really seemed to bother people with misophonia.
You know, lip smacking, heavy breathing, stuff like that.
And the other videos?
The other videos were of things that do not normally affect people with misophonia.
Things like a person meditating or even a gross scene from a movie.
Well, I know I'd much rather watch a gross scene from a movie than have to listen to Dennis eat potato chips.
No offense, Dennis.
Oh!
In high school, I was voted most likely to annoy someone with snack food.
What Dr Danes found was that both groups of people reacted pretty much the same to the videos of meditation and grow stuff.
But what about the videos of the lip smacking and the heavy breathing?
Ah, well, that's where things got interesting.
See, Only the people in the misophonia group reacted badly to those videos.
The other group, they were basically just, meh.
Huh.
And earlier you mentioned that Dr. Danes was monitoring or studying their brains.
So what did he discover?
Well, he discovered that his hypothesis may have been correct.
That when watching the videos of the lips and heavy breathing, the group of people with misophonia felt intense anger and disgust and their heart rates went bonker balls.
Those are the same feelings and reactions that people express when they might be experiencing extreme emotions or fear.
I know these feelings, Mindy.
Ah!
Mmm! is doing what now?
Well, there we go.
That was a stubborn one.
Look at this toenail, Fingerling.
How many layers you see there?
Looks to be about 17.
Calm down, Guy Razzi.
It's just the sound of Grandma G-Force clipping her toenails.
But back to the study, Guy Raz.
What Dr Danes discovered when studying the brain activity of these people was that the parts of their brains that are responsible for helping to control fear and emotions well, those parts they went into hyperdrive.
Ah, so in other words, some of the survival-related parts of the brain felt attacked. or in danger.
Exactoritos, which led Dr Danes to suspect that people with misophonia might have parts of their brains that are wired a little bit differently than people without it.
So I suppose that when a person with misophonia hears a sound like Grandma G-Force clipping her toenails, Say what?
Oh, snap.
That person might receive an extra strong signal to their brain, causing them to respond in an extreme way.
Bingo, Guy Raz.
A person with misophonia might react to Grandma G-Force's toenail clipping sound, the same way that another person might respond to the sound of a loud fire alarm.
And when you say a person, are you referring to me?
What?
No, no.
Yeah, you are, Mindy.
Dennis!
What?
She is!
Yeah, I am.
And what's even more interesting is that people with misophonia are often bothered by a lot of the same sounds.
And in many cases, sounds involving the mouth.
I'm talking sounds like slurping.
Crap!
Coughing throat, clearing tap, tapping tongue clicking, lip smacking, heavy breathing mouth sounds.
Just thinking of these sounds makes me want to scream.
Do these scientists know of anything that can be done to help people with this condition?
Deal with these sounds.
Well, not really.
Just yet, Guy Raz.
See.
The study of misophonia is still so new that scientists haven't even agreed on a specific definition for what it is.
Yet
I mean before they can know how best to detect it and treat it in a person, they at least have to agree on what it is exactly.
I can tell you what it is.
It's the panic I feel every time I hear another person slurping or smacking or chewing.
Yes, but...
What might result in a feeling of panic for you?
Might result in extreme fear or disgust, or even rage in someone else.
Interesting.
And in another person, it might result in just a strong annoyance.
Huh.
This is all to say that there's still so many more questions than answers when it comes to misophonia.
Mindy, can we get back to the game, please?
It's Reggie's turn, and I want to hear what he does.
Okay, everyone, blindfolds on.
I got this paper bag over my head.
And I want the diaper this time.
Here, Janice, you take this boring old blindfold.
Fine.
Okay, Reggie, whenever you're ready... Make that sound!
Sounds like the devil doing math problems.
I'd recognize that sound anywhere, Reggie.
That's talons on a chalkboard.
Oh, phew.
It's over.
Hey, what's everyone freaking out about?
It's just a sound.
Ah!
Like a fingernail scratching on the inside of my skull.
Music to my ears.
It's like two dinner plates having a knife fight.
Hey, does this mean I win the game?
Wow in the World will be right back.
Grunups, this message is for you.
Hey, grown-ups, it's Mindy and Guy Raz here from Wow in the World.
Mindy and I have some brand new Wow in the World toys out in the world just in time for the holidays.
Made for the kids who love science and for the ones who don't yet.
From our 100 experiments, that Wow kit to the telescope and astronomy kit.
Our Wow in the World toys help your wowzer learn about their world through play.
Plus, you can hear exclusive audio content from me and Guy Raz to help your wowzer discover even more wows.
Grown-ups.
Give the gift of wow and wonder this holiday season with our latest Wow in the World toys designed with your curious wowzer in mind.
You can shop our Wow in the World toys at Tinkercast.com slash toys.
That's Tinkercast.com slash toys.
Hi, thanks for calling Wow in the World.
After the beep, get ready to record.
Hi, my name is Guy Raz.
My name is Owen, and I live in Charlotte, South Virginia.
And my Wow in the World is that some giant jellyfish have tentacles that extend one-third the length of a football field.
Hi, my name is Guy Raz, and I love your show.
I'm Indian Guy Rive.
This is John from Austin, Texas.
And did you know that ghost ants have see-through stomachs?
Love your show.
Bye.
Hi, I'm Dylan from Waltham, Massachusetts.
My wow is that sharks have about 3000 teeth in their mouth at once and can lose up to 100 teeth a day.
Say hi to Reggie for me.
My name is Esme and I live in Bend, Oregon.
My wow is that a snail has more teeth than a saber-toothed tiger and a shark.
Say hi to everybody.
Bye.
I love your show.
Hi, Mindy and Guy Ross.
My name is Julia and I'm from Pemberton, B.C.
And my wow in the world is... is that the sun can fit more than a million Earths inside of it.
Say hi to Reggie, Thomas Finkling, and Grandma Geforce for me.
Surprise!
Oh, snap.
Bye.
Hi, Minion Gyros.
My name is Wyatt, and I live in Eugene, Oregon.
My wow in the world is that after Komodo dragons eat an animal, they throw off any teeth, bones or hair.
Say hi to Thomas Finkling for me.
Huh?
Who's doing what now?
Hi, my name is Geneva.
I am nine years old.
I'm from Corvallis, Oregon.
My wow in the world is that cats can't taste sweetness.
Say hi to Reggie for me.
Destin, I come from Chicago and I'm five years old.
My wow in the world is that squids have suction cups with hooks that spin around on them to fight whales.
My name is Sini.
I live in Sable Massachusetts, and my wow in the world is that a Cape ground squirrel uses its tail as a sunshade.
Bye.
Hi, Mindy and Guy Raz.
My name is Lavanya, and I'm from Toronto, Canada.
My wow in the world is that the wood frog can hold its pee for up to eight months.
Isn't that bonker balls?
Say hi to Reggie, Grandma G-Force, and Dennis for me.
Oh, hush puppies.
Wow in the World is written by Mindy Thomas and Tom Van Kalken with help from me, Guy Raz.
Original sound design and music editing is done by our senior producer, Jed Anderson and Tyler Tholtz.
You can also hear Jed Anderson in the voices of Dennis Thomas Fingerling, Reggie and many of the other silly characters you hear on our show.
Jessica Bode keeps our facts straight as our fact checker and Meredith Halpern-Ranzer powers the wow at Tinkercast.
Our theme song was composed and performed by three-time Grammy nominees, The Pop-Up.
Find them at thepopups.com.
Special thanks to the rest of our team of tinkerers, including Anna Zagorski, Rebecca Caban, Kit Ballinger and Henry Moskal.
To keep the wows rolling, visit us at tinkercast.com.
There you can learn more about becoming an official member of the World Organization of Wowsers.
Learn more about upcoming events.
Shop our shop and pick up a copy of our new number one New York Times bestselling book, The How and Wow of the Human Body.
Grownups, you can follow Wow in the World on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at wowintheworld.
And our email address is hello at tinkercast.com.
And if you're a kid with a big wow to share with us, call us at 1-888-7-WOW-WOW for a chance to be featured at the end of our show or an upcoming episode of Two What's and a Wow.
Thanks again for listening, and until next time... Be fun wowing!
Wow!
The world was made by Tinkercast and sent to you by Wondery.
