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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 7 pm.
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!
Guy Raz!
Hello, Mindy.
Ready for another show?
Mindy, you are going to love what I have in store for you today.
Guy Raz, the last time you said that, you pulled a hard-boiled egg out of your pocket.
I remember that, and I think that you cracked that on your forehead.
That was awesome.
Well, what do you have for me this time?
Well, Mindy, on this episode, I plan to take you into my gravitational force machine.
I'll bring my own seatbelt.
And Guy Raz, I plan to pummel you with water balloons.
Yeah...
I'm going to take a pass on that one.
Do it yourself.
Let's get this party started.
Let's do it.
Two, three, four, five.
Uh, Guy Raz, why are you running in place?
Oh, hey, Mindy.
I'm just going for a jog here.
Just trying out my new running shoes.
Yeah, I can see that.
It looks like you got yourself a pair of those five-toed deals.
Kind of make your feet look like foot fingers.
Why don't you just stick with regular shoes?
You know Mindy, I was wearing regular running shoes, but my shoelaces kept getting untied and I would have to stop and tie my laces again.
So, you know, I thought, well, I could just slip into these shoes with no laces.
Or, life hack, you can just tie them tighter like everyone else.
I'll even do it for you.
Well, surprisingly Mindy, Over time it doesn't matter how tight you tie those shoelaces, because if you run in them, they will eventually become undone.
Man, how does that happen?
Well Mindy, that was the very same question.
A team of mechanical engineers at the University of California in Berkeley asked
And they wanted to know why shoelaces become untied.
So just to be clear, a mechanical engineer is the type of engineer that works with machines, not the type that operates a train.
Right,
Yes, exactly.
A mechanical engineer is a scientist that works on designing and creating and operating and understanding how machines work.
So how did these engineers even begin to investigate how our shoes come untied?
Well, they started Mindy, by asking one of their colleagues, who's also a mechanical engineer, to start running.
Okay, so let me just make sure I've got this picture in my head.
So their colleague is running in circles around the science lab and the engineers are cheering her on and staring at her shoelaces.
Well...
Basically, yeah, but they also used a high-speed camera.
High speed?
Wait a minute, the camera was running too?
Uh, well, no.
It was just taking pictures?
Yeah, except this was a special camera, Mindy.
The kind of camera that takes more than 250 photos every second.
You're telling me that there's a camera that could take that many photos every single second?
Yeah, so every second I speak is like 250 photos.
Man, that's a lot of pictures.
I mean, just think about it.
If you printed out every single one of those one-second photos, you could fill an entire swimming pool with your own selfies.
Well, possibly even more photos than that, Mindy.
But the good news is these were digital photographs, so they just live on a computer.
And by taking so many photos the engineers were able to watch every single movement of the other engineers' and shoelaces as she ran.
Sounds riveting.
So what happened?
Well, over time they started to see in these photos that the knots on her laces were slowly getting looser.
But why?
Well, because every time the runner's foot hit the ground, it created such a powerful force, a force greater than seven times the force of gravity.
Ooh, time out, Guy Raz.
Let's imagine this in slow motion.
Nobody's got time to wait for that other shoe to drop.
So Guy Raz, you were saying something about force of gravity seven times?
Yeah, it's a concept called G-Force.
That's my grandma's wrestling name.
Go ahead, give me your best shot.
I eat dentures for breakfast.
Yeah, different G-Force.
So can you explain?
Well, would you be willing to come with me for a ride on a roller coaster?
What?
Where did this roller coaster come from?
Okay, are you ready?
Yeah, but do I have to wear this seatbelt?
Welcome to the G4 Super Extreme Accelerator Extreme.
Please keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times, and thank you for choosing G4.
Okay, you buckled in?
It's a little late to ask me that question.
Okay, so right now, Mindy, as this roller coaster starts going up, it's not that fast, right?
Uh...
Do you feel this ride getting a little faster?
And faster?
And we're gonna go down this giant a weight pressing against our bodies, and it's caused by the acceleration of the ride.
The faster it goes into these, into these loops, the more we have the perception or the feeling like we're being held back.
Okay, I think I'm understanding G-Force.
If you're super extreme, please take your personal belongings and all bodily fluids with you as you leave and have a great rest of your day.
Are you okay, Mindy?
Yeah, I'm good now, Guy Raz.
You can have your tissue back.
Anywho, that was a wild ride.
And I don't know about you, Guy Raz, but somehow I felt heavier while we were on it.
That's the power of G-forces, Mindy.
Did you notice the force was so powerful that you couldn't even move your head?
Yeah, and that's just because all of a sudden we started to speed up when we were going around the curve.
Yeah, that's the basic principle.
And so what we just experienced on that roller coaster...
Well, that's kind of like what our shoelaces go through every time we walk or run.
Man, those poor little shoelaces.
And Mindy, what we just felt was actually less intense than what our shoelaces go through.
So you're saying our shoes are taken on a wild roller coaster ride every time we walk?
Yep.
And that force starts to loosen the knots in our shoes.
And what does that have to do with gravity?
While G-force and gravity aren't actually the same thing to you, me and pretty much everything else, they feel the same.
So using what we know about gravity can actually help us understand what our shoelaces go through.
How so?
Well Mindy, gravity is an invisible force all around us here on planet Earth, and it's why we don't just float up into space, and it's why, when you throw a ball up into the air, it falls back down.
But do all of the other planets also have gravity?
Yes.
In fact, gravity exists everywhere in our universe.
Because without it, everything would just fly apart.
Well, how does gravity work here on Earth?
Well, the basic way to measure it is in meters.
So, for example, if you throw something up in the air, eventually it will fall back to Earth at a rate of about 98 meters per second, per second.
9.8 meters.
So let's see, that's just like a little bit shorter than a school bus, right?
Yeah, exactly.
So the gravitational force on Earth is so powerful that when you throw something up into the air, it races back down to the ground at a length of almost one entire school bus.
Per second, Per second.
Uh, Guy Raz, why do you keep saying per second twice?
I got it the first time.
Oh well, what I mean by that Mindy, is that let's say you jumped out of an airplane flying high up in the sky.
Been there, done that.
Well, as you fell, you would speed up.
And each second that passed, you'd speed up by 98 more meters per second until you reached what's called terminal velocity.
And that's basically the fastest speed a falling human would reach.
And how fast is that?
Well, eventually a human jumping out of an airplane without a parachute will reach a terminal velocity speed of about 53 meters per second.
So that's really fast.
I know, right?
It's about as fast as the fastest roller coaster in America, Mindy.
So what is the fastest roller coaster in America?
Well, I looked it up, and it's called Kingda Ka, and that's a roller coaster in New Jersey.
Are we riding it right now?
We just got off a roller coaster, and you kind of, you know... Let's not talk about it.
So what's gravity like on other planets?
Well, on large planets like Jupiter, gravity is much stronger than it is here on Earth.
And on smaller planets like Mercury...
It's much weaker.
And while we humans haven't, of course, been to another planet in person to test gravity out, we have been able to test gravity on the moon.
And on the moon, things fall at a much slower rate than they do here on Earth.
Is that why things look like they float on the moon?
Yes, exactly, because on the moon, it takes a lot longer for things to come back down to the ground.
And you can actually see videos of this on the internet, Mindy videos of astronauts bouncing up and down on the moon, almost like a Like in a moon bounce.
Or a bouncy castle, exactly.
Okay, so you're saying that every time we run it's like the force of gravity on Earth, but seven times that force?
Yeah, exactly.
Basically, it's kind of like walking with six Mindys stacked on top of you.
So seven Mindys stacked up, but just one pair of shoes.
That's some powerful G-forces hitting those shoelaces.
And Mindy, that is why our shoelaces become undone.
Because they are constantly being rattled and loosened and eventually, in what What seems like a flap, the knot just opens up and the laces get untied.
And we now know that thanks to the incredible research by those mechanical engineers at UC Berkeley.
Well, I guess I'm just going to have to superglue my laces down if I want to defy gravity.
Here we go.
Ready?
It doesn't actually work that way.
There is no defying gravity.
And besides, you're going to mess up your... These are your foot finger shoes, Guy Raz.
I'm off to the races.
Kendall, what's the biggest wow in your world?
Um, the wow about unicorns.
What's the wow about unicorns?
Um, one day I went to this planet and there was unicorns and I put them in this special suit.
I took all the air from that planet and I put it into the suit for the unicorn.
And now she jumps on my bed and makes the roof like go quicky, quacky.
What do you feed her?
I feed her unicorn food.
What do unicorns eat?
They eat little bites of carrots, little kitty tail, and red tear.
It's my hand!
How long do you plan on keeping this unicorn for?
100 and 340 years.
It was actually my great-great-great-great-grandson when she was little.
And the unicorn has been passing on.
So when I have my baby, it's going to pass on to generations.
Does this unicorn have a name?
Miss Sparkle.
Does she talk?
She neighs, only I have translator on her, so you can't hear the neigh, but I can.
Can you say wow in the world in unicorn language?
Ned!
That's the whole thing?
Mm-hmm.
That's amazing.
Kendall, thanks for hanging out with us today.
You're welcome.
Wow in the World will be right back.
Grown-ups, 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 We'll see you next time.
You can hear exclusive audio content from me and Guy Raz to help your wowzer discover even more wows.
Grownups.
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.
Why are you dressed in tinfoil?
Because I decided that if I'm about to drink the water of the future, I might as well dress the part.
Well, I'm pretty sure that the people in the future will not be dressed in tinfoil.
But Okay, fine.
I'll take off this tinfoil leisure suit.
Just know that I worked really, really hard on this.
Sweating my brains out over here.
Guy Raz, can you hand me one of those future waters over there?
Over where?
I just see a table full of large bubbles.
Oh, you mean Ojo.
Oh, no.
I mean bubbles.
What are these things anyway?
I mean, they look like clear water balloons, only in miniature.
Guy Raz, those are Ojos, the water of the future I was telling you about.
And the future is here.
Go ahead and pick one up.
Hmm.
It feels a little bit like jelly.
Really squishy and about the size of a ping pong ball.
But what's in it?
Guy Raz, pop it into your mouth.
Mindy, the last time you told me to pop something into my mouth, a chicken hatched out of it.
And I almost... That was so great.
I'm still recovering from the trauma.
Anywho, just trust me this time.
Okay, fine.
I'll do it first.
Check this out.
Refreshing.
So...
It's really water in there?
Here, I'll pop another one and prove it to you.
Yep, that's water, all right.
And now it's all over me.
Sorry, Guy Raz.
We need to have a talk about the way you prove things to me, Mindy.
Guy Raz, these Ojo orbs of water just might become the Earth's new best friend.
Okay, you have me intrigued.
So water has been around on Earth for a long, long time, right?
Right.
I think, according to a study that came out a few years ago, water's been here on Earth for 46 years, billion years.
And actually some scientists think that some of the molecules or the teeny, tiny microscopic building blocks inside the water we drink and swim in at the beach are even older than that.
Older than the sun and the earth.
Older than our solar system.
That's another story.
Wow, old water sounds really refreshing.
Not really.
But the way we humans have been drinking our water lately is really starting to mess up the earth.
I guess you mean things like disposable plastic water bottles, right?
You are so bright your mother should call you son.
Actually, she does.
That was a joke.
Oh, right.
But by now, Mindy, we all know that we have to recycle our plastic water bottles after we use them.
So what's the problem?
Well, the problem is compared to all the water bottles we're using, the reality is we're really only recycling a small amount.
And that can't be good for marine life.
Nope, not at all.
And in fact there is so much plastic floating around in our oceans that if you laid it all out, it would be enough to cover the entire state of Texas.
How nuts is that?
You know, and now that I think about it, when you...
Brought me to that terrible picnic at the trash dump a few weeks ago.
I'm going to do a 180 degree spin and kick and what kind of directions are these?
She's led me to a landfill full of trash.
I noticed a lot of empty plastic water bottles there too.
Yeah.
And you'll see them there for the next 700 years because that's how long they take to decompose.
So if most of the water bottles in the world make it to the trash dump, how many water bottles are we talking?
I was hoping you'd ask me that.
Boys, bring in the polar bears!
What is happening?
Gairons, what is happening is you are staring at a scale holding the weight of one and a half million polar bears.
Uh, why?
Well because, A they make an awesome visual aid for your ears and, B because all of those polar bears equal the same amount of weight as all of those plastic water bottles junking up our landfills.
But empty water bottles are really light, so that must mean that...
There are a lot of water bottles in trash dumps.
Yep, and on top of all that, Please tell me you're not going to pile more on top of this stack of polar bears.
No, that would be crazy.
Right.
So as I was saying, on top of all that, water bottles are really expensive.
Yeah, I think I heard somewhere that when we buy a bottle of water, most of the money we pay for is in the bottle, not the water.
Yep. but it also costs a lot to the earth.
So it takes a lot of oil to make the plastic for the water bottles.
Then you have to put all of those bottles onto trucks so that they can drive all around the country dropping them off at stores.
And then all of those trucks create more pollution in the atmosphere.
Wow, that's a lot to consider when you're looking for just a quick drink.
So that's where the Ojo comes in.
Well, OK, I'm on board.
Tell me more about this thing.
Guy Raz, a group of scientists and engineers in London who are part of a new company called Skipping Rocks Lab, have found a way to deliver water on the go with zero packaging.
Then what makes up the bubble that holds the water?
Seaweed.
Seaweed?
Well, sort of.
Let me start from the beginning.
So they start by freezing water into the shape of a ping pong ball.
Interesting.
And then they take that ball and soak it in a solution made from brown algae extract that comes from seaweed.
Don't worry.
It's not as gross as it sounds.
The seaweed solution helps to form a bubble around the ice ball, but a bubble that seals everything in.
And so when the ice melts, you're left with a watery ball.
And is the bubble biodegradable, meaning that it won't harm the Earth?
Once you know, we're finished with it.
Sky Ross, not only is it biodegradable, but it's edible.
You can eat it.
You can puncture it, tear it open or just pop the whole thing into your mouth and eat, drink the whole thing.
And the bubble itself won't get in the way of the water because it's taste-less.
And that means no bottle to throw out.
Yeah.
Isn't that cool?
Yeah.
So when can we all start drinking or eating these things?
Well, you're going to have to be a little bit patient Kairos, because Skipping Rock's lab is still working out some of the quirks.
Like, presumably, how to sell these things without any packaging.
Exactly.
But for now, the people who make Ojos are working to figure out how they might be able to get these little blobs of water to runners running a marathon or athletes who need a quick gulp of liquid.
Wow, that's so cool.
I'm really looking forward to trying these things.
In the meantime, Guy Raz, prepare yourself for a water balloon fight.
Oh, no.
Bombs away!
Ah!
You're getting me all wet, Mindy.
It was an accident.
I do not think this is what the inventors had in mind.
You so much for checking out this episode of wow in the world, and parents, to get links to all the stories we talked about this week, visit our website wow in the worldcom grown-ups.
You can also write us.
Our email address is hello at wow in the worldcom.
Our show is written by me and mindy thomas and our producer is jed anderson.
Say hello, jed hello.
Our theme song, wow in the world, was written and performed by the.
Check them out at thepopupscom.
Also, big thanks to the kids that you heard in today's episode, Kendall and Abram.
You guys were awesome.
We're back with a brand new episode of Wow in the World next week.
And in the meantime, go forth and discover your own Wow in the World.
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