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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! chocolate, cow, rice, soy.
Hey, Ross.
What are you doing in your refrigerator over here?
Oh, hey, Mindy.
I'm just organizing my milk collection.
Uh, of course you are.
Hey, it looks like you're holding a glass of something white and creamy.
I bet I can guess what kind of milk that is.
Here, here.
Let me take a sip.
Wait, I, um... Ugh!
Mindy, have you been drinking straight up butter?
Well, I mean Technically, it started off as a butter popsicle on a stick, but then it melted, so That's just gross.
A whole glass of melted butter?
Butter is bad, Guy Raz.
Besides, what do you want me to do?
Wake up at 4 o'clock in the morning to squeeze the milk out of a bunch of almonds?
That's what I do.
Wait, actually, that's not what I do.
Almond milk is made by... Just, oh, never mind.
Look...
Coconut milk makes me hyper, soy milk causes me to have headaches and cow's milk gives me the toots.
Here, I'll prove it to you.
No, I'll take your word for it, Mindy.
Too late.
So what did you say you were doing with all these milks in here anyway?
Well, I just thought I'd organize my supply in alphabetical order.
Actually, I'm reorganizing my entire kitchen.
That's awesome.
Oh, oh, well, speaking of nuts, check out my nut pantry.
Wait, what?
Oh, my.
Fifty-three different varieties of nuts, all labeled and organized by species shape, color and personal preference.
Check this out, Mindy.
I've got almonds, beech nuts butternuts, brazil nuts, camel nuts, cashew nuts, walnuts and white nuts.
Wow.
Whoa, that's a lot of nuts.
Yeah, yeah, it is quite the collection if I do say so myself.
But too bad you forgot the biggest nut of them all.
Ah, the... coconut.
Well, loosely speaking, a coconut can be a fruit, a seed and a nut, so I'm not talking about a coconut.
Then what are you talking about?
Me!
I'm the biggest nut around.
Go ahead, knock on my head.
Please, Mindy.
Now that's what you call a hard nutshell.
So I'm just gonna perch myself right up here on this shelf right between the macadamias and the.
We're going by ABC order.
That shelf is not meant to hold nuts heavier than Well.
On the bright side it looks like I just made you a lifetime supply of trail mix Sky Ross.
My beautiful collection of organic prize-winning nuts.
Now they're mix nuts.
How will I ever... ever get these organized again.
Oh, wait, I know.
Oh, no.
Oh, no, no, no.
I think you've done enough, Mindy.
No, really.
I know who can help.
You know someone who can help organize my organic nut collection?
Sure do.
In fact, they're living, breathing, professional nut organizers.
Like, that's basically all they've got going on.
Well, like...
Guess if they're professional nut organizers, well, they must have a lot of practice.
So when can I meet them?
How about now?
Now?
Sure.
But first, I need to grab a couple of supplies from my house.
Which supplies?
And whatever you do, don't let Reggie near your pantry.
He's got a peanut allergy.
What?
I'll be right back.
Okay.
So you're allergic to nuts, huh?
Mm-hmm.
But I guess you're okay around Mindy.
Okay, okay, I'm back.
What were you getting over there, Mindy?
Just the bare necessities, Guy Raz.
Now here, put this on.
A squirrel suit?
No, I'm wearing the squirrel suit.
You're wearing the chipmunk suit.
Mindy, there is no way I'm... Look, do you want your nut pantry reorganized or not?
Ugh.
Hand over the fur.
Okay, now it's going to be a little snug, but that's just because it's a chipmunk costume made for a dog.
A what?
It'll be fine.
I just squeeze into it while I slip into mine.
Mindy, this does not feel comfortable.
Well, that's because you've got it on upside down, silly.
Here, let me help you out.
She's going to adjust her spine.
Just move.
Elbow back a little bit.
Bring it up.
Use you in there.
There, look at you.
Now go check yourself out in the mirror.
You could totally pass for a legit chipmunk.
Ready to go meet my nut organizing friends?
Are you sure this is a good idea, Mindy?
I'm not sure this is a good idea, Guy Raz.
But the state of your nut pantry calls for emergency action.
Right, so, uh... Hand me my shrink wand from the adventure toolbox over there.
Oh, uh, shrink wand, shrink wand.
Oh, got it.
Here you go.
Wait, wait, what?
Shrink wand, activate.
Mindy, you put me back to normal right this minute.
Oh, you are the little chipmunk I've ever seen.
I'm just gonna pinch those little chipmunk cheeks of yours.
No.
Mindy, if you don't unshrink me right now.
Hang on just one second, tiny chipmunk Guy Raz.
I'm shrinking down with ya.
What?
Shrink wand, activate again.
Look at us, Guy Raz.
We're tiny, talking woodland creatures.
No.
This?
I'm not even wearing my elbow patches.
Sure you are, Guy Raz.
But now your elbow patches are made of fur.
Oh, yeah.
Ooh, look over there.
Over where?
Chipmunk Guy Raz, where are your glasses?
They're bigger than my body, Mindy.
They won't stay on away sounds great.
No, you said you had a professional nut organizer who would do that for me.
Okay, I'm not sure this is going to work, Mindy.
Now just watch what he does.
Well, it looks like he's walking over to what appears to be a huge pile of nuts.
Yeah, now pay very close attention to what he does with them.
Interesting.
It looks like he's separating the nuts into categories and then running back and forth and burying them in different locations depending on the category of nuts.
Yep, so he's what we call a, And the reason he does this is so that he'll know that at least some of his food stash is protected, even if there is a bad storm that wipes out his supplies.
Or, I suppose, another critter who finds out where he's been hiding it.
Hey, that reminds me of the time I accidentally ate all of the Halloween candies Oh, I remember.
Only I anticipated that you would do that, so I hid piles of it all over my house so you'd never find all of it.
Yeah, and then you forgot all of your hiding places and wound up having to give out beans to the trick-or-treaters.
Hey, those were high-quality organic beans.
Nature's candy, Mindy.
Well, our squirrel friend here will never forget where he hid his stash, because researchers at the University of Berkeley in California have just uncovered his secrets strategy.
So there's a method to his organizational madness?
Yep, and we're about to see it up close and personal.
Oh, no, Mindy.
You're not thinking of... How does my tail look?
Like it just got a bad idea.
Now straighten your chipmunk stripe and follow my lead, okay?
I don't like the sound of this.
Um, hello, Mr. Squirrels?
Hi.
I was just piddling through the trees with my chipperahs over here.
And I couldn't help but notice that you look like an eastern fox squirrel.
Squirrel, squirrel.
Oh, what's that?
You are an eastern fox squirrel?
Ooh, squirrel.
Well, of course you are.
Mandy.
Mandy.
So as an eastern fox squirrel, you must be really good at organizing your nuts.
Well, I happen to know a nearby land where you can find more species of nut you could ever imagine.
Squirrel?
Mindy, this costume is itching.
Let's get out of here.
And I can take you to this land of nuts.
Huh?
Squirrel?
But first, if we want to reach the keys to the kingdom, we've got some growing to do.
Squirrel?
Wait.
We?
Who's we?
Stretch it out.
All right, you ready to go nuts, Mr. Squirrely Pants?
Hey, Guy Raz, come on, open your eyes.
Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel, that's a human-sized squirrel.
Yeah, so about that?
I just figured that if he was the size of a full-grown human, it would help to make his job easier and faster, you know.
Squirrel.
Come on, you two, let's get inside before someone sees us.
Okay.
Guy Raz, hand me your keys.
I'm going to unlock this door.
And here we are, Mr. Giant Squirrely Pants and Guy Raz's humble abode.
Make yourself right at home.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Now, if you'll just scurry on right this way towards the kitchen, you'll find Guy Raz's enormous pantry of mixed nuts.
They weren't mixed an hour ago.
So, Mr Squirrel, what we need you to do is to organize these nuts just the way you were doing with your nuts back out there in the yard.
Okay,
Squirrel?
Wait, do you speak squirrel, Mindy?
Yes, of course I don't speak squirrel, Guy Raz.
What?
Come on into the kitchen.
Come on.
Now just sit down, relax, put your feet up on the table.
I expect what's going on here.
Oh, now you're planning to explain what's going on here?
But Mindy, get your feet off my table.
Okay.
So, as I was saying earlier, this group of researchers from the University of Berkeley have been spending a lot of time with the common eastern fox squirrel, just like this guy, trying to understand his organizational strategy.
Yeah, I mean, look at him getting to work in my nut pantry.
It looks like he's grouping all the different nut species into categories.
That's exactly what he's doing, Guy Raz.
It's a method known as chunking.
Chunking?
Yeah, so chunking is how squirrels organize their nut booty.
You know there are other words for booty like treasure, chest or hoard or supply.
You don't necessarily need to use that word.
Yeah, but booty's the best word.
Okay, so what is it?
What is chunking?
Okay, so chunking is taking long strings of information and breaking them up into chunks.
So we humans do this when we put our clothes away in our dresser drawers.
Ah, right.
Just like how I put all my socks in the and all my wool pants in the bottom drawer.
Yeah, and then you take it a step further and put all of your striped socks on the right side of the drawer and all of your solid socks on the left side of the drawer.
That's right, and I do this, so whenever I need a striped pair of socks, I know exactly where to find them.
Wait a minute.
Have you been going through my dresser drawers, Mindy?
Uh, have you been going through your dresser drawers, Guy Raz?
Wait.
And by putting everything in a specific place, you're making a map in your brain.
So if I were to close my eyes, I'd be able to picture my dresser drawer and be able to tell you exactly where my striped socks were, without even having to look in the actual drawer.
Yes, unlike my house, where I just throw all of my clothes and dishes and important papers inside the same dishwasher and have no idea where to find anything.
So what this means is that I'm like a From an organizational perspective.
Guy Raz, you're basically a big squirrel chunker.
And I guess from another organizational perspective, you're basically...
A tornado.
I don't know if I'd go that far.
So how did these researchers discover that squirrels were using their brains for...
Well, they conducted a few experiments.
Okay.
So the scientists started with a hypothesis.
So a pretty educated scientific guess based on data or information collected.
Yep.
And, based on what they knew about squirrels, they had a serious hunch that the squirrels might use chunking as in they would put the almonds in one hole in the ground and the pecans in another, et cetera, et cetera.
And was their hypothesis correct?
Well, the results of the experiment said that the squirrels did, in fact, do this.
But only if they got the nuts all from the same place.
If they got the nuts from different places, they didn't use chunking.
Instead, they just hid all of their nuts in random spots.
Well, how do they know?
I mean, how are they able to track the nuts of 45 different squirrels?
Oh, so they used handheld GPS tracking devices to find them and create a map of their collecting and hiding patterns.
Say, speaking of nuts, whatever happened to that human-sized squirrel that was supposed to be organizing my nut collection?
Um, oh...
He's organizing your nuts, all right.
What?
Where?
Take a look outside in your yard.
Mindy, my nuts are all gone, and he's digging hundreds of holes in my beautiful garden.
You never said that you wanted him to organize them in the pantry.
What?
Well, on the bright side, he and his friends will never go hungry.
Faraz, just consider it payment for a job well done.
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Hi, I'm Dahlia and I'm from Chile, Santiago.
My Wow in the World is at my grandpa's boat.
We were going on it in Portland and a thunderstorm came out of nowhere and me and my brother were really scared, but we got there safe.
Bye!
Hello, my name's Dean, and I'm from California.
My wow in the world is that I saw the biggest pumpkin in the United States.
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Hi, my name is Addison.
I am eight years old, and I live in Virginia.
A big wow in my world is when I was four years old, I had Kawasaki's disease.
No doctors know what caused it, and normally Japanese people and boys get it.
But I'm neither of those.
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In my world.
The world is that parrotfish can clean shark's teeth once they ate their meal.
Even great white.
And so sharks won't eat the fish.
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I'm 10 years old.
My wow in the world is that plants turn sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water into food.
The process is called photosynthesis.
I love your show.
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Hi, Mindy.
This is Matilda.
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We are 6 and 9 years old.
We are from Massachusetts, the world is.
We went on a road trip with our mom, visited 20 states and drove 5800 miles.
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I'm Devin from Reading Pennsylvania, and my wow in my world is that 150 million people get stung by jellyfish every year.
That's about 411,000 stings every day, which is equal to 17,000 jellyfish stings every hour.
Thanks.
I love your show.
Bye.
Hey, everyone.
Thank you so much for joining us this week for Wow in the World.
And if you want to keep the conversation going, check out some of the questions we've posted on this episode at our website, wowintheworldcom.
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