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Hey, Wowzer fams.
Mindy and Guy Raz here.
And before we start the show, did you hear that we are on YouTube?
That's right, Mindy.
Wowzer fams.
You can find full episodes of Wow in the World and more of your favorite Tinkercast podcasts on our YouTube channel, WowTube.
Plus, on WowTube, you can also watch me explode some watermelons and test out Bonkerball's experiments in the laboratory of bad ideas.
Or you can dance along with Dennis for music videos featuring music from WeWow on the weekend.
There is so much in store made just for you on WowTube.
Visit Tinkercast.com slash YouTube to watch now.
That's Tinkercast.com slash YouTube.
Ew.
Slimey squiggly little icky buggies.
Flies and beetles and ants are so yucky.
Nasty critters scurrying and squirming and wriggling and slithering and I'm gonna barf.
Black!
Creepy crawly week.
Creepy crawly week.
Things with wings and too many legs.
Crows!
Creepy, crawly, weak.
Creepy, crawly, weak.
Crawly, weak.
Crawly, weak.
Hello and welcome to day three of Wee Wow!
Creepy Crawly Week.
I'm your host, Dennis.
And that's my co-host, Reggie.
And we're also joined by Mindy's pet cockroach, Smokey McDougal.
No, Reggie, Smokey is not a cool guy.
He's slimy and scuttly and creeps me out.
I know, I know.
We have to take good care of him because we told Mindy we would.
Or rather, Mindy told me I would.
By the way, did she send me more instructions today?
Okay, let's see them.
Dear Dennis, please make sure to feed Smokey every day.
Feed him?
Feed him what?
Well, it looks like all the food Mindy put in his tank is gone.
No, Reggie.
I didn't see what he was eating.
I was busy being grossed out.
Well, now what are we going to do?
Oh, good idea.
Let's do a cooking segment.
Ahem.
Dish it up on a dish, anything that you wish.
Take a bite, that's delish.
Dishing it up with Dennis and Reggie.
Today, on Dishing It Up with Dennis and Reggie, we're making a delicious, nutritious dish for Mindy's pet cockroach.
Oh, uh, I was thinking Beef Wellington.
No, I don't know what Beef Wellington is.
I picked it because it sounds fancy.
And if I make a fancy dish, Mindy will think we did a really great job of taking care of Smokey McDougal.
Well, do you know what Beef Wellington is?
Okay, it's a big piece of beef with mushroom pate on it.
And mushroom pate is... Mushrooms mushed up into a spread.
Right, I knew that.
And then that's wrapped in pastry dough?
Ooh!
Oh yeah, I can make that no problem.
Let's just see what we have in the pantry.
And by pantry, I mean couch cushions.
All right, what do we got under here?
Ooh, so many ingredients.
We got a lot of cracker crumbs, a super dried out carrot stick with a bite out of it and ooh look, some limited edition fruit snacks.
They don't even make this flavor anymore.
Teriyaki grape.
Okay, I think this is gonna work.
Let me just grab all this stuff.
All right, so this old carrot stick can be the beef.
And we'll mush up the fruit snacks like this.
Ew, sticky.
No, Reggie, this is the pate.
We're just going to kind of wipe it on the beef carrot.
Ew.
And then we just roll the sticky beef carrot around in the cracker crumbs.
I mean, puff pastry.
There we go.
Ta-da!
Beef Wellington.
Oh, yeah, we need a teeny tiny plate for it.
Um, how about one of my Static Man buttons?
Just lay that like that, and this goes on there.
Oh, wow.
Is that restaurant quality or what?
Okay, Smokey McDougal, dinner is served.
Oh, no, wait.
What time is it?
I mean, lunch is served.
Okay, Reggie, put it in his tank.
He's looking at it.
He's going up to the beef wellington.
Oh, he's sniffing it, I think.
Do cockroaches have noses?
He is!
Yes!
He's eating it!
Hooray!
I'm the best chef in the world!
Reggie, we should open a roach-staurant.
Hurry, we need ambiance.
Go dim the lights.
I'm going to put on an episode of Wow in the World for lunchtime entertainment.
Let's see.
Um, this one.
Oh, thank you, Reggie.
Okay, just got to check in on my guest, Smokey McDougal.
Good afternoon, sir.
Are you enjoying your meal?
Very good, sir.
Very good.
Our podcast special tonight is Wow in the World, Season 8, Episode 17, called The Rise of the Glassy-Winged Sharpshooter.
Okay, very good, sir.
Here we go.
And play.
WeeWow will be right back.
Grownups, this message is for you.
Hey, grown-ups, what happens when you bring a great white shark and a baby octopus to your house?
A whole lot of wow.
Hey, it's me Mindy from Wow in the World, the number one science podcast for curious kids and their grown-ups.
And we are so excited to bring the wows of sharks and sea creatures to your home without having to turn your house into an aquarium.
Our jumbo great white shark is 24 inches long and comes with an exclusive wow fact card.
Our baby ocean animals are perfect for the little ones in your life, featuring exclusive audio that will leave the whole family saying aww, wow.
These Wow in the World toys make for fantastic gifts for the kids in your life who love science and even the ones who don't yet.
Grownups, visit Tinkercast.com slash toys to shop the wow now.
That's Tinkercast.com slash toys.
That's it.
Now back to the show.
These are our seats right here.
Okay, everyone, get settled.
Careful.
Sorry.
Oops, sorry.
Oh, I'm so excited.
The movie trailers are about to begin.
My favorite part.
Everyone got their popcorn?
I brought corned beef.
What?
Where did you get that?
From the deli.
It's got the juice.
No, I've got the juice.
What?
I bought an extra, extra, extra large lemonade.
What the?
Is that a five-gallon bucket of lemonade, Dennis?
Mm-hmm.
You're not gonna make it past the first trailer without having to go to the bathroom. to tinkle.
Quiet!
You shush!
Everyone, please stay quiet.
The trailers are about to begin.
In our world, insects are seen as pests.
Ew!
An ugly bug!
Get it!
Get it!
But in another reality, bugs are heroes.
Look!
It's Bumblebee!
The pollination champion!
And among the bug superheroes, one tiny creature stands out from the rest.
Look, that little boat stands out from the rest.
Could it be?
That's right, it's me, the glassy-winged sharpshooter.
What?
She may be small, but she never cowers, for the glassy-winged sharpshooter is loaded with PP power.
Yes!
Now I really have to go.
All right, bye.
From the masterminds at the journal Nature Communications and scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology comes Super Propulsion Rise of the Glassy-Winged Sharpshooter.
Get ready to get super soaked.
You win!
This is gonna be amazing.
Tommy, where's the bathroom?
I don't know.
You're no help.
Excuse me, random stranger.
Can you please direct me to the nearest restroom?
Random stranger?
Dennis, it's me, Guy Raz.
Well, I'm sorry.
It's very dark in here.
Just do like I do and super soak your pants, boy.
I don't want to.
I super soaked my pants.
I want to know where the bathroom is.
None of us know where the bathroom is, Dennis.
Go out and look for one.
But what if I get lost?
Shh.
Dennis, you're not going to get lost.
Just go out and...
Excuse me, we're getting a lot of noise complaints and so now you all have to leave.
No, thank you.
But why?
We just got here.
Can I offer you some corned beef, sir?
Um, no.
And where did you get that?
From the deli.
You're talking during the movie and you brought in outside food?
Well, we're inside, so it's inside food.
You all need to leave right now.
Come along, please.
Bye.
Come on, Mindy.
Come on, everyone.
Let's go.
We'll be back.
And with even more corned beef.
For the premiere of Super Propulsion Rise of the Glassy-Winged Sharpshooter coming to this theater this summer.
Ma'am.
Okay, sorry, we're leaving.
Well, that was embarrassing.
What?
What?
What are we going to do now?
Yeah, I'm bored.
Entertain us, Mandy.
Yeah, Mandy.
Well uh, we have a pretty long hike through the woods to get back home, so maybe we could uh Wait, I have an idea.
What?
You do?
This better be good.
Yeah, remember how we just watched a movie trailer for the glassy-winged sharpshooter?
Yeah?
Well, I know it was a superhero movie, but did you know that the glassy-winged sharpshooter is in fact a real insect?
Tell us more, Guy Raz!
Why, tell you.
When you can show us?
Yes.
I mean, maybe.
Maybe?
Well, like Mindy said, we do have a long hike home through the forest, so maybe we could find one, find a glassy winged sharpshooter in the wild.
Sure, why not?
Nope.
Too small.
What?
Can't you hear nothing?
She said it's too small.
Huh?
The glassy-winged, whatchamacallit, is too small.
Mall.
They only average about 12 millimeters in length.
How am I supposed to see that?
It's okay, don't you worry, because here in my adventure tool kit, I've got...
What?
Mindy's got cats?
Yeah, and Mindy needs to come up with a new joke.
No, no, I've got...
Magnifying goggles!
Ooh!
Well, well.
Here's a pair for you, Guy Raz.
Thank you.
And here you go, Dennis.
Grandma G-Force, a pair for you, Mr. Fingerlings.
Oh, wow!
Cool!
How do they work?
Okay, well, let me help you here, Dennis.
First of all, you put them on like this.
Ow!
And then you switch them on with this button here.
Ah!
OK, so what are we looking for, garage?
First of all, it's Guy Raz.
And second of all, the glassy-winged sharpshooter insect we're looking for is a small brown insect, about as big as the tip of my pinky finger.
All right, let's have a look at this pinky finger everyone's talking about.
What?
No.
Okay, fine.
Sheesh.
Okay, come on, everyone.
Let's get into the forest so we can start looking.
All right.
Oh, boy.
Let's sing songs.
Over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house we go.
Guy Ross knows the way to Chesapeake Bay and Mindy has tennis elbow.
What?
No, you don't.
Why don't you know any mother's songs?
Um...
No.
Okay, so, Guy Raz.
Yes?
This glassy-winged sharpshooter.
It's small and brown, no bigger than the size of a fingertip.
Pinky fingertip.
Right, and its wings are clear and glassy with a yellowish tint at the base.
Okay, so it looks like a bug?
Yes, yes, exactly.
It looks like a bug.
But it's not actually a bug, right?
What?
No, I mean, yes, Dennis, it's actually a bug.
Oh!
Ew.
Searching, searching, searching, searching.
I'm tired.
What?
Grandma G-Force, don't just sit down in the middle of the trail.
Why not?
Yeah, Mr. Rossy.
Why not?
Well, because you'll block the... It's fine, Guy Raz.
We'll just leave a trail of breadcrumbs.
They'll find their way back home.
Dennis?
Run, run, run, run, run, run, run!
What is it, Dennis?
A bug!
A bug!
It landed on me!
Get it off!
Get it off!
Mindy, help!
Where is it?
Right there!
It's trespassing on my shoulder!
Okay, uh, hold still.
Wait a minute.
That's not just any bug.
That's a... A glassy-winged sharpshooter!
Tell it to go creepy crawl around somewhere else.
My shoulder is private property.
This is incredible.
I've never seen one so close up before.
I have to admit, I'm feeling a little starstruck.
Yeah, she's a little movie star.
Too bad we'll never see your movie, little glassy-winged sharpshooter.
We've been kicked out of the movie theater for the last time.
Wait a minute, Mindy.
What, Guy Raz?
What if we didn't have to see her superhero movie to witness her powers...
You mean her pee-pee powers?
Well, uh... Bugs don't really have pee-pee powers, Granny G. That was just made up for the movie.
Actually, Dennis, Yes, it wasn't.
What?
You mean this glassy winged sharpshooter actually has pee-pee powers?
Uh-huh.
Bugs go pee?
Not only do they pee or urinate rather, but this particular bug can pee with more power than any other known creature on earth.
Earth.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, Mindy and I were doing a little scientific research before the movie.
Brag.
Why were you doing research on a movie?
Because the movie was based off of a real-life scientific study published in the journal Nature Communications.
Huh.
And in this study, a biophysicist from the Georgia Institute of Technology named Saad Bamla.
Hold on, hold on.
What, Dennis?
Did you say a biosynthesist?
No, no, no, no.
A biophysicist.
Oh.
What's that?
I got this, Guy Raz.
Dennis, a biophysicist is a scientist who studies the way living things work using physics.
Right.
So a biophysicist might study the mechanical way that humans or plants or animals move and make energy.
Got it.
And to do this, they might zoom all the way into the most basic cellular level of the living thing.
They zoom in?
Like with magnifying goggles?
Well, they've got their own ways of magnifying in the form of microscopes and other tools, but essentially yes.
Huh.
Okay.
Continue.
All right.
Now, where was I?
You were at the beginning.
I interrupted you after like four words.
Oh, right.
You did.
You know what, Guy Raz?
Maybe it's best that we do this story time style.
Story time style?
Yeah.
Like this.
Ahem.
Ahem.
Once upon a time, a young biophysicist named Saad Bamla was walking around his backyard enjoying a sunny day.
I just love the sun and my yard and croquet.
I don't know.
Sod Bomla does not like croquet.
What?
How do you know?
Just pick something more science-y.
Fine.
Ah, I just love the sun and my yard and, uh, complex systems.
That's better.
Then when, much to his surprise, he came upon a small brown insect with with beautiful glassy wings and big red eyes.
Ooh, what big red eyes you have.
What even are you?
It was a beautiful glassy-winged sharpshooter.
That's me.
Now he had seen this bug many times before, but this time there was something different about her.
Something unusual, something he'd never seen a bug do before.
What in the world wide web are you doing, G-Force?
I mean, mystery bug?
Ah, sweet relief.
She was peeing.
That is both gross and amazing.
You see, this sharpshooter bug had been drinking from a plant that provided her with endless amounts of a gooey substance called xylem sap.
Yum, yum, yum.
Get it in my tongue.
And while this sap was full of nourishing minerals and nutrients, it was also full of a little something called water.
Oh, water!
I've heard of that.
Dennis!
Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.
Continue.
Now, this sap was actually 95 water, and the little sharpshooter had been drinking up to 300 times her body weight in a single day.
Glug, glug, glug.
I'm a thirsty little bug.
Which meant that when she wasn't drinking, she was... Oh, wow.
Sweet relief.
In fact, she spent so much of her day peeing that she had to come up with an energy efficient way to do it.
I'm not gonna waste all my energy going to the bathroom all day long.
Pee-pee, you're gonna work for me.
You see, while other sap-drinking insects preferred to pee Jetstream-style...
The glassy-winged sharpshooter was not like other insects.
You got that right.
Over time, she and her ancestors had evolved to pee a little differently, a little more efficiently, with a little help from a tiny tail-like appendage that Sod Bomla later nicknamed the butt flicker.
Huh.
When it was time to pee, she would open her butt flicker Butt flicker activated.
Twist her butt. and produce a single droplet of pee.
That's a lot for little old me.
And just as the droplet grew to the perfect size, her butt flicker would wind up and launch that little pee droplet into the air and away from her body.
So long, little pee-pee.
Right into my eye.
Oh, snap.
My bad.
I forgive you.
Thomas Fingerling, I mean Sod Bomla.
The scientist invited her to come back to his lab so he could get a closer look.
Okay, little buggy.
You're coming with me.
Wow, so you can watch a little bug pee?
Yeah, but with all my fancy science microscopes and high-speed video equipment and laboratory stuff.
Okay, let's go.
Okay.
And off they went, back to Saad Bamla's laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
And using high-speed video and magnification tools, he continued to observe this little sharpshooter and her unusual pee.
Ah, sweet relief.
Whoopee!
Again, again!
Ah, sweet relief.
Okay, cool.
Now let's watch that back in slow motion.
All right, there goes the butt flicker.
Looks to be moving pretty fast.
And here goes the pea droplet to the air and... Ah, sweet.
But Sodbomla discovered was that the little pea droplets were whizzing through the air almost twice as fast as her butt flicker was flinging.
You mean flicking.
Whatever.
He also discovered that this particular way of peeing used four to eight times less energy than if she were to produce a jet stream of pee.
But licking pee is the only way for me.
Hey!
Wow, look at her go.
It didn't take long before Saad Bamla realized that this was a case of super propulsion, if you got that right.
Super propulsion happens when the thing being launched moves faster than the launcher itself.
And while we know that other animals have bring loaded appendages to help them jump or fly.
This was the first time an animal this small had ever been known to use super propulsion.
I'm the best at super propulsion.
And what makes it even more wow is that a creature this small could fling a heavy pea droplet the size of a bug-sized beach ball away from its body so fast.
My golly, I've never seen anything like it.
It was a new discovery.
It was?
Oh, boy.
So Sockbombla ran outside and blabbed about it to all of his scientist friends.
Hey, everyone.
Get a load of this pea-flinging bug.
Okay, bug, do your trick.
I like your monkey.
What?
Eventually, his discovery was published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.
And soon, everyone was talking about the glassy-winged sharpshooter.
I'm rich and famous now.
You sure are.
And the classy-winged sharpshooter and the biophysicist lived happily ever after.
The end.
Hooray!
Okay, now roll the credits.
The credits?
Yeah, the credits for the movie we just watched.
I want to see who did what.
Dennis, we didn't watch a movie.
We just told a story.
Well, I played the role of the pea-fleckin' bug.
Ooh!
And I played the role of the handsome young scientist.
Oh, wow.
Tennis.
And now I'll play the role of the film critic.
Five stars.
A must-see.
Well, I guess maybe it did feel a little like a movie.
Yeah.
Yeah, and we didn't even get kicked out.
Okay, now let's talk sequels.
I'm thinking trilogy.
Speak to my agent.
You know, maybe the sequel will be how scientists take what they've learned from this discovery And use it to create an invention that will Save the world voiceover.
What?
Once upon a time, butt-licking super propulsion pee became super duper popular.
And the tiny bug that started it all.
That's me.
Became super best friends with a handsome young scientist.
I'm de-aged with CGI, but my muscles are real.
Oh, well, well.
Coming this summer to a theater near you.
It's a movie narrated by me Dennis, the greatest narrator in the universe.
Dennis?
What?
Dennis?
Grownups, if you like Wow in the World, you can listen early and ad-free right now on Wondery Plus.
Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Wondery Kids Plus on Apple Podcasts.
Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.
And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
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 supervising producer, Jed Anderson and Tyler Thull.
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-Ups.
Find them at thepopups.com.
Special thanks to of the other Tinkerers at Tinkercast HQ.
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 about upcoming events, shop our wow shop, find our best-selling books and learn about all of our other amazing podcasts from Tinkercast.
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!
Wowing!
Wow in the World was made by Tinkercast and sent to you by Wondery.
