Half of Wisdom: A Podcast of Prudent Questions

Most mammals experience what scientists call knismesis, or light tickling, that creeping sensation that sticks around for a while after a bug crawls across your skin.  Humans and apes also experience a different type of tickling, called gargalesis, or heavy tickling, that causes them to squirm and laugh at the same time.  It’s an open question whether other animals experience anything like gargalesis, but they most likely don’t.

Here are some resources to learn more about ticklishness:

• Harris, C.R. (1999).  The mystery of ticklish laughter.  American Scientist, 87, 344.  http://charris.ucsd.edu/articles/Harris_AS1999.pdf
• Alpha Paw.  Are Dogs Ticklish? The Amazing Answer!  https://www.alphapaw.com/blog/are-dogs-ticklish/
• Wag!  Can Dogs Be Ticklish?  https://wagwalking.com/sense/can-dogs-be-ticklish
• Dog Tips.  Are Dogs Ticklish? Can You Tickle Your Dog? and Do They Even Like It?  https://www.dogtips.co.uk/are-dogs-ticklish/

Our intro and outro music is DriftMaster by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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Australia is full of animals that aren’t even a little bit like the animals that live in other places. A great example is the bare-nosed wombat, which, unlike any other animal, has feces shaped like cubes.

Here are some resources to learn more about wombats and other Australian animals:

• Science.  How do wombats poop cubes? Scientists get to the bottom of the mystery.  https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/how-do-wombats-poop-cubes-scientists-get-bottom-mystery.
• Discover.  Why Do So Many Weird Animals Live in Australia?  https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/why-do-so-many-weird-animals-live-in-australia.
• Improbable Research.  The 29th First Annual Ig® Nobel Prize Ceremony.  https://www.improbable.com/2019-ceremony/.
• Yang, P.J. et al.  (2021).  Intestines of non-uniform stiffness mold the corners of wombat feces.  Soft Matter, 17(3), 475—488.  https://doi.org/10.1039/D0SM01230K.

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For most people, the difference between a fruit and a vegetable is pretty clear: fruit is sweet, and vegetables aren’t. But it’s not really that simple. Some fruits, such as lemons and limes, are sour rather than sweet, and some people like to point out that some things we call vegetables, like tomatoes, are actually fruits, even though they’re not sweet.

Here are some resources to learn more about fruits and vegetables:

• McGee, Harold (2004).  On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen.  Simon & Schuster.
• Mauseth, James D. (2003).  Botany: an introduction to plant biology.  Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
• Rost, Thomas L.; Weier, T. Elliot; Weier, Thomas Elliot (1979).  Botany: a brief introduction to plant biology.  Wiley.
• Live Science.  What’s the Difference Between a Fruit and a Vegetable?  https://www.livescience.com/33991-difference-fruits-vegetables.html

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Pretty much everyone knows about Paul Revere and his midnight ride through Massachusetts to warn people that British troops were coming. Less well-known is a similar incident a couple years later, when Sybil Ludington, the daughter of a colonel in the American militia, rode through Putnam County, New York, to alert the militia so they could try to defend Danbury, Connecticut.

Here are some resources to learn more about Sybil Ludington:

• National Women’s History Museum.  Sybil Ludington.  https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/sybil-ludington.
• Historic Patterson, New York.  Sybil Ludington.  https://www.historicpatterson.org/Exhibits/ExhSybilLudington.php.
• Paula D. Hunt.  “Sybil Ludington, the Female Paul Revere: The Making of a Revolutionary War Heroine.”  The New England Quarterly, vol. 88, no. 2, 2015, pp. 187–222.

Our intro and outro music is DriftMaster by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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If you ever need to keep something frozen when your freezer isn’t working, you might find yourself using dry ice, which is solid carbon dioxide. This material stays colder than water ice, and it doesn’t melt, so it creates a lot less mess.

Here are some resources to learn more about dry ice and carbon dioxide:

• The Bumbling Biochemist.  Dry Ice, Sublimation.  https://thebumblingbiochemist.com/365-days-of-science/dry-ice-sublimation/.
• How Stuff Works.  How Does Dry Ice Work?  https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/science-questions/question264.htm.
• Universal Industrial Gases, Inc.  Interesting Facts and Information About Carbon Dioxide.  http://www.uigi.com/carbondioxide.html.
• Duane, H. D. Roller; Thilorier, M.  “Thilorier and the First Solidification of a ‘Permanent’ Gas (1835).”  Isis, vol. 43, no. 2, 1952, pp. 109–113.

Our intro and outro music is DriftMaster by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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There’s a persistent myth that Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb. Although he and his employees did develop some of the earliest commercially successful lightbulbs, he wasn’t actually the first to come up with the idea.

Here are some resources to learn more about Thomas Edison and the lightbulb:

• Friedel, Robert & Israel, Paul (2010).  Edison's Electric Light: The Art of Invention.  The Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Houston, Edwin J. & Kennelly, A. E. (1896).  Electric Incandescent Lighting.  The W. J. Johnston Company.
• Live Science.  Who Invented the Light Bulb?  https://www.livescience.com/43424-who-invented-the-light-bulb.html#:~:text=Several%20months%20after%20the%201879,the%201880s%20and%20early%201900s.

Our intro and outro music is DriftMaster by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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Sunburns are painful and can be dangerous, so it’s best to avoid the ultraviolet light from the sun that causes them. One way to minimize the amount of ultraviolet light that hits your skin is to use sunscreen, a product that either reflects the light away or absorbs it.

Here are some resources to learn more about sunburn and sunscreen:

• American Academy of Dermatology.  How to Treat Sunburn.  https://www.aad.org/public/everyday-care/injured-skin/burns/treat-sunburn.
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  The Burning Facts.  https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/documents/sunscreen.pdf.
• Scientific American.  How We Sense the Heat of Chili Peppers and the Cool of Menthol [Excerpt].  https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-we-sense-the-heat-of-chili-peppers-and-the-cool-of-menthol-excerpt/.

Our intro and outro music is DriftMaster by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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Despite the name, the foot isn’t measured by or named after anyone’s actual foot. Whether you think of it as 16 digits, 12 inches, 4 palms, two-thirds of a cubit, one-third of a yard, or one-sixth of a fathom, the foot has an interesting history, as do other strange Imperial units, such as the fathom and the furlong.

Here are some resources to learn more about the history of Imperial units of distance:

• Zupko, Ronald Edward (1977).  British Weights and Measures: A History from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century.  University of Wisconsin Press.
• An Antic Disposition.  The Right and Lawful Rood.  http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/12/right-and-lawful-rood.html.
• The Physics Hypertextbook.  British-American System of Units.  https://physics.info/system-english/.

Our intro and outro music is DriftMaster by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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Dmitri Mendeleev gets most of the credit for the modern periodic table. He deserves a lot of the acclaim, but he built on the work of several other chemists, and a lot of elements have been discovered and added to the periodic table since he developed it.

Here are some resources to learn more about Dmitri Mendeleev and the periodic table:

• Royal Society of Chemistry.  Development of the Periodic Table.  https://www.rsc.org/periodic-table/history/about.
• Scerri, Eric (2019).  The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance.  Oxford University Press.
• Gordin, Michael (2004).  A Well-Ordered Thing: Dmitrii Mendeleev and the Shadow of the Periodic Table.  Basic Books.
• Meta-synthesis.  Internet Database of Periodic Tables.  https://www.meta-synthesis.com/webbook/35_pt/pt_database.php.

Our intro and outro music is DriftMaster by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com.

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Wormholes are a mainstay of science fiction, permitting fictional trips across vast distances in reasonable amounts of time, as well as time travel. Despite some theoretical scientific basis for their actual existence, useful wormholes remain more a part of science fiction than of science fact.

Here are some resources to learn more about wormholes:

• Scientific American.  Follow-Up: What Exactly Is a ‘Wormhole’? Have Wormholes Been Proven to Exist or Are They Still Theoretical?  https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/follow-up-what-exactly-is/.
• Thorne, Kip S.  (1994).  Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy.  Norton.
• Matt Visser: General Interest Articles.  Why Wormholes?  https://homepages.ecs.vuw.ac.nz/~visser/general.shtml#why-wormholes.
• Space Time Travel.  Flight Through a Wormhole.  https://www.spacetimetravel.org/wurmlochflug/wurmlochflug.html (illustrations of wormhole appearance and trips through a wormhole).
• Internet Archive.  Astounding Stories v05n03.  https://archive.org/details/Astounding_v05n03_1931-03_pulpmaniacal-Gorgon776_edit_fiche/mode/2up (Jack Williamson’s 1931 short story The Meteor Girl can be found here, at page 404).

Our intro and outro music is DriftMaster by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Please follow us on Twitter at @PrudentQPodcast, and contact us at [email protected].