Latest / Stuff You Should Know / What is an Ig Nobel Prize?

Transcript

What is an Ig Nobel Prize? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know?
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: From how stuff Works dot com? Everybody loves altoy. It's
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: little mints that come intense. Well, once the ments are gone,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: you can do some really neat things with the left
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: over tense. People have made empty three players, cameras, even stoves.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Check out how stuff works dot com slash tent evators
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: to find out more. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. With me is always Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: You sound like you're smiling big as you are. This
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: is stuff you should know. Of course I'm smiling. Yeah,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: why not. We're in the We're happy chairs, Chuck. Is
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: it like August mid late August? August right mid August.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: So you know what that means, don't you. It means
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: as hot as hades, and it is. It's gross, man.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: It keeps, it keeps raining just long enough to soak
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: the ground and then boom the sun comes out and
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: it's muggy. Yeah, awful. Yeah, it's I actually spoken to
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: people who have lived in New Orleans and they say
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: that it is as bad as New Orleans. He's really yeah,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I believe it, Thank you, Al Gore. Stupid global warming,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: but that's not what you were going to talk about anyway.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I just totally sidetracked. You didn't, I yeah, but I
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: went with it. This is my way. So what does
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: August mean? August means that we are to know one
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: month and change away from the ignoble Awards. Right, not
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: to be confused with the Darwin Awards. No, which, Chuck.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: How many people sent us when we did that spontaneous
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: human combustion? Sent us that Darwin Award clip of that
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: that Indian man on top of the train, Yeah, getting electrocuted. Yeah,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: it was very distressing, it is. And only about half
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: of those said be warned what you're about to watch.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: The others were like, check this out, Kentucky Fried dude. Yeah,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: normally like I don't like watching people die, but that one,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I thought it was kind of interesting, distressing. Sure,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: So was he a dar Win Award winner? Yeah? I
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: can't remember what four, but he was definitely an award winner.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: The Darwin Awards are a different deal. Those those people
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: are generally chided for stupidity and the IG Nobel Prize
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: winners are not made fun of. Plus, the Ignoble Awards
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: actually recognize honest to goodness, genuine scientific research, left of
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: center scientific research a little bit, but scientific research nonetheless.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: So the Ignoble Awards are coming up. As I said
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: October one, they're actually going to have a live webcast
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: this year, really, yeah, beginning at seven fifteen Eastern Standard time,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: and I imagine you'll be able to find the webcast
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: or at least a link to it on Improbable research
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: dot com. Right. Well, NPR every year broadcasts at um
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: the Friday after Thanksgiving. This year it's the day before Thanksgiving,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: I believe, so we'll look at you. Yeah, but if
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: you don't want to wait and you want to see
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: it live as it happens, yeah, Friday November, the day
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: after Thanksgiving. So what are these, dude? We should go
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: ahead and tell people it's a riff on two things
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: on the Nobel Prize and the word ignoble, which means
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: of low character or inferior quality. Right, And I have
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: to say that Mark Abrams, the guy who is the
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: editor of Improbable Research, which is a scientific humor magazine.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Now it's a website. Um, he kind of does a
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: little fancy footwork here there. What do you mean, well,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: he says that they're they're not. Yeah, He's like, we're
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: not making fun of people, but we're making fun of people.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: But because of the Ignoble Prize, Right, he's saying, like,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: this is actually the too spark curiosity and science, but
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: we're celebrating research that shouldn't be replicated or reproduced. He's
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: kind of all over the place. He wants to have
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: his cake and eat it too. A little bit he does,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: and boy, how he does he? Ever, since I think
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: they've done, They've handed out Ignoble prizes for all sorts
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: of stuff, and uh, it's I like it. I think
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: it's fun, sure, and most people do take it lightheartedly.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: I have a very famous case that I can go
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: into later on that someone who did not take it
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: very lightheartedly. But it's meant to be very humorous. And
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: if you look at some of the the award winners
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: every year, you can see why. So each year they
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: give a prize out for in ten different categories, right, yes,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: you let me go through those might as well. Those categories,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Josh are nutrition, peace, archaeology, biology, medicine, cognitive science, economics, physics, chemistry,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: and literature. And this, like I said, this is uh,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: this is actually legitimate research. Sometimes they're given out to
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: patent holders, but a lot of times also if you've
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: had a study published in a legitimate journal, you can
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: you're you're you're a candidate. You can be a candidate.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: I think they get like five thousand nominations every year
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: and they sort through all of them. Right, you can
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: nominate yourself, right, and the study what the study doesn't
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: have to have been done in the year that the
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: prizes are given out. Yeah. Actually, chuck um back in
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: some researchers UM at right Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: We're working on a project that UM they entitled Harassing, Annoying,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: and bad guy identifying chemicals, right, and they saw seven
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: point five million dollars for research grants. Is a real deal,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: it is. I've actually seen that the documents from the
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Air Force UM and basically what they were coming up
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: with was a non lethal project of UM, you know
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: chemicals that one of them was her basically a chemical
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: that would they would launch behind enemy lines and it
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: would arouse the ire of uh stinging insects in the area,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: so they go and attack the the enemy. Another one
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: was to uh create I think chronic or prolonged halitosis
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: among enemy soldiers so they couldn't stand to be around
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: one another. And then there was the one that got
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: the Ignobell, the infamous gay bomb. Yes, it says that, um,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: this is under the category I'm sorry category three chemicals
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: chemicals that affect human behavior, so that discipline and morale
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: in enemy units is adversely affected. One distasteful but completely
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: non lethal example would be strong effrodgiacs, especially if the
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: chemical also caused homosexual behavior. So yeah, the the the
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Air Force was working on a gay bomb. How much
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: money did they put towards this? Well, hold on it
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: one the two thousand and seven Ignobell Peace Prize, the
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: prize how much money seven point five million, and that
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: don't know, you know what exactly what exactly came of it?
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: And the Air Force didn't take kindly to this, correct,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: they kind of they did not show up to receive
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: the award, right, I don't think they ever had a
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: statement to the contrary that they were upset, But yeah,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: they didn't show up and say hey, thanks. This whole
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: gabon thing didn't work out, but thanks thanks for the props.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Who judges these things? Actually, what's crazy is that some
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Nobel Award winners, like real Nobel Award winners, serve on
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: the Board of Governors to decide who is going to
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: get an ignoble prize? Right Ena, who also has the
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: professor from Gilkins Island? No, yeah, holy Castle Johnson served
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: one year. Apparently they do that. They get celebrities and
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: certain actors and athletes to be on the panel. And
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: they said regular street Joe's your average Joe off the street.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: They'll put them on the panel to Yeah. And it's
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: held at Harvard. Yeah, what used to be an m
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: I t announced at Harvard. They have a big ceremony
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: every year. And I think the prize laureates are able
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: to give a one minute acceptance speeches. All yeah. They
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: have little miss Hutie Poo who has to who basically
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: shouts them off stage when they start exceeding their minute. Uh.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: And the criteria for little miss cutie Pooh is that
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: she must be an adorable eight year old with ice
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: water in her veins and from the Boston area. And
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: they're actually looking for applicants right now. So yeah, if
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: you're listening in Boston and you're an eight year old terror, yeah,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: you might want to apply with a shrill voice. Bring it. Yeah.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: The the award itself, Josh, is different every year, which
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: is kind of cool. They have different designs each year,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: and one of them was the was a cereal box
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: labeled Ignoble ohs. And that actually, uh kind of leads
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: as a nice segue into the discussion about this one
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: guy who very famously uh derided the Ignoble Awards as
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: stifling science or at the very least, you know, um,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: making fun of it, serious scientific, you're not happy about it. No,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Bob May, it was. Bob May was the head of
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: the Science Ministry uh in for the UK. So he
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: was pretty big cheese. I imagine you could put him
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: on par with maybe the Surgeon General or the head
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: of the um uh National Science Foundation here um. And
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: he came out and he wrote a letter to Improbable Research,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: and he also had one published in Nature where he
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: just railed on the Ignoble organizers and improbable research. He
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: said not to ever award another one to anyone from England. No,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: and that was kind of like, hey, thanks the people
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: who were getting the award that year had been doing research.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: They were from the University of East Anglia, who I
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: have to say is a university that produces some really
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: entertaining studies. Um, but this one was the research into
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: the effects or what makes soggy serial or serial saggy.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: That's good research, right, Well, he don't give it to
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: these people, don't ever give it to another British scientist again.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: And actually he thought, you know he was. He had
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: just put the final stamp of disapproval on it. Actually
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: created this huge outcry in the scientific community about how
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: stuffy the British scientific and certainly not doing very much
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: to quelle. No, he wasn't. And in two thousand his
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: successor actually went no. Two thousand two actually went to
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: the ig Nobel Awards to basically show that hey, great
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Britain's you know back on board, baby, Yeah, I think
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: science the more you can um laugh at certain things
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: and have fun with it the better, because you know,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: you want to turn other people onto science. You don't
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: want to turn them off by thinking that you know,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: we're also stuffying uptight that we can't laugh at ourselves.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: You just gave me yet another segwe speaking of turning
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: people on um. The two thousand Nobel ig Nobel Prize
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: winner for Medicine was a guy named Dr Peck van Andel.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Is that a real name, Yes it is, he's Uh.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: I think he's Dutch. Sounds like a pseudonym. He won
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: the two thousand You you would think it might be.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: He won the two thousand ig Nobel Prize for Medicine.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Uh for making the first m ri I video of
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: human reproductive organs while they're engaged in the act of coitus.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: And dude, yeah, if you came, I did, and it
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: is an mri I porner. It's crazy. So basically he
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: had he had two people performing intercourse inside an MRI
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: machine for this, and uh, yeah, he has a video
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: of it and it's up on YouTube. Actually it's an
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: improbable research number one nineteen, I believe. And I should
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: probably say if you are listening, you're watching, you're you're
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: listening to this at work and you're about to open
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: another tab, you might want to take it easy, wait
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: till you get home. And if you're twelve, don't watch
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: this yet, at least don't tell your parents that it
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: was Josh and Chuck who told you about this? Right?
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Should we talk about some more of these prizes? Yeah, dude,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: it's time. I think Robert Lamb, who wrote this awesome
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: piece of work, probably had a lot of fun with
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: this one. He wrote that. Um. In two thousand three,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Keys W. Mulliker did a study on the existence of
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: homosexual necrophiliac ducks. And this is all real. Yeah it
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: actually the study led to dead duck Day in the Netherlands.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Now really, well, it's funny you should say the Netherlands,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: because there was one in New Zealand about exploding pants
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: among New Zealand farmers in the nine thirties. Someone studied
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: that too. Yeah, what was up with that? I have
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: no idea. I didn't I didn't see the final outcome.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: I I went on the improbable research and found some
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: other winner's chuck. Um. There's some pretty wacky stuff out there.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: At the very least, I mean, you have to think
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: about it. When somebody undertakes this this a study, they're
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: very serious about it. They want to get to the
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: bottom of it. And obviously if you look at it
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: like the gay bomb, they didn't say the gay bomb. Plus,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: you know, arousing steam bees and there's legitimate research associated
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: with it's the gay bomb. They're picking out the funniest
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: angle of looking at this, but there is some legitimate
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: There is very much legitimate research put into this, and
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: you have to imagine it's funding for this research. Somebody
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: said Okay, yeah, go check out necrophiliac homosexual ducks and
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: then it's published. Yeah, usually in a medical journal. I
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: have one from last year that was pretty funny in
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: the field of chemistry. Um Sherry and Pierre Joseph Hill
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: and Deborah Anderson discovered that coca cola is an effective
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: spermicide and see why Hong c c she pe Wu
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: and b and Chiang accidentally proved that it is not
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: an effective spermacide in the same year. So they were
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: both award the award for chemistry, which I thought was
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: pretty funny, and they all showed up to receive it. Yeah,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: both sides of the studies. Um. I think it was
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: last year, Chuck that uh Ivan are Schwab and Philip
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: are A may Um won the prize for ornithology. What
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: was that they researched Why woodpeckers don't get headaches really
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: or why they give people headaches is what I would
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: follow up with No, uh, last year and nutrition. This
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: one I thought was pretty funny. Brian Wantsink investigated people's
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: appetite for mindless eating, and his trick was he had
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: a self refilling bowl of soup in front of them
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: that they didn't realize was constantly refilling itself. He would
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: study if they would just keep on eating and eating
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: without thinking about it. Awesome. I could go for a
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: self refilling bowl of soup. Really yeah, depending on the
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: soup loaded baked potato definitely. Um, I've got one. You're ready. Yeah.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: The Ignoble Prize for Mathematics in a two thousand in
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: seven UM went to nick's Vence Venson and Piers Barnes
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization. They calculated
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: the number of photographs you have to take to ensure
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: that nobody in a group photo will have their eyes closed.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Do you have the stat No? I don't, But if
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: you want the stat you can read the June two
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: thousand and six issue of Velocity and the articles called
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: blink free Photos Guaranteed. I've got one for you too.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: We could do this all day, we could, but this
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: one is actually could be real have real applications in aviation.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: They discovered that hamsters recover from jet lag more quickly
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: when given viagra, So there might be something to that
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: jet lags, you know, a problem for some people, and
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: maybe something in the viagra could actually help humans because
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: rats and hamsters and humans all kind of are wired
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: the same. Well. I don't know if it's groundbaracking research
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: as much as it is, you know, just proving conventional wisdom.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: You know, Well, do you think so with viagra? Everybody
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: knows viagra? Here's jet lagging rodents? Okay, sorry, you got
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: another one? I do? Can you tell by the look
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: on my face? Yeah, you were gasping. Two thousand and seven,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: the Medicine Prize went to some researchers from the University
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: of Tennessee College of Medicine. They did some research into
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: terminating hiccups by digital rectal massage and digital in this case. Okay, yeah,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: I was out. You know, that's funny. I read that earlier.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: I was like, how can you get a digital rectal massage?
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: I was thinking digitizing, all right, I wasn't thinking fingers.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: That makes sense. Do you got any more you want
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: to do another couple. Actually there was one what the
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: guy who studied strippers and found that strippers get more
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: tips when they're ovulating. Yeah, they won the Economics Prize
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: last year. I thought that was pretty pretty interesting. So
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: in essence, it's a lot of fun. You know, they're
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: they're kind of poking fun, but it is some legitimate
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: research going on, and I just think it's a good time.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: I agree. And if you're interested in checking it out out,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: as I said, the ig Noo Bell Prizes are gonna
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: be on there's gonna be a live webcast at seven
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: fifteen Eastern on October one if you want to find
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: out who ends up being miss Cutie Poo for two
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: thousand nine in a wig, eight year old, steely cold. Yeah, yeah,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: I could hear it. Yeah, so Chuck. I guess that's
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: it right. If you want to read this, I have
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: to say, you said, Robert Lamb wrote a great article.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: I agreed. I think this article has one of the
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: best introductions on the site. It's a good one. You
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: can find that by typing in EIGG and then space
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: and Nobel on the handy search bar on how stuff
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: works dot com. And since I said that, that means
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: my friends that it is time for listener may all. Yes, indeed, Josh,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna call this answer to our query about
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: the biggest badass of World War two. Yes, Chuck, I'm
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: very excited about this one. We got a lot of
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: respond section. We called it, if you remember correctly, just
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: to recap, we did a thing on jaff any stragglers. Wait,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: let's go to the way back machine and listen to
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: what we said in contrast to u COI was the
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: baddest dude in World War two. Probably as a matter
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: of fact, I invite our listeners to email us by
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: anybody who can who want, any single individual who can
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: top the man we're about to talk about as in badness. Okay,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: I agree, and Josh will personally email you back and
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: debate you. And there it is. So. We we posited
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: the Onada was one of the biggest uh rambos of
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: the war, and we challenge people sendance went bad and
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: people did. Yeah, we got a lot of responses. Yeah,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: but there was one that had overwhelming uh support. There
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: was there are actually a couple we want to give
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: a special uh uh. I guess you would call it
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: a runner up to Audie Murphy. Yeah, famous American actor
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: and soldier. Yeah, baby face like a buck. But yeah,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: I started shooting at him. He went crazy and he
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: was awesome and he was super bad. But I think
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: he gets a little attention because he was a real
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: small guy and he was American, and he was American.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: He had like such a chairb base like people think, wow, man,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: he's extra bad because he was tough and he's a
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: little We got some boats. There was some British guy
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: that was pretty bad. Another couple of Japanese dudes. But
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: wait what you got another one? But we have a winner, Yes,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: clear winner. This guy is so bad. This is uh
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: semo hia Hija. The nickname for him was white Death. Yes.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Can I tell this guy's story please? All right? So
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: he was a Finnish farmer and he um was just
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: basically doing his own thing when the Russians invaded Finland
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: the Winter War. Yes, he didn't like this one bit.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: So basically he took a standard bolt action rifle without
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: a sight. Yeah, no no head site, no scope, no
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: scope sorry yeah uh and went out into the woods,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: the sub arctic woods of Finland, where it gets to
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: about forty degrees below fahrenheight and just basically sat up
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: in trees or in blinds and waited. And he didn't
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: have to wait very long. Over the course of one year,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: just using this old rifle, he killed five hundred Russians,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: five hundred and five as a sniper. As a sniper,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: a lot of these people. When the Russians were finally
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: alerted that there was one sniper out there there was
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: causing them all these problems, they sent detachments with the
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: specific mission of going to kill him. Find the White Death. Yeah,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: that's when he got the name the White Death. So
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: they send, they send detachment after detachment out and he
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: just murders every single one of them too. He killed
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: two hundred people with a submachine gun, so that would,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: I guess would be like the close up fight. So
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: seven hundred and five seven five confirmed kills in a year.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Finally somebody gets close enough to him to shoot him
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: in the face with an explode name pullet, and it
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: still didn't kill him. Yep, he was shot in the jaw.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Rumor has it that he shot the other sniper before
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: losing consciousness, So the guy that just shot him before
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: he passed out, he killed him immediate retribution. And the
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: guy who wrote in with the best email says, unofficially
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: he had over eight hundred kills and this was an
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: under one hundred days. It was less than a year. Wow.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: So he said it was just a killing machine. Think
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: about it. That is at least five kills per day
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: plus two hundred kills with the World War two submachine gun.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: And he still didn't die. You know, he lost consciousness
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: and woke up apparently the day World War two ended. Yeah,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: and he lived until So I think the White Death
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna vote for him. Oh, hands down. He is
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: the biggest badass of World War Two. Yeah, although some
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: people are going to write in and say, yeah, but
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: this was sniper stuff and Autie Murphy fought people with
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: like a knife. And I gotta tell you, Autie Murphy
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: is to me a very close second. But the White Death,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: first of all, alone forty degree, he's below fahrenheight just
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: sitting out there sniping Russians. I mean, I think he's
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: I think he wins the award in my opinion. He does.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: So I want to give credit where credit is due here.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: We want to thank carson Um from Toronto. Actually it's
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: a joke. I'm making a joke. He's actually from Edmonton
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: and he said please don't say him from Toronto. And
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: he also said something about eating heaven euros and mentioning
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: that so his friends would know it's really him. Okay,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: so Carson, we've done so. So Carson from Edmonton, Timman
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: in New York City, Devon from Georgia, and Adrian all
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: wrote in with White Death and I think they're actually
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: more stuff I left you off. Yeah, I know they're definitely,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: don't snipe me. And also there's a really cool uh
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: article craft dot com about Rambo or basically actual life
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: soldiers who Rambo looked like something or other. Yeah, um,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: that was worth reading. And if you want to send
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: us an email about anything at all, White Death or otherwise,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: you can send that to stuff pod cats at how
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Want
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: house stuff works dot com home page. Hey, if you're
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: a fan of altoids the curiously strong Mints, you probably
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: have a lot of empty tins laying around. You can
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: do some pretty cool stuff with them. You can make
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: survival kits, flash drives, even robots. Check out Altoids on
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Facebook to find out more. Brought to you by the
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you