CARL KASELL: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME, the NPR News quiz. I'm Carl Kasell. We're playing this week with Luke Burbank, Charlie Pierce and Faith Salie. And here again is your host, at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Carl. Thanks everybody.
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SAGAL: In just a minute, Carl is charged with rhyme doping and steps down as the head of the Lim-strong foundation.
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SAGAL: If you'd like to join, give us a call at 1-888-Wait-Wait, that's 1-888-924-8924. Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news. Charlie, you've heard the expression "40 is the new 30." Well scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Rostock, Germany have updated that. They're saying what is the new, new 30?
CHARLIE PIERCE: Fifty.
SAGAL: Higher.
PIERCE: Seventy.
SAGAL: Yes, 70 is the new 30.
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SAGAL: Somebody in the audience is like, yes, yes, yes.
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PIERCE: Wait a minute, does that mean in 12 years I could start smoking dope again?
SAGAL: Exactly.
PIERCE: Yeah.
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SAGAL: No, the Planck Institute says 70 is the new 30, while the Institute of Everybody Else says no, it's not.
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SAGAL: Now, here's what they're saying. They're saying that thousands of years ago humans tended to die on average around age 30. But since the industrial revolution and all kinds of other modern...
PIERCE: And since we stopped getting eaten by saber tooth tigers.
SAGAL: Pretty much.
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SAGAL: Anyway, our lifespan has been increasing by about three months on average every year since the industrial revolution. So the current human lifespan averages between 75 and 80. In other words, 70 is the new 30, not because you're youthful and spry and 70 but because 30 used to mean you were near death.
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SAGAL: Therefore, if you are a 45-year-old man, working as a barista and still living at home with your parents, you are not a child prodigy.
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SAGAL: Faith, in a bold move sure to win him wide support among a certain demographic, French President Francois Hollande, Francois Hollande.
FAITH SALIE: Hollande.
SAGAL: Announced he was banning what?
SALIE: Homework.
SAGAL: Homework, yes, homework.
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PIERCE: Homework.
SALIE: Homework, yes.
SAGAL: That's right, Frenchie, put down that pencil and turn on the TV became from now on homework el fine.
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SAGAL: It's part of Hollande's sweeping reform package that also includes measures to let everybody watch just one more episode before bed.
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SAGAL: And it reclassifies Funyons as a vegetable.
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SAGAL: The idea is that since some kids have help at home, and some don't, homework is an unfair way to distribute schoolwork. When asked about these new laws, President Hollande explained that he's thinking of what's best for the future - namely, his own future, and his goal of being named Most-Awesome-President-For-Life...
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SAGAL: ...once he lowers the voting age to 5.
LUKE BURBANK: If he's reelected by mostly votes that are written in crayon, that's a dead giveaway.
SAGAL: Yeah, I know.
The problem is if homework is outlawed, only outlaws will do homework.
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SAGAL: The dorky kids will be hanging outside the school, saying, "psst, hey man, you want to try a worksheet?"
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SAGAL: Faith, a company in Japan has come up with the latest must have iPhone accessory. It's a small attachment that allows you to send people what?
SALIE: It's not wasabi.
SAGAL: No.
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SALIE: An iPhone attachment that allows you to send people something that you can't - you can already send people everything with your iPhone.
SAGAL: Not yet, not without this.
SALIE: I need a hint please.
SAGAL: Oh wow, was that me or you? Or is somebody smexting you?
SALIE: Smell.
SAGAL: Yes, a smell.
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SAGAL: It can send people smells. Ever since...
SALIE: So amazing and Japanese.
SAGAL: Very much.
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SAGAL: Every since the development of the cell phone, this is the technology no one has been dreaming of.
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SAGAL: The gadget is called "Chat Perf", allows you to send smells to your friends, or more likely, enemies.
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SAGAL: Why sext when you could send the scent of a dozen roses? Why talk to the 911 dispatcher when you can send the smell of smoke filling your apartment?
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BURBANK: This makes drunk dialing from a bar an even worse idea.
SAGAL: I know.
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SAGAL: It would enable what must be the worst butt dial ever.
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BURBANK: Somebody was definitely using like the beta version of this on the plane out here today.
SAGAL: Really?
BURBANK: Yeah, there was something going on. I wanted to stand up and say, "We can smell that."
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BURBANK: We're in a tin can together, like this is not...
SALIE: And that's why you're supposed to turn your phones off when you fly.
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SAGAL: Charlie, neuroscientists in the U.K. have been able to determine the worst what in the world?
PIERCE: Sound.
SAGAL: Yes, the worst sound.
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SAGAL: Very good, Charlie. And what is the world's worst sound?
PIERCE: It's my voice.
SAGAL: No, no, no, it's not that.
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SAGAL: Well, according to these scientists - who we can presume have not been to a Phish concert, nothing...
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PIERCE: Whoa, the drive by.
SAGAL: Nothing triggers - we get tired of making fun of Nickelback, let's move on.
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SAGAL: Nothing triggers our auditory pain sensors like the sound of a knife on a glass bottle. Which raises the important question, who the hell opens their glass bottles with a knife?
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SAGAL: And that's not all. Number two on their list? The sound of a fork scraping a glass bottle. Apparently, they did all their research during a picnic for morons.
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SAGAL: This is what they did. It turns out they discovered that pleasant sounds activate one part of your brain. Unpleasant sounds activate another. They tried all of these different sounds and they figured out which had the highest activation of the bad sound section. Scientists think this was an evolutionary adaptation, because in pre-historic times, there was no greater threat to our ancestors than people cutting glass bottle with knives.
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SAGAL: Cavemen were like. "Dammit, Og, I told you. It has a twist cap."
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SALIE: Do you think they tried sporks?
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