304: Spa Day

Summary

Good Job, Brain! – Episode 304: Spa Day

Release Date: December 8, 2025
Hosts: Karen, Colin, Chris
Theme: Unwinding, trivia-style, in a spa-themed episode—deep dives and quizzes about relaxation, pools, smell, and the science behind “spa.”

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Episode Overview

Episode 304 invites listeners to “treat yourself” as the GJB crew tackles all things spa-related. Moving from corrections and clarifications, the team segues into quiz segments about music, therapies, and the science (and myths) behind what “spa day” really means, finally closing out with a whimsical but fascinating journey from chlorinated pools to gold-shedding eucalyptus trees and the quirks of koalas.

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Key Segments and Insights

1. Omissions, Corrections, Clarifications – “Actually” Roundup ([02:03])

• Mailman vs. Postman: Mistakenly called NBA’s Karl Malone “the Postman” in an earlier episode, blending his real nickname (“Mailman”) and the celeb “Post Malone.”

  “My theory is why we kind of didn’t really catch it—Karl Malone sounds a lot like Post Malone.” – Karen [03:29]

• Hamilton Polka: Correction—yes, Weird Al’s “Hamilton Polka” includes “Wait For It,” contrary to an earlier quiz claim.
• Philadelphia Eagles Logo: Previously questioned why the Eagles’ NFL logo faces left. Listener David clarified it's to make the neck’s feathers form an “E”—a hidden initial.

  “A hidden secret E in the logo.” – Karen [04:51]

• Kansas City Chiefs Name: Discussion over whether “Chiefs” is named after an actual person. Turns out Mayor “Chief” H. Roe Bartle inspired the name, blending personal tribute and popular vote.
• CB Radios & the Energy Crisis: Listener Sean explains CB radios rose with the national 55 mph speed limit—truckers used them to spot police and “evade speed traps,” making long hauls more bearable.

  “So truckers would use their CB radios to keep each other informed. If they see cops...” – Karen [06:51]

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2. Pop Quiz Hot Shot – Spa-adjacent Trivia Blitz ([07:28])

Music Singles Edition

• Longest-running Band: The Rolling Stones.
• Nelly Song with Vanna White: “Ride With Me,” commonly misnamed “Must Be the Money.”

  “No matter what the mp3 he downloaded... Off of Napster.” – Chris & Karen [09:53]

• ASCAP Stand For: American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers.
• Rockabilly Genre: Hank Williams popularized “honky tonk.”
• Fatboy Slim’s Name: DJ Norman Cook.
• Enrique Iglesias Album (2007): “Insomniac,” reflecting his nighttime writing.

Genus 4 (Classic Trivia)

• State Bird of 7 States: Cardinal.
• TV Show Diet: Flipper (mullet and butterfish—not Mr. Ed!).
• Who Shot the Sphinx’s Nose: Napoleon (not 100% historically confirmed).
• Oliver Evans’ River Invention: Steamboat, not submarine.
• Red Sox “Polaco” Nickname: Carl Yastrzemski.
• Song Mood Ratings Company: Muzak, not modern streamers.

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3. Spa Day at Home – Parent Problems and Inspiration ([16:31])

• Parents and Veggies: Amusing discussion on hiding vegetables for kids.
• Inspiration: Chris’ child “saving cucumbers for spa day” sparks the spa-day episode.

  “I was saving two of them for a spa day.” – Chris’ child [18:13]

• Cucumber-on-eyes as spa symbol: A recurring motif.

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4. Spa Therapies and Write-down Quiz ([19:01])

Types of Spa Therapy (Quiz Form)

• Halotherapy (Salt rooms):

  “They would vaporize or put a vapor containing a lot of salt in a room that you sit in.” – Chris [20:37]

• Watsu: Water + shiatsu massage (massage in a pool).
• Ashitsu: Foot (ashi) massage—yes, they step on you.
• Aromatherapy: From Greek for fragrant seasoning/spice.
• Thalassotherapy: Sea water (thalasso = sea).
• Algotheapy: Use of seaweed in treatments.
• Microdermabrasion: 17-letter word for face exfoliation.
• Cryotherapy: Cold therapy, not about crying!
• Snail Mucus Therapy: Real snails on your face for mucus-derived facials.
• Beer Baths: At Czechia’s Golden Lamb Hotel, you soak and drink as much beer as you want!

  “You are not drinking your bath beer... and you definitely should not! But—no, you have taps for light and dark beer.” – Chris [31:13]

• Other Notables: Chocolate bath at Hershey Hotel Spa (PA); Japan’s novelty themed “liquid” baths like wine or green tea.

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5. Science of Pools: Chlorine vs. Saltwater ([35:26])

• Why Chlorinate?: Germ-killing, and keeps pools looking clean.
• Pre-chlorine Pools: Regular water replacement; sand filtration customary.
• Discovery of Chlorination: Linked to public drinking water chlorination after cholera/typhoid outbreaks; John Snow’s Broad Street pump epiphany recounted (“not that John Snow”).
• That “Pool Smell” Myth: It’s not chlorine—it’s chloramine, formed when chlorine reacts with sweat, oils, and urine.

  “It means, first of all, you’re out of whack with your chlorine in your pool... arms race where they add just a little bit of chlorine and then that just creates more mixture to form more chloramine.” – Colin [44:51]

• Saltwater Pools: Still make chlorine, just via salt (NaCl) breakdown through electrolysis. The “saltwater” label is more marketing than chemistry.

  “At the end of the day, you’re still getting chlorine there to kill all the gross stuff. You’re just arriving at it a different way.” – Colin [47:38]

• Saltwater vs. Chlorinated: Subjectively preferred; “smoother, softer” experience likely from continuous, steadier release of chlorine.
• Salinity Levels: Far below ocean water—not like swimming in the sea.

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6. The “Spa Smell”: Eucalyptus ([49:49])

• Eucalyptus Basics: The telltale “spa smell” comes from eucalyptol in the leaves and bark—described as “minty, woodsy, fresh, astringent.”
• Native to Australia: Koalas famously feed on it; it’s called the “gum tree.”
• Weird Botany: Petal-less flowers (“all stamens”), fast-growing, and oil-laden (largely toxic to life, except adapted koalas).
• Koala Quirks:
  • They’re not “drunk” on eucalyptus (contrary to myth)—just exhausted from eating such a low-nutrient diet, necessitating lots of rest.

    “Koalas are like that because they’re just so tired... eucalyptus leaves... are so low in nutrients.” – Karen [54:00]

  • Koalas have small, smooth brains (less surface area)—so “smooth brained” is literally accurate.
  • Koala babies must eat a special poop (“pap”) from their mothers to digest eucalyptus safely.
• Money Does (Sort of) Grow on Trees:
  • Some Australian eucalyptus trees “sweat out” tiny gold particles on their leaves and bark—a byproduct of their incredibly deep root systems in gold-rich soil.

    “Scientists have found that... there is gold on the eucalyptus leaves. You can find micro amounts of gold. Real gold.” – Karen [57:37]

  • Not worth collecting for mining (would take 100+ trees to make a gold wedding band), but useful as a natural gold detector.

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On the “Actually” theme song:

  “Because actually, factually and quite enthusiastically, I was right and you were wrong.” – Chris [02:27]

• Parent spa inspiration:

  “I was saving two [cucumbers] for a spa day.” – Chris’ child [18:13]

• Therapy naming fun:

  “Ashiatsu massage uses this body part. Colin has written ‘feet’... ashi is Japanese for foot. Asia is when a Japanese person is stepping on you.” – Chris [23:04]

• Koala brains:

  “Koalas not really a smart animal. Actually, their brains take up only a little bit over half of their cranial cavity... smooth brains. Not a lot of surface area.” – Karen [55:05]

• Summing up saltwater-chlorine:

  “At the end of the day, you’re still getting chlorine there to kill all the gross stuff. You’re just arriving at it a different way.” – Colin [47:38]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Omissions & Corrections: 02:03 – 07:28
• Music & General Trivia Blitz: 07:28 – 16:29
• Parental Spa Inspiration: 16:31 – 19:01
• Spa Therapy Quiz & Discussion: 19:01 – 33:14
• Pool Science (Chlorine vs. Saltwater): 35:26 – 48:21
• Spa Smell (Eucalyptus) & Koala Science: 49:49 – 61:20
• Outro and Recap: 61:21 – end

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Conclusion

Spa Day delivers an information-packed, relaxing (yet lively) episode, blending competitive trivia with quirky real-life facts—ideal for trivia buffs and knowledge seekers alike. The crew’s signature banter is in full display, punctuating the science behind salt, therapy, and spa scents with quirky history and plenty of laughs.

Endnote:

“There’s gold in them there [eucalyptus] trees!” – Colin [60:53]
“They’re lucky they’re so cute is what they are.” – Colin, on koalas [61:16]

Listen to the pod for all the fun, brainy twists—not just spa knowledge, but smile-inducing camaraderie.

Transcript

[Karen]

You're listening to an Airwave media podcast.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, all of you hailing heinous hairballs at outcasts. Hey, ya haters in hay bales. Welcome to Good Job Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. This is. This is episode 304. And of course, I'm your humble host, Karen. And we are your squeezable squishy squire squabbling about squiggles.

[Colin]

I'm Colin.

[Chris]

And I'm Chris.

[Karen]

For the record, squiggles are square bagel. Square bagels.

[Colin]

Yes.

[Karen]

Naturally. Naturally. Yeah.

[Colin]

She didn't know.

[Chris]

I would never. I would never squabble about a squiggle. If you had. If you had a squiggle for me, I would take it gladly.

[Karen]

Do you think that the hole in a squiggle should be a square or it should be a circle?

[Chris]

It should. Should be a square if they're doing their job right.

[Karen]

I feel like it should be round.

[Chris]

It would be difficult to pull that off, though.

[Colin]

You get a lot of bagels these days, and, you know, they're so big. I mean, there's really not a hole to speak of. Yeah, round one. Yeah.

[Chris]

Y. Y.

[Karen]

It's like a. Like a butthole, kind of.

[Colin]

Yeah, I was thinking it. I wasn't gonna say it, Karen, but I should have known that the bagels.

[Chris]

Starfish. You don't want to lose the cream cheese, though. You know what I mean? The hole is just a cream cheese.

[Karen]

Occupational hazard.

[Chris]

It's a leak.

[Colin]

Yeah, it's a cream cheese sink.

[Chris]

Right.

[Karen]

Look, we're squabbling about squiggles.

[Chris]

Once again, we find ourselves here. Yep, we've become the thing we hate.

[Karen]

All right, well, this Week it's episode 304, the penultimate episode of the season. So naturally, it's a good time for our reoccurring omissions. Corrections, clarification segment. An epic one.

[Chris]

Oh, really?

[Karen]

Accumulation of all of the things that we want address. So it's time for. Actually.

[Chris]

Actually.

What you said just wasn't true.

[Colin]

Actually.

[Karen]

Do you mind if I correct you?

[Chris]

Because actually, factually and quite enthusiastically, I was right and you were wrong.

[Karen]

That's exactly what inspired me to write this actually song.

[Colin]

You were wrong.

[Karen]

Let's travel Back to episode 301, our game show episode.

[Chris]

Oh, I was not on that. It's not me.

[Karen]

It wasn't me. You're Shaggy. So we had Impossible Quiz with our good friends and guests and winners of the show, Warren and Sarah. And just a. A couple. A couple of honest mistakes. Thanks to all of you who pointed out, including even the quiz maker himself, Warren has actually emailed me. And don't worry about it. So first things first. Carl Malone, Basketball player Carl Malone.

[Colin]

Oh, I know what you're gonna say.

[Karen]

And Karl Malone's nickname is the Mailman. In the quiz, we called it Postman instead of Mailman. But my theory is. My theory is why we kind of didn't really catch it. Karl Malone sounds a lot like Post Malone. And so I think. So I think Postman, you're like, oh, okay, I. I get where you're saying. You're like, oh, yeah, that's Carl Malone. Post Malone. Postman. That's my theory.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Karen]

We have another corrections. A lot of. A lot of Hamilton heads wrote in. And yes, wait for it. The song is featured in Weird Al's Hamilton Polka. It is not an impossible answer. So thank you, everybody who wrote in. And then I have some kind of cool follow up. In our 300th episode, I had a. A sports quiz I was really into. I think everybody was really into.

[Colin]

That was a good one.

[Karen]

Team names and mascots.

[Colin]

And.

[Karen]

And then I had a question. I asked you guys, out of all of the NFL logos, what is the only team logo that faces your left?

[Colin]

Oh, right.

[Karen]

And it was the Philadelphia Eagles. And it's crazy. When you look at all of these logos together, it's just one that is, like, facing the other way. And I remember on the show, I was like, ah, that's so weird. I wonder. I wonder why. Well, guess what? We now know why. A lot of people wrote in. David, who runs Lateral Podcast, he. He mentioned this. A lot of people wrote in, and it's because the eagle's feathers spells out an E. The eagle has to look on that side so that its neck.

[Colin]

Otherwise it ruins the.

[Karen]

It ruins the E. A hidden secret E in the logo.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Karen]

And then another follow up, I had a question about what are the three major sports teams that are named after a named individual? And there are three teams, but technically there might be four if you count it this way. So the Kansas City Chiefs. You're like, chiefs is not a proper name. Kansas City Chiefs. Kansas City Chiefs used to be called the Dallas Texans. And so when that team moved to Kansas City, they can't be called Kansas City Texans. That's kind of weird.

[Chris]

Yeah, would be weird.

[Karen]

They held a naming contest. And so a lot of people wrote in and suggested Chiefs Sounds good. But it turns out that the mayor of Kansas City at the time, one of the big proponents of having the team move There. His name is Mayor H. Ro Bartle. His nickname is Chief. And so you can argue that Kansas City Chiefs maybe was named after a person because that was his nickname. But then they also had a naming contest. So that's a. In the gray area.

[Chris]

Right.

[Karen]

And I'm going to wrap up with a brilliant explanation, clarification of a weird Trivial Pursuit question we had. Oh, there was a question about the energy crisis, and that paved way for the popularity of CB radio. And we're like, how does that work? Why does it conserve energy? I don't. I don't get it. So Mr. Sean Courtney on the Lobe Trotters group gave us a brilliant explanation, and I'm going to read a little bit of it. And. And Sean has a podcast called My Weird Record Collection. He did talk about CB Radio, so he did some research, and he said one of the ways to address the energy crisis was to institute a national speed limit of 55 miles per hour, which is pretty slow. Right. So truck drivers, a trip that would take eight hours. Now it's going to take 10 hours, and that's not good for making deliveries.

[Colin]

That's right.

[Karen]

So truckers would use their CB radios to keep each other informed. If they see cops.

[Colin]

Got it. That makes so much sense.

[Karen]

So they can warn each other, be like, oh, there's a cop. You better stick to the speed limit. If there's no cop, go for it. Right. Floor it.

[Colin]

It makes sense to, like, certainly as a kid of the 80s, like, so much of the CB slang that filtered through was around, like, evading smokies and speed traps and, you know, things like that. Like, it totally.

[Karen]

Now it makes sense.

[Colin]

Makes so much sense. Thank you, Sean, for connecting those thoughts. That's very satisfying. That's really. Yeah.

[Karen]

So that's our actually roundup. All right, with that out of the way, without further ado, let's jump into our first general trivia segment. Pop quiz Hot shot.

Here I have two random Trivial Pursuit cards, and you guys have your barnyard buzzers. And we have a debut. Oh, a new Trivial Pursuit edition debut Music singles.

[Chris]

Ooh.

[Karen]

We've been having some entertainment singles, but this is a. I haven't seen.

This before. Music singles. And I also have Trivial Pursuit, genus 4.

[Colin]

That's a good one.

[Karen]

It's in Roman numerals. Sometimes I have to, like, stop and. Okay. I before the voice means minus one. All right, here we go. Let's do music singles. Your first question, Blue wedge. What band has been playing together the longest in rock and roll history?

[Chris]

Oh. Oh.

[Colin]

Multiple choice or just.

[Chris]

No, just open ended question.

[Colin]

Yeah, the longest in rock and roll.

[Chris]

I mean, gosh, are there any.

[Colin]

Are there any bands from the 50s, Chris.

[Chris]

Right.

[Colin]

That you can think of still. Still plugging away?

[Chris]

I mean, there could be. There could be some there.

[Colin]

If it's not the 50s, then it's early 60s.

[Chris]

The Rolling Stones.

[Colin]

The who?

[Karen]

Ding, ding, ding, ding. Rolling Stones.

[Chris]

Rolling Stones. Okay.

[Colin]

All right.

[Chris]

It's like. Yeah, they, they stretch back a long way and they never broke up.

[Colin]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, despite, you know, at least one farewell tour, they, they, they, they didn't in fact. Yeah, they didn't in fact stop doing what they're doing for good.

[Karen]

All right, next question. Pink Wedge. What Nelly song mentioned sitting next to Vanna White on an airplane?

You guys better know this.

[Chris]

I don't and I sure do. Oh, really?

[Colin]

Colin isn't. I mean, I know at least one Nelly. Isn't Nelly hot in here? Right? Is that.

[Karen]

No. Sitting next to Vanna White. Must be the money.

[Colin]

Must be the money.

[Karen]

No, that is not the title.

[Colin]

We got in a fight at pub quiz about this.

[Karen]

Got into a big fight with our quiz master about this song. The song name is Ride with Me.

[Colin]

Right, right.

[Chris]

With me. Not Must be the money.

[Karen]

Not Must be the money.

[Chris]

No matter what the mp3 he downloaded.

[Karen]

Off of naps YouTube video he landed on.

[Colin]

All right, well, you're right, Karen. We should have known.

[Karen]

Next question. Yellow wedge. What is the full name of ascap? Ascap. Ascap.

[Chris]

Oh my gosh.

[Colin]

Right, right, right, right. It's the American.

[Karen]

Yes, okay.

[Chris]

Society.

[Karen]

Yes.

[Colin]

Of. Yes, yes, yes.

[Chris]

Creative.

[Karen]

No, no.

[Chris]

American society.

[Colin]

Is it And Publishing and publishers.

[Karen]

A is a real word. Not.

[Colin]

Okay, okay. Not and okay, okay.

[Karen]

There is an end, but it's not in ascap.

[Colin]

Okay.

[Karen]

It's a silent. It's invisible.

[Colin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, man, I've seen this before.

[Karen]

American Society of Composers.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Karen]

Authors and Publishers.

[Chris]

Okay. All right, there we go.

[Karen]

Purple wedge. What style of country rockabilly music was popularized by Hank Williams?

[Chris]

What style of. And now we got to go deeper into sub genres of rockabilly.

[Colin]

Colin, is. Is this outlaw country? Is that what they're looking for?

[Karen]

No.

[Chris]

All right, Williams. Country Rockabill.

[Karen]

It is. Honky tonk.

[Chris]

Honky tonk. All right.

[Karen]

Honky tonk.

[Colin]

All right.

[Karen]

Green wedge. What? DJ Mixer is known under several pseudonyms that include Fatboy Slim, Pizza man and Fried Food Junk. What is his name? What is Fatboy Slim's real name?

[Chris]

Do not know.

[Colin]

Oh, man, I don't know if that's in the punch bowl. What is it?

[Karen]

I'd rock this. Norman Cook.

[Colin]

Cook.

[Chris]

Wow.

[Karen]

All right, last question on music singles.

[Chris]

That's why you were on the team, Karen.

[Colin]

Orange wedge.

[Karen]

What? 2007 album by Enrique Iglesias was produced with songs written at night while the artist slept during the day. Wow. I can see how maybe back in 2010.

[Chris]

I remember might have known this, but.

[Karen]

But it's it. The clue is in the question.

[Chris]

Okay. Nocturnal submissions by Enrique.

[Colin]

Fantastic. It's fantastic.

[Karen]

Written at night while the artist slept during the day.

[Colin]

Nocturnal.

[Karen]

It is. Insomniac. Ah, you can hide, but you can escape my love. Music singles was tough. What about genus four? Hopefully, maybe we'll do better in this card.

[Chris]

Oh, yeah.

[Karen]

Blue wedge for people in places. What's the state bird of a record? Seven US States.

Oh, Chris.

[Chris]

The bald eagle.

[Karen]

No, dang it. I think that's, like, our national bird, Right?

[Chris]

So the states don't want.

[Karen]

Yeah, the States.

[Chris]

The States don't want to be like, oh, oh, yeah, that's our state bird, too. That's what I figured they were doing. You know what I mean? Like, they were sucking up, you know.

[Colin]

Specific type of.

[Karen]

Specific type of bird.

[Chris]

Okay, okay, okay. One word.

[Karen]

It's not like, you know, the. You know, the red hair titmouse or something.

[Colin]

Okay, okay, yeah.

[Karen]

Common bird.

[Colin]

The sparrow.

[Karen]

It is the cardinal. Cardinal.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Colin]

It's a pretty bird.

[Karen]

Yeah.

[Colin]

Yeah. All right.

[Karen]

Pink wedge. Arts and entertainment. What TV show star subsisted on a diet of mullet and butterfish?

Oh, Chris.

[Chris]

Mr. Ed.

[Karen]

Oh, you're so close. Oh, it's not a human.

[Chris]

It's not a human. Oh, Flipper.

[Karen]

Flipper. Flipper showed up the other episode. Flipper.

[Colin]

Mr. Ed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Karen]

I didn't get that. It was an animal. I was like, oh, crazy diet was this.

[Chris]

Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah.

[Karen]

Okay. Yellow edge for history. What French Frenchman told his troops to fire at the nose of the Great Sphinx for target practice? Oh.

[Colin]

Oh, yeah.

[Karen]

Chris.

[Chris]

Napoleon.

[Karen]

Napoleon bought a part.

[Colin]

Yes. Yeah.

[Karen]

What a.

[Colin]

This is. This is reputed. This is.

[Karen]

Okay.

[Colin]

Of questionable accuracy.

[Karen]

Okay.

[Colin]

Let me just say that I will leave it at that. Yes.

[Karen]

All right. What type of vessel did Oliver Evans demonstrate on the potomac river in 1787?

[Colin]

Oh, Colin, that'd be a submarine.

[Karen]

Incorrect.

[Chris]

Oh, really?

[Karen]

I would have guessed.

[Chris]

Interesting. I would have guessed that, too. I mean, I remember too early. People were trying their best to do submarines, Right? Some people are still trying to do submarines.

What? Okay, so it's not a submarine.

[Karen]

It's not A very sexy answer.

[Chris]

Okay. All right.

[Colin]

It is a vessel. All right.

[Chris]

Ready?

[Colin]

All right.

[Karen]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Boat.

[Karen]

What kind of boat?

[Chris]

Oh, steamboat.

[Karen]

It is a steamboat.

[Chris]

Okay. All right.

[Karen]

Steamboat. Green wedge for Sports and Leisure. What Red Sox great. Did teammate Luis Tiant affectionately. Nickname Polaco.

I'm sorry if I pronounce all those names wrong.

[Colin]

Polaco. So he's Polish, right? Yes, yes, yes.

[Karen]

What nickname?

[Colin]

What. What team?

[Karen]

Red Sox.

[Colin]

Red Sox.

[Karen]

Great.

[Chris]

We're all rooting for you.

[Colin]

Yeah. No, I mean, I. I feel like I should be able to get this. Yastremski.

[Karen]

Yes.

[Colin]

Yes.

Carl. Yes. The yes. Not to be confused with the many other Yastremskis famous in. In this book. Yes. Carly Stremsky.

[Chris]

Wow.

[Karen]

Good job, brain.

[Chris]

I was.

[Colin]

I was on thin ice there, because I could have gotten both Red Sox fans and Polish people mad at me.

[Chris]

Y.

[Karen]

But you did it. You pulled through. All right, last card for pop quiz. Hot shot. Wild card. Orange wedge. What company's mood ratings for songs include gloomy and ecstatic.

[Colin]

What company's mood ratings for songs is.

[Chris]

Is it like. Is it like Spotify? You know, Is it like a card?

[Colin]

Yeah, I think this card's too old. Yeah.

[Chris]

Oh, okay.

[Karen]

Oh, Colin.

[Colin]

Is it muzak? The Muzak Corporation. Okay.

[Chris]

Oh, there we go.

[Karen]

All your elevator tunes.

Good job, Brains.

[Chris]

Yeah, we did good. So we're all parents, which means. We're all parents of young kids, which means. It means. Yeah, it means two things. One, we're tired. And two, we spend so much of our time, like, brainstorming methods to get vegetables down our children's throats somehow.

[Karen]

Yes.

[Chris]

Like, do you guys have any techniques or certain vegetables that you gravitate towards?

[Karen]

Billy likes to eat Alfredo pasta or any kind of pasta with a cheese sauce.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Karen]

We blend, and we try to hide.

[Chris]

You do the blended hide.

[Karen]

Yeah, hide. I want her to just plainly eat vegetables and be like, it's good. You know what? That method's not working, so we're resorting to blending.

[Chris]

Yep, yep, yep. Calling any.

[Colin]

I mean, we lucked out that our daughter, just practically from the jump, has loved avocado and has loved edamame. Past that, it. It gets a little tricky. Yeah. So we basically just had to institute a rule of, like, you got to have something green on your plate. You don't have to like it, but you got. Yeah, but you got to eat it.

[Chris]

Yeah, exactly. So we try to do that as well. Younger child, we have discovered that she does like cucumbers, and so we give some. Her some cucumbers on the Plate. But she likes it. But then she will always sort of not eat it. You know what I mean? Or eat everything else first. And the other day, Regina was like, hey, aren't you going to eat your cucumbers? And she looks down at her plate and she goes, I was saving two of them for a spa day.

[Colin]

Great deflection.

[Karen]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Yep.

[Colin]

Fantastic.

[Chris]

We're like, oh, okay. No, you need to eat your vegetables. Because she knows that from seeing YouTube videos and she has demanded that we do this. Like she put on. Puts on a face mask and then the cucumbers. The cucumbers over her eyes. Yeah, she wants to do cucumbers on her eyes for spa day. How about spa day for a topic on. Good job, brain? We've never done spa spa day before. Why don't we all take a trip to the spa today and get some therapies and put some cucumbers on our eyes and try to get a little relaxed, you know?

[Karen]

So this week, treat yourself to a spa day.

[Chris]

All right. Right. Well, let's. It's time to. Time to chillax. Let's head over to the spa and indulge in some of the many different therapies that you can find at a spa. I have a write down quiz for the two of you all about the different types of therapies, the different types of things that you might do on a.

This is my relaxing spa voice. We're all gonna relax. We're gonna release all that tension.

For this spa quiz because we are trying to relax. The points do not matter and this is not a competition.

[Colin]

Okay?

[Chris]

So you're ready. Karen, you're ready. Colin, you're ready. Okay. All right, the first question. If you were to undergo halo therapy, you would go sit in a room full of what?

It's not circles.

It's not angels. If you were to undergo halo therapy, you would sit in a room full of what?

[Colin]

Okay.

All right.

[Karen]

Oh, halo.

[Chris]

What is what? Yeah, exactly. What does that root mean? Think back to geology class.

[Karen]

Okay.

[Chris]

Oh, that's.

[Karen]

That. That was my. How specific?

[Colin]

Not specific at all. Huh?

[Chris]

All right.

[Colin]

Oh, okay. All right. Well, I'm not gonna change it before the geology class.

[Chris]

Yeah, all right, all right. Colin says oxygen. That is good. Karen says crystal. It is like halite. It is salt. Oh, I was gonna hang on to salt. Crystal is salt therapy. Yes. They would vaporize or put a vapor containing a lot of salt in a room that you sit in. And the healing. The healing and therapeutic powers of salt is what you would get with halo therapy. All right. Get out of the salt room. Get in the pool. If you are currently getting a massage while in a pool, you might be receiving what is known as wattsu therapy. Wattsu is a portmanteau of water and what other word?

If you are getting a massage while in a pool, you might be receiving wat sutherapy, which is a portmanteau of water and what other word I want.

[Colin]

To go to there.

[Chris]

Karen and Colin both say shiatsu and you are correct. Watsu is a portmanteau of water and shiatsu. Yes.

[Karen]

If you're in a pool and you're in water, doesn't that make you kind of slippery? Like a dolphin?

[Chris]

Right, Like a dolphin.

[Karen]

Hard to grab. Yeah.

[Chris]

Shiatsu massage is when it uses the finger. Okay, so actually that leads into our next question. I hope you all studied your Japanese. A practitioner of Shiatsu massage uses the fingers while Ashitsu massage uses this body part.

[Karen]

Does shiatsu mean finger? In.

[Chris]

It means finger pressure.

[Karen]

Finger pressure.

[Colin]

Yes.

[Chris]

Shi atsu at pressure with the fingers while Ashiatsu massage uses this body part.

All right, all right. A practitioner. Okay, all right. Okay.

[Colin]

All right.

[Chris]

I'm going to restate the question. A practitioner of Shiatsu massage uses the fingers while Ashiatsu massage uses this body part. Commit to something. All right. Karen has written elbow.

[Colin]

I thought about that.

[Chris]

Colin has written feet as she is Japanese for foot. Asia is a. Is when a Japanese person is stepping on you. Indeed, using the feet to massage your body. Yes. Next question. This type of therapy is derived from the Greek word meaning a sweet smelling seasoning or spice.

This type of therapy is derived from the Greek word meaning a sweet smelling seasoning or spice.

Karen has written something. Colin is writing something. Answers up. Karen and Colin both say aromatherapy. Karen and Colin are both correct. Yes. An aroma from the Greek for a fragrant spice or a fragrant herb is where we get the word aroma. Aroma therapy. Yep. All right. Here's another word derived from Greek thalassotherapy uses what specific kind of water?

Another word derived from Greek is thalassotherapy and it uses what specific kind of water? Karen and Colin both say sea water. And you are both correct.

[Karen]

Yes. Because Thalassophobia.

[Chris]

Thalassophobia. Yep. Thalasso, the Greek prefix meaning the sea specifically. That's right. Not just salt water, but water from the sea. Sea water. Now, if you go in for your thalassotherapy session and you're told that it is going to incorporate some algo therapy, what would you expect to find floating in your seawater.

If your thalassotherapy section incorporates algo therapy, what would you expect to find floating in your seawater if you're getting some algo therapy? Colin and Karen again have both written seaweed and they are both correct. Algo therapy.

[Karen]

Have you ever gotten like a seaweed rap?

[Colin]

I've heard of a seaweed rap. I guess that's kind of what we're talking about, right?

[Chris]

Like.

[Colin]

That, like with SpongeBob's rap album. Right? That's what you're talking about.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Karen]

It's so in my mind I thought it was like a big, like, you know, like a big shit sheet of seaweed that they wrap you up. Yeah.

[Colin]

You're like a hand roll.

[Karen]

Yes. Like you're a burrito. You're a hand roll.

[Chris]

Right, right, right.

[Karen]

But it's not, it's not. They just put pieces of seaweed on you.

[Chris]

Oh, okay. That's not that fun. Yeah, that's like. Yeah. Tabaki therapy, right?

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Chris]

All right, here is the longest word that you are going to write during this quiz. It is a 17 letter word that describes a spa treatment that removes the outer layer of skin from your face.

This 17 letter word describes a spa treatment that removes the outer layer of skin from your face.

Count up those letters. Yep. Make sure it's a, it's a self checking answer.

[Colin]

No, that's not it.

[Chris]

Uh oh.

[Colin]

Start again, Colin.

[Chris]

All right, 17. This 17 letter word describes a spa treatment that removes the outer layer of skin from your face.

[Colin]

From your face.

[Chris]

You know.

Generally on the face.

[Karen]

I mean it's not worth it to do it on whatever part of your body.

[Chris]

Right, right, right.

[Karen]

Because people see your face.

[Chris]

It's very involved.

[Colin]

I mean I got, I got two 12 and 13 letters. I'm not, I'm not able to get to 17 here.

[Chris]

Well, Colin.

[Colin]

All right, Karen's got it.

[Chris]

Something written down.

[Colin]

I mean, but they're clearly wrong.

[Chris]

What have you been. Yeah, what have you.

[Colin]

I wrote down exfoliation and that wasn't it. I wrote down dermabrasion.

[Chris]

That wasn't it.

[Colin]

I. And then I kind of ran out of steam. I don't know.

[Karen]

What is the size of the dermabrasion?

[Chris]

Yeah. How, how dermabrasion is it?

[Colin]

Could it be microdermabrasion?

[Chris]

Karen has written down microdermabrasion, the 17 letter version of this. And that is the word that I was looking for.

[Colin]

Micro.

[Chris]

Not simply abrading the skin, but just little tiny bead of abrading the skin could just take off that outer layer rather than give you road rash. Yeah. Sanding your abrasion.

[Colin]

Yeah, with a.

[Chris]

The belt standard. It's my macrodermabrasion.

Hey, is it cold in here? This type of therapy won't bring tears to your eyes, but it might make you shiver.

[Karen]

Oh, funny.

[Chris]

Okay, right. Is it funny? Is it cold in here? This type of therapy won't bring tears to your eyes, but it might make you shiver.

[Karen]

Oh.

Such different reaction.

[Chris]

Funny. Oh, God. Listen, it's self checking again. Karen and Colin have both written cryotherapy. Yes, Cryotherapy is cold therapy exposing the human body to extremely cold temperatures in a controlled, safe way.

[Karen]

People love it, man.

[Chris]

People do love it.

[Colin]

I really, really popular.

[Chris]

Yeah, cryotherapy, not about crying.

[Karen]

Don't have the guts to do it yet.

[Chris]

Don't have the guts to do it. Well, maybe you have the guts to try this, Karen, because some certain spas out there will give you a facial treatment involving the direct, and I do mean very direct application of the mucus secreted by these shelled creatures. Hey, that was a complicated question. I'll read it again. Some spas out there will give you a facial treatment involving the direct, and I do mean direct application of the mucus secreted by these shelled creatures mentioned.

[Karen]

In an early episode in a segment I did.

[Chris]

How about that? How about that comes right back. Colin has written sea snails. Karen has written snails, Colin. Too specific, unfortunately. No, no, it's all right.

Directly they stick it right on your face and it. And delivers the healing power of. Of its mucus in a. It's a farm to table type situation.

[Karen]

Just don't combine it with the. With the salt.

[Chris]

Therapy could work out for you. Maybe not work out for the snail. And finally, finally, the Golden Lamb Hotel in Karlovi Vari, a city in Czechia offers a spa treatment in which you can bathe in and drink as much as you want of this. At the Golden Lamb Hotel in Karlovy Vari, which is a city in Czechia, you can get a spa treatment in which you can bathe in and drink as much as you want of this.

[Karen]

It can be. It can be so many things.

[Colin]

It can be any liquid that doesn't kill you. Right, Karen?

[Chris]

Take a guess and see, Karen. Karen says chocolate and Colin says beer. Colin is correct. It is beer therapy. Beer spirit spa. You sit in a beer barrel and soak yourself in beer and sitting next to you are taps for light and dark beer.

You are not drinking your bath beer. Or anyway you're not supposed to wink, wink. And you definitely should not. But no, you have taps for light and dark beer, and you get to drink as much as you want of it while you also sit in beer. So definitely go to Czechia, also known as the Czech Republic.

[Colin]

I was going to have to check that one out.

[Chris]

You have to check it out. Yeah. Yep.

[Karen]

Well, I figured it wasn't wine, because some place in France surely has, like, a wine bath.

[Chris]

I. Maybe, Perhaps. Yeah, Yeah.

[Karen]

I know Japan. Japan has, like an onsen, a sauna kind of theme park where they have all these different baths that you can.

[Chris]

Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah.

[Karen]

But when I was a kid, we would take summer vacations in the United States. We'd often go to Hershey park in Pennsylvania.

[Chris]

Sure. Yeah.

[Karen]

And Hershey park is a. Is a theme park by Hershey. The factory and the headquarters, and a hotel like the Hershey Hotel. So you stay at the Hershey Hotel and then go to the theme park, but they have a spa at the Hershey Hotel where they have chocolate bath. It's not Augustus Gloop situation where, like, right.

[Chris]

Where it's probably, like. It's mostly.

[Colin]

Yeah, exactly.

[Chris]

Like, some.

[Karen]

I don't know if they still have it, but, like, in my mind, I was like, oh, my God, when I grow up, I'm gonna take a chocolate bath.

[Chris]

Chocolate bath. Yeah. And you grew up and you never did.

[Karen]

And I never did.

[Chris]

Hey, tonight's the night. Karen. Get some. Get a couple of packets of Swiss Miss.

[Karen]

Go for it.

[Chris]

Honey.

[Colin]

I'm going to Costco.

[Chris]

Cheaper than Lush then.

[Karen]

The marshmallows are so small and so tiny and so sad.

[Chris]

Oh, I'm glad you think your mind immediately goes to. Well, obviously it's the one with marshmallows, right?

[Karen]

All right, we're gonna take a quick break. We gotta.

[Chris]

We gotta wash off the snails and the seaweed and the beer and just quickly shower off, and we'll be right back.

[Karen]

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[Chris]

You're listening to Good job, brain. Smooth puzzles, Smart trivia. Good job, brain.

[Karen]

And we're back this week. We're relaxing because it's a spa day.

[Colin]

You guys know I love my trips to Las Vegas, Nevada.

[Karen]

Oh, I do too.

[Colin]

When I go. And I love planning these trips, you know, and like, as soon as I get back from one, I'm planning the next one. And you know, I stay at different hotels, I move around, I have my favorites. But I always, I always love looking up the spas at the hotels. Yeah, Nancy, Las Vegas hotels, it's, it's a big deal for me. I always try to get a massage when I'm in Las Vegas because the, the, the fancy hotel spas generally have nice massage. Yeah, they do. They do. You go onto the website of most of these hotels. The spas and the pools are often lumped in together.

[Karen]

Yes, in the menu.

[Colin]

Together in the menu, exactly. It's not the same experience. Right. But they do often pair it together. Like pool before the spa. Spa before the pool. You got your whole relaxation. And I was reading on one of the hotels, they were boasting about their saltwater pool.

[Karen]

Oh.

[Colin]

And it got me to realizing, even though I've heard about saltwater pools a lot, my wife swims a lot. I, I, I realized I had no idea exactly what that means. I will admit, you know, I had the very naive view of like, well, they just put some salt in the pool, Right. It keeps it.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Colin]

Yeah. Well, it's not as simple as that. But the saltwater pool, of course, is in contrast to a traditional chlorinated pool. Right. That's. That's what they're advertising. They're saying it's not like the other chlorinated pools. It's. It's a saltwater pool. Very popular thing these days.

[Karen]

I have a question. So you're saying saltwater pools don't have chlorine in it?

[Colin]

I'm saying they are positioned as an alternative to the traditional chlorinated pool.

[Karen]

Okay. Very diplomatic.

[Colin]

So let's break this down a little bit, because I realized that I. I don't know too much about the traditional chlorinated pool either. I. You know, it's like, again, if you asked me, it's like. It's like, well, you know, it's just you put some bleach in the pool and it, you know, it makes it better. Right? It's not exactly right. Why do we chlorinate pools? Why do we put chlorine in pools? And. And most every swimming pool, especially the public ones that you encounter, are going to be chlorinated. Historically, certainly. Why do we do it? Why do we do it, Karen? Why do. Why do we chlorinate pools?

[Karen]

To kill germs?

[Colin]

Yes. We do it to. Yeah, it's really two reasons. The main one is it's to kill microbes, bacteria, bad stuff that will spread disease and make people sick. Especially when you have a large public pool where people have God knows what in the water. You know, related, you know, less important. It keeps the water looking and smelling clean. Right. You know, the water gets pretty foul. You got a bunch of, you know, humans splashing around in there. So I got to thinking and researching. What did they do with pools before chlorination? Right. This is a relatively modern process of chlorinating pools. What did they do? What do you guys think they did for swimming pools before chlorination? Yeah. What. What did they do?

[Karen]

I think they just changed the water. And they did not. I mean, they add nothing, but change the water.

[Colin]

You're pretty close to the mark, Karen. Right? Yeah. Prior to chlorination, like, you know, if you had a pool, it was basically, fill your pool with water, change it when it's gross. And that's.

[Chris]

That's. It's.

[Colin]

It's not much more complicated. They did have sand filtration systems. Right. Sand filtration has been known for a long time. You know, it's.

[Karen]

Brita.

[Colin]

Exactly. Very much like a proto Brita, essentially, you would have your pool. When the water got gross, you would refresh the water, you dump it out. A lot of early pools were intentionally built on sloped ground to make the drainage easier. When it was time to get all the bad water out and get the new fresh water in, depending on how fancy you were and how much money you had, you know, your pool might have elaborate reservoirs, basically like containers of the fresh water to replace the bad outgoing water in your pool. And this was fine for what it was. But by the 1890s, scientists were experimenting and, you know, looking into the idea of using chlorine to keep the water disinfected, rather than just basically cycling it all the time or using sand filters. So, chlorine. Let's talk about this for a moment very quickly. This is not chemistry class, but chlorine, you guys know it. It's an element. We have a lot of compounds and related substances in our life that have chlorine in them. The most well known, of course, we've talked about it on the show already, is sodium chloride, salt, any nacl, it's got some chloride right in there. The chlorine that we put in our pools is hypochlorous acid. All right, we're going to stop. Stop with the chemicals there for a little bit. And the history of chlorinating pools I found is directly tied to the history of chlorinating drinking water, public water supplies. Okay. There was in fact, a bad incident involving sand filters that led, really led to the popularization of public water chlorination. In the mid to late 1800s, there were a number of cholera and typhoid fever outbreaks directly related to bad water supplies and bad filtration. And, you know, they were still developing the germ theory of disease at this point. They were still trying to figure out, like, how are we getting sick? Let alone, like, where is it coming from? There was a particularly bad cholera outbreak in 1850s in England. The Broad struggle street cholera outbreak killed more than 600 people. And there was a physician named John Snow, not that one named John Snow, who really was driving the advancing the theories of how do we disinfect at the source, how do we get these germs out, how do we work and disinfect our water supply?

[Karen]

In particular, I know about Jon Snow because recently I went to London and I went on like an atlas obscura hunt. Oh, and one of the things is the water pump mounted on Broad Street.

[Colin]

That's right. That's the thing in Soho, London. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, A lot of this. That's incredible. I love when it all comes around. So they had started continuous chlorination of the water in the uk. The first city in the US to do so was Jersey City in New Jersey. Yeah. In 1908, they started chlorinating the, the public water supplies there. So. All right, so we got it in the water and we have these giant pools of water that people are splashing and swimming around in. So it's a very kind of obvious leap there. The first swimming pool to be chlorinated is credited to the Colgate Hoyt Pool on the grounds of Brown University in Rhode island. As early as 1910, a graduate student at Brown. An immediate, obvious, obvious solution. They're like, oh, yeah, cleans the water, stays clean. This is what we're doing. So starting from 1910 forward, just everyone started chlorinating. If you had a public pool, you would chlorinate it. There's a lot of ways to do it. I don't know if you guys had a pool growing up. You know, there are tablets, there are powders, there are liquids you can put in. I learned that chlorine gets a little bit of a bad rap because some people are like, I don't like going to the pool. You got that, that pool smell, you know that pool smell. And like it just kind of burns your eyes. I learned that is not chlorine's fault. So it is the fault of chloramine. All right, so the way this works, chlorine in the pool combines with all of our grossness, it combines with our sweat, it combines with our body oil, and yes, it combines with our urine and it forms the compound chloramine. And when you get too much chloramine in the pool, that is what creates the so called pool smell. Like where it gets your eyes kind of just watering just from, just from the odor, you know, it means a couple things. It means, first of all, you're out of whack with your chlorine in your pool. Like, you know, you're not catching up to the oil, sweat, pee that's in there. And sometimes you can catch up. What happens sometimes is people get into this kind of like arms race where they add just a little bit of chlorine and then that just creates more mixture to form more chloramine. And you have to resort to what they call a shock treatment, which is basically you get everyone out of the pool. You just come over the top with just a massive dose of chlorine.

[Chris]

Right.

[Colin]

Just kills everything, breaks it down. Oxidizes it, and then you have to wait for it to kind of, you know, settle down to normal levels.

[Chris]

Yeah, we would. We would shock our pool.

[Colin]

The shock pool, Right.

[Chris]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Karen]

Wow. Hold on. So I want to just recap, just so I'm really getting it.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Karen]

The smell and all the bad effects of what we think chlorine is. Chlorine plus all the gross stuff together.

[Colin]

That's right, by and large. And it's one reason why a lot of public pools in particular asked you to shower off, rinse off, before you get in the pool. It's not just because it's gross to be sweaty and go in the pool, which it is. It's that it's also, you know, please help us not gin up a lot of chloramine in the pool. Yeah.

[Chris]

I can't believe I've been blaming chlorine for this all this time, but it was really. It was really me. Yeah.

[Karen]

Yeah. It's you all along.

[Chris]

Yep.

[Colin]

Okay, so coming back around to it here, eventually, saltwater pools. Right. So again, I've heard from my wife, I've heard from Las Vegas hotels, a lot of people swear that they love the saltwater pools better. It's easier on the skin, their eyes, their hair, they feel better. The water feels better. A saltwater pool, it still relies on chlorine. Okay. However, the chlorine is produced in a different fashion. So in a saltwater based pool, you are putting into the pool NaCl.

[Chris]

Right.

[Colin]

Sodium chloride.

[Chris]

Right, right.

[Colin]

The salt, when it goes into the water, it dissolves and it breaks down. And if you have a saltwater pool, you have a saltwater filtration system. What that system does is it. It pulls the salt water into a cell that has specially coated metal plates that trigger a chemical reaction. Oh. That produces chlorine gas, which then dissolves into the water in the form of hypochlorous acid, which is what you were trying to achieve in, you know, that's.

[Chris]

What you were putting in the pool.

[Karen]

I see.

[Colin]

Yes.

[Chris]

So it's using the chlorine that was already there.

[Colin]

You're unlocking the chlorine inside the salt. Now, is, is this better subjectively? Many, many, many people say it is better. They prefer it less irritating. Overall, milder experience. Some people say the water just feels better, like smoother, slicker almost. Now, this could be due to a number of things and what. What a lot of the pool experts say is some of the things that it's, you know, some of the things that contribute to this could be the Fact that you have a continuous infusion, Right. You've got this system that's releasing it. Yeah, It's. It's a little more stable and steady as opposed to. Especially on a manually chlorinated pool, you know, the ups and downs of levels of you, like. Well, I just chlorinated it. Maybe it's a little stronger.

[Chris]

Right.

[Colin]

Or maybe I shocked it, or maybe I mismeasured. Maybe I put it in a little bit too much. A little bit too little this time. At the end of the day, you're still getting chlorine there to kill all the gross stuff. You're just arriving at it at a different way.

[Karen]

I see. I. I mean, there's a lot of good pr, right, Related to the. The saltwater pool because you're like, oh, salt water. It sounds natural. Oh, it's like the same sea or the ocean, and it's like.

[Colin]

That's right. It's like. I hear like, oh, chlorinated pool. Oh, bleach water. Oh, saltwater pool.

[Chris]

Ooh.

[Colin]

It's like I'm at the ocean, you know, and it's not. It's not exactly what it is. The salinity is extremely low in. In a saltwater, chlorinated pool.

[Karen]

I like the smell of chlorine. Yeah.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Karen]

When you go to a pool and it's like you even feel the vapors. I was like, whoa.

[Chris]

A little invigorating.

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[Karen]

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[Chris]

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They see us.

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[Karen]

All right, it's time for our last spa segment treatment. If you have ever walked into a spa, you say you open the door, you might notice a few things that tell your brain that you're in a spa. You'll probably notice mood lighting, right? You open the door, there's like, dimmed lighting, not too bright. Maybe there's, like, some plants or, like, wooden features, you know, in the back wall. Maybe some bamboo. Yes, right, right, right. Maybe there's, like a water feature, like a little mini fountain, and it has, like, the water sounds little burbling. But the biggest thing you might notice that hits you in the face is the smell. It smells like spa.

[Colin]

Yes.

[Karen]

There's a smell there that tells your brain Ah, I'm at a spa. Even if you've never set foot in a spa, you probably know or can imagine what a spa smells like. And what is that spa smell? I mean, it could be a mixture of things. You know, different places vary, but most of the time, it is eucalyptus. Eucalyptus. How would you describe the smell of eucalyptus?

[Colin]

Sort of invigorating and minty. And minty?

[Chris]

Minty.

[Colin]

Minty.

[Karen]

Woodsy, fresh, clean, natural. There's like an astringent kind of zing to it, by the way. You know, the smell that you're smelling when you walk into a spa, also known as olfactory priming, which we've kind of talked about in the show before. Using scents and smells to strategically influence a person. Right. To tap into, like, a response or a reaction or activate, like, you know, some sort of memory, you know?

[Chris]

Right, right.

[Karen]

And I remember, Chris, you had a segment about this. So it's like how Disney parks would pump in the smell of, like, waffle cone or, you know, like, delicious food on Main street usa. So when you walk down the street, you're like, I'm in an old time.

[Chris]

If you're in a Las Vegas hotel and you're walking by the spa, they're probably pumping spa smells into the hallway to get you thinking about, like, going into the spa.

[Karen]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Yep, yep.

[Karen]

At a spa. Yeah. Maybe they have products that, you know, have eucalyptus, but chances are they're using aromatherapy or they're using eucalyptus to kind of signal and tell you, your brain, that this is. You're at a spa. Time to relax. Time to treat yourself. Now, what is eucalyptus? It's a tree. It's a weird tree. It's a real weird tree. And like most uniquely weird living things, it comes from Australia.

[Chris]

Australia?

[Colin]

Where else?

[Karen]

Where else? Native to Australia. But you probably already knew that because eucalyptus is the primary food source for koalas.

[Chris]

Right?

[Karen]

Yeah. Also known as the gum tree. I didn't know that. You know, there's the. The old kookaburra song. Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree. The gum tree is eucalyptus.

[Colin]

I did not know that.

[Karen]

And then a couple episodes ago, our Australian friends and guests, Bill and Danny, talked about gum nuts. And those are, like, eucalyptus seed pods. It's like gum is. Is eucalyptus, by the way. It's a genus. There's like, 700 different species of eucalyptus trees. But why is it weird? Well, okay, how about it's petal less flowers? Eucalyptus flowers have no petals. It's like pom poms of stamens. Like, oops. All stamens, there's no petals. They grow very tall and they grow super, super fast. And of course, they contain a high amount of oil composed of compounds that contribute to that signature spa eucalyptus smell.

[Colin]

Does the plant smell like that smell?

[Karen]

The entire plant.

[Colin]

Okay.

[Karen]

The leaves, the bark, but mostly the leaves composed of compounds that contribute to that signature spa smell. Notably, it's called eucalyptol. Eucalyptol.

[Chris]

Okay. Okay.

[Karen]

Which is toxic to most living things, except for a few koalas developed a tolerance, including koalas. Now, koalas can safely eat eucalyptus trees because their digestive systems are. Have adapted and they have, like, a unique gut bacteria that can break down the toxic compounds from the eucalyptus and baby koalas. Chris, we learned at the San Francisco Zoo when we went together. Baby koalas acquire these essential bacteria.

[Chris]

Yes.

[Karen]

From their mothers.

[Chris]

Poop.

[Colin]

Poop.

[Chris]

They eat it.

[Karen]

The mothers feed the baby koalas their pap, a poop like substance that has the gut bacteria. So now you've probably heard this before, and I've definitely heard this before. If you've ever seen a koala, you know, they're pretty sleepy. They're pretty chill.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Karen]

They don't move a lot. I was always told, oh, they're drunk. They're drunk off of eucalyptus.

[Colin]

I was, I was, I was led to believe that they kind of get a little high off of it. That was.

[Karen]

Yeah, because they eat so much of it, you know, it's toxic to most other animals, but, like, even with their special bacteria, like, they get drunk off of it. That is completely false. No, that is a fake story. Koalas are like that because they're just so tired. Because.

[Colin]

They'Re like, just get off our back. We're just this tire.

[Karen]

They're just tired. They're so sleepy. Because the eucalyptus leaves that they eat is so low in nutrients.

That they have to conserve energy.

[Chris]

Oh, my gosh. Those poor things.

[Karen]

I mean, they've adapted to eating this thing that has, like, not. Not a lot of nutrients. And in order to eat that, well, now they have to have a very slow, slow metabolism. They need more sleep, they need more rest because they're conserving energy.

And also, koalas not really a smart animal. Actually, their brains takes up only a little bit over half of their cranial cavity.

[Chris]

Huh.

[Karen]

So, you know, most. Most animals, their brains are as big as whatever their.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Karen]

Their skull is, right?

[Colin]

Yeah. Yeah. Why would you waste the space otherwise?

[Karen]

Why would you waste the space? Brains take up a lot of energy. And so they.

[Colin]

Oh my gosh.

[Karen]

They've evolved into having smaller brains because brain is one of the most energy.

[Colin]

Intense energy consuming. Yeah.

[Karen]

Consuming organ. And so to have a smaller brain, they can conserve more energy. Also, their brains are smooth. They're not like, they are literally smooth brains. They're smooth brains.

[Colin]

Oh my goodness.

[Karen]

Not a lot of surface area. Like. And so they've done these tests and eating eucalyptus to them is. I see eucalyptus leaves. I'm on a tree, I grab leaves and I stuff into my mouth. That's all they know. That's all they know. If you lay out pre plucked leaves in front of them, like on a table or in a surface, they don't know what to do.

[Colin]

Wow.

[Karen]

They don't recognize that that's the same leaf on a tree for me to eat.

[Colin]

They're that they need that much context. It has to be.

[Karen]

They don't recognize, they don't make the link that, oh, this thing is the leaf I eat on the tree.

[Colin]

I had more respect for them when I thought they were just sitting around getting high than I do now that I know they're just tired and smooth braid and dumb.

[Karen]

But anyways. Okay, so back to eucalyptus. So what is eucalyptus used for today other than feeding koalas? Eucalyptus tree. The tree itself is used for pulp wood. Our tissue paper are stationary paper. Didgeridoos. Didgeridoos are made out of this trees.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Karen]

Yep, yep. And of course, oil, eucalyptus oil. Using fragrances, insect repellents, herbal medicine, and of course, that aromatherapy oil found in your spa. But there's been a discovery that eucalyptus tree has another function. So at some point in your life, you probably have heard your parents tell you, money doesn't grow on trees. You yourself as a parent might have said that to your kids. Money doesn't grow on trees.

[Chris]

Yep, yep.

[Karen]

Except if that tree is a eucalyptus.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Karen]

Scientists have found that in some parts of Australia there is gold on the eucalyptus leaves. You can find micro amounts of gold. Real gold, Real gold on the leaves, in the tree, on the bark. But microscopic amounts of gold.

[Chris]

Huh.

[Karen]

Why? Why? Well, why? Oh, maybe it's just particles. You know, Australia has a lot of like gold deposits. Maybe it's like in the air and it just kind of accumulates. Well, turns out some species of the eucalyptus tree can grow their roots far, far, far, far below the earth.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Karen]

And the trees can absorb gold particles from deep underground, Suck it in their roots.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Karen]

Bring it up in the tree and realize, oh, no, this gold is toxic to us. We got to expel it. We got to get rid of this gold, you know, because the roots are like, I'm just looking for water, but they'll pick up very tiny, tiny gold particles underground and then they will expel the gold from the leaves. They're like, we gotta get rid of this. Yes, that's what they found. That money doesn't grow on trees, but gold grows on eucalyptus trees. Don't get your baskets ready to collect a bunch of eucalyptus leaves.

[Chris]

Right.

[Karen]

This only happens in places where deep down there is a gold deposit. So parts of Australia, you know, and this is like what, 100ft, 30 meters down. It's, it's so hard for people to drill to get there, but the tree roots can get there. Right.

[Colin]

Now I'm curious maybe, you know, Karen, is, is the amount of gold on such a tree worth more than the eucalyptus oil or is the oil still more?

[Karen]

Well, I found an analogy, you know, I don't know how, how true it is, but let's say if you're going to make it, a gold wedding band would take a hundred trees, okay. To make one tiny wedding.

[Chris]

All right.

[Colin]

I'm looking at my wedding band here.

[Karen]

Yeah, but the tree is huge, Colin.

[Chris]

Right.

[Colin]

Well, I'm not gonna try it. I mean, I've already got the ring. I don't need another one, first of all. But yeah, well, you know what?

[Karen]

People have been trying. There are people who are, you know, going out to those sites and trying to rake up some, some dead leaves and trying to use aqua regia to try to isolate the.

[Chris]

Okay, okay.

[Karen]

This is like microscopic amount, you know, because it's in the, the root isn't gonna suck up a nugget. It's not gonna suck up a gold nugget.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Right.

[Karen]

So their new function is not that a gold source. The new function is. Now the trees help the mining business or scientists to determine what could potentially be a gold deposit site without just drilling willy nilly in random places. They, they now have this like a meter, like a gold meter or like a gold detector in a natural format to tell you, oh, there's gold in the leaves. That means there's probably a gold source way down below.

[Colin]

I like that. It feels very sci fi in a way. But I like, like a lot of the best stuff on earth does. That's great. There's gold in them. There are trees.

I love that. They're literally smooth braid. That's fantastic.

[Karen]

Is that like a, it's like an insult? If eucalyptus is so low in nutrients, why don't they just eat something else incredible?

[Colin]

No, because they've just.

[Karen]

They don't even have the processing power to even. Even think that.

[Chris]

Consider that.

[Colin]

You know what?

[Chris]

They're.

[Colin]

They're lucky they're so cute is what they are.

[Karen]

They're so cute.

[Chris]

Right?

[Karen]

Well, that's our show. I hope you're relaxed for this little spa day that we had.

[Colin]

I do feel better.

[Karen]

Cucumbers on our eyes. Thank you all for joining me. And thank you, listeners for listening in. Hope you learned stuff today about salt therapy, snail therapy, seaweed therapy, about pool, saltwater pools, chlorinated pools, and about koala poop. You can find us on all major podcast apps and on our website, goodjobbrain.com this podcast is part of Airwave Media podcast network. Visit airwavemedia.com to listen and subscribe to other shows like Spycast, the official podcast of the International Spy Museum, What Should I read next? And Triviality. We'll see you next week.

[Chris]

Bye.

[Colin]

Foreign.

A world on fire. Nations collapsing, ideologies clashing, and ordinary men and women caught in the storm. Hi, I'm Ray Harris Jr. Of the History of World War II podcast. And we'll cover the battles that shaped the war, from the deserts of North Africa to the frozen forests of the Ardennes. Because history isn't just names and dates. It's people, choices and consequences at World War II podcast. Net.