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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is a Triple J podcast. Hello, welcome to another episode of Science with Dr. Carl. My name is Lucy Smith, and I don't know where you're listening from, but for me, the air is getting crisper. It's getting a little bit colder, and one of my favorite things to do is to pull up with a cup of tea, a bicky, we're dipping it in.
We had a caller who noticed that the biscuit held more liquid between tea and coffee. Why is that? Do we get to the bottom of it? You'll find out in this week's episode. We also chat about why we make that face when we cry. And also we get the case of earthworms in a pool. Maybe you'll relate to this one.
Chapter 2: What is the best method for dunking biscuits in a hot cuppa?
It's all coming up. Let's dive in. Dr. Carl, you mentioned earlier in the year, in fact, I want to say it was a couple of months ago, that you'd been on a mission flossing your teeth. Tell us about it.
90,000 times.
What is going on? How?
Well, the dentist told me when I was saying, what's the story with this plaque? So the bacteria, they live in your mouth. And if you don't keep on getting rid of them, they form this smooth calcium-like plaque on the inside of your teeth, on the outside. And I said, I'm sick of it. He says, well, are you dental flossing? But do you know I didn't discover dental flossing until my 20s?
I think that's the case for a lot of people.
And also I've found people who for decades have only washed – I had the onion in the wrong place, have brushed only the outside of their teeth facing the lips, not the inside facing the tongue. And I didn't know they had to.
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Chapter 3: Why do we make that face when we cry?
You've got to do all angles.
Right. And then I myself didn't know I had to do the gums and also at the back. So I've learned a lot about teeth. Anyway, so I brushed each side of each tooth, roughly 30 teeth. So that's 25 teeth, 25 sides, whatever. So it's about 10 times up and down. 500 times each night while Mary's going, this is taking a long time, isn't it? 500 a night, that's half a thousand.
That's 15,000 a month for six months. 90,000 times have I run dental floss up and down my teeth purely on this mission from God or the universe to see if it gets rid of the plaque. And the plaque, according to the dentist whom I saw just the other day, was both much reduced – and also the gums were in the best condition you'd ever seen.
And, you know, they do that thing where they get the little pointy tool and they sort of shove it down the inside of the gum. Every now and then you get a bit of blood here and there. And for the first time, there's been no blood. So brushing the teeth, and so there's three sides for your molars, like the inside, the outside, and the top, two sides for your incisors.
And then the dental floss, I now have the best teeth ever in my whole life.
Yes, Dr. Carl, you've been on a mission. It's paid off.
But now I've got to keep on doing it or can I get lazy?
I know. Maybe you can – no, I think you've got to keep doing it. I think you've locked in now.
Yeah. Well, it has been claimed that the time needed to establish a habit is 21 days. And this is from a misreading of a paper back in the early 90s and I was immediately suspicious by the 21 because there's two numbers that appear often when people make false claims. There's seven and three. You know, like – Calcium atoms are replaced every seven days or weeks or years.
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Chapter 4: Can pelicans sleep while flying?
Now, I'm suggesting that for you, you know, we're giving you a job here for which you'll win a Triple J Fun Pack if you have lots of writing here and pictures.
Well, I've also tried it with the chocolate ones that are covered in chocolate and you bite the corners off and suck the tea through. I've tried it with those. It doesn't, yeah, it just doesn't get the same melted squishiness with coffee.
Now, you know what the Mythbusters said, the difference between science and screwing around is writing it down. And unfortunately, you're going to need a kitchen scale. They're pretty accurate. They'll give you like two fractions of a gram. So measure the biscuits before and after and do this over a period of weeks and try to get some friends involved and get some numbers and then get back to us.
Okay, okay. I don't know if I'm going to be able to get friends to measure their biscuits, unfortunately.
You know, you and I are in a small minority of people who would do that. I'll talk to you another time about flossing your teeth 90,000 times. So if you can get a weighing scale, measure the biscuits, and then have it on paper that, oh, my God, there is.
And the point that you made about having a coffee that was similar in consistency to the tea, in other words, the majority of water and less milk, that was very clever of you there.
Yeah.
Good on you, Justin. Well, that's just how I like to drink my coffee. But it's just a coincidence really.
Okay. So get the measuring scales and we'll see you in a couple of weeks or a month or two.
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