CARL KASELL, Host:
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 Tom Bodett, Mo Rocca and Paula Poundstone. And here's your host, at Cal Performances in Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, California, Peter Sagal.
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PETER SAGAL, Host:
Thank you, Carl. Thank you everybody. Right now, it's time for the WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME! Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-Wait-Wait to play our game on the air. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!
SASHA LUCAS: Hi, Peter. This is Sasha from Seattle.
SAGAL: Hey Sasha, how are things in Seattle?
LUCAS: They are sunny, thank God.
SAGAL: Oh thank goodness, finally. So what do you do there in Seattle?
LUCAS: I'm a microbiologist.
SAGAL: Well how totally cool.
LUCAS: Yes.
SAGAL: I was once told that if we actually knew how many microbes are around us at any given time, we'd all scream and freak out.
LUCAS: Probably.
SAGAL: Really? We just don't want to know.
LUCAS: No, you don't.
SAGAL: How do you manage it, since you know?
LUCAS: I drink a lot.
SAGAL: I understand.
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SAGAL: Sasha, it's nice to have you with us. You're going to play the game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Carl, what is Sasha's topic?
KASELL: I think of my new device as the Fix-o-dent for dear old mother earth.
SAGAL: They keep telling us the next big thing is going to be green technology. And our panelists are going to give you three examples of the cutting edge in environmental innovation. Sadly, only one of these new inventions is real. Pick that real one and you'll win Carl's voice on your home answering device, whatever it may be. Ready to play?
LUCAS: Yep.
SAGAL: First, let's hear from Tom Bodett.
TOM BODETT: California environmental research firm Elliot, Martin and Zeller have uncovered that the energy Americans waste to right inside-out underwear could light a small city. The solution, reversible underpants.
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BODETT: The team's data show that 93 percent of brief, boxers and panties end up reversed in the laundry. Turning one garment right side out saps one- tenth of a calorie of expended effort. This calorie is replaced with food, which has to be produced, transported and prepared.
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BODETT: One-tenth calorie doesn't sound like much, but when multiplied by the 600 millions times per laundry week Americans alone flip their shorts, it compares to over 300 megawatts of electrical power.
The idea behind the reversible underpants, according to Dr. Zeller is if people did not feel the need to fuss with their Fruit of the Looms, this vast energy savings would be realized. "This energy cannot be captured," he explains, "it is just never used. We lived in a closed system, so think of it this way, if it helps. Every time you put your child's Spiderman briefs spidey side out, a light goes out in Africa."
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SAGAL: Saving energy by wearing your underwear no matter how it comes out of the laundry. Your next story of an innovation promising to make the world a better place comes from Mo Rocca.
MO ROCCA: Houston entrepreneur Paul Johnson is tackling the twin crises of energy and obesity with Eco-Fit, an eco friendly gym. The hallmark? Treadmills powered by people. While one person jogs off the pounds, two others get a lighter workout on a seesaw, pumping clean energy to the treadmill.
At a slow pace, it all works beautifully. But as the treadmill moves faster, it requires more pounds of seesaw pressure, many more pounds. For instance, for the treadmill to move at a brisk 15 miles per hour, it requires 520 pounds of seesaw weight, roughly two Poseidon Adventure-sized Shelley Winters.
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ROCCA: To keep up the pace, management has to fuel the seesaw sitters with a constant supply of Yodels and soda. As the runners have gotten thinner, the seesaw sitters have gotten fatter, and tension between the two camps has increased. "Faster," yell the sitters to the runners. "Fatter" shout back the runners. "I wanted to do something good," said Johnson, "and now my gym is being torn apart by ergonomic apartheid."
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SAGAL: A treadmill powered by a seesaw and vice versa. Your last story of an invention that would make Al Gore smile, assuming he could, comes from Paula Poundstone.
PAULA POUNDSTONE: Somebody did it. I think we've all thought of it, but finally someone has done it. Energy giant BKW FBM is just waiting on the funds to start work on a solar-powered submarine. The company says the sub would draw power from a floating solar array of five generators with 430 square feet of panels. The sub could dive to depths approaching 1,000 feet, and shoot through the water at almost six miles per hour.
It's unclear what the use for a solar submarine would be. An enemy might be able to find a submarine that drags five generators each with 430-square feet of panels. They're kind of like lobster traps with weapons. Not so useful. Still, somebody finally did it.
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SAGAL: All right. Here are your choices, one of these is the real innovation. Is it from Tom Bodett, reversible underwear? It saves energy because you don't have to reverse them. From Mo Rocca, a seesaw powering a treadmill, causing some strife between the treadmillers and the seesawers. Or from Paula Poundstone, the world's first, and we would bet last, solar-powered submarine.
LUCAS: Wow.
SAGAL: Yeah.
LUCAS: I'm going to go with the solar-powered submarine.
SAGAL: Your choice then, the solar-powered submarine.
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SAGAL: The audience approves. Well, to bring you the correct answer, we spoke to the journalist who brought our attention to this story.
KEITH BARRY: Picture a cartoonish-looking submarine attached by a giant extension cord to something that looks like one of the hats that they wore in Devo, with some flattened disco balls attached to it.
SAGAL: That was Keith Barry, a reporter for Autopia from wired.com. congratulations, you got it right, Sasha. Well done.
LUCAS: Wow.
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SAGAL: You're earned a point for Paula just for telling you the correct story and you've won our prize. Carl Kasell will record the greeting on your home answering device. Well done.
LUCAS: Thank you.
SAGAL: I want to say something. When this gentleman wrote up the story for wired.com, he finished up his description of the planned solar-powered submarine by saying, and I'm paraphrasing, but this is what he said. The only thing this is good for would be to be one of those fake stories they have on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!
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SAGAL: So we are happy to oblige him. Thank you so much for playing with us, Sasha.
LUCAS: Bye. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
