This programme contains some strong language.
APPLAUSE
Oh! Too kind.
Hello, and welcome to QI.
Tonight's show is like a nightmare neighbour, nosey and noisy.
Please make some noise
for someone with a nose for the truth, Aisling Bea.
APPLAUSE
A nose for a bargain, Ross Noble.
APPLAUSE
And a nose for a good story,
it's Slipknot frontman, it's Corey Taylor.
APPLAUSE
And a nose for trouble, Alan Davies.
APPLAUSE
And they've all brought along their favourite noises.
So Aisling goes...
BABY GIGGLES Ah!
Have you got children, Aisling? No, no!
You'll go off that noise, I'm just saying!
It's the loveliest noise. There's nothing nicer than the sound of a giggling baby,
other than at night-time, if you don't know where it is.
Yeah, maybe parenting's not for you.
Ross goes...
CHILD'S VOICE: I hate rakes!
BOY'S VOICE: I am Mola Ram!
Who are those annoying children? Those are my children!
They... And obviously, everyone says, you know,
children laughing is the best thing ever.
I think even better than that is your own children acting out scenes from Indiana Jones. Yeah.
So my little one can't say esses, so instead of saying, "I hate snakes,"
she says, "I hate rakes."
So listen again. CHILD: I hate rakes. Aww!
And that was the oldest one going, "I am Mola Ram!"
Right. Let's have a listen, Corey goes...
HEAVY METAL MUSIC
AISLING: I love One Direction!
Yeah.
APPLAUSE
Is that your own track?
That is... Don't tell me, let me guess.
OK. Was that Psychosocial? No. Oh. Close though.
That's the only one I know.
This one is Psychosocial. That Psychosocial, yeah.
Wow!
I'm the cute one.
Him. No. Him!
APPLAUSE
We haven't even got on the questions yet. Alan goes...
SIRENS BLARE
A favourite sound, or just familiar? Very familiar. Just familiar.
And let's start with a noisy question.
I want to hear the loudest thing anyone's ever shouted.
You don't have to buzz.
Oh, I just like that sound. It reminds me of how lonely I am.
I've got two, you can have one.
I went to see in the cinema, Magic Mike when it opened.
And for those of you who don't know, Magic Mike is a humble story
of a male stripper who really wants to be a carpenter,
very much like Jesus.
And in the opening sequence of Magic Mike...
Jesus is not a stripper first. Well...
There are bits of the Dead Sea Scrolls that are yet to be interpreted.
At the start of this film he does this down on his knees
kind of slide all the way down the catwalk
and on this giant cinema his crouch just came flying at the audience.
You know that scene in Singing In The Rain when they see the train moving for the first time in cinema
and they're like, "Ah, it's coming for us!"
That's what the crotch was like.
And I made this noise from my soul, like...
SHE SHRIEKS
Loudest sound ever...
And Guinness World Records just happened to be there. Yeah.
Was this in 3D by any chance? No, thank God!
Cos that would have been amazing.
I want my money back!
I'm pregnant.
Corey, you've done lots of loud things.
What do you think might be the loudest thing anyone's ever shouted?
It's got to be something at their kids. OK, yes. In fact, you're in the right...
SHUT THE FUCK UP!
So if you could do that in a more BBC Two way...
LAUGHTER
I'll do my best. Sshhhhhh!
Is it yodelling?
No, but yodelling is my Achilles heel.
I could be on my deathbed, full of depression,
and somebody yodelled, I would laugh. I just...
Is it a human doing it?
It is a human doing, this. It is, but he's in the right area.
It is a word for shush, it is the loudest word that's ever been shouted.
It's in the Guinness World Records.
It's got to be something like quiet. It is quiet. Absolutely right. It's the loudest word ever spoken.
There's a photo of it being done.
Well, this is her. She's a Belfast primary school teacher.
"Quiet!"
She's called Anneliese Flanagan. I think she mostly uses
her rather impressive voice on the hockey pitch.
But in 1994 she entered a shouting competition and her world record has
remained unbroken for 22 years.
She logged 121 decibels, which is exactly the same as a chainsaw.
That's quite loud. Yeah. Our shows top out at, like, 109.
And those are quite loud. So 121 is stupid!
She's...
Louder than Slipknot, that's a good title.
BELFAST ACCENT: Do not make me get louder than Slipknot!
It is good to know that if you're at a Slipknot gig and there is
a Northern Irish primary school teacher...
BELFAST ACCENT: Turn it down, lads.
She's 32 times as loud as a vacuum cleaner,
which is a sort of weird thing to know about yourself.
And she can shout twice as loud as the human pain threshold.
Now, is anybody here a loud burper?
That's the other thing that there is a record for.
No, I'd need some fizzy pop.
SANDI BURPS Oh, Sandi!
That's it. I sound like a frog with asthma.
That is something I never thought I would see.
If you start lighting your farts...!
That's unbelievable.
I see you've missed one of the shows!
Can you imagine if this is just Ross Noble's dream, Slipknot are on QI,
Sandi gets out, she's hosting now.
She burps and then she lights her fart.
ROSS: Is this actually happening?
Well, the world's two loudest burpers,
and I like that has gone down to two, are currently locked in a duel...
The record was set by a man from Essex, surprisingly.
He is there on the right. That's Paul Hunn, 109.9 decibels.
No way! That was in February.
Immediately it was broken by Neville Sharp, who comes from a town I want to go to in Australia
called Humptydoo. Humptydoo? Have you been to Humptydoo?
Yes. I've been to Humptydoo, yeah.
Have you? Yeah, and it had that guy on the telly and they were going,
"We've got the loudest burper..."
And he was... You know, slow news day!
And they went, "Do one for us now."
But, like me, he needs to build up to it,
and he couldn't perform!
Oh, no! Everyone was going, "Oh, not sure if you are any good at it."
Humptydoo though, it's the most Australian town I have never heard of in my life.
Their biggest tourist attraction is a statue of a boxing crocodile.
And they are famous for the Humptydoo virus, it's a virus for kangaroos,
and it's named after Humptydoo.
So anyway, Neville Sharp beat...
This is the exciting battle between the two burpers.
And the day after, Paul, from Essex, broke back.
He broke back with 117.9.
Broke back?! Well, he's got that wrong. That's the other end!
He made a 117.9 decibel belch,
which is apparently louder than a Deep Purple concert in 1972,
which broke the record for the world's loudest band.
And left the audience members unconscious.
They hold the Guinness World Record. Do they?
It was in the books, yeah.
So that became the goal for everybody.
And then Motorhead broke that.
And now, apparently, a man's throat has done the same.
What the hell am I doing?
Would they not let you...
Because all you've got to do is just turn it up.
You would think.
But you would be mistook.
Oh, why? I don't know. I just thought it was fun to say that to him. Oh, right!
Neville Sharp from Australia, I like him a lot.
About the burping, he said... AUSTRALIAN ACCENT:
"Breaking the record has been a bit of a personal goal for me.
"Since my sister taught me to burp when we were children."
"When I grow up I'm going to be the loudest burper.
"Yes, you will, son."
Anybody able to crack their finger knuckles?
That's the other thing people can do very loudly.
LOUD CRACKING
Watch this... CRACKS JAW
She asked! Were you hit by a car this afternoon?
Any other parts of you that you can make noises with? Well...
None for BBC Two! OK.
The loudest crack of finger knuckles is 83.2 decibels,
so that's as loud as a food blender.
Can you do it? I can't do it at all.
I just did a little one, and now it will be a couple of days.
So that's the extraordinary thing, and we can just show you.
This is an actual photograph. These are knuckles,
not amniotic fluid. LOUD CRACK
Isn't that incredible?
And what it is, it's the bubbles of gas popping out of the fluid between
your joints. You can't crack twice in succession,
because you need time to build the gas back up again.
But how funny would that be if you were, like, an ultrasound person
and you just loaded that into the machine...
The parents came and went, let's just have a look... ARGH!
And then just run out of the room.
Now, I have some things for you. What can you do with these?
I'm going to hand those out to you there.
So... These are, like, those smear test things?!
Have you seen one of those before? I have, yeah.
It's for erectile dysfunction, isn't it?
For ducks. You press the balls...
LAUGHTER
Oh, Alan!
Is anyone a doctor?
APPLAUSE
BLOWS WHISTLE
Oh, a duck. To get ducks.
It is a kind of whistle.
But it's not to be played with the mouth.
AUDIENCE GROAN
Oh! It's to be played with your nose.
THEY ALL WHISTLE
I'm guessing, is this for like paramedics who, if somebody,
they're not sure if they're breathing or not, you just put that on their...
"They're still alive."
It's called a nose flute.
And the first patent for this was the Nasalette in 1892,
and the theory was it left your hands...
There it is... Your hands free to play other instruments.
But this one doesn't. So I've got some knicker elastic.
If you put that round your face and the thing.
These are from knickers... Well, before I lost weight.
Try that.
AISLING: Oh, can we all be in Slipknot now? Yes.
Just breathe through your nose.
CACOPHONY OF WHISTLES
LAUGHTER
WHISTLES CONTINUE
It's possible the nose flutes were a mistake.
Alan's completely got the hang of it.
And yet, tuneless.
I can actually play the tin whistle.
But I'm going to do this one.
SHE PLAYS TUNE
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
You had the look of a woman trying to unwrap a toffee with her bottom.
Don't give them back!
I have to clean my nose out.
We will come on to what is in fact a double ended nose picker,
but...
So, the nose flutes,
they have been around the world long before this patented existed.
They were played in Southeast Asia,
in the Pacific Islands, in the Congo.
In Fiji, couples used to use them to seduce each other.
And apparently it was traditional to plug one nostril with tobacco
and then play do the other nostril, and you get a hit of nicotine at the same time.
A fantastic photograph in the 1909 copy of Tatler,
which is a man in India playing the nose flute and the bagpipes simultaneously.
He is described by one musicologist as a peak of woodwind virtuosity.
I like that he was in Tatler.
What an odd like socialite pages at the back, like there's always a queen and king and a guy
with the bagpipes and a flute nose.
I think it's on their page called "Aren't Foreigners Funny?"
Yours is a double ended nose picker that you've got there, Alan.
This was patented in 1998, and oddly,
no-one has yet to manufacture them for general sale.
So how many...
AUDIENCE GROAN
They did a study of nose picking in 2000...
Ever used something other than your own finger? No.
They did a study in 2001.
They've got no hooking motion. You need a hooking motion.
To be able to pull? I've got nothing there.
What I have noticed is there are some bogeys on there from a previous owner.
There is a clean one.
Have you got the whole hand down there?
Are these definitely being sold for nose picking?
We had a...
I think there's a tax reason they've been called "nose pickers".
We had an intern who just didn't work out and...
wanted to be on the show.
I'll just go on the Tube like that.
Sit like that.
"I'm just going to hospital."
"How many stops...?"
SCATTERED APPLAUSE
That is the most feeble clap!
There's half of you going, "I'm not clapping that."
Can I just borrow two?
I've got one that's more flaccid than the other.
If you clap Ross's finger joke, I will be pissed off!
I'm just thinking, for the lazy Slipknot fan.
AUDIENCE CLAP AND CHEER
That's for the lazy Slipknot fan too. You can always...
There you go.
So only 80% of teenagers use their fingers to pick their noses,
what do the rest use?
The end of a pencil? Yes.
Pencils is one. Come on, we've all done it.
A biro. A friend's finger?
A cotton bud? No, it's nothing as nice as that.
It's tweezers!
What if it winds up there?
What was weird was 11% do it for cosmetic reasons, 11% for pleasure...
Are you talking about the actual... Yeah.
Surely a Hoover would work better than tweezers.
Who'd put a Hoover up your nose?!
It's an irresponsible remark!
I'm sorry for what I said earlier about using a Hoover.
Please, teenagers, do not stick a Hoover to your nose.
I think it was implied if I had fallen onto a hand-held dust buster type thing.
The load of excuses.
"My dressing down fell open.
"I fell onto the suction."
They do that thing, they compulsively pull out their nasal hairs as well.
That's a thing. There's an actual condition called rhinotrichotillomania.
It is the compulsively pulling out your nasal hairs.
If it's nose hair, I can understand it. I don't want to be chatting away...
Cos remember, Alan, we had to take the scissors to yours... I'm only joking.
When you pulled my nose hair, my arse tightened.
So we kept going.
Next we got to pull my arse hair and see what happens.
"Stop! Stop!"
Is it just one long hair that connects...?
Top and bottom are all connected.
Here's a question that everyone is gagging to know the answer to...
What noise does a frog on helium make?
On helium?
HIGH VOICE: "Oh, I love you, Miss Piggy."
COREY COUGHS
You've got a frog in your throat!
Corey, if you want a klaxon, I reckon if you did a high-pitched ribbit,
I reckon that would get one. Try and say ribbit.
HIGH VOICE: Ribbit!
Yes!
I might need a tissue.
It's rare you see so much pleasure at failure.
It's so good. I reckon nobody knows.
Because as soon as you fill them with helium, that expands...
and they're off.
"Help!"
Hands like that.
In 1993, scientists made three different species of frog inhale helium.
Clearly, party's not gone that well, nobody's turned up...
Scientists with poor sexual skills, I'm going to guess.
"We've finished, but we can't leave until five!" Yes.
"Anything you always wanted to do?"
And it has no effect on frogs whatsoever.
And the reason is that frogs don't use the resonance of the air
inside the vocal tract to vocalise the way we do.
They seem to create resonance by using their skin instead.
And that is not affected by helium.
OK. So, having that piece of information in your heads,
what do you think would happen if you asked a dinosaur
to suck on a party balloon?
I think he'd be like, "I died thousands of years ago.
"This is a dream."
It would sound like...
CONSTRICTED VOICE: I died thousands of years ago.
This is a dream.
Actually, Corey, you would be right.
Because you can't try it out on dinosaurs,
so in 2015 the same experiment was carried out on a Chinese alligator,
which is as close as they could get, by Austrian scientists.
And it turns out pumping helium into the tank of a Chinese alligator
affects her voice as it does ours.
So let's have a listen to before, and then straightaway,
the after with the helium.
RESONANT GRUNTS
It's lower? Does it make it lower?
Well, the thing is, it just changes the timbre.
What helium doesn't do, people think it makes your voice higher.
It doesn't. Every voice, as you well know, is a mixed frequency.
So all it does, is it causes some of those frequencies in humans,
the higher ones, to be amplified.
So we just hear them more.
It doesn't actually make your voice any higher.
Apparently, because it's true of alligators,
it must be true of dinosaurs because of the alligator being a descendant.
That'll be a really bad, like, next Jurassic Park.
Like, the third one. Yeah.
2015 they were very busy. They also discovered that giraffes hum.
For pleasure? Well, we don't know.
They recorded giraffes at three different zoos and they found that they make this really deep sound.
It's just within human hearing range.
And they don't know if they're snoring or sleep talking or just saying...
"It's all right. I'm still here. Don't you worry. Light will come in the morning." They hum at night.
Could they be a three part harmony?
Yeah.
That to me looks like the giraffe version of going into the loos
with one of your friends when she's about to vomit.
"Hold her hair. I'm fine!"
What about the next guy, "Don't take a picture now!"
That one on the left looks so drunk, it tried to have sex with that tree.
"She's only got one leg, well, I'll have a go."
"She's still here, she can't be going anywhere."
I spend some of my childhood in east Africa.
And we had some neighbours who had a Mini. They had brought it over all the way from England.
And one day they didn't come home, everyone was worried, it turned out
a giraffe had taken that rather interesting shape there and tried to hump their Mini
and got stuck over the car.
They couldn't open the doors and then the giraffe couldn't get off.
They drove it back to England.
We'll knock him off in the Dartford tunnel.
Now I'm going to give you the horn.
OK.
There's one each for you two.
And I have here...
And I want to know, what noise is that for?
Is this going to be some sort of Latvian arse trumpet or something?
And two points to Ross!
Someone in the audience had an offer.
Does anybody know?
WOMAN: Heartbeats.
It is for a heartbeat, what kind of heartbeat?
AUDI ENCE: Foetal.
It is still used.
It is for the foetal heartbeat.
It is called a Pinard horn, and to this day
it is still used by midwives
to listen for the foetal heartbeat.
It was invented in 1895 by a French obstetrician called Adolf Pinard.
And what is so fantastic is that they haven't improved on it.
It's still used today.
You can buy them on any website of foetal heartbeat...
No, it's too late. He's dead.
It's inspired by the original stethoscope.
Does anybody know why the original stethoscope was invented?
For hearing things.
Yes.
Is it like an early Walkman,
and you'd attach it to a chamber orchestra?
And they'd run behind you... You'd have in on like that...
"This is ridiculous.
"I've been running. Oh, hang on."
Was it so you could get through lady's garments, so they didn't have to disrobe?
It is to do with embarrassment.
Dr Rene Laennec, he had to listen to women's chests.
But he didn't want to put his ear too close.
He was embarrassed. Too awkward for everyone.
Too awkward, so 1816, he invented the stethoscope.
Conversation tubes, introduced in the 1600s,
it was the same sort of awkwardness.
A Puritan couple, so they could have a conversation,
they could talk through a tube.
Those were then used as the very first commercial hearing aids, about 1800.
Have a look at that. These ones are actually...
This will work, will it?
If you speak... Oh, Jesus!
What's wrong with you?!
Speak in it to yourself, then you can hear most clearly.
I can just do that.
Hello, Ross. "Hello."
Hello. Germany calling.
The one on the picture, we actually have here.
This is... The one in the picture.
I can't look quite as cheerful.
I can hear the sea.
Is that what you're supposed to...
You know how people worry about what earrings to wear, those, I think,
are working for you.
You look like Mickey Mouse and Prince Charles had a child.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Thank you.
This is extraordinary. This one is really extraordinary.
You put that bit in your ear. Hello?
I wonder will this, like, amplify between that and the...?
Oh, no way!
Just to get on the show again. You must be joking!
This one is really extraordinary.
It's been lent to us by Dr Laurie Slater,
who's a GP who collects medical oddities.
It is a silver ear trumpet.
It was made in 1880,
and it is possible it is actually Queen Victoria's hearing aid.
It is possible.
There is no direct evidence of this, but they are very rare. And this one is unique,
so it is possible this is what Queen Victoria used to...
The stories that could tell.
I know.
When you say it's possible, is that like,
did like an ear wax expert lick it and go...
"Queen Victoria."
I think if you are an ear wax specialist,
you probably don't lick. Just saying. I don't really know.
Lots of fantastic hearing aids in the 19th century.
Here are some brilliant ones.
I love the beard one.
The walking cane, there's a little earpiece under the handle.
You can hold it up, so nobody knows you're listening.
And the other one is a vase of flowers,
with that completely inconspicuous tube.
I like how they try to jazz it up for a lady, perhaps. Yeah.
Right, speaking of ears.
I'm going to play you two recordings, OK?
One is of hot water being poured into a bowl.
And one is of cold water being poured into a bowl.
I want you to tell me which is which.
Here is the first one.
WATER POURS
And here is the second one.
WATER POURS
So... Sorry, I need a wee!
What do we think the first one is? Hot or cold? Hot.
Hot. Everybody hot?
Yes, I'll go hot. I thought it was the first one.
It sounded like emptying a kettle.
The second one sounded like filling a kettle.
Oh! OK.
AUDI ENCE MEMBER: Ooh!
The audience are mocking me.
Since Stephen left, they've just turned.
They've gone,
"No-one's taking the piss out of that idiot. It's up to us."
LAUGHTER
That woman there, you said, "One was filled, one was..."
I think that woman went, "Ooh!"
"Oh, yeah." Admiration.
The sound of admiration. I've never heard that before.
LAUGHTER
The second one sounded kind of crisp and cold.
I wanted a drink. Let's have one more listen.
This is the first one. Have a listen.
WATER POURS
And the second one...
WATER POURS
Can we just bear in mind, this is QI,
so I've got a feeling that it might be somebody
pouring soup onto a horse.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
I promise you, it's hot and cold water.
Hands up who thinks the first one is hot.
And hands up who thinks the first one is cold.
Oh, that's weird. So, it is about the right percentage.
96% correctly, usually, identify the first one as hot.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Whoo!
Yes!
They do make different noises,
because hot water is, kind of, slightly less sticky,
is the thing of it, molecules in it have more energy from the heat,
and so when hot water hits a hard surface,
it breaks up into smaller particles
and makes a higher pitched splashing noise than cold water.
So... But now you'll know.
Yeah. That's good.
I'll be like, that was hot!
Next time you pour boiling water on yourself, you'll be like,
"Is it hot... Oh, wait, the sound of it... Yes, I am, I'm burning."
Why would you want a falcon's nose with you on a plane?
Is it because it holds exactly 150ml?
No. Is this got something to do with... They've got vents, haven't they?
They've got those things to stop them bursting, isn't it?
Well, not really so much bursting as being aerodynamic.
It's almost like a tunnel in their beak, it funnels the air... - It is about funnelling.
What it is aeroplanes used to have a particular problem when they reached a certain speed,
so the air in front of them struck a wall of resistance and it causes the engine to choke.
Now you might expect the falcon to have a similar problem because
it can reach speeds of up to 200mph. Which is unbelievable. Mm.
I know that cos it's on Top Trumps.
Got a four-year-old, been playing a lot of Top Trumps.
But it can still breath because it has a cone shaped structure
within each nostril that directs the air into their air passages.
I love this, they studied this and they made a similar device, a metallic cone,
which now goes on the opening of jet engines and it allows air to enter the engines
even when travelling at supersonic speeds.
Is it bad when a falcon flies into one of their rotors and then the plane...?
It's bad for the falcon, certainly.
That's bird strike. That's a big problem with hitting the engines.
And the other one is frog strike from the helium frogs.
People don't think enough about that, I don't think.
Anyway. Lots of birds have improved or helped to improve engineering.
Kingfishers have improved the design of bullet trains as well.
This is a lovely story. 1990s, the very fast trains
making extremely loud booming noise when they got out of a tunnel.
And it's caused by a cushion of air which is built up in front of the
speeding train while it was in the tunnel
and it was waking up residents, disturbing wildlife. And there was an ...
.. engineer working on the problem and he saw a kingfisher dive into the water one day.
And he noticed it was almost no splash whatsoever.
And that is because of that lovely beautiful long pointy beak.
He applied the same logic to the trains and they now have long pointy noses
and it stops the air cushion building up and it makes them more aerodynamic
and so 15% more energy efficient.
Isn't that lovely that every time we look at one of those, you can imagine a kingfisher?
Do you think they're going to start killing all the birds
they don't need any more cos we've learned enough?
"The engines are working, the train is making the sound. Kill the bird."
And now for the stuff that nobody knows.
It's General Ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers, please.
I got a mystery artefact for you.
And I want to know what is this?
There we go. Have a look.
What do you reckon that is?
Well, it looks like a bit of a brain.
It looks like a professional rugby player's ear.
"A couple of great years with the team..."
You're in the right area. It's been lent to us by the Horniman Museum, which is, if you ...
.. haven't been, it's one of the best museums I've ever been to. It's fabulous.
They have all kinds of animal bits and bobs in that place.
It's fantastic.
And very good cheesecake.
One of the funniest collections of antique cheesecake anywhere.
So is this cheesecake? No. Aislang was right
where she was heading with it. It's an ear.
It is in fact a sperm whale eardrum.
It's an extraordinary thing.
While we're on the subject of whales, we go slightly up the scale.
Which of these weighs the same as a blue whale's heart?
BOY'S VOICE: 'I am Mola Ram.'
Ross. I'm going to say the Beetle.
KLAXON
I have heard of the blue whale.
People have...
People have supplied me with many blue whale facts over the years.
One of the blue whale facts that I've been told was that it...
The heart is about the size of a Mini...
Well, here's the extraordinary thing.
Nobody checked. Everybody thought it was the same size,
and exactly the same weight as a Beetle.
And nobody bothered to check.
But 2015, which has been the year of checking things,
they never thought to consider having a look at.
They checked, it turns out that, in fact,
it weighs about the same as a male gorilla.
It's about 28-and-a-half stone.
But a lot lighter than a Beetle.
It is about 22% of what a Beetle would weigh.
There he is. Isn't it extraordinary?
Are they doing a transplant?
They're going to put a Beetle in!
MIMICS ENGINE
It starts in all weathers.
I like the way they normally use something like an equivalent
that would be in your house so you could relate to it.
But they're like, "It's as heavy as a guerrilla."
And you're like, "Oh, now I understand."
Here's one for you. It's the same size as a two-person dodgem car.
I quite like that one. Yes. That one I can appreciate.
Or a small golf cart, if you live in the Shires.
It's also said that the aorta is big enough for a human to swim through and that's not true.
It is big enough to put your head in, but... can get out.
Is that what the intern is getting ready to do?
I'm not sure what they're doing there.
In other disappointing comparative anatomy news,
our intestines apparently don't have the surface area of a football pitch.
That's one of the things people often used to claim.
Scientists in Sweden have remeasured
using new techniques and it's only half the size of a badminton court.
Imagine all the poor people who had to have their intestines pulled out
for that. To be measured? Yeah.
And they were like, "It was worth it for the truth!"
"I couldn't handle the lies any more."
But think about all the poor kid soccer teams who had... What a nightmare that was.
"We trying to have a game of football. What you spreading this out for?"
So they gave it up, took up badminton, next thing you know,
"Not again."
Right, fingers on buzzers.
If I toot my horn and flash my lamps at exactly the same time,
what is the first thing that you will notice?
BOY'S VOICE: 'I am Mola Ram!'
Oh, Ross, you're quick on the buzzer today.
You've taken up dogging?
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Every girl needs a hobby.
No shame in that. Do you know what dogging is?
Should I?
It's a quaint old English custom...
What you need to do is after the show, hail down a cab,
it's got to be a black cab.
Jump in and say, "Excuse me, cabbie, take me to the finest dogging area."
I'm going to go on a limb and say that I shouldn't do that.
What I'm saying is, when in Rome, just give it a try.
What it is, Corey, is people having sex in cars
and people walk their dogs and watch.
Oh! So it's a perv thing? Yeah. It's an exhibitionism thing.
So, wait.
So the people are doing it specifically so dog walkers will watch? Yeah.
What is wrong with you? You talk about Americans...
The difference is, if it was in America,
it will be people having sex and firing guns at the same time.
That's true.
Which to me doesn't sound as odd. Yeah.
Is it to do with how far away things are?
Yes, absolutely. So if the car's a really long way away,
the light will get to you before the sound of the horn does?
Like a thunderstorm principle?
Yes. The brain has to process both.
It's not enough for it to reach you.
The brain has got to process it.
It processes sound faster than it processes light.
So, if you're close enough, then you'll hear the horn first.
But as you get further away from the source, so for example,
a plane in the sky,
the difference between when the sound reaches you and when the light
reaches your increases. Light travels faster than sound, and therefore...
I wonder if that is an evolutionary thing,
because things that are dangerous to humans make noises in the dark.
Yeah. So we prioritised the ears.
I mean, our hearing is extraordinary
because it can detect frequencies from 20 hertz to over 20,000.
Whereas the eye, the range is much, much smaller.
Not after your concerts, obviously.
No, no. Ears are great, aren't they, Sandi?
I think that's a message for people back home today.
Ears, they're great.
This is brought to you by the Ear Advisory Board.
Ears, don't knock 'em till you've tried 'em.
What?
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Which vitamin can stop you getting a runny nose?
Don't let Ross win again! HEAVY METAL MUSIC
Corey!
C? C, yes.
KLAXON
People used to believe that vitamin C was the thing
if you were trying to prevent colds, but it does nothing at all.
There's hardly any evidence it even alleviates the symptoms.
The one you want is the sunshine vitamin.
D! Absolutely right.
That does prevent people getting colds in the first place,
and reduces the incidence of flu.
Most people who take vitamins shouldn't bother,
is the absolute truth of it.
So, one vitamin C tablet contains
ten times the recommended daily allowance of the vitamin,
and you just don't really need it.
You just wee it away.
You just wee it away. So, if you put a duck in an echo chamber, what...
LAUGHTER
How are you going to play? What are you likely to hear?
HEAVY METAL MUSIC
Corey.
It will become pregnant.
I like how your mind works.
It's possible I like everything about you, Corey.
But no, it's not that.
I know this only because Lee Mack has a show called
Duck Quacks Don't Echo.
And what's the answer?
Ducks' quacks don't echo.
KLAXON
APPLAUSE Unbelievable.
Do you know what, you're right, Lee Mack does have that show.
And I thought that was a thing.
We'll be finding out next that some mothers DON'T have 'em!
Unbelievable!
So, that isn't right, because ducks' quacks do echo,
but in fact, most ducks don't quack at all.
What? Yes!
This show, man! Oh, my God.
It's mainly just female mallards that make the quacking noise.
What I like, is that other species,
they whistle, they coo and they yodel.
AUDIENCE CHEERS
Yes, they yodel.
And some ducks are completely silent.
They've nothing to say. Nothing.
Just complete silence. What does a duck yodelling sound like?
You can actually have a look on various popular websites
and see ducks yodelling.
Some of the worst Hank Williams tribute acts you'll ever see.
We went to Kew Gardens the other day and there's a lot of activity in the ponds. Yes.
The male ducks pursuing the female ducks... They're not nice about it.
It's not nice, and you're taking the kids. Yeah.
As we went in, there's a woman at the gate giving out guide maps
and stuff and she says, "The ducks' behaviour at the moment is despicable."
There's no foreplay, is there? Nothing at all.
It's outright assault.
So, that brings us to the matter of the scores.
In last place with minus 9 points, it's Corey.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
In third place, with minus 4, it's Ross.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And in second place, with minus 2, it's Aisling.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And our runaway winner, with eight points, it's Alan!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
My thanks to Corey, Ross, Aisling and Alan for their interesting noises.
And the last word on the subject
goes to American comedian Stephen Wright.
"I didn't get a toy train like the other kids.
"I got a toy subway instead.
"You couldn't see anything, but every now and then,
"you'd hear this rumbling noise go by."
Goodnight.