Do our brains have superpowers?
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Can people actually read minds? Can we move objects with our brains like in the movies? We're exploring the history of shady psychics, sketchy seances, and secret superpower studies. Plus, hear from a scientist who is helping people regain the ability to pick up and move objects through the combined power of their brains and a special computer!
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AGATHA: You're listening to Brains On! where we're serious about being curious. Brains On! is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Vroom! Vroom! Pew! Pew!
MOLLY BLOOM: What are you doing, Agatha?
AGATHA: Oh, hey, Molly! I was just thinking about Star Wars. I watched it last night. And you know how the light sabers go, vroom! And then tsssh! And the coolest part is when the Jedi has used the force. And it's like, hrrm! And they can move stuff with their mind. That was my favorite.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, yeah, that is always so cool. Like Matilda in Roald Dahl's book, she can move stuff around just by thinking about it, too, or Magneto from the X-Men comics, he can make a metal do whatever he wants.
AGATHA: Yeah, through telekinesis.
MOLLY BLOOM: Right, that's the power to move stuff with your mind.
AGATHA: Which is different from telepathy.
MOLLY BLOOM: That's the power to read minds.
AGATHA: And telephony.
MOLLY BLOOM: What?
AGATHA: That's the power to talk to other minds using a telephone. I have that power.
MOLLY BLOOM: Me, too. Hey, did you know I also have telethemesis?
AGATHA: Whoa, what's that?
MOLLY BLOOM: The ability to start the theme song just by thinking about it. Like this-- [GROANING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
AGATHA: Whoa, that was amazing!
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah, I'm still figuring out how to fight crime with it. But it comes in handy as a show host.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is Brains On! From APM Studios. I'm Molly Bloom. And with me today is Agatha from London. Hi, Agatha!
AGATHA: Hi, Molly.
MOLLY BLOOM: So, Agatha, you asked us a very intriguing question. What was it?
AGATHA: Can people actually read minds?
MOLLY BLOOM: So what made you think of this question?
AGATHA: Ah, well, I kind of thought that maybe magicians could like know a magic trick to actually know how to view what's inside people's minds to know if they're telling the truth or not.
MOLLY BLOOM: So do you wish you had the power to read minds?
AGATHA: Yes, because then I would know who's telling the truth if my sister's telling a lie or something.
MOLLY BLOOM: [LAUGHS] So do you think she's maybe fibbing sometimes?
AGATHA: Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: Do you think it would make the world a better place or a worse place if people had the power to read minds?
AGATHA: Well, if everybody had the power to read minds, it wouldn't make the world the best place, because you would know everything that people are thinking. But if specific people like police officers knew how to read people's minds, I think it would make the world a better place.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah. So what if your parents had the power to read your mind, would that be useful?
AGATHA: No.
MOLLY BLOOM: [LAUGHS]
AGATHA: Completely not.
MOLLY BLOOM: Does it feel sometimes like your parents can read your mind?
AGATHA: Definitely. They kind of know when I'm telling the truth or a lie.
MOLLY BLOOM: [CHUCKLES] So your parents do have that power a teeny bit. So how about the power of moving things with your mind-- telekinesis? What would you do with it?
AGATHA: Well, I would-- because sometimes I can't get out of bed in the morning, I would get my clothes from my wardrobe using my mind and bring them onto my bed so I could get dressed like that.
MOLLY BLOOM: Nice. So prolong that bedtime. I appreciate that.
AGATHA: Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: Are there other superpowers you wish you had?
AGATHA: Flying, because then I could see the world below me, like know what's going on.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah, flying would be a very, very useful superpower. And you are not the only one to ask us about cool brain powers. We also got these questions.
NADIA: Hello, my name is Nadia from Sheffield, United Kingdom. And my question is, why can't humans have superpowers? I thought of this question whilst watching Spider Man, and I thought how exciting and fun it must be to have superpowers.
FRANK: My name is Frank from Estonia. And my question is, is it possible to read other people's minds? This question came to mind because it always seems like my mom knows what I'm thinking.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MOLLY BLOOM: Those are such great questions. It's so fun to imagine having superpowers. Are our brains capable of more than we know?
AGATHA: If I practiced really hard, could I pick up my drink without using my hands? Man, that would be cool! I could tie my shoes and at the same time [SLURPS], or I could talk right into my friend's brain and don't get shushed at the library.
MOLLY BLOOM: The idea of mystical brain powers isn't a new one. In ancient Greece, rulers would often consult seers or oracles to help them predict the future and make important decisions. These oracles were often thought to have special powers that let them communicate with the gods.
AGATHA: And around 100 years ago in Europe and America, performance stages were packed with psychics who claim to be able to read minds. And in the 1920s and '30s in America, there were even psychics on the radio.
MOLLY BLOOM: Well, there are psychics who have TV shows today. So I guess I should have seen that coming. Get it?
AGATHA: Nice one. And then there are spiritualists and mediums.
MOLLY BLOOM: Those are both names for people who claim to use their minds to contact spirits or ghosts. They lead parties called seances, where people sit together in dark rooms and try to contact the supernatural realm.
AGATHA: Spooky.
SYLVIA: Did someone call for a medium?
MOLLY BLOOM: Whoa, who are you? And where did all this mist come from?
SYLVIA: Oh, sorry! I travel with a smoke machine at all times. [COUGHS] My name is Madame Sylvia, medium and mystic to the stars. I heard you mentioned us seance. What a supernatural serendipity. I'm just on my way to hold a seance of my own. Would you care to attend?
AGATHA: Will that be ghosts? Will you read my mind?
SYLVIA: Oh, absolutely, my dear. Mm-hmm, for sure.
AGATHA: Cool.
MOLLY BLOOM: Lead the way, Sylvia.
SYLVIA: It's so dark in here. Everyone join hands around the table. Be silent now. I feel the spirits are arriving. Yes, yes! I sense them in the room with us. Spirits, if you are there, make yourself known!
[ETHEREAL WHOOSHING AND CLATTERING]
AGATHA: Molly, something's stumping on the table.
MOLLY BLOOM: I just felt a ghost's hand touch my face.
AGATHA: The pictures on that wall are moving! I'm freaking out!
SYLVIA: Yes, very mysterious, indeed. The spirits tell me many things. Oh, oh, hmm! And my tummy is also telling me something. If you'll excuse me, all of this communing with the spirits has made me hungry.
MOLLY BLOOM: So we're just hanging out here with the ghosts, I guess?
HARRY HOUDINI: No need for alarm, friends.
AGATHA: Whoa, who are you?
HARRY HOUDINI: Harry Houdini, legendary stage magician, at your service.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, holy cow! The guy who did all those amazing escape tricks, who could pick locks with his toes, who made an elephant disappear?
HARRY HOUDINI: The very same. I see you're familiar with some of my stage work, but I also did quite a bit of fraud debunking in my day. You see, around 100 years ago, when jazz and the radio were both new, magicians psychics and seances were all the rage. But a lot of these performers used trickery to convince people they could communicate with dear departed family members. And they often duped folks out of lots of money for the privilege.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, that is extremely not cool.
HARRY HOUDINI: Thanks to my career in stage magic, I just about every trick in the book. I even invented a lot of them. So I used to travel across the United States to watch these so-called psychics and mediums do their thing. And you know what, I never once met one who convinced me. I saw one performance where a psychic called Antonio The Amazing seemed to know everything about a fella in the audience. He even knew his favorite restaurant and the name of his dog.
AGATHA: Whoa.
HARRY HOUDINI: Eh, don't be too impressed. It turned out the so-called psychic had a partner who followed this fellow around for a week before the show. After learning all kinds of things, the partner reported back to Antonio, who used the information to wow the crowd.
AGATHA: Oh, more like Antonio The Underwhelming. But Madame Sylvia sure knows how to get the spirits talking, huh. Did you see the pictures move? I was a little scared.
MOLLY BLOOM: I was, too! A ghost touched my face!
HARRY HOUDINI: Oh, don't worry, you two. There's nothing haunted going on here. Look under the table. There's a mallet controlled by a wire connected to the medium's foot. When she taps the foot, it thumps the table. And the picture's on the wall? Well, they're all moved by thin wires as well.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK. But I definitely felt a ghost's hand.
HARRY HOUDINI: That was just a long silk glove stuffed with cotton. These fakers often have accomplices who sneak into the dark seance room and move things around or convince people they're touching something ghostly. Madame Sylvia, you are a fraud!
AGATHA: All tricks? Thanks, Houdini. I guess she wasn't real medium after all.
MOLLY BLOOM: But speaking of talking with the dearly departed, didn't you, Harry Houdini, die way back in 1926?
HARRY HOUDINI: Yes. And appearing on this podcast is my greatest trick of all. How did I do it? I'll never tell. Farewell, farewell!
MOLLY BLOOM: Hey, Agatha, that last bit reminded me of a joke. Did you hear about the very short spirit communicator who escaped from prison?
AGATHA: No.
MOLLY BLOOM: She became a small medium at large. Ha, ha! Wordplay. Good stuff. Well, here's something that requires the super power of close listening. It's the [MYSTERY SOUND PLAYING] mystery sound. Here it is. [BUBBLE WRAP POPPING] What are your thoughts?
AGATHA: I think that it's sparklers or fireworks going off, or I thought somebody has thrown something into a fire and it start to burn. Something that reminds me of fire and fireworks.
MOLLY BLOOM: Excellent. Something combustible is what you're hearing. But we're going to hear the answer at the end of the show after the credits. I'll give you another chance to guess. So stick with us.
SPEAKER 1: Brains On!
MOLLY BLOOM: So, Agatha, we've been talking about how people have used the idea of mystical brain abilities for entertainment purposes--
AGATHA: --and for shows that are really shady shams.
MOLLY BLOOM: But entertainment isn't the only area where people have gotten super into psychics and mind powers. There's been serious research into it. Think about it. If we could find a way to harness the ability of mind control in some way, it could be so powerful. And if spies could read minds, it would make their jobs a lot easier.
AGATHA: Yeah, I think I heard somewhere that there was a secret US government research into brain powers that--
SPEAKER 2: Did somebody say secret? Like secret agent, which I am absolutely not. I am simply a regular person in a black suit and tie and sunglasses. Very normal. Nothing to see here.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yes. But if you were a secret agent, would you tell us about government research into brain powers?
SPEAKER 2: Oh, I would absolutely never tell you that in 1976, the Boeing Aircraft Corporation conducted a study where they determined that certain people appeared to be able to control a random number generator with their mind. This generator would spit out numbers. And these special people could make it spit out their chosen number through sheer willpower or so it seemed. But nobody has ever been able to reproduce these results. So I'm not sure what was going "boeing" on over there.
AGATHA: Wow!
SPEAKER 2: And I would never mention that from the 1960s through the 1980s and even as late as 1996, government agencies were studying things like people seeing without their eyes and people moving objects with their minds. And they weren't even trying to determine whether homing pigeons used special senses other than their vision to find their way home. Because if they were trying to do these things, that would be weird, right? But, anyway, so far nothing has shown that these things exist.
MOLLY BLOOM: So no psychic pigeons? That's probably for the best. They just read our minds to find out how to steal more fries from us at ballgames.
SPEAKER 2: Right. So remember, the government is definitely not interested in these things and definitely does not research them. But if they did, so far they would have found zero proof that any super brain powers actually exist.
AGATHA: The government was interested in this but never found any evidence it's real. Got it.
SPEAKER 2: And I was never here.
MOLLY BLOOM: Right. You were never-- wait, where'd the agent go?
AGATHA: Vanished! Wow, this episode is full of surprises.
MOLLY BLOOM: Indeed. Coming up, we'll tell you about some very cool, very real, cutting-edge technology that could one day help people move things with their mind.
AGATHA: So stay tuned.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MOLLY BLOOM: You ever want to see me, Mark, and Sanden sing, dance, and talk seance in person? Well, now you can. We are going on tour. This spring will be in Boston, Los Angeles, and Saint Paul, Minnesota with our stage show, Your Brain is Magic. Come see us explain the wonder of the human brain and join us for magic tricks, games, and more. Get info at brainson.org/events.
AGATHA: And while you're there, we want to hear your favorite tongue twister.
MOLLY BLOOM: That's right. We're doing an episode about tongue twisters, and we want to hear you share one. Record yourself saying one of these tongue-tripping phrases and send it to us at brainson.org/contact. Agatha, I'm just wondering, do you have a favorite tongue twister?
AGATHA: Peter Piper picked-- I forgot it.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah, Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers?
AGATHA: Peppers, yeah. I like that one.
MOLLY BLOOM: I find-- you know what's a really hard one? You should try it. Red leather, yellow leather. Red leather, yellow leather.
AGATHA: Yeah, red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry, yellow lorry. That's the one I've heard of before.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, that's tricky. So please send us your favorite tongue twisters at brainson.org/contact.
AGATHA: You can also send us drawing, mystery sounds, or questions like this one.
SIMON: Hi, my name is Simon from San Carlos, California. My question is, why do leaves change color only in the fall?
MOLLY BLOOM: To hear the answer, listen to our new podcast, Moment of Um!
AGATHA: It's a daily bite-sized dose of cool facts.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yep. And stick around after our credits to hear the answer to the mystery sound and the latest group to join the Brain's Honor Roll.
AGATHA: So keep listening. You're listening to Brains On! I'm Agatha.
MOLLY BLOOM: And I'm Molly. And today we're talking about the idea of super brain powers.
AGATHA: Like the ability to read minds or move things just by thinking about it.
MOLLY BLOOM: And while there have been plenty of people who claim they can do these fantastical things, so far there's no scientific proof they actually can. But that doesn't stop us from thinking about it.
AGATHA: Right! We asked you all what you would do if you had the power to move things with your mind. Here's what you said.
SPEAKER 3: If I had telekinesis, I would take all the litter out of Earth and put it in recycling bins.
SPEAKER 4: Well, if I had telekinesis power, I will move stuff. And I'll pick up stuff if someone's in danger.
SPEAKER 5: When I'm playing soccer, I'm usually playing goalie. So if the ball is going to high, move it down to catch it.
SPEAKER 6: I would use my telekinesis to make cookies while I did my homework.
SPEAKER 7: I will take over the world.
HANNAH: Hi, my name is Hannah. And if I had the power of telekinesis, it would be moving house. My name would be Houses Hannah. So I could move people's houses so they wouldn't have to move to a new one.
SPEAKER 8: I will move my whole house to Colorado, and I will have so much fun there.
SPEAKER 9: If I had telekinesis, I would grab the seeds from everywhere and plant it in different parts of the world.
SPEAKER 10: If I had telekinesis, I'll use it to grab snack.
SPEAKER 11: And also, if my parents said, well, you have to clean your room before you watch TV. While I was eating dinner, I could just use my fingers and clean up my room during dinner. And then watch TV right after dinner.
SPEAKER 12: I would use it to lift up my annoying brother whenever he acted annoying.
SPEAKER 13: I would have my toothbrush come to me in the morning. And I'd have my clothes come to me so I don't have to be late to school. And that I'm just chilling in my chair.
SPEAKER 14: And if I had the power of telekinesis, I would make a whole feast for me and my family.
SPEAKER 15: I'd stay on the couch all day and just wiggle my fingers and magic stuff towards me. I'd never have to move!
MOLLY BLOOM: Thanks to Quinn, Israel, Marcel, Margo, Linus, Hannah, Colt, William, Laila, Iqra, Sydney, Eileen, and Evelyn for those mind-bending answers. So very creative.
AGATHA: OK. So it's fun to think about, but it's a little disappointing. We can't really throw baseballs with our brains or read someone's mind after all.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: Don't give up hope yet, Agatha.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, hey, it's our pal, Anna Goldfield.
AGATHA: Wait! Anna, are you saying we could have awesome brain powers?
ANNA GOLDFIELD: Oh, yeah, kind of. Scientists are figuring out how to harness the powers in our brain to do things we only used to dream of. It turns out you don't need mystical abilities to move objects with your mind. You just need a computer. BCIs hold so much promise.
AGATHA: BCIs? Big cool igloos? Bear cuddle island?
MOLLY BLOOM: Banana cookie icing?
ANNA GOLDFIELD: That sounds delicious. And I would absolutely visit bear cuddle island. But BCIs are Brain Computer Interfaces. These are devices that help our brains talk to computers. So imagine if you could use your brain to just think about moving something and then a computer made a robot arm move that thing for you.
AGATHA: That would be very cool. Sounds like sci-fi.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: For a long time, it was. But scientists are making real progress turning this idea into a reality. One group that this could really help are people who have lost a limb like a leg or an arm.
MOLLY BLOOM: All right, so they could use a mechanical arm and have their brains tell it what to do. So how does this brain computer interface stuff work?
ANNA GOLDFIELD: I spoke to one of the researchers working on BCIs, and she gave me all the juicy brain details.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, juicy brains. Tell us everything.
JEN COLLINGER: I'm Jen Collinger. I'm an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. So if we think about controlling movement, it really does start in the brain.
AGATHA: Movement starts in the brain, even if I'm moving like my pinky toe? That's as far away from my brain as you can get.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: So here's the thing. That big old meatball between your ears is made of billions of special cells called neurons. Those cells communicate with each other by passing tiny little pulses of electricity back and forth. They also send electrical signals down your spinal cord, which starts at your brain and runs down your backbone connecting to all the different parts of your body.
AGATHA: That's the nervous system, right?
ANNA GOLDFIELD: Yes! So your brain sends signals through your spinal cord to tell your body parts to move. And your body parts also use the same path to send signals back to the brain about what they are seeing or feeling or smelling. Here's Jen again.
JEN COLLINGER: So if we think about trying to generate a movement, what happens is that neurons in an area of our brain called the motor cortex become active. And then they send electrical signals down to the brainstem and through the spinal cord and eventually to nerves that are connected to your muscles. And this signals the muscles to contract, thus generating movement.
MOLLY BLOOM: So the spinal cord is like a superhighway of body signals. Lots of important messages are sent through there.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: Yep! But sometimes an injury can damage the spinal cord. And then the brain and the body can't communicate. Our expert, Jen Collinger, works with people with injuries like this.
AGATHA: What happens then?
ANNA GOLDFIELD: In that case, the line of communication to the body is cut off like there's a gap in the path. And the electrical signal can't get where it needs to go. And that's where BCIs come in. A computer can fill in the gap between the brain and what it's trying to move.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK. Well, so that means a computer has to know what someone's brain is trying to do, right? So the computer basically has to read your mind. But how?
JEN COLLINGER: So something that's really interesting is that when somebody imagines performing a movement, it actually generates really similar activity patterns to what are generated during actual movements.
AGATHA: So if I imagine I'm raising my hand to high five you, in my brain, it looks like I'm actually raising my hand and high fiving you?
ANNA GOLDFIELD: Yes and yes. High five! As long as you can peek at what the brain is doing, people can just think of movements. And a computer should be able to figure out what the movement is.
MOLLY BLOOM: So how do you peek at the brain without having X-ray vision?
ANNA GOLDFIELD: We use tiny devices called electrodes. These look like little stickers, and they can detect electricity. You put them all over someone's head, and these electrodes can sense what is happening in our electric meatball brains. Those electrodes are able to read which parts of the brain are lighting up with electrical signals when that person thinks really hard about, say, moving their arm up and down.
AGATHA: So it is like reading someone's mind. That is so cool!
JEN COLLINGER: The way that we calibrate our system is by having them try to imagine different movements while they follow along with an arm and hand moving around on a computer screen. So our computer is moving it to different targets and grasping different objects. And we can record the movements of that virtual arm while the participants are imagining performing those movements with their own arm.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: So they're basically teaching the computer how to understand the brain's language. And as the person follows along with the computer, the computer reads what the electrical signals in their brain are doing and matches those signals with specific movements.
MOLLY BLOOM: Like when you're learning French and you learn that the sounds [FRENCH] mean, where is the grapefruit? You can then communicate where is the grapefruit to someone who speaks French.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: Exactly. And here is the super amazing part. Once the computer has learned the specific language of a person's brain, the person can use a real-life mechanical robot arm that is also connected to the computer. They can focus really hard on the idea of moving their own arm up and down or side to side. And the computer recognizes what those brain signals mean and moves the robot arm for real.
JEN COLLINGER: Even though we're not performing telekinesis, right, there's no invisible force that is enabling people to control objects across the room, we can decode those patterns of activity to control a robotic arm so that people can pick up and move objects just by thinking about it.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: So Jen and other researchers are working to help people who have been injured. The goal is for the patients to be able to touch things and pick them up and move them with a robotic arm just using their thoughts. And that's not all.
JEN COLLINGER: So we can stimulate an area of the brain called the somatosensory cortex that typically receives that tactile input from your hand. And that can generate the feeling of touch, even when the person's hand is not actually touching something. The people that we work with have had long term spinal cord injury. And so their hand has been disconnected from the brain. And so we're able to generate those sensations.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: So not only could people control these robotic arms with their minds, they might even one day be able to feel what the hand is holding.
MOLLY BLOOM: Man, brain computer interfaces are amazing, even more amazing than bear cuddle island.
AGATHA: They really are! Who knew that we had such a cool bowl of electric brain meat in our skulls! I'm going to go practice thinking really, really hard about flying. Maybe one day, I can hook a computer up to my brain and float around.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: Um, maybe one day.
MOLLY BLOOM: Who needs movie magic or stage trickery when we have such amazing brains? We've all got electric superpowers. Thanks, Anna.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: No problem, Molly.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
AGATHA: Throughout history, people have claimed that they had supernatural powers, but there's no proof we can move things with our brains or read people's minds.
MOLLY BLOOM: But with new technology, we are learning how to read the signals sent by our brains to the rest of our body.
AGATHA: Scientists are using these inventions to help people with spinal injuries control machines with their minds. It's not supernatural, but I think it's pretty super.
MOLLY BLOOM: That's it for this episode of Brains On!
AGATHA: Brains On! Is produced by Molly Bloom, Sanden Totten, Marc Sanchez, Rose Dupont, and Ruby Guthrie.
MOLLY BLOOM: Anna Goldfield is our amazing fellow whose superpower was writing this episode. We had engineering help from Mark Stroman, Jess Berg, and Derek Ramirez. This episode was sound designed by Eduardo Perez. Our executive producer is Beth Perlman. And the executives in charge of APM Studio are Lily Kim, Alex Schaffert, and Joanne Griffith. Special thanks to Robin Selger.
AGATHA: Brains On! is a nonprofit public radio program.
MOLLY BLOOM: There are lots of ways you can support the show. You can donate, buy our books, or tell your friends about us.
AGATHA: Head to brainson.org to find the links to donate and order the books.
MOLLY BLOOM: Now before we go, let's go back to that mystery sound. Here it is again. [BUBBLE WRAP POPPING] Any new thoughts when you hear it this time?
AGATHA: Um, actually, no new guesses. I actually think that's the same thing as before.
MOLLY BLOOM: Still something fiery, fireworks, log crackling, something like that?
AGATHA: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: Are you ready for the answer?
AGATHA: Yeah.
BEATRICE: Hi, I'm Beatrice from Orinda, California. And that was the sound of me crawling on bubble wrap. I was crawling on bubble wrap because I could pop lots of bubbles at the same time. And it sounded like firecrackers. Pop! Pop!
AGATHA: Ah!
MOLLY BLOOM: So it was bubble wrap. Agatha, that was a great guest, though. Even Beatrice, who sent in that sound, thinks it sounds like firecrackers. So are you familiar with bubble wrap?
AGATHA: Yeah, we have lots of those. Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: It does sound a lot like firecrackers. It's that little popping sound.
AGATHA: Yeah, it does it. It was hard to guess.
MOLLY BLOOM: It is a hard one. These are always so hard. Do you like to pop bubble wrap?
AGATHA: Yes, a lot. Whenever we get boxes, I've got bubble wrap. And I just-- me and my sister just go start jumping on it, pressing it, popping it. And we can just do it for hours.
MOLLY BLOOM: It is so fun. If you have a mystery sound you want to share with us, you can do that at brainson.org/contact. Everyone who sends a question, idea, mystery sound, drawing, or high five gets added to the Brain's honor roll. Here's the most recent group of listeners to be added.
[LISTING HONOR ROLL]
We'll be back soon with more answers to your questions.
AGATHA: Thanks for listening!
MOLLY BLOOM: What are you doing, Agatha?
AGATHA: Oh, hey, Molly! I was just thinking about Star Wars. I watched it last night. And you know how the light sabers go, vroom! And then tsssh! And the coolest part is when the Jedi has used the force. And it's like, hrrm! And they can move stuff with their mind. That was my favorite.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, yeah, that is always so cool. Like Matilda in Roald Dahl's book, she can move stuff around just by thinking about it, too, or Magneto from the X-Men comics, he can make a metal do whatever he wants.
AGATHA: Yeah, through telekinesis.
MOLLY BLOOM: Right, that's the power to move stuff with your mind.
AGATHA: Which is different from telepathy.
MOLLY BLOOM: That's the power to read minds.
AGATHA: And telephony.
MOLLY BLOOM: What?
AGATHA: That's the power to talk to other minds using a telephone. I have that power.
MOLLY BLOOM: Me, too. Hey, did you know I also have telethemesis?
AGATHA: Whoa, what's that?
MOLLY BLOOM: The ability to start the theme song just by thinking about it. Like this-- [GROANING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
AGATHA: Whoa, that was amazing!
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah, I'm still figuring out how to fight crime with it. But it comes in handy as a show host.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is Brains On! From APM Studios. I'm Molly Bloom. And with me today is Agatha from London. Hi, Agatha!
AGATHA: Hi, Molly.
MOLLY BLOOM: So, Agatha, you asked us a very intriguing question. What was it?
AGATHA: Can people actually read minds?
MOLLY BLOOM: So what made you think of this question?
AGATHA: Ah, well, I kind of thought that maybe magicians could like know a magic trick to actually know how to view what's inside people's minds to know if they're telling the truth or not.
MOLLY BLOOM: So do you wish you had the power to read minds?
AGATHA: Yes, because then I would know who's telling the truth if my sister's telling a lie or something.
MOLLY BLOOM: [LAUGHS] So do you think she's maybe fibbing sometimes?
AGATHA: Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: Do you think it would make the world a better place or a worse place if people had the power to read minds?
AGATHA: Well, if everybody had the power to read minds, it wouldn't make the world the best place, because you would know everything that people are thinking. But if specific people like police officers knew how to read people's minds, I think it would make the world a better place.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah. So what if your parents had the power to read your mind, would that be useful?
AGATHA: No.
MOLLY BLOOM: [LAUGHS]
AGATHA: Completely not.
MOLLY BLOOM: Does it feel sometimes like your parents can read your mind?
AGATHA: Definitely. They kind of know when I'm telling the truth or a lie.
MOLLY BLOOM: [CHUCKLES] So your parents do have that power a teeny bit. So how about the power of moving things with your mind-- telekinesis? What would you do with it?
AGATHA: Well, I would-- because sometimes I can't get out of bed in the morning, I would get my clothes from my wardrobe using my mind and bring them onto my bed so I could get dressed like that.
MOLLY BLOOM: Nice. So prolong that bedtime. I appreciate that.
AGATHA: Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: Are there other superpowers you wish you had?
AGATHA: Flying, because then I could see the world below me, like know what's going on.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah, flying would be a very, very useful superpower. And you are not the only one to ask us about cool brain powers. We also got these questions.
NADIA: Hello, my name is Nadia from Sheffield, United Kingdom. And my question is, why can't humans have superpowers? I thought of this question whilst watching Spider Man, and I thought how exciting and fun it must be to have superpowers.
FRANK: My name is Frank from Estonia. And my question is, is it possible to read other people's minds? This question came to mind because it always seems like my mom knows what I'm thinking.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MOLLY BLOOM: Those are such great questions. It's so fun to imagine having superpowers. Are our brains capable of more than we know?
AGATHA: If I practiced really hard, could I pick up my drink without using my hands? Man, that would be cool! I could tie my shoes and at the same time [SLURPS], or I could talk right into my friend's brain and don't get shushed at the library.
MOLLY BLOOM: The idea of mystical brain powers isn't a new one. In ancient Greece, rulers would often consult seers or oracles to help them predict the future and make important decisions. These oracles were often thought to have special powers that let them communicate with the gods.
AGATHA: And around 100 years ago in Europe and America, performance stages were packed with psychics who claim to be able to read minds. And in the 1920s and '30s in America, there were even psychics on the radio.
MOLLY BLOOM: Well, there are psychics who have TV shows today. So I guess I should have seen that coming. Get it?
AGATHA: Nice one. And then there are spiritualists and mediums.
MOLLY BLOOM: Those are both names for people who claim to use their minds to contact spirits or ghosts. They lead parties called seances, where people sit together in dark rooms and try to contact the supernatural realm.
AGATHA: Spooky.
SYLVIA: Did someone call for a medium?
MOLLY BLOOM: Whoa, who are you? And where did all this mist come from?
SYLVIA: Oh, sorry! I travel with a smoke machine at all times. [COUGHS] My name is Madame Sylvia, medium and mystic to the stars. I heard you mentioned us seance. What a supernatural serendipity. I'm just on my way to hold a seance of my own. Would you care to attend?
AGATHA: Will that be ghosts? Will you read my mind?
SYLVIA: Oh, absolutely, my dear. Mm-hmm, for sure.
AGATHA: Cool.
MOLLY BLOOM: Lead the way, Sylvia.
SYLVIA: It's so dark in here. Everyone join hands around the table. Be silent now. I feel the spirits are arriving. Yes, yes! I sense them in the room with us. Spirits, if you are there, make yourself known!
[ETHEREAL WHOOSHING AND CLATTERING]
AGATHA: Molly, something's stumping on the table.
MOLLY BLOOM: I just felt a ghost's hand touch my face.
AGATHA: The pictures on that wall are moving! I'm freaking out!
SYLVIA: Yes, very mysterious, indeed. The spirits tell me many things. Oh, oh, hmm! And my tummy is also telling me something. If you'll excuse me, all of this communing with the spirits has made me hungry.
MOLLY BLOOM: So we're just hanging out here with the ghosts, I guess?
HARRY HOUDINI: No need for alarm, friends.
AGATHA: Whoa, who are you?
HARRY HOUDINI: Harry Houdini, legendary stage magician, at your service.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, holy cow! The guy who did all those amazing escape tricks, who could pick locks with his toes, who made an elephant disappear?
HARRY HOUDINI: The very same. I see you're familiar with some of my stage work, but I also did quite a bit of fraud debunking in my day. You see, around 100 years ago, when jazz and the radio were both new, magicians psychics and seances were all the rage. But a lot of these performers used trickery to convince people they could communicate with dear departed family members. And they often duped folks out of lots of money for the privilege.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, that is extremely not cool.
HARRY HOUDINI: Thanks to my career in stage magic, I just about every trick in the book. I even invented a lot of them. So I used to travel across the United States to watch these so-called psychics and mediums do their thing. And you know what, I never once met one who convinced me. I saw one performance where a psychic called Antonio The Amazing seemed to know everything about a fella in the audience. He even knew his favorite restaurant and the name of his dog.
AGATHA: Whoa.
HARRY HOUDINI: Eh, don't be too impressed. It turned out the so-called psychic had a partner who followed this fellow around for a week before the show. After learning all kinds of things, the partner reported back to Antonio, who used the information to wow the crowd.
AGATHA: Oh, more like Antonio The Underwhelming. But Madame Sylvia sure knows how to get the spirits talking, huh. Did you see the pictures move? I was a little scared.
MOLLY BLOOM: I was, too! A ghost touched my face!
HARRY HOUDINI: Oh, don't worry, you two. There's nothing haunted going on here. Look under the table. There's a mallet controlled by a wire connected to the medium's foot. When she taps the foot, it thumps the table. And the picture's on the wall? Well, they're all moved by thin wires as well.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK. But I definitely felt a ghost's hand.
HARRY HOUDINI: That was just a long silk glove stuffed with cotton. These fakers often have accomplices who sneak into the dark seance room and move things around or convince people they're touching something ghostly. Madame Sylvia, you are a fraud!
AGATHA: All tricks? Thanks, Houdini. I guess she wasn't real medium after all.
MOLLY BLOOM: But speaking of talking with the dearly departed, didn't you, Harry Houdini, die way back in 1926?
HARRY HOUDINI: Yes. And appearing on this podcast is my greatest trick of all. How did I do it? I'll never tell. Farewell, farewell!
MOLLY BLOOM: Hey, Agatha, that last bit reminded me of a joke. Did you hear about the very short spirit communicator who escaped from prison?
AGATHA: No.
MOLLY BLOOM: She became a small medium at large. Ha, ha! Wordplay. Good stuff. Well, here's something that requires the super power of close listening. It's the [MYSTERY SOUND PLAYING] mystery sound. Here it is. [BUBBLE WRAP POPPING] What are your thoughts?
AGATHA: I think that it's sparklers or fireworks going off, or I thought somebody has thrown something into a fire and it start to burn. Something that reminds me of fire and fireworks.
MOLLY BLOOM: Excellent. Something combustible is what you're hearing. But we're going to hear the answer at the end of the show after the credits. I'll give you another chance to guess. So stick with us.
SPEAKER 1: Brains On!
MOLLY BLOOM: So, Agatha, we've been talking about how people have used the idea of mystical brain abilities for entertainment purposes--
AGATHA: --and for shows that are really shady shams.
MOLLY BLOOM: But entertainment isn't the only area where people have gotten super into psychics and mind powers. There's been serious research into it. Think about it. If we could find a way to harness the ability of mind control in some way, it could be so powerful. And if spies could read minds, it would make their jobs a lot easier.
AGATHA: Yeah, I think I heard somewhere that there was a secret US government research into brain powers that--
SPEAKER 2: Did somebody say secret? Like secret agent, which I am absolutely not. I am simply a regular person in a black suit and tie and sunglasses. Very normal. Nothing to see here.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yes. But if you were a secret agent, would you tell us about government research into brain powers?
SPEAKER 2: Oh, I would absolutely never tell you that in 1976, the Boeing Aircraft Corporation conducted a study where they determined that certain people appeared to be able to control a random number generator with their mind. This generator would spit out numbers. And these special people could make it spit out their chosen number through sheer willpower or so it seemed. But nobody has ever been able to reproduce these results. So I'm not sure what was going "boeing" on over there.
AGATHA: Wow!
SPEAKER 2: And I would never mention that from the 1960s through the 1980s and even as late as 1996, government agencies were studying things like people seeing without their eyes and people moving objects with their minds. And they weren't even trying to determine whether homing pigeons used special senses other than their vision to find their way home. Because if they were trying to do these things, that would be weird, right? But, anyway, so far nothing has shown that these things exist.
MOLLY BLOOM: So no psychic pigeons? That's probably for the best. They just read our minds to find out how to steal more fries from us at ballgames.
SPEAKER 2: Right. So remember, the government is definitely not interested in these things and definitely does not research them. But if they did, so far they would have found zero proof that any super brain powers actually exist.
AGATHA: The government was interested in this but never found any evidence it's real. Got it.
SPEAKER 2: And I was never here.
MOLLY BLOOM: Right. You were never-- wait, where'd the agent go?
AGATHA: Vanished! Wow, this episode is full of surprises.
MOLLY BLOOM: Indeed. Coming up, we'll tell you about some very cool, very real, cutting-edge technology that could one day help people move things with their mind.
AGATHA: So stay tuned.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MOLLY BLOOM: You ever want to see me, Mark, and Sanden sing, dance, and talk seance in person? Well, now you can. We are going on tour. This spring will be in Boston, Los Angeles, and Saint Paul, Minnesota with our stage show, Your Brain is Magic. Come see us explain the wonder of the human brain and join us for magic tricks, games, and more. Get info at brainson.org/events.
AGATHA: And while you're there, we want to hear your favorite tongue twister.
MOLLY BLOOM: That's right. We're doing an episode about tongue twisters, and we want to hear you share one. Record yourself saying one of these tongue-tripping phrases and send it to us at brainson.org/contact. Agatha, I'm just wondering, do you have a favorite tongue twister?
AGATHA: Peter Piper picked-- I forgot it.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah, Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers?
AGATHA: Peppers, yeah. I like that one.
MOLLY BLOOM: I find-- you know what's a really hard one? You should try it. Red leather, yellow leather. Red leather, yellow leather.
AGATHA: Yeah, red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry, yellow lorry. That's the one I've heard of before.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, that's tricky. So please send us your favorite tongue twisters at brainson.org/contact.
AGATHA: You can also send us drawing, mystery sounds, or questions like this one.
SIMON: Hi, my name is Simon from San Carlos, California. My question is, why do leaves change color only in the fall?
MOLLY BLOOM: To hear the answer, listen to our new podcast, Moment of Um!
AGATHA: It's a daily bite-sized dose of cool facts.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yep. And stick around after our credits to hear the answer to the mystery sound and the latest group to join the Brain's Honor Roll.
AGATHA: So keep listening. You're listening to Brains On! I'm Agatha.
MOLLY BLOOM: And I'm Molly. And today we're talking about the idea of super brain powers.
AGATHA: Like the ability to read minds or move things just by thinking about it.
MOLLY BLOOM: And while there have been plenty of people who claim they can do these fantastical things, so far there's no scientific proof they actually can. But that doesn't stop us from thinking about it.
AGATHA: Right! We asked you all what you would do if you had the power to move things with your mind. Here's what you said.
SPEAKER 3: If I had telekinesis, I would take all the litter out of Earth and put it in recycling bins.
SPEAKER 4: Well, if I had telekinesis power, I will move stuff. And I'll pick up stuff if someone's in danger.
SPEAKER 5: When I'm playing soccer, I'm usually playing goalie. So if the ball is going to high, move it down to catch it.
SPEAKER 6: I would use my telekinesis to make cookies while I did my homework.
SPEAKER 7: I will take over the world.
HANNAH: Hi, my name is Hannah. And if I had the power of telekinesis, it would be moving house. My name would be Houses Hannah. So I could move people's houses so they wouldn't have to move to a new one.
SPEAKER 8: I will move my whole house to Colorado, and I will have so much fun there.
SPEAKER 9: If I had telekinesis, I would grab the seeds from everywhere and plant it in different parts of the world.
SPEAKER 10: If I had telekinesis, I'll use it to grab snack.
SPEAKER 11: And also, if my parents said, well, you have to clean your room before you watch TV. While I was eating dinner, I could just use my fingers and clean up my room during dinner. And then watch TV right after dinner.
SPEAKER 12: I would use it to lift up my annoying brother whenever he acted annoying.
SPEAKER 13: I would have my toothbrush come to me in the morning. And I'd have my clothes come to me so I don't have to be late to school. And that I'm just chilling in my chair.
SPEAKER 14: And if I had the power of telekinesis, I would make a whole feast for me and my family.
SPEAKER 15: I'd stay on the couch all day and just wiggle my fingers and magic stuff towards me. I'd never have to move!
MOLLY BLOOM: Thanks to Quinn, Israel, Marcel, Margo, Linus, Hannah, Colt, William, Laila, Iqra, Sydney, Eileen, and Evelyn for those mind-bending answers. So very creative.
AGATHA: OK. So it's fun to think about, but it's a little disappointing. We can't really throw baseballs with our brains or read someone's mind after all.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: Don't give up hope yet, Agatha.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, hey, it's our pal, Anna Goldfield.
AGATHA: Wait! Anna, are you saying we could have awesome brain powers?
ANNA GOLDFIELD: Oh, yeah, kind of. Scientists are figuring out how to harness the powers in our brain to do things we only used to dream of. It turns out you don't need mystical abilities to move objects with your mind. You just need a computer. BCIs hold so much promise.
AGATHA: BCIs? Big cool igloos? Bear cuddle island?
MOLLY BLOOM: Banana cookie icing?
ANNA GOLDFIELD: That sounds delicious. And I would absolutely visit bear cuddle island. But BCIs are Brain Computer Interfaces. These are devices that help our brains talk to computers. So imagine if you could use your brain to just think about moving something and then a computer made a robot arm move that thing for you.
AGATHA: That would be very cool. Sounds like sci-fi.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: For a long time, it was. But scientists are making real progress turning this idea into a reality. One group that this could really help are people who have lost a limb like a leg or an arm.
MOLLY BLOOM: All right, so they could use a mechanical arm and have their brains tell it what to do. So how does this brain computer interface stuff work?
ANNA GOLDFIELD: I spoke to one of the researchers working on BCIs, and she gave me all the juicy brain details.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, juicy brains. Tell us everything.
JEN COLLINGER: I'm Jen Collinger. I'm an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. So if we think about controlling movement, it really does start in the brain.
AGATHA: Movement starts in the brain, even if I'm moving like my pinky toe? That's as far away from my brain as you can get.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: So here's the thing. That big old meatball between your ears is made of billions of special cells called neurons. Those cells communicate with each other by passing tiny little pulses of electricity back and forth. They also send electrical signals down your spinal cord, which starts at your brain and runs down your backbone connecting to all the different parts of your body.
AGATHA: That's the nervous system, right?
ANNA GOLDFIELD: Yes! So your brain sends signals through your spinal cord to tell your body parts to move. And your body parts also use the same path to send signals back to the brain about what they are seeing or feeling or smelling. Here's Jen again.
JEN COLLINGER: So if we think about trying to generate a movement, what happens is that neurons in an area of our brain called the motor cortex become active. And then they send electrical signals down to the brainstem and through the spinal cord and eventually to nerves that are connected to your muscles. And this signals the muscles to contract, thus generating movement.
MOLLY BLOOM: So the spinal cord is like a superhighway of body signals. Lots of important messages are sent through there.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: Yep! But sometimes an injury can damage the spinal cord. And then the brain and the body can't communicate. Our expert, Jen Collinger, works with people with injuries like this.
AGATHA: What happens then?
ANNA GOLDFIELD: In that case, the line of communication to the body is cut off like there's a gap in the path. And the electrical signal can't get where it needs to go. And that's where BCIs come in. A computer can fill in the gap between the brain and what it's trying to move.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK. Well, so that means a computer has to know what someone's brain is trying to do, right? So the computer basically has to read your mind. But how?
JEN COLLINGER: So something that's really interesting is that when somebody imagines performing a movement, it actually generates really similar activity patterns to what are generated during actual movements.
AGATHA: So if I imagine I'm raising my hand to high five you, in my brain, it looks like I'm actually raising my hand and high fiving you?
ANNA GOLDFIELD: Yes and yes. High five! As long as you can peek at what the brain is doing, people can just think of movements. And a computer should be able to figure out what the movement is.
MOLLY BLOOM: So how do you peek at the brain without having X-ray vision?
ANNA GOLDFIELD: We use tiny devices called electrodes. These look like little stickers, and they can detect electricity. You put them all over someone's head, and these electrodes can sense what is happening in our electric meatball brains. Those electrodes are able to read which parts of the brain are lighting up with electrical signals when that person thinks really hard about, say, moving their arm up and down.
AGATHA: So it is like reading someone's mind. That is so cool!
JEN COLLINGER: The way that we calibrate our system is by having them try to imagine different movements while they follow along with an arm and hand moving around on a computer screen. So our computer is moving it to different targets and grasping different objects. And we can record the movements of that virtual arm while the participants are imagining performing those movements with their own arm.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: So they're basically teaching the computer how to understand the brain's language. And as the person follows along with the computer, the computer reads what the electrical signals in their brain are doing and matches those signals with specific movements.
MOLLY BLOOM: Like when you're learning French and you learn that the sounds [FRENCH] mean, where is the grapefruit? You can then communicate where is the grapefruit to someone who speaks French.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: Exactly. And here is the super amazing part. Once the computer has learned the specific language of a person's brain, the person can use a real-life mechanical robot arm that is also connected to the computer. They can focus really hard on the idea of moving their own arm up and down or side to side. And the computer recognizes what those brain signals mean and moves the robot arm for real.
JEN COLLINGER: Even though we're not performing telekinesis, right, there's no invisible force that is enabling people to control objects across the room, we can decode those patterns of activity to control a robotic arm so that people can pick up and move objects just by thinking about it.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: So Jen and other researchers are working to help people who have been injured. The goal is for the patients to be able to touch things and pick them up and move them with a robotic arm just using their thoughts. And that's not all.
JEN COLLINGER: So we can stimulate an area of the brain called the somatosensory cortex that typically receives that tactile input from your hand. And that can generate the feeling of touch, even when the person's hand is not actually touching something. The people that we work with have had long term spinal cord injury. And so their hand has been disconnected from the brain. And so we're able to generate those sensations.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: So not only could people control these robotic arms with their minds, they might even one day be able to feel what the hand is holding.
MOLLY BLOOM: Man, brain computer interfaces are amazing, even more amazing than bear cuddle island.
AGATHA: They really are! Who knew that we had such a cool bowl of electric brain meat in our skulls! I'm going to go practice thinking really, really hard about flying. Maybe one day, I can hook a computer up to my brain and float around.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: Um, maybe one day.
MOLLY BLOOM: Who needs movie magic or stage trickery when we have such amazing brains? We've all got electric superpowers. Thanks, Anna.
ANNA GOLDFIELD: No problem, Molly.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
AGATHA: Throughout history, people have claimed that they had supernatural powers, but there's no proof we can move things with our brains or read people's minds.
MOLLY BLOOM: But with new technology, we are learning how to read the signals sent by our brains to the rest of our body.
AGATHA: Scientists are using these inventions to help people with spinal injuries control machines with their minds. It's not supernatural, but I think it's pretty super.
MOLLY BLOOM: That's it for this episode of Brains On!
AGATHA: Brains On! Is produced by Molly Bloom, Sanden Totten, Marc Sanchez, Rose Dupont, and Ruby Guthrie.
MOLLY BLOOM: Anna Goldfield is our amazing fellow whose superpower was writing this episode. We had engineering help from Mark Stroman, Jess Berg, and Derek Ramirez. This episode was sound designed by Eduardo Perez. Our executive producer is Beth Perlman. And the executives in charge of APM Studio are Lily Kim, Alex Schaffert, and Joanne Griffith. Special thanks to Robin Selger.
AGATHA: Brains On! is a nonprofit public radio program.
MOLLY BLOOM: There are lots of ways you can support the show. You can donate, buy our books, or tell your friends about us.
AGATHA: Head to brainson.org to find the links to donate and order the books.
MOLLY BLOOM: Now before we go, let's go back to that mystery sound. Here it is again. [BUBBLE WRAP POPPING] Any new thoughts when you hear it this time?
AGATHA: Um, actually, no new guesses. I actually think that's the same thing as before.
MOLLY BLOOM: Still something fiery, fireworks, log crackling, something like that?
AGATHA: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: Are you ready for the answer?
AGATHA: Yeah.
BEATRICE: Hi, I'm Beatrice from Orinda, California. And that was the sound of me crawling on bubble wrap. I was crawling on bubble wrap because I could pop lots of bubbles at the same time. And it sounded like firecrackers. Pop! Pop!
AGATHA: Ah!
MOLLY BLOOM: So it was bubble wrap. Agatha, that was a great guest, though. Even Beatrice, who sent in that sound, thinks it sounds like firecrackers. So are you familiar with bubble wrap?
AGATHA: Yeah, we have lots of those. Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: It does sound a lot like firecrackers. It's that little popping sound.
AGATHA: Yeah, it does it. It was hard to guess.
MOLLY BLOOM: It is a hard one. These are always so hard. Do you like to pop bubble wrap?
AGATHA: Yes, a lot. Whenever we get boxes, I've got bubble wrap. And I just-- me and my sister just go start jumping on it, pressing it, popping it. And we can just do it for hours.
MOLLY BLOOM: It is so fun. If you have a mystery sound you want to share with us, you can do that at brainson.org/contact. Everyone who sends a question, idea, mystery sound, drawing, or high five gets added to the Brain's honor roll. Here's the most recent group of listeners to be added.
[LISTING HONOR ROLL]
We'll be back soon with more answers to your questions.
AGATHA: Thanks for listening!
Transcription services provided by 3Play Media.
