Poopi Epi
INTRODUCTION
Swara: Welcome to the poopi epi of At Your Level, where we made a whole episode about excrement. Thank you Ari, I always dreamed of speaking publicly about this topic.
Wait what? This is actually happening? A poop episode? You wanna do a poop episode?
Ari: Yes, I know, some people are not as comfortable mucking around in this topic,
but if you can relax & let go, you’ll uncover treasures, Like…
Julianne: Sometimes I call myself a glorified pooper scooper.
Chloe: We are Swara, Ari & me, Chloe - your hosts for this exploratory episode
Chloe: .. and this is At Your Level
-trombone intro-
Swara: Hi there! It’s swara the great! And I have always been up for Ari and his mom’s ideas, but poop is honestly not the most appetizing topic for this episode (or any episode)… but I suppose it is my duty - badamtushhh- as co host to help along the way.
Ari: Thanks Swara!
Ari: Now I know that you don’t like talking about poop but Everyone poops, Right Chloe?
Chloe: Yep, Everyone poops, But what is poop? What is it made of?
What can it tell us about our bodies? How can it help us? And can we use it?
Ari: I promise you, this episode is not your regular log entry, it’ll get more and more enjoyable the longer you sit & tune in..
BIZARRE ASMR
Chloe: Let’s start this episode from the other end.
Chloe: It’s time for bizarre ASMR
Ari (whisper): you know, cause Bizarre ASMR has never appeared in the beginning of an episode.
Ari: But anyways, finding a bizarre ASMR for this poop episode was a challenge, but I got one.
Chloe: I’m going to play it for you now. Remember it IS bizarre! You’ve been warned.
-sound-
Chloe: What do you think that is? Any clue?
Remember the hint is always the episode’s title
Ari: No one’s gonna guess this one… and the answer is…. The infamous brown note.
Swara: What?
Chloe: The brown note <and I’m reading this straight from Wikipedia> is a hypothetical infrasonic frequency capable of causing fecal incontinence by creating acoustic resonance in the human bowel.
Ari: Get it? It’s a sound that supposedly makes you poop.
Swara: What is happening here?
Chloe: I hate to burst your bubble there Ari, but attempts to demonstrate the existence of a ‘brown note’ using sound waves transmitted through the air have failed.
Swara: Ok. I just have to say: this is the most Bizzare ASMR yet!!!
-trombone bit-
INTERVIEW
Ari: Would you like to meet our guests? Take it away Swara..
Swara: I really enjoyed meeting our guests on this - my first interview!!
Thanks for letting me join you Ari.
Ari: You rocked it!
Ari: Let’s begin.
Swara: Hi, can you please introduce yourselves:
Julianne:
Ada:
Swara: Thank you for that.
<< Interview >>
-trombone bit-
NERD OUT
It’s time to Nerd Out about poop. Shall we?
Honestly, there is so much to talk about! Like did you know that the smell of books can make some people need to poop?
It’s called the Mariko Aoki phenomenon. So just to be clear, this is a theory, not a fact, but according to bustle, the cause of this phenomenon is either the smell of old paper or ink having a laxative effect, the association of reading books and going to the loo, or the posture we have when we browse books. Um. I don’t know what posture these people are browsing books in, but this all seems a bit cockamamie to me.
So for this NerdOut, instead of giving you the run down of the digestive tract, you’re getting my top 10 poopi discoveries: Numero dos - yup I’m starting with Number two. Makes sense, but also the book thing was #1.
(2) You’ve heard the saying you are what we eat, well, as the BBC reported (https://www.bbc.com/news/health-43674270) more than half your body is not human..
Only 43% is, the rest aren't our cells but instead, these tiny organisms.. They’re on our skin, our nostrils, our hair.. But most of them are in our GUT! You know, our very own, individual, poop factories.
The bottom line: 57% of you, isn’t you! That means that more than half of your body is not human. My whole life is a lie…
(3) Which brings us to our gut where fact #3 lives. What if I told you that in your body was a mini-planet with many life forms living in it? Well, I am, and I’m not lying. It’s called your microbiome, and to anyone who has ever played Minecraft, I’m pretty sure you know what a biome is, and to any of you who don’t, it’s a habitat or an ecosystem. And your body IS one.
And micro, just means small.
In our guts, you know, where we bake our brownies, we each have our own planet of tiny colonists - these trillions of microbes are miniscule creatures like bacteria, fungi, parasites and viruses. Some are good and some are bad! When we’re healthy, they all live in harmony. But when something goes wrong in your body – which is their world, bad things happen. Like you get sick if a bad virus gets in there.
(4) So the 4th fact I got for ya, is related.. Cause at the end.. poop is mostly bacteria - not old food. According to Vox, 50 to 80 percent of your poop (excluding water) is actually bacteria that had been living in your intestines and was then ejected as food passed through.
(5) Now, moving away from our micro planet and even away from earth, I’ll have you know that Neil Armstrong, you know, the first man to walk on the moon, left four bags of poop behind.. Must have been a full moon. badanch.
(6).On to #6, cause there’s no time to waste when talking about our waste: I’ll have you know, this NerdOut is a challenge, I’m trying really hard (sound straining) to keep things scientific. But some of these doctors, I tell ya, they actually came up with a chart to measure your plop! It’s a scale that goes from 1 to 7. It’s called The Bristol Stool Chart, look it up. You want your stool to be a good 4 - and I quote ‘like a sausage or snake, smooth and soft’.
(7) Believe it or not, there’s a lot Dr’s can tell from your stool. The 7th fact I’ll share with you I thought is pretty cool. Sewage can take you straight to the source!! Like scientists are testing wastewater. I mean, think about it, if we’re all flushing them micro inhabitants down the toilet, then testing that water can help detect all sorts of diseaseases, even Covid-19!!! Let’s hear from our friend Leela from Newzy Poolouzi:
Thanks Leela
(8) Ok. I don’t mean to unloose your caboose with this discovery bit #8, but as you know, we’re not the only animals that do the doo doo.. This next fact’s pretty funny, are ya ready for it? Sloths only defecate once a week and they do a poo dance, now this one I thought was ridiculous. Why would they do that??! And why on the ground, which makes it easier for predators to eat them? I mean they’re so slow! Well, it is true. And this poo dance is even more ridiculous than it sounds, they dig a hole in the ground to go numero dos in, and THAT my friends is why pygmy sloths are endangered! Well, not really it's more the destruction of habitats and stuff, but still!
(9) I told you - so much ground to cover! What about fertilizer? Did you know you could use your dog hamster (or gerbils or guinea pig) poo to make fertilizer for your own garden? Yup! Scooper that pooper, we learned this from our neighbors and looked it up - these pets are usually fed a plant-based diet (unlike dogs or cats that usually eat some meat), so you can just dump that clump right on to that tree stump.. Or any part of your yard really, I just wanted to rhyme there.
(10) We’ve come to the finish line. Brace yourselves. For our final 10, I’m gonna give you some final 10.. Ways of saying it, without really saying it.. And I want extra credit for saying, without being gross..
10 - Do the Royal Squat
9 - Make a deposit at the porcelain bank
8 - Drop the kids off at the pool
7 - Launch a torpedo
6 - See a man about a horse
5 - Drop some potatoes in the crock pot
4 - Unload some timber
3 - Plant some corn
2 - Download some software
And my personal favorite:
1 - Barbarians at the gate
-trombone bit-
TUMBLE
Chloe: Did you notice in the NerdOut Ari talked about the trillions of citizens in your micro biome? And that if some bad ones throw your little universe off balance you can get sick.
Ari: In their science of poop episode, our podcast friends at Tumble explored, get this, poop transplants! Lindsay and Marshall sat with scientist Mary Roach and lucky us, they let us share this singular / delightful / fine bit with you.
-clip-
-trombone bit-
Ari: Ok, that was poop-tacular!
So, they said the fecal transplants are done with a colonoscopy, which is a long, flexible tube about the width of a finger with a light and small video camera on the end… that goes in.. the patient’s end. Fun!
This is actually a very common procedure, the Dr that performs it is a gastroenterologist, that was easy for me to say.
And lucky us, we got a kind of a big deal gastroenterologist to answer a question for us.
Dr. Jacqueline Wolf is a Dr at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center right here in Boston, she’s also an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
I asked her:
Ari: What poopi advise would you give kids today? And I mean not bad poopi, but good for your poopi.
Dr Wolf:
-trombone bit-
SONG
Ari: So we know what poop is, what different scientists can learn from it, but what about it’s journey.. Do you know what organs in your body are involved in making it? We have a special treat for you. Chloe wrote us all a song about the digestive tract - end to end.
🎵Chloe 🎵
The mouth chews up the food
The tongue pushes it down
The teeth grinds it into bits until it’s ready for the esophagus
But wait don’t forget about the phaynx
Also known as your throat
Carrying air food and fluid down from the nose
Just like a water slide the food slides down till it’s time for entrance into the stomach
Now it’s time for digesting
So your food can fit through your small intestines
Mixing enzymes all day every day
The stomach’s got it made!
Digesting and now absorption
The small intestine has it all
Absorbing Nutrients, minerals, carbohydrates, and fats
Now onto intestines number 2
The large intestines knows what it needs to do
Absorbing water along with everything else
Becoming liquid into stool
Without any help
The liver
Turning fat into energy
absorbing nutrients from the smallest intestines
Introducing gallbladder and also bile
Bile helps really clean you out of all the fat that might weigh you down
Unhealthy isn’t what your body wants
So the digestive system will do whatever it takes
Also with fats
Sugars and starches are involved
Thanks to the pancreas chiming in when gallbladder needed help
Don’t worry because the heavy stool isn’t for anyone else but rectum
Rectum carries it for as long as you need
Until you finally need to go poop or pee
Finally anus ends it all
Pushing it out on the toilet
Where it belongs
Yeah!
-trombone bit-
POOP QUIZ
Swara: It’s time for a poop quiz! Brace yourselves.
You’ll be hearing the voices of Ari, me.. Swara.. And our guests..
Ari: You’ve met Julianne & Ada, but what you didn’t know, is that Ada’s daughter Hannah, was sitting next to her the whole time! She was very quiet during the interview, but she shined in the poop quiz, let‘s say hello.
Hannah: Hi, My name is Hannah & I’m 6 years old
Swara: Hi Hannah and hello to all of you listeners too - as always you’re welcome to play along.
–poop quiz
-trombone bit-
BAD DAD
Liam: Hey Ari
Ari: Yes, hello father! Is it bad dad time?
Liam: I have been straining to come up with some good poop jokes for you..
Ari: Straining huh?
Liam: yeah, I didn’t wanna force it, I’m hoping it’ll just come out naturally.
Ari: that sentence was phrased very poorly
Ari: Ok, I’ll give you some time to um, brew.
Ari: How bout we start with you max?
MAX’s joke
Ari: Next we have Zoe
Zoe’s joke
Swara: My dad’s got one, can I hand him the mic?
Ari: Heck yeah! Hit it.
Swara’s dad:
And how about our esteemed guests Hannah, Ada & Julianne?
Ada:
Julia:
Ari: Ok dad, last chance..
Liam: What do you never appreciate till it’s gone?
Ari: Your joke?
Liam: toilet paper!
Ari: *fake laugh* nope… I still maintain that it’s your jokes!
-sad trombone-
Ari: Oh, but wait, we got a double poop joke. Take it away Anna
Anna: Why didn’t the toilet paper cross the road.
Ari: did not?
Anna: It was stuck in a crack
Ari: Oh!
Anna: Why did the toilet paper cross the road?
Anna: To get to the bottom.
Ari: That was so good, Anna, you get a new toot.
-new trombone toot for Anna-
THANK YOU
Ari: It’s the aftershock moment.
Have you ever heard of the term “poop friends”? We learned about it from a podcast called Invisibilia , they explain it as a friend you like to talk about your poop with. Now I don’t know if you have one of those, but if you can please think of one friend that you know will really enjoy this episode, please share it with them?
We know this one might be a little harder to <ahem> pass (; But honestly, every episode you share helps our podcast grow.
Chloe: We’d like to thank our amazing guests!
Swara: Yes, a big thank you to the University of Washington’s Center for Environmental Forensic Science’s Julianne & Ada.
Ari: and Thank you Hannah for joining us! It was really great to meet all of you.
And for all you kids out there listening, Julianne Ubigao co-wrote a book with children’s author, Jennifer Keats Curtis. It’s called Pooper Snooper and it’s about Julianne’s 4 legged coworker, Sampson, and their hunt for pocket mouse poop! Did you know the pacific pocket mouse scat is smaller than an eyelash? I learned that in the book, pretty crazy to think about right?
Chloe: One last thing, We want YOU in the next episode. Stay tuned till the very end, like after the outro, we’re gonna tell you what the next episode is about and how you can be in it.
Ari: So Thank you Dr Wolf, Thank you Lindsay & Marshal of Tumble, Thank you Leela of Newsy Poolouzi, and thank you, YOU, our listeners!
Chloe: Thank you Max, Zoe, Anna & Hanna for participating by recording your poop jokes.
You know the drill, At Your Level is a production of Art & Light Society
- Trombone outro -
The next episode will be about movies!! We’ll all get to meet a new friend - Zoe - she’s a listener that requested a ‘movies’ episode and is joining us, along with her mom Tina, in making this episode.
Zoe’s dad will be telling bad dad jokes & her uncle Vince, will be playing a game with us.
Chloe: And as we hope you know, we’d love to include YOU too.
When you listen to At Your Level, does your imagination sweep you away?
We invite you to take part in our process – and as promised, this is when we tell you how
I’m so excited that My godfather Errol will be returning to our show for a brand new ‘Trippin Errol’ segment!!
Errol knows EVERYTHING about EVERY movie!!!
SO…. here’s the deal: we need your help to trip him!!!
Record yourself asking a question about movies.
It can be about old movies or new movies
drama, comedy or action movies,
Where, when & who of movies.
Seriously though, please try your very best to stump this movie buff with your question.
I’ll be checking my email for your recordings.
~THE END~