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The Delicious Ice Cold Taste of Dr. Pepper has a lasting

0:28

effect on people. The

0:33

delicious ice cold taste of Dr. Pepper has

0:35

a lasting effect on people. Lindsay from Sacramento

0:37

said... Pro tip, 40 degrees is the

0:39

perfect temperature for an ice cold Dr. Pepper. Why

0:41

is 40 degrees the perfect temperature for Dr.

0:43

Pepper? We brought in Sue from Duluth, Minnesota to

0:45

tell us. Oh yeah, I know a thing or two

0:48

about cold. Oh, that right there is the

0:50

perfect kind of ice cold for Dr. Pepper. I'd

0:53

share that with my friend Nancy. She likes Dr.

0:55

Pepper too, you know. My coldest... Alright, that'll

0:57

be all, Sue. Having a perfect temperature for

0:59

your Dr. Pepper? It's a Pepper thing. Inspired

1:01

by Real Fan Posts. I

1:03

wouldn't speak up at pitch meetings. And

1:06

I remember it was Robert Krolwich who told

1:08

me, you know, you can contribute.

1:10

And I went, I'm the secretary. What are you

1:12

talking about? And he looked at me and went,

1:15

you have an opinion. I

1:17

think we'd like to hear it. This

1:22

is Radiolab. I'm Lulu Miller. Before

1:24

we hop into today's episode, I want to take

1:27

just a moment to introduce you to someone on

1:29

our team. I am David

1:31

Gable and I am the

1:33

administrative assistant for WNYC Studios.

1:36

He is very modest about what he does

1:38

at the show. I'm just like the

1:40

paperwork guy. But we absolutely could not

1:42

make Radiolab without him. I can't make

1:44

an episode, but I can make sure

1:47

people want to make an episode with

1:49

us. Whenever we hire someone to

1:51

do some work for the show, David is the

1:53

person they hear from. And

1:55

a lot of people hear from David. We can

1:57

talk fact checkers. I'm paying them every

1:59

month. Freelance reporting. And I've got our

2:01

illustrious, brilliant illustrator, Jared, that we're paying

2:03

him all the time. Uh-huh. For

2:06

all of mixtape, we had

2:08

a wonderful Chinese translator. David

2:10

also handles all of our

2:12

sometimes weird reporting expenses. Little

2:15

roadside hotels and water bottles

2:17

and bike rentals and microphones

2:19

and bug spray. I submitted,

2:21

I submitted a receipt that

2:23

had like $2.99 in

2:25

there for, for hand warmers

2:28

when I was like two hours from the Arctic

2:30

Circle. It's a lot

2:32

of little stuff. Yeah. But when

2:34

I finally hear the darn thing, it's nice

2:36

to like see the costume all put together,

2:38

not just the pieces of cloth all over

2:41

the place. And like see the parts you

2:43

sewed. Yeah. See the parts that

2:45

I sewed going, oh, that's what that bill was for.

2:48

And it wouldn't have happened if

2:50

Grandpa Gable didn't submit all

2:52

this paperwork. It

2:56

wouldn't happen without the support we get from

2:58

our listeners. The only way David is able

3:00

to write checks to pay for everything that

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goes into making a show from the small

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things like hand warmers to the big things

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like translators and fact checkers and airplane flights

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is with your help. And the best

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Team Radiolab is to join the lab. It's

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And we're coming up on the end of our fiscal year,

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which is why I'm yammering at you now. And

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It's a small fraction of you. So

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consider becoming a member. It means so much

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to us. Thank you. All

4:04

right. On with today's show. Wait,

4:10

you're listening. Okay. All

4:12

right. Okay. All

4:14

right. Listening

4:17

to Radiolab. Radiolab.

4:19

From WNYC. The

4:21

C. See? Yeah. All

4:27

right. All right. I'm Lulu. I'm

4:29

Lautiff. This is Radiolab, and today's

4:31

story comes to us from producer

4:33

Sindhu Nyanasambandan. Okay. So this story,

4:36

it sort of found

4:38

me. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Last year,

4:40

I was working on this episode about memory, and

4:43

I was talking to this neuroscientist, Mark Whitman.

4:46

And as a sort of a side... You can sort of

4:49

cut this out anyway. He asked me

4:51

this question. If

4:55

you close your eyes and you think about,

4:57

let's say, a red apple.

5:00

Yeah. Now

5:02

open it again, your eyes. Can

5:05

you tell me what you

5:07

saw? What did you see? There

5:14

was a leaf on it. It was

5:16

two-dimensional. I didn't think

5:19

in 3D. Did you see a color? No.

5:30

I don't know what it would mean to see a color with your mind. Mm-hmm.

5:35

Yeah. So who knows? Wait. So

5:38

even though he told you red apple... I

5:41

saw nothing. But you saw a

5:43

leaf, right? I know. I just

5:45

felt like I had to say something about an

5:47

apple. Oh, you were lying. You were cheating on

5:49

the test. I mean, I wasn't

5:51

lying. This has come up a

5:53

lot in my life, okay? People are like, visualize

5:55

something. And so I just always

5:58

thought it was a metaphor. I

6:00

just did my version of that. Which is what?

6:02

Like a word cloud kind of thing? No,

6:05

it's not a word cloud. It's

6:09

like an abstract knowing. Like

6:13

I know, I love

6:15

someone. Like I just know that an apple has a leaf.

6:18

There's a part of me that knows that that is

6:20

true, but it's not seeing it. Like

6:22

if I close my eyes and think about it, like it's

6:25

really just black. Wow.

6:29

But of course the thing that was surprising for me

6:31

was not what's going on in my head. Like

6:33

I know, I've lived in that my whole life.

6:36

Right. The thing that blew

6:38

my mind open. I'm

6:40

picturing a red delicious apple. What's

6:42

been going on in everybody else's

6:44

head? Got a little yellow shine on the

6:46

bottom left. Like the ones that are so shiny that

6:48

they look kind of waxy. After that

6:50

interview I started obsessively asking everybody I

6:52

came across. It's like they're a red

6:54

apple. To describe their apple. Not perfectly red,

6:57

but it's red with little streaks of yellow and

6:59

green. And do you actually see the color?

7:01

I think so, yeah. And every

7:03

time, what do you mean? The image is in my head.

7:05

How could I not see the colors? I

7:07

don't know, your eyes are closed. People would say they could actually see

7:10

it. No,

7:13

I'm definitely seeing the colors. Wow.

7:17

Do you see it? Yeah. Yeah.

7:20

It's like a shiny red apple. Like

7:22

I am seeing it right now. In

7:25

the way that you see things in real life,

7:27

like how vivid is it? I mean it's decently

7:30

vivid. Like it's on a

7:32

white plate on a

7:35

kind of cafeteria style table. I

7:39

went middle school. I know the

7:41

grade I went because this is when I had

7:43

Miss Patoli, so it was sixth grade. I threw

7:45

it into that particular cafeteria. Holy cow. Soft

7:47

touch. You got that from an apple?

7:49

Yeah, when she said picture an apple. How about yours,

7:52

Latif? Okay, mine

7:54

is not that vivid, but

7:56

mine's like it's kind of

7:58

a cartoon of an apple. When

16:00

a book is like really descriptive, I'll

16:03

just read the same paragraph again, like

16:05

five times and nothing will enter my

16:07

brain. Right. Dense wall of words. And

16:11

also, I just thinking about, oh, I

16:13

don't get to, I just

16:15

don't get to hold memories the way that all of you

16:18

get to. Like

16:20

my memories aren't places I go. Like I don't

16:22

get to see or feel or

16:24

touch them. I

16:26

don't know. Like you guys

16:29

picture someone you love right now. Got

16:32

it. And just like share what

16:35

you see and how it feels. Yeah,

16:38

it's weirdly like intimate, but just yeah,

16:41

cause you're just picturing, I mean, I'm

16:43

thinking of Grace, my wife, and

16:45

I'm thinking of like the little peach

16:48

fuzz on her high part

16:51

of her cheek and like

16:53

a little crinkle, like the crinkles around

16:55

her eyes and yeah,

16:58

I'm just kind of imagining her like softening

17:02

after a long day. Like I could

17:04

picture the bathroom door light on

17:06

behind her and she's turning back. Like that moment

17:08

where like the stress of the day melts and

17:10

it's just like a little like a laugh, a

17:13

little face shifting

17:15

duties are done, quick

17:17

moment of connection. And yeah, it's very

17:19

vivid. It's just like her face at

17:21

a three quarter profile. Okay,

17:25

I had this flash to my

17:28

great grandmother. Like she has

17:32

bright red hair cause she would

17:34

like Hannah dye her hair. Yeah.

17:37

And I can picture her sitting on a chair.

17:41

She's sort of sitting there and like kind of laughing. Like

17:45

that, like I want that. Yeah. You

17:48

know, and it's like, ah.

17:51

Hmm. And

17:53

at one point in that conversation with

17:56

that scientist, Joel, can you give someone

17:58

who has a Fantasia imagery? The

21:08

delicious ice cold taste of Dr. Pepper has

21:10

a lasting effect on people. Lindsay from Sacramento

21:12

said... Pro tip, 40 degrees is the

21:14

perfect temperature for an ice cold Dr. Pepper. Why

21:16

is 40 degrees the perfect temperature for Dr.

21:18

Pepper? We brought in Sue from Duluth, Minnesota to

21:20

tell us. Oh yeah, I know a thing or two

21:23

about cold. Oh, that right there is the

21:25

perfect kind of ice cold for Dr. Pepper. I'd

21:28

share that with my friend Nancy. She likes Dr.

21:30

Pepper too, you know. My coldest... Alright, that'll

21:32

be all, Sue. Having a perfect temperature for

21:34

your Dr. Pepper? It's a Pepper thing. Inspired

21:36

by Real Fan Posts. We

38:49

all know KitKat bars taste delicious, but

38:52

what about how they sound? It's not

38:54

just a catchy jingle, it's the satisfying

38:56

crack of breaking off a piece of

38:58

KitKat, followed by a crisp crunch.