Hello, wowsers! It's me, Dennis! And before we start the show, did you hear about March Gladness? Reggie, no! Not basketball tournament stuff! March Gladness tournament stuff! Yeah, exactly! March Gladness is where I think of all the things that made me the Gladness this month, and then I put them head to head in a tournament-style bracket. Oh, so you do know what I'm talking about? Well, then as you know, the winner of my March Gladness tournament was my new haircut! Do you love it? What do you mean? Don't worry, it'll grow back! Whatever! Wowser fams, you too can fill out your very own March Gladness bracket by going to tickercast.com slash march. There, you can print your very own free March Gladness bracket, then fill it out to see what made you the Gladness this month. Put your favorite things head to head in a tournament of Gladness. One more time, that's tickercast.com slash march. Now, let's get on with the show! The running car of the mixture of the magnificent proportion. I don't know what you've been told, but we're in a golden age. So many discoveries that are jumping off the page. Running the world, running the world, running the world, running the world, running the world, running the world. I'm a lady. I'm running away, Houston. What in the... I better go out there and see what's going on. Maybe it's an emergency. Dennis, are you hearing the sounds coming out of Mindy's gingerbread mansion? You think everything's okay in there? Oh, I'm sure everything's fine, Kai Ross. That was good, Melinda, but let's take it again. Only this time, try to do it like I taught you. I am trying, but this baseball stadium organ just won't cooperate. See? Well, that's because you've got bits of ham wedged between the keys. Oh, I was looking for that ham. Yes! Take it from the top. One, two, three, two, two, three. Oh, wow, that sounds a little better. Mindy must have finally removed the ham from the keys of her baseball stadium organ. Mindy plays the organ? Well, she's taking lessons. Okay, how's this? Am I doing it right? Huh. One, two, three, two, two, three. Stay on my... What is it going to take to get a wolf to blow that house down? Yeah, it sounds like there's a demonic baseball game going on in there. Hi, Tommy. Hi, Granny G. Hi, SpongeBob. Ooh, what you got there? Grab my G-Force. What are you doing with arms full of glass shards? This is the window from my diaper house, and that cheese-curdling sound coming out of that candy house broke it. And you carried the shards of it over here? I can't believe Mindy's organ playing can break glass. What in the world is going on in there? Well, apparently Mindy is having an organ lesson, but I'm not sure it's going so well. I think I'm really getting the hang of it. Melinda, you have got to practice more. Practice, practice, practice. Oh, I know, I know, I know. You've been telling me that every lesson for the last five years. Five years? She should get her money back. Well, practice makes permanent, and if you continue to practice incorrectly, you will only remember how to play incorrectly. Now, try it again from the top. Oh, no. One, two, three, two, two, three. No! I'm so excited. Okay, okay, Melinda, that will be quite enough for today, I think. Thank you. Oh, man. Now, please, practice before our next lesson, and keep the keys free of ham. Yes, ma'am. I mean, sir. Well, I'm gonna go up there and eat that pipe-piano ham. Ooh, I was thinking the same thing. Ew. No! That is a noisy hamster, man. Oh, excuse me, I didn't know Melinda was expecting company. She's not. Who's Melinda? You're the fellow responsible for all that racket up there. My name is Professor Cadenza, and I am a world-renowned pipe organ instructor with over 20 years of experience in the world. Wow. I beg your pardon. Why is this so hard? Well, what GeForce means is that you must have a head full of ham if you think you can teach Mandy how to play that thing. Why, I never. If you'll excuse me, I must be going. I'm giving a lesson to a very talented and dedicated baby. Goodbye. Bye! I can't move. Well, don't let the door crumble on you on the way out. What's going on with that guy? I think he's mad because Mindy's so bad. Oh, and you nailed it! You know, maybe we should go upstairs to Mindy's music room and check on her. Follow me, everyone. Okay. Okay, as long as the ham is up there, I guess. Knock knock. Surprise! It's us. Dennis, Gairaz, Grandma GeForce, Thomas Fingerling, what are you all doing here? We've come to put that instrument you torture and out of its misery. You mean my baseball stadium organ? Stand back, Cindy. I'm going to throw that thing out the window. And then set it on fire. What? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What if all Mindy needed to make this organ sound like a musical instrument? It was practice. Practice? I do not know what that is. Practice? Ah, why does everyone keep saying that? Because Mindy, if you want to remember the lessons that your organ instructor is teaching you, you're going to have to practice and practice and practice some more. Ah, but I'm too lazy to practice, Gairaz. Practicing is just not fun. I want to be good at playing the baseball stadium organ now. Yeah, my ears want that too. Tee hee. Why can't learning how to play the baseball stadium organ just be easy? Yeah, guy. Why can't learning to play the baseball stadium organ just be easy? Because if it was easy, then everyone would be playing the baseball stadium organ. Oh, actually, that sounds really fun. No. Mindy, what if I told you there was a scientific argument for why practice is important? Ah. Scientific argument? Okay, now you got my attention, Gairaz. No. No, no, no. Let him speak. Go on, Gairaz. Okay, so I just read this really interesting study in the scientific journal Nature. It was a study conducted by researchers from UCLA in California and Rockefeller University in New York. Huh? Oh. Grandma G-Force, do you mind? I'm trying to tell a story here. And I'm trying to play this brass tutor. Sounding great, Granny G. Go on, Gairaz. So, as I was saying, these researchers wanted to better understand what happens in the brain when we practice something again and again and again. Uh-huh. And they specifically wanted to know how practice affects the brain's ability to remember and process information. Ah, the working memory. Exactly. Huh? Oh. Thomas Fingerling, what are you doing? Nothing. I was just trying to tune this old banjo over here. Here we go. Hey, Fingerling. Let's do a do-it-one. Okay, do-it-one. Yay! A five, six, seven, eight. Cool. So, Gairaz, for the researchers to learn how practice affects the brain's ability to remember stuff, they must have had to conduct an experiment or something, right? Exactly. And for this experiment, they trained mice to smell. Big whoop. I couldn't do that. That's true. She does smell. Fingerling. Like a flower. Ah, you two. A corpse flower. Oh, that's a bad smell. Ahem. Sorry. Sorry. Go ahead, Gairaz. Give us the story. So, to begin this experiment, the researchers first spent two weeks training mice to recognize and remember several different scents in a specific order. Oh, well, I'm a real little mouse and mm-mm-mm-mm. I smell skunk, sewer gas, and a hint of rotten eggs. And I'm a little mouse too. A really cute one. But that ain't rotten eggs you're smelling. Excuse me. Squeak, squeak. And while the mice were practicing their smelling, the researchers studied their brains with a very special and very powerful microscope. Okay, you mice. I'm just gonna hook this super duper, super-powered microscope up to your tiny little brains here. Oh, no. Ah, squeak, squeak. More you get out of my brain or I'm gonna... This microscope was so powerful that it could observe the activity of up to 73,000 neurons at a time. And neurons are brain cells that help to send messages, right? Exactly. And what they found was fascinating. Oh, wow. This is fascinating. What's the researchers find, Gairaz? Well, they found that when the mice were first learning to identify their smells in order... Flowers? Cookies? Shrimp cocktails? The neurons were a bit random, just sort of all over the place. Oh, no. Look, look, look. Shrimp cocktails. Oh, yes! So basically their brains and neurons were going bonker balls? Well, yeah, I guess you could say that. But what happened as the weeks went on and the mice continued to practice their smelling? Well, something amazing happened. Something... wow! Flowers again. Cookies. I remember that one. And... yep, shrimp cocktail. Flowers. Cookies. Shrimp cocktails. Oh, wow! What happened, Gairaz? Well, they discovered that as the mice continued to practice and get better at remembering their smells in the correct order... Skunk. Sewer gas. Rotten eggs. Oh, excuse me. The neurons stopped going bonker balls and began to organize themselves. Sewer gas. Rotten eggs. Wait a minute, Gairaz. This evidence would suggest that... oh, no. Oh, yes, Mindy. Practice makes permanent. Ah, bonker balls! The more they practiced, the better they were at remembering the correct order of the smells. Skunk. Sewer gas. Rotten eggs. I'm the best at this. Flowers. Cookies. And let me guess. Shrimp cocktails. Flowers. Cookies. Shrimp cocktails. Oh, wow! Well, too bad it won't work for me. I'm not a mouse. Neither are we. I just play a mouse on TV. Well, actually, Mindy, the reason scientists often study the activity in mice brains is because mice have brains that are very similar to human brains. That's right, Gairaz. I'm a scientific researcher and I know things. And I can tell you that mice brains are structured and work a bit like human brains. Only they're cuter. What? And smaller. They're like teeny tiny human brains that you can fit in your pocket. Which makes them a pretty good model for understanding how our human brains work. Oh, cool! I mean, scientists. I already knew that. So what you're trying to tell me, Gairaz, is that with practice, our neurons or brain cells can change and get better at doing tasks like remembering things? Yes! Dennis, I'm the narrator. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. So, in the spirit of anything for science, do you think that maybe by practicing your organ, you'll begin to remember the correct notes and... And give my ears a break. Yeah, cause you sound real bad. Come on, Mindy. You can do it. Anything for science? Okay, fine. Anything for science? Whoa! Gairaz, hand me my sheet music, please. Here you go. Okay, here goes nothing. On the count of three. One, two, three! Gaaah! Please, everyone be patient. I'm trying to practice. Sorry, Mindy. Right. Hey, did you all hear that? And again! That's a miracle. It's working, Gairaz. The more she practices, the more she remembers the right notes to the song. Well, I can't hear nothing. I got my fingers in my ears. A-raaaah! Did you all hear that? I did it! All that practice is making permanent memories in my brains! Brad. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Let me do it again. Gaaah! Ah, soccer balls! I thought I had it! Just keep practicing, Mindy, and remember, practice makes permanent. Okay, here we go again. One, two, three. Two, two, three! A-raaaah! A-raaaah! Wow In The World will be right back. Grown-ups, this message is for you. That's it. Back to the show. Wow In The World! Hi! Thanks for calling Wow In The World. It's officially summer of wow time. When you hear the beep, record your summer of wow moment. My name is Josephine, and I'm from Austin, Texas. In my summer memory, when I went to pledge at pier, I went on a fair pier that was 100 feet in the air. Hi, what do you do? And say hi to Stanis? Ahoy there! You know you're static, man. What? No, I'm not static, man. We just look alike and sound alike. And baby Stanis. And Thomas and Rorynch, congratulations for the jump. Wow! And Snow-Pet. Bye! See you soon! My name is Nafi, I know I live in Washington, DC. And every year we feel similar in town and go to the pool. It's really fun. Hi, my name is Alivia, and my summer of wow is that I went to Washington, DC. And I went to the White House, say hi to Stanis. Hi! Reggie and Abby Bo and I on the show. Cool, dude! Bye! Hi, my name is Guy Ross, my name is Eleanor, and my summer of wow is going to Southwest Michigan and spending the weekend with my mom and my sister at the lake. Say hi to Dennis. Hi there! Reggie. Thomas Fingerling. Rorynch. Grandma G-Force. Oh yeah. And my favorite is Lake Cat. Bye! Hi, I'm Indian Guy Ross, I live in San Brava, California. And my summer of wow moment was getting to hang out with my little brother and going to the Nickelodeon Water Park. Say hi to Reggie, Dennis, Grandma G-Force, and Thomas Fingerling for me. Oh, nice! Bye, love your show! End of messages. Wow in the World is written by Mindy Thomas and Tom Van Kalken with help from me, Guy Ross. Original sound design and music editing is done by Tyler Tholl with help from our supervising producer, Jed Anderson. You can also hear Jed Anderson in the voices of Dennis, Thomas Fingerling, Reggie, and many of the other silly characters that you hear on our show. And Lizzie Freilich can also be heard as some of the silly characters on our show. Jessica Bode keeps our facts straight as our fact checker and Meredith Halpern-Ranzer powers the wow at Tinkercast. Our theme song was composed and performed by three-time Grammy nominees, The Pop-Ups. Find them at thepopups.com. Special thanks to Kit Ballinger, Rebecca Caban, Dr. Natasha Crandall, Kenny Curtis, Kristen Yang, Tui Mack, Erica Medina, Henry Moskel, Jody Nussbaum, Ali Paxima, Linda Rothenberg, Steph Sosa, Joanna Weber, Anna Zagorski, and all of the other Tinkerers at Tinkercast HQ. And to keep the wow rolling after you finish this episode, visit us at tinkercast.com. There you can become a member of the World Organization of Wowsers to get year-round mailings and weekly activities. Shop our wow shop, get tickets for upcoming events, find our best-selling books, and learn about some of the other amazing podcasts from Tinkercast. Grownups, you can follow Wow and the World on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Wow in the World, and our email address is hello at tinkercast.com. And if you're a kid with a big wow to share with us, call us at 1-888-7-WOW-WOW for a chance to be featured at the end of our show or an upcoming episode of 2 What's in a Wow. Thanks again for listening. We're here every Monday, or you can check out 2 What's in a Wow every Friday right here in the Wow and the World podcast feed. And don't forget, We Wow on the weekend with Dennis Saturday and Sunday. Keep on wowing! Wow and the World, Wow and the World, Wow and the World! Wow and the World was made by Tinkercast and set to you by Wendery.
