Prescription intercourse and how to stay awake at the wheel

Getting kidney stones can be painful and debilitating. Exercises like walking, light cycling, and yoga can help pass kidney stones. Are there any other activities that might help too?

Driving in the middle of the night while sleep deprived is dangerous. Does drinking coffee, taking a nap, or listening to music help?

In this episode, Lu and Tirth celebrate some of the latest Ig Nobel Prize laureates, discuss whether sex is effective in passing kidney stones, and learn about the best ways to prevent drowsiness while driving late at night.

Timestamps:

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:07 Ig Nobel Prizes
• 6:17 Kidney stone study
• 19:25 Drowsy driving study
• 27:02 Let’s read some mail (the Bouba-Kiki effect)
• 30:16 What did you learn today, outro

Article links:

• Croy et al., 2017. Babies Smell Wonderful to Their Parents, Teenagers Do Not: an Exploratory Questionnaire Study on Children’s Age and Personal Odor Ratings in a Polish Sample. Chemosensory Perception. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12078-017-9230-x
• Alves-Nunes et al., 2024. RETRACTED ARTICLE: Study of defensive behavior of a venomous snake as a new approach to understand snakebite. Scientific Reports. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-59416-6
• Doluoglu et al., 2015. Can Sexual Intercourse Be an Alternative Therapy for Distal Ureteral Stones? A Prospective, Randomized, Controlled Study. Urology. https://www.goldjournal.net/article/S0090-4295(15)00347-7/fulltext
• Bayraktar & Albayrak, 2017. Sexual intercourse as a new option in the medical expulsive therapy of distal ureteral stones in males: A prospective, randomized, controlled study. International Urology and Nephrology. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11255-017-1677-9
• Abdel-Kader, 2017. Evaluation of the efficacy of sexual intercourse in expulsion of distal ureteric stones. Urology. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11255-016-1448-z
• Xu et al., 2019. Meta-analysis of the efficacy of sexual intercourse for distal ureteric stones. Journal of International Medical Research. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0300060518814116
• Turgut, 2021. Evaluation of the efficacy of sexual intercourse on distal ureteral stones in women: a prospective, randomized, controlled study. International Urology and Nephrology. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11255-020-02661-1
• Philip et al., 2006. The Effects of Coffee and Napping on Nighttime Highway Driving: A Randomized Trial. Annals of Internal Medicine. https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/0003-4819-144-11-200606060-00004
• Sheibani et al., 2022. The effect of listening to Iranian pop and classical music, on mental and physiological drowsiness. Sleep and Biological Rhythms. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41105-021-00369-y
• Loconsole et al., 2026. Matching sounds to shapes: Evidence of the bouba-kiki effect in naïve baby chicks. Science. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq7188

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