Cheese is serious stuff. The physics behind cacio e pepe.

Watch the 2025 Ig Nobel Ceremony here: https://youtu.be/z1cP4xKd_L4

In this episode, we sit down with Daniel Busiello and Ivan Di Terlizzi, physicists whose playful kitchen experiments on the classic Roman pasta dish cacio e pepe just earned them the 2025 Ig Nobel Prize. What started as a Friday-night cooking ritual turned into a full-blown study of the “mozzarella phase” of pecorino cheese — revealing how heat, proteins, and stabilizers drive sauce breakdown and mimic the phase transitions seen in labs and nature.

We explore how their simple setup — a sous-vide bath, a pan, and a smartphone — let them quantify clump sizes, why starch or trisodium citrate can stabilize emulsions, and what this says about statistical mechanics, protein aggregation, and gene-expression dynamics. Busiello and Di Terlizzi. also share their paths from reading about relativity in high school to running research groups, and what it’s like to go viral with a “night-science” project.

Whether you’re curious about pasta, phase diagrams, quirky science experiments or the hidden laws of nature, this conversation offers a rare insider’s look at how everyday cooking can illuminate physics.

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Michael Dubrovsky: https://x.com/MikeDubrovsky
Misha Shalaginov: https://x.com/MYShalaginov
Xinghui Yin: https://x.com/XinghuiYin

Subscribe:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/632nm/id1751170269
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4aVH9vT5qp5UUUvQ6Uf6OR
Website: https://www.632nm.com

Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
01:12 - From Hobbyist to Ig Nobel Laureate
06:33 - Methodology of the Experiment
13:31 - How to Avoid the Mozzarella Phase
19:10 - Career Trajectories
24:44 - Who is the Greatest Italian Scientist?
25:40 - Lesser Known Works
28:05 - Measuring Heat Flow in Red Blood Cells

#ignobel2025 #cacioepepe #pastasauce #thermodynamics #phasetransitions #dairy #pecorino

Your milk tastes like garlic. And babies love it.

Watch the 2025 Ig Nobel Ceremony here: https://youtu.be/z1cP4xKd_L4

In this episode, we sit down with Julie Mennella and Gary Beauchamp, winners of the 2025 Ig Nobel Prize and longtime researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center, whose experiments revealed that the flavors mothers eat—from garlic and carrots to alcohol—can pass into amniotic fluid and breast milk, shaping babies’ earliest taste experiences. Their work overturns decades of advice that breastfeeding diets should be bland and shows how infants actually savor these flavors instead of rejecting them.

We explore how prenatal and early-life exposure to flavors can increase children’s acceptance of fruits and vegetables, what this means for formula design and picky eating, and the deep emotional link between smell, comfort, and lifelong food preferences. Mennella and Beauchamp also share stories from three decades of sensory-science research, from dairy cows and juniper berries to randomized carrot-juice trials in pregnant women, and reflect on why their “funny” Ig Nobel-winning work carries serious implications for public health.

Follow us for more technical interviews with the world’s greatest scientists:

Twitter: https://x.com/632nmPodcast
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/632nmpodcast?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/632nm/about/
Substack: https://632nmpodcast.substack.com/

Follow our hosts!
Michael Dubrovsky: https://x.com/MikeDubrovsky
Misha Shalaginov: https://x.com/MYShalaginov
Xinghui Yin: https://x.com/XinghuiYin

Subscribe:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/632nm/id1751170269
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4aVH9vT5qp5UUUvQ6Uf6OR
Website: https://www.632nm.com

Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
01:38 - What Sparked Interest in Mammalian Taste?
02:57 - Myths Around Garlic and Breastfeeding
04:41 - Garlic in Dairy Cows
06:50 - Should We Revamp Baby Formula?
08:09 - Other Foods and Other Animals
11:17 - Neural Pathways for Taste and Emotion

#ignobel2025 #pediatrics #garlic #behavioralscience #breastfeeding #dairy

What happens to our sense of self when someone tells us we’re smart—or not so smart?

Watch the 2025 Ig Nobel Ceremony here: https://youtu.be/z1cP4xKd_L4

In this episode, we sit down with Marcin Zajenkowski, professor of psychology at the University of Warsaw and co-winner of the 2025 Ig Nobel Prize in Psychology, for his study on how intelligence feedback affects temporary narcissism. Along with his collaborator Gilles Gignac of the University of Western Australia, Zajenkowski showed that telling people they’re above average on an IQ test can boost their feelings of uniqueness and specialness—while negative feedback can dramatically lower their self-assessed intelligence.

We explore how the team designed their experiment using real tests but fake feedback, what their findings reveal about everyday praise and criticism (from classrooms to parenting), and why “intelligence” carries a special weight compared with traits like empathy or emotional intelligence. Zajenkowski also explains how trait narcissism can act as a shield against negative feedback, how imposter syndrome fits on the other side of the spectrum, and what his research suggests about staying realistically positive without tipping into self-delusion.

Whether you’re curious about psychology, narcissism, intelligence testing, education, or the quirks of human self-perception, this conversation offers a rare insider’s look at an award-winning experiment on how a few simple words can shift how special we feel.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Intro

01:45 - Study Design and Background

05:33 - Implications for the Education System

09:50 - Why are People So Defensive About Intelligence?

12:57 - Do Depressed People Reaffirm the Negative?

15:11 - Are Americans Too Positive?

18:43 - Couples and Mate Selection