The Best Piece of Trivia You Learned This Week: Teary Edition

Transcript

OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST:

Welcome back to ASK ME ANOTHER. I'm Ophira Eisenberg, and with me is our house musician Jonathan Coulton and our puzzle guru Greg Pliska. So every week on Facebook and Twitter, we ask our listeners to tell us an interesting piece of trivia that they have learned, true or false. We will figure it out. And Jessica Lapka from Silverthorne, Colo., sent us a pretty great fact. Jonathan Coulton...

JONATHAN COULTON, BYLINE: Yes?

EISENBERG: Apparently, something really weird happens to you in space when you cry.

COULTON: When you cry (laughter)?

EISENBERG: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

COULTON: I already don't like the sound of this.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: What do you think it is?

COULTON: First of all, I think we can all agree that crying in space is the saddest kind of crying.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: 'Cause nobody cares. No one can hear you.

COULTON: No one can hear you. You're far - you're literally as far away from home...

EISENBERG: Yep.

COULTON: ...As you could be.

EISENBERG: Cry your eyes out.

COULTON: It's cold.

EISENBERG: It's cold.

COULTON: Go ahead and cry. And moreover, because there's no gravity - jeez - when you cry (laughter), I can only imagine your face is covered in your own tears. Is that what happens?

EISENBERG: You're onto something, there.

COULTON: It all clumps together 'cause water - I don't know.

EISENBERG: You're, like, a scientist.

(LAUGHTER)

COULTON: I am a bit of a scientist - well, and an astronaut.

(LAUGHTER)

COULTON: So I would imagine, when you cry...

EISENBERG: Yeah.

COULTON: You know, the tears come out of your tear ducts, but they don't have anywhere to go, really.

EISENBERG: No, they don't.

COULTON: They don't have a lot of momentum. It's not like they're shooting out of your tear ducts.

EISENBERG: Unless you're really upset.

COULTON: I mean, unless you're really upset...

(LAUGHTER)

COULTON: ...If you're crying in a cartoon way...

EISENBERG: Yeah.

COULTON: ...And you're going boo-hoo, boo-hoo, and they're shooting...

EISENBERG: Right.

COULTON: ...Out of your eyes...

EISENBERG: But just the...

COULTON: ...They're just going to start floating all around you.

EISENBERG: But if you're just depressed and alone in space...

COULTON: If you're a normal person with healthy tear ducts...

(LAUGHTER)

COULTON: They're just going to kind of ooze out.

EISENBERG: Right.

COULTON: So you're just going to have little water goggles around your eyes. It's going to be a very uncomfortable situation in addition to the fact that you're already crying in space.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Yeah. That's what happens to you in space. Your tears attack. You nailed it by talking it out that the tears do not stream down your face. They actually ball up. And if you don't wipe them away, they will blind you.

COULTON: Oh, my God.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Your own sadness will take away your sight.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: As it happens, in 2001, a Canadian astronaut...

COULTON: Oh, typical.

EISENBERG: Oh, yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Chris Hadfield...

COULTON: (Imitating Canadian accent) I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: No. He was on a spacewalk outside the International Space Station when a drop of visor-defogging solution got in his eye. But he started tearing up. Because there's zero gravity, the tears wouldn't fall down, so they just kept balling up and sticking to his eye. It blinded him in both eyes, and he couldn't wipe his face because he was in a spacesuit.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: But you figured it out. Congratulations, Jonathan Coulton.

COULTON: Thanks, thanks.

EISENBERG: And thanks to Jessica Lapka for sending that goodie in.

(APPLAUSE) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.