BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR News quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis. We are playing this week with Roxanne Roberts, Mo Rocca and Faith Salie. And here again is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Thank you so much. In just a minute, Bill gives into his most depraved rhymal (ph) urges...
FAITH SALIE: (Laughter).
SAGAL: ...In our Listener Limerick Challenge. If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-WAITWAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news. Mo, please listen to this quote from serial entrepreneur Elon Musk.
KURTIS: I think they know there is some risk here.
SAGAL: That's an understatement about the two mysterious rich people that will be paying Elon Musk to take them where?
MO ROCCA: Wait, Elon Musk makes cereal?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: No. It took me about - as you heard, about four seconds to realize the confusion. He's a serial entrepreneur in the same sense like some people are serial killers.
ROCCA: Got it, OK. Got it, OK.
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: All right, so can you repeat the question now?
SAGAL: Yes, so those people - Elon Musk was saying that there will be a risk for the two unknown people who are paying him a lot of money to take them where?
ROCCA: To the moon...
SAGAL: Yes, to the moon.
ROCCA: ...Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Yes, OK.
ROCCA: To the moon.
SAGAL: To the moon, Alice.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: These two unnamed, quote, "space tourists" will be launched on a rocket. They'll fly around the moon without landing on it. And then they will just come back. They're the billionaire version of your great uncle and aunt who go on vacation but never leave the hotel.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Roxanne, thanks to a story on NPR based on work by researchers at the University of Alberta, we finally know scientifically how much what is in an average swimming pool?
ROXANNE ROBERTS: How much urine?
SAGAL: Yes, indeed.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
ROCCA: Oh, oh, oh.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: As reported on NPR...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...Scientists have found a reliable way to detect the amount of pee in a pool. In the words of one researcher, quote, "you can assume that if people are using your pool, they're peeing in it."
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: And according to 100 percent of swimmers, the presence of the urine can be explained by that other guy in the pool.
(LAUGHTER)
SALIE: So this study was alarming because apparently when the urine combines with the chlorine it can do terrible things to you. It causes - that's what the study said. It wasn't just - this study wasn't just so alarming because people pee in the pool. I think we all do that.
ROBERTS: So what is it, like...
ROCCA: But if you combine the urine...
ROBERTS: Was it...
ROCCA: ...With peanut butter it's delicious.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Well, actually...
SALIE: Then Mo, you're in business.
SAGAL: What's really interesting is, well, how do you chemically determine how much urine is in a pool? And the - this is how they did it, through the magic of artificial sweetener, because you eat or drink artificial sweetener, it does not react to your body. It passes out exactly the same chemical form. And unlike human urine, it does not react with the pool water or chemicals either, so it's still there. So basically what they do is they measure how much, say, Splenda is in the pool and they can extrapolate.
SALIE: Well, wait...
ROCCA: There's an easy way to do this. Get everybody to eat a lot of asparagus before they jump in.
(LAUGHTER)
SALIE: That's right.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOMETHING IN THE WATER")
CARRIE UNDERWOOD: (Singing) There must be something in the water. Oh, there must be something in the water. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.