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Panel Round Two

BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR news quiz. I'm legendary anchorman Bill Kurtis, filling in for Carl Kasell. We're playing this week with Mo Rocca, Faith Salie, and Adam Felber. And here again is your host from the Orpheum Theater in downtown Minneapolis.

(APPLAUSE)

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you, Bill. In just a minute Bill pays tribute to his favorite Minnesota Twin, Joe Rhyme-auer.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: It's the Listener Limerick Challenge. If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-Wait-Wait. That's 1-888-924-8924. Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news. Adam, without the shuttle program, NASA is searching for other ways to fill the endless hours of every day. This week, we learned the space agency is funding a project to create what?

ADAM FELBER: Sippy cups.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: No.

FELBER: It seems like you could develop a pretty good sippy cup for zero gravity.

SAGAL: That's true.

FELBER: So I'm going to stick with that answer.

(LAUGHTER)

FELBER: No, no, no, no, no. So the shuttle program's done so they have to come up with something. So they're...

SAGAL: Yeah, well, it's a research project that will have some application in space they hope. I'll give you a hint. It's like if HP Hewlett Packard and Papa John's had a baby.

FELBER: Oh, yes, they're looking into printing food.

SAGAL: They're looking specifically...

FELBER: 3-D food printing.

SAGAL: 3-D pizza printing.

FELBER: Oh, pizza.

SAGAL: Yes, indeed.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: 3-D pizza printing.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: And they're, like, excited. So NASA needs to figure out how to get food to their astronauts on long space trips. Their first idea - and this had the idea of saving money - was to just order it from Domino's. And since it couldn't get there in 30 minutes or less it would be free.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: But scrap that. Plan B, pizza printing. The idea is you have a 3-D printer. Instead of printing like a shape or a model it prints a pizza. The fact that pizza printing technology is being realized just as recreational marijuana use is being legalized...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: ...means that by 2016 no one will ever leave their house again.

(LAUGHTER)

MO ROCCA: Well, how the heck does it work?

SAGAL: Well, the idea is - this is interesting. The idea is you have these packets of basically food powder. And when you print the pizza, first it prints the dough and it cooks it...

FAITH SALIE: I think this is hoe Domino's does it by the way.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Yeah, OK, they might. It prints the dough and cooks it and then it prints tomato sauce on top of it. And then it prints something called a protein layer. But the whole idea is that eventually if this technology gets perfected, you could have it everywhere and make anything. You could have it in the office and people would be like, oh god, who printed fish?

(LAUGHTER)

FELBER: Also, as far as 3-D printed foods go, pizza's about as 2-D as you can possibly get.

SAGAL: That's true.

FELBER: It has that advantage.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: But it'd be delicious when we get rid of paper entirely and everything is printed on pizza. Pizza spreadsheets, pizza Post-its, pizza love notes. And, honey, I think we're out of toilet pizza.

(LAUGHTER)

FELBER: That wouldn't be good at all.

ROCCA: Yeah, pizza wipes.

FELBER: Well, the British astronauts are going to have to print crumpets, I guess.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Faith, stem visas are those visas given out to bring skilled foreign workers into the U.S. that we need for our economy. But this week, Bloomberg News reported that foreign tech workers are having to compete with whom for work visas?

SALIE: Somebody who doesn't have skills.

SAGAL: Oh, they do have a skill. They can walk very insouciantly down a runway.

SALIE: Models?

SAGAL: Yes, models.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Every year the United States gives out about 65,000 of these highly coveted temporary work visas. They're designed for people to come into the United States if their skills are necessary. Normally, they go to like highly educated people in high tech fields. But in 2011, Anthony Weiner...

SALIE: Of course.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: ...along with other activists concerned with the welfare of hot women sponsored a bill adding foreign models to the pool of eligible applicants. Isn't this just what we said would happen, foreigners coming here, doing the jobs Americans don't want to do like just standing there, making bored sex faces and staying thin?

(LAUGHTER)

ROCCA: Yes. And then - but they're only temporary visas.

SAGAL: Right.

ROCCA: So when it's time for them to leave, they'll turn around a really sexy way and take off.

(LAUGHTER)

SALIE: It's a pivot, it's a pivot.

ROCCA: They'll pivot.

SAGAL: Faith, you're familiar with the quiet car in trains, on the East Coast especially.

SALIE: Love it.

SAGAL: Well, the Prague subway now has another sort of designated car. What is it?

SALIE: Is it the opposite of quiet? Is it the noisy party car?

SAGAL: No.

SALIE: The Prague party car that's...

SAGAL: For a different purpose, but it's definitely a dedicated car.

SALIE: A different purpose?

SAGAL: Yeah.

SALIE: Is it is a moral purpose? Is it...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: No. Well, it all depends on what your intentions are, I guess.

SALIE: Oh, it's the meeting car.

SAGAL: It's the dating car, yes.

SALIE: It's the dating car, the matchmaking car.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

ROCCA: It's a love train.

SAGAL: It is.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: The City of Prague will be designating dating cars on its subways where singles can meet and have their hearts and probably wallets stolen.

(LAUGHTER)

ROCCA: You know what it is? It's a place where you can check each other out.

SALIE: Ah.

(LAUGHTER)

FELBER: Ah.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: It's hard to imagine that this is going to work.

FELBER: It's going to be a great success, Peter. I mean, one thing that most women I think are usually thinking is that like, people aren't staring at me enough in trains.

SAGAL: Right.

(LAUGHTER)

FELBER: I feel too comfortable.

SAGAL: Yeah.

SALIE: I'd really like that stranger to touch me.

(LAUGHTER)

ROCCA: But what happens? Like now we've got so caught up in joking about it that we've lost the substance of the story.

FELBER: That is the tragedy here.

SAGAL: Well, it'll be like - I presume it'll be like, you know, a singles mixers of any kind where you can go and understand that everybody there is also single and looking to meet. So you get in the designated car and you know that everybody in the car are looking there to...

SALIE: Well, isn't there an Ashley Madison train?

FELBER: Or at least a storage compartment for wedding rings as you walk in?

(LAUGHTER)

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.