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Lateral with Tom Scott
Lateral with Tom Scott

188: 76 degrees

May 15, 2026 • 45m

Summary

⏱️ 7 min read

Overview

In this episode of Lateral, host Tom Scott challenges three guests—Evan, Caitlin, and first-time guest Sage the Bad Naturalist—to solve lateral thinking puzzles. The questions range from why Power Rangers was banned in Malaysia to how scientists used pig bristles on stilts to prove desert ants count steps. The team works through riddles involving Ethiopian calendars, Apple Store psychological tricks, circus-inspired ant experiments, and creative film production workarounds, showcasing both brilliant deductions and hilariously wrong guesses along the way.

Power Rangers Ban in Malaysia

The episode opens with a question about why Malaysia briefly banned Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in 1995. The guests explore various theories including giant monster destruction, Komodo dragons, and drug references before stumbling upon the answer. The team discusses the show's history of using Japanese footage and various Power Rangers iterations, with Caitlin recalling her multiple Pink Ranger Halloween costumes. The solution reveals a surprisingly simple concern about the show's title.

  • Malaysia's deputy home minister banned Power Rangers in 1995 due to concerns about the title
  • The guests initially theorized about infrastructure destruction and immutable behavior regulations
  • Power Rangers used Japanese fight footage with American inserts filmed separately
  • The ban was quickly resolved by simply removing 'Mighty Morphin' from the title
" Mighty Morphine Time? The government minister said that the words Mighty Morphin might be associated with morphine. "

Ethiopian Calendar and Alexander Graham Bell's Patent

Caitlin presents a puzzle about why Ethiopian libraries list the telephone patent as 1868 instead of the actual 1876 date. The discussion explores different patent systems, historical disputes over inventions, and calendar systems. Sage demonstrates strong knowledge of Coptic Christianity and Ethiopian history, leading the team to discover that Ethiopia uses a calendar system that's seven to eight years behind the Gregorian calendar due to different calculations of Jesus Christ's birth.

  • Ethiopia uses a calendar system 7-8 years behind the Gregorian calendar
  • The Ethiopian calendar has 13 months, with 12 months of 30 days and a final month of 5-6 days
  • Bell's patent was granted on the 29th day of Yikatit in the year 1868 in the Ethiopian calendar
  • The difference stems from different calculations of Jesus Christ's birth by Coptic Christians
" Ethiopians are some of the first Christians outside of Fertile Crescent. So, like, I think they, like, the Coptic Christians in Ethiopia, I think they might, like, their AD, like, they started counting differently from, like, the Roman Empire AD. "

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